Earth sets a temperature record for the third straight year, Global warning, & more
News
Earth sets a temperature record for the third straight year
There is widespread international media coverage of the news that 2016 has been confirmed as the hottest year on record. The New York Times said it marked “another milestone for a changing planet”. It adds: “The Earth reached its highest temperature on record in 2016, trouncing a record set only a year earlier, which beat one set in 2014. It is the first time in the modern era of global warming data that temperatures have blown past the previous record three years in a row…The Earth is heating up, a point long beyond serious scientific dispute.” Reuters notes the timing: “The data…was issued two days before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, who questions whether climate change has a human cause.” It quotes Prof Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds, who says this year is likely to be cooler. “Unless we have a major volcanic eruption, I expect the record to be broken again within a few years.” The Financial Times notes that El Nino “only added a relatively small 0.2C of warming to the [1C] rise recorded”. Prof Peter Stott of the Met Office says that “the main contributor to warming over the last 150 years is human influence on climate from increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”. The Washington Post, BBC News, Guardian and Times are among the many other publications covering the story. Carbon Brief also has in-depth coverage.
Global warning
The Guardian is devoting the next 24 hours to climate change with a special feature called “Global Warning”. It introduces the special thus: “Amid fears Donald Trump’s administration will shatter decades of hard-won progress on climate change, the Guardian is teaming up with Univision to deliver 24 hours of live coverage from around the world on what is at stake. Hours from Trump taking power, we will be reporting from all seven continents, in English and Spanish, hearing from those most affected, and exploring what ordinary people can do to protect the planet. The Tumblr community will also join the project to share their views on climate change.” The content already published includes a (very tough) interactive quiz, a comment piece by George Monbiot on Trump, a carbon budget countdown clock, and a piece called “Reasons the be cheerful” by Chris Goodall. The paper leads with a news article headlined, “Make America great again by embracing green tech, Trump urged”. The Guardian team is also hosting a live-blog throughout the day where it will be posting all its content and interacting with readers.
Trump EPA pick expresses doubts on climate, defends oil industry funding
Donald Trump’s choice to lead the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expressed doubt about the science behind climate change during a contentious Senate confirmation hearing yesterday, reports Reuters. However, “he added he would be obliged for now to uphold the EPA’s finding carbon dioxide poses a public danger.” The Hill says Bernie Saunders, the senator who made an unsuccessful run to be the Democrat presidential nominee last year, “castigated” Pruitt for calling for “more debate” about human influence on climate change. The Washington Post described the exchanges between the two men as “pretty intense”. It includes a transcript of the key moments during the hearing. The New York Times said his statements were “not consistent with the scientific consensus on climate change”, but added that “it is highly likely that Mr Pruitt will be confirmed by the full Senate. He is expected to receive support from all 51 Senate Republicans and from Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia.”
Fracking is acceptable, says church
The Church of England has concluded that fracking can be morally acceptable, reports Gosden in her new role as the Times’s energy editor. “After years of internal debate on the issue, the church has published an extensive briefing paper giving cautious support for fracking subject to conditions, including strict regulation, environmental monitoring and compensation for those affected,” she writes, adding: “It concluded that fracking could be useful to tackle climate change as long as shale gas replaced dirtier energy sources. The position puts it at odds with groups such as Christian Aid, which opposes all fracking on climate grounds.” The Guardian also covers the story.
Mapped: The coal power plants China just suspended
Energydesk has mapped the 104 coal-fired power plants which, according to Greenpeace analysis, have been “suddenly suspended by the Chinese government”. It says: “China’s rapid clean energy expansion has seen growth in power demand covered entirely from non-fossil energy sources since 2013, allowing coal-fired power generation to fall. This has made the vast amount of coal-fired power plants that were still under construction and planning completely redundant.” The analysis is also reported by the New York Times.
Tories must ‘loudly disown’ Donald Trump’s climate change denial or pay the electoral price, think tank warns
Tories must “loudly disown” the climate science denial espoused by Donald Trump and similar sceptics in the UK or they could pay a price at the ballot box as the effects of global warming become clear, a think tank has warned. In an article for The Independent, Sam Hall, of Bright Blue, which campaigns for liberal conservatism, warned the centre-right could be “contaminated” as the “increasingly irrelevant ideas” of climate sceptics are shown not to be true. Hall’s article name-checks the likes of James Delingpole and Dominic Lawson, the son of Lord Lawson, who chairs the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate sceptic lobby group.
The Guardian view on Trump and global warming: the right fight
“There’s no doubt the world will lose out if America decides to relinquish global leadership on battling climate change,” writes the Guardian in an editorial. “But Mr Trump’s fossil fuel plans are likely to flounder without higher hydrocarbon prices.” It adds: “experts say that the best way for Mr Trump to make America great is to create the well-paid, fulfilling jobs that the “technologies of the future” promise. If he does not, then there’s a threat made in a language that Mr Trump understands: protectionism…With or without the US, the fight against climate change will go on. It’s just that victory will be harder to deliver.”
Comment
The shift to ‘base-cost’ renewables: 10 predictions for 2017
Michael Liebreich & Angus McCrone, Bloomberg New Energy Finance
The chairman and chief editor of BNEF have made the annual predictions for the global clean energy sector: “One of the biggest risks to clean energy lies in a potential jump in interest rates. The era of super-low central bank rates is most likely drawing to a close.” However, they add: “The good news is that renewable energy has – at least on a levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, basis – clearly achieved the long-awaited goal of grid competitiveness.” Other predictions include: Solar installations fall in China but rise worldwide; Coal and oil rallies peter out; and EVs break the million vehicle milestone.
Science
Characterisation of heat waves in the Sahel and associated physical mechanisms
In the last 30 years, heatwaves in the Sahel region of West Africa have been getting more frequent, lasting longer, covering larger areas and reaching higher intensities. Yet they remain poorly-studied, according to new research that seeks to explore the physical mechanisms behind the trend. While atmospheric dynamics play an important role in sustaining warm anomalies, the paper finds that the main driver is the greenhouse effect of water vapour, increasing minimum temperatures by enhanced downward longwave radiation.
Reflecting upon 10 years of geoengineering research: Introduction to the crutzen + 10 special issue
Ten years ago, a suggestion by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen that sunlight could be reflected away from Earth by injecting sulfur particles into the stratosphere promoted a wealth of research into a topic now known as ‘geoengineering’. A special issue of Earth’s Future takes a closer look at developments over the past decade and possible directions for future research, as well as exploring some of the issues associated with intervening in the climate system to bring down the risks of climate change. Geoengineering is entering the collective imagination of scientists, policymakers and the public, say the authors, but the topic tends to struggle with its own socio-political dimensions.
Other stories
- Brexit-Backer and Trump Ally Arron Banks Brings Breitbart, Drudge Report-Inspired News Site to the UK (DeSmogUK )
- Scottish government to unveil climate change plans (BBC News )
- Americans’ Global Warming Fears At Highest In Nearly A Decade (Huff Post Green )
- Geoengineering Climate Change (Project Syndicate )
- Yorkshire village to pioneer solar battery power (Financial Times )
- Arctic scientists take climate warming to World Economic Forum (Climate Home )
- India May Be a Bright Spot for Global Solar Markets This Year (Bloomberg New Energy Finance )
- Al Gore’s Inconvenient Sequel to open Sundance in acutely political year (The Guardian )
- Story two. Dr Keeling and his curve (Climate Histories )