NOAA Warns World’s Coral on Verge of ‘Worst Bleaching Event in History of the Planet’

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A view of major bleaching on the coral reefs of the Society Islands on May 9, 2019 in Moorea, French Polynesia. (Photo: Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty Images).

“It’s looking like the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere is probably going to bleach this year,” one scientist said.

Driven by sustained climate-fueled oceanic heating, the planet is on the brink of another mass coral bleaching event that marine biologists warn could kill large swaths of tropical reefs including significant areas of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Scientists are sounding the alarm following months of record ocean temperatures exacerbated by the planetary emergency and the El Niño climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean.

“It’s looking like the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere is probably going to bleach this year,” Derek Manzello of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch told Reuters. “We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet.”

As NOAA explains:

When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. This is called coral bleaching. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality.

In 2005, the U.S. lost half of its coral reefs in the Caribbean in one year due to a massive bleaching event. The warm waters centered around the northern Antilles near the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico expanded southward. Comparison of satellite data from the previous 20 years confirmed that thermal stress from the 2005 event was greater than the previous 20 years combined.

Following the planet’s hottest summer on record last year, the Caribbean suffered its worst recorded bleaching event. The last worldwide bleaching occurred in 2014-17, when scientists say approximately 15% of all reefs experienced major coral deaths. Nearly a third of the Great Barrier Reef’s coral perished during the bleaching.

In the Southern Hemisphere, where summer is ending and ocean temperatures are at or near their annual peaks, there is “basically bleaching all over the place,” according to Manzello.

Matthew England, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia who studies ocean currents, recently told TheNew York Times that “the sea ice around the Antarctic is just not growing” and “the temperature’s just going off the charts.”

“It’s like an omen of the future,” he added.

It’s a similar story in the North Atlantic, which “has been record-breakingly warm for almost a year now,” University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy told the Times. “It’s just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real.”

A 2018 report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global heating of 1.5°C is likely to result in the loss of 70-90% the planet’s coral reefs over the coming decades.

Current emissions-based forecasts have Earth on track for at least 1.5°C of warming, which researchers say is likely to trigger five climate tipping points: melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, mass die-off of warm-water coral reefs, thawing of Arctic permafrost, and collapse of the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre circulation.

The European Environment Agency’s long-term forecasts for 2071-2100 predict worldwide oceanic heating of 0.5°C-3.8°C, depending on future greenhouse gas emission scenarios.

Scientists say the best way to avert worst-case outcomes for both coral reefs and the climate is to swiftly transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Reducing land-based pollution and overfishing are also critical to reef preservation.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Warming Arctic, rogue iceberg are further signs of global warming’s impact

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Original article by Blake Skylar republished from People’s World under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/.

A bearded seal on ice off the coast of Alaska. | John Jansen / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center

The Arctic is rapidly heating up, and that’s already spelled trouble for other parts of the world. 2023 has become the warmest year since 1900, and now, at the Earth’s southernmost point, an iceberg three times the size of Manhattan has broken away—and it’s on the move. When it comes to the ravaging effects of global warming, the world’s poles have proven themselves to be Exhibit A.

On Dec. 12, the annual Arctic Report Card was released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It found that the Arctic is warming four times more quickly than the world’s average, chiefly as a result of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The effect of that has already been felt south of the region, with Juneau, Alaska, stricken by a glacial outburst flood and Canada enduring a record year of devastating wildfires. Experts say the changes in the Arctic are early signs of what to expect globally as the planet’s temperature continues to increase.

And then there’s A23a. That’s what scientists have called the icy behemoth that was dislodged from an Antarctic ice shelf and—since 2020—has been wending its way through the sea; as of November, it was observed moving past the Antarctic Peninsula’s northern tip and approaching the Southern Ocean. The iceberg is about 1,500 square miles in size. It and other ice shelves are breaking off at rapidly increasing rates due to the climate crisis, and experts are concerned about the implications of its movement.

“It’s just astonishingly big, and it’s a reminder of how much risk we’re at from sea level rise,” said sea scientist Robbie Mallett, an honorary research fellow at the University of College London. “Antarctica has historically been quite a small contributor to sea level rise, but it is growing, and it is taking up a bigger and bigger share of the sea level rise that we see every year. So, it’s a symbol of the growing dominance of Antarctica in the sea rise equation.”

