These Are The 10 Most Important Climate Stories Of 2016

Climate Central - Brian Kahn

This year is likely to remembered as a turning point for climate change. It's the year the impacts of rising carbon pollution became impossible to ignore. The world is overheating and vast swaths of the planet have suffered the consequences. At the same time, it's also a year where world leaders crafted and agreed on a number of plans to try to turn the tide of carbon pollution and move toward a clean energy future. It's clear 2016 was a year where planetary peril and human hope stood out in stark contrast. Here are the 10 most important climate milestones of the year.

The world struck an airline carbon pollution deal
The friendly skies got slightly friendlier. Air travel counts for about 7 percent of carbon emissions globally. That number will need to come down in the coming decades, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, the world's governing body for airlines, put a plan in place to start that transition. The plan, which was signed off on by 191 countries, is focused on letting airlines buy credits that will help fund renewable energy projects to offset airplane emissions. It isn't a perfect solution since it doesn't directly reduce carbon pollution from air travel, but it's a first step for an industry that will have to find novel, carbon-free ways to produce the fuel needed to fly you home for Christmas vacation.

An extremely potent greenhouse gas is also on its way out
Hydrofluorocarbons are the chemicals in your air conditioner that help keep you cool in the summer (and the food in your refrigerator cool year round). Ironically, they're also a greenhouse gas that's thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. Reducing them is critical to keep the planet from heating up much more and in October, international negotiators struck a deal to do phase them out. Countries still have to ratify the agreement — and it could face a major roadblock in the U.S. Senate — in order for it to take effect, but if approved, it will provide strong targets and a timetable to find replacement chemicals to keep you cool in a warming world.

July was the hottest month ever recorded. Then August tied it
The Arctic had a crazy heat wave this winter, but the planet as a whole really roasted through July and August. The summer is usually the warmest time of the year by dint of the fact that there's more land in the northern hemisphere. But this summer was something else. July was the hottest month ever recorded, and it was followed by an August — usually a bit cooler than July — that was just as scorching. Those epically hot months helped set this year up for record heat (but more on that in a bit).

Arctic sea ice got weird. Really weird
The Arctic was probably the weirdest place on the planet this year. It had a record-low peak for sea ice in the winter and dwindled to its second-lowest extent on record. The Northwest Passage also opened in August, allowing a luxury cruise ship to pass through. Those milestones themselves are a disconcerting harbinger of a warming world, but November brought an even more bizarre event. Normally it's a time when night blankets the region and temperatures generally plummet to allow the rapid growth of ice. But a veritable heat wave ratcheted temperatures 27°F above normal, hitting pause on ice growth and even causing ice loss for a few days. December has seen a similar warm spell that scientists have found would be virtually impossible if it wasn't for climate change. The Arctic is the most rapidly warming region on the planet and 2016 served as a reminder that the region is being dramatically reshaped by that warming.

Divestment and clean energy investments each hit a record
Climate change is a huge, pressing economic issue as countries will have to rejigger their economies to run on renewables and not fossil fuels. Investors are attacking that switch at both ends, and 2016 stands out for the record pace at which they're doing it. On the fossil fuel side, investors representing $5.2 trillion in assets have agreed to divest from fossil fuels. That includes massive financial firms, pension funds, cities and regional governments, and a host of wealthy individuals. Not bad for a movement that only got its start in 2011. On the flip side, a report showed that investors poured $288 billion into new renewable projects in 2015, also a record. That's helping install 500,000 solar panels a day around the world and ensuring that 70 percent of all money invested into energy generation is going to renewables.

The Great Barrier Reef was decimated by warm waters
Coral has had a rough go of it around the world for the past three years. El Niño coupled with climate change has caused a massive coral bleaching event around the globe. Nowhere have the impacts been more stark than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Up to 93 percent of the reef was rocked by coral bleaching as record-warm waters essentially boiled coral to death. A third of the reef — including some of the most protected areas — are now dead. Researchers found that climate change made the record heat up to 175 times more likely, offering a glimpse into the dystopian future reefs face. A 1.5°C rise in the global average temperature would essentially mean game over for corals around the world.

