The Consequences Of Climate Change

NASA

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions and an increase in the number, duration and intensity of tropical storms. Credit: Left - Mellimage/Shutterstock.com, center - Montree Hanlue/Shutterstock.com.

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.
Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.
According to the IPCC, the extent of climate change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.
The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global temperatures increase.
"Taken as a whole," the IPCC states, "the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time."

Future effects
Some of the long-term effects of global climate change in the United States are as follows, according to the Third National Climate Assessment Report:

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Change will continue through this century and beyond
Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond. The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades depends primarily on the amount of heat-trapping gases emitted globally, and how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to those emissions.

Earth’s vital signs: Sea level
An indicator of current global sea level as measured by satellites; updated monthly.

GISS climate models
NASA visualizations of future precipitation scenarios.

Climate Time Machine
Go backward and forward in time with this interactive visualization that illustrates how the Earth's climate has changed in recent history.

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Temperatures will continue to rise
Because human-induced warming is superimposed on a naturally varying climate, the temperature rise has not been, and will not be, uniform or smooth across the country or over time.

Video: Global warming from 1880 to 2013
A visualization of global temperature changes since 1880 based on NASA GISS data.

21st century temperature scenarios
NASA visualization of future global temperature projections based on current climate models

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Frost-free season (and growing season) will lengthen

The length of the frost-free season (and the corresponding growing season) has been increasing nationally since the 1980s, with the largest increases occurring in the western United States, affecting ecosystems and agriculture. Across the United States, the growing season is projected to continue to lengthen.
In a future in which heat-trapping gas emissions continue to grow, increases of a month or more in the lengths of the frost-free and growing seasons are projected across most of the U.S. by the end of the century, with slightly smaller increases in the northern Great Plains. The largest increases in the frost-free season (more than eight weeks) are projected for the western U.S., particularly in high elevation and coastal areas. The increases will be considerably smaller if heat-trapping gas emissions are reduced.

Visualization comparing 1950s and 1920s
This NASA visualization presents observational evidence that the growing season (climatological spring) is occurring earlier in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Changes in precipitation patterns

Average U.S. precipitation has increased since 1900, but some areas have had increases greater than the national average, and some areas have had decreases. More winter and spring precipitation is projected for the northern United States, and less for the Southwest, over this century. Projections of future climate over the U.S. suggest that the recent trend towards increased heavy precipitation events will continue. This trend is projected to occur even in regions where total precipitation is expected to decrease, such as the Southwest.

NASA visualizations of future precipitation scenarios
These NASA visualizations show model projections of the precipitation changes from 2000 to 2100 as a percentage difference between the 30-year precipitation averages and the 1970-1999 average.

Precipitation Measurement Missions
The official website for NASA's fleet of Earth science missions that study rainfall and other types precipitation around the globe.

Precipitation quiz
Earth’s water is stored in ice and snow, lakes and rivers, the atmosphere and the oceans. How much do you know about Earth's water cycle and the crucial role it plays in our climate?

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More droughts and heat waves
Droughts in the Southwest and heat waves (periods of abnormally hot weather lasting days to weeks) everywhere are projected to become more intense, and cold waves less intense everywhere.
Summer temperatures are projected to continue rising, and a reduction of soil moisture, which exacerbates heat waves, is projected for much of the western and central U.S. in summer.
By the end of this century, what have been once-in-20-year extreme heat days (one-day events) are projected to occur every two or three years over most of the nation.

NASA visualizations of future precipitation scenarios
These NASA visualizations show model projections of the precipitation changes from 2000 to 2100 as a percentage difference between the 30-year precipitation averages and the 1970-1999 average.

NASA: Megadroughts in U.S. West projected to be worst of millennium

Droughts in the Southwest and Central Plains of the United States in the second half of the 21st century could be drier and longer than anything humans have seen in those regions in the last 1,000 years, according to a NASA study published in Science Advances on February 12, 2015.

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Hurricanes will become stronger and more intense

The intensity, frequency and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest (Category 4 and 5) hurricanes, have all increased since the early 1980s. The relative contributions of human and natural causes to these increases are still uncertain. Hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm.

NASA: What are the chances of another Hurricane Katrina?

