Most recent 20 articles: Yale Climate Connections - Science
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Volcanoes emit carbon dioxide, but not nearly as much as humans - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Mar 12) |
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Mar 12 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections During an explosive eruption, volcanoes spew ash and gases into the stratosphere. Those gases can linger and affect the climate for several years. Rosaly Lopes of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says generally, volcanic eruptions cause global cooling. Lopes: “The eruption of Tambora in 1815, that actually cooled the climate so significantly that in Europe, the year 1816 was called the year without a summer.” The cooling is driven by sulfur dioxide in the upper atmosphere, which combines with water molecules to produce sulfuric acid. When ... Read more ... |
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Why more CO2 could be bad news for crops - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Mar 11) |
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Mar 11 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Burning fossil fuels releases a lot of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Plants use carbon dioxide to grow, so some people mistakenly assume that rising CO2 levels will be uniformly good for crops. But scientists warn that the reality is more complex. Kenneth Boote is a professor emeritus at the University of Florida. He says more CO2 can boost photosynthesis for crops, especially wheat and rice. Boote: “And that’s good news. It gives you increased production.” But he says if CO2 levels continue to rise, the rate at which ... Read more ... |
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Zombie climate myths that refuse to die (feat. Bob Henson) - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Mar 1) |
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Mar 1 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our newsletters. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Meteorologist Alexandra Steele breaks down the undead myths about climate change - so you can recognize them when they come for you. Featuring guest appearances from Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Bob Henson, climate scientist Michael Mann, and climate communicator Susan Joy Hassol. ACCESSIBILITY AT YALE Read more ... |
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Michael Mann beat his defamers. But climate scientists are still under attack. - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Feb 28) |
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Feb 28 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Earlier this month, a Washington, D.C., jury held climate deniers liable for their falsehoods - a first, anywhere. The jury awarded over a million dollars in damages to climate scientist Michael Mann after finding that he had been repeatedly defamed by two bloggers. This case did not involve a run-of-the-mill scientific disagreement or even a heated yet good-faith dispute. Instead, it combined statements both grotesque (comparing Mann to convicted child abuser Jerry Sandusky) and already-disproven (claims that Mann committed research ... Read more ... |
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All this climate data is wild - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Feb 26) |
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Feb 26 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections An elephant seal dives deeper than 1,000 meters below Antarctic waters with a tiny tag affixed to its fur, helping scientists collect valuable data about climate change. In Mongolia, pigeons fly around the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, with sensors on their bodies that help gauge air pollution. A recent Nature Climate Change article notes that more than 1,000 animal species have worn sensors to gather data in places where measurement has always been difficult. In this way, elephants, wildebeests, caribou, pigeons, seals, and other animals have helped ... Read more ... |
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What it was like to be a volunteer firefighter during the 2023 Canada fires - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Nov 28) |
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Nov 28 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections In late May, the volunteer fire department in Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia, received reports of a brush fire in the heavily wooded Halifax suburb. Station captain Cole Jean and his six-man crew took off for the scene. Jean: “We could immediately see the large volume of smoke - heavy black and gray smoke … and as we kind of got a little closer, we could finally see the full extent of what we were walking into.” The fire quickly expanded into a huge inferno that raged for more than a week, destroying more than 150 homes. It was one of ... Read more ... |
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Scientists show direct link between polluting companies and wildfires in North America - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Nov 27) |
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Nov 27 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections In recent decades, wildfires have scorched forests in the western U.S. and Canada. By contributing to climate change, the world’s biggest carbon polluters made those fires far more destructive - and new research shows by just how much. Pablo Ortiz-Partida of the Union of Concerned Scientists says carbon pollution is making the region hotter and drier, which creates more fuel for fires. Ortiz-Partida: “It’s these hot and dry conditions that enable wildfires to burn more forest area.” His team found that nearly 40% of the area burned by ... Read more ... |
