2019 May Be The Warmest Year On Record As A Result Of An El Niño Event Exacerbated By Global Warming

AccuWeather - Amanda Schmidt


Climate scientists warn that 2019 may be the warmest year on record largely as the result of a possible El Niño event exacerbated by man-made global warming.
There is a 90 percent chance that El Niño will form and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2018-19 and a 60 percent chance that it will continue into the spring of 2019, according to the Climate Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
El Niño is a part of a routine climate pattern that occurs when sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean rise to above-normal levels for an extended period of time. It can last anywhere from 4 to 16 months and it typically has a warming influence on the global temperature.
The opposite of El Niño, La Niña, is when sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific drop to lower-than-normal levels.
These warm and cool phases are part of a recurring climate pattern that occurs across this section of the Pacific, known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This is a Monday, Dec. 8, 2014 file photo of birds as they fly past at sun set as smoke emits from a chimney at a factory in Ahmadabad, India. Temperatures have risen almost 1 degree C (1.8 F) since humans started burning fossil fuels — the biggest source of greenhouse gases — on an industrial scale in the 19th century. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki, File)

The strong El Niño of late 2015 to early 2016 helped boost global temperatures to their warmest on record in 2016, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson.
"However, if there was no El Niño during that period, I still suspect that 2016 would have still ranked as the second warmest year on record globally due to the steady increase in greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which trap heat closer to the surface," Anderson said.
So far, 2018 is on pace to likely be the third warmest year on record, behind 2016 and 2017.
"What's interesting is that 2018 started out under La Niña conditions, which usually has a cooling influence on global temperatures, but it was not nearly enough to cancel out the warming from the release of man-made greenhouse gases," Anderson said.
However, since late April 2018, sea-surface temperatures across much of the east-central tropical Pacific returned to neutral levels following the La Niña of 2017-18, meaning neither La Niña or El Niño present.
"Looking back at the data, years with moderate to strong El Niño's continue to trend warmer. If this upcoming El Niño reaches at least moderate strength and persists at least 9 months, then I think that 2019 can end up in the top two warmest on record globally," Anderson said.
The global temperature impacts of El Niño are sometimes delayed. Therefore, 2020 may end up warmer than 2019 even though this upcoming El Niño may be well over by that time.
Global ocean water temperatures in October 2018 ranked as the second warmest on record for October. Oceans can store a lot of heat, thus the world's oceans may remain near or at record warmth through 2019, which will further add to the warming influence of the global air temperature.
It is certainly possible that 2019 may be the warmest year on record, Anderson said.
"I am not ready to say it will be the warmest on record yet. Though I am fairly confident that it will at least rank in the top three regardless of the strength of the El Niño," Anderson said. "Ask me again in March."

In this May 23, 2016, file photo, a man bath his son on a hot afternoon in a slum in Mumbai, India. For the third straight year, Earth set a record for the hottest year, NOAA and NASA announced. NASA says 2016 was warmer than 2015 - by a lot. It's mostly global warming with a little assist from the now-gone El Nino. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)

The impacts of El Niño have been more severe in recent years due to global warming, and these impacts may be worse as temperatures continue to rise, according to a recent study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, published on Aug. 22.
Emerging research suggests that the typical atmospheric responses to La Niña and El Niño are changing and that the expected weather in the United States may not follow the traditional ENSO pattern.
The AccuWeather Long-Range Team closely follows the on-going research linking climate change to the long-term trends in ENSO patterns, according to AccuWeather Long-Range Meteorologist Max Vido.
"When creating our seasonal forecasts for the U.S., we take into account the long-term climate trends when predicting temperature and precipitation anomalies compared to the 30-year normal (1981-2010)," Vido said.
The team has become increasingly vigilant of how the global weather pattern during more recent El Niño and La Niña events can differ from the traditional expected patterns.
"So, instead of assuming a certain ENSO phase will lead to a particular seasonal weather pattern to areas of the U.S., we acknowledge how the once traditional impacts could be different. This is all factored into our seasonal forecasts," Vido said.

(Data source: NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Credit: NASA/GISS)

As of November 2018, El Niño has not officially begun and questions remain about the strength and longevity of this El Niño.
The years 2014, 2015 2016 and 2017 all rank in the top four warmest years on record globally, ocean and land combined, with data going back to 1880, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
"It's not hard to see that with the potential added boost from another El Niño that 2019, or even 2020, is a pretty good bet to take out some of those years from the top four list," Anderson said.
Seventeen of the 18 warmest years in the 136-year record all have occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998, which was a strong El Niño year, according to Anderson.
Research shows that the warming climate will have a profound affect on extreme weather events, such as heat waves, wildfires, droughts, flooding and violent storms.
The U.S. government released a report in November 2018 that highlights these impacts. The report examines the effects that climate change will have on health, local communities, the economy and infrastructure.

Links

• Weather vs. climate: What's the difference between the two terms? 
• New and emerging threats continue to appear in Arctic as region warms, 2018 Arctic Report Card says 
• US government report warns of climate change impacts, receives mixed reactions 
• Uptick in North American hurricanes since 1970s linked to human activities, US government report says 
• UN climate change panel says 'unprecedented changes' needed to prevent rapid global warming

'We Have to Show People What’s Going On’

New Republic - Emily Atkin

Climate change is making weather more extreme, and these two veteran photojournalists were on the frontlines in 2018.