The world breached the 1.5°C climate threshold
So about 1.5°C. It's a threshold that's crucial for low-lying island states to continue their existence (to say nothing of Miami or other coastal cities). Passing it would mean essentially issuing a death sentence for these places, corals and Arctic sea ice and other places around the world. The globe got its first glimpse of 1.5°C in February and March this year. Climate change, riding on the back of a super El Niño, helped crank the global average temperature to 1.63°C above normal in February and 1.54°C above normal in March compared to pre-industrial times. While the abnormal heat has since subsided a bit, it's likely that 1.5°C will be breached again and again in the coming years and could become normal by 2025-30.

Carbon dioxide hit 400 ppm. Permanently
Scientists measure carbon dioxide in parts per million and in 2016, and it hit a not-so-nice round number at the Earth's marquee carbon observatory: 400 ppm. Despite the seasonal ebb and flow, there wasn't a single week where carbon dioxide levels dipped below 400 ppm. It's the first time on record that's happened. Because carbon pollution continues to rise, the world isn't going to see carbon dioxide dip below 400 ppm again in our lifetimes (and likely a lot longer than that). Carbon dioxide also breached the 400 ppm threshold in Antarctica, the first time that's happened in human history (and likely a lot longer). And in a report that was published this year, the World Meteorological Organization revealed that carbon dioxide passed the 400 ppm milestone globally in 2015. So yeah, 400 ppm was kind of a thing this year.

The Paris Agreement got real
The world got together to deliver the Paris Agreement in 2015, but the rubber really hit the road in 2016. Nearly 120 countries have ratified the agreement, putting it into force on Nov. 4. That includes big carbon pollution emitters like China, the U.S. and the European Union, and tiny ones like Mongolia, the Cook Islands and Sierra Leone. While there's concern that President-elect Trump could pull the U.S. out of the agreement, signatories have stressed that they'll go forward to meet their pledges regardless. With the rubber on the road, the next step is to get the wheels spinning.

It was the hottest year on record. Again
In case it wasn't clear, the clearest sign of climate change is heat. And this year had lots of it. Hot Arctic, hot summer, hot water, and so it's only fitting that the biggest climate milestone of the year (in a year that itself is a milestone) is record heat. Of course, that was the biggest story in 2014. And 2015 for that matter. This year marks the third year in a row of record-setting heat, an unprecedented run. It's a reminder that we've entered a new era, where our actions have changed the world we call home. We also have the ability to decide what comes next.

Links

• The U.S. Has Been Overwhelmingly Hot This Year
• Warming is Sending Mountain Glaciers 'Off a Cliff'
• Temperatures Are Soaring at the North Pole . . . Again
• Obama Bars Arctic Drilling Ahead of Trump Inauguration

5 Ways Climate Change Is A Women’s Rights Issue

International Women's Development Agency

Climate change is not gender neutral. If you’re a woman, you’re more likely to feel the negative consequences of natural disasters and, left unchecked, climate change only stands to make gender inequalities worse.

Women during the Myanmar floods. Photo: Myo Thame/UNICEF

1. Collecting drinking water becomes harder, and violence becomes more common

In 63% of rural households worldwide, it’s a woman’s job to gather drinking water for their families. Climate change means more droughts and flooding, so finding access to clean water has become harder than ever. This puts added pressure on women and girls, with many having to travel longer and farther to access clean water. By travelling further from home and into the night, women are also more likely to be sexually assaulted by men.

Cambodian woman collecting water. Photo: Eric Sales/ADB

2. Women’s health is in danger

In times of disaster, illnesses such as malaria and cholera can spread quickly, and water contamination is a serious concern. For women who are pregnant or giving birth in such unhygienic conditions, the risk to a mother and her baby is huge. And in the event her family gets sick, it is almost always the woman who is in charge of caring for them. This means she is unable to work, which further weakens her financial independence and deepens the cycle of poverty.

A women receives a dignity kit and a health check-up in Ayeyawady Region of Myanmar. Photo: Benny Manser/UNFPA

3. Women farmers lose their income           

In some places, women do up to 80% of the farming work, with agriculture often being one of the few income sources available to women. This means that in the event of natural disasters, women face not only water shortages and loss of land to farm, but a loss of the income they rely on to survive.

A farmer from the Palaung hill tribe in Myanmar. Photo: Jean Qingwen Loo/UN Women

4. Violence against women increases during natural disaster

During natural disasters, men are more likely to perpetrate violence against women.  This is particularly true for women or girls displaced or living in temporary accommodation, where there is a far greater risk of rape and physical violence. Worse still, with police and medical services overwhelmed during times of disaster, women may have nowhere to go to seek support.