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Eight key takeaways from the new National Climate Assessment - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Nov 20) |
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Nov 20 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections The U.S. has made progress in reducing heat-trapping carbon pollution, but extreme weather caused by climate change is harming U.S. residents in every region, according to the National Climate Assessment released in November 2023. Here are eight things to know about the report. The Global Change Research Act, passed in 1990, mandates that the U.S. Global Change Research Program should deliver a comprehensive climate report to “understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change” every four years or so. ... Read more ... |
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Climate change made Libya flooding up to 50 times more likely, 50% more intense - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Sep 27, 2023) |
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Sep 27, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections International scientists announced Tuesday, September 19, that an event like the extreme rain that led to deadly flooding in Libya earlier this month “has become up to 50 times more likely and up to 50% more intense compared to a 1.2°C cooler climate,” or the preindustrial world. Those were among the findings of a World Weather Attribution analysis of torrential rainfall in several countries across the Mediterranean during the first two weeks of September, conducted by researchers from Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, ... Read more ... |
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Sea level rise varies from place to place. Why? - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Sep 19, 2023) |
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Sep 19, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections As the climate warms, coastal communities are faced with sea level rise. But some are seeing faster rates than others. For example, in Los Angeles, local sea level rise measures only about 1 millimeter per year. But on the coast of Louisiana, it’s about 6 millimeters a year. “There’s a couple reasons why the rates of relative sea level rise are just very different along the United States coastline,” says William Sweet of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He says some parts of the ocean are naturally higher because local ... Read more ... |
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Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C would save half the world’s glaciers, study finds - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Aug 15, 2023) |
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Aug 15, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Mountains around the world are home to glaciers, massive rivers of ice and snow carved into the rugged terrain. But as the climate warms, many of those glaciers are melting quickly - and some may already be doomed to melt away entirely. “We found that the glaciers are losing a significant amount of mass and that it’s really controlled by the amount of temperature increase that we see in the future,” says David Rounce, an environmental engineer at Carnegie Mellon University. He and his colleagues recently found that if the world warms four ... Read more ... |
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Scientists investigate the climate impact of airborne dust - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Jul 24, 2023) |
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Jul 24, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Large areas of the Earth are covered with sand. And it’s not all a yellowish-beige. Natalie Mahowald, a professor in the department of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, says that depending on its mineral composition, that sand can vary in color. “It can be black or red, or it can be white, really different colors,” she says. She says those colors affect the climate. When desert sand gets kicked up into the air, tiny dust particles end up suspended in the atmosphere. There, some particles reflect the sun’s energy, ... Read more ... |
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Conservationists and farmers work together to restore the Colorado River Delta - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Jul 11, 2023) |
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Jul 11, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections [Leer en español] One hundred years ago, the Colorado River Delta in northwestern Mexico was an area rich in wildlife and vegetation. But for decades, U.S. states have consumed most of the river’s water, leaving little to reach the delta. Combined with the effects of climate change, the area today looks more like a desert than a delta. That started to change, however, with recent efforts to bring more water into the delta and plant native tree species. Carolina del Rosario Sánchez Gastélum is the director of agroecology at Restauremos el ... Read more ... |
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Global warming is disrupting humanity’s 'Goldilocks zone’ on Earth - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Jun 28, 2023) |
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Jun 28, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Like Baby Bear’s porridge to Goldilocks, for thousands of years, the climate over much of the planet was neither too hot nor too cold but “just right.” Those ideal conditions enabled people to develop advanced agriculture, build cities, and invent industry and advanced technology. But after relatively stable surface temperatures during the past 7,000 years, global warming is now rapidly disrupting the reliable climate that allowed humanity to flourish. Two dangerous consequences of the fast changes were described in a new study published in the ... Read more ... |