According to a new NASA study, a string of nine years without a major hurricane landfall in the U.S. is Iikely to come along only once every 177 years. This video explains the findings of this study.

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Sea level will rise 1-4 feet by 2100
Global sea level has risen by about 8 inches since reliable record keeping began in 1880. It is projected to rise another 1 to 4 feet by 2100. This is the result of added water from melting land ice and the expansion of seawater as it warms.
In the next several decades, storm surges and high tides could combine with sea level rise and land subsidence to further increase flooding in many of these regions. Sea level rise will not stop in 2100 because the oceans take a very long time to respond to warmer conditions at the Earth’s surface. Ocean waters will therefore continue to warm and sea level will continue to rise for many centuries at rates equal to or higher than that of the current century.

Earth’s vital signs: Sea level
An indicator of current global sea level as measured by satellites; updated monthly.

Sea level quiz
Test your knowledge of sea level rise and its effect on global populations.

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Arctic likely to become ice-free
The Arctic Ocean is expected to become essentially ice free in summer before mid-century.

Earth’s vital signs: Sea ice
An indicator of changes in the Arctic sea ice minimum over time. Arctic sea ice extent both affects and is affected by global climate change.

Global Ice Viewer
An interactive exploration of how global warming is affecting sea ice, glaciers and continental ice sheets worldwide.

By One Measure, This Wicked El Niño Is The Strongest Ever Recorded: What It Means

Washington Post - Jason Samenow

The El Niño event of 2015-2016 is making history, wreaking weather havoc around the world and forecast to unleash many weather surprises through the coming winter.

As of today, the warm ocean temperatures that define El Niño have surged to a stunning three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal in the central tropical Pacific, the highest level ever measured.

Anomaly for El NIño 3.4 region spikes at record +3.0

Many global impacts already
El Niño events, while simply descriptions of ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific and not storms, have ripple effects on weather patterns all over the world.
“Severe droughts and devastating flooding being experienced throughout the tropics and sub-tropical zones bear the hallmarks of this El Niño, which is the strongest for more than 15 years,” said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Michel Jarraud in a news release.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the El Niño of 2015-2016 is shaping up to be one of the strongest in this past century. Here are the types of weather we can expect around the world due to this year's El Niño. (World Meteorological Organization/ YouTube)

The WMO published a long list of many harmful weather impacts for which this El Niño has been implicated, including coral bleaching and the most active season for intense tropical cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere on record, both due to historically warm ocean waters.
[The Northern Hemisphere’s record-shattering tropical cyclone season, by the numbers]
It also linked El Niño with drought in South East, Asia which has lead to one of the worst wildfire outbreaks in Indonesia on record.
[Indonesian fires are pouring huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere]
Not all impacts from El Niño have been harmful. For example, it introduced wind shear in the tropical Atlantic which has depressed hurricane activity that might impact North America and may already be increasing precipitation in California, which is suffering from a historic drought.
[Is the near-record El Niño already chipping away at the California, western drought?]

‘Uncharted territory’
This El Niño is operating in a warmer world in which forecasters have no prior experience predicting its effects.
“This event is playing out in uncharted territory,” Jarraud said. “Our planet has altered dramatically because of climate change, the general trend towards a warmer global ocean, the loss of Arctic sea ice and of over a million square kilometers of summer snow cover in the northern hemisphere.”
“So this naturally occurring El Niño event and human induced climate change may interact and modify each other in ways which we have never before experienced,” he said.
“Even before the onset of El Niño, global average surface temperatures had reached new records. El Niño is turning up the heat even further,” Jarraud added.
While El Niño has certain characteristic effects which we have discussed at length in the past (for the D.C. area, and the U.S. and beyond), the background warmth adds a potential element of surprise heading into the winter months.

Comparing this year’s El Niño vs. 1997-1998, and what it portends
While today’s unsurpassed ocean temperature measurement in the central tropical Pacific made history, it is too soon to know if this toasty temperature reading is just a blip or a signal. In order for this El Niño to officially pass 1997-1998’s event as the strongest on record, the warm waters would need to be sustained near these level for three months.

3.0C in Nino 3.4 using OISSTv2 is the highest on record.