Women walk among the destroyed homes in the wake of Cyclone Winston in Fiji. Photo: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

5. It’s even harder for single or lgbtqi women to access emergency services

If women are already discriminated against in their communities, access to emergency services during natural disasters can be incredibly difficult. During the recent Cyclone Winston in Fiji, women of diverse sexual identities were choosing to stay in homes that were hazardous and remote – because they felt the evacuation centres were unsafe and unwelcoming for them. Those with healthcare issues were unable to reach doctors, and for poor households food, water and housing security immediately dropped.

The devastation left by Cyclone Winston. Photo: FWRM

Links

• Climate Change and Women
• How Does Climate Change Affect Women?
• Is climate change a gender equality issue?
• Women need to be at the core of the humanitarian response on climate change
• The Consequences of Climate Change
• Consulting Women on Climate Change
• Rural women at the frontline of climate change are taking action through innovation
• Does climate change affect us all the same?

Cabinet Papers 1992-93: Australia Reluctant While World Moves Towards First Climate Treaty

The Conversation - Marc Hudson

Despite international efforts, greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow. Coal image from www.shutterstock.com

Cabinet papers from 1992 and 1993 released today by the National Archives of Australia confirm that Australia was a reluctant player in international discussions about climate change and environmental issues under Prime Minister Paul Keating.
Internationally, it was an exciting time for the environment. In June 1992, the UN Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro. Here the world negotiated the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (which last year gave us the Paris Agreement) and opened the Convention on Biological Diversity for signing.
So what was Australia doing?

Australia stumbles towards climate policy
Domestically, the focus was on Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD), a policy process begun by Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Working groups made up of corporate representatives, environmentalists and bureaucrats had beavered away and produced hundreds of recommendations.
By the final report in December 1991, the most radical recommendations (gasp – a price on carbon!) had been weeded out. Democrats Senator John Coulter warned of bureaucratic hostility to the final recommendations. Keating replaced Hawke in the same month.
The August 1992 meeting, where the ESD policies were meant to be agreed upon, was so disastrous that the environmentalists walked out and even the corporates felt aggrieved.
Two interim reports on the ESD process from the cabinet papers fill in some of the detail.
The first interim report, in March 1992, said that government departments had not been able to identify which recommendations to take on board. Cabinet moved the process on, but the only policies on the table were those that involved:

…little or no additional cost, cause minimal disruption to industry or the community, and which also offer benefits other than greenhouse related.

By May, federal ministers were told that the states and territories weren't committed to either ESD or greenhouse gas policies.
The policy process rumbled on after the walkout, finally producing a National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development and a National Greenhouse Response Strategy. The greenhouse strategy contained only – surprise! – toothless voluntary measures, which proved ineffective in keeping emissions down to 1990 levels.
The November 1992 minutes mildly note that:

Most major interest groups have voiced concerns about their lack of involvement in the drafting of the NGRS [greenhouse strategy] document. Officials made provision for community input through the public comment process and a public consultative forum held in August [the one the environmentalists walked out of]. Reaction from conservation groups is likely to be negative, given the limited changes made to many of the responses in the revised strategy. They are likely to want to see more concerted efforts in areas such as fuel efficiency and renewable energy sources.

Indeed.
With equal prescience, the document warns:

Coal producers and resource-intensive industries (eg. aluminium) may express concern about their prospects in the medium to long term.

There are not many surprises here. The dithering over climate and environmental policies has been well covered by Clive Hamilton, David Cox, Joan Staples and numerous academic papers (see here, here, here, and here).
And while we won't know officially who said what for another 30 years, there are tantalising hints in Neal Blewett's A Cabinet Diary. Published in 1999, it reveals the antagonism between the environment minister and others in the Keating cabinet.

The international stage
International climate policy was dominated by the US threat, under President George Bush senior, not to attend the Earth Summit if the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) included specific emission-reduction targets. The US attended, and the UNFCCC didn't include targets.
In Australia, the cabinet papers point out, not for the first or last time, that:

Australia is the only developed megadiverse country; it is a major user and exporter of greenhouse gas producing fossil fuels and energy intensive products; it could be significantly affected by global environmental change.

