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The oceans are warming faster

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A new study has shown that the rate of ocean warming has more than quadrupled over the past 40 years.  The study, by researchers at the University of Reading in the UK, helps to explain why there have been unprecedented ocean temperatures in 2023 and 2024.

Global ocean temperatures hit record highs for 450 days straight in 2023 and early 2024.  Some of this unusual warmth came from the El Niño that was taking place at the time, but the rest of the increased temperature came from the sea surface warming up more quickly over the past 10 years than in previous decades.  In the late 1980s, ocean temperatures were rising at a rate of 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade.  According to the recent research, they are now increasing at 0.27 degrees per decade.

The acceleration of ocean warming is driven by growth in the Earth’s energy imbalance, meaning that more energy from the sun is being absorbed by the Earth than is escaping back into space.  This energy imbalance has roughly doubled since 2010 as a result of two factors:  increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and reductions in the Earth’s albedo.

Earth’s albedo, the measure of how much sunlight is reflected back into space, has been declining since the 1970s, primarily due to the decrease in snow and ice cover, especially in the Arctic. 

The overall rate of ocean warming observed over recent decade is likely to only increase.  This underscores the urgency of reducing fossil fuel burning to avoid even more rapid temperature increases in the future.

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Ocean-surface warming four times faster now than late-1980s

Photo, posted January 18, 2007, courtesy of Alexey Krasavin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Vegetation and climate change

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Temperatures have been steadily rising around the world as a result of the increased greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.  This warming trend has led to more frequent and intense heat waves, droughts, and other extreme weather events.  Rising temperatures are also impacting human health, leading to increased risks of heat-related illnesses and a higher number of fatalities during extreme heat events.

One simple but effective way to reduce the health risks from extreme heat is to increase urban vegetation.  According to new research led by scientists from Monash University in Australia, increasing urban vegetation by 30% could save more than one-third of all heat-related deaths.  The study, which was recently published in The Lancet Planetary Health, examined more than 11,000 urban areas and found that increasing greenery could have saved up to 1.16 million lives worldwide between 2000 and 2019.

The impact of increasing urban vegetation on heat-related deaths varies by climate, greenness, socioeconomic, and demographic factors, with the greatest benefits seen in Southern Asia, Eastern Europe, and Eastern Asia. 

Vegetation has a cooling effect on temperature.  Vegetation helps regulate the Earth’s climate by absorbing carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, which helps to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Vegetation also cools the environment through shading, moisture release, and evapotranspiration, which reduces temperatures and mitigates heat-related health risks.

Incorporating more vegetation into urban areas is a powerful solution to mitigate the impacts of climate change and protect human health.

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Increasing urban vegetation could have saved over 1.1m lives in two decades

Photo, posted July 1, 2023, courtesy of Lauri via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The American butterfly census

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There has been a great deal of interest in the plight of monarch butterflies in this country.  Monarchs’ population and migratory habits are closely watched, and many people have been planting milkweed in their gardens to help their caterpillars.  But other butterfly species have received much less attention despite the fact that many butterfly populations are in decline.

A groundbreaking new study has provided comprehensive answers about the status of butterflies in America.  Over the past 20 years, the contiguous US has lost 22 percent of its butterflies.

The study is based on over 12 million individual butteries counted in 77,000 surveys across 35 monitoring programs from 2000 to 2020.  Three hundred forty-two butterfly species in total were analyzed.  Thirty three percent showed statistically significant declines while less than 3% displayed statistically significant increases.  Overall, 13 times as many species decreased as increased.

Why are butterfly populations crashing?  Experts point to a combination of factors:  habitat loss as land in converted for agriculture or development, climate change, and pesticide use.  It is not clear which factor is most important and may well vary by location.  Pesticide use – especially neonicotinoids – has been shown to play a particularly lethal role in studies. 

Insects including butterflies play a huge role in supporting life on earth.  They pollinate plants, feed birds and many other creatures in the food web.  Nature collapses without them.  And butterflies are clearly in trouble.