Photo courtesy of Noah Berger.

Justin Sullivan, a photojournalist with Getty Images, was watching a KFC restaurant burn to the ground in Paradise, California, when he decided to lay down and take a picture. Thousands of tiny embers flew toward his face as he steadied his camera. Noah Berger, an Associated Press photojournalist nearby, saw Sullivan’s bold move and decided to snap a picture of his own.
It’s hard to say which image is more impressive. On one hand, crouching amid the hot sparks allowed Sullivan—whose photo is below—to capture not only the physical damage from this year’s historic Camp Fire, but the sheer force and speed of its winds. That’s an impressive feat for still photography. (The November wildfire, which killed 88 people and destroyed more than 12,000 structures, saw gusts of up to 60 miles per hour, akin to a strong tropical storm.)

“I started covering wildfires about 20 years ago,” said Justin Sullivan, who took this photo of a burning KFC during the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. “For sure, they’re a lot different now in terms of how big they are, how fast they spread, and how destructive they’ve become.” Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 

But Berger’s photo, featured atop this article, nudges the viewer toward a gut-wrenching realization: There are people in there. Of course, he and Sullivan had chosen to be in there, protective gear and all. But they didn’t know, at the time, that they would be inside what would become the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. They were just doing their jobs.
Sullivan insists the embers photo looks a lot more dangerous than it actually was. “It’s not in my nature to put myself in a ridiculous situation where I’m teetering on the edge of life and death,” he said in a phone interview. But extreme-weather photojournalism has always been a dangerous profession, and is becoming more dangerous as climate change worsens. In 2018, photographers were sent to document some of the most extreme weather the country has ever seen—megafires, hurricanes, mudslides, and volcanic eruptions.
Scientists say disasters like these will flourish if the planet continues to warm. Extreme-weather photojournalism is thus becoming more important as it becomes more dangerous. The public must understand the consequences of inaction on climate change, and sometimes words just aren’t enough.

An aerial view of a cul-de-sac where homes used to stand in Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire tore through the town. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Joe Raedle, a Miami-based photojournalist for Getty Images, had a difficult year. His assignments included not only the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, but the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Michael, one of the most powerful storms in history to strike the U.S. mainland.
The increasing danger of reporting on storms like Michael “is not what I worry about,” Raedle told me. “It’s that we have to show people what’s going on.” Weather isn’t simply getting more extreme; it’s increasingly upending people’s lives. “When I’m in there, it’s not about whether you’re taking the best pictures,” he said. “It’s about having compassion for the people you’re taking pictures of, who have lost everything.”
Raedle remembers, for example, a woman named Kathy Coy, standing on top of the rubble that used to be her home. “She had no shoes,” he said. “She was trying to find her medicine. She was standing there on top of her completely destroyed home, trying to figure out how to put her life back together.
“It’s all just...” He paused, and composed himself. “Too much.”

“She was almost in shock,” said Joe Raedle, who took this photo of Kathy Coy searching through the remains of her home in Panama City, Florida, after Hurricane Michael. He said documenting such destructive storms “can be very emotionally draining.” Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Taking photos of people suffering from such trauma is not an easy task. “You have to intrude into somebody’s life when they’re at their most vulnerable and emotionally spent,” said Pancho Bernasconi, Getty Images’ vice president of news. “They have to let you into their lives in that moment.” And some extreme weather events—like wildfires—don’t always lend themselves to human impact photos, because they normally burn far away from cities and towns. “You usually get people looking at fire from far away,” Sullivan said. “You don’t usually get people interacting with fire.”
This year’s Camp Fire—which tore through an entire town with little advance notice—was different. “It wasn’t your typical, ‘We need to be shooting 5 miles away on a hill’ situation,” he said. “This was an in-your-face, right-in-front scenario.” After the fire, photographers were also allowed to accompany mortuary crews on their search for dead bodies. “That’s never happened before,” Sullivan said. “Not in the 20 years I’ve been doing this.”

“We were threatened with physical violence and arrest for trying to be near the mortuary crews during Hurricane Katrina,” said Sullivan, who took this photo of a dog searching for human remains after the Camp Fire. In Paradise, however, “They never stopped letting us follow them.” Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

 About a month ago, an article for the BBC argued that climate change has “an inherent image problem.” Polar bears, solar panels, and smokestacks spewing carbon dioxide are commonly used to illustrate the threat, but none of those images are compelling enough to convey how severe and catastrophic global warming will be if no action is taken to slow it down. “Images without people on them are unable to tell a human story,” Adam Corner, a psychologist and the research director of Climate Visuals, told the BBC.
Bernasconi agrees on the power of human-impact photos, and said he envisions more of that type of work from Getty’s staff next year. “It puts you in a place where you can imagine being in the middle of that moment,” he said.
We should all be imagining ourselves in these moments.

