Global carbon emissions grow to highest-ever rate

Carbon emissions emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere grew by 1.4 percent in 2017, reaching a historic high of 32.5 gigatonnes.

The world's carbon emissions continue to climb.

This is the headline figure from a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), which also found that global energy demand grew by 2.1 percent over the past year. Energy usage has been bolstered by renewed consumption in China and India, which made up 40 percent of the overall increase.

72 percent of this new demand was met by fossil fuels while renewables managed to meet one quarter.

Read the ClimateAction story - “Global carbon emissions grow to highest-ever rate.”

Major correction to satellite data shows 140% faster warming since 1998.

A new paper published in the Journal of Climate reveals that the lower part of the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed much faster since 1979 than scientists relying on satellite data had previously thought.

Researchers from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), based in California, have released a substantially revised version of their lower tropospheric temperature record.

After correcting for problems caused by the decaying orbit of satellites, as well as other factors, they have produced a new record showing 36% faster warming since 1979 and nearly 140% faster (i.e. 2.4 times larger) warming since 1998. This is in comparison to the previous version 3 of the lower tropospheric temperature (TLT) data published in 2009.

Climate sceptics have long claimed that satellite data shows global warming to be less pronounced than observational data collected on the Earth’s surface. This new correction to the RSS data substantially undermines that argument. The new data actually shows more warming than has been observed on the surface, though still slightly less than projected in most climate models.

Read the Carbon Brief story - “Major correction to satellite data shows 140% faster warming since 1998.”

Strikingly similarity, but decidely different

Climate change and same-sex marriage are strikingly similar – both have become politicized and the essence of their importance mired in rhetoric.

The opponents of both rejoice for as we debate, nothing happens.

Well, that is not quite right for in the case of climate change something is happening, with the situation is worsening by the moment with the damage to Earth’s atmosphere steadily becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible to repair.

And in the case of same-sex marriage, while we quibble over personal ideologies, peoples’ lives evaporate, leaving them with a sense of pointlessness and destroying the personal energy they could bring to their respective communities.

The science illustrating climate change is beyond debate and so irrefutable and while same-sex marriage is not a matter science as it is purely social, but it needs to be considered with scientific rigour and as such is effectively harmless and yet, in a social sense, hugely beneficial to society.

Just as climate change needs to the released from its rhetorical gaol, same-sex marriage should be afforded the same freedom.

Giving plankton the fuel and means to change our atmosphere

‘Once you know what plankton can do, you’ll understand why fertilising the ocean with iron is not such a crazy idea’

C

all me Victor,’ says the mustachioed scientist as he picks me up from the airport on a brisk, fall afternoon in Germany. Victor Smetacek is an esteemed marine biologist, but he’s decided to spend his golden years on an ambitious new pursuit. He has devised a plan to alter the mix of gases in Earth’s atmosphere, in order to ward off climate change. He is, in other words, an aspiring geoengineer.

I came to the ancient city of Bremen to ask Smetacek about an extraordinary experiment he performed more than half the world away, in a forbidding sea seldom visited by humans. This sea surrounds the vast, white continent of Antarctica with a chilly current, locking it in a deep freeze. This encircling moat reaches from the surface waters to the ocean bottom, spanning thousands of kilometres. It is known as the Southern Ocean and it is famously dangerous on account of icebergs that hide in the gloom that hovers above its surface. The churn of its swells sometimes serves up freak waves that tower so high they can flip ships over in a single go. It is in this violent, lashing place that Smetacek hopes to transform Earth’s atmosphere.

Read David Biello’s story on Aeon - “Engineering the ocean.”