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See How Butterflies Are Surviving, or Not, Near You

Photo, posted August 9, 2016, courtesy of Rachel Larue/Arlington National Cemetery via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Are today’s refrigerants safe?

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Refrigeration is based on heat transfer mediums that absorb heat from the area being cooled and transfer it to the outside environment.

The earliest refrigerants were dangerous substances like ammonia.  In the 1930s, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) like Freon became the standard refrigerant for use in refrigeration systems and even in aerosol cans.  When these substances were found to be depleting the earth’s ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol dictated their phaseout and by the mid-1990s, CFCs were largely replaced by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

HFCs don’t deplete the ozone layer, but they were eventually determined to be potent greenhouse gases, thousands of times more planet-warming than carbon dioxide.   As a result, the global phaseout of HFCs began in 2016, and have been increasingly replaced by hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), which are considered a more environmentally-friendly alternative to all their predecessors.

Trying to not be surprised by additional unpleasant discoveries about refrigerants, researchers are studying the potential environmental impacts of HFOs.  Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have found that HFOs can break down in the atmosphere and that some small amounts of the resultant products are in fact fluoroforms, which are the HFC with the greatest global warming potential and can stay in the atmosphere for up to 200 years.

That only a small amount of HFC gets into the atmosphere is good, but nevertheless it reveals that the consequences of replacing widely-used chemicals are not a simple matter to determine.

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Are our refrigerants safe? The lingering questions about the chemicals keeping us cool

Photo, posted July 19, 2021, courtesy of Vernon Air Conditioning via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Tigers in India

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The Anthropocene is the term that describes the current era in Earth’s history when human activities are having a significant impact on the planet.  It is an epoch filled with species extinction and species attrition in both numbers and range.  The population of large carnivores are among the most affected species and recovering these animals that play important roles in ecosystems is a formidable challenge.

Tigers in Asia are a prime example of extirpation – removal of a species from a specific area.  They have been eliminated in more than 90% of their historic Asian range over the past century.  A new study, published in Science has found that tigers in India are making a comeback.

India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority estimates that between 2010 and 2022, India’s tiger population grew from 1,706 to 3,682.  Tigers are thriving not only on protected lands but also near some human communities.

Tigers are gone from poorer areas where poaching was prevalent and from areas affected by the violent conflict associated with India’s Maoist rebellion.  On the other hand, the big cats can be found near some prosperous communities where poaching is rare.  Farmers keep cattle in enclosures to protect them from tigers.  

The success in protecting tigers in India could provide some insights for Europe where wolves are making a comeback, and perhaps even in the American West where the resurgence of wolf populations is triggering a violent backlash.

Large predators can survive in the modern world with creative thinking and willingness to find a balance between protection and coexistence.

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India Doubled its Tiger Population in a Little More Than a Decade

Photo, posted January 8, 2014, courtesy of Roderick Eime via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Microplastics in Antarctica

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Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long and typically far smaller than that.  They come from a variety of sources, often from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces.  There are also microbeads, which are tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added to various health and beauty products.  Tiny bits of plastic easily pass through filtration systems and end up in the ocean and other bodies of water.

Microplastics are a pervasive problem for which nowhere on Earth is truly untouched.  Despite stringent regulations on materials entering Antarctica, scientists have discovered microplastics in the snow near some of the deep field camps there.

A study by the British Antarctic Survey made use of a new and advanced technique that can detect microplastics as small as 11 microns – about the size of a red blood cell.

The research team found microplastics at concentrations ranging from 73 to 3,099 particles per liter of snow. 

Snow samples from three different sites identified polyamide (used in textiles), polyethylene terephthalate (found in bottles and packaging), polyethylene, and synthetic rubber.  The results suggest that at least the polyamide, which accounted for half the microplastics found, came from local sources.

Additional research is needed to fully understand the sources of microplastic pollution in Antarctica and to understand the broader implications of microplastics in that frozen wilderness. Microplastics have already been detected in several penguin, seal, and fish species.

