Sat.Aug 07, 2021 - Fri.Aug 13, 2021

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Sea level in the IPCC 6th assessment report (AR6)

Real Climate

My top 3 impressions up-front: The sea level projections for the year 2100 have been adjusted upwards again. The IPCC has introduced a new high-end risk scenario, stating that a global rise “approaching 2 m by 2100 and 5 m by 2150 under a very high greenhouse gas emissions scenario cannot be ruled out due to deep uncertainty in ice sheet processes.”.

Sea Level 363
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The Colorado River Basin’s Daunting New Math

Circle of Blue

The basin’s big reservoirs have fallen to uncharted territory. The forecast isn’t any better. Lake Mead sits at a record low. Federal officials are expected to declare a first-ever Tier 1 shortage, which will require water cuts that fall most heavily on Arizona. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue. By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – August 13, 2021.

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A Scientist Reveals the Bioluminescent Magic of the Deep-Sea World

Yale E360

In an interview with Yale Environment 360 , marine biologist Edith Widder talks about her pioneering research into the world of bioluminescent organisms in the deep oceans and warns of the dangers, from trawling to oil drilling, that imperil this hidden realm. Read more on E360 ?.

Ocean 338
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What We Told the White House about Science Communication and Scientific Integrity

Union of Concerned Scientists

Center for Science and Democracy Director Andrew Rosenberg summarizes the testimony he and his colleagues provided to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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How to Drive Cost Savings, Efficiency Gains, and Sustainability Wins with MES

Speaker: Nikhil Joshi, Founder & President of Snic Solutions

Is your manufacturing operation reaching its efficiency potential? A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) could be the game-changer, helping you reduce waste, cut costs, and lower your carbon footprint. Join Nikhil Joshi, Founder & President of Snic Solutions, in this value-packed webinar as he breaks down how MES can drive operational excellence and sustainability.

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The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

Real Climate

Climate scientists are inordinately excited by the release of a new IPCC report (truth be told, that’s a bit odd – It’s a bit like bringing your end-of-(seven)-year project home and waiting anxiously to see how well it will be received). So, in an uncharacteristically enthusiastic burst of effort, we have a whole suite of posts on the report for you to read.

Sea Level 364
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Climate Change Is Intensifying the Water Cycle, New IPCC Report Finds

Circle of Blue

The climate crisis will jeopardize key sources of fresh water and make extreme weather events more severe. But experts say there’s still time to prevent the worst outcomes. A farmer in the Mekong Delta uses plastic, mud, and sticks to hold back the rising sea. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published Monday, Southeast Asia coastal zones are among the world’s most climate vulnerable regions.

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Methane Madness: 5 Reasons Why Natural Gas Doesn’t Belong in a Clean Electricity Payment Program

Union of Concerned Scientists

The Senate just released a federal budget resolution that includes a measure that could subsidize the production of natural gas. Here are 5 reasons why we shouldn't do that.

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We are not reaching 1.5ºC earlier than previously thought

Real Climate

Guest commentary by Malte Meinshausen, Zebedee Nicholls, and Piers Forster. Of all the troubling headlines emerging from the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) WG1 report, one warning will surely dominate headlines in the next days and weeks: Earth is likely to reach the crucial 1.5? warming limit in the early 2030s. In 2018, the IPCC Special Report on 1.5C warming stated in its summary for policy makers that the world was likely to cross the 1.5?

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“We Can’t Have Land Back Without Water Back”

Circle of Blue

Julia Bernal came of age while living in a watershed turned upside down by dams and diversions. Now an activist, she campaigns for Indigenous rights — and the water to sustain them. Pictured at the Santa Elena Canyon in Texas, the flow of the Río Grande shrinks during the summer. Photo © iPhone Photography / Wikimedia Commons. By Laura Gersony, Circle of Blue — August 9, 2021.

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Hot off the Press: The New IPCC Report

Legal Planet

The IPCC issued the massive first volume of its new report on climate change on Monday. This volume focuses on climate science: how much will the world warm, and what will the impacts be? The bottom line is that the evidence is becoming ever firmer that (a) humans are causing an unprecedented rate of climate change, (b) we are starting to foreclose our ability to achieve less dangerous outcomes, and (c) failure to act will impose tremendous costs for generations.

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The Key to Sustainable Energy Optimization: A Data-Driven Approach for Manufacturing

Speaker: Kevin Kai Wong, President of Emergent Energy Solutions

In today's industrial landscape, the pursuit of sustainable energy optimization and decarbonization has become paramount. ♻️ Manufacturing corporations across the U.S. are facing the urgent need to align with decarbonization goals while enhancing efficiency and productivity. Unfortunately, the lack of comprehensive energy data poses a significant challenge for manufacturing managers striving to meet their targets. 📊 Join us for a practical webinar hosted by Kevin Kai Wong of Emergent Ene

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Safariland Promised to Stop Making Chemical Weapons—But Has It?

