Climate Change News & Discussions

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caltrek
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Yup! Carbon Dioxide is an Air Pollutant
by Dave Dickey
August 31, 2022

Extract:
(Investigate Midwest) The Supreme Court found (in West Virginia v. EPA) that Congress, in passing the Clean Air Act, had not given the Environmental Protection Agency broad regulatory authority to institute generation shifting (exchanging high producing sources like coal to lower ones like natural gas, wind, and solar). In his concurring opinion Justice Neil M. Gorsuch put the smack down on Congress:

“When Congress seems slow to solve problems, it may be only natural that those in the executive branch might seek to take matters into their own hands. But the Constitution does not authorize agencies to use pen-and-phone regulations as substitutes for laws passed by the people’s representatives.”

Well, Justice Gorsuch, now it has. Tucked in landmark climate law passed earlier this month are amendments to Title VI of the Clean Air Act. New language defines greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.

The bottom line is that greenhouse gases in general and carbon dioxide in particular are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, giving EPA an opportunity to develop new plans to combat climate change.
Read more here: https://investigatemidwest.org/2022/08 ... ollutant/
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
weatheriscool
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Record of Antarctic ice sheet response to climate cycles found in rock samples
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-antarctic ... imate.html
by University of California - Santa Cruz
By analyzing unusual rock samples collected years ago in Antarctica, scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have discovered a remarkable record of how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet has responded to changes in climate over a period of 100,000 years during the Late Pleistocene.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is the world's largest ice mass. Understanding its sensitivity to climate change is crucial for efforts to project how much sea level will rise as global temperatures increase. Recent studies suggest it may be more vulnerable to ice loss than previously thought.

The new study, published September 15 in Nature Communications, provides evidence of changes at the base of the ice sheet over a broad area in response to cyclic changes in climate during the Pleistocene. The changes are reflected in the types of minerals deposited at the base of the ice sheet.

"One of the key findings is that the ice sheet was responding to temperature changes in the Southern Ocean," said coauthor Terrence Blackburn, associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. "The warm water eats at the edges of the ice sheet and causes the ice to flow faster, and that response reaches deep into the heart of the ice sheet."

The rock samples analyzed in the study consist of alternating layers of opal and calcite that formed as mineral deposits at the base of the ice sheet, recording cyclic changes in the composition of subglacial fluids.

"Each layer in these samples is a manifestation of a change at the base of the ice sheet driven by changes in the motion of the ice streams," said first author Gavin Piccione, a Ph.D. candidate working with Blackburn at UCSC.

By dating the layers, the researchers found a striking correlation between the layers of mineral deposits and the record of polar sea surface temperatures derived from ice cores. The opal was deposited during cold periods, and the calcite during warm periods.
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U.S. ratifies global treaty curbing climate super-pollutants
Source: Washington Post

With broad bipartisan support, the Senate on Wednesday ratified by a 69-27 vote a global treaty that would sharply limit the emissions of super-pollutants that frequently leak from air conditioners and other types of refrigeration. The treaty — known as the Kigali Amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol — compels countries to phase out the use of the potent hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are hundreds to thousands of times as powerful as carbon dioxide in speeding up climate change.

The United States became the 137th country to ratify the amendment — and negotiators said the move would encourage the remaining nations to follow suit. The earlier Montreal Protocol clamped down on the production of ozone-depleting substances. U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry, who was in the Rwandan capital of Kigali when the amendment was negotiated, said the Senate vote “was a decade in the making and a profound victory ​for the climate and the American economy.”

The treaty, which had to win support of at least two-thirds of the Senate, brought together an unusual coalition of supporters including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council. In a statement, Kerry said that “businesses supported it because it drives American exports; climate advocates championed it because it will avoid up to half a degree of global warming by the end of the century; and world leaders backed it because it ensures strong international cooperation.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that ratifying the Kigali Amendment and adopting the Inflation Reduction Act was “the strongest one-two punch against climate change any Congress has ever taken.” He said the treaty would “reduce global temperatures by about half a degree Celsius by the end of this century, a little talked about fact with very significant impact.” That reduction equals about 1 degree Fahrenheit. He called it a “win-win in our fight against climate change.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... s-climate/
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caltrek wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 6:28 pm Yup! Carbon Dioxide is an Air Pollutant
by Dave Dickey
August 31, 2022

Extract:
(Investigate Midwest) The Supreme Court found (in West Virginia v. EPA) that Congress, in passing the Clean Air Act, had not given the Environmental Protection Agency broad regulatory authority to institute generation shifting (exchanging high producing sources like coal to lower ones like natural gas, wind, and solar). In his concurring opinion Justice Neil M. Gorsuch put the smack down on Congress:

“When Congress seems slow to solve problems, it may be only natural that those in the executive branch might seek to take matters into their own hands. But the Constitution does not authorize agencies to use pen-and-phone regulations as substitutes for laws passed by the people’s representatives.”

Well, Justice Gorsuch, now it has. Tucked in landmark climate law passed earlier this month are amendments to Title VI of the Clean Air Act. New language defines greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.

