The UN aviation organisation has been captured by the industry, a report has concluded, leading to the urgent action required to tackle the sector’s high carbon emissions being blocked.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Fossil fuels made the nation prosperous but as reserves dwindle, do they drill deeper, even as the Caribbean feels the heat of the climate crisis, or shift to a greener economy?

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/27733096

• New research analyzing more than 3,000 tropical forest sites reveals that areas with fewer seed-dispersing animals store up to four times less carbon than forests with healthy wildlife populations.
• The study found that 81% of tropical trees rely on animals to disperse their seeds, establishing an ancient partnership now threatened by human activities such as deforestation, road construction, and hunting.
• Researchers mapped global “seed dispersal disruption” and found it explains a 57% reduction in carbon storage potential across proposed forest restoration areas.
• The findings demonstrate that protecting wildlife and addressing climate change are interconnected challenges, with conservation strategies like wildlife corridors and species reintroduction offering approaches that serve both biodiversity and climate stability.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Every year in the Gulf of Panama, between December and April, trade winds from the north push warm surface water away from the coast, allowing cool, nutrient-rich water from the depths to rise, in a process called upwelling. This is critical for the region’s marine life and fisheries. However, for the first time in at least 40 years, this upwelling failed in 2025, likely due to altered trade winds, a recent study reports.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/27726079

Growing tall trees to provide shade for cocoa plantations in west Africa could sequester millions of tonnes of carbon, according to a new study.

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The grim death toll from heat waves across European cities this past summer would be captured in shocking headlines if they happened all at once, in a bombing or plane crash—835 in Rome, 630 in Athens, 409 in Paris.

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“Experts do not believe that we can adapt health systems adequately to cope with the temperatures that we are currently facing. That’s why reducing fossil fuel use is one of the most important public health interventions of our time.”

Reducing fossil fuel use too rapidly would be suicidal; the rapid increase in temperature would make adaptation more difficult.

archived (Wayback Machine)

The main driver of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels like gasoline, oil and coal.

Misinformation. No matter how many times journalists repeat this line, the facts do not change. The only way to reach this conclusion is using severely flawed emissions accounting.

Coal, oil and gas have been killing people for centuries. We’re still paying for it.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

Here we go again. An obscure, methodologically poor, paper published with little to no review makes a convenient point and gets elevated into supposedly ‘blockbusting’ science by the merchants of bullshit, sorry, doubt. Actual scientists drop everything to respond, but not before the (convenient) nonsense has spread widely. Rebuttals are written and submitted, but by the time they are published everyone has moved on.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/28324402

Earth’s water cycle is becoming harder to predict as the climate changes, UN scientists have warned.

Last year was the sixth in a row to show an erratic cycle and the third where all glacier regions reported ice loss, according to the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) state of global water resources report for 2024, released on Thursday.

They found that around 60% of rivers globally showed either too much or too little water compared to the average flow per year.

While the world has natural cycles of climate variability from year to year, long-term trends outlined in the report indicate the water cycle, at a global scale, is accelerating.

Stefan Uhlenbrook, WMO director of hydrology in the water and cryosphere division, said scientists feel it is “increasingly difficult to predict”.

“It’s more erratic – so either too much or too low on average flow per year,” he said.

As global warming drives higher global temperatures, the atmosphere can hold more water, leading either to longer dry periods or more intense rainfall.

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• Tropical forests exchange more CO2 with the atmosphere than any other terrestrial biome, meaning that even a relatively small shift in the balance of carbon uptake and release there could have a big impact on global climate. Despite this, research on tropical soil responses to warming has lagged behind.
• In a field experiment in Puerto Rico, researchers used infrared heaters to warm understory plants and topsoil by 4° Celsius. Warming significantly increased soil carbon emissions, but terrain also had a major impact: A warmed plot at the top of a slope showed an unprecedented 204% increase in CO2 emissions after one year.
• Carbon emissions from plots lower on the slope increased between 42% and 59% in response to warming — in line with the results from the only other long-term tropical soil warming experiment to date. However, the upper-slope response represents the largest change in any soil warming experiment conducted globally.
• The new study results add to a growing body of evidence that tropical soils are far more sensitive to warming than previously thought. If elevated tropical soil CO2 releases persist in the long term, it could have dire consequences for Earth’s climate. But the soil biome may adjust over time, so future effects remain unclear.