“Part of what I want to do when you’re covering these storms is show the human impact of the disaster,” said Raedle, who took this photo after Hurricane Michael. “This guy was sleeping in the back of his pickup truck, five or six days after the hurricane. Here he is, having to sleep in the back, he’s cold, he’s got nowhere to go, his house is destroyed. To me, it’s about the impact of what this is doing to human beings.” Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Links

• Climate Visuals is an evidence-based image library to catalyse public engagement
• One simple reason we aren’t acting faster on climate change?
• The Megafire Burning in Oklahoma
• 88 Dead, 158 Still Unaccounted For After Camp Fire Contained

In 200 Years, Humans Reversed A Climate Trend Lasting 50 Million Years, Study Says

CNN - Susan Scutti

The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, is one of 156 World Heritage sites in the coastal Mediterranean endangered by the effects of climate change, according to a study published in Nature Communications. 

What do scientists see when comparing our future climate with the past? In less than 200 years, humans have reversed a multimillion-year cooling trend, new research suggests.
If global warming continues unchecked, Earth in 2030 could resemble its former self from 3 million years ago, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds.
During that ancient time, known as the mid-Pliocene epoch, temperatures were higher by about 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and sea levels were higher by roughly 20 meters (almost 66 feet) than today, explained Kevin D. Burke, lead author of the study and a researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Today is "one of the most difficult scenarios we've ever found ourselves in," Burke said. "This is a very rapid period of climatic change. Looking for anything that we can do to curb those emissions is important."
Climate scientists say that our globe is about 1 degree Celsius hotter today than it was between 1850 and 1900 and that this is due in part to gas emissions from cars, planes and other human activities. Some gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere, producing a "greenhouse effect" that makes the planet warmer.

Trying to make climate change vivid
The new study is basically "a similarity assessment," Burke said. "We have projections of future climate available for the year 2020, 2030 and so forth." For nearly 30 future decades, then, he and his co-authors drew future-to-past comparisons based on six reference periods.
The reference periods were the Historical, about mid-20th century; the Pre-Industrial, around 1850; the mid-Holocene, about 6,000 years ago; the last Interglacial Period, about 125,000 years ago; the mid-Pliocene, about 3 million years ago; and the early Eocene, about 50 million years ago.
If we continue our current level of greenhouse gas emissions -- what some would say is a "business as usual" scenario -- the overall global climate in 2030 will most closely resemble the overall climate of the mid-Pliocene period, Burke said.
What did Earth look like then? Annual temperatures on average were about 2 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than today, there was little permanent ice cover in the Northern Hemisphere, and the sea level was about 20 meters higher.
In some places, though, including cities in the United States, temperatures in 2030 would be roughly double the global average.
Burke presented a second scenario: If we continue as we are doing now, "we see that by the year 2150, future climates have an analog [or equivalent] coming from the Eocene, the climate of 50 million years before present."
"Proxies and models tell us that it may have been as much as, globally, on average 13 degrees Celsius [about 23 degrees Fahrenheit] warmer than present," Burke said. "During that time period, there was essentially no permanent ice cover in either of the poles, so sea level would have been much higher as well."
Although the geography and configuration of our continents and oceans were different at that time, there may have been swampy forests "as far north as locations in the Arctic Circle," he said.
"Those different possible future outcomes are entirely dependent on the emissions scenario that we follow," he said.
Burke admitted that "the climate in and of itself wouldn't just wipe us out or anything," but "it's important to recognize that it would be a substantially different future."

Disrupting the future of humanity
Flavio Lehner, a project scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, said what's new in the study is the attempt to "draw parallels between past and future climates."
Lehner, who was not involved in the research, said that comparisons to the past typically are complicated by "many uncertainties" that make it challenging to "reconstruct and understand hydroclimate change, even over the last 1,000 years."
"The study here does not magically reduce these uncertainties but seems to circumvent the problem by relying heavily on climate model simulations of past climates," he said. "That's not necessarily a scientific breakthrough but still makes for an interesting study."
Nick Obradovich, a research scientist in the scalable cooperation group at the MIT Media Lab, said "it is well-established that the rate of warming we are currently experiencing is remarkable relative to historical rates of warming."
"Jumping back to climates not seen for millions of years -- in the course of decades -- will likely totally disrupt the future of humanity," said Obradovich, who also was not involved in the research. "It's very possible that both ecological systems and human systems may fail to adapt rapidly enough, with devastating consequences. No one knows exactly how this future will look, but if we don't curtail emissions drastically and immediately, it isn't likely to be a pretty one."
Burke emphasized, "This isn't really a problem for the future; this is a problem for now. What we're showing is that in the next decade or two, we may see climates like that of the Pliocene."
To avoid that future, both political representatives and individuals need to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he said. Individually, we can take public transport or use bicycles instead of driving, he suggested. And we can eat less of a meat-based or beef-based diet.
"When you think about the number of people who could make a change like that, that could have a significant effect," Burke said. "Anything that we can do to curb those emissions is important."

Links

• Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates
• 15 takeaways from the US climate change report
• Tackling climate change could save millions of lives, report says
• Climate change will shrink US economy and kill thousands, government report warns
• A study has warned that Earth’s climate could soon resemble conditions from 3 million years ago

Australia Heatwave To Break Christmas Weather Records With Temperatures Up To 47c Forecast

The Guardian - Lisa Cox

Temperatures to reach up to 12C above average in some parts of Australia, with authorities issuing fire warnings

Heatwave: the Christmas weather forecast is for high temperatures across southern Australia. Photograph: Paul Miller/AAP

A heatwave will hit most of Australia this week that will push Christmas temperatures in some areas to as much as 12C above the December average before breaking monthly records later in the week.

