We’re off to a hot start in 2020, with January setting a new mark as the warmest instance of that month on record for the globe. Europe through to northern Asia was particularly warm, and January ranked fifth warmest over the contiguous US.
Scientists project 70 to 90 percent of coral reefs will disappear over the next 20 years as a result of climate change and pollution. What's more, rising sea surface temperatures and acidic waters could eliminate nearly all existing coral reef habitats by 2100.
On February 6, 2020, weather stations recorded the hottest temperature on record for Antarctica. Thermometers reached 18.3 C (64.9 F). During the warming event, around 1.5 square km of snowpack became saturated with melt water.
Scientists are concerned, because HFC-23 is a very potent greenhouse gas, with one tonne of its emissions being equivalent to the release of more than 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
The number of people who are talking about fossil fuels as a real concern has increased dramatically over the last 12 to 24 months. Awareness of these issue may be growing, but global emissions are continuing to rise.
NASA released a radar animation that shows smoke from the fires 6,800 miles away in Chile. The skies over Chile have turned grey and hazy. Argentina has also seen sunsets tinged with red from the smoke.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has released its annual climate statement for 2019, and found that last year was both the hottest and driest on record for the continent.
Apocalyptic scenes are playing out across Australia as bushfires have burned millions of acres and ravaged more than 1,000 homes in New South Wales alone. The new normal is not only more lethal, it's also harder to predict.
Waters off the California coast are acidifying twice as fast as the global average, scientists found, threatening major fisheries and sounding the alarm that the ocean can absorb only so much more of the world’s carbon emissions.
The highest court in the Netherlands has upheld a ruling requiring the government to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% of 1990 levels by the end of next year.
Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Costa Rica’s minister for energy and environment, specifically blamed the United States, Brazil, and Australia for blocking progress by insisting on climate language unacceptable to most countries.
The NOAA report found that the average North Pole temperature from October 2018 to September 2019 was 1.9 degrees Celsius higher than the 1981-2010 average. Scientists have dubbed the warming phenomenon Arctic amplification.
A 2017 report for the European Commission looking at carbon offsetting found that 85% of offset programs failed to deliver "real, measurable and additional" emission reductions, and noted that some projects would have happened anyway.
A series of strikes in cities across Australia took place today as part of the School Strike for Climate Australia in response to recent devastating bushfires.
This visual representation of the ice age clearly shows how the quantity of older and thicker ice has changed between 1984 and 2016 and how the arctic sea ice is disappearing dramatically.
