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2022 Temperature Report | Earth Wise

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The average surface temperature for the Earth in 2022 tied with 2015 as the fifth warmest on record.  The warming trend for the planet continued with global temperatures 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average baseline for 1951-1980 that NASA uses for its studies. Compared with the late 19th century average used in setting climate goals, global temperatures are up about 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Overall, the past nine years have been the warmest since modern recordkeeping began in 1880.   The rising temperatures have moved in concert with rising levels of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere from human activity.  Many factors can affect the average temperature in any given year including El Nino and La Nina conditions in the Pacific.  But the longer-term trend is quite clear.  Global temperatures continue to rise.

Greenhouse gas emissions have reached all-time high levels despite increasing efforts to reduce them.  There was a real drop in levels in 2020 due to reduced activity during COVID-19 lockdowns, but they rebounded soon thereafter. 

The Arctic region continues to experience the strongest warming trends, as much as four times the global average.  Arctic warming has a major impact on weather at lower latitudes as it changes the behavior of the jet stream as well as affecting ocean currents and water temperatures.

As global temperatures continue to rise, rainfall and tropical storms have become more intense, droughts have become more severe, and ocean storm surges have had increasing impact.  From torrential monsoons in Asia to megadroughts in the U.S. Southwest, extreme weather has become the new normal.

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NASA Says 2022 Fifth Warmest Year on Record, Warming Trend Continues

Photo, posted June 20, 2020, courtesy of Daxis via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Oxygen Loss In Lakes | Earth Wise

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Researchers from Cornell University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that the continual warming in the world over the past 25 years has been reducing the amount of oxygen in many lakes.

Data from more than 400 lakes – mostly in the United States – shows that lakes with dissolved oxygen losses strongly outnumber those with gains.  Overall, the researchers found that the amount of low oxygen water is increasing by 0.9% to 1.7% per decade on average  and the volume of lake water lacking oxygen has increased by more than 50% from 25 years ago.

In the summer, lake surfaces may be about 70 degrees while the lake bottom may be about 40 degrees.  The colder water is denser than the warmer water which causes resistance to the layers mixing.  It is akin to having oil and vinegar in a cruet.  This is known as stratification.   The result is that oxygen from the atmosphere is prevented from replenishing dissolved oxygen in deep waters.  This is a normal seasonal phenomenon.

However, with winter ending sooner than it used to, seasonal stratification is starting earlier and ending later. As warming continues, it is likely that there will be an increasing number of oxygen-depleted lakes in the future.

Oxygen deprivation in water can lead to hypoxia (low oxygen) and even anoxia (no oxygen), which have negative consequences for fish and other species.  Reducing oxygen in lake water can lead to buildup of methane.   Nutrients from agricultural runoff, released from unsettled lake sediment, increase the likelihood of harmful algal blooms.

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Warming climate prompts harmful oxygen loss in lakes

Photo, posted June 23, 2010, courtesy of Alexander Acker via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Europe Is Warming Faster Than The Rest Of The Planet | Earth Wise

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A new study by researchers at Stockholm University has found that the warming during the summer months in Europe has been much faster than the global average.  The findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, are that the climate across the European continent has become drier, particularly in southern Europe, leading to worse heat waves and an increased risk of fires.

Warming over land areas occurs much faster than over oceans.  The global average warming to date is 1.6 degrees Celsius over land and 0.9 degrees over oceans.   This means that the global emissions budget to keep warming below 1.5 degrees has already been used up over land.  The new study in fact shows that the emissions budget to avoid 2 degrees of warming has already been exceeded over large parts of Europe during the summer half-year (April to September).

This accelerated warming in Europe has led to more frequent heat waves.  These, in turn, increase the risk of fires, such as the devastating fires in southern Europe this past summer.

Southern Europe has been experiencing a positive feedback situation in which the ongoing warming has been amplified because of drier soil and decreased evaporation.  Added to that, there has been less cloud coverage over large parts of Europe, probably as a result of less water vapor in the air.

The study also looked at the impact of aerosol particles on temperatures in Europe.  As the amount of relatively short-lived aerosol particles has decreased with the reduction of coal-fired power plants, the temporary cooling effects of those particles partially masking the underlying warming trend have diminished.  In contrast, carbon dioxide emissions stay in the atmosphere for centuries.

