Rich countries subsidising fossil fuel companies by $88bn a year
Climate and energy news
China Oct coal output up 2.5 pct on year -industry website
Reuters reports: “China’s coal production rose 2.5 percentfrom a year ago to 330 million tonnes in October, according to anindustry website that cited data from the National Bureau ofStatistics.”
Global warming ‘will require more UK troops sentto fight overseas’
A senior UK military figure has warned that while climatechange is unlikely to start wars on its own, “You can probablysecure a 2C world, but it’s most unlikely you can secure a 4Cworld.” Climate change will act as a “threat multiplier” in thefuture, Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti has warned.
Peabody sees reprieve from US carbon cutspush
The US coal industry hopes that a strong performance by theRepublican party in last week’s US midterm elections means plans tocut emissions from the country’s power sector will be rolled backor relaxed. Peabody Coal, the largest US coal producer, said itwould be up to the “next administration” to determine how the planswould be introduced. Shares in Peabody rose 13 per cent followingthe Republican victory, the FT reports. The Republican partyhas already vowed to fight the plans,according to the New York Times.
Climate and energy comment
What does it mean to be climateresilient?
What does the word “resilience” mean in the context ofclimate change? There are many different meanings, says Ed King ofRTCC, and it doesn’t just mean having good flood defences. Climateimpacts mean countries will need to improve the resilience of theirsociety to extreme weather, food and water stress, and differentcommunities will need to work out their own concept of resilience,experts suggest.
Time to tear up the silly rules holding back theUK’s fracking revolution
Government should relax regulation around fracking and makesure communities share in the profits, otherwise it won’t take offin the UK, warns the Telegraph’s deputy editor: “…unless thelegal structure governing the industry is severely reformed, wewill end up waiting for the revolution forever,” he says. In anaccompanying article, researchers from Glasgow University arguethat fracking companies should be allowedto cause biggerearth tremors.
‘Nobody Is Truly Ready’ For Rise ofSeas
“Nobody is truly ready for projected levels of future [sealevel] rise,” a US climate adaptation expert tells Climate Central.”But cities are light-years more aware of the threats andchallenges of sea level rise than they were just five years ago.”
New climate science
Eddy transport as a key component of the Antarcticoverturning circulation
Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and theCalifornia Institute of Technology have used underwater robots toshow how warm water is making its way to the Antarctic ice sheets,causing them to melt. A discovery mission to the Southern Ocean offAntarctica, one of the most remote and inaccessible oceans of theworld, has revealed that swirling ocean eddies transport layers ofwarm water towards the coast of Antarctica.
Ocean surface temperature variability: Largemodel-data differences at decadal and longerperiods
Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences
Sea surface temperatures reconstructed from climate archivesvary to a much greater extent on long time scales than simulated byclimate models, a new study finds. The research suggests thateither the analysed climate archives supply inaccurate temperaturesignals, or the tested models underestimate the regional climatefluctuations in the Earth’s recent history.
Shortwave and longwave radiative contributions toglobal warming under increasing carbondioxide
Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences
A new study hopes to complete the understanding of whathappens to the planet under climate change. The greenhouse effectis well-established: increased concentrations of greenhouse gasesreduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation to space; thus,energy accumulates in the climate system, and the planet warms.Observations and model simulations suggest that even though globalwarming is set into motion by greenhouse gases, it is ultimatelysustained by the climate feedbacks that enhance the energy absorbedfrom the sun.
Effects of temperature and precipitationvariability on the risk of violence in sub-Saharan Africa,1980-2012
Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences
A study of violent conflicts and temperature and rainfallextremes finds that high temperatures are associated with moreconflict. No links are found with either high or low rainfallextremes. However, the research shows the location and timing ofviolence are influenced less by climate extremes than by keypolitical, economic, and geographic factors.