“A week of sea surface temperature-only data isn’t enough to say this is a record,” said NOAA climate analyst Michelle L’Heureux in an email.
Forecasters expect strong El Niño levels to persist through the winter, but it may be peaking now and about to begin a gradual decay. However, the event’s recent and projected intensity may be enough for this event to surpass 1997-1998.
“Judging from the trajectory of SST anomalies … it is likely that one of the late-year three-month average … sea surface temperature values in 2015 will end up upending 1997’s record warmth and claim for the 2015 the title as strongest El Niño event on record,” wrote Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters.
Every El Niño has its own signature and, so far, what sets this one apart is the amount of warm water it has generated across a vast expanse of the Pacific – spanning both the eastern and central part of the ocean basin. While it hasn’t been as intense in the eastern tropical Pacific as 1997-1998, its warm waters have extended farther west.

Compare and contrast: Weekly SST anomalies for this week in 1982, 1997, and 2015.

“So, in terms of the eastern Pacific, this event is weaker than 1997, but in terms of the central Pacific, the present event is stronger,” said Paul Roundy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Albany.
Phil Klotzbach, a tropical weather researcher from Colorado State University, says a powerful eastward push of water known as a Kelvin wave may lead to some warming in the eastern Pacific over the next few weeks.
The implications of warm water covering such a vast area of the Pacific in terms of weather patterns in the U.S. are unclear.
Sometimes El Niño events which have their warmest waters in the central rather than eastern Pacific favor less precipitation in California and colder conditions in the Northeast U.S. than events with warmer water to the east. But researchers aren’t convinced this event will behave like a central Pacific El Niño, sometimes described as a Modoki event.
“Although it has large sea surface temperature anomalies across the central basin, it is NOT a central Pacific El Niño event,” Roundy said. “The present circulation response pattern and model forecasts agree that circulation outcomes are likely to be more like strong east Pacific events, because convection is aligned well east of the dateline.”
Klotzbach along with two climate researchers at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, Jon Gottschalck and Stephen Baxter, said they agreed with Roundy’s view via email.
Jason Furtado, a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, said while he concurred this El Niño is not a central Pacific event, the very warm waters observed there might mean the winter bears some of its characteristics. Furtado also cautioned El Niño “is but one ingredient for our winter climate – its interactions with other processes and climate patterns will also be important to monitor.”

Law Student Tackles NZ Govt On Climate Change

Radio New Zealand

A 24-year old law student plans to take the New Zealand Government to court over its climate change policy, claiming the targets to which it will commit at an upcoming UN climate convention in Paris are too low.

Waikato University law student Sarah Thomson has filed papers in the High Court in Wellington challenging the government's climate change policy. Photo: NZ Geographic

Sarah Thomson, who studies at Waikato University, has filed papers in the High Court in Wellington, requesting a judicial review of aspects of the government's climate change policy.
Listen to Sarah Thomson on Checkpoint ( 3 min 37 sec )
She said its domestic greenhouse gas targets were unreasonable and not in line with the current scientific consensus, and they should have been reviewed following a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last year.
"I'm going to be arguing that there actually is a legal obligation to set those reductions along the lines of scientific consensus.
"The Climate Change Response Act actually says in the 'purpose' section that any decision should be made in light of the climate change convention", she told Checkpoint.
"We're challenging the fact that government hasn't reviewed its emissions reductions targets, and that the targets that it has set for the convention in Paris are too low and unreasonable."

More on the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) in December:

• Groser optimistic about climate change talks
• 'Lack of sunlight' on climate change

New Zealand's current proposed target ahead of the convention is to reduce emissions by 11 percent, based on 1990 levels, by 2030.
But, according to Ms Thomson's case, this target is "unreasonable and irrational".
Her case is that New Zealand's Climate Change Response Act requires the minister to review targets whenever the IPCC releases a new report, to make sure that targets are in line with scientific research and consensus on how to mitigate climate change.
She said there was no evidence any such review had taken place, which would mean the minister had acted unlawfully.
"I am fairly certain [that no review has happened] - all the information goes out onto the government website, and nothing has gone out about a review of that target."
A spokesperson for Minister for Climate Change Issues Tim Groser said the minister was seeking legal advice and was not in a position to comment further.