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Microplastics discovered in Antarctica

Photo, posted February 3, 2015, courtesy of Christian Stangl via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The human footprint on Earth

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The Earth is a pretty big place, and it is easy to think that humans and their activities occupy very little of it.  But the impact of human activities on our planet continues to grow.  Recent satellite images from NASA’s Earth Observatory show the staggering extent of the human footprint on Earth.

Agriculture is a major part of it.  Farms and pastures take up almost half of the world’s habitable land – land not covered by ice or desert.  Greenhouses have recently proliferated tremendously and now cover 3.2 million acres, an area the size of Connecticut, and they even have effects on local climates.

More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities, which are expanding rapidly.  Enormous cities in Asia are changing the landscape in places like Thailand and Indonesia.  Apart from taking up lots of land, many of the world’s cities are immersed in clouds of air pollution that they generate.

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, and temperatures continue to rise.  The effects of this on the planet are increasingly evident.  Seas are rising, ice is melting, glaciers shrink away, and wildfires continue to burn.  The massive wildfires in and around Los Angeles have made major changes in the local landscape.  Rising seas have flooded coastal wetlands and elsewhere, rivers and lakes have shrunk.

There are also human impacts visible from space that represent positive signs.  Large solar arrays supply the cheapest form of energy in most parts of the world and the number and size of solar installations are at a record high.   These solar installations provide some hope that global warming can be slowed.

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The Growing Human Footprint on Earth, as Seen from Space

Photo, posted July 28, 2012, courtesy of Beth Scupham via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Engineering plants to consume more carbon dioxide

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The most abundant protein on the planet is an enzyme called ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, better known as RuBisCO.  Its critical role in photosynthesis makes life as we know it on earth possible.  What it does is convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the organic matter contained in plants.

Getting plants to take up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is a key strategy for mitigating climate change.  Planting lots of trees is one way to do it.  Another is to get individual plants to capture more carbon dioxide.

Scientists at the University of Illinois have focused on getting plants to produce more RuBisCO which allows them to grow faster, consuming more carbon dioxide in the process.

Some plants are better than others at taking advantage of the earth’s rising carbon dioxide levels.  Among these are food crops like corn, sugarcane, and sorghum.  Such plants’ growth is not primarily limited by how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere but rather by how much RuBisCO is in their leaves.  The Illinois scientists tweaked genes in corn and sorghum to produce plants containing more RuBisCO.  Laboratory experiments on corn demonstrated faster corn growth.  Recent outdoor field experiments on sorghum demonstrated a 16% boost in its growth rate. 

Improving photosynthesis in this way is not only a potential strategy for increasing plants’ ability to combat climate change.  It is also a way to cope with the world’s increasing demand for food by producing crops that can grow larger and more quickly.

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Scientists Engineer Crops to Consume More Carbon Dioxide

Photo, posted April 12, 2016, courtesy of K-State Research and Extension via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Wrong trees in the wrong places

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Temperatures in cities are rising around the world and urban heat stress is already a major problem.  Extensive surfaces of man-made materials absorb the sun’s energy, and lead to temperatures well above those in the surrounding countryside.  This is known as the urban heat island effect, and it can lead to greater energy use, higher air pollution levels, and a greater risk of heat-related illnesses, as well as death. 

Some cities have already started implementing mitigation strategies, with tree planting prominent among them.  Planting trees can cool the climate by absorbing carbon dioxide, providing shade, and releasing water vapor, which lowers air and surface temperatures. 

However, while trees can cool cities significantly during the day, new research from the University of Cambridge in the U.K. shows that tree canopies can also trap heat and raise temperatures at night. 

According to the study, which was recently published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, planting the wrong species or the wrong combination of trees in suboptimal locations or arrangements can limit their benefits.

