wildfires

Rate of Global Warming Reaches All-Time High, Report Shows

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Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Firefighters set a backfire to protect homes during a wildfire in California in September 2020.  (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

“The devastation wrought by wildfires, drought, flooding, and heatwaves the world saw in 2023 must not become the new normal,” the report’s author said.

Climate scientists published a report Wednesday showing that the rate of global warming reached an all-time high in the 10 years up to and including 2023 and that the record-breaking heat of last year was primarily due to that human-caused heating rather than other factors such as El Niño.

The scientists found that from 2014 to 2023, the Earth warmed 0.26°C—higher than any previous 10-year period. The report, published in Earth System Science Data, was completed by 57 scientists who used the methods of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which produces major reports only every five to 10 years, with the next one expected in 2027. The report authors sought to fill the gap and, at least in one case, to galvanize climate action.

“Rapidly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases towards net zero will limit the level of global warming we ultimately experience. At the same time, we need to build more resilient societies,” lead author Piers Forster, a climate physicist at the University of Leeds in the U.K. and an IPCC author, said in a statement. “The devastation wrought by wildfires, drought, flooding, and heatwaves the world saw in 2023 must not become the new normal.”

Over the course of 2023, temperatures were on average 1.43°C above preindustrial levels, Forster and co-authors found, with an estimated 1.31°C of that due to human-caused global warming, and the relatively small remainder due to variability from events such as El Niño and La Niña.

The report also shows that the Earth’s remaining “carbon budget”—how much can be emitted before reaching 1.5°C of warming, the Paris agreement target—is now roughly 200 gigatonnes, which will take only five years or so for the global population to use. This is down from the 500 gigatonnes that the IPCC estimated remained in the budget as of 2020.

Adam Vaughan, environment editor at The Times, a U.K. newspaper, drew attention to the short time period in which humanity has to act, writing on social media that the 1.5°C target could be “blown” if emissions didn’t go down.

In a guest post in Carbon Brief, Forster and another co-author explained that their report was “nothing short of alarming, yet it does contain some encouraging news.”

“Greenhouse gas emissions have not yet risen beyond pre-pandemic levels and there is evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions over the past decade has slowed compared to the 2000s,” they said.

Forster, who also led the annual report in its first iteration last year, spoke to reporters in such a way as to avoid doomsday rhetoric.

“If you look at this world accelerating or going through a big tipping point, things aren’t doing that,” he told TheAssociated Press. “Things are increasing in temperature and getting worse in sort of exactly the way we predicted.”

However, the climate news remains dire: Researchers working with even more up-to-date data—through May—have found that the average temperature increase above preindustrial levels is now 1.6°C, and each of the last 12 months has been the hottest on record for that month. Those findings are from data released by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and reported by The Washington Post.

Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingRate of Global Warming Reaches All-Time High, Report Shows

South Asia sizzles: Record heatwave and extreme weather blamed on climate crisis

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https://globalvoices.org/2024/05/06/south-asia-sizzles-record-heatwave-and-extreme-weather-blamed-on-climate-crisis/#

Screenshot from YouTube video by Abhi and Niyu via Zoom.Earth. April 7, 2024. Fair use.

A scorching heatwave is ravaging South and Southeast Asia, impacting hundreds of millions with its intense heat. With April temperatures shattering previous records, the region is witnessing extreme weather patterns, wildfires, and tragic heat-related deaths. Schools have been forced to close, agricultural production and storage of perishable foods have been disrupted, and the risk of heatstroke and other health problems has risen significantly.

Climate scientist Roxy Koll tweeted:

The scientists attribute the heatwave to the diminishing influence of the 2023–2024 El Niño event, which started in July 2023.

Forest fires and heatstroke deaths in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has experienced increasingly extreme weather conditions in recent years, and April 2024 stands out as the hottest month since 1948, with average temperatures ranging from 40–42 degrees Celsius (104–107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in over 80 percent of the country.

Climate journalist Rafiqul Montu posted on X (formerly Twitter):

Wildfires erupt amid extreme heat and dry conditions

Typically in April, Bangladesh receives 130.2 millimetres of rain, however, this year, there was almost none. The government announced the closure of government schools affecting 33 million students nationwide, while private schools with better facilities transitioned to online education. In just one week of April, over 10 deaths across the country were attributed to heatstroke.

However, the most notable impact was the wildfires in different parts of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest, the world’s largest mangrove forest. Sundarbans is a remote area, lacking adequate firefighting resources nearby. The Forest Department, along with fire service personnel, local villagers, and other volunteers, could only start firefighting efforts 17 hours after the first fire. As of the time of writing this report, a significant portion of the huge fire in the Amurbunia area of the Chandpai range is still burning, posing a threat to its rich biodiversity.

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Article continues at https://globalvoices.org/2024/05/06/south-asia-sizzles-record-heatwave-and-extreme-weather-blamed-on-climate-crisis/#

Continue ReadingSouth Asia sizzles: Record heatwave and extreme weather blamed on climate crisis

Scientists confirm record highs for three most important heat-trapping gases

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/record-highs-heat-trapping-gases-climate-crisis

A young woman protects herself from the sun in São Paulo, Brazil, on 14 November 2023. Photograph: Sebastião Moreira/EPA

Global concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide climbed to unseen levels in 2023, underlining climate crisis

The levels of the three most important heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere reached new record highs again last year, US scientists have confirmed, underlining the escalating challenge posed by the climate crisis.