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Large parts of Europe are warming twice as fast as the planet on average

Photo, posted April 18, 2020, courtesy of Roman Ranniew via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Corals Saving Corals | Earth Wise

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A new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, has found that under the right circumstances, disease-resistant corals can rescue corals that are more vulnerable to disease.

The researchers monitored a disease outbreak at a coral nursery in the Cayman Islands.  They tracked the presence of disease in 650 coral fragments in various arrangements over a period of five months.  They found that some corals are more resistant to disease just by being around other corals that are particularly resistant.  In general, when there are only corals of the same genetic makeup, they are more vulnerable to disease than corals that grow among a mixture of genotypes.  But beyond that, some vulnerable corals become more resistant to disease just by being around other corals that are particularly resistant.  Proximity to the resistant genotypes helped to protect the susceptible corals from the effects of disease.

These findings provide new evidence that genetic diversity can help reduce disease transmission among corals and furthermore, it is important to consider how corals are arranged in coral nurseries or in reef restoration projects.

The ability of resistant coral to help protect vulnerable individuals appears to be similar to how vaccinations work among humans.  Vaccinated individuals resist a disease, which effectively erects a barrier that weakens a disease’s ability to move through a population.

The researchers hope that the findings of this study will be integrated into coral nursery and reef restoration projects.  By intentionally arranging corals with mixtures of genotypes, it will help rebuild coral resilience and help those corals that are vulnerable to disease to thrive.

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Corals Saving Corals

Photo, posted December 30, 2014, courtesy of NOAA’s National Ocean Service via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

It Really Is Greenhouse Gases | Earth Wise

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The scientific consensus that human-generated carbon dioxide is changing the climate began to form in the 1980s. 

For a long time, the changes to the climate were simply denied.  After a while, as those changes became increasingly hard to ignore, the argument shifted to the changes being real but not caused by anything people are doing.  The multi-trillion-dollar fossil fuel industry was strongly motivated to focus attention away from the association between carbon dioxide and climate change.

The greenhouse gas effect has been known since the 19th century.  It isn’t just real; it is essential to life on earth.  Without sufficient levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to trap some of the sun’s heat, the earth would be an ice planet incapable of supporting much in the way of life.  But there can be too much of a good thing.

Naysayers continue to grasp at alternative explanations for the warming planet rather than the inconvenient truth.  Some people try to claim that it is the release of heat from all our energy-generating activities -power plants, heaters and air conditioners, vehicles, and so on – that is warming the planet.

That issue has been studied in detail.  Human activity does generate a lot of heat and, technically speaking, that heat does help warm the planet.  However, the sun dumps 10,000 times more heat on the earth than all of human energy production added together.  Just the normal fluctuations in solar energy are 10 times larger than everything we do put together.

What is increasingly warming the planet is not the continuing energy striking the earth; it is primarily the fact that growing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are trapping more and more of that heat and preventing it from escaping into space.

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Integrating anthropogenic heat flux with global climate models

Photo, posted August 25, 2009, courtesy of Gerald Simmons via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Glacial Loss In The Swiss Alps | Earth Wise

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In 2022, glaciers in the Swiss Alps melted more than in any year on record.   This is the latest piece of bad news for the country’s glaciers, which have lost more than half of their volume of ice since the 1930s.

The melting season for Switzerland’s snow and ice typically starts in May and ends in early October.  This year’s melting season caused glaciers in the Diablerets mountain group to thin by an average of 13 feet, which is 3 times the amount of thinning observed over the past decade.   The Tsanfleuron pass between two of the glaciers is now exposed as bare rock for the first time in several thousand years. Across Switzerland, glaciers lost about 6% of their remaining volume just this year.  The previous worst year for glaciers was 2003, when losses were nearly 4%. 

There was significant melting this year in part because of the small amount of snowfall over the winter.  That snow melted quickly, being sped up by the warming effect of dust from the Sahara Desert falling on the snow.  By early summer, there was no longer a protective blanket of snow on the glaciers, exposing them to summer heat.