The researchers found that in temperate climates, trees can cool cities by up to 6°C during the day but can increase nighttime temperatures by 1.5°C.  Cities with open layouts in temperate and tropical climates benefit from a mix of evergreen and deciduous trees, enhancing cooling by 0.5°C more than in cities with only deciduous or evergreen trees. 

The researchers hope their findings will help urban planners choose the best combinations of trees and planting locations to combat urban heat stress.

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Wrong trees in the wrong place can make cities hotter at night, study reveals

Photo, posted October 29, 2017, courtesy of Lars Plougmann via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Neighborhood geothermal energy

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Residential geothermal energy makes use of the constant, year-round temperature of the earth below the surface to efficiently provide both heating and cooling for a home.  In the summer, the cool earth beneath a house sits at about 55 degrees and can be tapped into with a heat pump to provide cooling.  In the winter, that 55-degree underground expanse provides a much warmer source of air to heat instead of the often freezing-cold air outside.  Geothermal systems are appealing because they use far less energy than other sources of heating and cooling.

Using geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings is nothing new.  But after years of planning and months of drilling into the ground, the first neighborhood-scale geothermal heating and cooling project has come online in Framingham, Massachusetts.

The project ties together 31 residential and five commercial buildings that share the underground infrastructure needed to heat and cool them.  This sort of shared geothermal system has previously been used on college campuses and similar places, but never before across a neighborhood in the United States.

The $14 million project, built by Eversource, broke ground in June 2023, and comprises 90 boreholes or wells drilled 600-700 feet underground. Approximately 135 customers are connected to the system, including low- and moderate-income customers, apartment buildings, a gas station, and a kitchen cabinet showroom.

A total of 13 states, including Massachusetts and New York, are considering pilot projects or advancing legislation that would allow gas utilities to develop networked geothermal heating and cooling.

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First-in-the-Nation Geothermal Heating and Cooling System Comes to Massachusetts

Photo, posted September 30, 2019, courtesy of Stephen D. Strowes via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Giant batteries in the Earth

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The wind and the sun are inexhaustible sources of energy, and we are tapping into them to produce electricity at a growing rate around the world.  But neither of them is always available when we need them.  When the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, they don’t work.

An opposite problem also exists.  When our energy needs are low, but it is sunny or windy, solar and wind power are all dressed up with nowhere to go.  Energy storage is the answer to both of these problems.   When there is excess generation, store the energy for later use.  When there is need for energy and not enough is being generated, tap into the energy that is stored.

Giant banks of lithium-ion batteries are the rapidly growing form of energy storage, and they are increasingly providing resilience in the electric grid.  But battery storage is short-term energy storage.  Even the largest battery banks can only provide a few hours of electricity. 

So, there is a real need for “long-duration energy storage” – systems that provide at least 10 hours of backup power and sometimes much more – for the grid to be fully reliable.

Pumped hydro storage, which uses water from elevated reservoirs to drive turbines, has been around for a long time.  Historically, this is the largest form of energy storage in the world.  Other methods include pumping compressed air into underground caverns or lifting massive blocks into elevated positions.  All of these techniques use excess electricity to place things like water, air, or cement into a position where they can be used to drive electrical generators.

The grid of tomorrow will store energy in giant battery banks, but also in the ground, in reservoirs, and in large structures.

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How giant ‘batteries’ in the Earth could slash your electricity bills

Photo, posted March 21, 2024, courtesy of Sandra Uecker/USFWS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The race for fusion power

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The sun is powered by fusion energy.  Hydrogen atoms fuse together into helium atoms, liberating vast amounts of energy in the process.  Our understanding of this process emerged early in the 20th century and by the 1950s, research efforts were underway trying to replicate the process on Earth.  If it could be done, fusion would be a source of almost unlimited clean energy.  But there has been a cynical saying going around for half a century:  fusion power is the energy source of the future, and it always will be.

However, in recent years, there has been progress in developing fusion power.  Extraordinarily expensive and colossal machines have produced fusion energy albeit consuming more energy than they make.  However, for a brief moment in 2022, a fusion reactor at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory did produce more energy than it took to run the machine.