Possible precedent
In June, a Dutch court found its government had set an inadequate climate change policy, ordering it to adopt greater greenhouse gas reduction targets on behalf of its citizens.
Ms Thomson said the media attention around that case would have brought the issue to many people's attention but someone still needed to do something tangible.
"It's just a case of acting. And I and the lawyers have done that."

A spokesperson for Minister for Climate Change Issues Tim Groser said the minister was seeking legal advice over Ms Thomson's challenge. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

A column published on Wellington-based legal analysis website Deconstructing Paris in October said the New Zealand case was not quite the same as its Dutch predecessor.
The legal systems of the two countries differed, it said, with the Dutch system including a requirement for the government to perform its duty of care towards its citizens.
It also has a concept called "hazardous negligence", referring specifically to the state, which was a key aspect of the case and which not feature in New Zealand law.
Finally, the column said, the Dutch constitution specifically states that the authorities must "keep the country habitable and protect and improve the environment".

'We're in it for the long haul'
Ms Thomson said she had not always been interested in climate change, but following it more over the last few months impressed on her the need to act.
"Just learning more about it has made me realise how important this is, to do something. It's not really just the legal side of it, but also the human rights side and the environmental side of it too."
What Ms Thomson hoped to get out of her legal action depended on how the government responded, she said.
"The best outcome would be that the government is forced to review those targets and to set higher, more ambitious targets. Also, I hope that they're going to have a plan to actually achieve those targets too."
In the meantime, she was happy to play the waiting game.
"We're in it for the long haul - I'm keen to keep on taking it all the way through, and the lawyers are too."

Gates Foundation Would Be $1.9bn Better Off If It Had Divested From Fossil Fuels

The Guardian - Damian Carrington

Analysis of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation health charity, and 13 other major funds, reveals moving investments out of coal, oil and gas and into green companies would have generated billions in higher returns