Union of Concerned Scientists

In early June 2021, following a year of extensive use of chemical weapons (such as tear gas) by law enforcement against racial justice protesters, the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Subcommittees launched an investigation into the safety of these weapons, requesting internal documents and product information from manufacturers. Despite the well-documented human health impacts of […].

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AR6 of the best

Real Climate

Half a dozen takeaways from a first read of the new IPCC AR6 report. As climate scientists we tend to look at the IPCC reports a little differently than the general public might. Here are a few things that mark this report out from previous versions that relate to issues we’ve discussed here before: Extreme events are increasingly connected to climate (duh!

Sea Level 361
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Dry Wells in Northern California Bring Home the Costs and Stresses of Drought

Circle of Blue

In this hot, dry summer, household wells are failing and wait lists for replacements stretch up to a year. A dry field north of Maralee and Noal Child’s house in Glenn County, California, used to be an olive orchard. Now it is slated to be planted with almond trees, Maralee said. Photo courtesy of Maralee Childs. By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – August 11, 2021.

2014 358
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A Sleeper Provision in the Senate Infrastructure Bill

Legal Planet

We will need a much more robust transmission in coming years. Sources of renewable energy, such as Iowa wind farms, are often located far from the urban centers that need the power. Transmission also helps to deal with weather issues that may impact renewables: even if it’s too cloudy for solar in one state, the sun may be shining a state or two over.

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Implementing D.E.J.I. Strategies in Energy, Environment, and Transportation

Speaker: Antoine M. Thompson, Executive Director of the Greater Washington Region Clean Cities Coalition

Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion (DEJI) policies, programs, and initiatives are critically important as we move forward with public and private sector climate and sustainability goals and plans. Underserved and socially, economically, and racially disadvantaged communities bear the burden of pollution, higher energy costs, limited resources, and limited investments in the clean energy and transportation sectors.

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More Heat This Weekend–More Inequities of Keeping Cool

Union of Concerned Scientists

As more high temperatures are forecast in the next few days, two of our climate scientists explain how people of color in four cities--Fresno, CA, Miami, FL, Mobile, AL, and Shreveport, LA--are at risk from the effects of urban heat islands.

Cooling 263
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#NotAllModels

Real Climate

The biggest contribution scientists can make to #scicomm related to the newly released IPCC Sixth Assessment report , is to stop talking about the multi-model mean. We’ve discussed the issues in the CMIP6 multi-model ensemble many times over the last couple of years – for instance here and here. There are two slightly contradictory features of this ensemble that feature in the new IPCC report – first is the increase in skill seen in CMIP6 compared to CMIP5 models.

2020 360
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HotSpots H2O: Argentina’s Paraná River Drops to 77-Year Low, Resulting in Economic Loss and Wildfires

Circle of Blue

Paraná River © Rodrigo Soldon / Flickr Creative Commons. By Christian Thorsberg, Circle of Blue. The Paraná River stretches through the heart of central South America, arising in Brazil and extending over 3,000 miles through Paraguay and Argentina. The continent’s second-longest river behind the Amazon, the Paraná is a workhorse, supporting rainforest diversity, Indigenous ancestral homes, and Argentina’s economy: over 80 percent of the country’s farm exports, primarily wheat and soy, are transp

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New way of seeing round corners has picosecond temporal resolution

Physics World

The idea of seeing round corners without using a mirror may sound magical but, in the past ten years, non-light-of-sight (NLOS) imaging has become an increasingly active research field, with potential applications including surveillance, self-driving cars and fire and rescue. Now researchers in China have found a novel way to detect the arrival times of scattered photons with picosecond resolution, producing sharper images than possible with a standard camera without requiring expensive, special

2012 145
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Shaping a Resilient Future: Climate Impact on Vulnerable Populations

Speaker: Laurie Schoeman Director, Climate & Sustainability, Capital

As households and communities across the nation face challenges such as hurricanes, wildfires, drought, extreme heat and cold, and thawing permafrost and flooding, we are increasingly searching for ways to mitigate and prevent climate impacts. During this event, national climate and housing expert Laurie Schoeman will discuss topics including: The two paths for climate action: decarbonization and adaptation.

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I Toured “the Best Damn Plant in the Fleet.” Two Years Later It Exploded.

Union of Concerned Scientists

Two years ago, I went on a tour of the Russell City Energy Center. Two months ago, the power plant exploded.

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A deep dive into the IPCC’s updated carbon budget numbers

Real Climate

Guest post by Joeri Rogelj (Twitter: @joerirogelj). Since temperature targets became international climate goals, we have been trying to understand and quantify the implications for our global emissions. Carbon budgets play an important role in this translation. Carbon budgets tell us how much CO 2 we can emit while keeping warming below specific limits.