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• research cited

• Arctic sea ice hit its 2025 summer minimum without setting a record low on Sept. 10, despite a historically low winter maximum earlier in the year.
• Scientists say sea ice loss has slowed over the past 20 years due to natural variability in atmospheric and ocean systems, counterbalancing the impacts from human-caused climate change.
• However, researchers warn that this slowdown likely offers only a temporary reprieve, and that the continued escalation of global warming could cause rapid sea ice loss before 2050.
• The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center for the first time switched to using Japanese sea ice data after losing access to key U.S. military satellite data, which had allowed for a continuous Arctic sea ice record since 1979.

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Nearly 200 shipping companies said Monday they want the world’s largest maritime nations to adopt regulations that include the first-ever global fee on greenhouse gases to reduce their sector’s emissions.

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Grave remarks on the potential shocks to people, property and the economy are all too familiar. Putting a credible number on the emissions target is the harder part

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National climate risk assessment report finds heat-related deaths would surge 450% in Sydney if global heating surpasses 3°C

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/28179424

One and a half million Australians are at risk from sea levels rising by 2050 unless climate change can be limited, Australia’s first national climate risk assessment has warned.

It found under 1.5C of warming, sea levels would rise by 0.14m, but they would rise by 0.54m under a 3C scenario — with Queensland home to 18 of the 20 most-exposed regions.

The assessment, which is the single most-significant body of climate work by the Australian government, also warns that 597,000 people are living in areas that will become exposed to sea level rise by 2030.

The grim document has been released days ahead of the federal government committing to its emissions target for 2035, and a meeting at the United Nations where countries will update their commitments.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said the assessment was an honest warning of the cost of failing to act.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

• Between 2002 and 2015, forest loss in Brazil’s southern Amazon reduced the amount of rainfall during the dry season by more than 5%, a recent study found.
• Researchers studying how deforestation in the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso affected the atmospheric water cycle between 2002 and 2015 found that a reduction in forest cover reduced evapotranspiration and disrupted regional atmospheric systems.
• Lower rainfall during the dry season can compromise crops, boost wildfires, and reduce water supplies and river levels, sometimes leaving communities isolated.

The team from Nanjing University, China, and the University of Leeds, U.K., analyzed how deforestation in the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso — which together are responsible for about 30% of all deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in recent decades — affected the atmospheric water cycle between 2002 and 2015. They found that a 3.2% mean loss of forest cover led to a 5.4% reduction in dry season rainfall, highlighting that precipitation in the Amazon is highly sensitive to changes in forest cover.

[...]

“Agriculture is the major driver of deforestation in this region,” Spracklen said. “Nothing else comes close.”

Alencar said land grabbers also burn forests to signal ownership and claim territory, perpetuating an illicit cycle of clearing and land speculation.

Yet clearing forests undermines agricultural productivity. The study warns that reduced rainfall made worse by deforestation dries soils and stresses crops. Other research has predicted that continued deforestation and its impacts on rainfall could cost Brazil hundreds of billions of dollars in agricultural losses by 2050. Effectively, by destroying the Amazon, agribusiness is undermining its own viability.

[...]

Though reforestation can restore some ecological functions, Spracklen said protecting remaining primary forests takes precedence. Once the trees are burned or cleared, recovery can be slow and incomplete. “It’s a lot like triage. You’ve got to deal with the deforestation first, before you think about recovery,” he told Mongabay.

“We’ve got this very short period to get this right,” he added. “Once [the rainforest] is gone, we will look back with a lot of regret.”

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After years underestimating the risks posed by climate-fueled disasters, the U.S. home insurance industry is in turmoil. In vulnerable areas, rising insurance costs are upending housing markets and communities, as homeowners scramble to try to find insurance they can afford.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)