Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 7, 2023

One study found that human-caused climate change made the 2019 European heatwave as much as 100 times more likely to occur. Scientists have long known that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, but now they can identify the specific sources.

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Climate Change Sea Level Fossil Fuels Carbon Dioxide 331

Circle of Blue

APRIL 8, 2025

The summer of 2019 began with its usual verve, and as May turned to June turned to July, the height of the busy season, the sleepy town was still dreaming. But between June and August of 2019, fewer than three inches of rain had fallen , roughly half a foot behind seasonal averages. Fishing charters fill. Bellies, too.

2019 130

2019 2009 Natural Gas Sea Level 130

Real Climate

APRIL 2, 2021

1 Average number of named storms by day of the year in the historical record from 1851–2019 (dark blue line). The difference is due largely to the differences in the regional atmospheric response that occurs in concert with the SST warming. The days of formation for the 2020 named storms are shown by the red squares. Zhang et al.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 27, 2023

Image from Hessburg et al 2019. Climate change has also contributed to an increase in atmospheric drying power at night, which can further burden limited fire-fighting resources. Images of the same landscape taken 79 years apart showing forest in-fill.

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Climate Change Atmosphere 2004 2019 321

Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

The atmosphere for climate litigation in our Supreme Court is decidedly chilly. Specifically, the court ordered Shell to cut emissions due to its products and operations 45% from 2019 levels by 2030. Some of its peers in other countries have taken a much different approach. Here, I want to briefly summarize some key rulings.

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Legal Planet

JANUARY 2, 2023

The “for one year” part is crucial: stratospheric aerosols stay in the atmosphere roughly a year, so one gram offsets the heating effect of one ton only for the first year after the ton is emitted. After that, the sulfur is gone but the CO 2 is still there and heating.)

Cooling 364

Cooling Atmosphere Regulations Government 364

Real Climate

JANUARY 15, 2022

Fig 13, from Lenssen et al (2019). Zyss, "Improvements in the GISTEMP Uncertainty Model", Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres , vol. 6307-6326, 2019. Uncertainties arise in the raw data directly, in any homogenizations that are performed, in the data interpolation, in corrections for non-climatic effects etc.

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Cooling Ocean 2020 2019 360

Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

It not only traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, but the warmer temperature resulting from global warming leads to an increase in ground-level ozone, since ozone is produced indirectly from precursors like NOx and VOCs in the presence of sunlight. which is formed in the atmosphere from precursor gases such as NOx.

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Ground-Level Ozone Fossil Fuels Ozone Air Pollution 287

Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 11, 2023

Heightened flood risk The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a recent outlook that about 44 percent of the United States is at risk of floods this spring, equating to about 146 million people. This includes most of the eastern half of the country, the federal agency said.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 6, 2022

Workers in facilities that produce and use EtO as well as people living near facilities that release it into the atmosphere are at risk of unsafe exposures even when the facilities are using the best available technologies to handle and contain it. Have I been exposed to ethylene oxide?

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Real Climate

MAY 12, 2021

Meanwhile, note that the factors listed above involve the whole Earth system: the oceans, the cryosphere, the atmosphere, the solid earth and lithosphere, and a full range of scales, from the city block and shoreline, to ice dynamics that change over kilometers, to GRD footprints, to the whole global ocean. 132-137, 2019. Ommen, M.V.

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Real Climate

NOVEMBER 11, 2023

are used all over the world, based on calculations that quantify the effects of physical mechanisms and the way different parts of the atmosphere are connected to each other. The physics-based models describe how energy flows through the atmosphere and ocean, as well as how the forces from different air masses push against each other.

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PA Environment Daily

OCTOBER 24, 2024

Orphaned and Abandoned wells present serious risks to the environment and public health by polluting groundwater and leaking methane into the atmosphere. This well site is an example of those impacts – where residents can’t drink their water because of this orphaned well,” said Acting DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley. Read more here.

