Veille 2.1

An intense heat wave gripping South and South-East Asia since late March comes as no surprise to leading meteorologists who have been warning of steadily rising temperatures in the Indian Ocean.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford has used the fossil record to better understand what factors make animals more vulnerable to extinction from climate change. The results, published today in the journal Science, could help to identify species most at risk today from human-driven climate change.

Scientists express concern over health impacts, with another study finding particles in arteries

Marine heat waves will become a regular occurrence in the Arctic in the near future and are a product of higher anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a study just released by Dr. Armineh Barkhordarian from Universität Hamburg's Cluster of Excellence for climate research CLICCS. Since 2007, conditions in the Arctic have shifted, as confirmed by data recently published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. Between 2007 and 2021, the marginal zones of the Arctic Ocean experienced 11 marine heat waves, producing an average temperature rise of 2.2 degrees Celsius above seasonal norm and lasting an average of 37 days. Since 2015, there have been Arctic marine heat waves every year.

Scientists now have a better understanding of the risks ahead and a new early warning signal to watch for.

Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible

RealClimate: A new paper was published in Science Advances today. Its title says what it is about: "Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course." The study follows one by Danish colleagues which made headlines last July, likewise looking for early warning signals for approaching an AMOC tipping point (we discussed it here),

Existing production destroys more value than it creates due to medical and environmental costs, researchers say

Total is 20% higher than thought and may have implications for collapse of globally important north Atlantic ocean currents The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought. Some scientists are concerned that this additional source of freshwater pouring into the north Atlantic might mean a collapse of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is closer to being triggered, with severe consequences for humanity.

Exclusive: UK climate campaign group Possible calls for ‘polluter pays’ tax based on vehicle size

The world’s first study of the increase in pollution from landscape fires across the globe over the past two decades reveals that over 2 billion people are exposed to at least one day of potentially health-impacting environmental hazard annually – a figure that has increased by 6.8 per cent in the last ten years.

f global warming reaches or exceeds two degrees Celsius by 2100, University of Western Ontario's Joshua Pearce says it is likely that mainly richer humans will be responsible for the death of roughly one billion mainly poorer humans over the next century. The oil and gas industry, which includes many of the most profitable and powerful businesses in the world, is directly and indirectly responsible for more than 40% of carbon emissions—impacting the lives of billions of people, many living in the world's most remote and low-resourced communities. A new study proposes aggressive energy policies that would enable immediate and substantive decreases to carbon emissions and recommends a heightened level of government, corporate and citizen action to accelerate the decarbonization of the global economy, aiming to minimize the number of projected human deaths.

Link to climate activism is seven times stronger for anger than it is for hope, say Norwegian researchers

A collapse would bring catastrophic climate impacts but scientists disagree over the new analysis

Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems could collapse ‘very soon’, researchers warn

Research allays fears that rapid scaling back of production would hit people’s savings and pensions hard

Recycled and reused food contact plastics are “vectors for spreading chemicals of concern” because they accumulate and release hundreds of dangerous toxins like styrene, benzene, bisphenol, heavy metals, formaldehyde and phthalates, new research finds.

Read the latest news headlines and analysis about politics, sports, business, lifestyle and entertainment from award winning Irish and British journalists.

Pools and well-watered gardens at least as damaging as climate emergency or population growth

Those with higher levels of PFAS in their blood had 40% lower chance of conceiving within a year of trying

UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year

Population likely to peak sooner and lower than expected with beneficial results – but environment is priority

The Greenland Ice Sheet covers 1.7 million square kilometers (660,200 square miles) in the Arctic. If it melts entirely, global sea level would rise about 7 meters (23 feet), but scientists aren't sure how quickly the ice sheet could melt. Modeling tipping points, which are critical thresholds where a system behavior irreversibly changes, helps researchers find out when that melt might occur.

Heat and cold are now established health risk factors, with several studies reporting important mortality effects in populations around the world.1, 2, 3 The associated health burden is expected to increase with climate change, especially under the most extreme scenarios of global warming.4, 5 However, robust estimates of excess mortality in the current and future periods are still challenging to obtain due to the numerous factors influencing vulnerability to heat and cold, including climatic, environmental, and socioeconomic conditions.6 These factors represent the main drivers of variation in mortality risks, which have been shown to differ geographically and across age groups.

Examination of trees alive at the time shows three years of severe drought that may have caused crop failures and famine

Electric utilities are likely responsible for the nation’s higher than expected emissions of sulfur hexafluoride, a greenhouse gas 25,000 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide.

Researchers found that exceeding the 2C increase has a 50% chance of happening by mid-century

An international team of scientists painstakingly gathered data from more than 50 years of seagoing scientific drilling missions to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of organic carbon that falls to the bottom of the ocean and gets drawn deep inside the planet.

Small patches of land given over to wildlife-friendly planting can make a big difference to pollinator conservation, a new study suggests. Bee and other pollinator populations in Europe and North America are in decline due to a range of factors including habitat loss and insufficient flowers for food.

MIT researchers have confirmed that Earth harbors a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to keep global temperatures within a steady, habitable range.“On the one hand, it’s good because we know that today’s global warming will eventually be canceled out through this stabilizing feedback,” says Constantin Arnscheidt, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “But on the other hand, it will take hundreds of thousands of years to happen, so not fast enough to solve our present-day issues.”

