07/03/2019

Scientists Slap Down Australia Government Over Fake Climate Claims

Renew Economy - 

Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Perhaps it was federal energy minister Angus Taylor repeatedly declaring on Sunday’s ABC Insiders program that national emissions were “coming down,” and that Australia would meet its Paris climate targets “in a canter.”
Perhaps it was the looming federal election and a feeling that now, more than ever, our most senior politicians should be held to account for what they say about such globally significant issues as climate change.
Perhaps it is because at the close of Australia’s hottest summer on record, Victoria is now burning through its hottest start to autumn in 30 years.
Whatever the trigger, the nation’s leading climate and energy experts have had enough.
A group of 28 climate scientists, academics and former heads of energy companies on Monday released a joint statement to correct the record, and remove any ambiguity on the subject:
  • Australia is NOT on track to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target;
  • Even if it was (it’s not), the target itself is woefully inadequate for what science says must be done to avert dangerous climate change.

“It is unbelievably misleading,” said signatory and Climate Councillor Greg Bourne on ABC Radio on Monday morning. “Anyone who goes into the data sets, and they’re really quite easy to look at, with some very nice graphs, show emissions rising ever since, basically, the Abbott government came in.”

The statement – signed by a slew of experts including ANU Professor and Climate Councillor Will Steffen, energy advisor Tim Forcey and APVI chair Renate Egan – notes that Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution has been rising for four years in a row, ever since the scrapping of the carbon price, as mapped out by the federal government’s own most recent data.
According to that data, the signatories say, direct combustion, transport and fugitives have all increased greenhouse gas pollution levels since 2005 and are projected to continue increasing emissions to 2030.
The joint statement also reminds those who need reminding that Australia’s 2030 target is economy wide, meaning that total greenhouse gas pollution must be reduced across all sectors: electricity, stationary energy, transport, fugitive emissions, industry, agriculture, waste and land use.
“The electricity sector has been going down… but the overall energy sector, if you take energy as a package, energy emissions for Australia have been going up continuously,” said Bourne, who is also the former CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
“Transport emissions have been going up continuously, and continue, just continue to go up. …Stationary energy and industrial processes – still going up; fugitive emissions – still going up.”
“It’s almost as if, if the politicians can get us to concentrate on the electricity sector, which has shown some downward slope, then we’ll forget all about the rest.”
Meanwhile, as The Australia Institute’s Richie Merzian explained on Sky News, the Morrison government will also be relying on “dodgy credits,” squirreled away through some tricks of accounting over a decade ago.

As Bourne explained it to Fran Kelly on the radio, when Australia used these credits back in the context of Kyoto, it was bad enough.
“Using those credits right now, and trying to bring them forward, will be seen by every other country as – this is just disgusting, just disgusting,” he said.
The timing of the joint statement – and fact check – is important. As the signatories note, global temperatures have risen 1°C in the era following mass industrialisation and this is already directly affecting humankind via worsening extreme weather events.
And Australia is in the firing line, facing increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events including heatwaves, intense rainfall, and extreme bushfire conditions.
But the timing is also important in terms of the election. And the federal Coalition – of all parties – should be heeding the call, as evidence mounts that voters, even Liberal and National ones, care deeply about climate.
Even the Murdoch press can see that. An “exclusive” story by The Australian’s associate editor on Monday reports that former competitive skier Zali Steggall is set to steal the seat of Warringah from former PM Tony Abbott, from a platform of strong action on climate and renewables.
The story says Steggall’s campaign has scored the backing of “wealthy investors who want immediate action on climate change” and who have a financial stake in the shift away from coal, to renewables.
One of those backers is reported to be renewables industry veteran and founder of Solar Choice, Angus Gemmel, who announced on Facebook that he had “taken on the coal lobby” with a postcard drop in Mosman about “solar farm facts and figures.”
Renewables, of course, will be key to meeting Australia’s emission reduction obligations – but that, too, needs continued policy support to encourage the investment needed, the experts say. What we are getting instead looks rather like investment support for coal.
“Using another horse metaphor, (Taylor) is flogging a dead horse. That horse is not going to get there in a canter, not a chance at all. …There are no policies, yet, in the electricity sector beyond 2020 which will bring the emissions further down. Sure, there’ll be some more investment, but not by any policy in government.
“…The battery of the nation, that will help in terms of creating storage for whatever will be creating electricity… so it’s also encouraging for coal.
“It’s only when you actually take out the fossil fuel plants that the Tasmanian program actually begins to make economic sense. And we’re still not sure that Snowy 2.0 makes economic sense.”

