A World Without Clouds. Think About That a Minute': New Study Details Possibility of Devastating Climate Feedback Loop

As people across the globe mobilize to demand bold action to combat the climate crisis and scientific findings about looming "environmental breakdown" pile up, a startling new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience warns that human-caused global warming could cause stratocumulus clouds to totally disappear in as little as a century, triggering up to 8°C (14°F) of additional warming.

A new study warns that if the Earth's atmospheric
carbon hits a certain level, stratocumulus clouds could
completely vanish, causing the planet's temperatures
to skyrocket even higher. 

Stratocumulus clouds cover about two-thirds of the Earth and help keep it cool by reflecting solar radiation back to space. Recent research has suggested that planetary warming correlates with greater cloud loss, stoking fears about a feedback loop that could spell disaster.

For this study, researchers at the California Institute of Technology used a supercomputer simulation to explore what could lead these low-lying, lumpy clouds to vanish completely. As science journalist Natalie Wolchover laid out in a lengthy piece for Quanta Magazine titled "A World Without Clouds".

Read the story from Common Dreams by Jessica Corbett - “A World Without Clouds. Think About That a Minute': New Study Details Possibility of Devastating Climate Feedback Loop.”

Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

The world must thrash out a new deal for nature in the next two years or humanity could be the first species to document our own extinction, warns the United Nation’s biodiversity chief.

 Deforestation in Indonesian to make way for a palm oil concession. 

Ahead of a key international conference to discuss the collapse of ecosystems, Cristiana Pașca Palmer said people in all countries need to put pressure on their governments to draw up ambitious global targets by 2020 to protect the insects, birds, plants and mammals that are vital for global food production, clean water and carbon sequestration.

“The loss of biodiversity is a silent killer,” she told the Guardian. “It’s different from climate change, where people feel the impact in everyday life. With biodiversity, it is not so clear but by the time you feel what is happening, it may be too late.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Jonathon Watts - “Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN.”

Apocalyptic threat': dire climate report raises fears for California's future

California’s summer of deadly wildfires and dangerous heatwaves will soon be the new normal if nothing is done to stop climate change, a report released on Monday warns.

Experts have warned that massive wildfires
 are becoming the new normal for the state. 

City heatwaves could lead to two to three times as many deaths by 2050, the report says. By 2100, without a reduction in emissions, the state could see a 77% increase in the average area burned by wildfires. The report also warns of erosion of up to 67% of its famous coastline, up to an 8.8F (4.9C) rise in average maximum temperatures, and billions of dollars in damages.

“These findings are profoundly serious and will continue to guide us as we confront the apocalyptic threat of irreversible climate change,” said the state’s governor, Jerry Brown, in a tweet about the report, the fourth statewide climate change assessment released since 2006.

Read the story by Carla Green from The Guardian - “Apocalyptic threat': dire climate report raises fears for California's future.”

Yes, things are about to change - it's heating up

Things are about to change.

The world endured record-breaking heat in the year just ended and January, at least here in Victoria, has been rather mild, but that is about to change.

The Melbourne Age warns its readers that it is all about to warm up.

And today’s Shepparton News, the Goulburn Valley’s daily newspaper, it was reported that people there are in for four days of forty degrees Celsius. However, because of how these things are calculated, the days will only be hot, but not constitute a heatwave.

The Age story, headed: “Here comes the sun: mild Melbourne set to heat up” said it is expected that Wednesday will be the last mild day for at least a week, with an extended run of days in the 30s just around the corner.

'Elegant and important' paper warns of worse to come

A new paper described as “elegant and important” warns that the world is bound for temperature increases at the high end of past global warming estimates.

Penn State University climate scientist, Michael Mann, who wrote the book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines” praised the new report.

In its story headed: “Climate: Cloud mixing means extra global warming”, National Geographic explains that global warming will mix growing amounts of higher, drier air with ocean clouds over the course of the century, thinning out the clouds and reducing their cooling effect.