The loss of glaciers is far more serious than the disappearance of aesthetically pleasing landscape features.   Glaciers act as reservoirs of water that persist through the summer months.  Melt from glaciers provides water to ecosystems and creates habitats for plants and animals.  Cold runoff from glaciers affects downstream water temperatures which have a major impact on insects, fish, and other creatures.  Globally, melting glaciers contribute more than 20% of the observed ongoing sea-level rise.

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Rocky Road for Swiss Glaciers

Photo, posted June 22, 2015, courtesy of Dennis Jarvis via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Moving Endangered Species | Earth Wise

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People have intentionally or accidentally introduced numerous invasive species to habitats around the world.  At the same time, the planet’s wildlife is in a steep decline.  A recent study estimated that the populations of over 5,000 vertebrate species have declined by an average of nearly 70% since 1970.  A United Nations report warns that human activity has threatened as many as a million species with extinction.

With all of this as a background, there is climate change that is altering the habitats of the world’s species – warming lakes and oceans, turning forests into grasslands, tundra into woodland, and melting glaciers.  In response to these changes, living things are rearranging themselves, migrating to more hospitable locations.  But many species are just not capable of finding more suitable habitats on their own.

Conservationists are now increasingly considering the use of assisted migration. In some cases, when a species’ critical habitat has been irreversibly altered or destroyed, agencies are establishing experimental populations outside of the species’ historical range.  Such actions are often deemed extreme but may be increasingly necessary.

However, clear-cut cases are relatively rare.  More likely, it is a more difficult judgement call as to whether assisted migration is a good idea or is possibly a threat to the ecosystem of the species’ new location.  The relative dearth of assisted migration experiments is less likely a result of legal barriers than it is a lack of scientific and societal consensus on the practice. Scientists are now trying to develop risk-analysis frameworks that various agencies can use in considering potential assisted migration experiments. 

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Last Resort: Moving Endangered Species in Order to Save Them

Photo, posted March 18, 2010, courtesy of Jean via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Climate Change And Crabs | Earth Wise

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Globally, there are more than 6,000 species of crabs.  In Alaska’s waters alone, there are 18 species, including 10 that are commercially fished.  The perils of crab fishing in this region, including freezing temperatures, turbulent seas, and raising full pots that can weigh well over a ton, have been highlighted for many years in the reality TV series Deadliest Catch.        

One of those commercially-fished species is the Alaska snow crab.  Alaska snow crabs are a cold-water species found off the coast of Alaska in the Bering, Beaufort, and Chukchi Seas. 

In October, officials in Alaska announced that the upcoming winter snow crab season would be canceled for the first time ever due to a sharp population decline. While the number of juvenile snow crabs was at record highs just a few years ago, approximately 90% of snow crabs mysteriously disappeared ahead of last season.  Officials also canceled the Bristol Bay red king crab harvest for similar reasons for the second year in a row.

The closures dealt a severe blow to crab fishers in the region.  According to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, Alaska’s crab fishing industry is worth more than $200 million. 

The canceled seasons also raise questions about the role of climate change in the snow crab population crash. While the causes of the decline are still being researched, scientists suspect that warmer temperatures are responsible.  Temperatures in the Arctic region have warmed four times faster than the rest of the planet. 

As the climate continues to change, the warming waters around Alaska may become increasingly inhospitable to snow crabs and other species.   

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Alaska’s Bering snow crab, king crab seasons canceled

Alaska cancels snow crab season for first time after population collapses

Photo, posted November 16, 2010, courtesy of David Csepp / NOAA via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Insects In A Changing Climate | Earth Wise

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Insects can be found in every environment on Earth and are critical components of many ecosystems.  They perform countless important functions, including aerating and fertilizing soil as well as pollinating flowers.  In fact, according to the USDA, 75% of the world’s flowering plants and about 35% of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators, the majority of which are insects, to reproduce.

According to a study published in the journal Nature earlier this year, the combination of climate change and intensive agriculture is having a profound impact on both the abundance and diversity of insects.  In regions where substantial warming had occurred and where land had been converted for intensive farming, insects were nearly 50% less abundant and more than 25% fewer species were observed.  Tropical regions were among those most at risk for heavy losses.