Despite the less than encouraging history, there are now multiple start-up companies dedicated to developing fusion energy and they are optimistic that there will be significant progress over the next few years.

One such company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, located 40 miles northwest of Boston, is building a fusion reactor called SPARC, that they claim will be producing net energy in 2027.  They say that their next machine, called ARC, will generate electricity for paying customers in the early 2030s.

A handful of other companies, including Type One Energy, Thea Energy, Realta Fusion, Zap Energy, General Fusion, and Helion Energy are also pursuing fusion reactor designs and also expect to have machines running over the next 5 to 10 years.

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The Quest to Build a Star on Earth

Photo, posted April 21, 2015, courtesy of John Spiri via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Generations Z and Alpha and climate change

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People’s views and level of concern about climate change tend to vary according to age, political affiliation, and other demographic categories.  But one clear trend is that young people are overwhelmingly concerned about climate change.  Given that they will ultimately suffer from its effects far more than older generations, this is not really surprising.

A new study investigated the views about climate change of 16,000 young Americans aged 16 to 25.  The study found that about 60% of respondents said they were either very or extremely worried when asked “How worried, if at all, are you about climate change and its impact on people and the planet?”  More than 85% said they experienced at least some level of climate anxiety.

There was similarity in responses across dramatically different geopolitical regions of the country.  Responses never differed by more than 25% across all surveyed populations.  Concern about climate change transcended political identification.  While the Republican group did have a lower level of concern, endorsement of climate issues was still above 50% no matter what group people identified with.

People from Generations Z and Alpha, those with fewer economic resources, people of color, and other vulnerable communities are experiencing the highest levels of climate distress. Research finds that 3% of Americans are experiencing clinically significant climate anxiety. 

The true number of people experiencing climate-triggered anxiety may be much higher as some people are hesitant or reluctant to even acknowledge that climate change is happening.  Some level of climate anxiety is undoubtedly beneficial for climate action.  People who are experiencing distress are the ones most likely to take action. 

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The Depths of Their Discontent: Young Americans Are Distraught Over Climate Change

Photo, posted April 23, 2022, courtesy of Mark Dixon via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Renegade geoengineering

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As the dangers of climate change continue to grow, so has interest in geoengineering – deliberate tinkering with the earth’s climate system.  In particular, stratospheric solar geoengineering – releasing aerosols into the stratosphere to reduce the amount of heat from the sun reaching the Earth – is attracting increasing interest.  Scientists at Harvard, Cornell, Colorado State, Princeton, and the University of Chicago are all researching the topic.

Actually doing it on a scale that matters is fraught with peril from unintended consequences of disrupting the delicate interactions between the Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea ice. 

Meanwhile, a tiny start-up company in Silicon Valley has raised more than a million dollars in venture capital and is busy releasing balloons full of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere in the name of combatting global warming.  Furthermore, they are selling so-called “cooling credits” to customers who want to offset their personal carbon emissions.

The aerosol being released is on such a small scale that it can’t possibly have a meaningful effect on temperatures.  There really isn’t scientific analysis guiding or accompanying the work. 

There are no laws prohibiting the dispersal of small amounts of sulfur dioxide in California.  Even if there were, these people could go offshore or elsewhere to do their work.  But this renegade geoengineering highlights a serious issue; namely, that there doesn’t have to be scientific, political, or any other kind of consensus for someone to undertake a potentially catastrophic attempt to alter the climate.  It’s a real worry.

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Silicon Valley Renegades Pollute the Sky to Save the Planet

Photo, posted September 24, 2006, courtesy of Doc Searls via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Rising methane emissions

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Methane is a colorless and odorless gas that occurs abundantly in nature and is also a product of certain human activities.  It’s a short-lived but highly potent greenhouse gas and, as a result, is a major driver of climate change.  In fact, methane heats the atmosphere nearly 90 times faster than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. 