In May 1992 cabinet endorsed in principle support for the UNFCCC. There are three ironies here.
First, it was a major concern that the media statement to accompany Environment Minister Ros Kelly's signing should be amended to include the fact that:

The Convention does not bind any signatory to meet any greenhouse gas target by a specified date.

Second, the minutes note that:

A decision by Australia not to sign the Convention would be criticised by domestic environment interests and could also attract international criticism, particularly in the Pacific region.

In later years, Prime Minister John Howard would not worry about this when repeatedly nixing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
Third, an emphasis on assisting developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region with climate adaptation looks odd given there had been zero mention of greenhouse gases in a March 1992 discussion document of aid to Cambodia (that country is feeling the effects already).
Keating's willingness to let Kelly sign the convention may have been related to the following:

The Convention contains several safeguards which protect Australia's interests … [A]llowance is made for "the differences in Parties' starting points and approaches, economic structures and resource bases, and the need to maintain strong and sustainable economic growth, available technologies and other individual circumstances". Additionally, Parties are obliged to take into consideration the situation of Parties with economies that are highly dependent on the production, processing, export and use of fossil fuels. These two provisions will give relevant countries, including Australia, flexibility in fulfilling their obligations under the Convention.

And they probably thought they had more time than they actually did. The May 1992 note argues:

[The UNFCCC] is likely to take some years to obtain the necessary ratifications to bring it into force.

It took two. Australia ratified the treaty in December 1992, but not before noting that the UNFCCC would worry industry for being too strong, and environmental groups for being too weak. So no changes there.

What happened next
At least when it comes to climate policy, there are no real secrets worthy of the name. We have always known that the Australian state quickly retreated from its already hedged promise to take action, and told us all along that this was because we had a lot of coal.
While Australia's international credibility has flatlined (with a brief bump from 2007 to 2009), two other things have soared over the last 25 years: Australia's coal exports, and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Both look set to continue their upward trend.
Reading the documents, it is striking how concerned the cabinet was to minimise its financial commitments (unsurprising, perhaps, given the overall state of the economy at the time), and just how unimportant the climate issue was to leaders who ask us to trust them on the long-term future of the country. It seems it was a distant abstraction that many didn't really think was real. How times have changed.

Links

• 25 years ago the Australian government promised deep emissions cuts, and yet here we still are
• Carbon coups: from Hawke to Abbott, climate policy is never far away when leaders come a cropper
• Fair's fair: time for China and India to step up at climate talks
• Government doesn't need climate bodies: it needs commitment

Scientists Just Ran The Numbers On How Much Trump Could Damage The Planet

Washington Post - Chris Mooney

President-elect Donald Trump during the first stop of his post-election “thank you” tour, at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati. (Mark Lyons/European Pressphoto Agency)