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Support Is Surging For Teens’ Climate Change Lawsuit

National Geographic - Laura Parker

The U.S. Constitution protects the right to a safe climate, say 30,000 kids and eight members of Congress in support of the suit.
Lawyers and the youth plaintiffs lineup behind a banner after a hearing before Federal District Court Judge Ann Aiken between lawyers for the Trump Administration and the so called Climate Kids in Federal Court in Eugene, Ore. Wednesday July 18, 2018. The Trump administration has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court in its effort to stop a lawsuit filed by young activists who say the government is failing to protect them from climate change. Photograph by Chris Pietsch, The Register-Guard via AP
The 21 youths suing the federal government over climate change have gained a new round of supporters, including 30,000 youths who signed onto a legal brief asking an appeals court to allow the long-delayed case to go to trial.
The “Young People’s Brief” was among 15 new amicus briefs filed Friday by environmentalists, religious and women’s groups, business leaders and eight members of Congress– all in support of the case being tried in court.
The youth filing is noteworthy, as a growing youth movement calling for political leaders to act more urgently on climate change is rapidly spreading around the world. Young people in 50 nations have organized a strike from school on March 15 as part of a global protest.
“I’m part of an amazing group of plaintiffs who won’t put up with adults jeopardizing our futures any longer,” Miko Vergun, 17, of Beaverton, Oregon, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “…The amount of young people, in the United States and around the world, who added their names to support this brief is a representation of all the youth who know that their futures and their planet are at stake.”
The trial, originally scheduled to begin last October, has been delayed while government lawyers have sought to have the case dismissed before trial.
In court papers, the government said the “assertion of sweeping new fundamental rights” the youths claim “has no basis in the nation’s history and tradition”—and no place in a federal court. The government lawyers twice appealed to the Supreme Court, which returned the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Arguments in that appeal are scheduled to be heard the first week of June.

Four years so far
The lawsuit, Juliana v. United States,was originally filed against the government in 2015 during the Obama administration. The suit contends that the federal government pursued energy policies that caused climate change even though it knew for more than a half-century that carbon emissions would destabilize the climate. The government’s failure to forestall the effects of climate change, the suit alleges, violated future generations’ constitutional right to live in a “climate system capable of sustaining human life.”
The case hinges on the question of whether the Constitution guarantees such a right.
Both the Obama administration and now the Trump administration have argued repeatedly that the issues of climate change are more properly addressed by Congress and not by the courts.
In another amicus brief filed last week, eight Democrats in Congress disagreed and urged the court to hear the case. “[T]he intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures and the alleged valuing of short-term economic interest despite the cost to human life, necessitates a need for the Courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Sunrise Movement Education Fund attached more than 20 testimonials to its brief, from youths in an assortment of states already suffering the effects of climate change.
“Until we force our government and our business owners to recognize that change needs to happen, it will not happen, and we will be unable to deal with the threats that await us…,” wrote Max Stefanescu, 15, of Alabama.
“As a citizen of America, I have the same right to life, liberty, and property as my forefathers,” wrote Leon Zha, 17, of California. “But what life do I have if I die twenty years early from carcinogenic smog? What liberty, if I must stay indoors all day to avoid the stroke-inducing heat? What property, if the land itself is burned to ash?”

