Most recent 20 articles: Skeptical Science
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Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up? - Skeptical Science (Oct 28, 2024) |
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Oct 28, 2024 · Clean energy jobs grew more than twice the rate of the overall economy in 2023 – and every state has its own piece of the story to tell.
By the end of 2023, there were over half a million jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage in the United States, according to the Department of Energy’s 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Jobs Report. Jobs within these sectors include design, manufacturing, trade, construction, and operation of energy systems.
Just two states hold one-third of the jobs in clean electricity generation: California and Texas. The rest of the jobs were distributed across the rest of the country in unequal and sometimes unexpected ways.
Get a ... Read more ...
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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #43 - Skeptical Science (Oct 27, 2024) |
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Oct 27, 2024 · Here are the main topics extracted from the articles, along with their publishing outlets:
Climate Change and its Impacts:
Climate Policy and Politics:
Climate Solutions and Adaptation:
Scientific Research and Reporting:
Before October 20
October 20
October 21
October 22
October 23
October 24
October 25
October 26
THE ESCALATOR (free to republish) Read more ...
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Fact brief - Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans? - Skeptical Science (Oct 26, 2024) |
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Oct 26, 2024 · According to the U.S. Geological Survey, volcanoes emit around 180-440 million tons of CO2 annually. In contrast, human activities, primarily burning fossil fuels, emitted 41.5 billion tons of CO2 in 2022—over 100 times more.
Volcanoes are part of the Earth’s slow carbon cycle, where carbon is gradually recycled between the Earth’s mantle and atmosphere over millions of years. Volcanic CO2 is eventually reabsorbed by the weathering of rocks and ocean absorption, keeping the carbon cycle in balance over long timeframes.
Human activity, however, is releasing carbon at a rate far beyond what the natural carbon cycle can handle, overwhelming the ... Read more ...
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New Research for Week #43 2024 - Skeptical Science (Oct 24, 2024) |
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Oct 24, 2024 · The rate of global sea level rise doubled during the past three decades, Hamlington et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
The rise in globally averaged sea level—or global mean sea level—is one of the most unambiguous indicators of climate change. Over the past three decades, satellites have provided continuous, accurate measurements of sea level on near-global scales. Here, we show that since satellites began observing sea surface heights in 1993 until the end of 2023, global mean sea level has risen by 111 mm. In addition, the rate of global mean sea level rise over those three decades has increased from ~2.1 mm/year in 1993 to ... Read more ...
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Why widening highways doesn’t reduce traffic congestion - Skeptical Science (Oct 23, 2024) |
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Oct 23, 2024 · California prides itself on its climate leadership. And the state’s work on transportation – its largest source of emissions – is no exception; its electric vehicle policies have been adopted by other states across the country. Sacramento lawmakers have also taken ambitious steps to reduce car use altogether, developing regulations aimed at reshaping communities to encourage walking, biking, and taking public transportation.
But on-the-ground reality often doesn’t live up to this vision. In particular, communities throughout the state continue to invest heavily in highway expansion projects that undermine efforts to change how people get around. Because ... Read more ...
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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42 - Skeptical Science (Oct 20, 2024) |
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Oct 20, 2024 · We've accidentally taken on god-like powers. But we're more like Greek gods; our efforts seemingly end in hubristic folly as much as they do acts of virtue. The Greeks wrote fables of gods as commentary on human nature and we remain obedient to this plot device— but at scale and type now uncomfortably close to the literal as opposed to metaphorical text of these ancient stories. Our human nature is now a seemingly inexorable force of nature; we don't seem to know how to control what we've become, what we've created.
If human nature rather than technological prowess is the root cause of our problem, it seems reasonable that better understanding of human nature rather than ... Read more ...
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New Research for Week #42 2024 - Skeptical Science (Oct 17, 2024) |
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Oct 17, 2024 · The influence of partisan news on climate mitigation support: An investigation into the mediating role of perceived risk and efficacy, Choi & Hart, Risk Analysis:
Perceptions of efficacy play a central role in motivating people to engage in climate actions. However, there has been little investigation into how different climate efficacy beliefs are formed and how they may be associated with support for climate mitigation policies. This study, based on the motivated control framework, examines how risk perceptions may differentially be associated with four types of efficacy constructs (self-efficacy, personal outcome expectancy, collective efficacy, and collective outcome ... Read more ...
