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Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation
Global warming is real and human-caused. It is leading to large-scale climate change. Under the guise of climate "skepticism", the public is bombarded with misinformation that casts doubt on the reality of human-caused global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming "skepticism".
Our mission is simple: debunk climate misinformation by presenting peer-reviewed science and explaining the techniques of science denial, discourses of climate delay, and climate solutions denial.
  
Posted on 23 March 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 16, 2025 thru Sat, March 22, 2025.
This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Stories we promoted this week, by category and number of articles shared:
Climate Change Impacts (14 articles)
- Global sea level rose faster than expected in 2024, according to NASA analysis Ocean water expands as it warms, researchers said. by Julia Jacobo, International, ABC News, Mar 14, 2025
- How Can We Help People Who Cannot Flee High Climate-Risk Zones? by Columbia Climate School, State of the Planet, Mar 17, 2025
- One Devastating Storm System: What to Know About the Havoc The tornadoes, dust storms and wind-fanned wildfires have led to at least 40 deaths across the United States t The tornadoes, dust storms and wind-fanned wildfires have led to at least 40 deaths across the United States this past week. by Isabelle Taft, Adeel Hassan, Hank Sanders & Amy Graff, New York Times, Mar 16, 2025
- Earth is ‘perilously close’ to a global warming threshold. Here’s what to know by Interview by Ali Rogan, PBS Weekend News, Mar 16, 2025
- New Zealand could face twice as many extreme atmospheric rivers, NIWA says by Staff, New Zealand, RNZ, Mar 18, 2025
- Cross-country storm unleashes blizzard as its winds fan wildfires across the central US by Robert Shackelford, Karina Tsui & Mary Gilbert, CNN Weather, Mar 19, 2025
- Global Warming Can Lead to Inflammation in Human Airways, New Research Shows Drier air caused by climate change poses respiratory health risk by dehydrating airways, researchers say by Staff, Johns Hopkins Newsroom, Mar 17, 2025
- More than 150 ‘unprecedented’ climate disasters struck world in 2024, says UN Floods, heatwaves and supercharged hurricanes occurred in hottest climate human society has ever experienced by Damian Carrington, Environment, The Guardian, Mar 19, 2025
- Andean glaciers have shrunk more than ever before in the entire Holocene Glaciers are important indicators of climate change. A recent study published in the leading journal Science shows that glaciers in the tropical Andes have now retreated further than at any other time in the entire Holocene. by Stefan Rahmstorf, RealClimate, Mar 19, 2025
- Climate change: Paris Agreement goals still within reach, says UN chief The effects of human-driven climate change surged to alarming levels in 2024, with some consequences likely to be irreversible for centuries - if not millennia – according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). by Staff, Climate & Environment, UN News, Mar 19, 2025
- Rising Seas and Land-Based Salt Pollution Pose Dual Threats for Drinking Water New studies show that climate change is fueling salt contamination in freshwater ecosystems by Kiley Price, Today's Climate, Inside Climate News, Mar 18, 2025
- New Study Reinforces Worries About Pulses of Rapid Sea Level Rise An analysis of peat layers at the bottom of the North Sea shows how fast sea level rose during the end of the last ice age, when Earth was warming at a similar rate as today. by Bob Berwyn, Science, Inside Climate News, Mar 19, 2025
- Wildfire warnings continue in parts of the country as strong winds persist A new cross-country storm will begin to hit the Pacific Northwest on Friday. by Kenton Gewecke & Megan Forrester, ABC News, Mar 21, 2025
- With climate change, cryosphere melt scales up as a threat to planetary health by Sean Mowbray, Momgabay, Mar 21, 2025
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Posted on 20 March 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
The severe 2020 coral bleaching event in the tropical Atlantic linked to marine heatwaves, Rodrigues et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
Marine heatwaves can amplify the vulnerabilities of regional marine ecosystems and jeopardise local economies and food resources. Here, we show that marine heatwaves in the tropical Atlantic have increased in frequency, intensity, duration, and spatial extent. Marine heatwaves are 5.1 times more frequent and 4.7 times more intense since the records started in 1982, with the 10 most extreme summers/falls in terms of marine heatwave cumulative intensity and spatial extension occurring in the last two decades. The extreme warming during the summer/fall of 2020 led to the largest bleaching event recorded along the Brazilian coast, with 85% of stony corals and 70% of zoanthids areas bleached in Rio do Fogo. The increase in the severity of the marine heatwaves in the western tropical Atlantic is not accompanied by trends in the strength of the local drivers. This suggests that weaker forcing can lead to more devastating marine heatwaves as the global ocean temperature rises due to climate change.
Artificial structures can facilitate rapid coral recovery under climate change, Tanaya et al., Scientific Reports:
Rising seawater temperatures from climate change have caused coral bleaching, risking coral extinction by century’s end. To save corals, reef restoration must occur alongside other climate-change mitigation. Here we show the effectiveness of habitat creation on artificial structures for rapid coral restoration in response to climate change. We use 29 years of field observations for coral distributions on breakwaters and surrounding reefs (around 33,000 measurements in total). Following bleaching in 1998, breakwaters had higher coral cover (mainly Acropora spp.) than did surrounding natural reefs. Coral recovery times on breakwaters matched the frequency of recent bleaching events (~ every 6 years) and were accelerated by surface processing of the artificial structures with grooves. Corals on breakwaters were more abundant in shallow waters, under high light, and on moderately sloped substrate. Coral abundance on breakwaters was increased by incorporating shallow areas and surface texture. Our results suggest that habitat creation on artificial structures can increase coral community resilience against climate change by increasing coral recovery potential.
A new hope or phantom menace? Exploring climate emotions and public support for climate interventions across 30 countries, Baum et al., Risk Analysis:
This article employed a unique, global dataset with 30,284 participants across 30 countries (in 19 languages) to provide insights on 3 questions. We first leveraged the global dataset to map the incidence of fear, hope, anger, sadness, and worry across countries—the first time the climate emotions of adults are investigated on this scale. We also identified significant differences in emotions by level of development, with those in advanced economies reporting weaker levels of climate emotions. Second, using multiple linear regression analyses, we explored the relationship between climate emotions and support for climate-intervention technologies. We determined that the emotions of hope and worry seem to be the most consistently (positively) correlated. Third, we explored if reading about technology categories differentially affected climate emotions. Individuals randomly assigned to read about ecosystems-based CDR [carbon dioxide removal] were significantly more hopeful about climate change (those about SRM [solar radiation management] the least).
