person:tim radford

Earth has warmed as usual, with no slowdown - Climate News Networ
▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/earth-has-warmed-as-usual-with-no-slowdown

By Tim Radford

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US scientists re-examine the collection of data which seemed to show global warming slowing since 1998 and say temperatures have continued to rise steadily.

LONDON, 7 June, 2015 − Forget about the so-called “hiatus” in global warming. The planet’s average temperatures are notching up as swiftly now as they did 20 or 30 years ago.

A team of US researchers has looked again not just at the data for the last 60 years but at how it has been collected, and done the sums again. They conclude, in the journal Science, that the “estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature rise.”

#climat #température

Antarctic ice is under attack from sea and air - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/antarctic-ice-is-under-attack-from-sea-and-air

By Tim Radford

Satellite and radar studies show that twin forces causing the vast ice shelf to thin and become less stable could have a serious impact on global sea levels.

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LONDON, 18 May, 2015 − Scientists have measured the rate of thinning of the great sea ice shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula and have identified the mechanisms at work above and below the shelf.

The collapse of floating sea ice makes no direct difference to global sea levels – but the effects could nevertheless lead to higher waters everywhere.

#arctique #pôles #climat #antarctique

Tree-based farming could deliver abundant benefits - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/tree-based-farming-could-deliver-abundant-benefits

By Tim Radford

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In addition to mitigating the effects of climate change, forests can help alleviate hunger and provide a safety net for some of the world’s poorest people.

LONDON, 8 May, 2015 – Forests may be the green investment with the richest returns for humankind, according to new research.

While one study outlines the ways in which forests provide food, fuel, shelter and a safety net for more than a billion humans, a separate one confirms that a canopy of older, sturdier trees helps protect the saplings and juvenile growths against heat and drought.

An international team of more than 60 scientists collaborated on a report − Forests, Trees and Landscapes for Food Security and Nutrition: a Global Assessment Report − just published by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO).

#climat #forêt #foresterie #agriculture

No green light for whitening Arctic’s melting ice - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/no-green-light-for-whitening-arctics-melting-ice

By Tim Radford

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Scientists pour cold water on the idea of preventing ice melt by using geo-technology to keep it white so that it reflects sunlight and stays frozen.

LONDON, 4 May, 2015 – Yet another geo-engineering solution to climate change has been proven potentially useless: even if you could paint the Arctic white, the world would still get warmer.

For the second time in months, scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science in the US have shown that some technological solutions won’t work even in principle, let alone in practice.

#climat #arctique

High anxiety that mountain peaks are warming faster - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/high-anxiety-that-mountain-peaks-are-warming-faster

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By Tim Radford

Scientists call for international efforts to determine why temperatures on high-altitude mountains appear to be rising faster than in nearby lowlands.

LONDON, 28 April, 2015 − Temperatures could be climbing on mountains − with new research suggesting that the highest altitudes may be warming at a rate greater than expected.

Members of the Mountain Research Initiative collective report in Nature Climate Change that they found evidence that mountain peak regions were warming faster than the surrounding plateaus and lowlands.

#climat #montagne

Carbon storage hopes rise again - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/carbon-storage-hopes-rise-again

By Tim Radford

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Carbon capture and storage, if it proved possible, would help to make the main greenhouse gas harmless. American scientists say they are making progress.

LONDON, 20 April, 2015 – Two groups of US scientists are exploring new ways of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One technology mimics the tree by using artificial photosynthesis. The other exploits a membrane that is a thousand times more efficient than any tree.

Although the nations of the world agreed in 2009 to attempt to limit the global warming temperature rise this century to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, colossal quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide are still being emitted into the atmosphere.

#climat #co2 #co2_emissions #carbone

Antarctica blows hot and cold – for now - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/antarctica-blows-hot-and-cold-for-now

By Tim Radford

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Natural variability may at the moment be affecting Antarctica’s temperature more than human activity, but climate change will still be a major influence.

LONDON, 19 April, 2015 – German scientists have identified a pattern of natural change in Antarctica. The discovery appears to suggest that human influence may not be a cause of apparent warming in the seas around the great, frozen continent. Instead, natural variability might have a role.