There has been a lot of speculation since climate change doubter Donald Trump’s election about what the consequences could be for global climate action. Some analysts cite very dire implications, and others suggest that clean energy growth will continue apace.
But number-crunching analyses that actually calculate how much of a dent the election could have on the planet’s temperature have been rare. That’s in part because it’s no simple calculation.
Some have tried, though — and one such analysis from the think tank Climate Interactive, which we’ve unpacked here before, came up with a kind of middle-road result on this question. It found that if the United States delays addressing climate change domestically for four to eight years, this alone would not be enough to push the globe into the climate “danger” zone, which is generally described as allowing temperatures to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above their pre-industrial level. However, if U.S. backsliding lasted longer, or if it led to corresponding actions by other countries, then the result could be severe for the planet.
A new commentary article published in Nature Climate Change on Monday presents some additional calculations that tend toward a similar conclusion.
Written by Benjamin Sanderson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, the paper uses climate models to determine what the consequences would be if an eight-year delay in U.S. climate action, led by Trump, reverberates globally. The paper also considered a doubly bad scenario in which the United States also cuts back on clean energy research and then the world follows suit, and a triply bad scenario in which it also burns more fossil fuels and the world follows.
“Any delays to mitigation or cuts to renewable energy research by the U.S. will likely render the 2 °C target unachievable if a global precedent is set,” the authors write.
Let’s take this in pieces.
First and most important, the analysis finds that if the U.S. delays for eight years taking any climate action — meaning its current emissions remain steady — then that alone wouldn’t harm the planet much. This is basically the same result as the one reached by the Climate Interactive analysis. The United States is just one country and the second largest emitter. Even if it goes rogue, it cannot totally torpedo the planet.
But if the delay by the United States spreads globally — nobody cuts emissions, everybody waits for eight years — then it becomes a bigger deal. The study found that could lead to an additional 350 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, corresponding to a planetary temperature increase of .25 degrees Celsius and a lessened chance of keeping the warming of the planet within the safe range embraced in the Paris climate accord.
“The fear is that the U.S. coming out, or the U.S. having reduced ambitions in the near term, would destabilize the whole agreement,” Sanderson said in an interview.
The problem with such a delay is that there is a finite “carbon budget” before we reach 2 degrees of warming, and each successive year of emissions adds to the budget. So delays make staying within the budget a great deal harder and require much sharper cuts afterward.
In the case of an eight-year global delay (followed by global emissions cuts), that reduces the chances of staying within the 2-degree C goal from 66 percent to 50 percent, Sanderson said.
But it could be worse than that: The United States and globe could not only hold steady on emissions, but could actually emit more. And the United States might delay taking steps to create clean energy technologies better than the ones that we have now, causing a global turn away from clean energy research, including on key technologies such as carbon capture and storage.
The analysis finds that adding these problems for eight years worsens the overall problem still more, putting the 2-degree goal farther and farther out of reach.
“The bottom line is that a very short delay in global action would have very large consequences for the ability to meet these very aggressive targets, even if very globally coordinated and ambitious action happens post-2025,” said Sanderson.
Granted, the authors admit that this is a thought experiment only based on a particular set of assumptions — Trump’s policies don’t exist yet, so they cannot be evaluated directly. Nor can the world’s response to them. “We caution against overinterpreting the numbers of this analysis because of the large uncertainty in how the economic and ideological shift in U.S. governance will affect greenhouse gas emissions,” they write.

[Over 2,000 scientists urge Trump to respect ‘scientific integrity and independence’]

Indeed, some aspects of the analysis seem less realistic than others. The idea that the United States could withdraw from the Paris process, and that could then crack things up enough that other countries also slow their own ambitions to cut emissions, is not an unreasonable fear. And as the study shows, that’s a bad enough outcome.
What’s harder to believe, though, is that a global turn away from clean energy research and development could be precipitated by U.S. actions. The clean-energy trend seems too firmly entrenched at this point. In this sector, a U.S. withdrawal seems more likely to give advantages to its competitors (China, Germany, and others) than to lead them to cut back on investments as well.

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As for whether an actual increase in emissions could happen globally over the next eight years — that’s also uncertain. In the past three years, global emissions have appeared to flatten but have not yet gone down. Less coal burning in China and the United States appears to be a key driver of this trend. Once again, it’s not clear that the United States’ intransigence alone could set off more emissions growth in a world in which clean energy growth is looking pretty dynamic.
Still, despite using a very different methodology, the new analysis fits with the previous one by Climate Interactive. A Trump administration hostile to international climate agreements cannot substantially change the planet’s temperature alone over eight years — but it can cause considerably more of an impact if it leads other nations to halt their own actions, or to step back from the clean energy revolution.
It is important to reiterate that keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels was already going to be extremely difficult no matter who the U.S. elected president — and that the climate impacts we have seen so far are already pretty grave.
So really, we are on a road to considerable damage no matter what, and likely some impacts that will be irreversible on any human time-scale. In this context, while we can’t know the future, we can definitely say that disengagement by the United States has the potential to make things worse — but that it will depend on how the entire world responds.
It is, after all, global warming.

Links

• This is what it would take for Trump to truly damage the planet’s climate
• 2016’s super warm Arctic winter ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change, scientists say
• Withdrawing Obama climate plan would ‘lead to more litigation,’ AGs warn Trump
• The U.S. isn’t the only big country at risk of falling behind on climate change. Meet Brazil
• In the age of Trump, a climate change libel suit heads to trial
• The Arctic is showing stunning winter warmth, and these scientists think they know why

These Graphics Show How Terrible Climate Change Was In 2016

Huffington Post - James Warner

Here are some of this year’s most extreme weather events caused, in part, by climate change.

Large chunks of ice melt in the sun near the Hornkees glacier in Austria on Aug. 26. Sean Gallup via Getty Images

EXETER, England ― This past year was full of weather extremes across the world, and the Earth entered new territory in terms of climate change and weather patterns. And 2016 is about to be crowned the warmest year since records began. Anthropogenic climate change continues to warm the planet year after year, and scientists and meteorologists have repeatedly expressed concern that this will cause the number of extreme weather events to increase.