Threshold uncertainty, early warning signals and the prevention of dangerous climate change, Hurlstone et al., Royal Society Open Science:
The goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep global temperature rise well below 2°C. In this agreement—and its antecedents negotiated in Copenhagen and Cancun—the fear of crossing a dangerous climate threshold is supposed to serve as the catalyst for cooperation among countries. However, there are deep uncertainties about the location of the threshold for dangerous climate change, and recent evidence indicates this threshold uncertainty is a major impediment to collective action. Early warning signals of approaching climate thresholds are a potential remedy to this threshold uncertainty problem, and initial experimental evidence suggests such early detection systems may improve the prospects of cooperation. Here, we provide a direct experimental assessment of this early warning signal hypothesis. Using a catastrophe avoidance game, we show that large initial—and subsequently unreduced—threshold uncertainty undermines cooperation, consistent with earlier studies. An early warning signal that reduced uncertainty to within 10% (but not 30%) of the threshold value catalysed cooperation and reduced the probability of catastrophe occurring, albeit not reliably so. Our findings suggest early warning signals can trigger action to avoid a dangerous threshold, but additional mechanisms may be required to foster the cooperation needed to ensure the threshold is not breached.
Early warning of complex climate risk with integrated artificial intelligence, Reichstein et al., Nature Communications:
As climate change accelerates, human societies face growing exposure to disasters and stress, highlighting the urgent need for effective early warning systems (EWS). These systems monitor, assess, and communicate risks to support resilience and sustainable development, but challenges remain in hazard forecasting, risk communication, and decision-making. This perspective explores the transformative potential of integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) modeling. We highlight the role of AI in developing multi-hazard EWSs that integrate Meteorological and Geospatial foundation models (FMs) for impact prediction. A user-centric approach with intuitive interfaces and community feedback is emphasized to improve crisis management. To address climate risk complexity, we advocate for causal AI models to avoid spurious predictions and stress the need for responsible AI practices. We highlight the FATES (Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, Ethics, and Sustainability) principles as essential for equitable and trustworthy AI-based Early Warning Systems for all. We further advocate for decadal EWSs, leveraging climate ensembles and generative methods to enable long-term, spatially resolved forecasts for proactive climate adaptation.
From this week's government/NGO section:
State of the Global Climate 2024, Kennedy et al., World Meteorological Organization
The publication provides a summary of the state of the climate indicators in 2024 with sections on key climate indicators, extreme events, and impacts. The indicators include global temperatures, greenhouse gas concentration, ocean heat content, sea level rise, ocean acidification, Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, glaciers, and precipitation, with an analysis of major drivers of inter-annual climate variability during the year including the El Niño Southern Oscillation and other ocean and atmospheric indices. The highlighted extreme events include those related to tropical cyclones and wind storms; flooding, drought, and extreme heat and cold events. The publication also provides the most recent findings on climate-related risks and impacts including on food security and population displacement.
Meeting the Climate Emergency: University Information Infrastructure for Researching Wicked Problems, Donald Waters, Coalition for Networked Information
The author examines the role of research universities in addressing complex societal challenges. He focuses on climate change, which is best characterized as a “wicked” problem. Such problems are difficult to define and lack clear solutions in part because they involve multiple stakeholders who sometimes have sharply differing interests and perspectives. Given this complexity, understanding climate change is not just a matter for researchers in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and medicine. It requires an all-hands-on-deck approach across the disciplinary spectrum, including experts from the social sciences and humanities. It also requires deep engagement of researchers with the public. The author underscores the urgency and complexity of climate change and other wicked problems that impede human flourishing and offers concrete steps by which universities could adapt their research infrastructure to address these problems more effectively.
107 articles in 51 journals by 664 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Amplified wintertime Arctic warming causes Eurasian cooling via nonlinear feedback of suppressed synoptic eddy activities, Yin et al., Science Advances 10.1126/sciadv.adr6336
Fire, Fuel, and Climate Interactions in Temperate Climates, Kampf et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2024av001628
Monitoring, modeling, and forecasting long-term changes in coastal seawater quality due to climate change, Guan et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-025-57913-4
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Posted on 19 March 2025 by BaerbelW
Up until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of "Climate Fresk" and at a guess, this will also be the case for many of you. I stumbled upon it in the self-service training catalog for employees at the company I work at in Germany where it was announced as a 3-hours workshop called "Klima Puzzle" (Climate Puzzle). Intrigued, I signed up and was one of 7 colleagues to be led through what turned out to be quite an interesting experience. After the workshop, I spend some time browsing the Climate Fresk website and then signed up for a training to become a "Climate Fresker" myself. This allows me to lead people through a Climate Fresk, which I now "only" need to find some time for!
The background story
Climate Fresk encourages the rapid and wide-ranging spread of an understanding of climate issues. The efficiency of the teaching tool, the collaborative experience and the user licence have contributed to the exponential growth of Climate Fresk.
Since its creation, more then 2 million people have participated in a Climate Fresk in 167 countries and 45 languages. More than 90,000 volunteers have been trained to lead a Climate Fresk themselves.
The Climate Fresk game was created by Cédric Ringenbach in 2015 and he has continuously worked on it until it reached its current format. Cédric is an engineer, lecturer and energy transition consultant. A climate change specialist since 2009, he ran The Shift Project between 2010 and 2016. He teaches about energy-climate issues at the “grandes écoles” universities in France (Sup’aéro, Ecoles Centrales, Sciences Po, HEC).
The Climate Fresk NGO was created in December 2018 by Cédric Ringenbach in order to accelerate the spread of the tool, to train and upskill Climate Fresk facilitators who are the international community of Freskers. You can read more about the NGO here.
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Posted on 18 March 2025 by Ken Rice
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #20 based on Sabin's report.
When properly sited, offshore wind farms need not pose a serious risk of harm to whales or other marine life. During installation, the impact from construction noise can be mitigated by implementing seasonal restrictions on certain activities that coincide with whale migration. Once operational, wind turbines generate far less low-frequency sound than ships do, and there is no evidence that noise from turbines causes negative impacts to marine species populations (Tougaard et al. 2020).