The global concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important and prevalent of the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, rose to an average of 419 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2023 while methane, a powerful if shorter-lasting greenhouse gas, rose to an average of 1922 parts per billion. Levels of nitrous oxide, the third most significant human-caused warming emission, climbed slightly to 336 parts per billion.

The increases do not quite match the record jumps seen in recent years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), but still represent a major change in the composition of the atmosphere even from just a decade ago.

Through the burning of fossil fuels, animal agriculture and deforestation, the world’s CO2 levels are now more than 50% higher than they were before the era of mass industrialization. Methane, which comes from sources including oil and gas drilling and livestock, has surged even more dramatically in recent years, Noaa said, and now has atmospheric concentrations 160% larger than in pre-industrial times.

Noaa said the onward march of greenhouse gas levels was due to the continued use of fossil fuels, as well as the impact of wildfires, which spew carbon-laden smoke into the air. Nitrous oxide, meanwhile, has risen due to the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer and the intensification of agriculture.

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Because of a lag between CO2 levels and their impact, as well as the hundreds of years that the emissions remain in the atmosphere, the timescale of the climate crisis is enormous. Scientists have warned that governments need to rapidly slash emissions to net zero, and then start removing carbon from the atmosphere to bring down future temperature increases.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/record-highs-heat-trapping-gases-climate-crisis

Continue ReadingScientists confirm record highs for three most important heat-trapping gases

(Part of) Wildfires 101: Everything You Need to Know

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Canadian wildfire 2023
Canadian wildfire 2023

https://www.ecowatch.com/wildfires-facts.html

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Wildfires, also commonly called forest fires or bushfires, are unplanned and uncontrolled fires burning in a vegetated landscape, such as a forest or grasslands. Many wildfires are sparked by human activity, such as campfires, or natural causes, like lightning. Dry conditions and prolonged droughts, which are becoming more frequent with climate change, exacerbate the risks of wildfires. Droughts, high winds, and other extreme weather are also making wildfires more common and more powerful, with larger blazes that burn for longer and expand across more land.

From 1998 to 2017, over 2,400 human deaths were attributed to both wildfires and volcanoes. Even when people can evacuate an affected area, they may lose their homes or businesses to the fires. Wildfires can also kill wildlife in the habitats that catch fire. Further, wildfires feed back into a loop, worsening climate change by releasing more carbon dioxide and fine particulate matter into the air.

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Climate change brings increasing temperatures and drier conditions that can fuel wildfires around the world. Researchers expect significant increases in wildfire risks in the U.S., South America, central Asia, southern Europe, southern Africa and Australia from 2070 to 2100. [Don’t we already have that?]

Even in the UK, typically considered a colder locale, experts are telling citizens to expect more wildfires in the near future as extreme heatwaves grip the nation. 

The expected increase in wildfires will bring with it more emissions and more forest loss, according to a recent study. As fire seasons become longer and more severe, forest loss due to wildfires is steadily increasing, with the highest losses occurring in boreal forests, which span Canada, China, Finland, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S. 

You can track ongoing fires through NASA’s Global Fire Tracking tool.

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Wildfires are worsening in many countries globally, including the U.S., and are expected to become more of an issue in places they weren’t previously, like in the UK. Australia is particularly vulnerable to increasing blazes, as are regions of boreal forests.

As a part of nature, wildfires do play an essential part in promoting biodiversity, but only when they occur at a natural rate. Human activity and climate change are spurring more intense and more frequent fires that contribute more emissions, feeding into a loop that worsens climate change. 

Air pollutants from wildfires worsen air quality, putting the health of wildlife and humans at risk and costing countries billions of dollars per year to contain the blazes and pay for damages. Wildfires can also kill off vulnerable wildlife, as is the case for endangered koalas in Australia that recently lost tens of thousands from the already low population, and injure and/or displace thousands more animals.

Ultimately, the goal is not to end wildfires. They are an essential part of many ecosystems, but the fact that they are getting bigger and are happening more frequently does more harm than good. Thankfully, it’s not too late to minimize the number of wildfires.

We can reduce the number of human-made wildfires by staying aware of ongoing weather conditions. When conditions are dry, hot, and windy, avoid any activities that could create a spark or spread smoke and flames. Even driving your car or mowing the lawn can start a fire, so be mindful during high fire risk conditions.

Human-caused or not, wildfires can be destructive. If you live in an area prone to fires, make sure you have a safety plan in place, with supplies ready to go if you need to evacuate or are left without power for long periods of time.

Wildfires are another part of our world, and they are only expected to worsen as the world grows hotter. While we can mitigate personal risks, working collectively with governments and corporations to slow climate change is the best way to minimize wildfire risks worldwide.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/wildfires-facts.html

Continue Reading(Part of) Wildfires 101: Everything You Need to Know

The system won’t change, we have to change the system.

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dizzy: I’m speaking for myself only.

Politics has failed to address the climate crisis in any meaningful way. Our contemporary politics which I regard as a plutocracy as opposed to a democracy – meaning that it serves a small elite of incredibly rich and powerful people – cannot address the climate crisis because it is serving the climate-destroying plutocrats. Since the system won’t change, we have to change the system. There’s no ifs or buts about this – climate records are getting broken month by month and in the summer it will be back to breaking climate records day by day. Our politics have absolutely failed to address this so we have to change our politics. It’s not a big deal – politicians need to start serving the electorate instead of the rich and powerful.

Continue ReadingThe system won’t change, we have to change the system.