Victorian authorities have issued health alerts for parts of the state and fire warnings are in place for several other states including Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.
The Kimberley region of Western Australia is the one location that could break heat records on Christmas Day, with the town of Fitzroy Crossing expecting a maximum of 47C, breaking the previous annual record of 46.5C, which was set earlier this month.
Inland areas of South Australia will have temperatures in the low-to-mid 40s and Adelaide is forecast to reach 41C on Thursday.
Parts of Victoria are forecast to reach temperatures above 40C towards the end of the week, with Mildura in the state’s north-west expecting a top of 46C on Sunday.

The heatwave is expected to intensify across a large swathe of Australia later this week. Photograph: Bureau of Meteorology

Generally, for Christmas Day across southern Australia we’re looking at temperatures 6C to 12C above average for the daily maximum,” said Sarah Fitton, an extreme weather meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology.“It’s a little bit cooler for Tasmania and southern Victoria for Christmas Day, but still above average for this time of year.”
Coastal Queensland is the only region experiencing below-average temperatures for this time of year.
Temperatures across southern and central Australia and New South Wales will increase from Boxing Day and into the new year period.
The Victorian health department has issued a health alert for the Mallee, north central, north-east and northern country (which takes in towns such as Bendigo and Shepparton) and Wimmera districts effective from Thursday.
“The forecast conditions may cause an increase in heat-related illnesses in the community,” the department said and warned people older than 65, children and babies, pregnant women and people with medical conditions were most at risk.
On Monday afternoon the SA Ambulance Service issued a similar warning for the Christmas period and said they had extra doctors, paramedics, nurses and call centre staff working because of the forecast conditions.
In Sydney, temperatures are forecast to reach 34C in city areas on Sunday, 38C in Parramatta and 41C in Penrith and Richmond.
Areas around Adelaide and Melbourne will have milder temperatures around Boxing Day before the heat kicks in again.
Fitton said the heatwave was the result of hot air building up to west of the country where there hadn’t much monsoonal activity that would usually be expected this time of year.
“The heat’s building up and the skies are clear so there’s no cold fronts coming through,” she said.

Links

• Christmas Day weather forecast across Australia – and how it compares to the last 10 years
• Weather warnings as parts of Australia bake in record autumn temperatures
• Hot weather has Victoria and South Australia sweltering
• Extreme heat moves into NSW after southern states endure brutal days
• Summer's first heatwave hits hard, putting energy regulator on notice
• Australian weather: extreme heat sends bushfires raging across south-east – live
• Bushfire fears as south-eastern Australia swelters through record heat
• Eastern Australia basks in unusually warm autumn temperatures

2018: The 8 Biggest Moments In Climate Change

Climate Council

To say that 2018 has been a huge year in climate change would be an understatement. From climate change-fuelled extreme weather – record-breaking heat, dangerous bushfires, severe drought – to political action (and inaction), both internationally and home on Australian soil; to climate leaders popping up in surprising places – there’s been no shortage of memorable events in the climate change space.

Here are the Climate Council’s eight biggest moments in climate change for 2018, in order of appearance:

1. It was a hot, hot summer.
Fresh off the back of a sweltering 2017 (the third hottest year on record), 2018 brought with it some scorching summer days. Records were smashed – with Penrith taking top spot as the hottest place on earth just seven days into the new year – and summer going down as the second-hottest on record.

Giphy

But it wasn’t just summer that brought scorching weather. Persistent summer-like heat set numerous records throughout April, with 9 April going down as Australia’s hottest April day on record (April 8th had already broken the previous record!). Adelaide experienced its hottest three days in a row and several other locations set temperature records as well. Overall, the month was the second hottest April on record across Australia, and the driest in 21 years.

2. Our beloved Great Barrier Reef scored some much-needed federal funding – but not where it counts.
With climate change driving a massive increase in marine heatwaves, and following the back-to-back bleaching events of 2016 and 2017, it was crystal clear that swift action needed to be taken to protect one of Australia’s most treasured natural icons. Unfortunately, a series of federal funding announcements, including an almost $500 million grant, did little to address the main driver of these unprecedented bleaching events: climate change.

Climate Council

3. The Federal Government’s signature energy policy failed to get off the ground – but local, state and territory governments stepped up to save the day.
The woefully inadequate National Energy Guarantee (NEG), failed to secure the state and territory government support it needed – and it was totally scrapped upon the ousting of PM Malcolm Turnbull. The Australian public was left in the lurch with no credible climate and energy policy.
Thankfully, state and territory governments, led by Tasmania, ACT and SA, picked up the pace in this year’s renewable energy race.

Giphy

And local governments across the country demonstrated their strong commitment to climate action, with the Climate Council’s Cities Power Partnership crossing the 100 member councils mark. The Partnership is now the largest local government program for climate action in the country.

4. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report, highlighting the need to accelerate global climate change action.
The IPCC, the most authoritative international body on climate science, released its special report on climate change, examining the difference between a 1.5˚C and a 2˚C warmed world (read the Climate Council’s localised rundown here).
The report underlined that cutting greenhouse gas pollution to the level required to keep warming below 1.5˚C, would require far-reaching transitions in energy, land, infrastructure and industry. It’s a formidable challenge, but the solutions are available and are both technologically and economically feasible.
Considering global temperatures have already warmed 1˚C since mass industrialisation, 1.5˚C looms large. And the IPCC’s assessment has made clear just what’s at stake if we surpass it, with worsening extreme weather events like heatwaves, droughts, bushfires and flooding already being felt.