There has been considerable attention to how offshore wind development, including noise from pile-driving during construction, affects the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, which has a total population of roughly 360.1 But the main causes of mortality for right whales are vessel strikes (75% of anthropogenic deaths) and entanglements in fishing gear—not anything related to offshore wind development.2 Critically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has also found no link between offshore wind surveys or development on whale deaths.3
Moreover, any impacts to the North Atlantic right whale can be avoided or greatly minimized through proper planning. For example, in 2019, the developer of the 800-MW Vineyard Wind project entered into an agreement with three environmental organizations, which established seasonal restrictions on pile-driving during construction (to avoid excessive noise when right whales are present), as well as strict limits on vessel speeds during the operational phase (to avoid vessel strikes), among other measures.4 In the final environmental impact statement for the project, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) found that, “[g]iven the implementation of Project-specific measures, BOEM anticipates that vessel strikes as a result of [the project] alone are highly unlikely and that impacts on marine mammal individuals . . . would be expected to be minor; as such, no population-level impacts would be expected.”2 BOEM also found that project installation would be unlikely to cause noise-related impacts to right whales, due to the time of year during which construction activities would take place.2
Offshore wind development can have benefits for other marine species. For example, the base of an offshore wind turbine may function as an artificial reef, creating new habitats for native fish species (Degraer et al. 2020 and here).
By contrast, offshore oil and gas drilling routinely harms marine life, while posing a persistent risk of catastrophic outcomes. Sonar used for offshore oil and gas exploration emits much stronger pulses of sound than sonar used for wind farm surveying. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed millions of marine animals, including as many as 800,000 birds.5 More broadly, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are making the ocean increasingly acidic, which inhibits shellfish and corals from developing and maintaining calcium carbonate shells and exoskeletons.6 Finally, climate change is expected to have “long-term, high-consequence impacts” on whales and other marine mammals, including “increased energetic costs associated with altered migration routes, reduction of suitable breeding and/or foraging habitat, and reduced individual fitness, particularly juveniles.”2
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Posted on 17 March 2025 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler
 (Image credit: Antonio Huerta)
Growing up in suburban Ohio, I was used to seeing farmland and woods disappear to make room for new subdivisions, strip malls, and big box stores. I didn’t usually welcome the changes, but I assumed others did. If people didn’t want to live in sprawling suburbs, why did I see this kind of development everywhere I went?
But the situation is more complicated than it seems. Although sprawling development is still a familiar sight across the U.S., many experts in urban planning and housing believe this doesn’t occur because of a uniquely American passion for giant parking lots, but as a result of a dysfunctional market. Many people are hungry for denser, more walkable communities, they believe; there just aren’t enough of them to go around.
The question of what kind of communities Americans prefer has important implications for climate change. Suburban U.S. households have substantially higher emissions than their city-center counterparts, largely due to cars. Building more dense, walkable developments could significantly lower these emissions – assuming enough people would both choose to live in such communities and find suitable housing there.
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Posted on 16 March 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 9, 2025 thru Sat, March 15, 2025.
This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Stories we promoted this week, by category and number of articles shared:
Climate Policy and Politics (10 articles)
- `We`re losing our environmental history`: The future of government information under Trump The administration’s wrecking-ball approach has raised profound questions about the integrity and future of vast amounts of information. by Jessica McKenzie, Buelltin of the Atomic Scientists, Mar 05, 2025
- Science, Politics and Anxiety Mix at Rally Under Lincoln Memorial Thousands of protesters gathered in Washington for Stand Up for Science, a rally in response to President Trump’s federal-funding and job cuts by Alan Burdick, Climate, New York Times, Mar 8, 2025
- Energy Secretary Makes Clear Trump 'Ready to Sacrifice' Communities and Climate "As Wright speaks to industry insiders, members of impacted communities, faith leaders, youth, and others are assembling for a 'March for Future Generations,'" one campaigner said of the action at CERAWeek. by Jessica Corbett , Common Dreams, Mar 10, 2025
- NASA fires chief scientist, more Trump cuts to come by AFP, Phys.org, Mar 12, 2025
- EPA considers pulling scientific study that shaped modern climate policy The 2009 scientific finding says carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health by Julia Musto, The Independent News, Mar 12, 2025
- Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda could keep the world hooked on oil and gas The US president is making energy deals with Japan and Ukraine, and in Africa has even touted resurrecting coal by Oliver Milman & Dharna Noor, US News, The Guardian, Mar 12, 2025
- We need NOAA now more than ever by Guest authors: Robert Hart, Kerry Emanuel, & Lance Bosart, RealClimate, Mar 13, 2025
- EPA Freezes, Then Terminates, Multi-Billion Dollar Climate Grants, Scuttling Projects and Triggering Lawsuits The lawsuits could take months, if not years, to resolve, experts say, leaving green banks, clean energy startups and low-income communities in financial limbo. by Aman Azhar, Justice & Health, Inside Climate News, Mar 13, 2025
- Trump moves to close facility that helps track planet-warming pollution The lab is connected to the Mauna Loa Observatory, where scientists gather data to produce the Keeling Curve, a chart on the daily status of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. by Scott Dance, Washington Post, Mar 14, 2025
- A foundational climate regulation is under threat Trump’s EPA claims that climate change isn’t a danger to human beings by Umair Irfan , Climate, Vox, Mar 04, 2025
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Posted on 15 March 2025 by Sue Bin Park
 Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Is waste heat from industrial activity the reason the planet is warming?
 Waste heat’s contribution to global warming is a small fraction of that brought about by carbon dioxide.
Waste heat comes from the thermal energy released by human energy use, such as when power plants burn coal or combustion engines burn gasoline.
Dividing the total amount of waste heat by Earth’s surface area, Flanner found about 0.03 Watts per square meter of total warming was from waste heat, about 1%. Carbon dioxide’s greenhouse gas effect added 2.9 Watts per square meter.
Zhang and Caldeira published in 2015 that 1.71% of warming was from the direct heat energy released by fossil fuel combustion, the main source of waste heat.
Carbon dioxide, which makes it more difficult for heat to escape the atmosphere, is the primary driver of climate change. While reducing waste heat is beneficial for efficiency, addressing global warming requires lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as the one highlighted here.