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Wanted: Better housing to help people stay cool on a hotter planet - Skeptical Science (Oct 16, 2024) |
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Oct 16, 2024 · It was 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47°C) in Tunisia in July, yet our colleague Manel Ben Khelifa could not turn on the air conditioning “because the electricity grid has been shut down,” she explained.
“The power company is trying to conserve energy during peak periods by doubling electricity prices to discourage people from using air conditioning, but it’s not working,” Ben Khelifa told us during a heat wave in July 2024.
“It’s so hot, people would rather turn off anything but the air conditioning,” she said. “So then the power company turns off the power. It’s OK for young people like me but for my babies and ... Read more ...
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Life in the Appalachians once felt 'untouchable.’ Then Helene struck. - Skeptical Science (Oct 15, 2024) |
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Oct 15, 2024 · You could say James Guill has been running from hurricanes for his whole life.
The New Orleans native was just two years old when Hurricane Katrina swallowed his city in 2005 and became the most costly hurricane in U.S. history, claiming 1,833 lives.
During and after the storm, Guill’s family evacuated and sheltered in Virginia for two months. Then they returned, salvaged their house, and spent nearly two more decades – enduring other life-threatening storms and evacuations – at sea level.
Guill’s mother, Terenia Urban Guill, calls her son a Katrina baby, in the same way young parents today call their 2020 kids COVID babies: the ... Read more ...
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Why have hurricanes gone crazy? - Skeptical Science (Oct 14, 2024) |
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Oct 14, 2024 · Have there been other years where multiple hurricanes hit Florida? That is one of the questions I am now getting. The answer is yes: in 2004, for instance.
The summer of 2004 was when four hurricanes made landfall in Florida, and the question was whether there was a human global warming role in the activity and thus the damage. To me it was obvious that there was.
I had worked extensively on climate change, and had connected the increases in sea surface temperatures, which were clearly and demonstrably linked to global warming, to increases in water vapor in the atmosphere.
This link is strong and physically based: over the oceans, where there is ample water at the ... Read more ...
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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #41 - Skeptical Science (Oct 13, 2024) |
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Oct 13, 2024 · Thanks to our increasing the efficiency of Earth's insulating blanket of greenhouse gases, we're having an affect on all features of the weather we experience. Unless we're to be mystified, surprised and needlessly harmed by bad weather we've added to our annual odds, it's important that we be able to distinguish our effects on the geophysics we experience as rain, wind, and the other features of our restless atmosphere that we call "weather." Fortunately there's an outfit doing exactly that, an initiative called World Weather Attribution (WWA). While the center of mass of WWA is academic in nature, the organization flips the usual sequence of publication; WWA analyses frequently ... Read more ...
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Fact brief - Is more CO2 a good thing because it’s plant food? - Skeptical Science (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · Plants need a balance of CO2, sunlight, water, and nutrients. Though more CO2 can initially boost growth, rising temperatures, disease vulnerability, shifting land fertility, and increased water demands offset these benefits.
The UN warns that global crop yields could decline by up to 30% by 2050, while a 2017 meta-analysis linked each degree of warming to a 3-7% yield loss for key crops like corn and soybeans. Losses are also attributed to increased disease pressure from altered climates.
Raised CO2 levels can also lower food quality. Reviews found reduced levels of essential nutrients in staple crops, while protein concentrations in grains like wheat and rice dropped ... Read more ...
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New Research for Week #41 2024 - Skeptical Science (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · Manifold increase in the spatial extent of heatwaves in the terrestrial Arctic, Rantanen et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
It is widely acknowledged that the intensity, frequency and duration of heatwaves are increasing worldwide, including the Arctic. However, less attention has been paid to the land area affected by heatwaves. Here, using atmospheric reanalysis and global climate models, we show that the area covered by heatwaves is substantially expanding in the terrestrial Arctic. Compared to the mid-20th century, the total land area affected by severe heatwaves in the Arctic has doubled, the area of extreme heatwaves has tripled, and the area of very extreme ... Read more ...
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Climate change made Hurricane Helene and other 2024 disasters more damaging, scientists find - Skeptical Science (Oct 09, 2024) |
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Oct 09, 2024 · Deadly Hurricane Helene, wildfires in the Amazon, an extreme monsoon downpour in India, a heat wave during the Summer Olympics, and other dangerous and devastating weather events in 2024 were all made more likely and damaging by climate change, scientists have found.