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2024 Natural Gas Environmental Protection Waste 117

Union of Concerned Scientists

JUNE 20, 2024

The primary cause of accelerating sea level rise is human activity As people burn fossil fuels and emit heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, our atmosphere and our oceans warm up. A 2019 UCS analysis, Underwater , found that Charleston can expect roughly 500 homes to flood on a chronic basis by 2035. As the ocean warms, it expands.

Sea Level 342

Sea Level Fossil Fuels Ocean Carbon Dioxide 342

Law and Environment

APRIL 11, 2022

I suspect that, if one asked the average American whether GHG emissions increased or decreased from 2010 to 2019, they would say that emissions decreased. GHG emissions in 2019 were 12% higher in 2019 than 2010. We’re almost certainly going to have to spend money pulling carbon from the atmosphere.

2010 130

2010 Climate Change 2019 Atmosphere 130

Circle of Blue

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

” A growing body of scientific research shows that even if society were to halt emissions overnight, a certain amount of atmospheric warming—and accompanying environmental risks— would still occur. Environment Program (UNEP), wrote in the report’s foreword. And we need it now.”

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Circle of Blue

JUNE 24, 2021

An atmospheric river will bring heavy rainstorms across Australia this week. In 2019, 212 environmental activists were killed, according to data from the advocacy organization Global Witness. Atmospheric rivers are like rivers in the sky that transport mass amounts of water, bringing heavy rain and wind gusts. ON THE RADAR.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 4, 2024

Dr. Susan Avery, a physicist and atmospheric scientist, is the former director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. You can read their insights from their experiences—including being denied the opportunity to take the floor—and their efforts to engage with Dr. Avery in 2017 , 2018 , and 2019.

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Climate Scientist Fossil Fuels Climate Change Clean Energy 333

Physics World

APRIL 11, 2022

Some high-energy neutrinos detected in the Antarctic ice and thought to have come from outside the solar system may have been produced in Earth’s atmosphere. They are distinct from the generally lower-energy neutrinos produced when cosmic rays interact with nuclei in the atmosphere to generate particle showers.

Atmosphere 138

Atmosphere 2013 2019 Regulations 138

Circle of Blue

AUGUST 11, 2021

A relentless interval of hot, dry weather, made worse by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, has turned this section of the state into a cauldron of flame, dust, and smoke. Farm sales in Glenn County, for instance, generated $855 million in 2019. Maybe there’s another way.

2014 358

2014 2015 Atmosphere 2019 358

Real Climate

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Laut, "Solar activity and terrestrial climate: an analysis of some purported correlations", Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics , vol. Thomson, "Dependence of global temperatures on atmospheric CO 2 and solar irradiance", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , vol. 2569, 2019. 27489-27492, 2000.

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Physics World

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Five amateur astronomers from South America and Europe have captured a burst of light on Jupiter that was the result of an asteroid crashing into the planet’s atmosphere. If we see larger bodies impacting, this provides an excellent opportunity to study the atmospheric response to the energy and chemistry of these impactors.”.

Atmosphere 145

Atmosphere 2019 145

Circle of Blue

DECEMBER 16, 2021

In Australia , many of the same areas that endured brutal bushfires in 2019 and 2020 are now drowning in record-setting rainfall. Australia smoldered during the epic “Black Summer” bush fires of 2019 and 2020. Traffic from fishing, cargo, and military ships has increased by 58% between 2016 and 2019.

2021 130

2021 2019 Atmosphere Ocean 130

Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

A negative CI score would suggest an almost magical climate solution that pulls several carbon dioxide molecules from the atmosphere for each one that comes from the tailpipe of a truck running on dairy biomethane. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. A 2020 report from the US Department of Agriculture on Consolidation in U.S.

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Fossil Fuels Regulations Carbon Dioxide Renewable Energy 331

Physics World

MARCH 14, 2022

Although the existence of such planets has not been confirmed, the team argue that modelling their hypothetical mineralogy, interior structure and atmosphere could guide future observations by shaping our understanding of what is possible. Alpha Centauri is a multiple-star system just 4.3 Carbon world. Real-life planetary laboratories.