Sources
Geophysical Research Letters Time scales and ratios of climate forcing due to thermal versus carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels
Atmospheric Environment Global anthropogenic heat flux database with high spatial resolution
Geophysical Research Letters Integrating anthropogenic heat flux with global climate models
NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research Anthropogenic Heat Flux
Scientific Data Global 1-km present and future hourly anthropogenic heat flux
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Posted on 13 March 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Would Adding the Anthropocene to the Geologic Time Scale Matter?, McCarthy et al., AGU Advances:
The extraordinary fossil fuel-driven outburst of consumption and production since the mid-twentieth century has fundamentally altered the way the Earth System works. Although humans have impacted their environment for millennia, justification for a new interval of geologic time lies in the radical shift in the geologic record that marks this “Great Acceleration” of the human enterprise. The rejection of a proposal to define the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch with a “golden spike” in varved sediments from Crawford Lake, Canada, means that we officially we still live in the Holocene, when in practical terms we do not. Formal recognition of the Anthropocene will acknowledge the facts supporting global warming and many other planetary changes that are irreversible on geologic time scales, aligning the Earth Sciences with geologic, planetary and societal reality.
How to stop being surprised by unprecedented weather, Kelder et al., Nature Communications:
We see unprecedented weather causing widespread impacts across the world. In this perspective, we provide an overview of methods that help anticipate unprecedented weather hazards that can contribute to stop being surprised. We then discuss disaster management and climate adaptation practices, their gaps, and how the methods to anticipate unprecedented weather may help build resilience. We stimulate thinking about transformative adaptation as a foundation for long-term resilience to unprecedented weather, supported by incremental adaptation through upgrading existing infrastructure, and reactive adaptation through short-term early action and disaster response. Because in the end, we should take responsibility to build resilience rather than being surprised by unprecedented weather.
Storylines of Unprecedented Extremes in the Southeast United States, Masukwedza et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:
Disaster planning based on historical events is like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror. To expand our field of view, we use a large ensemble of weather simulations to characterize the current risk of extreme weather events in case study locations in the southeastern United States. We find that extreme temperature events have become more frequent between 1981 and 2021, and heavy precipitation events are also more frequent in the wettest months. Combining a historical analysis of people’s recent experience with the rate of change of extreme events, we define four quadrants that apply to groups of case studies: “sitting ducks,” “recent rarity,” “living memory,” and “fading memory.” A critical storyline is that of the sitting ducks: locations where we find a high rate of increase in extreme events and where the most extreme event in recent memory (1981–2021) has a low return period in today’s climate. We find that these locations have a high potential for surprise. For example, in Montgomery County, Alabama, the most extreme temperature event since 1981 has a return period of 13 years in the climate of 2021. In these places, we offer unprecedented synthetic events from the large ensemble for use in disaster preparedness simulations to help people imagine the unprecedented. Our results not only document substantial changes in the risk of extremes in the southeastern United States but also propose a generalizable framework for using large ensembles in disaster preparedness simulations in a changing climate.
Changes to Atmospheric River Related Extremes Over the United States West Coast Under Anthropogenic Warming, Higgins et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
Despite advances in our understanding of changes to severe weather events due to climate change, uncertainty regarding rare extreme events persists. Atmospheric rivers (ARs), which are directly responsible for the majority of precipitation extremes on the US West Coast, are projected to intensify in a warming world. In this study, we utilize two unique large-ensemble climate models to examine rare extreme AR events under various warming scenarios. By quantifying changes to rare extremes, we can gain some insight into the potential for these destructive unprecedented events to occur in the future. Additionally, the abundance of data used in this study enables changes to both seasonal extreme AR occurrences and changes to extremes during various synoptic-scale flow patterns to be explored. From this analysis, we find substantial changes to AR extremes under even mild warming scenarios with disproportionately large changes during weather regimes that are conducive to AR activity.
One-third of the global soybean production failure in 2012 is attributable to climate change, Hamed et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
In 2012, soybean crops failed in the three largest producing regions due to spatially compounded hot and dry weather across North and South America. Here, we present different impact storylines of the 2012 event, calculated by combining a statistical crop model with climate model simulations of 2012 conditions under pre-industrial, present-day (+1 °C), and future (+2 °C) conditions. These simulations use the ECHAM6 climate model and maintain the same observed seasonally evolving atmospheric circulation. Our results demonstrate that anthropogenic warming strongly amplifies the impacts of such a large-scale circulation pattern on global soybean production. Although the drought intensity is similar under different warming levels, larger crop losses are driven not only by warmer temperatures but also by stronger heat-moisture interactions. We estimate that one-third of the global soybean production deficit in 2012 is attributable to anthropogenic climate change. Future warming (+2 °C above pre-industrial) would further exacerbate production deficits by one-half compared to present-day 2012 conditions. This highlights the increasing intensity of global soybean production shocks with warming, requiring urgent adaptation strategies.
Climate-Driven Sea Level Rise Exacerbates Alaskan and Cascadian Tsunami Hazards in Southern California: Implications to Design Parameters, Sepúlveda & Mosqueda, Earth's Future:
Climate-change-driven sea level rise is expected to worsen tsunami hazards in the long term. Tsunami waves will be able to propagate over rising sea levels that will enable them to inundate higher land. In this study, we quantify the increase of tsunami hazards in Southern California due to sea level rise. We consider tsunamis originated in the Alaska and Cascadia subduction zones. Changes of tsunami design parameters, as a result of the sea level rise, are also analyzed. Namely, we analyze the changes of the “maximum considered tsunami” (MCT) elevation, defined as the elevation exceeded with probability 2% in 50 years. We find that earthquakes of the Alaska Subduction Zone constitute the main tsunamigenic contributor. We also find that sea level rise increases MCT tsunami elevations by 0.3 m. With this increase, MCT levels reach 2 m in San Pedro Bay and San Diego. We compare the impact of sea level rise exacerbating tsunami hazards with the impact of common uncertainty sources of tsunami hazard assessment models. The uncertainty of earthquake models, for example, can produce differences in MCT levels that are comparable to the SLR influence.