#pôles #arctique #antrctique #climat

Permafrost holds key to release of trapped carbon - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/permafrost-holds-key-to-release-of-trapped-carbon

By Tim Radford

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The frozen soil of the northern polar regions holds billions of tonnes of organ carbon – and global warming could speed its escape into the atmosphere.

LONDON, 14 April, 2015 − Three sets of scientists in the same week have helped narrow the uncertainties about how the natural world will respond to extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

#climat

Investors chip in as renewables rise towards record level - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/investors-chip-in-as-renewables-rise-towards-record-level

By Tim Radford

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Climate-friendly boost for global energy mix as scientists say solar power alone could now meet the needs of California five times over.

LONDON, 12 April, 2015 − Carbon dioxide levels might be soaring, and governments might be slow to reduce fossil fuel emissions and contain climate change − but the smart money could nevertheless be going into renewable sources such as wind and solar power.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says green energy investments rose by 17% in 2014 to reach a total of $270bn − the first annual increase in three years, and just 3% behind the all-time record set in 2011 of $279bn.

#climat

Rich nations urged to cut temperature rise targets - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/rich-nations-urged-to-cut-temperature-rise-targets

By Tim Radford

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Senior scientist says voices of poorer nations must be heard in the political tussle over reducing the “utterly inadequate” global warming limit.

LONDON, 31 March, 2015 − The official target of limiting global warming to a 2˚C rise has been described by a senior scientist as “utterly inadequate” to protect the people most at risk from climate change.

That’s the conclusion reached by one of the authors of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report, in an analysis of the political tussle between rich and poor nations at last December’s UN conference on limiting temperature rise.

Richer countries were happy to limit global average temperature rises to 2˚C, while middle and low-income nations would have preferred to contain warming within 1.5˚ C or lower.

#climat #mondialisation #riches #pauvres #richesse #pauvreté #température

Growing threat to Amazon’s crucial carbon sink - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/growing-threat-to-amazons-crucial-carbon-sink

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By Tim Radford

Massive new study shows that pressures on the Amazon rainforest mean it can no longer be relied on to soak up more CO2 from the atmosphere than it puts out.

LONDON, 19 March, 2015 − The Amazon rainforest, for so long one of the vital “green lungs” of the planet, is losing its capacity to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, according to new research.

Two decades ago, the forest drew down a peak of two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year from the atmosphere. Now, according to a massive new study in Nature journal by more than 90 scientists, the rate of withdrawal has fallen to around half that total.

#forêt #amazonie #climat #déforestation #co2

Warming raises California’s vulnerability to drought - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/warming-raises-californias-vulnerability-drought

By Tim Radford

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US researchers say climate change, not random chance, is likely to be causing California’s long drought, one of the worst on record.

LONDON, 3 March, 2015 – Climate change could be driving the sustained Californian drought. Arid spells have been more frequent in the last two decades than in the preceding century. And warmer global temperatures linked to man-made climate change could be at the heart of it.

Right now, California is in the sustained grip of one of its worst-ever droughts. Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University in California and colleagues looked at the patterns of precipitation, temperature and drought in the historical record and report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the latest conditions were not just a random outcome.

In a sunlit landscape with a long record of intermittent drought, researchers make such predictions only cautiously. But the Stanford team worked through 120 years of rainfall, snowfall and temperature data to identify connections.

#californie #eau #sécheresse #états-unis

Big cities head for water crisis as populations explode - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/big-cities-head-water-crisis-populations-explode

By Tim Radford

With more than half the world’s population now in cities, scientists warn that inadequate surface water supplies will leave many at increasing risk of drought.

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LONDON, 21 February, 2015 − More than 40% of the world’s great cities supplied by surface water could become vulnerable to shortages and drought by 2040, according to new research. And more than three out of 10 were already vulnerable in 2010.

Meanwhile, the vital array of satellites designed to monitor rainfall and to warn of potential flooding is reported to be coming to the end of its shelf life.

