Greenland's ice sheet melting rate is accelerating, scientists confirm

Researchers used ice cores to create a 350 year continuous analysis of the melting rate of ice in central west Greenland.

They found that over the last 20 years, the rate of melting has been as much as five times as high as pre-industrial melt rates, and that the rate of melting is increasing, according to researcher Luke Trusel from Rowan University in the United States.

More signs of increasing sea temperatures:

Antarctic krill: Key food source moves south

Climate Change Means 99% Of Australian Sea Turtles Are Being Born Female

Climate change: Warming threatens Himalayan glaciers

Climate change poses a growing threat to the glaciers found in the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain ranges, according to a new report.

The study found that if CO2 emissions are not cut rapidly, two thirds of these giant ice fields could disappear.

Even if the world limits the temperature rise to 1.5C this century, at least one third of the ice would go.

The glaciers are a critical water source for 250 million people living across eight different countries.

Climate change: World heading for warmest decade, says Met Office

The world is in the middle of what is likely to be the warmest 10 years since records began in 1850, says the Met Office.

It's forecasting that temperatures for each of the next five years are likely to be at or above 1C compared to pre-industrial levels.

There's also a small chance that one of the next five years will see global temperatures temporarily go above 1.5C.

That's seen as a critical threshold for climate change.

If the data matches the forecast, then the decade from 2014-2023 will be the warmest in more than 150 years of record keeping.

Climate change: Blue planet will get even bluer as Earth warms

Rising temperatures will change the colour of the world's oceans, making them more blue in the coming decades say scientists.

They found that increased heat will change the mixture of phytoplankton or tiny marine organisms in the seas, which absorb and reflect light.

Scientists say there will be less of them in the waters in the decades to come.

This will drive a colour change in more than 50% of the world's seas by 2100.

"It's good news week"

Glencore moves to cap global coal output after investor pressure on climate change

Australia's largest coal miner Glencore has succumbed to shareholder pressure to take action to address climate change, and announced it will cap its global coal output.
Key points:

Glencore will cap its global thermal and coking coal production at the current level of about 145 million tonnes
The move comes after much global investor pressure, including from major Australian super funds
The company will also review its membership of trade associations, including the Minerals Council of Australia

The Swiss-based resources giant said it would freeze coal production at current levels, and instead focus on commodities including copper, cobalt, nickel, vanadium and zinc, as part of its "global response to the increasing risks posed by climate change".

The company, headed by billionaire Ivan Glasenberg, acquired Rio Tinto's thermal coal business in 2017.

It said it would cap its global thermal and coking coal production at the current level of about 145 million tonnes after holding talks with the Climate Action 100+ initiative.

The group, whose global members collectively manage more than $US32 trillion in assets, includes a number of major Australian superannuation funds such as AMP Capital, AustralianSuper, Cbus, IFM Investors, QSuper and BT Financial Group.

Climate change-related litigation was once seen as a joke, but it could soon become business reality

Climate change-related litigation is no longer a joke.
Banks increase exposure to fossil fuels
Australia's major banks have been getting back into fossil fuels over the past year, casting doubt on their seriousness in tackling climate change through their investments.

Regulators are weighing in as the prospect of lawsuits becomes more realistic.

In a speech in June, ASIC Commissioner John Price said directors "would do well" to carefully consider a 2016 legal opinion by Noel Hutley SC and Sebastien Hartford-Davis that they could face lawsuits for failing to consider risks related to climate change.

Meanwhile, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has been pushing ASX200 companies to run "stress tests" on potential climate risk scenarios.

In November, 2017 APRA executive Geoff Summerhayes warned that "should extreme weather events become more frequent and intense as scientists predict", there could be "adverse economic impacts" that threaten financial system stability.

That same year, Melbourne law practice Environmental Justice Australia had launched a case arguing the Commonwealth Bank had breached corporate law by not disclosing climate change as a major or material risk in its annual report.

The case was dropped when the bank subsequently disclosed climate risk in its annual report.

"It's good news week"

Just as well the quotes were around it! I suspect the real reasons are purely economic and the worldwide market for coal wouldn't support any increase over current levels.

Two days in a row, UK has seen record February temperatures. Not necessarily a big deal in itself but over 1C above the previous record and every day this month so far has been above long term average.

The Life Scientific: Corinne le Quere on the global carbon cycle

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003cy9

Available to download now. Will be available on BBC Sounds within an hour.

Climate change: Water shortages in England 'within 25 years'

Within 25 years England will not have enough water to meet demand, the head of the Environment Agency is warning.