Flickr user John Westrock

In the wake of the landmark IPCC scientific report, people are sitting up and taking notice, but we need more action from international leaders. And unfortunately, the Australian Federal Government has so far failed to deliver a credible climate policy in response, while our emissions have continued to rise for the past four years. Despite misleading statements from the Federal Government, Australia is not on track to meet its greenhouse gas pollution reduction target of 26-28% by 2030 (below 2005 levels).

5. There was little relief for farmers and rural communities, who endured devastating drought conditions across much of eastern Australia, which were exacerbated by climate change.
Low rainfall from late autumn through early spring worsened drought conditions across eastern Australia. This led to 100% of NSW being declared in drought in August, and following, the driest September on record for the nation as a whole.
2018 has also been very warm, compounding the effects of low rainfall. To date, maximum temperatures for 2018 have been the second-hottest on record, while New South Wales has experienced its hottest January-November on record.

Climate Council

6. Unprecedented conditions added fuel to bushfires.
In 2018, disastrous bushfires roared through much of the country. In March, devastating bushfires ripped through Tathra on the southeast coast of New South Wales, damaging or utterly destroying dozens of properties. In April, bushfires broke out in southwest Sydney, and in several NSW local government areas the bushfire danger period was declared in winter – the earliest on record.
Around 1,000 fires burned in Queensland in August alone, and in November, record-breaking heat fuelled severe fires in the east of the state, decimating tropical rainforests and burning as far north as Cairns. And in the US, the most deadly and destructive wildfires in California’s history ravaged the northern parts of the state. All these events have been influenced by climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

BoM Satview

7. Future generations made their voices heard.
In November, thousands of schoolkids across Australia went on strike to protest federal inaction on climate change and stand up for their futures. And at the UN climate talks in Poland (COP24), 15-year-old Swedish climate activist and fellow school striker, Greta Thunberg, instructed world leaders to get their acts together by “focusing on what needs to be done, instead of what is politically possible”.
Young voices offered fresh perspectives – and a glimmer of hope – amidst Australian Federal Government inaction and, more broadly, challenging international climate negotiations.

Climate Council

8. In early December, the former heart of Poland’s coal industry played host to the most important international climate talks since Paris.
Hosted in Katowice, Poland, the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) brought nations together to negotiate international commitments on climate action, including standardising timelines for emissions data reporting and checking countries are on track to meet their agreed commitments.
The international event was widely heralded as the biggest climate talks since the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. But a small handful of stubborn fossil fuel powerhouses seemed keen to delay action. And embarrassingly, Australia was awarded the wooden spoon for “Fossil of the Day”, as a result of our poor track record on greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to go up.

Climate Council

While the talks resulted in an agreed “rulebook” for cutting emissions and ensuring compliance, some decisions, such as the mechanisms of an emissions trading scheme and the issue of ratcheting up climate ambition, have been delayed.
But although 2018 has had its challenges, momentum on climate action is building as we head into the new year.

Jason Blackeye via Unsplash

2019 is a Federal election year in Australia – and it’s shaping up to be a crucial moment for climate change. Based on exit polling, almost 80% of voters in this year’s Wentworth by-election were influenced somewhat by climate change in casting their vote, proving that climate change can, and will be an election-deciding issue.

Giphy

And Australian households are taking renewable energy into their own hands, with over two million Aussie houses now bedecked with solar panels. Australian businesses are getting on board, too, cutting costs and pollution in the process. And the price of renewables continues to slide, with new wind and solar now cheaper than existing coal power generation.
As we head into 2019, it’s an opportune time to pause, take a breath, and ask: what do we want the coming year to look like? How we choose to answer that question could determine our course for years, decades, even centuries to come.

Links

• 2018: Year of Extreme Weather
• The Climate Council 5 Years On
• Climate change driving Queensland fires
• Pollution rises as Queensland burns
• Adani’s ticking carbon bomb
• Summer Scorcher On The Cards
• UN Report: Australia Not On Track To Meet Paris Target
• Labor announcement game-changing
• New report: Current drought exacerbated by climate change
• Unseasonably hot? Not anymore
• 2018 | The Year In Climate Change

These 13 Words Defined Our Overheating Planet In 2018

Grist - Kate Yoder

Grist / Amelia Bates

Every December, dictionary editors hunt through all the words in our growing lexicon to pluck out the ones that best capture the spirit of the fading year.
The top choices from 2017 (feminism, complicit) neglected the environment. One dictionary editor at the time lamented the lack of new or revived words to describe our changing planet, though I managed to track down quite a few a year ago.
In 2018, the tables started to turn. Oxford Dictionaries picked toxic, a word that describes poisons in our air and water. Collins Dictionary chose single-use, a term for disposable plastic products “whose unchecked proliferation are blamed for damaging the environment.” And Dictionary.com’s misinformation, though it’s getting a lot of use in recent years, also captures the falsehoods spread about climate change.
The year now coming to a close was filled with environmental chaos. Wildfires ripped through the West, destroying towns and filling big cities with smoke. Hurricanes slammed into North Carolina and Florida. A slew of scientific reports warned us that the worst was yet to come; alas, the president still spouted climate denial on Twitter.
In a warming world rife with changes, it makes sense that our vocabulary shifted, too. Words took on new meanings (hothouse), obscure jargon launched into the news (bombogenesis), and brand-new terms were coined (smokestorm). We kept tabs and collected the ones that defined our planet in 2018. You won’t find these in any standard dictionary yet, but perhaps some will pop up in their pages soon.