Of course, there have always been extreme weather events. But the probability of these extremes is higher now, due to climate change. And the frequency, intensity, timing or duration of these events is having a bigger impact on society. Some of the fastest-changing parts of the planet, such as the Arctic, are highly likely to endure increased warm extremes due to climate change, and as more ice melts, more sunlight gets absorbed, amplifying the changes.

Here, in a series of data visualizations and images, are some of this year’s wildest weather events.

1. Hurricane Alex, the strongest January hurricane on record

Hurricane Alex passes over the Azores on Jan. 15. NASA/NOAA/Jeff Schmaltz

Hurricane Alex was the first hurricane to form in the Atlantic since Hurricane Alice in 1955, and it became the strongest January hurricane on record, with winds reaching an estimated 85 mph. The North Atlantic hurricane season typically starts around early June and ends in November, so it was unusual for a hurricane to form so late out of season.

Hurricanes are confined to this season because they require warm sea surface temperatures to form. Questions around whether this event can be attributed to climate change or if it was influenced by other components of the climate system, such as the recent El Nino, still need to be fully investigated. It was most likely a combination of factors. As Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Popular Science, “It’s extremely unusual but not unprecedented.”

Hurricane Alex visualized using precipitable water (a measure of the total amount of water in the atmospheric column) to the west of North Africa. (Data: Climate Forecast System Reanalysis) via GIPHY

2. The blizzard that slammed the U.S. East Coast in January

This image from NASA’s Aqua satellite shows post-storm snow on the ground across the eastern U.S. on Jan. 24. NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response

Back in January, a major blizzard affected the U.S. Northeast, bringing almost three feet of snow in some places. Strong winds accompanying it caused more problems ― approximately 103 million people and 13,000 flights were affected. It was ranked as a Category 5 extreme weather event in the Northeast, with estimated losses of up to $3 billion.

The storm system, which initially formed over Texas, also led to severe thunderstorms and produced tornados.

Precipitation accumulation (liquid equivalent) from Jan. 21-23. (Data: CFSR) via GIPHY

3. Record heat in India and the Middle East

In the sweltering heat in Bundelkhand, a region in central India, a man and his wife remove silt from the bottom of a dried-out pond. Vivek Singh for the WorldPost

May saw yet more records broken around the globe. In India, temperatures reached an incredible 51 degrees Celsius (124 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rajasthan, breaking the previous record high. Severe drought followed the extreme heat ― at least 330 million people were without sufficient water.

The heat and drought compounded the misery for many people, especially in rural parts of the country, who were already dealing with several years of below-average monsoons, which are becoming more erratic because of climate change.

Temperature at two meters above the Earth’s surface from May 18-22, over the Middle East, Africa and India. (Data: CFSR) via GIPHY

4. Antarctic ice reaching significant lows

A frozen section of the Ross Sea at the Scott Base in Antarctica on Nov. 12. MARK RALSTON via Getty Images

Antarctic sea ice this year took a sharp deviation from its usual yearly cycle, dropping below its usual range for over 60 days. The gray area in the graphic below represents the typical year-to-year variability of Antarctica’s ice extent. For ice extent to be outside this region is unusual.

For much of the year in the Antarctic, unlike in the Arctic, ice has been near average. So this sudden change has prompted attention from the scientific community. It is particularly noteworthy given recent years of record high sea ice around the Antarctic.

Antarctic sea ice extent over the course of the year. (Data: University of Colorado) via GIPHY

5. Soaring temperatures in the Arctic

The Blomstrand glacier in Ny-Alesund, Norway, on June 16. AFP via Getty Images

While the Antarctic was undergoing unusually low ice during the last quarter of 2016, up in the north, temperatures were soaring up to 30 degrees Celsius above seasonal average.

With record low sea ice already, persistent heat over November and December further prevented sea ice from recovering to usual levels. Even though the Arctic has seen its sea ice extent decreasing over the last decade, it is the first time in history that both Arctic and Antarctic ice are at record lows.