A fossil free index from one of the world’s largest providers of financial indexes, MSCI, has just completed its first year with returns 60% greater than its parent index. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would have had $1.9bn (£1.3bn) more to spend on its lifesaving health projects if it had divested from fossil fuels and instead invested in greener companies, according to a new analysis.
The Canadian research company Corporate Knights examined the stock holdings of 14 funds, worth a combined $1tn, and calculated how they would have performed if they had dumped shares in oil, coal and gas companies three years ago.
Overall, the funds would have been $23bn better off with fossil fuel divestment. The Wellcome Trust, which is the world’s biggest health charity after the Gates Foundation, would have been $353m better off. The huge Dutch pension fund ABP would have had $9bn in higher returns, while Canada’s CPP would have had $7bn more.
“There are billions of dollars potentially being left on the table by these large funds as a result of hanging on to fossil fuel stocks and being underexposed to the $3tn [environmental] sector,” said Toby Heaps, chief executive of Corporate Knights. Separately, a fossil free index from one of the world’s largest providers of financial indexes, MSCI, has just completed its first year with returns 60% greater than its parent index.
The Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust are widely recognised for their important work and have been the focus of a Guardian campaign asking them to divest their large endowments from fossil fuels.
Climate change poses the greatest threat to health in the 21st century, according to doctors, and to avoid catastrophic impacts, most known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground. If the world’s governments keep their word and halt global warming, those reserves could become worthless, meaning there are both financial and moral arguments for divestment. Investors managing over $2.6tn of assets have already committed to divestment, including Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest. The Bank of England has also warned of potentially huge losses.
“The number one complaint about divestment we’ve heard from fund managers is that it would cost them too much money,” said Jamie Henn, communications director at 350.org, the climate campaign that commissioned the new research. “As it turns out, they are dead wrong. The energy industry of the 21st century is going to look nothing like the fossil fuel industry of the 20th. Institutions that don’t change with the times stand to lose big and, as this new analysis shows, they already are.” 350.org are partners on the Guardian’s Keep it in the Ground campaign.
The Corporate Knights research examined how 14 large investment funds would have performed if they had divested from fossil fuels in October 2012. The fossil fuel firms excluded were the top 100 coal companies and top 100 oil and gas companies, ranked by the size of their reserves by Fossil Free Indices, plus utilities generating more than 30% of their power by burning coal, as ranked by South Pole Group.
In the analysis, the excluded investments were replaced by increased investments in green companies already held by the funds. Green companies were those getting more than 20% of their revenue from environmental solutions as verified by FTSE Environmental Markets or Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a pool of 1,600 companies with a combined market capitalisation of $3tn.
The analysis found the New York City Employee Retirement scheme would have been $1.6bn better off with divestment, as would Australia’s Future Fund.
“The period of analysis coincides with a tough market for oil and commodities in general,” said Heaps. “Over the next few years, many oil stocks – if not coal utilities – could jump back, but in the long term, I don’t think a lot of prudent market watchers are betting that the carbon intensive sectors are going to outperform the market in general.” A crunch UN climate summit begins in Paris in two weeks, at which governments are expected to agree a deal to significantly cut future carbon emissions.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust does not comment on its investment holdings and decisions. Bill Gates has called fossil fuel divestment a “false solution” and in June announced he would invest $2bn of his own fortune in innovative renewable energy projects over five years.
A spokeswoman for the Wellcome Trust said: “The Trust’s long-term investment strategy has led to a total return of over £9bn since September 2008, while returns over both 10 and 20 years up to September 2014 have averaged above 10% per year in nominal terms.” This would allow charitable spending of £1bn a year for the next five years, she said. The director of the Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar, said on Sunday that the impacts of climate change on health “affect us today, never mind affecting our children or our grandchildren. This is not some abstract threat; it is immediate and it is personal.”
The MSCI fossil fuel free index replicates its broad All Country World Index (ACWI), but without 124 companies identified as having large reserves of coal, oil and gas. In its first year, to October 2015, the fossil free index produced gross returns of 6.5% compared to 4.1% for the ACWI.
The significant outperformance of the fossil free index reflected the troubled year suffered by energy companies, said Tom Kuh, head of ESG indexes for MSCI: “The challenge for investors is to figure out whether what is going on with energy is cyclical or structural.”
Kuh noted the upcoming UN climate summit, the coal industry’s troubles of the last five years and recent legal investigations in the US into ExxonMobil and said: “There seems to be more pressure coming from regulators and policymakers on fossil fuel companies because of the role fossil fuels play in climate change.”
He said demand for fossil free and low carbon indexes was growing and that the fossil fuel divestment campaign had brought the issue to prominence in the last two years. MSCI will also be providing carbon footprints for all 160,000 of its indexes in 2016. “Carbon is increasingly becoming a factor that investors are looking at in understanding risk in their portfolios,” Kuh said.

As Terrorism Unites G-20, Climate Change Exposes Divisions

Fairfax - Raymond Colitt, Onur Ant & Arne Delfs

France pressed for tougher pledges on climate change from the Group of 20 nations ahead of climate talks in Paris that start at the end of this month. AP

After uniting to fight terrorism and narrowing their differences over the future of Syria, one issue remains divisive among world leaders: what should be done to stop the planet from getting hotter.

France pressed for tougher pledges on climate change from the Group of 20 nations ahead of climate talks in Paris that start at the end of this month. The key issue was whether to mention the aim to limit the rise in global warming to 2 degrees, which is what United Nations scientists have said the world needs to do by the end of this century to avoid catastrophic climate changes.

"After long negotiations through the night, we managed to get the two-degree-goal into the agreement," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. "However, we also made clear that a lot of negotiating remains to ensure that we make progress at the Paris climate summit. It has to be a success, and Germany will do anything to assist France."

The section on climate emerged as the foremost sticking point in negotiations over what countries will promise to undertake. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said all leaders reaffirmed their commitment to gather in Paris following the slaughter by Islamic militants in the city, yet he pushed for more ambitious language about tackling rising temperatures. The 2 degree goal wasn't mentioned in an earlier draft, he said.

Officials at the G-20 summit in Turkey worked overnight and into the morning to hammer out the wording of a paragraph in the final communique that was released on Monday.