This is such a critical matter because it’s a symptom of a much larger and more worrying issue. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) described it as a “deafening cacophony” of record-breaking that is fueled by global warming, and said that it was putting mankind in jeopardy of losing the fight to control sea level rise.

WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas remarked, “We risk losing the race to save our glaciers and to rein in sea level rise. We cannot return to the climate of the 20th century, but we must act now to limit the risks of an increasingly inhospitable climate in this and the coming centuries. Extreme weather is destroying lives and livelihoods on a daily basis, underlining the imperative need to ensure that everyone is protected by early warning services.”

Gail Whiteman, professor of sustainability at the University of Exeter, described it this way: “The Antarctic used to be seen as this sleeping giant, nothing was happening. It was just big and really cold – that’s my non-scientific way of saying it. And now it’s clear based on the sea ice that it is actually destabilizing. The discussion here should be about the polar regions because they are flipping first, and once they do, the issue of adaptation becomes that much more critical.”

Back up north, ice sheets are causing just as much concern; in Greenland, they’re melting. That nation lost an amount of ice in 2022 that could have covered West Virginia in a foot of water, according to reports. The vanishing ice is also creating an unfortunate self-perpetuating cycle: sea ice reflects solar energy back into space, but as it melts, the dark water of the ocean absorbs that heat – meaning that the more it melts, the more quickly the entire process accelerates.

These simultaneous events are, at the end of the day, proof of one thing: “Climate change is not something that’s coming down the pipe somewhere in the future,” said Daniel Schindler, an ecologist at the University of Washington. “Whether you’re talking about fish, or people, or birds, there are going to be real impacts that we need to deal with right now.”

Original article by Blake Skylar republished from People’s World under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/. Thanks to Morning Star.

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Continue ReadingWarming Arctic, rogue iceberg are further signs of global warming’s impact

Earth’s Atmospheric CO2 Hasn’t Been This High In Millions of Years

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Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

“Either we drive the fossil fuel industry into extinction—or the human race.”

KENNY STANCILMay 17, 2022

Climate scientists and concerned citizens are sounding the alarm as daily, weekly, and monthly records for atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to be shattered while the fossil fuel-powered capitalist economic system responsible for skyrocketing greenhouse gas pollution plows ahead.

New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that the weekly average CO² concentration at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii reached 421.13 parts per million (ppm) from May 8 to May 14—the highest in recorded history and up from 418.34 ppm one year ago and 397.38 ppm one decade ago.

“We simply do not know a planet like this,” meteorologist Eric Holthaus said Monday. “We are in a climate emergency.”

According to NOAA, the daily average CO² concentration at Mauna Loa hit 422.04 ppm on May 14, just slightly below the agency’s all-time record of 422.06 ppm observed on April 26. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, meanwhile, measured 421.68 ppm of CO² at Mauna Loa on May 13, which they consider the daily record as of Monday.

Those record-breaking daily and weekly measurements came after the monthly average CO² concentration at Mauna Loa surpassed 420 ppm for the first time in human history, with NOAA observing 420.23 ppm in April compared with Scripps at 420.02 ppm.

Pieter Tans, a senior scientist at NOAA, recently told Axios that “it is likely May will be higher still.”

“The window to act on climate change is closing,” American Clean Power warned recently on social media. “Accelerating the transition to clean energy will help reduce emissions and secure a healthier future for all.

Twenty years ago, the highest monthly average CO² concentration was 375.93 ppm, according to NOAA. In 1958, the first year scientists began collecting data at Mauna Loa, it was 317.51 ppm.

Climate scientist James Hansen, who alerted congressional lawmakers to the life-threatening dangers of the climate crisis in 1988, has long called for reducing atmospheric CO² to below 350 ppm, and there is now a scientific consensus that the livability of the planet decreases beyond such a concentration.

Nevertheless, the annual rate of increase in CO² levels over the past six decades is now roughly 100 times faster than earlier increases that occurred naturally thousands of years ago.

CO2 concentration over 10,000 years - Keeling Curve

“The world effectively has made no serious progress compared to what is required,” Tans said earlier this month. “We really need to focus on decreasing emissions and we haven’t had much success globally because the rate of increase of CO² remains as high as it has been in the last decade.”

“CO² has a longevity of hundreds to thousands of years,” he noted, “so we are really making a very long-term climate commitment.”

Speaking with the Financial Times recently, Tans added that “we are going in the wrong direction, at maximum speed.”