Two-meter surface temperature anomaly (the difference from normal temperature) over the Arctic. (Data: Global Forecast System, CFSR) via GIPHY

6. Extreme cold in Siberia

A food vendor sits beside a basket of frozen fish in the Krestyansky open air market in Yakutsk, Russia, on Feb. 17. Bloomberg via Getty Images

Extreme cold was also record-breaking this year, such as in Siberia over the past month. Temperatures plummeted to minus-50 degrees Celsius, with some areas falling to minus-60 degrees Celsius.

While temperatures are typically well below-freezing at this time of year, such severe cold is unusual and may be tied to earlier-than-usual snowfall over the region.

Two-meter temperature anomaly. (Data: GFS, CFSR) via GIPHY

7. For Arctic ice, another record low

Arctic sea ice was at a record low wintertime maximum extent for the second straight year. At 5,607 million square miles, it is the lowest maximum extent in the satellite record, and 431,000 square miles below the 1981 to 2010 average maximum extent. NASA Goddards Scientific Visualization Studio/C Starr

Arctic sea ice, which has continued to break records over the past few decades, reached a new low in 2016. Eighty-six percent of the entire year was spent below 2 standard deviations of the mean (which accounts for 95 percent of natural year-to-year variability). In other words, for 309 of 365 days, the Arctic had less ice than is normal for that time of year.

With temperatures well above normal for this time of year, ice is prevented from refreezing.

Arctic Sea ice extent over the course of 2016. (Data: University of Colorado) via GIPHY

Each corner of the planet is affected differently by climate change. This past year saw both record warmth and cold as well as drought and rain and snowfall. Unfortunately, as global temperatures continue to rise, it appears likely that we’re even more extreme weather is likely in 2017.

Our carbon footprint says it all.
This graph shows the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as measured at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, from 1958 to today. In September, scientists at Mauna Loa announced that C02 levels had likely surpassed the threshold of 400 parts per million permanently. Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Links

• 2016 will be the hottest year on record, UN says
• Understanding the Link Between Climate Change and Extreme Weather
• Amid higher global temperatures, sea ice at record lows at poles
• The world passes 400ppm carbon dioxide threshold. Permanently

These Six Utopian Cities Of The Future Will Help You Re-Imagine Life On Earth

The Conversation - Alan Marshall

Alan Marshall, Author provided

Utopia, a book by English statesman, lawyer and clergyman Thomas More (1487-1535), turns 500 years old this month.
A fictional rendering of social philosophy, the book describes an exemplary society on an imaginary island in an unknown place faraway across the seas.
Coined by More from the Greek ou-topos, meaning no place, or nowhere, the word utopia has become adopted in the English language to mean a place where everything is ideal or perfect.
In celebrating Utopia’s 500th birthday, the Ecotopia 2121 project, of which I am the coordinator, is harnessing Thomas More’s spirit to predict the futures of 100 real cities around the world – if they somehow managed to become super eco-friendly.
Of course, modern utopias need to be eco-friendly to overcome the global environmental crisis. Given that cities may be home to 80% of humanity by the end of the century, they can only be sustainable if environmentalism is one of their core features.
The cities of Ecotopia 2121 are presented in the form of “scenario art”, which involves a review of both global and local environmental challenges as well as their unique histories and cultures. This allows for a diversity of future scenarios rather than one common vision of the “future city”.
What you will see below are a series of artworks, but this is not an art project. We use art as a means of analysis and communication.
With that in mind, here are six ecotopian cities of my own creation that emerged from the project, one from each inhabited continent.

Accra 2121
Accra, the capital of Ghana, is exposed to disastrous floods every year. This has been made worse by climate change, as well as unregulated construction and dumping in and around its waterways.
In our imagined future, locals seek to procure housing above the floodline, by building low-cost tree cabins in the nearby forest.

Accra 2121. Alan Marshall, Author provided

Ghana has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, but by 2121, the forest has become a home for some of its citizens.
Accra’s new residents would protect the forest ecosystem from those who would destroy it, such as the logging, mining and oil companies.

London 2121
In the summer of 2121, during an economic downturn, 100,000 pensioners take to the streets of London, the British capital, to protest cuts in pensions and education, shutting down the entire city.
They bring along their grandchildren to give them something interesting to do as they mind them. By summer’s end, the protesters despair at the government’s poor response, so they take matters into their own hands, staging a permanent occupation.