The bottom line is that greenhouse gases in general and carbon dioxide in particular are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, giving EPA an opportunity to develop new plans to combat climate change.
Read more here: https://investigatemidwest.org/2022/08 ... ollutant/
When you think about it so is water vapor and oxygen if at a high enough percentage....Co2 can be good or bad depending on the percentage contained within the atmosphere.
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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caltrek
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Grassland Soil Carbon Sequestration: Current Understanding, Challenges, and Solutions
by Yongfei Bai and M. Francesca Cotrugo
September, 2022

Introduction:
(Science) Grasslands store approximately one third of the global terrestrial carbon stocks and can act as an important soil carbon sink. Recent studies show that plant diversity increases soil organic carbon (SOC) storage by elevating carbon inputs to belowground biomass and promoting microbial necromass contribution to SOC storage. Climate change affects grassland SOC storage by modifying the processes of plant carbon inputs and microbial catabolism and anabolism. Improved grazing management and biodiversity restoration can provide low-cost and/or high-carbon-gain options for natural climate solutions in global grasslands. The achievable SOC sequestration potential in global grasslands is 2.3 to 7.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year (CO2e year−1) for biodiversity restoration, 148 to 699 megatons of CO2e year−1 for improved grazing management, and 147 megatons of CO2e year−1 for sown legumes in pasturelands.
Read more here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo23
Don't mourn, organize.

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Arctic sea ice loss leads to more frequent strong El Niño events
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-arctic-se ... quent.html
by University at Albany
Over the last 40 years, a rapid shrinking of Arctic sea ice has been one of the most significant indicators of climate change. The amount of sea ice that survives the Arctic summer has declined 13% per decade since the late 1970s and projections show the region could experience its first ice-free summer by 2040.

This rapid melting is not just disruptive to surrounding coastal cities and small island nations; it also may have a lasting impact on global weather patterns, according to new paper from a University at Albany researcher.

In a new Nature Communications paper, researchers have revealed that the magnitude and pattern of Arctic sea-ice loss can directly influence El Niño. Further, as the Arctic becomes seasonally ice-free, the frequency of strong El Niño events increases significantly.

El Niño is a complex weather pattern that occurs when surface water in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean becomes warmer than average and east winds blow weaker than normal. The events, which typically occur every few years, can produce unusual and, sometimes dangerous, weather conditions around the world including droughts, floods and severe storms.

Prior to this study, little was known about whether dwindling Arctic sea ice is capable of influencing strong El Niño events, according to its lead author Jiping Liu, an associate professor in UAlbany's Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"El Niño is an important climate phenomenon, recognized as a driver of climate variability responsible for large and diverse societal impacts," Liu said. "Our study, for the first time, finds that large Arctic sea-ice loss directly influences global climate extremes, including an increase in the frequency of strong El Niño events."
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Nord Stream leaks likely single largest methane release ever: UN

1 Oct 2022

The ruptures on the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline system under the Baltic Sea have led to what is likely the biggest single release of climate-damaging methane ever recorded, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has said.

A huge plume of highly concentrated methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent but shorter-lived than carbon dioxide, was detected in an analysis this week of satellite imagery by researchers associated with the UNEP’s International Methane Emissions Observatory, or IMEO, the organisation said on Friday.

“This is really bad, most likely the largest emission event ever detected,” Manfredi Caltagirone, head of the IMEO for UNEP, told Reuters.

“This is not helpful in a moment when we absolutely need to reduce emissions.”

Researchers at GHGSat, which uses satellites to monitor methane emissions, estimated the leak rate from one of four rupture points was 22,920kg (around 50,000 lbs) per hour. That is equivalent to burning about 630,000 pounds (around 286,000kg) of coal every hour, GHGSat said in a statement.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/ ... se-ever-un


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caltrek
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Climate Idiocy of DeSantis Exposes Him as Threat to Entire Nation
by Juan Cole
October 1, 2022

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has abruptly been handed an honest-to-God crisis that may distract him from his usual antics of trolling Venezuelan asylum-seekers, firing elected prosecutors who disagree with him on coerced childbirth, and firing scientists who wouldn't manipulate state COVID statistics for him.

DeSantis called Hurricane Ian a once-in-a-500-year flood event.

DeSantis, who hates people who know what they are talking about the way the devil hates holy water, shouldn't be relied on for either science or history. The flooding caused by Ian could well be the worst for thousands of years. The most recent warm era in the north Atlantic, the medieval warming period, around 900-1200, seems to have seen ocean surface temperatures that were still colder than today's. It is our very warm surface ocean temperatures that feed monster storms such as Ian. Moreover, it isn't going to be something that only happens once in a half-millennium. Massive hurricanes and floods are the new normal caused by humans burning petroleum, coal and fossil gas, which puts billions of tons a year of the dangerous heat-trapping gas, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

This is the same DeSantis who signed a bill into law that forbade Florida municipalities from getting off fossil fuels and turning to wind and solar instead by restricting land use, banning fracking, or interfering with pipelines. The law was supported by the Florida Natural Gas Association. Sunny Florida, which could put in as much solar power as California if its government wanted to, is instead locked into getting 70% of its power from dirty fossil gas, which produces the CO2 that heats the oceans and calls forth monster storms like Ian.

This is the same DeSantis who according to the Orlando Weekly "wants to prohibit state investments that use 'environmental, social and governance" ratings, which can include taking into account impacts of climate change.'"
Read more of the Common Dreams article here: https://www.commondreams.org/views/202 ... re-nation

Read the Orlando Weekly article here: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/flo ... -32127821
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