According to a new study recently published in the journal Global Change Biology, tropical insects will be even more susceptible to climate change than previously thought.  In a five-year study conducted in Peru, researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History found that insect populations declined 50% following short periods of drought and following short periods of heavy rainfall.  Insect populations decreased after three months of dry weather, but also decreased after three months of exceptionally wet weather.   

Researchers have known that tropical insects don’t tend to do well when their habitats dry out.  But the researchers were surprised to discover that these insects were equally averse to increased precipitation.  Alarmingly, precipitation is expected to become more frequent and more intense as a consequence of the changing climate. 

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Tropical insects are extremely sensitive to changing climates

Photo, posted June 11, 2016, courtesy of Z. Leng via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Vanishing Arctic Lakes | Earth Wise

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In recent decades, the warming in the Arctic has been much faster than in the rest of the world.  The phenomenon is known as Arctic amplification.  A study by the Finnish Meteorological Institute published in August in Communications Earth & Environment determined that during the past 43 years, the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the globe.  The result of this amplified warming has been that glaciers are collapsing, wildlife is struggling, and habitats continue to disappear at a record pace.

Research published by the University of Florida has identified a new threat associated with Arctic amplification: lakes in the Arctic are drying up.

Over the past 20 years, many Arctic lakes have shrunk or dried up completely across the entire pan-Arctic region, which spans the northern parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, Scandinavia, and Alaska.

Arctic lakes are essential elements of the Arctic ecosystem and for the indigenous communities that live in the region.  They provide a critical source of fresh water for those communities and local industries. 

The rapid decline of Arctic lakes is unexpected.  Earlier predictions were that climate change would first actually expand lakes in the region as ground ice melted.  Lakes drying out was not expected until much later in this century or even in the 22nd century.  Instead, it appears that thawing permafrost may drain lakes and overwhelm the expansion effect caused by melting ice.  The theory is that thawing permafrost decreases lake area by creating drainage channels and increasing soil erosion.

The finding suggest that permafrost thawing is occurring faster than anticipated, which presents many additional problems.

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As the climate crisis intensifies, lakes across the Arctic are vanishing

Photo, posted June 20, 2014, courtesy of Bob Wick / Bureau of Land Management via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Propane Refrigerants | Earth Wise

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About 10% of the world’s total electricity supply is used for air conditioning.  If current temperature trends continue, the energy demands for space cooling will more than triple by the year 2050.  Air conditioning is a double threat to the environment.  Apart from using lots of energy, ACs also make use of halogenated refrigerants that are extremely powerful greenhouse gases.

The most common space cooling appliances are split-air conditioners, which use an indoor unit and an outdoor unit connected by pipes.  These split ACS mostly utilize HCFC-22 and HFC-410 as refrigerants, which have global warming potential scores as high as 2,256 – meaning they trap 2,256 times more heat than carbon dioxide. 

A study by the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Austria has shown that propane is a far better choice as an air conditioning refrigerant.  Its global warming potential is actually less than 1 meaning it traps less heat than carbon dioxide.  According to the study, if air conditioners switched to propane refrigerants, the world would avoid about a tenth of a degree Celsius of additional warming, which is a significant contribution to meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

Propane-based split-ACs are already available commercially in China and India.  Elsewhere, many national regulations prohibit their use, primarily due to codes restricting the use of refrigerants with higher flammability.  Given the increasingly urgent need for climate action, it seems to be time to reconsider regulations on refrigerants.

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Propane — a solution for more sustainable air conditioning

Photo, posted March 24, 2021, courtesy of Phyxter Home Services via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A Geoengineering Research Plan | Earth Wise

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The 2022 federal appropriations act, signed into law in March, directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a cross-agency group to coordinate research on climate interventions, in partnership with NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy.

The group is tasked with creating a research framework to “provide guidance on transparency, engagement, and risk management for publicly funded work on solar geoengineering research.”  The group is supposed to develop a five-year plan that will define research goals for the field, assess the potential hazards of climate interventions, and evaluate the level of federal funding required to carry out the work.

This marks the first federally coordinated effort of this kind and is especially significant because it contributes to the perception that geoengineering is an appropriate and important area of research as the climate continues to warm.