Bombogenesis (n.) The process by which a cyclone rapidly intensifies as it experiences a drop in atmospheric pressure.
Nature didn’t waste any time with its New Year’s resolution to bring us terrible weather. January kicked off with a bomb cyclone, a winter storm that brought wicked-cold, blizzard conditions to the East Coast. That, in turn, introduced the masses to the obscure meteorological term bombogenesis. And thanks to climate change messing with our weather, you can expect more bitter nor’easters like this one soon.

Keith Bedford / The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Carbon “fee” (n.) A price on fossil fuels to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions.
Not a carbon tax, exactly. A proposed carbon fee grabbed national attention this year with a ballot measure in Washington state. The backers of Initiative 1631 were adamant that it was a carbon fee. The difference between fee and tax? Revenue from a general tax goes toward whatever the legislature decides; a fee ensures that funds go straight to a designated purpose. Opponents called I-1631 a tax anyway, oil companies spent a record-breaking $31 million to sink it, and voters rejected the measure in November to the heartbreak of climate activists everywhere.

Cleanwashing (n.) The classification of polluting energy sources as “renewable.”
Tired: Greenwashing. Wired: Cleanwashing. Grist delved into the complicated definition of renewable this year and found that your state might have a dirty energy secret. Burning garbage, tires, and chicken poop all count as renewable energy in Maryland, Ohio, and North Carolina, respectively. It’s the very definition of cleanwashing, a term coined in a Food and Water Watch report in July.

Climate gentrification (n.) The process by which the wealthy move to areas with lower risks from climate change, sometimes displacing low-income residents.
From Florida to Arizona, climate change is driving real estate markets. In Miami, for instance, a Harvard study found that properties at higher elevations were increasing in value. Residents of crazy-hot Phoenix are departing for cooler cities in Arizona like Flagstaff, driving up property prices. “A pattern of climate-driven gentrification is taking hold across the U.S., as those who are able to retreat from floods, storms, heatwaves, and wildfires shift to safer areas,” wrote the Guardian’s Oliver Milman in September.

The Miami Beach coastline. Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Day Zero (n.) The day when taps run dry because of water shortages.
If this sounds like the title of a cli-fi horror flick, well, it kind of is. In January, officials in Cape Town, South Africa, began counting down the days until water ran out for the 4 million people who live there. Conservation measures helped the drought-stricken city stave off Day Zero, but the new phrase is sure to stick around as long as dwindling water supplies remain a pressing concern. The Guardian reported in April that the next “‘Day Zero’ water crisis” could happen in Morocco, India, Iraq, or Spain, where reservoirs are shrinking fast.

Firenado (n.) A twister of flames. Fire + tornado.
2018 was an especially hellish year for wildfires: In November, at least 86 people were killed in the Camp Fire, the deadliest blaze in California’s history. Wildfires across the West brought some weird phenomena with them, including firenadoes and smokestorms (see below). During the Carr Fire this summer, one such twister packed 143-mph winds, equivalent to an EF-3 tornado, one likely to cause severe damage.

David McNew / Getty Images

Green New Deal (n.) An emerging environmental platform aimed at boosting jobs while taking on climate change.
Progressive politics has a new rallying cry. The Green New Deal, backed by Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 2020 presidential hopefuls like Senator Cory Booker, promises to boost the economy and help the planet simultaneously. So far it’s still in the outline stage, but it’s based on President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the package of programs (Civilian Conservation Corps, Public Works Administration, and much else) that helped pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression. A new poll shows that 64 percent of registered Republicans and 92 percent of Democrats would support a Green New Deal, so it’s a sure bet that you’ll be hearing more about it in the new year.

Hothouse (adj.) A doomsday scenario in which climate change pushes the planet into a hot, hellish equilibrium.
Greenhouse effect? That’s so 10 years ago. Try hothouse instead. “Our analysis suggests that the Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions — Hothouse Earth,” wrote a team of scientists in a well-circulated study published in August. Imagine that our world was hotter than anything seen in the past 1.2 million years, with no ice sheets and no Amazon rainforest, and you get the picture. As it happens, hothouse traces back to the 1400s as a shorthand for steam baths and brothels.

New abnormal (n.) The state of unpredictability and danger brought on by climate change.
The new normal tends to appear in headlines after disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. Some climate scientists disapprove of the phrase, which they say suggests that this crazy, climate-changed world we’re living in is somehow … normal. (It’s a little more complicated than that, as I learned from talking to lexicographer Kory Stamper.) As criticism of the phrase has spread, people have started to switch it up. For instance, this summer California Governor Jerry Brown referred to the devastating wildfires in his state as “the new normal.” By November, Brown was saying “the new abnormal.”