For the first time in history, more than half the world’s population is now concentrated in cities, and this proportion is predicted to increase to two-thirds. Cities grow up near plentiful water supplies − and as a population explodes, so does demand. But the flow remains much the same.

Arid areas of US face prospect of ’megadroughts’ - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/arid-areas-us-face-prospect-megadroughts

By Tim Radford

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Scientists in the US predict droughts worse than the extreme conditions believed to have played a part in ending a once-flourishing medieval culture.

LONDON, 15 February, 2015 − The Central Plains and Southwest region of the US face “unprecedented” droughts later this century, according to new research.

While Midwest states have experienced ever more flooding over the last 50 years, the regions already suffering from extremes of aridity are being warned to expect megadroughts worse than any conditions in the last 1,000 years.

#climat #états-unis #sécheresse

Climate data gives mixed message on storm forecasts - Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/climate-data-gives-mixed-message-storm-forecasts

By Tim Radford

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New research suggests that climate change won’t after all lead to more storms − but the bad ones could be even more devastating.

LONDON, 8 February, 2015 − Keep calm and hold on to your hat. The atmosphere will not become increasingly stormy as the planet warms and the climate changes.

The downside is that while the number of storms will probably remain unchanged, and weak storms could even become weaker, new research warns that the strongest storms could become significantly stronger.

For at least three decades, researchers have worked on the assumption that as the average energy of the atmosphere increased with warming, so would the potential for extremes of heat and drought, flood and cyclone, typhoon or hurricane.

#climat #désatres_naturel

Data adds to confusion over polar sea ice | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/07/data-adds-to-confusion-over-polar-sea-ice

By Tim Radford

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Possible errors in the interpretation of satellite data may help to explain scientists’ puzzlement over indications that sea ice cover is apparently increasing in the Antarctic, but is shrinking visibly in the Arctic.

LONDON, 26 July, 2014 − Scientists believe they may have found explanations for two inconsistencies in their understanding of global warming.

One cause for head scratching is in the Antarctic, where the sea ice seems to be getting bigger when it ought to be shrinking, and another has been the apparent slowdown overall in the rate of global warming for the last decade.

Offshore turbines get approval of seals | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/07/offshore-turbines-get-approval-of-seals

By Tim Radford

Researchers tracking the movements of seals in the North Sea reveal that “artificial reefs” created by wind farms and pipelines are becoming attractive as foraging grounds on fishing expeditions.

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LONDON, 25 July, 2014 − Environmental campaigners and countryside conservators aren’t the only fans of those great arrays of turbines, generating renewable energy from the winds at sea. Grey and harbour seals in the North Sea are beginning to show a preference for offshore wind farms as well.

Deborah Russell, research fellow at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and colleagues tracked the movements of both the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) and the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus).

#climat #énergie_renouvelable

Europe faces deadly cost for climate inaction | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/07/europe-faces-deadly-cost-for-climate-inaction

By Tim Radford

A failure to act to reduce the impacts of climate change could cost Europe dear in lives lost and economic damage, according to a European Commission study.

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LONDON, 13 July 2014 − Inaction over climate change costs lives. And in the case of European inaction, it is estimated that this could one day cost 200,000 lives a year.

That is the warning in a new European Commission (EC) study, which also says that failing to take the necessary action could burn 8,000 square kilometres of forest, and commit European taxpayers to at least €190 billion (US$259 bn) a year in economic losses.

#climat #europe

Arctic warming upsets birds’ breeding calendar | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/07/arctic-warming-upsets-birds-breeding-calendar

By Tim Radford

As global warming increasingly causes Arctic snow to melt earlier, researchers warn that it could have a long-term adverse effect on the breeding success of migrant birds.

LONDON, 8 July, 2014 − Arctic migrants are nesting up to seven days earlier as the world warms. The sandpiper makes a beeline for the Alaskan shores, to join the phalarope on the beach and the songbirds in the woods − and all because the winter snows are melting earlier.

#climat #arctique #biodiversité #oiseaux
Conservation scientists Joe Liebezeit and Steve Zack – both then of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) – and colleagues report in the journal Polar Biology that they looked into nearly 2,500 nests of four shorebird species in Alaska – two sandpipers, two phalaropes − and a songbird called the Lapland songspur over a nine-year period.