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06/03/2019

The Best And Worst Airlines At Fighting Climate Change

SBS

A report has found EasyJet is the best airline at cutting its carbon emissions, but all carriers could do more. 
The report ranked 20 airlines.
AAP
The world's major airlines are doing far too little in the fight against global warming, according to a new report.
Research from the London School of Economics into 20 of the largest listed airlines found that all of their long-term targets "appear to fall short of the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to below 2 degrees".
"None of the 20 airlines have a target that clearly specifies how it will reduce its own flight emissions after 2025," the report said.
The airline sector currently accounting for 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions.
Getty
Europe's EasyJet was the only airline with a CO2 emissions intensity of flights below the 2 degrees benchmark after 2020.
By 2020, the airline's emissions per passenger kilometre will be less than half of some of its competitors.
Alaska Air and Qantas also rated highly on this front.
EasyJet was ranked highly.
Getty
On the other end of the spectrum, ANA Group, Japan Airlines, Korean Air and Singapore Airlines were found to have the highest emissions intensities.
By comparison, EasyJet will be emitting 75g of CO2 per passenger km in 2020 while Korean Air will be emitting 172g.
How the airlines performed.
Transition Pathway Initiative
But ANA Group, Delta, United and Lufthansa were cited as the best performers at managing the business risks and opportunities of climate change in the future.
Researchers said that the airline sector "makes a significant and fast-growing contribution to climate change", currently accounting for 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions and 12 per cent of transport-related CO2.
Faith Ward of the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), which produced the report, said "the aviation sector is doing the basics when it comes to carbon performance, but investors are urging them to take more significant steps".
"That means setting stretching emissions reduction targets to 2030 and beyond, and ending a reliance on offsetting. It's clear from TPI’s research that this is not currently the case," she said.
The group claims that more fuel-efficient planes, ensuring that planes fly at full capacity and increased use of biofuels would help to reduce emissions.

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Suffering In The Heat: The Rise In Marine Heatwaves Is Harming Ocean Species

The Conversation -  | 

Recent marine heatwaves have devastated crucial coastal habitats, including kelp forests, seagrass meadows and coral reefs. Dan Smale, Author provided
In the midst of a raging heatwave, most people think of the ocean as a nice place to cool down. But heatwaves can strike in the ocean as well as on land. And when they do, marine organisms of all kinds – plankton, seaweed, corals, snails, fish, birds and mammals – also feel the wrath of soaring temperatures.
Our new research, published today in Nature Climate Change, makes abundantly clear the destructive force of marine heatwaves. We compared the effects on ecosystems of eight marine heatwaves from around the world, including four El Niño events (1982-83, 1986-87, 1991-92, 1997-98), three extreme heat events in the Mediterranean Sea (1999, 2003, 2006) and one in Western Australia in 2011. We found that these events can significantly damage the health of corals, kelps and seagrasses.
This is concerning, because these species form the foundation of many ecosystems, from the tropics to polar waters. Thousands of other species – not to mention a wealth of human activities – depend on them.
We identified southeastern Australia, southeast Asia, northwestern Africa, Europe and eastern Canada as the places where marine species are most at risk of extreme heat in the future.
Marine heatwaves are defined as periods of five days or more during which ocean temperatures are unusually high, compared with the long-term average for any given place. Just like their counterparts on land, marine heatwaves have been getting more frequent, hotter and longer in recent decades. Globally, there were 54% more heatwave days per year between 1987 and 2016 than in 1925–54.
Although the heatwaves we studied varied widely in their maximum intensity and duration, we found that all of them had negative impacts on a broad range of different types of marine species.
Marine heatwaves in tropical regions have caused widespread coral bleaching.
Humans also depend on these species, either directly or indirectly, because they underpin a wealth of ecological goods and services. For example, many marine ecosystems support commercial and recreational fisheries, contribute to carbon storage and nutrient cycling, offer venues for tourism and recreation, or are culturally or scientifically significant.
Marine heatwaves have had negative impacts on virtually all these “ecosystem services”. For example, seagrass meadows in the Mediterranean Sea, which store significant amounts of carbon, are harmed by extreme temperatures recorded during marine heatwaves. In the summers of both 2003 and 2006, marine heatwaves led to widespread seagrass deaths.
The marine heatwaves off the west coast of Australia in 2011 and northeast America in 2012 led to dramatic changes in the regionally important abalone and lobster fisheries, respectively. Several marine heatwaves associated with El Niño events caused widespread coral bleaching with consequences for biodiversity, fisheries, coastal erosion and tourism.
Mass die-offs of finfish and shellfish have been recorded during marine heatwaves, with major consequences for regional fishing industries.
 All evidence suggests that marine heatwaves are linked to human mediated climate change and will continue to intensify with ongoing global warming. The impacts can only be minimised by combining rapid, meaningful reductions in greenhouse emissions with a more adaptable and pragmatic approach to the management of marine ecosystems.