John MacDougall / AFP / Getty Images

Planet B (n.) The imaginary backup planet we’ll move to when Planet A (Earth) becomes uninhabitable.
“There is no Planet B,” read the signs of marching protesters who hoped to defend science after Donald Trump’s inauguration. That line has since made its way into international politics. After a painfully awkward visit to the White House in April, France’s President Emmanuel Macron slipped it into a speech about Trump’s plan to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. “By polluting the oceans, not mitigating CO2 emissions, and destroying our biodiversity, we are killing our planet,” he said. “Let us face it. There is no Planet B.”

Secret science (n.) Science based on data that isn’t public.
Remember Scott Pruitt? It feels like two years ago when the then-EPA administrator, lover of fancy lotions and expensive pens and first-class flights, finally resigned. (It happened in July.) Three months before that, Pruitt had introduced a policy to increase, erm, “transparency” and end “secret science” (a pet phrase of Lamar Smith, a Republican representative from Texas). The rule would have stopped EPA regulators from using decades of research about the damage air pollution and pesticides cause to public health. It’s now on hold, but the acting EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, told the Hill he plans to move forward to “finalize” the rule next year.

Smokestorm (n.) A sudden onset of high concentrations of smoke that affects daily life.
You’ve heard of snowstorms and thunderstorms, so why not a smokestorm? This summer, wildfires filled cities up and down the West Coast with cinder-filled smoke as thick as fog. That hazardous air is actually the deadliest public health threat from wildfires. When the tiny, ashy particles get into people’s lungs or blood vessels, they can lead to asthma or heart disease. Cliff Mass, a University of Washington atmospheric science professor who has been criticized for his views on climate change, coined the term in a blog post this summer to raise awareness about the dangers of smoky air.

Artur Widak / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Zero Hour (n.) The breaking point at which decisive climate action must be taken.
Time’s up! Zero hour, the time when a planned military operation is scheduled to begin, has taken on a new meaning. In 2017, a young climate activist named Jamie Margolin (15 years old at the time) founded an organization named after the concept. And in July, Zero Hour launched a climate march led by young people of color on the National Mall. “We want youth talking to politicians, lobbying, going to town halls,” Margolin told Grist for a documentary about her work. “We’re still a bunch of broke high schoolers, but we have so much more than we did last year.”

Links

• Changing Climate, Changing Language
• From greenhouse to hothouse: the language of climate change 
• Does language impact climate scepticism?
• The impact of climate change on language loss
• Linguistic Analysis in Climate Change Communication
• A New Language for Grappling With Climate Change
• Climate Change Can Also Transform Language
• Language in reporting climate change: A South Asian study

Ten Charts Show How The World Is Progressing On Clean Energy

Carbon Brief - Iain Staffell

Wind turbines line the horizon behind Bada Bagh in Rajasthan, India. Credit: Prisma by Dukas Presseagentur GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo

Dr Iain Staffell Dr Iain Staffell is a senior lecturer in sustainable energy at Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy. He leads the Electric Insights project reporting interactive real-time and quarterly summary information on the UK’s electricity mix.

Rapid progress towards clean energy is needed to meet the global ambition to limit warming to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
But how are countries doing so far? In our Energy Revolution Global Outlook report, written with colleagues at Imperial College London and E4tech – and published by Drax – we rank progress in 25 major world economies.
Our report provides a league table of their efforts to clean up electricity generation, switch from oil to electric vehicles, deploy carbon capture and storage, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and tackle energy efficiency.
The ten charts below compare these 25 countries today and their progress over the last decade.

Progress on clean electricity
Electricity has been the fastest sector of the economy to decarbonise as countries move away from coal and embrace low-cost renewables. Yet the average carbon intensity of electricity worldwide has fallen only 7% in the last decade to 450 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour (gCO2/kWh).
The chart below maps the carbon intensity of electricity generation around the world and ranks the 25 major economies covered by our report. These countries include the G7 group of rich nations along with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the “BRICS”) and others. These countries account for 80% of global population, 77% of global GDP and 73% of the world’s CO2 emissions.
Individual countries range from having virtually zero-carbon electricity (in the Nordics, France and New Zealand, left-hand columns in the lower chart) up to near-total reliance on coal (in South Africa and Poland, on the far right).

The carbon intensity of electricity generation during 2017, in grams of CO2 per kWh. The map includes all countries for which data is available. The bar chart ranks 25 major economies including all G7 and BRICS countries. Bar widths represent the amount of electricity consumed in each country, with a minimum width so that smaller countries are still visible. Source: Drax 2018.

Countries across Europe and North America have almost unanimously reduced the carbon intensity of their electricity over the last decade. They have done this by reducing their reliance on coal and increasing their share of renewables, as well as by reducing electricity demand in many cases.
On the other hand, several large Asian countries – Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia – increased their carbon intensity as they now rely more heavily on coal. China is one of the only Asian countries to be cleaning up its power system, having reduced carbon intensity by one-sixth this decade. The US is also progressing faster than most, behind only the UK and Denmark as in the chart, below.

The change in carbon intensity of electricity generation over the last decade, in grams of CO2 per kWh. Shades of blue and green indicate reductions while yellows and reds are increases. Source: Drax 2018.