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Is climate change affecting the polar vortex? - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Feb 01, 2023) |
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Feb 01, 2023 · Yale Climate Connections In 2021, a cold wave swept across the U.S., bringing freezing temperatures as far south as Texas. Millions of people lost power, and hundreds died. Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Bob Henson says this cold wave was caused by disruptions to the polar vortex. “The polar vortex is a loop of winds that encircles the North Pole. This loop of winds can stretch. It can break into two pieces across the course of a winter,” he says. “So the polar vortex stretched pretty dramatically, and that allowed cold air to be funneled from the Arctic down into the United States well into Texas.” Some scientists suggest this stretching is happening ... Read more ... |
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Smartphone apps help rural Alaskans monitor effects of warming climate - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Jan 13, 2023) |
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Jan 13, 2023 · Yale Climate Connections Global warming is bringing rapid change to Alaska. Glaciers are melting, sea ice is receding, and stream temperatures are rising. “And the people of Alaska, especially Alaska Natives, this land is their livelihood. It is their lifestyle. It is their culture,” says Nyssa Russell of the Northern Latitudes Partnerships. The group is working with the Aleut Community of Saint Paul Island to expand the Indigenous Sentinels Network - an effort to monitor changing conditions in the state. “Alaska is huge, and there is a need to have that local data and observations from these rural areas that are just vastly underserved,” she says. The ... Read more ... |
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Video examines issues involving jet stream role in extreme weather - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Nov 18, 2022) |
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Nov 18, 2022 · Yale Climate Connections Turn on practically any storm-driven local TV weather forecast these days, and chances are you’ll encounter more and more references to the “jet stream.” But why? And what exactly is the jet stream, and what, if any, is its connection to extreme weather events, be they drought, extreme heat, wildfires, or flooding? “It’s hard to find examples of major weather events from last year that aren’t related to the jet stream,” PBS producer and host of “PBS Terra” Maiya May says in a new Yale Climate Connections video, produced by independent videographer Peter Sinclair. Climate models may be “too conservative” on impacts of the jet stream ... Read more ... |
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Climate change is making rainfall during hurricanes more extreme - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Oct 03, 2022) |
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Oct 03, 2022 · Yale Climate Connections During a hurricane, torrential rains can cause dangerous flooding. Roads turn into rivers, and stranded residents flee to their rooftops. Stephanie Herring of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that as the climate warms, rainfall during hurricanes is growing more extreme. “It is likely that greenhouse warming is going to cause hurricanes in the coming century to be more intense globally and have those higher rainfall rates than present day hurricanes,” she says. Herring explains that the warming atmosphere can hold more water. She compares it to a sponge. “In a cooler atmosphere, the sponge can only hold so ... Read more ... |
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We all love trees, but they’re not the climate solution we need - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Sep 25, 2022) |
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Sep 25, 2022 · Yale Climate Connections Science magazine in the summer of 2019 printed a report suggesting that foresting 0.9 billion hectares (3.47 million square miles) of currently non-forested land would absorb carbon dioxide and combat global warming. The authors had not mentioned in that article that their intention was for this approach to be in addition to curbing the rate of fossil fuel combustion, not instead of it. Big difference. Soon afterward, President Trump and other Republican leaders started talking about planting “a trillion trees” to combat climate change … again with no mention whatsoever of curbing emissions. Seeing this happen, Tom Crowther, one of ... Read more ... |
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Studying hurricanes at sea to save lives on shore - Yale Climate Connections - Science  (Sep 23, 2022) |
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Sep 23, 2022 · Yale Climate Connections (Editor’s note: A Saildrone has gathered live footage from inside Category 4 Hurricane Fiona as it threatens Atlantic Canada.) NOAA oceanographer Greg Foltz knew it was going to be a long night last fall when he saw Hurricane Sam's trajectory. Glued to the National Hurricane Center data, Foltz, who works in NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, examined the storm’s tracking and intensity and conducted an analysis of the satellite images and data. He needed to estimate the hurricane’s trajectory over the next 12-24 hours so he could position his instruments. He wasn’t trying to pull his costly equipment away ... Read more ... |
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