Greenhouse gases reduce the satellite carrying capacity of low Earth orbit, Parker et al., Nature Sustainability:
Anthropogenic contributions of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere have been observed to cause cooling and contraction in the thermosphere, which is projected to continue for many decades. This contraction results in a secular reduction in atmospheric mass density where most satellites operate in low Earth orbit. Decreasing density reduces drag on debris objects and extends their lifetime in orbit, posing a persistent collision hazard to other satellites and risking the cascading generation of more debris. This work uses projected CO2 emissions from the shared socio-economic pathways to investigate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the satellite carrying capacity of low Earth orbit. The instantaneous Kessler capacity is introduced to compute the maximum number and optimal distribution of characteristic satellites that keep debris populations in stable equilibrium. Modelled CO2 emissions scenarios from years 2000–2100 indicate a potential 50–66% reduction in satellite carrying capacity between the altitudes of 200 and 1,000 km. Considering the recent, rapid expansion in the number of satellites in low Earth orbit, understanding environmental variability and its impact on sustainable operations is necessary to prevent over-exploitation of the region.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Women and girls continue to bear disproportionate impacts of heatwaves in South Sudan that have become a constant threat, Kew et al., World Weather Attribution
Extreme heat has affected a large region of continental eastern Africa since mid-February. Extreme daytime temperatures have been recorded in South Sudan particularly affecting people in poor housing and outdoor workers, a very large part of the population. Scientists from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico, Chile, the United States, and the United Kingdom collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the extreme heat in the region and to what extent the impacts particularly affected women and girls. When combining the observation-based analysis with climate models, to quantify the role of climate change in this 7-day heat event, the authors find that climate models underestimate the increase in heat found in observations. They can thus only give a conservative estimate of the influence of human-induced climate change. Based on the combined analysis they conclude that climate change made the extreme heat at least 2C hotter and at least 10 times more likely.
The Growing Threat of Catastrophic Flooding in Rural America, Rebecca Anderson and Shannon McNeeley, The Pacific Institute
The frequency and severity of catastrophic flooding events are rising throughout the U.S. and many rural communities are at high risk. Climate change is driving more intense and frequent extreme precipitation events, increasing the likelihood of catastrophic flooding across the U.S. in the future. Rural communities face unique challenges in preparing for and recovering from catastrophic flooding, shaped by factors like geography, social vulnerabilities, and limited resources. Leveraging the extant strengths and assets of rural communities is essential for building resilience and effectively preparing for catastrophic flooding.
170 articles in 66 journals by 1274 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A half-century drying in Gobi Oasis, possible role of ENSO and warming/moistening of Northwest China, Li et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.104769
Arctic sea-ice loss drives a strong regional atmospheric response over the North Pacific and North Atlantic on decadal scales, Cvijanovic et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-02059-w
Climate-Induced Polar Motion: 1900–2100, Kiani Shahvandi & Soja, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2024gl113405
Distinct Impacts of Increased Atlantic and Pacific Ocean Heat Transport on Arctic Ocean Warming and Sea Ice Decline, Cheng et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2024jc021178
Energy Gain Kernel for Climate Feedbacks. Part II: Spatial Pattern of Surface Amplification Factor and Its Dependency on Climate Mean State, Hu et al., Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 10.1175/jas-d-24-0079.1
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Posted on 12 March 2025 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink
Good data visualizations can help make climate change more visceral and understandable. Back in 2016 Ed Hawkins published a “climate spiral” graph that ended up being pretty iconic – it was shown at the opening ceremony of the Olympics that year – and is probably the second most widely seen climate graph after Hawkins’ later climate stripes.
However, I haven’t previously come across any versions of the spiral graph showing daily global temperatures, so I thought it would be fun to create my own (with, I should note, a bit of help from OpenAI’s o3 model to code it).
Here are daily global temperatures by year between 1940 (when the ERA5 daily dataset begins) and the end of 2024, with the color varying from blue to red over time.
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Posted on 11 March 2025 by Ken Rice
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #19 based on Sabin's report.
According to the National Audubon Society, two-thirds of all North American bird species are at heightened risk of extinction due to climate change.1 Wildfires will destroy the nesting grounds of many species2, while extreme heatwaves will render their typical habitats uninhabitable.2 For example, the American Goldfinch is projected to lose 65% of its range under a scenario of 3 degrees Celsius global warming, while the Allen’s Hummingbird is projected to lose 64% of its range.2
By contrast, wind power is a relatively minor source of mortality for birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that, throughout the United States, cats kill an average of 2.4 billion birds per year, and collisions with building glass kill an average of 599 million birds, while wind turbines kill an average of 234,000 birds per year.3 Collisions with electrical lines cause an average of 25.5 million deaths per year, a number that could grow with the construction of new transmission lines to connect wind projects (and other renewables) to the grid.3 These mortality figures rely on studies dating back to 2013 or 2014 and may be outdated due to the fact that there were fewer wind turbines 10 years ago than there are today.4 However, research has found that wind power causes far fewer bird deaths than fossil fuels per unit of energy output, a metric that is not sensitive to the total number of wind turbines installed. While fossil fuels cause 5.2 avian fatalities per GWh, wind turbines cause only 0.3–0.4 avian fatalities per GWh (Sovacool 2013).5
Figure 1: Leading anthropogenic causes of deaths to birds in the United States. Source: Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability.6
The impacts of wind development on certain bat species may be more severe. One study published in 2021 estimated that the population of hoary bats in North America could decline by 50% by 2028 without adoption of measures to reduce fatalities (Friedenberg & Frick 2021).