Climate scientists quantified the link by running thousands of simulations in climate models, some that included and some that did not include the effects of human-caused climate pollution in the atmosphere. They also examined past and present weather data to see how the probability of these kinds of events has changed in a hotter world.
This approach, known as attribution science, is a relatively new branch ... Read more ...
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Climate change made Helene's rainfall more severe - Skeptical Science (Oct 08, 2024) |
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Oct 08, 2024 · Much of my immediate family lives in Asheville and Black Mountain, NC. While everyone is thankfully safe, this disaster struck much closer to home for me than most. There is lots that needs to be done for disaster relief, and I’d encourage folks who can to donate to the recovery effort.
But as Western North Carolina and other areas of the Southeastern US work to recover after the catastrophic flooding caused by Helene, its worth exploring the role that climate change may have played in the event.
While Helene would have been a disaster even in a world without climate change, the intensification of severe rainfall events is one of the most clear-cut impacts of a ... Read more ...
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You will not escape the climate crisis - Skeptical Science (Oct 07, 2024) |
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Oct 07, 2024 · On Bluesky, it was pointed out that Asheville, NC was recently listed as a place to go to avoid the climate crisis.
Mother Nature sent a “letter to the editor” indicating that she didn’t agree:
While climate change does not cause hurricanes, we are certain it makes them more destructive. Humans have increased sea level, leading to more destructive storm surge, and a warmer atmosphere produces more rain.
Many people don’t understand how this will affect them. They think it’s a long-term problem where small impacts accumulate over decades, eventually leading to significant consequences far in the future.
In reality, though, these ... Read more ...
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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40 - Skeptical Science (Oct 06, 2024) |
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Oct 06, 2024 · Our Story of the Week is statistically obvious by headcount in the list below. It's all about Hurricane Helene. A common theme in reportage from affected areas is the element of surprise in arrival of flooding on a previously unimagined and unexperienced scale. Affected residents of a swathe of states spanning from Florida to Virginia were depending on guidance from experts to prepare for this storm and despite fairly strident warnings it's safe to say that the advice they received didn't encompass the unfolding reality of the storm, particularly as it intruded into the continental interior and subsequently stalled as it died away into a tropical depression.
How could we be so ... Read more ...
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New Research for Week #40 2024 - Skeptical Science (Oct 03, 2024) |
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Oct 03, 2024 · Sloth metabolism may make survival untenable under climate change scenarios, Cliffe et al., PeerJ:
Sloths are limited by the rate at which they can acquire energy and are unable to regulate core body temperature (Tb) to the extent seen in most mammals. Therefore, the metabolic impacts of climate change on sloths are expected to be profound. Here we use indirect calorimetry to measure the oxygen consumption (VO2) and Tb of highland and lowland two-fingered sloths (Choloepus hoffmanni) when exposed to a range of different ambient temperatures (Ta) (18 °C –34 °C), and additionally record changes in Tb and posture over several days in response to natural fluctuations ... Read more ...
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The unsung heroes of India’s extreme weather disasters - Skeptical Science (Oct 02, 2024) |
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Oct 02, 2024 · Community health care worker Noushadbi Mujawar safely evacuated everyone from Rajapur, an isolated village in India, as its streets began flooding in August 2019. Mujawar, 42, remained in the village herself even as floodwaters rose 12 feet above her house.
“I moved to a nearby taller building and decided to stay,” said Mujawar, who wanted to help those villagers who stayed with their property as the floodwaters rose.
“Many people stay in their homes during floods to care for their cattle, as evacuating them involves significant risks,” she said.
Mujawar is one of over a million accredited social health activists, known as ASHAs, in India, ... Read more ...
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Four ways climate change likely made Hurricane Helene worse - Skeptical Science (Oct 01, 2024) |
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Oct 01, 2024 · After a spectacular burst of rapid intensification, Hurricane Helene made landfall just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry, Florida, at about 11:10 p.m. EDT Thursday. Top sustained winds were estimated at 140 mph, making Helene a Category 4 hurricane at landfall. We’ll have much more on Helene’s many impacts—some still unfolding on Friday—in our next Eye in the Storm post.
Helene’s landfall gives the U.S. a record eight Cat 4 or Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane landfalls in the past eight years (2017-2024), seven of them being continental U.S. landfalls. That’s as many Cat 4 and 5 landfalls as occurred in ... Read more ...
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