Despite a global pledge from more than 150 nations to reduce methane emissions by 30% this decade, methane emissions continue to rise.  In fact, according to a new paper led by researchers from Stanford University, total annual methane emissions have increased 20% over the past two decades. 

The paper, which was recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that atmospheric concentrations of methane today are more than 2.6 times higher than in pre-industrial times.  In fact, atmospheric methane concentrations are currently the highest they’ve been in at least 800,000 years.

Methane emissions from coal mining, oil and gas production and use, cattle and sheep ranching, and decomposing organic waste in landfills are responsible for driving the growth.  In 2020, the most recent year for which data was available, nearly 400 million tons – or about two-thirds – of global methane emissions came directly from human activities. 

Methane concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere have increased at record speed over the past five years.  According to the research team, only the European Union and possibly Australia seem to have decreased methane emissions from human activities over the past two decades.  This trend “cannot continue if we are to maintain a habitable climate.”

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Methane emissions are rising faster than ever

Photo, posted December 4, 2010, courtesy of Dani Mettler via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Slow-moving landslides

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Landslides are mass movements of rock, earth, or debris down a slope.  They can be initiated by rainfall, snowmelt, changes in water level, erosion by streams, earthquakes, volcanic activity, or by various human activities.  Most landslides we hear about are sudden events that can cause all sorts of calamities.  But not all landslides are rapid occurrences.  There are also slow-moving landslides.

A new study by the University of Potsdam in Germany has found that as urban centers in mountainous regions grow, more people are building homes on steeper slopes prone to slow-moving landslides.  Slow-moving landslides can move as little as one millimeter a year and up to as much as three meters per year.  Locations with slow-moving landslides can seem safe to settle on; in some cases, the movement itself can be inconspicuous or even completely undetected.

Slow slides can gradually produce damage in houses and other infrastructure and there can also be sudden acceleration from heavy rain or other influences.

The study compiled a new database of nearly 8,000 slow-moving landslides with areas of at least 25 acres located in regions classified as “mountain risk.”  Of the landslides documented, 563 are inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people.  The densest settlements on slow-moving landslides are in northwestern South America and southeastern Africa. 

In all regions of the study, urban center expansion was associated with an increase in exposure to slow-moving landslides.  As cities expand in mountainous areas, people are moving into unsafe areas, but poorer populations may have few other options.

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Slow-moving landslides a growing, but ignored, threat to mountain communities

Photo, posted March 4, 2015, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Just say ‘climate change’

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In recent years, climate advocates have pushed for the use of more dramatic language to describe ‘climate change.’  The notion was that phrases like ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’ better convey the urgency of the planet’s plight, while terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are too gentle and vague.  However, it turns out that the gentler approach may actually be more effective.

According to a new study led by researchers from the University of Southern California, the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are not only more familiar to people than some of their common synonyms, but they also generate more concern about the warming of the Earth.

In the study, which was recently published in the journal Climatic Change, the research team found that nearly 90% of respondents were familiar with the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming.’  However, familiarity dropped sharply for the other terms, including ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency.’  In fact, only 33% of respondents recognized the term ‘climate justice.’

The study, which surveyed more than 5,000 randomly selected U.S. residents, examined the degree to which each term generated concern, urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies, and willingness to eat less red meat. 

The research team found that the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ were most concerning and most urgent.  ‘Climate justice’ was the least, with ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’ falling in between.  The support for climate policy and willingness to eat less red meat was roughly the same, regardless of what terms were used. 

The research team hopes its findings will help us communicate more effectively about climate change in the future.

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Just Say “Climate Change” – not “Climate Emergency”

Photo, posted July 1, 2023, courtesy of Sheila Sund via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Svalbard is melting

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Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It is one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas and is a popular attraction for tourists.  Svalbard is famous for rugged, remote terrain of glaciers and frozen tundra sheltering polar bears, Svalbard reindeer, and Arctic foxes. The Northern Lights are visible during winter, and its summer features the “midnight sun”—sunlight 24 hours a day.  It is the home of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which provides safe, free, and long-term storage of seed duplicates from all gene banks and nations around the world. 