"We can see the difference between the statement at the outset and the one at the end," Fabius, who represented Francois Hollande at the summit after the president cancelled his trip to stay in Paris, said at a briefing. "The initial draft wasn't satisfactory so I intervened and I received a great deal of support. We had to continue the hard work so the statement was a little more robust."

While emission-reduction pledges submitted by nations so far are not enough to reach that goal, the international deal that envoys aim to reach in Paris may encourage further cuts as long as it includes a mechanism to revise the commitments, the UN Environment Program said earlier this month.

Another bone of contention was that France and allies such as Germany encountered resistance to include a line in the communique to simply say that climate change is a common challenge and needs collective enhanced action, according to an EU official who asked not to be named while the haggling continued over the language. In the end, the world "collective" was included in the final text.

The COP 21 climate summit is due to begin on November 30, when leaders from around the world will meet in Paris to attempt what a 2009 summit in Copenhagen failed to do: reach a global agreement on how to cut fossil-fuel use. Countries have already submitted so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, pledging the scope of emissions cuts.

The divide at the G-20 initially emerged over whether countries will back a more "differentiated" approach, where developed nations carry an extra burden, or "shared" emissions responsibilities, which would require developing nations to make bigger cuts, according to officials who asked not to be named.

A reference to differentiation was removed from an early draft of the communique, though was cited in a separate statement from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the so-called BRICS developing economies.

The BRICS nations called for a greater focus on emissions pledges to be "differentiated" based upon national circumstances, suggesting they favour industrialized nations doing more to limit emissions than developing ones.

Advocacy groups said the final agreement was a compromise that fell short of expectations. There are no guarantees that climate financing will be part of the Paris agreement and even mention of the 2 degrees pledge is not backed up by measures, according to Kiri Hanks, energy policy adviser for Oxfam.

"They've postponed the tough choices," Hanks said in Antalya. "It's a very bland statement. They're basically saying, 'see you in Paris."'

Paris Climate Change Summit 2015 to Address Key Issues of Global Warming and Greenhouse Emissions with a Stronger Resolve Post-Attack

International Business Times - Ritwik Roy

An apple marked with the logo of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) is seen in this illustration picture at Laquenexy Fruit Gardens, near Metz, eastern France, November 3, 2015. These branded apples will be offered to representatives of each country during the UN Climate Change Conference in Le Bourget, near Paris, from November 30 to December 11. Reuters/Christian Hartmann

Prime Minister Manuel Valls has shown his unflinching resolve by declaring that France will go ahead with the Paris Climate Change Conference 2015 despite the wave of deadly terror attacks that swept the nation last Friday, killing 127 people. Valls has asked world leaders to show their solidarity with France and has also branded the conference as a “meeting for humanity.”
The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) that will be held from Nov. 30 - Dec. 11 in Le Bourget, France, will see a global deal among world leaders to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions. Around 118 world leaders and 20,000-40,000 delegates are expected to attend the summit. It is also the Conference of the Parties' 11th session, which serves as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 11).
Aside from this, the Global Climate March has also been organised and it will be held from Nov. 28-29 on the eve of the Paris Climate Change Conference. The success of the "People's Climate March" in New York on Sept. 21, 2014, which attracted thousands of people protesting against global warming appears to have inspired the said march.
Apart from the Paris attacks, the recent dramatic glacier melt in northeast Greenland has set alarm bells ringing.  The melt is expected to raise global sea levels by a foot and half or more than 18 inches, according to a study from the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
"A disaster is unfolding in slow motion with important sea level rise implications," Jason Box, professor of Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland said in a report from The Sydney Morning Herald.
The glacier has reportedly lost more than 95% of the ice shelf that helped stabilise it.
In another part of the planet, top scientists Dr. Philip Hughes of The University of Manchester, Professor Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University and Dr. David Fink of The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), have joined hands to study the dynamic glacial process that shaped Earth’s alpine landscape which is visible today.
The scientists used cosmic rays in rocks or “cosmogenic exposure dating” and ANSTO’s accelerator mass spectrometry to study the rapid thinning and last retreat of  the Welsh Ice Cap in northern Wales about 19,500 years ago. They believe that the study will be most helpful in predicting future climate variability and providing answers to global warming.
Dr. Fink explained that by measuring the cosmogenic radionuclides concentration, including aluminium-26 and beryllium-10, they can tell how big the glacier was in the past. It’s like the rocks have clocks.
The study is part of BRITICE, a UK university consortium that was commissioned to model the thickness, extent and retreat of British Ice Sheet because of global warming.
Cosmogenic dating and accelerator mass spectrometry make it possible to pinpoint when the climate warmed and exposed the deposits during glacial retreat. Dr. Fink also added that they can date several retreat moraines upvalley. This can help them find out the time and speed of climate warming by determining the glacier retreat rate.
In 2014, Dr. Fink received the first set of samples which showed that the Welsh Ice Cap lost ~350 metres of ice thickness about 1,000 to 1,500 years ago, which resulted in a collapse just when the world was moving out of the Ice Age.
Additional samples were reportedly collected from Moelwyns, Rhinogs and Arenigs mountains in northern Wales. Thankfully, this new data validated the earlier finding.
Dr. Fink, Dr. Philip Hughes and Professor Neil Glasser’s research work will be published by the prominent scientific journal, Quaternary Science Research.
Aside from global warming, greenhouse emissions, melting glaciers and the People's Climate March, the COP21/CMP11 United Nations Conference on Climate Change will also have other events including the Conference of Youth (COY11) from Nov. 26-28, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting from Nov. 27-29, Paris De L'Avenir from Nov. 30-Dec. 11, the Climate Change Concert / Patti Smith Thom Yorke on Dec. 4 and the Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.