Quick fixes won’t solve CO2 danger | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/07/quick-fixes-wont-solve-co2-danger

By Tim Radford

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New research backs up the growing body of evidence that the only way to limit global warming in the long term is a serious cut in carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.

LONDON, 6 July, 2014 − Once again, US scientists have come to the same conclusion: there really is no alternative. The only way to contain climate change and limit global warming, they say, is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

It won’t really help to concentrate on limiting methane emissions, or even potent greenhouse gases such as hydrofluorcarbons, or nitrous oxide, or the soot and black carbon that also contribute to global warming. Containing all or any of them would make a temporary difference, but the only thing that can work in the long run is a serious cut in carbon dioxide emissions.

#climat #co2

Cutting emissions is ‘perfect option’ | Climate News Network

►http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/06/cutting-emissions-is-perfect-option

By Tim Radford

New research supports findings that the best way to limit global warming is simply by ending the use of fossil fuels, rather than ambitious climate engineering projects to reduce the sun’s effects

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LONDON, 3 June − There is no alternative. To limit global warming and contain climate change, societies have no real option but to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to new research. There might be additional useful steps that nations could take, but nothing will be as effective as simply not burning fossil fuels.

#climat #co2

Underworld threat to melting icecap | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/06/underworld-threat-to-melting-icecap

By Tim Radford

Radar images of Greenland’s glaciers have revealed a spectacular underground landscape of “skyscraper” ice blocks created by a melt-and-freeze cycle that is accelerating the reduction of the icecap

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LONDON, 16 June − Researchers in the US have identified a new reason for the acceleration in the melting of Greenland’s icecap − the ice underneath, as it melts and then refreezes, appears to speed up glacial flow.

#climat #arctique

Dark shadow falls on melting icecap | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/06/dark-shadow-falls-on-melting-icecap

By Tim Radford

Dust blowing in from warming areas of the Arctic is causing the Greenland icecap to melt faster by reducing the whiteness that reflects light and keeps it cool

LONDON, 13 June − French scientists have identified a new mechanism that could cause the Greenland icecap to melt even faster – because dust is making its surface darker.

Marie Dumont, of the French national meteorological service, Météo-France, reports with colleagues in Nature Geoscience that, since 2009, the snows of the Arctic region’s biggest single permanent white space have been steadily darkened by “light-absorbing impurities” − known to the rest of the world simply as dust.

#climat #arctique

Buried carbon causes deep concern | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/05/buried-carbon-causes-deep-concern

By Tim Radford

Deep beneath the Great Plains of America, a vast buried store of organic carbon has been discovered by scientists − a hidden record of bygone climate, and a potentially serious danger to the future climate

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LONDON, 30 May − Geographers in the US have found a new factor in the carbon cycle, and – all too ominously – a new potential source of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. They have identified huge deposits of fossil soils, rich in organic carbon, buried beneath the Great Plains of America.

The discovery is evidence that the subterranean soils could be a rich store, or sink, for ancient atmospheric carbon. But if the soil is exposed – by erosion, or by human activities such as agriculture, deforestation or mining – this treasure trove of ancient charred vegetation, now covered by wind-blown soils, could blow back into the atmosphere and add to global warming.

#climat #co2 #carbon

Greenland ice may melt even faster | Climate News Network

▻http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/05/greenland-ice-may-melt-even-faster

By Tim Radford

Research scientists discover that the vulnerability of Greenland’s glaciers to global warming is much greater than feared, increasing the threat of rising sea levels around the globe

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LONDON, 24 May − Just days after US researchers identified geophysical reasons why West Antarctica’s glaciers are increasingly vulnerable to global warming, a partner team has pinpointed a related cause for alarm in Greenland.

Many of the bedrock crevices and canyons down which the island’s glaciers flow have basements that are below sea level. This means that as warm Atlantic waters hit the glacier fronts, the glaciers themselves become more vulnerable to global warming and increasingly likely to melt at a faster rate.

#climat #arctique #groenland