Over half of Svalbard’s land area is covered with ice and accounts for about 6% of the planet’s glaciated area outside of Greenland and Antarctica.  But Svalbard is also one of the fastest-warming places on Earth.

It has suffered extreme episodes of melting this summer, brought on by exceptionally high air temperatures.  In late July and early August, temperatures hovered around 7 degrees Fahrenheit above average for this part of the Arctic Circle, causing snow and ice to rapidly melt.

According to scientists, Svalbard’s ice caps broke their all-time record for daily surface melt on July 23rd, shedding nearly half a foot of water equivalent that day, a rate five times larger than normal. 

On August 11th, the high temperature in Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s capital city, reached 68 degrees, the highest August temperature on record and 4 degrees above the previous monthly record.  Svalbard experienced its warmest summer on record in 2023.

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Svalbard Melts

Photo, posted September 21, 2016, courtesy of Christopher Michel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The hottest day on record

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There have been numerous temperature records set in recent years.  Apart from record high temperatures for many places around the world, there were 13 consecutive monthly temperature records set for the planet since the previous summer.

According to NASA data, July 22, 2024, was the hottest day on record.  July 21st and 23rd also exceeded the previous daily record, which was set in July last year.  The new record was 17.16 degrees Celsius, or about 63 degrees Fahrenheit.

We are not used to thinking in terms of the global average temperature.  That is the number that keeps climbing and that climate goals seek to keep from getting too high.  The global average temperature is about 59 degrees Fahrenheit.  So, on July 22nd, the Earth was about 4 degrees warmer than usual.  That may not seem like much, but it takes an enormous amount of energy to raise the temperature of the planet by that amount.

The NASA report shows the global daily temperature throughout the year for the years 1980 to 2024.  It clearly shows how much warmer temperatures are now compared with the previous decades.

In many places, people experienced persistent hot weather during the month of July. New York’s Capital Region saw relentless hot and humid weather.  There were 9 days with high temperatures in the 90s.   July in Albany had a monthly mean temperature of 77.3 degrees, which was the highest in any current resident’s lifetime.  This is more than 4 degrees higher than the average over the past 30 years.  The last time the average temperature was over 77 was in 1887.  July was hot.

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NASA Data Shows July 22 Was Earth’s Hottest Day on Record

Photo, posted October 22, 2016, courtesy of Susanne Nilsson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Averting a mass extinction

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There has been widespread concern that biodiversity is under siege and that we are in the beginnings of a sixth mass extinction in the long history of the Earth, this time caused by the actions of humanity.  There has been considerable debate about what can be done about it and solutions generally involve protecting large areas of the planet from human disruptions.  Some countries have set a target of protecting 30% of land and sea.

A new study by a broad coalition of conservation organizations and published in Frontiers in Science, concludes that humans can preserve much of the great diversity of life on Earth by setting aside just 1.2% of the planet for protection.

The experts mapped the wilderness available to rare and threatened plants and animals.  They then identified specific hotspots for rare wildlife that have yet to be protected.  They found a total of 16,825 such sites which nevertheless all together add up an area smaller than the state of Wisconsin.

Some scientists have been warning that by focusing too much on the size of protected lands, we are not necessarily safeguarding areas that are especially rich in wildlife.  The new study pushes for prioritizing hotspots for rare species, which the authors claim would be sufficient to stave off a sixth mass extinction.  The truth is that most species on Earth are rare, meaning that they are few in number or cover a small range, or both.

The study estimated that the cost of protecting the identified hotspot sites would be $263 billion, which is certainly a large amount of money.  But the authors point out that this sum to save global biodiversity is less than the yearly revenue of Shell Oil.

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To Avert a Mass Extinction, Protect 1 Percent of Earth

Photo, posted April 20, 2018, courtesy of Per Harald Olsen / AfricanBioServices via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

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