It is an understatement to say that such research is controversial.  Geoengineering has often been a taboo topic among scientists. There are significant questions about potential environmental side effects and concerns that the impact of any such efforts would be felt unevenly in different parts of the world.  There are challenging questions about global governance , including who should be able to make decisions about any potential deployment of climate interventions and what the goals of such interventions should be.

These are momentous issues to grapple with, but as the threat of climate change grows and nations continue to fail to make rapid progress on emissions, researchers, universities, and nations are increasingly motivated to seriously explore the potential effects of geoengineering approaches.  We can’t hide from the fact that these issues are going to be explored.

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The US government is developing a solar geoengineering research plan

Photo, posted June 28, 2013, courtesy of Fernando Aramburu via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Carbon Capture: Solution Or Band-Aid? | Earth Wise

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The idea of capturing the CO2 emissions from industry and locking them up is nothing new.  It’s been going on for decades in some places.  Norway’s state-owned oil company Equinor has been holing away a million tons of CO2 a year for a long time.  But overall, CCS – carbon capture and storage – has had very limited use.  As of last year, there were only about 30 large-scale projects in operation around the world, capturing only 0.1% of global emissions.

There is now growing interest in CCS and many new projects are underway.  A combination of rising carbon prices in Europe, tax breaks for CCS in the US, national net-zero targets, and the increasing need to ramp down global emissions are all driving rising CCS activities. 

While recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change still claim that it is possible to remain below 2 degrees Celsius of warming without using carbon capture, there is growing belief that it may be necessary given the present pace of the transition away from fossil fuels.

Two industries that together produce about 14% of global CO2 emissions are cement and steel.  These are both industries for which it is difficult to eliminate emissions regardless of the energy sources used. CCS may be the best approach to reducing their emissions.

But there is considerable pushback against CCS.  The concern is that CCS is primarily a way to delay decarbonization.  It encourages various industries to continue to use fossil fuels instead of shifting away from them.  Nonetheless, CCS no doubt has its place as part of the solution to climate change.

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Solution or Band-Aid? Carbon Capture Projects Are Moving Ahead

Photo, posted June 5, 2022, courtesy of Mark Dixon via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Marine Predation And Climate Change | Earth Wise

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Climate change is taking a toll on forests, farms, freshwater resources, and economies all around the world.  But ocean ecosystems remain the center of global warming.

Despite their vast ability to absorb heat and carbon dioxide, oceans are warming.  In fact, according to scientists, the oceans have absorbed 90% of all the warming that has occurred during the past 50 years. 

The ocean’s surface layer, which is home to most marine life, takes most of this heat.  As a result, the top 2,300 feet of global ocean water has warmed approximately 1.5°F since 1901.

Well it turns out that a hotter ocean is also a hungrier ocean.  According to a new study recently published in the journal Science, researchers discovered that predator impacts in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans peak at higher temperatures.  The effects of more intense marine predation could disrupt ecosystem balances that have existed for millennia. 

An international research team led by the Smithsonian Institution and Temple University analyzed predator and prey data collected from 36 sites, running along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts from Alaska in the north to Tierra de Fuego at the tip of South America.  The research team found that, in warmer waters, predators’ more voracious appetites left outsized marks on the prey community.  Total prey biomass plunged in warmer waters when prey were left unprotected.  However, in the coldest zones, leaving prey exposed or protected made nearly no difference at all.  

As the oceans continue to warm, more intense predation will create winners and losers and could jeopardize the overall health of marine ecosystems.  

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As the ocean heats up hungrier predators take control

Photo, posted July 14, 2017, courtesy of Jonathan Chen via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Carbon Dioxide Levels Higher Again | Earth Wise

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that carbon dioxide levels measured in May at the Mauna Loa Observatory reached a value of 421 parts per million.  This is 50% greater than pre-industrial levels and is in a range not seen on earth for millions of years.

Before the Industrial Revolution, CO2 levels fairly steadily measured around 280 parts per million, pretty much for all 6,000 years of human civilization.  Since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, humans have generated an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 pollution, much of which will continue to warm the atmosphere for thousands of years.