However, actionable steps can be taken to reduce bird and bat fatalities from wind turbines. With respect to birds, most deaths occur when turbines are sited near nesting places. Siting facilities to avoid where birds nest, feed and mate, as well as where they stop when migrating, has proved successful at reducing fatalities.5 In addition, the wind turbine components that pose the greatest risk to birds are the blades and tower. The relatively simple action of painting the tower black has been shown to reduce deaths of ptarmigans (a bird in the grouse family) by roughly 48% (Stokke et al. 2020), while painting one of the blades black has reduced deaths by 70% (May et al. 2020).7 Other successful methods include slowing or stopping turbine motors when vulnerable species are present, in order to reduce the likelihood of collisions.8 Deployment of this method in Wyoming has contributed to an 80% decline in eagle fatalities (McLure et al. 2021). With respect to bats, strategies to minimize fatalities include curtailment (i.e., stopping wind turbines from spinning under certain circumstances), as well as ultrasonic acoustic deterrents (Friedenberg & Frick 2021) and visual deterrents.9 In 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $7.5 million in research grants to study bat deterrent technologies.10
Overall, though it remains difficult to eliminate the risk of collisions entirely, wind power can ultimately help to protect bird and bat populations by displacing fossil fuels and mitigating climate change impacts.11
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Posted on 10 March 2025 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters
Finally, there’s some good news to report from NOAA, the parent organization of the National Hurricane Center, or NHC: During the highly active 2o24 Atlantic hurricane season, the NHC made record-accurate track forecasts at every time interval (12-, 24-, 36-, 48-, 60-, 72-, 96-, and 120-hour forecasts), according to the preliminary 2024 NHC Forecast Verification Report released on Feb. 24. And 2024 research suggests that the research dollars spent since 2007 on improved hurricane forecasts could have led to over $10 billion in combined benefits just for the two major hurricanes that hit in 2024, Helene and Milton. But the budget for hurricane research could be slashed under the Trump administration.
Figure 1. Verification of official NHC hurricane track forecasts for the Atlantic, 1990-2024. (Image credit: Preliminary 2024 NHC Forecast Verification Report).
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Posted on 9 March 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 2, 2025 thru Sat, March 8, 2025.
This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Stories we promoted this week, by category and number of articles shared:
Climate Change Impacts (13 articles)
- Australia’s second-hottest summer in 2024-25 ‘not possible without climate change’, scientist says 2024-25 summer at 1.89C above long-term average ‘will be one of the coolest in the 21st century’, according to one expert by Graham Readfearn, Australia News, The Guardian, Mar 1, 2025
- Weather tracker: six cyclones swirl simultaneously in southern hemisphere Bianca, Garance and Honde churn across Indian Ocean as Alfred, Rae and Seru spin through south-west Pacific by Staff, Australia News, The Guardian, Feb 28, 2025
- Ageing nuclear plant in Florida at risk from climate crisis, advocates warn Regulators extended the life of two of the oldest US reactors in Miami. Millions of people in the area are now vulnerable by Richard Luscombe , US News, The Guardian, Mar 1, 2025
- Earth’s strongest ocean current could slow down by 20% by 2050 in a high emissions future Melting Antarctic ice is releasing cold, fresh water into the ocean, which is projected to cause the slowdown by Petra Stock, Environment, Mar 3, 2025
- Half of global croplands could see a drop in suitable crops at 2C of warming More than half of global cropland areas could see a decline in the number of suitable crops under a warming scenario of 2C, new research finds. by Yanine Quiroz, Carbon Brief, Mar 04, 2025
- ‘Unusually strong’ storms bring risk of tornadoes and flash floods to US south Powerful thunderstorms likely to sweep through Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama by Nina Lakhani, US News, The Guardian, Mar 4, 2025
- Carolina wildfires followed months of weather whiplash, from drought to hurricane-fueled floods and back to drought Scores of wildfires broke out across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia in early March 2025 as strong winds, abnormally dry conditions and low humidity combined to kindle and spread the flames. by Lauren Lowman & Nick Corak, The Conversation, Mar 05, 2025
- Is climate change supercharging Tropical Cyclone Alfred as it powers towards Australia? Cyclone Alfred formed in the Coral Sea towards the end of February when sea surface temperatures were almost 1C hotter than usual by Graham Readfearn, Australia News, Mar 5, 2025
- Major banana exporters could face `60% drop` in growing area due to warming Large-scale banana plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean could face a “dramatic” reduction in “suitable” growing area by 2080 due to rising temperatures, a new study warns. by Ayesha Tandon, Carbon Brief, Mar 06, 2025
- Cranky Stepdad vs Hydrogen For Energy: How To Respond To Enthusiasts by Michael Barnard, Clean Technica, Mar 05, 2025
- Butterflies in the U.S. are disappearing at a ‘catastrophic’ rate The number of butterflies in the contiguous United States declined by 22 percent this century, a collapse with potentially dire implications. by Dino Grandoni, Climate, Washington Post, Mar 6, 2025
- New study reveals potential cause of a ‘drought’ in violent EF5 tornadoes A quirky aspect of the way we measure twisters helps explain why there hasn’t been a top-tier-rated tornado in 12 years. by Bob Henson, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Mar 7, 2025
- Major banana exporters could face ‘60% drop’ in growing area due to warming Large-scale banana plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean could face a “dramatic” reduction in “suitable” growing area by 2080 due to rising temperatures, a new study warns. by Ayesha Tandon, Food & Farming, Carbon Brief, Mar 6, 2025
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Posted on 8 March 2025 by Sue Bin Park
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Is Greenland losing land ice?
 Data from satellites and expeditions confirm Greenland has been losing land ice at an accelerating rate for decades.
Glaciers gain ice via snowfall, while melting and ice breaking off into the ocean account for nearly all of Greenland’s ice-sheet loss. Rates vary season to season and year to year due to weather variation—however, multi-decade trends show ongoing loss.
Satellites launched in the early 1990s measure ice sheet height and gravity to detect changes in mass. They have found that Greenland has lost ice every year since 1998; from 2010 to 2018, average annual ice loss was six times that of the 1990s.
Greenland has lost 5,000 gigatons of ice since 2002. Rising global temperatures of about 2°F (1.1°C) since widespread fossil fuel burning began have driven the melt. Scientists warn that positive feedback loops such as the melting of methane-rich permafrost will further accelerate ice loss.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as the one highlighted here.
Sources
NASA The Anatomy of Glacial Ice Loss
NOAA Arctic Report Card: Update for 2023 - Greenland Ice Sheet
National Academy of Sciences - Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Forty-six years of Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance from 1972 to 2018
UCAR Greenland's Ice Is Melting
World Wildlife Fund Six ways loss of Arctic ice impacts everyone
Carbon Brief How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2024
CNN Greenland is getting greener. That could have huge consequences for the world
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Posted on 7 March 2025 by BaerbelW
As of March 7, 2025, the Cranky Uncle game is available in English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Swedish, Turkish, Albanian, Macedonian, Finnish, Romanian, Catalan, Croatian and Indonesian. It can be played on iOS or Android devices as well as in the browser. More languages are already in the queue and this blog post will be updated whenever a new language gets launched. In addition, there may be language specific announcements linked via the flag-icons at the top. These will be created by the translator teams and will most likely go into more language specific details or explain some particularly tricky or interesting translation challenges.