Watch the Three challenges of the COP21 video here:

Watch the Drone #COP21 here:

What Everyone Gets Wrong About The Link Between Climate Change And Violence

Vox - Brad Plumer

John Cantlie/AFP/Getty Images

During the Democratic presidential debate on Saturday night, CBS moderator John Dickerson brought up the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and then asked Bernie Sanders if he still believes climate change is our greatest national security threat. (Sanders had said as much in a previous debate.)
Sanders didn't back down:

Absolutely. In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see countries all over the world — this is what the CIA says — they're going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops, and you're going to see all kinds of international conflict.

Much snickering ensued on Twitter, especially over that bolded sentence, with the prevailing sentiment that Sanders' argument was self-evidently silly.
I'd say Sanders' reply was a little off-base — but the outraged reaction was absurd. The truth about climate change and conflict is far more complex and nuanced than a short soundbite can allow, but it's foolish to dismiss the entire topic out of hand.
Sanders was going too far when he said that climate change is "directly related" to the growth of terrorism. It's hard to find any climate or security experts who would make that strong or straightforward of a causal link.
But it's fine to raise the broader issue. What experts will often say — and what the Pentagon has been saying — is that global warming has the potential to aggravate existing tensions and security problems, by, for instance, making droughts or water shortages more likely in some regions. That doesn't mean war or terrorism will be inevitable in a hotter world. Climate will typically be just one of many factors involved. Still, climate change could increase the risk of violence, which is why many military officials now take it seriously.

The complex, indirect links between climate change and Syria's war

An explosion rocks the Syrian city of Kobani on October 20 during a reported suicide car bomb attack by ISIS. (Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images)

One place to see this dynamic at work is in Syria's ongoing civil war. Few experts would argue that climate change "caused" the horrific violence in Syria (much less the rise of ISIS). That's way too simplistic. But environmental factors arguably do figure into the story here.
The short version goes like this:

• The Fertile Crescent region (which includes Syria and Iraq) has experienced periodic droughts for many centuries.
• In recent decades, global warming appears to have increased the odds of more severe, persistent dry spells in the region. (See this recent study, led by Colin Kelley of the University of California, Santa Barbara.)
• From 2007 to 2010, Syria suffered an especially brutal drought that, when combined with other social and political factors, helped foster civil unrest — unrest that later became the war that's still raging today.