The present levels of carbon dioxide are comparable to those of an era known as the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, which took place over 4 million years ago. 

The bulk of the human-generated carbon dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels for transportation and electrical generation, from cement and steel manufacturing, and from the depletion of natural carbon sinks caused by deforestation, agriculture, and other human impacts on the natural environment.

Humans are altering the climate in ways that are dramatically affecting the economy, infrastructure, and ecosystems across the planet.  By trapping heat that would otherwise escape into space, greenhouse gases are causing the atmosphere to warm steadily, leading to increasingly erratic weather episodes ranging from extreme heat, droughts, and wildfires, to heavier precipitation, flooding, and tropical storm activity.

The relentless increase of carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa is a sober reminder that we need to take serious steps to try to mitigate the effects of climate change.

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Carbon dioxide now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels

Photo, posted December 20, 2016, courtesy of Kevin Casey Fleming via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Methane From Thawing Permafrost | Earth Wise

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The Arctic permafrost contains a massive amount of carbon in the form of frozen soil, which contains remnants of plants and animals that died millennia ago.  Estimates are that there is 2 ½ times as much carbon trapped in this Arctic soil than there is in total in the atmosphere today.

As the Arctic warms, the permafrost is starting to thaw.  Once that happens, microbes begin to consume the previously frozen organic matter trapped in the soil.  As part of this process, the microbes produce large amounts of methane, which is an extremely potent greenhouse gas.   Thus, there continues to be great concern that wide-scale thawing of the permafrost would result in massive amounts of methane being released into the atmosphere.

A recent study in northern Sweden revealed a glimmer of hope.  The study gauged methane emissions from a swath of permafrost that thawed in the 1980s and another that thawed 10 or 15 years later. 

In the first area, as ice melted underground, water on the surface sank down into the soil.  As the surface dried out, new plants emerged that helped to keep methane emissions buried underground.

Grasses found in wet areas have straw-like structures that convey oxygen to their roots.  The straws also allow methane in the soil to escape into the atmosphere.  As the areas dry out, other plants lacking the straws can sometimes replace the grasses.  When methane can’t escape, soil bacteria break it down into carbon dioxide.

The result is that the permafrost releases only a tenth of the methane as expected.  The hope is that changes in plant cover driven by climate change may limit methane emissions from thawing permafrost.

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Thawing Permafrost In Sweden Releases Less Methane Than Feared, Study Finds

Photo, posted July 7, 2014, courtesy of NPS Climate Change Response via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And Sleep | Earth Wise

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It’s no secret that our planet is heating up.  According to scientists, the warming is primarily the result of increased anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.  In fact, human activities are responsible for nearly all of the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions over the last 150 years. 

Climate change has already left observable effects on the planet.  For example, glaciers have shrunk, oceans have warmed, heatwaves have become more intense, and plant and animal ranges have shifted.

Most research examining the impact of climate change on human life has centered around extreme weather events and how they will affect social and economic health.  But climate change may also have a major influence on fundamental daily human activities, like sleep, that are essential to well-being.   

According to a new study recently published in the journal One Earth, scientists have found that increasing temperatures are negatively impacting human sleep around the globe.  In the study, the research team analyzed anonymized global sleep data from sleep-tracking wristbands.  The data included 7 million nightly sleep records from more than 47,000 adults across 68 countries, spanning all continents except Antarctica.     

Before the year 2100, researchers say that suboptimal temperatures may erode 50 to 58 hours of sleep per person per year.  On warm nights – where temperatures are greater than 86 degrees Fahrenheit – sleep declines an average of more than 14 minutes.  To little surprise, they found that the effect of increasing temperatures on sleep loss is substantially greater for residents in lower income countries as well as in older adults. 

Sleep is an essential restorative process integral to human health and productivity.  And it’s threatened by our changing climate. 

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Climate change likely to reduce the amount of sleep that people get per year

Photo, posted March 16, 2006, courtesy of Joe Green via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Antarctic Heatwave | Earth Wise

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The Concordia Research station atop Dome C on the Antarctic Plateau is generally considered to be the coldest place on earth.  In mid-March, the normal high temperature for the day is around -56 degrees Fahrenheit.  But on March 18, the high for the day was 11.3 degrees, nearly 70 degrees warmer than normal.