As this article is rather long, you can jump to the different sections via these links:
New languages and features - Brief recap - Under the hood - Cultural aspects - Creative translations - Ambiguities - Credits - Support
New languages and features
March 2025: for version 3.9 we added Catalan, Croatia and Indonesian to the Cranky Uncle game which can now be played in 16 languages! Another language - Polish - is currently going through testing and we hope to announce its availabilty in the next version.
May 2024: for version 3.8 we added Romanian to the Cranky Uncle game which can now be played in 13 languages! In addition, some features from Cranky Uncle Vaccine have been made available over the last months. There's now a "back button" to navigate back to an earlier screen and the "onboarding" will happen before the initial option to participate in the research.
December 2023: for version 3.4 we added Finnish to the Cranky Uncle game which can now be played in 12 languages!
July 2023: for version 3.3. we added Albanian and Macedonian to the Cranky Uncle game which can now be played in 11 languages! Cranky Uncle is for sure a polyglot by now!
April 2023: for version 3.2 we added Turkish to the Cranky Uncle game which can now be played in 9 languages! In addition, we added a page to list the Cranky resources available in different languages, which may come in handy for presentations and/or workshops.
December 2022: for version 3.1 we added French, Italian and Swedish to the Cranky Uncle game which can now be played in 8 languages!
August 2022: With the addition of Spanish and Portuguese, v3.0 of the Cranky Uncle game can now be played in 5 languages! In addition to adding new languages, this version of the game also eliminates the need to login with an email-address or groupcode.
February 2022: The multi-lingual v2.0 was launched with German and Dutch as the first two languages the game could be played in apart from English.
A brief recap of the game's history and motivation
It’s been a long journey to get us to this point. We ran our initial crowd-funding campaign back in January 2020 and thanks to generous donors, we worked with creative agency Goodbeast to develop and launch v1.0 of the game in December 2020. Our next goal had always been to develop a multilingual version of the Cranky Uncle game and thanks to some additional funding support from Monash University, Cranky Uncle initially learned Dutch and German and started to teach people how to identify the science denial techniques in these two languages in February 2022. More languages have been added since then and the updates are listed at the top of this article.
The Cranky Uncle game adopts an active inoculation approach, where a Cranky Uncle cartoon character mentors players to learn the techniques of science denial. Cranky Uncle is a free game available on smartphones for iPhone (sks.to/crankyiphone) and Android (sks.to/crankyandroid) as well as web browsers (sks.to/crankybrowser). The player’s aim is to become a “cranky uncle”—a science denier who skillfully applies a variety of logically flawed argumentation techniques to reject the conclusions of the scientific community. By adopting the mindset of a cranky uncle, the player develops a deeper understanding of science denial techniques, thus acquiring the knowledge to resist misleading persuasion attempts in the future. More information about the game and its scientific background is available in the article “Teaching students how to spot climate misinformation using a cartoon game” published in the journal Plus Lucis.
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Posted on 6 March 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Snow Mass Recharge of the Greenland Ice Sheet Fueled by Intense Atmospheric River, Bailey & Hubbard, Geophysical Research Letters:
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) have been linked with extreme rainfall and melt events across the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS), accelerating its mass loss. However, the impact of AR-fueled snowfall has received less attention, partly due to limited empirical evidence. Here, we relate new firn core stratigraphy and isotopic analyses with glacio-meteorological data sets from SE Greenland to examine an intense AR in mid-March 2022. We demonstrate that the associated snowfall—up to 11.6 gigatons d−1—delayed summer melt onset by11-days and offset Greenland's 2022 net mass loss by 8%. Since 2010, our synoptic analysis reveals that snow accumulation across SE Greenland increased by 20 mm water equivalent a−1, driven by enhanced Atlantic cyclonicity. We find that the impact of ARs on the GrIS is not exclusively negative and their capacity to contribute mass recharge may become increasingly significant under ongoing Arctic amplification and predicted poleward intrusion of mid-latitude moisture.
The People against the Sun? Ideology and Strategy in Far-Right Parties' Climate Obstruction of Solar Energy, Weisskircher & Volk, Environmental Politics:
Far-right parties increasingly mobilize against climate action. While scholarship has initially focused on explicit climate denialism, by now research analyzes the opposition against specific climate policies. This article studies far-right parties’ positions on solar energy, the fastest growing renewable energy source in Europe. First, we examine the crucial case of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a prominent example of climate obstruction. Second, we explore ten additional far-right parties from eight western European countries as shadow cases. Methodologically, we analyze 61 manifestos (2014–2023). The article makes three key contributions: First, it shows how far-right parties frame solar power. Second, it underlines the heterogeneity of positions among far-right parties over space and time. Third, it argues that variation in opposition and support indicates that positions towards solar power are driven rather by strategic considerations than by a common coherent ideological stance – an important finding for understanding far-right climate obstruction more broadly.
Anticipating the Challenges of AI in Climate Governance: An Urgent Dilemma for Democracies, Machen & Pearce, WIREs Climate Change:
There is increasing interest in AI as a means of accelerating climate policy interventions. While undoubtedly promising, AI's recent history in other fields demonstrates the risk of significant unintended consequences that widen social inequalities or reduce democratic engagement. In this perspective, we review recent developments in climate governance and in AI governance and anticipate several potential problems when the two are combined. In particular, we highlight potential democratic challenges for the application of AI in climate governance through narrowing the range of policy options, narrowing the range of experts and publics that can contribute to climate governance, and how the implementation of AI may run counter to norms of democratic accountability. These challenges represent an urgent dilemma for climate governance as ignoring these issues will erode democratic oversight, lead to unpopular unintended consequences, and could reverse recent positive trends in diversity and participation within climate science and policy. In contrast, engaging with them could strengthen democracy and increase the successful social uptake of the technologies. By way of mitigating these risks, we introduce four principles for a bounded application of climate AI technologies that recognizes and enhances understanding of the political and contested nature of environmental decision-making. First, situating AI within expert and lay public debates. Second, valuing non-quantifiable knowledge. Third, expanding deliberation within AI decision-making. Fourth, developing domain-specific AI applications.