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Heatwaves Sweeping Oceans ‘Like Wildfires’, Scientists Reveal

The Guardian - 

Extreme temperatures destroy kelp, seagrass and corals – with alarming impacts for humanity
Ocean heatwaves destroy kelp forests, which provide food and shelter for many other species. Photograph: Thomas Schmitt/Getty Images 
The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”.
The damage caused in these hotspots is also harmful for humanity, which relies on the oceans for oxygen, food, storm protection and the removal of climate-warming carbon dioxide the atmosphere, they say.
Global warming is gradually increasing the average temperature of the oceans, but the new research is the first systematic global analysis of ocean heatwaves, when temperatures reach extremes for five days or more.
Ocean heatwaves have become far more frequent
Additional annual heatwave days in 1987-2016 compared with 1925-1954
Source: Smale et al, Nature Climate Change, 2019.
Note: Map divided into one-degree squares of ocean
The research found heatwaves are becoming more frequent, prolonged and severe, with the number of heatwave days tripling in the last couple of years studied. In the longer term, the number of heatwave days jumped by more than 50% in the 30 years to 2016, compared with the period of 1925 to 1954.
As heatwaves have increased, kelp forests, seagrass meadows and coral reefs have been lost. These foundation species are critical to life in the ocean. They provide shelter and food to many others, but have been hit on coasts from California to Australia to Spain.
“You have heatwave-induced wildfires that take out huge areas of forest, but this is happening underwater as well,” said Dan Smale at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, UK, who led the research published in Nature Climate Change. “You see the kelp and seagrasses dying in front of you. Within weeks or months they are just gone, along hundreds of kilometres of coastline.”
Ocean heatwave days have tripled in recent years
Globally averaged number of heatwave days*
Guardian Graphic | Source: Smale et al, Nature Climate Change, 2019.
No data for 1909 and 1910. 
*Average number of heatwave days per one-degree square of ocean
As well as quantifying the increase in heatwaves, the team analysed 116 research papers on eight well-studied marine heatwaves, such as the record-breaking “Ningaloo Niño” that hit Australia in 2011 and the hot “blob” that persisted in the north-east Pacific from 2013 to 2016. “They have adverse impacts on a wide range of organisms, from plankton to invertebrates, to fish, mammals and seabirds,” Smale said.
Bleached coral in New Caledonia in the southern Pacific. Photograph: AP
The scientists compared the areas where heatwaves have increased most with those areas harbouring rich biodiversity or species already near their temperature limit and those where additional stresses, such as pollution or overfishing, already occur. This revealed hotspots of harm from the north-east Atlantic to the Caribbean to the western Pacific. “A lot of ocean systems are being battered by multiple stresses,” Smale said.
The natural ocean cycle of El Niño is a key factor in pushing up temperatures in some parts of the ocean and the effect of global warming on the phenomenon remains uncertain, but the gradual overall heating of the oceans means heatwaves are worse when they strike.
“The starting temperature is much higher, so the absolute temperatures [in a heatwave] are that much higher and more stressful,” said Smale. Some marine wildlife is mobile and could in theory swim to cooler waters, but ocean heatwaves often strike large areas more rapidly than fish move, he said.
The researchers said ocean heatwaves can have “major socioeconomic and political ramifications”, such as in the north-west Atlantic in 2012, when lobster stocks were dramatically affected, creating tensions across the US-Canada border.
“This [research] makes clear that heatwaves are hitting the ocean all over the world … The ocean, in effect, is spiking a fever,” said Prof Malin Pinsky, at Rutgers University, US, and not part of the team. “These events are likely to become more extreme and more common in the future unless we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Dr Éva Plagányi at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia also likened ocean heatwaves to wildfires. “Frequent big hits can have long-lasting effects,” she said. “This study shows that record-breaking events are becoming the new normal.”
The damage global warming is causing to the oceans has also been shown in a series of other scientific papers published in the last week. Ocean warming has cut sustainable fish catches by 15% to 35% in five regions, including the North Sea and the East China Sea, and 4% globally, according to work published by Pinsky and colleagues.
“We were stunned to find that fisheries around the world have already responded to ocean warming,” he said. Another study showed that achieving the 2C climate change target set out in the Paris agreement would protect almost 10m tonnes of fish catches each year, worth tens of billions of dollars.
Separate work by Plagányi’s team showed that climate change will reverse the recovery of whales in the Southern Ocean by damaging the krill on which they feed. “Models predict concerning declines, and even local extinctions by 2100, for Pacific populations of blue and fin whales, and Atlantic and Indian Ocean fin and humpback whales,” they said.
“In the space of one week, scientific publications have underscored that unless we take evasive action, our future oceans will have fewer fish, fewer whales and frequent dramatic shifts in ecological structure will occur, with concerning implications for humans who depend on the ocean,” said Plagányi.