The impact of climate change, combined with population growth, means the country is facing an "existential threat", Sir James Bevan told the Waterwise Conference in London.

He told his audience that, in around 20 to 25 years, England would reach the "jaws of death - the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs".

Canada warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, report says

Canada's Arctic has seen the deepest impact and will continue to warm at more than double the global rate.

The report suggests that many of the effects already seen are probably irreversible.

Canada's annual average temperature has increased by an estimated 1.7C (3F) since 1948, when nationwide temperatures were first recorded.

The largest temperature increases have been seen in the North, the Prairies, and in northern British Columbia.

Annual average temperature in northern Canada increased by approximately 2.3C.

Why protesters should be wary of ‘12 years to climate breakdown’ rhetoric

By Myles Allen:

Climate change is not so much an emergency as a festering injustice. Your ancestors did not end slavery by declaring an emergency and dreaming up artificial boundaries on “tolerable” slave numbers. They called it out for what it was: a spectacularly profitable industry, the basis of much prosperity at the time, founded on a fundamental injustice. It’s time to do the same on climate change.

All four nations of the United Kingdom registered their highest ever Easter Monday temperatures today.

Human activity was changing the Earth's drought and rainfall patterns as far back as the early 20th century, new research shows.

Drying in many regions, the researchers suggested, will get worse, with sobering implications for feeding the planet’s billions of people.

The new paper tracks long-term patterns of moisture levels in soil across regions of the world, including North America, Central America, Eurasia and the Mediterranean. The researchers found a “fingerprint” of human effects from producing greenhouse gases, as distinct from natural variability, as far back as 1900.

Friederike Otto, acting director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, praised the paper in an emailed response to questions. “While the big message of climate change has not changed, we are now making huge progress in understanding what climate change actually means for societies in terms of how global warming affects local variables that are ultimately relevant for food security,” she wrote.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/climate/global-warming-drought-human-influence.html

Floods were always a risk, but in the last decade, they have become an annual or twice-annual plight. They damage property, force long detours on trips to the grocery store and drive away tourists. The 32.1-foot crest on Monday — flood stage starts at 18 feet — was the fourth-highest mark recorded in Grafton going back to the 1800s. It was high enough to cover parking lots and fill some riverfront buildings and nearly submerge street signs. Nine of Grafton’s 20 highest crests have occurred since 2008.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/flood-midwest-levees.html

I grew up along the Ohio River in the American Midwest. I know about floods. This is not normal.

Cambridge University is to launch an institute which will investigate re-freezing the polar ice-caps by spraying seawater into the clouds.

The new Centre for Climate Repair is to research radical measures once thought “beyond the pale” because current efforts to cool the atmosphere are insufficient.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/05/10/re-freezing-ice-caps-spraying-seawater-clouds-investigated-cambridge/

The article received useful commentary on today's BBC World Service News Hour.

Thanks for your post, Jim1348 (from another Jim). Appreciated.

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

Extreme weather has made half of America look like Tornado Alley

“Attribution” science is a young field, and in the past decade there have been a smattering of research papers showing links between global climate change and specific, extreme weather events, such as the historic flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Texas two years ago.

If there’s a signal in the ambiguous tornado data, it’s that there’s more variability from year to year in the number of tornadoes. Expect the unexpected seems to be the meteorological conclusion.

Tornadoes emerge from a time-tested atmospheric recipe. Moist air flowing north into the Midwest and the Southeast U.S. gets topped by a layer of hot, dry air from the desert southwest. (“That hot dry air mass is like keeping a lid on a boiling pot of water,” Gensini said.) On top of that is cold air. This setup triggers the formation of thunderstorms, which feature hot air rising tens of thousands of feet, forming cumulonimbus clouds. These storms can be destructive even without rotational winds.

Asked if he subscribes to the idea that the warming Arctic is playing havoc with the jet stream, he said, “I think that’s a very plausible scenario.” But he said he’d like to see more attribution studies before he embraces the hypothesis.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/05/29/extreme-weather-has-made-half-america-look-like-tornado-alley/

OK, lets do them.

Good news?

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg pledges $715 million to close US coal power plants

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he will contribute $US500 million ($715 million) toward closing coal-fired power plants across the United States, in a clash with White House efforts to revive a fossil fuel blamed for climate change.

The billionaire's foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, said its Beyond Carbon initiative would lobby to close about 250 coal-fired power plants by 2030 and make the country fully reliant on clean energy.

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The UN World Meteorological Organisation said in November global temperatures were on course for an increase of 3–5 degrees Celsius this century, far overshooting a global target of limiting the increase to 2C or less.