London 2121. Alan Marshall, Author provided

The pensioners convert some 20km² of London into a large eco-village, transforming unoccupied offices into homes, sowing garden lots on street corners, and setting up eco-businesses to trade products and services.
In the process, all the children get free education from their experienced elders in these various green arts and crafts.

Los Angeles 2121
The southern Californian city of Los Angeles once had a great network of tramways, but this was systematically bought up and then closed down by a group of conspiring auto-manufacturing companies.

Los Angeles 2121. Alan Marshall, Author provided

As the world’s oil is depleted by the end of this century, cars will become useless and trams could make a comeback in Los Angeles. The unused freeways could then be redeveloped into vegetated greenways. Such greenways are suited for pedestrians and cyclists, but they could also act as ecological corridors, connecting populations of wild plants and animals around the city that would otherwise be isolated.
Retired cars could then serve as part of the fabric of high-density buildings, creating an architectural style whereby people live and work in smaller structures and within tighter-knit communities. This would mean cities such as Los Angeles would not need to sprawl further into the countryside and wild lands.

Rēkohu 2121
Known in English as the Chatham Islands, Rēkohu is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, 680km southeast of New Zealand. It’s the ancestral home of the pacifist Moriori people, who came to wear the feathers of the native albatross in their hair to symbolise peace during the 500 years they lived on the archipelago.
In the 19th century, British sealers and Maori warriors from New Zealand discovered the islands. The sealers decimated the colonies of the animals and introduced devastating diseases to which the Moriori had no immunity. Then the Maori staged a violent takeover of the islands, slaughtering or enslaving the remaining Moriori.

Rēkohu 2121. Alan Marshall, Author provided

The Moriori refused to give up their pacifist ideals to fight against the invaders. While this history suggests pacifism is only going to get you killed or enslaved, the Moriori who survive today believe otherwise. They maintain that their pacifism meant that they lived in a peaceful society for five centuries.
By 2121, their small capital city on the lagoon is home to a peace school that expounds the virtues of pacifism to the rest of the world.

Salto del Guairá 2121
The Guairá Falls along the border of Paraguay and Brazil were once a natural wonder. The cacophonous roar of their seven columns could be heard many kilometres away and, for many years, the falls were a major attraction. They were also the economic lifeblood of the nearby Paraguayan city of Salto del Guairá, which thrived on tourism.
In 1982, however, the Brazilian military government blew away the rocks over which the water fell, to create a reservoir for a dam. Many Paraguayans mourned the passing of their much-loved falls.

Salto del Guairá 2121. Alan Marshall, Author provided

By 2121, though, both the falls and the city have re-emerged in splendid style. The dam has collapsed through neglect and local people have regained control of their land. They set about rehabilitating the falls as best they can, turning their home into a scenic eco-city that attracts tourists once again.

Tokyo 2121
After a nuclear meltdown just out of town, a vast radioactive cloud sweeps over future Tokyo. Everyone must be evacuated. A few hardy “nuclear families” tough it out in “moonbase” homes, which are impervious to radiation.
Everything these families eat and drink must be produced and recycled within these homes. When they step outside, they must don protective clothing or “moonsuits”.

Tokyo 2121. Alan Marshall, Author provided

But because Tokyo is suddenly depopulated, it’s not nearly as noisy and stressful as before. If “hell is other people”, as French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre suggested, then Tokyo 2121 is utopia.
Wildlife also rebounds, albeit in a mutated manner.

Why Ecotopia 2121?
These six scenarios are but a small sample of the 100 that were produced within the Ecotopia 2121 project. Some readers will be delighted and others confused by the method of the project and its results.
Part of the point of utopianism is to be provocative. If you like your future riddled with self-driving cars and the magic of nuclear energy, then maybe these scenarios are not for you. And you’re likely to dismiss them as fantasy anyway.
But to study utopias – and formulate alternative scenarios to how we now live on this planet – is not an escape into fantasy. It is an active response to the many technological fantasies cast about with extravagance and excess into our lives right now.
These fantasies bind us to an unsustainable and unlivable future. If Ecotopia 2121 is but a collection of fantasies, at least they would do less harm to the planet we live on.

Links

• Dystopian Donald: the horror and the hope in Trump’s presidential campaign
• Is anyone asking people what they want from the smart cities of the future?
• As El Niño rains arrive, Los Angeles shunts precious water to sea
• How green is your city: towards an index of urban sustainability