One of the main drivers in cleaning up power systems worldwide is the rise of renewable energy. In absolute terms, China is the clear leader, having both one third of the world’s installed wind capacity and one third of installed solar.
China’s near-130 gigawatt (GW) solar capacity is roughly equal to the next three largest countries put together: Japan, Germany and the US. For wind capacity, other notable high-fliers include fourth-ranked India and Poland in twelfth, which has a larger wind capacity than Denmark, as shown in the chart, below.

The installed capacity of wind power at the end of 2017, in gigawatts (GW). Source: Drax 2018.

However, on a per-capita basis, Denmark has the most wind, with 1,000 watts of capacity per person, and Germany the most solar at 500 watts per person.

Progress on clean transport
Clean electricity could move beyond homes and offices to power the way we move. Electric vehicles are rapidly coming down in price, and several countries are now legislating the demise of the internal combustion engine over the coming decades.
So far, some 4.5m electric vehicles have been sold worldwide, nearly half of which are in China, and a quarter in the US, as the chart below shows.

The number of electric vehicles on the roads (both battery and plug-in hybrid) as of September 2018. Source: Drax 2018 and EV-volumes 2018.

Several countries have reached a 2% market share for electric vehicles, meaning they make up 1 in 50 new cars sold. The rate in China is around double this, while Norway is well ahead of the pack with almost 1 in 2 vehicles sold now electric, as the lower chart below shows.

The share of electric vehicles (both battery and plug-in hybrid) within new car sales, for the 12 months to September 2018. Bar widths represent each country’s population. Source: Drax 2018 and EV-volumes 2018.

Cleaning up the transport sector does not just rely on new technologies, however, as people could travel less or using more efficient forms such as public transport. The amount of energy consumed per person on transportation varies greatly across the world, with the average American consuming 10 times more than the average Indian, as the charts below show.

The energy consumed per person for transportation of people and goods, in megawatt-hours (MWh) per person per year. Bar widths represent each country’s population. Source: Drax 2018.

Large countries where people routinely fly between cities consume the most, but China and India are rapidly catching up as incomes rise. Their transport energy consumption rose 80% and 60% per person over the last decade, respectively. This has dwarfed the modest increases in transport efficiency seen across Europe and North America, as in the chart, below.

The change in energy consumed per person for transportation of people and goods over the last decade, showing the percentage rise (reds) or fall (blues) in MWh per person per year consumed. Bar widths represent each country’s population. Source: Drax 2018.

Progress on energy efficiency
Efficiency is not only slow to improve in the transport sector. Improving the energy efficiency of buildings worldwide is urgently needed to reduce the demand for carbon-intensive heating.
Homes in most major countries are using less energy than they did a decade ago, per square metre of floor area. While some of this can be credited to improving building standards and more energy-efficient appliances, the gains may also be due to the residual effects of the global recession and the run of mild winters caused by rising global temperatures.
In some parts of the world, notably China and South Africa, improved living standards have lead to a rapid growth in household energy consumption, as the chart below shows.

The change in energy consumed for heating and powering households over the last decade, showing the percentage rise (reds) or fall (blues) in MWh per person per year consumed. Bar widths represent each country’s population. Source: Drax 2018.

Progress on fossil fuels and carbon capture
Government support for fossil fuels is a perverse feature of many economies, holding back the transition away from coal, oil and gas.
The definition of fossil fuel subsidies is widely disputed. Yet according to the definition used by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) several major fossil fuel producing nations with relatively small populations, such as Norway and Australia, provide hundreds of dollars per capita per year, as the chart below shows. On this measure, the UK also gives large subsidies.

The level of subsidies offered to fossil fuels per person in 2016, including direct expenditures by government, forgone tax revenues and other fiscal concessions. Bar widths represent each country’s population. Source: Drax 2018.

One important feature of many pathways to 1.5 or 2C is to combine hard-to-avoid uses of fossil fuels, such as in steelmaking or cement, with carbon capture and storage. Today, however, there are just 18 large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities around the world, concentrated in six countries with major oil and coal extraction industries, as the chart below shows.

The installed capacity for carbon capture at large-scale CCS facilities as of the end of 2017, measured as kg of CO2 that can be captured per person per year. Actual level of capture may be lower, if facilities do not run at full availability. Bar widths represent each country’s population. Source: Drax 2018.

Together, these CCS facilities are capable of capturing 32 million tonnes of CO2 each year. This is less than one-tenth of one percent of the roughly 37 billion tonnes of CO2 produced each year by the world’s energy sector. If CCS does see widespread rollout over the coming decades, the potential for storing CO2 underground will not pose a barrier. The US alone could store all of the CO2 produced worldwide since the start of the industrial revolution.

Conclusion
All in all, progress towards clean energy around the world is mixed, with some countries pushing ahead on many fronts but others going backwards. Overall, our rankings show that the world’s nations are falling far short of what is needed and that progress over the next decade must be far stronger to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Links

• Where does global electricity go next?
• Energy Revolution: A Global Outlook
• The IPCC’s special report on climate change at 1.5C
• 50% Drop In Battery Prices In 3 Years
• Nine countries say they’ll ban internal combustion engines. So far, it’s just words.
• Explainer: The challenge of defining fossil fuel subsidies
• Around the world in 22 carbon capture projects