The World Meteorological Organization doesn’t formally track the metric of largest temperature excess above normal, but if it did, this would probably have set a world record.  Consider a place like Washington, DC.  Its normal high temperature on March 18 is 61 degrees.   Imagine if it got up to 131 degrees! 

The 11-degree reading at the Concordia Research Station was not only the record for the month of March.  It was actually the record for any month.

The Russian Vostok research station, which is another candidate for being the coldest place on earth based on its average high temperature, also saw some record high temperatures.  Vostok reported a high temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit, which is 63 degrees above its average for the date.  It broke the station’s previous record by almost 27 degrees.

This record warming was the result of a unique combination of meteorological events that included a moist inflow of an atmospheric river as well as a rare infusion of hot air into the Antarctic plateau.  The arrival of the moisture in the atmospheric river trapped the hot air, allowing temperatures to shoot up.

The extreme warmth in Antarctica raises concerns about the long-term effects on the ice there.  A single short heatwave is not going to have a major effect, but if such events become more common, it could be real problem.

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Extraordinary Antarctica heatwave, 70 degrees above normal, would likely set a world record

Photo, posted October 15, 2016, courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Historic Western Drought | Earth Wise

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The American Southwest has suffered from drought conditions since the year 2000.  The drought has reduced water supplies, devastated farmers and ranchers, and it has helped to fuel numerous wildfires across the region.  It has generally been considered to be worst in 500 years.

According to a recent analysis, the drought has become so severe that it has actually led to the driest two decades in at least 1,200 years and the changing climate is largely responsible.  The summer of 2021 was especially dry; about 2/3 of the West was in severe drought conditions.

Scientists at UCLA used tree ring data to gauge drought.  Based on that analysis, 2000-2021 is the driest 22-year period since 800 A.D. which is as far back as the data goes.

The study confirmed the role of temperature, more than precipitation, in driving exceptional droughts.  Precipitation levels can go up and down over time and can vary in different regions.  But the ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are causing temperatures to generally rise over time.  Warmer temperatures make the air more capable of pulling water out of the soil, out of vegetation, out of crops, and out of forests.  All of that makes drought conditions more severe.

A megadrought is generally considered to be one that is both severe and long.  But even during one, there can be wet years.  2005 was a notable one.  But there must be enough consecutive wet years to actually end a drought.

Several previous megadroughts over the past 1,200 years lasted as long as 30 years.  So, the current drought is in full swing and may go on for a long time to come.

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How Bad Is the Western Drought? Worst in 12 Centuries, Study Finds.

Photo, posted September 25, 2021, courtesy of David Sierralupe via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Is It Really Getting Warmer? | Earth Wise

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The primary indicator of global climate change is the Global Mean Surface Temperature of the Earth and the world’s nations are trying to keep its increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial level.   That rise in temperature is called the Global Surface Temperature Anomaly and it actually reached an all-time high in 2016 at 1.02 degrees before going back down.

At this point, you might be saying, “hold on there…  it hasn’t gotten larger over the past 5 years?”  What’s going on?

The global climate is pretty complicated and there are many things that influence it.  One of the most significant factors is the El Niño Southern Oscillation or, more familiarly, the El Niño.  The El Niño is a periodic and irregular variation in the sea surface temperature of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean driven by persistent westerly winds.  When an El Niño is happening, currents move to the west coast of South America and warm the tropics and subtropics.  This causes a spike in the global mean temperature.  There was a strong El Niño in 2016.

On the other hand, when easterly winds dominate to form a La Niña, cool water comes up from the depths of the Pacific and cools the atmosphere.  In 2017 and 2018, there was a fairly strong La Niña, lowering the global mean temperature.  2020 had no El Niño or La Niña, and the global temperature went back up to its previous peak.  Last year, there was again a La Niña and the temperature dipped again.

The global mean surface temperature has been rising in the industrial era, but it also fluctuates with the complicated dynamics of the Pacific Ocean.

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Why Isn’t It Getting Warmer?

Photo, posted February 12, 2016, courtesy of Amit Patel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

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WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)