California-based activist Joe Sanberg put it even more bluntly last week.

“It’s shocking that we’re staring down the barrel of the greatest existential crisis humanity has ever faced and we still haven’t passed a Green New Deal,” Sanberg tweeted. “Time is running out. Either we drive the fossil fuel industry into extinction—or the human race.”

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingEarth’s Atmospheric CO2 Hasn’t Been This High In Millions of Years

Atmospheric CO2 Levels Haven’t Been This High in 800,000 Years: NOAA

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A major report on climate says both greenhouse gas concentrations and global sea levels hit record highs in 2020.

Republished under a Creative Commons Licence. Original article at CommonDreams

KENNY STANCILAugust 25, 2021

Bolstering the case for meaningful climate action, a major report released Wednesday found that Earth’s atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and sea levels both hit record highs in 2020.

“This situation is urgent, but it’s not hopeless. We have an opportunity to lead the global response in the fight against the climate crisis—we cannot afford to waste it.”
—Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson

Based on the contributions of more than 530 scientists from over 60 countries and compiled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), State of the Climate in 2020 is the 31st installment of the leading annual evaluation of the global climate system.

“The major indicators of climate change,” officials from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information pointed out in a statement, “continued to reflect trends consistent with a warming planet. Several markers such as sea level, ocean heat content, and permafrost once again broke records set just one year prior.”

“Annual global surface temperatures were 0.97°–1.12°F (0.54°–0.62°C) above the 1981–2010 average” in 2020, said NOAA, making last year one of the three warmest on record “even with a cooling La Niña influence in the second half of the year.”

Last year was the warmest on record without an El Niño effect, and “new high-temperature records were set across the globe,” NOAA said. The agency added that the past seven years (2014-2020) had been the seven warmest on record.

Although the coronavirus-driven economic slowdown resulted in an estimated 6% to 7% reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2020, the global average atmospheric concentration of COincreased to a record high of 412.5 parts per million. The atmospheric concentrations of other major greenhouse gases (GHG), including methane and nitrous oxide, also continued to climb to record highs last year despite the pandemic.

According to NOAA, last year’s COconcentration “was 2.5 parts per million greater than 2019 amounts and was the highest in the modern 62-year measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800,000 years.” Moreover, “the year-over-year increase of methane (14.8 parts per billion) was the highest such increase since systematic measurements began.”

In addition, global sea levels continued to rise, surpassing previous records.

“For the ninth consecutive year,” said NOAA, “global average sea level rose to a new record high and was about 3.6 inches (91.3 millimeters) higher than the 1993 average,” which is when satellite measurements began. As a result of melting glaciers and ice sheets, warming oceans, and other expressions of the climate crisis, the “global sea level is rising at an average rate of 1.2 inches (3.0 centimeter) per decade.”

Other notable findings of the new report include:

  • Upper atmospheric temperatures were record or near-record setting;
  • Oceans absorbed a record amount of CO2, global upper ocean heat content reached a record high, and the global average sea surface temperature was the third highest on record;
  • The Arctic continued to warm at a faster pace than lower latitudes—resulting in a spike in carbon-releasing fires—and minimum sea ice extent was the second smallest in the 42-year satellite record;
  • Antarctica witnessed extreme heat and a record-long ozone hole; and
  • There were 102 named tropical storms during the Northern and Southern Hemisphere storm seasons, well above the 1981–2010 average of 85.

In contrast to the release less than three weeks ago of the latest assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned that fossil fuel emissions are intensifying extreme weather disasters—provoking a flurry of reactions and even garnering a short-lived uptick in corporate media’s coverage of the climate emergency—NOAA’s new report was met with less fanfare.

In one of the few early statements issued by members of Congress in response to the report, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) said that “scientists sounded the alarm on the climate crisis again.”

“It is clear that without swift action, we can, unfortunately, expect to set new records like these every year,” said Johnson, chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. “The consequences of climate change impact every American—especially disadvantaged communities—across the country; from the devastating floods in Tennessee a few days ago to the record-breaking wildfires in the West.”

“Building a better future for all means acting on climate now,” the lawmaker added. “This situation is urgent, but it’s not hopeless. We have an opportunity to lead the global response in the fight against the climate crisis—we cannot afford to waste it.”

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Continue ReadingAtmospheric CO2 Levels Haven’t Been This High in 800,000 Years: NOAA