2018 358
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Global Climate Panel’s Report: No Part of the Planet Will be Spared

Inside Climate News

A new IPCC science assessment, coming before COP26 in November, called for immediate action and showed that this summer’s extremes are only a mild preview of the decades ahead. By Bob Berwyn Amidst a summer of fires, floods and heat waves, scientists on Monday delivered yet another reminder that burning more fossil fuels in the decades ahead will rapidly intensify the impacts of global warming.

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X-ray flares spotted from behind a black hole

Physics World

X-ray flares originating from behind a black hole have been observed for the first time – by an international team led by Dan Wilkins at Stanford University in the US. The wavelength-shifted X-ray flashes are believed to have originated as photons that collided with the black hole’s inner accretion disk, before being redirected towards Earth by the black hole’s colossal gravity.

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Sustainability at Retail

Sustainability impacts every nation, company, and person around the world. So much so that, in 2015, the United Nations (UN) issued a call for action by all countries to work toward sustainable development. In response to this and as part of a global Sustainability at Retail initiative, Shop! worked collaboratively with its global affiliates to address these critical issues in this white paper.

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Disempowered by Tyson—How Big Chicken Hurts Farmers, Workers, and Communities (and Why You Should Care)

Union of Concerned Scientists

Tyson has aggressively consolidated its power in the chicken industry—and workers and farmers are hurting.

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Deciphering the ‘SPM AR6 WG1’ code

Real Climate

I followed with great interest the launch of the sixth assessment report Working Group 1 (The Physical Science Basis) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on August 9th. The main report is quite impressive (see earlier posts here , here , here , and here ) but the press conference didn’t come across as being focused and well-prepared.

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NASA Probe Finds Higher Chance of Asteroid Bennu Striking Earth

Scientific American

Using data from the OSIRIS-REx mission, scientists calculated slightly increased (but still low) odds the space rock will collide with our planet in the 2100s. -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com.

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What do holidays mean to physicists in the 21st century?

Physics World

I once went to a New Year’s Eve party when I heard a graduate physics student apologize for leaving early. He was working on an accelerator experiment, he explained, and his shift was starting at midnight. To the astonishment of almost everyone, he seemed to be looking forward to getting back into the lab. I, though, was not surprised, having interviewed enough scientists to recognize their enthusiasm for regarding leisure time as a precious opportunity to work.

Politics 143
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We Have an Infrastructure Bill. We Still Need Bold Climate Action Urgently

Union of Concerned Scientists

The Senate has passed the infrastructure bill. Will it go far enough to help us prepare for–and fight–climate change?

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A Tale of Two Hockey Sticks

Real Climate

Two decades ago, the so-called “Hockey Stick” curve , published in 1999 by me and my co-authors (Mann, Bradley and Hughes, 1999) , was featured in the all-important “Summary for Policy Makers” (SPM) of the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment report. The curve, which depicted temperature variations over the past 1000 years estimated from “proxy data such as tree rings, corals, ice cores, and lake sediments”, showed the upward spiking of modern temperatures (the “blade”) as it dramatically ascends, during

2001 354
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From a Raft in the Grand Canyon, the West’s Shifting Water Woes Come Into View

Inside Climate News

The Colorado River through the national park holds lessons for managing an essential and diminishing resource in a rapidly warming climate. By Judy Fahys Floating in the bottom of the Grand Canyon last spring, I was traveling back in time in more ways than one. In a narrow section, where the Colorado River runs deep and quiet, Vishnu schist offers a window onto the world as it was here 1.7 billion years ago, give or take a couple of hundred million years.

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Encountering infinity: the aspects of reality we cannot comprehend

Physics World

At his best, Alan Lightman is a wondrous writer: poetic, original, insightful, inspired. In his new book Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings , he ponders the infinitely small and the infinitely large, and the impossibility of understanding each, let alone grasping our place in a universe that pulls us in both directions. He illustrates this at one point with a simple story of taking his two-year-old daughter to the ocean for the first time.

Ocean 140
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Astronomers Find an Unexpected Bumper Crop of Black Holes

Scientific American

In trying to explain the spectacular star trails of the star cluster Palomar 5, astronomers stumbled on a very large trove of black holes. -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com.

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Tiny ‘maniac’ robots could deliver drugs directly to central nervous system

Frontiers

By Conn Hastings, science writer. Image credit: Life science / Shutterstock.com. A new study investigates tiny tumbling soft robots that can be controlled using rotating magnetic fields. The technology could be useful for delivering drugs to the nervous system. In this latest study, researchers put the robots through their paces and showed that they can climb slopes, tumble upstream against fluid flow and deliver substances at precise locations to neural tissue.