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Australia's Marine Heatwaves Provide A Glimpse Of The New Ecological Order

The Guardian - Joanna Khan

Receding kelp forests, jellyfish blooms and disruption to fisheries are just some of climate change’s impacts on the ocean
Common kelp (pictured) has taken over from the giant kelp forests that used to dominate Tasmania’s coastline. Photograph: Matt Doggett
As bushfires raged across Tasmania, Victoria and New Zealand, and north Queensland faced a massive cleanup after unexpected flooding, a different extreme weather event was silently forming in the Tasman Sea over summer.
For the second year in a row, a stubborn high-pressure system over the Tasman Sea was warming the surface of the ocean to above-average temperatures, forming a marine heatwave, wreaking destruction and providing a glimpse of the new ecological order in the marine Anthropocene. Globally marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent and prolonged and affecting biodiversity, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change this week.
In the summer of 2017-18, the intense marine heatwave was combined with a land-based heatwave, together covering four million sq km. Scientists found the extreme weather event caused unprecedented loss of glacial ice in the New Zealand Southern Alps, changes to wine-grape harvests, and major disruption of marine ecosystems including kelp habitat loss, new species invasions and fisheries season changes.
This year the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand reported that sea surface temperatures in the Tasman were again above average.
Like coral reefs and tropical rainforests, the ocean suffers the slow torture of climate change peppered with high-intensity hits from extreme weather.

A window into the future
Marine heatwaves are generally out of sight and out of mind until one gets so bad it becomes impossible to ignore, says CSIRO research scientist Alistair Hobday.
A marine heatwave happens when the ocean temperature is much warmer than usual for the time of year from sunlight heating the surface water or warm water being brought via ocean currents – or both.
Climate change is causing marine heatwaves to happen more frequently and with more intensity. There may not be scorched earth or destroyed homes left in its wake, but a marine heatwave impacts our future in different ways – and serves as a warning.
“Marine heatwaves provide a window into what our oceans will look like in the future, which is why it’s important to keep track of them,” Hobday says.
In 2015, New Zealand experienced its longest and most intense marine heatwave on record. For some it was good news – “It brought down valuable tropical species like kingfish and snapper,” Hobday says.
For the aquaculture industry, however, it brought disease outbreaks in oyster farms, disruptions to salmon farming and abalone deaths along the coast.

Clinging on to kelp
When an extreme marine heatwave lingered over the Shark Bay world heritage area in 2011, seagrass and kelp forests died en masse. Some kelp species became regionally extinct over hundreds of kilometres, says marine ecologist Cayne Layton from the University of Tasmania. “That [kelp loss] was a direct effect of the heat, but also due to herbivorous fish following the warm water and moving in to munch on the kelp.”
Like coral, kelp provides habitat structure, shelter and food for an entire ecosystem – without it the ecosystem would cease to exist. But, also like coral, the planet is losing kelp forests to climate change at an alarming rate.
A healthy kelp forest (left) versus a degraded one (right). Photograph: NOAA / Matthew Doggett 
Forests of giant kelp, known as Macrocystis pyrifera, used to dominate Tasmania’s coastline. But in recent years, 95% have been lost and largely replaced by common kelp, says Layton.
“It’s the equivalent of losing a forest on land and having it replaced by shrubbery,” he says. “It might still have some diversity, but you’ve undoubtedly lost something important.”
Although common kelp might take over in the short term, a marine heatwave or a plague of hungry sea urchins could quickly knock that out too, allowing even hardier turf algae to move in.
From the forest to the shrub, now to a lawn – albeit a weedy one.
Species that, like kelp, can’t keep pace with the fast rate of anthropogenic warming, can be quickly be written off by an extreme event such as a marine heatwave or tropical cyclone.