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Carbon Dioxide Atmosphere Greenhouse 2012 130

Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

OK, on to methane in the environment: The headline here – whether you’re talking about atmospheric concentrations, climate impacts, or emissions – is that there is a lot less methane than CO 2 , but it’s a more potent climate heater and it’s increasing faster. Atmospheric concentrations. Climate impact. W/m 2 from elevated CO 2.

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Atmosphere Radiation Natural Gas Greenhouse 147

Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 20, 2022

Further, while gas emits less carbon dioxide than coal, its main component is methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas that is released into the atmosphere when gas is burned—a fact that ConocoPhillips conveniently left out on its website.

Fossil Fuels 340

Fossil Fuels Carbon Dioxide Electricity Natural Gas 340

Frontiers

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Deforestation fires in Brazil and Indonesia accounted for 3% and 7%, respectively, of the planet’s total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in 2019 and 2020, finds a new study in Frontiers in Climate. In Brazil, a total of 11,088 km 2 of forest were destroyed from August 2019 to July 2020. Read original article ?

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Deforestation Greenhouse 2019 Carbon Monoxide 110

PA Environment Daily

JANUARY 10, 2022

On January 5, the Department of Environmental Protection reported their inspections found 4,386 violations of environmental regulations at conventional oil and gas operations during 2021 -- nearly two and a half times the violations reported just two years ago in 2019 and 337 more than in 2020. Read more here.]

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Waste 2017 2020 2019 134

Circle of Blue

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

Climate models predict with near unanimity that more atmospheric warming will increase annual rainfall in Michigan and Ohio: a trend that is already making algae blooms worse. Climate change promises to raise all of these costs. If severe blooms repeat year after year, the price tag rises to $1 billion over a decade. .

2014 359

2014 2022 Climate Change Politics 359

Physics World

JUNE 8, 2022

A weather satellite has helped explain why the red supergiant star Betelgeuse experienced an unprecedented dimming in 2019–20. As a variable star, nearby Betelgeuse normally fluctuates in brightness, but in October 2019 it began to grow fainter than it had ever been seen before. The method they use is very original.”.

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Cooling 2019 Atmosphere 2014 145

Union of Concerned Scientists

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

A separate UCS analysis back in 2019 also captured the inequitable burdens of pollution from road vehicles. According to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in 2023 alone there have been 25 confirmed climate disaster events affecting the United States with costs exceeding $1 billion each. for communities of color.

Fossil Fuels 290

Fossil Fuels Clean Energy Nitrogen Oxides Carbon Emissions 290

A Greener Life

JANUARY 19, 2025

In the basic physics of climate change, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, resulting in heavier downpours, a core ingredient of these events. Research carried out by Climate Central found that climate change increased the intensity of most Atlantic Hurricanes between 2019 and 2023.

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2024 Climate Change Rainforest Deforestation 52

Physics World

MAY 4, 2022

“If I look at the next 50 years, next hundred years maybe, nobody will be able to set up a telescope that’s powerful enough to resolve surface features,” says Jonathan Jiang , an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses Earth as a laboratory to model exoplanets.

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Atmosphere Ozone Ocean 2015 133

Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

We know that over 135 years, 88 fossil fuel producers contributed approximately: 61% of the observed rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide 52% of the rise in global average temperature 34% of global sea level rise 55% of the increase in ocean acidification Fisheries, including lobsters, are responding to the warming by moving elsewhere.

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Fossil Fuels Ocean Sea Level Carbon Dioxide 246

Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

During 2020, I started hearing aerosol particles mentioned outside of the atmospheric science field. News sources in late 2019 began reporting the invisible threat of COVID-19 with limited ideas of how it was spreading. Headlines would pose the question – “could it be transmitted through the air conditioning?

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Carbon Dioxide 2020 Air Pollution Atmosphere 279

Breezometer

AUGUST 3, 2021

This makes water vapor rise into the atmosphere, which often generates ‘dry’ thunderstorms, whose rainfall can evaporate before reaching the ground due to extreme heat. Atmospheric Instability. As atmospheric instability increases, stronger gusts of wind in changing directions can occur more frequently. Information is Power.

Atmosphere 124

Atmosphere Climate Change 2013 2021 124