Materials put into domestic compost are failing to disintegrate after six months – the only solution is to use less. Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much as 60% failing to disintegrate after six months, according to research.

National climate pledges would collectively require 1.2 billion hectares (about 3 billion acres) of land, researchers have found in a new study, The Land Gap Report. More than half of this land is already currently used for something else. This demand for land will put pressure on ecosystems, Indigenous lands, small farmers and food security. Protecting existing forests and securing Indigenous and community land rights are more effective than carbon capture plans requiring land-use change, including reforestation.

Filter-feeding whales are consuming millions of particles of microplastic pollution a day, according to a study, making them the largest consumers of plastic waste on the planet. The central estimate for blue whales was 10m pieces a day, meaning more than 1bn pieces could be ingested over a three- to four-month feeding season. The weight of plastic consumed over the season was estimated at between 230kg and 4 tonnes.

Lost nets, lines and hooks trap wildlife for years as they float in the ocean, sink to the bottom or are washed ashore

Healthy teenagers are more prone to irregular heartbeats after breathing in fine particulate air pollution, according to the first major study of its impact on otherwise healthy young individuals. The findings have raised concern among researchers because heart arrhythmias, which can increase the risk of heart disease and sudden cardiac death, appear to be triggered even when air pollution is within common air quality limits.

Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have passed point of irreversible change

Shallow deposits of frozen methane beneath oceans may be more vulnerable to thawing than previously known.

Pennsylvania children living near fracking sites at birth are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia during early childhood than those who did not live near such facilities, a new study has found.

We are an interdisciplinary research centre within the University of Cambridge dedicated to the study and mitigation of existential risks

Over the past 60 years, the global forest area has declined by 81.7 million hectares, a loss that contributed to the more than 60% decline in global forest area per capita. This loss threatens the future of biodiversity and impacts the lives of 1.6 billion people worldwide, according to a new study published today by IOP Publishing in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Greenhouse gas has undergone rapid acceleration and scientists say it may be due to atmospheric changes

Governments not listening to people with disabilities despite them being at high risk, say researchers

Researchers call for recognition of latest online strategies used to derail climate action

Vegetated areas above the treeline in the Alps have increased by 77% since 1984, the study says. While retreating glaciers have symbolised the speed of global heating in the Alpine region, researchers described the increases in plant biomass as an “absolutely massive” change.

Strong climate action could wipe $756bn from individuals’ pension funds and other investments in rich countries

“Carbon Bombs” - Mapping key fossil fuel projects, a study by Kjell Kühne, from the School of Geography is referenced in a Guardian special report on climate breakdown

Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet. The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.

Deaths from exposure to emissions from vehicles, smoke stacks and wildfires have increased by more than 50 percent this century, with poorer countries bearing the brunt of the impacts.

Exclusive: Nearly half existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5C, scientists say

Countries should move from coal to renewable energy without shifting to gas as a “transition” fuel to save money, as high gas prices and market volatility have made the fossil fuel an expensive option, analysis has found. Natural gas has long been touted as a “transition” fuel for economies dependent on coal for their power needs, as it has lower carbon dioxide emissions than coal but requires similar centralised infrastructure, and gas-fired power stations take only a couple of years to build. Earlier this year, before Russia invaded Ukraine, the European Commission angered green campaigners by including gas as a “bridge” to clean energy in its guidebook for green investment.

PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in fields and report finds that about 20m acres of cropland could be contaminated

Presentation of the book "Beyond the Limits," a new report to the Club of Roma edited by Ugo Bardi and Carlos Alvarez Pereira. It tells the story of the 1972 study "The Limits to Growth" and its relevance 50 years later.

A new study describes a period of rapid global climate change in an ice-capped world much like the present—but 304 million years ago. Within about 300,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels doubled, oceans became anoxic, and biodiversity dropped on land and at sea.

Metals will play a central role in successfully building Europe’s clean technology value chains and meeting the EU’s 2050 climate-neutrality goal. In the wake of supply disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s lack of resilience for its growing metals needs has become a strategic concern. This study evaluates how Europe can fulfil its goal of “achieving resource security” and “reducing strategic dependencies” for its energy transition metals, through a demand, supply, and sustainability assessment of the EU Green Deal and its resource needs . It concludes that Europe has a window of opportunity to lay the foundation for a higher level of strate- gic autonomy and sustainability for its strategic metals through optimised recycling, domestic value chain investment, and more active global sourcing. But firm action is needed soon to avoid bottlenecks for several materials that risk being in global short supply at the end of this decade.

For the first time the world is in a position to limit global heating to under 2C, according to the first in-depth analysis of the net zero pledges made by nations at the UN Cop26 climate summit in December.

UV filters absorbed by Posidonia oceanica may have damaging effects on ecosystems, scientists warn

Accusations of greenwashing against major oil companies that claim to be in transition to clean energy are well-founded, according to the most comprehensive study to date.

The Stockholm University study highlights the chemicals’ mobility, which has been found in penguin eggs and polar bears

Wood smoke is a more important carcinogen than vehicle fumes, finds Athens analysis

Study finds natural regrowth yields better results than human plantings and offers hope for climate recovery