Weeds of the sea
Some more physically and physiologically nimble species are set to thrive in a warmer ocean. “[In a warmer ocean] you might expect to see more ‘weedy species’ that can adapt more quickly to change,” says marine ecologist Zoe Doubleday from the University of South Australia.
Weedy isn’t a technical classification of plants or animals, but rather a type of lifestyle. Animals and plants considered weedy species typically have short lifespans and a flexible lifestyle that allows them to take advantage of sparse or patchy resources, Doubleday says.
“They can change their shape, what they eat and when they mature and reproduce to take advantage of novel conditions created by climate change,” she says.
“For example jellyfish, algae and cephalopods – they’re very different types of organisms, but they have some similar characteristics. They’re short-lived, tolerant, adaptable – just like a terrestrial weed that you might see in your garden.”
Receding kelp forests are already being replaced by seaweed turfs, bigger numbers of some cephalopods and jellyfish blooms. “We already eat weedy species, and cephalopods are becoming increasingly important in our fisheries, and they might be better than fish in terms of sustainability in the future,” Doubleday says.
“Rather than just suppressing the weeds, maybe we could start predicting exactly which species are going to thrive and how we could use them.”
So while jellyfish may not be on the menu now, soon there may be few other options.

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05/03/2019

How The Weather Gets Weaponized In Climate Change Messaging

New York Times - Brad Plumer


Clearing snow in Buffalo, N.Y., in January. Credit Lindsay Dedario/Reuters
WASHINGTON — In the summer, when heat waves scorch cities or heavy rains flood the coasts, some climate scientists and environmentalists will point out any plausible connections to global warming, hoping today’s weather will help people understand tomorrow’s danger from climate change.
Then winter comes. And, like clockwork, those who want to deny the established science that humans are warming the planet will try to flip the script. In January, when large swaths of the country were gripped by bitter cold, President Trump took to Twitter to mock climate fears: “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”
Welcome to the weather wars. As battle lines harden between supporters and opponents of climate action, both are increasingly using bouts of extreme weather as a weapon to try to win people to their side. Weather, after all, is one of the easiest things for people to bond over or gripe about, a staple of small talk and shared experience that can make it a simple but powerful opportunity to discuss global warming.
But, as Mr. Trump’s words show, it’s also a framing device that can be easily abused. That raises the stakes for how scientists, who have long tried to distinguish between short-term weather fluctuations and long-term climate shifts, draw out and discuss the links between the two.
“Weather, and especially extreme weather, is how most people will experience climate change,” said Susan Joy Hassol, director of the science outreach nonprofit group Climate Communication. “You don’t experience the slow change in average temperature. What you experience are the changes in extreme weather that are brought about. So how we talk about that is really important.”
One reason that the weather can offer a potent messaging opportunity may boil down to human psychology. Climate science itself is often complex and abstract. It can be tough to feel, on a gut level, the implications of a chart showing global temperatures ticking up over time, or statistics showing that, on average, 95-degree days or torrential downpours are becoming more frequent.
But an unusual weather event that hits today, like a brutal heat wave or heavy storm, is more visceral. Laboratory experiments have found that people’s beliefs about global warming can be swayed by their immediate environment. Put someone in a hot room and they’re more likely to agree the planet is warming. Thirsty people become more alarmed by drought forecasts.
Psychologists have suggested these visceral experiences make it easier for our brains to imagine future states of the world, and therefore make them seem more likely. An exceptionally hot or cold day, other studies have found, can play the same role.
Some messengers have long realized that emotion and immediacy can be a powerful force.
“Trump is a branding guy,” said David B. Srere, co-chief executive and chief strategy officer at Siegel+Gale, a brand consultancy. “He knows his audience and understands how to tell a clear, simple story. Climate advocates and the scientific community need to get better at understanding their audience and figure out how to tell a simple, repeatable story of their own.”
In recent years, some climate scientists have focused on trying to turn flare-ups of severe weather into teachable moments. “This is what global warming looks like,” scientists said during the summer of 2012, a season of widespread droughts, wildfires and extreme heat advisories.
And they have become increasingly comfortable drawing those connections.
Back in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, many researchers responded cautiously, saying it was difficult to attribute a single event to global warming. A few noted that rising ocean temperatures could make hurricanes more destructive, on average, in the future. But even that was fairly abstract.
Over time, that messaging has shifted.
Partly that’s because, as climate models have improved, scientists have been able to demonstrate more rigorously how rising greenhouse gas emissions have made recent heat waves or droughts more intense or more likely to occur — a budding field known as “extreme weather attribution.” Scientists have also refined their communication strategies, using metaphors like “loaded dice” to talk about how global warming is now making certain severe weather events more likely.
“The conversation today couldn’t be more different than it was a decade ago,” said Hunter Cutting, director of strategic communications for Climate Nexus, a nonprofit group focused on climate issues. “Back then, at best, you might get scientists talking about what effects we could see by the year 2100. Now we’re seeing leaders connect the dots in a much more direct way.”
That strategy, though, can cut both ways. Deniers of climate change have also sought to use the daily weather to shape perceptions. Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, once brought a snowball to the Senate floor to suggest that global warming wasn’t a problem. When cold spells strike, Mr. Trump will ridicule worries about climate change:



Parrying Mr. Trump’s tweets can be a challenge, some supporters of action on climate change concede. He can drive the conversation: One recent survey from Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group, found that broadcast television networks rarely discuss global warming when extreme weather is unfolding. But they do often note the president’s climate comments.
Scientists and environmentalists have tried various tactics to push back. They might note that record hot days are becoming far more frequent than record cold days, and that no one expects global warming to eliminate snow altogether. Or they’ll reiterate that the ups and downs of daily weather aren’t the same as broader long-term shifts in the Earth’s climate, and that a single cold day can’t disprove global warming anymore than a single hot day proves it.
Still, a casual observer could be forgiven for feeling a bit of whiplash after that line. After all, haven’t we been hearing that severe weather is a manifestation of climate change when it’s hot out?
Flooding in Townsville, Australia, in February. The area, in northeastern Queensland State, has seen unusual amounts of rain this year. Credit Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images
Marshall Shepherd, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Georgia, isn’t convinced that the president’s tweets about cold weather have staying power.
“I see Trump’s tweets as an opportunity to discuss the science,” he said. “To the 9 or 10 percent of the population that are going to be dismissive of climate science no matter what, there’s not much you can say to them. But a lot of people out there are legitimately curious” about how global warming can be real if it’s cold out today.
That raises the question of whether the messaging skirmishes around severe weather and climate change are swaying public perceptions, or whether each side is just preaching to those who are already converted.
There are some signs opinion is shifting. One recent survey by researchers at Yale and George Mason University found that 69 percent of Americans were “worried” about global warming, an 8-point increase from the previous spring. One possible explanation, the researchers suggested, was the spate of extreme weather disasters in 2018, from wildfires to hurricanes, along with increased efforts by scientists and even local TV weathercasters to put that in a climate context.
“For a long time, Americans saw climate change as a distant threat,” said Edward Maibach, a professor at George Mason who works on climate change communication. “But as of our most recent survey, I don’t feel I can say that anymore. We’re seeing a lot of movement on people understanding that climate change is already happening.”
Others are more cautious about interpreting these trends. One 2017 study, for instance, found that people who experience extreme weather are, for a short period, more likely to support climate adaptation measures than they were before. But the effect was modest and diminished over time.
It may be that people mentally adjust to unusual weather patterns quickly, updating their idea of what counts as normal. Politics may also play a role: In a polarized country, many Americans are already hardened in their beliefs about global warming.
Partly for that reason, David M. Konisky, an associate professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University and an author of that 2017 study, said he wonders whether better messaging can dramatically shift opinions. “It might be that climate has become so wrapped up in one’s identity and worldview that it’s not the sort of thing that’s susceptible to better messaging,” he said.
Wanyun Shao, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Alabama, lands in the middle. Her research has found that Democrats and Republicans do perceive severe weather differently: Democrats tend to see it as part of a broader pattern of climate change, Republicans as more of an aberration. But, she has also found, a consistent string of shifting weather — year after year of increasing summer heat, for instance — does start to chip away even at conservative doubt about global warming.
“For some people, it takes more time,” she said. “But eventually people start trusting their own experiences.”

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