For the slightly longer version, I'll quote from this 2013 interview I did with Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell of the Center for Climate and Security. Here's how Femia described the chain of events:

We looked at the period between 2006 and 2011 that preceded the outbreak of the revolt that started in Daraa. During that time, up to 60 percent of Syria's land experienced one of the worst long-term droughts in modern history.
This drought — combined with the mismanagement of natural resources by [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, who subsidized water-intensive crops like wheat and cotton farming and promoted bad irrigation techniques — led to significant devastation. According to updated numbers, the drought displaced 1.5 million people within Syria.
Around 75 percent of farmers suffered total crop failure, so they moved into the cities. Farmers in the northeast lost 80 percent of their livestock, so they had to leave and find livelihoods elsewhere. They all moved into urban areas — urban areas that were already experiencing economic insecurity due to an influx of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees.

Notice how many moving parts there are here. Climate change likely raised the odds of a severe drought occurring in Syria. But even without global warming, a drought might still have occurred — if perhaps less severe. So climate change wasn't strictly necessary for disruptions to occur. At best we might say it made the situation worse.
It also wasn't sufficient for conflict. A severe drought, by itself, simply isn't enough to trigger a bloody civil war. (Note that California hasn't descended into armed frenzy.) You also have to mix in poverty, the Syrian government's squandering of water resources, the influx of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees, and a whole web of political and social factors. Syria is an autocratic regime with a long history of human rights abuses. Then you have the fact that Assad responded to the unrest in Daara and elsewhere with extreme violence. There was a lot of tinder in this tinderbox.
"We can't say that climate change caused the civil war," Femia emphasized to me. At best, it might be one factor among many that deserves careful study. "It would be hubris to say that we can precisely disentangle those factors right now, particularly in Syria, where there's an ongoing conflict."
That said, it'd be equally rash to dismiss climate change and environmental stressors entirely. Before the Syrian civil war broke out, Femia explained, a lot of security analysts wrongly believed that the country was stable and immune from Arab Spring unrest — precisely because they were overlooking the effects of the drought. "What [those analysts] had missed," he said, "was that a massive internal migration was happening, mainly on the periphery, from farmers and herders who had lost their livelihoods completely."

Climate change can be a security threat — but it doesn't make conflict inevitable

Photo by China Photos/Getty Images

Over the past decade, a growing number of analysts and policymakers, including the Obama administration, have started to look more closely at the ways in which climate change could contribute to conflicts and security problems around the world.
They typically acknowledge that the linkages are complex, multifaceted, and often difficult to tease out precisely. Here, for instance, is how the White House describes the relationship between climate change and conflict/terrorism:

Many governments will face challenges to meet even the basic needs of their people as they confront demographic change, resource constraints, effects of climate change, and risks of global infectious disease outbreaks. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions — conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence. The risk of conflict may increase.

On this account, climate change is a "threat multiplier," and one of many things that can lay the groundwork for conflict. That doesn't mean more war is guaranteed in a hotter world: consider that the 2000s were the warmest decade on record, but they also managed to be "the least conflict-ridden decade since the 1970s." In many places, geographic or political or economic factors will end up mattering far more. Still, climate is one potential driver to take into account.
As both Femia and Werrell pointed out in our interview, there are quite a few places around the world where climate change has the potential to make already volatile situations even more volatile. Here's one example, picked at random: "The South China Sea is a traditional choke point for shipping," Femia noted. "But now the warming ocean is changing the dynamics of fishing in that area. So beyond the food security issues, it’s also a disputed area. And climate change could exacerbate that."
That helps explain why more and more military officials are coming out and saying it'd be a good idea to figure out how we're going to deal with global warming, how we can make sure that the inevitable stresses and dislocations caused by climate change foster cooperation rather than conflict and violence. It's why the CIA has tried to study climate change and its potential impacts. (Republicans in Congress are trying to prevent both agencies from doing this.)
It's also strange to continually obsess over whether climate change or terrorism is a "bigger" security threat. They're two very different things, working in very different ways, and not strictly comparable. It's a bit like asking whether the floor or the sink is the most important part of the house. There's no reason we can't pay attention to both.

Further reading

• Will climate change lead to more war? It's not that simple.
• This interview on Syria's drought has much, much more on the nexus between climate and conflict. Andrew Freedman also wrote a great piece on the issue.
• What Obama means when he calls climate change a national security threat
• Here are some good poli-sci papers on climate and conflict in the 2012 issue of the Journal of Peace Research. Work in this area is still very much ongoing and hasn't yielded a lot of easy answers just yet.