MPs will vote later today on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow airport. Conservative MPs will be ordered to back the project, while Labour MPs will be given a free vote. About 40 Labour MPs are expected to vote with the government meaning it is widely expected that the expansion plan will get backing in the House of Commons. The Sunday Times says the government has ordered a “no-holds-barred effort” ensure the vote goes through. This includes sending Boris Johnson – who vowed to lie in front of bulldozers to stop Heathrow’s expansion – on a trip to Africa, and scheduling the vote before the latest report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). The CCC report “will warn that aviation and other emissions are growing so fast that homeowners and businesses may have to sacrifice gas cookers, central heating boilers and petrol cars for Britain to meet its climate change targets”, notes the Sunday Times. Writing in theIndependent, Labour MP Clive Lewis explains why he will not be supporting the plans: “To be clear – I will be voting against expansion. I feel I have no other choice, since the government has comprehensively failed to show how a third runway can be compatible with our climate change obligations”.

The Trump administration appears to be planning to shift the focus of one of the most important US science agencies that works on climate change, the New York Times reports. The latest mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was detailed in a presentation by Tim Gallaudet, the acting head of the agency, as part of a “Vision Setting Summit”. While the “past” mission of NOAA was to “understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans and coasts”, the “present” mission is to “observe, understand and predict atmospheric and ocean conditions”, the presentation slides say – removing the word “climate”. While it is common for agencies to shift priorities under a new administration, sweeping changes to the core mission of an agency are unusual, notes the Times. Andrew A. Rosenberg, a former NOAA scientist and senior executive who is now a director at the Union of Concerned Scientists described the move “a shocking change in the mission of one of the nation’s premier scientific agencies.” When contacted by the Times, Gallaudet said the presentation was “a simplified draft for discussion” and “was not intended to create change in NOAA mission or policy from what it was before”.

Saudi Arabia has struck a deal that will see the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) increase oil production in an effort to cool rising prices. The US, China and India had urged oil producers to release more supply to prevent an oil deficit that could undermine global economic growth, says Reuters. Among those calling for greater output was US President Donald Trump, who tweeted: “Hope Opec will increase output substantially. Need to keep prices down!”. Khalid al Falih, the Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, said output would be raised by “1m [barrels a day] collectively.” However, this figure was not included in the final statement from the meeting, suggesting a possible concession to Iran, Opec’s third-largest producer. Iran had demanded Opec reject calls from Trump for an increase in oil supply, arguing that he had contributed to a recent rise in prices by imposing sanctions on Iran and fellow member Venezuela. Despite the 1m target, “some countries will be unable to meet that level, making a net increase of about 700,000 barrels per day coming largely from Saudi Arabia the most likely result,” says the FT’s energy commentator, Nick Butler, in an opinion piece. The outcome of the meeting, however, “does nothing to address two uncertainties that will shape the oil market over the coming months and years,” adds Butler. The deal was agreed on Friday before being rubber-stamped by non-Opec producers, including Russia, on Saturday, reports another FT article. Meanwhile, Africa’s Congo Republic has become the cartel’s newest member, says Reuters. Oil prices jumped 3.5% in response to the announcement, says the Times, before dipping again this morning, notes the FT.

MPs will today quiz energy minister Claire Perry on why it has taken 18 months for a decision to be made on the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. The UK government has been urged by members of its own party to back the £1.3bn energy project – which would harness the power of the tides across the UK’s west coast – amid expectations ministers will pull the plug for cost reasons. The government had said an announcement was due nearly a fortnight ago but nothing has materialised, says the Guardian. A decision could come before the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee hearing this afternoon, but that is thought unlikely. Meanwhile, a new report suggests the number of people in the UK generating their own power has almost flatlined, says the Observer. In its 2018 “State of the Sector” report, Community Energy England (CEE) said cuts to subsidies for homeowners to install solar panels and a “hostile planning approach” to wind turbines are behind the “wholesale decline” in new grassroots energy.

Scientists have uncovered a new threat to the world’s coral reefs – most are incapable of growing quickly enough to compensate for rising sea levels caused by global warming. The research, published in Nature, studied growth rates for more than 200 tropical western Atlantic and Indian Ocean reefs. It was found only 9% of these reefs had the ability to keep up with even the most optimistic rates of sea level rise forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “For many reefs across the Caribbean and Indian Ocean regions, where the study focused, rates of growth are slowing due to coral reef degradation,” said lead author Prof Chris Perry. “Meanwhile, rates of sea level rise are increasing – and our results suggest reefs will be unable to keep up. As a result, water depths above most reefs will increase rapidly through this century.”

Saturday’s “AM” newsletter from Axios focuses on climate change, including maps of “where climate change will hit the US hardest”, a “what we know and don’t know” cheat sheet on the impact of climate change on weather extremes, and a “climate glossary for Trump (and everyone)”.

“Given how much is at stake for this island, there still appears to be a lack of urgency in the government when it comes to taking the drastic and rapid steps that are needed to cut our greenhouse gas emissions,” says an editorial in the Irish edition of the Times. The statistics on Ireland’s emissions “make grim reading”, the paper says, “Ireland’s emissions are rising, and are projected to do so for most of the next decade”. Part of the reason, the article explains, is that emissions from farming – “the single biggest source of carbon” for Ireland – are on the rise. “To show it is serious about climate change, ministers must face down rural lobby groups that want farming to be exempt from carbon taxes and that demand the government continues subsidising power stations that burn peat, the most damaging fuel in terms of global warming,” the editorial argues. Elsewhere, in the Irish edition of the Sun, columnist Oliver Callan picks up on the same topic. “We now have a scenario whereby the Government’s agri-business strategy to increase production is in direct conflict with its commitments to reduce emissions,” he writes.

To mark the 30th anniversary of climate scientist James Hansen’s testimony to congress on global warming, Grist’s Eric Holthaus asks 10 climate scientists to describe how Hansen’s work has affected them, and where they think the world’s response to climate change will go from here. Among the respondents are NASA’s Kate Marvel, Michael Oppenheimer from Princeton University and Kimberly Nicholas from Lund University. Elsewhere, Justin Gillis also looks back at James Hansen’s testimony in a piece for the New York Times.

Given the Paris Agreement it is important to understand the consequences of limiting global warming to 1.5°C and 2°C levels above pre-industrial conditions. It is challenging to quantify changes across a small increment of global warming, so a pattern-scaling approach can be considered. This paper we investigate the validity of such an approach by examining how well local temperatures and warming trends in a 1.5°C world predict local temperatures at 2°C warming using ensembles of climate model simulations. For many places pattern scaling works well, though individual model results vary and large contributions from non-linear changes cannot be ruled out. In some regions, such as East Asia, models simulate substantially greater warming than is expected from linear pattern scaling. Their findings suggest that, where forcings other than those due to greenhouse gas emissions change, the warming experienced in a 1.5°C world is a poor predictor for local climate at 2°C of global warming, and that natural variability remains a substantial contribution to uncertainty for these low-warming targets.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) lies atop a major volcanic rift system. However, identifying volcanoes under glaciers is challenging. This study shows evidence of a volcanic heat source upstream of the fast-melting Pine Island Ice Shelf. Volcanic heat induces melt beneath the grounded glacier and feeds the subglacial hydrological network crossing the grounding line. Volcanic heat is supplied to the grounded glacier at a rate of ~ 2500 ± 1700 MW, which is half as large as the active Grimsvötn volcano on Iceland. Their finding of a substantial volcanic heat source beneath a major WAIS glacier highlights the need to understand subglacial volcanism, and its potential role in the future stability of the WAIS.