China’s readiness for transitioning to a low-carbon economy: mitigant and catalyst factors for a geopolitical conflict, Chen et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science:
The transition from a carbon-intensive economy to a carbon-neutral one has become a critical global objective to address climate change. This study examines the relationship between Low-Carbon Economic Development (LCED) and Geopolitical Risk (GPR) in China by focusing on the challenges and opportunities they present. We use a qualitative analysis to identify that rising GPR, exacerbated by market instability, resource allocation conflicts, and trade disputes, significantly hinders LCED progress. However, these geopolitical tensions also act as a catalyst for accelerating the development of renewable energy, reducing reliance on traditional energy sources, and fostering low-carbon technologies. Furthermore, LCED can ameliorate GPR by decreasing dependence on energy imports, promoting international cooperation, and encouraging scientific innovation. These findings suggest actionable policy recommendations to support the global transition to a low-carbon economy. This research underscores the potential LCED has as a fundamental tool for resolving geopolitical tensions and uniting global efforts to combat climate change.
Barriers and limits to adaptation in the Arctic, Malik & Ford, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability:
The Arctic is experiencing rapid environmental changes, adaptation challenges, and geopolitical competition. Indigenous Peoples inhabiting the Arctic particularly experience these impacts affecting livelihoods, culture, and the possibilities for long-term adaptation. This study examines the social barriers and limits to adaptation in the Arctic, highlighting the intricate relationship between different social factors. We showcase that these factors are not merely technical or isolated but are deeply political in nature, influenced by broader structural factors, power dynamics, and governance systems. Colonialism, global capitalism, and geopolitical interests intersect and affect resource extraction, Indigenous sovereignty, cultural continuity, and adaptation. We highlight how structural inequalities, exclusion, marginalisation, and systemic neglect impact Indigenous Peoples’ adaptation. We examine how social norms, individual values, psychosocial factors, and governance systems shape adaptation outcomes, distinguishing between barriers and limits.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Climate Change in the American Mind: Public Perceptions of the Health Harms of Global Warming, Fall 2024, Fine et al., Yale University and George Mason University
The authors present their findings from a nationally representative survey – Climate Change in the American Mind – from interviews with 1,013 adults (18+), conducted between December 11 – 22, 2024. The authors focused on public perceptions of the health harms of climate change and various sources of energy. The survey results reported here assess Americans’ awareness and understanding of the health harms of global warming; their beliefs about who should take action to protect people from these harms; and their trust in various sources of information about these harms. The authors compare many of the results with prior surveys conducted in 2014, 2018, and 2020. Many Americans have thought (32%) or worried (28%) a “great deal” or “moderate amount” about the health harms of global warming, similar to the percentages in 2014. 39% of Americans think Americans’ health is being harmed by global warming “a great deal” or “a moderate amount,” an 8 percentage point increase from 2014. However, only 16% think their own health is being harmed by global warming a “great deal” or a “moderate amount.” When asked to name health problems related to global warming, about four in ten Americans (37%) identify at least one health problem (+5 points since 2014).
Electricity Demand Growth and Data Centers: A Guide for the Perplexed, Koomey et al., Koomey Analytics and the Bipartisan Policy Center
Recent reports of unprecedented growth in electricity demand from data centers have appeared in many major news outlets. These headlines encapsulate two widely expressed concerns. First, the rising energy demand from data centers could further overburden aging power infrastructure. Second, this new source of demand could jeopardize efforts to mitigate climate change. The authors explore the accuracy of such narratives and explain the key drivers of load growth for data centers.
101 articles in 47 journals by 727 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Linear Sensitivity Framework to Understand the Drivers of the Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature Changes, Kong & Huber, 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4765660/v1
Common and Distinct Drivers of Convective Mass Flux and Walker Circulation Changes, Kang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2024gl111897
Dust in the arctic: a brief review of feedbacks and interactions between climate change, aeolian dust and ecosystems, Meinander et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1536395
Hot season gets hotter due to rainfall delay over tropical land in a warming climate, Song et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-025-57501-6
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Posted on 5 March 2025 by Guest Author
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy and climate communicator Becky Hoag. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
In just a few weeks President Donald Trump has done everything he can to attack climate action - from halting research to censoring data. But Earth's not going down without a fight. Environmental groups, scientists, states and countries are fighting back for our planet - doing what they can to protect climate research and safeguard environmental policy. Becky and I break down all the climate action for ya!
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Check out Becky's Youtube channel: @beckisphere
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Posted on 4 March 2025 by Ken Rice
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #18 based on Sabin's report.
Even at its peak, shadow flicker from wind turbines typically remains far weaker than what is known to trigger seizures in people with epilepsy1.
A 2021 academic study found that wind turbines operate between 0.5 to 1 Hz, much lower than the threshold frequency of 3 Hz typically required to cause a seizure (Karanikas et al. 2021). Similarly, a 2012 report prepared for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection found that shadow flicker frequencies from wind turbines are “usually in the range of 0.3–1.0 Hz, which is outside of the range of seizure thresholds according to the National Resource Council and the Epilepsy Foundation.”2 If shadow flicker were to reach 3 Hz, the probability of causing a seizure in a member of the photosensitive population would be approximately 1.7/100,000.2
Additional public-health studies have likewise found that wind turbines do not cause seizures (Zaporozhets et al. 2022, Knopper et al. 2014). Wind turbines with three blades, for example, would need to rotate at a speed of 60 rpm to cause a seizure. However, modern turbines typically operate at maximum speeds between 15 and 17 rpm, depending on model, well below the 60 rpm threshold.
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Posted on 3 March 2025 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson
One month into the new Trump administration, firings of scientists and freezes to U.S. research funding have caused an unprecedented elimination of scientific expertise from the federal government. Proposed and ongoing cuts to agencies like the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, could hobble efforts to keep Americans safe during and after disasters. Meanwhile, slashed funding for climate research risks blindfolding the U.S. as the dangers from climate change escalate in the coming years and decades, scientists warn.
Mass layoffs at FEMA
When Hurricanes Helene and Milton – both made more destructive by climate change – devastated the Southeast last fall, workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, oversaw the government’s effort to rescue survivors and aid the recovery. FEMA has been key, too, in bolstering the country’s long-term resilience efforts, such as elevating flood-prone homes and installing drainage works.
But mass layoffs of probationary employees – a civil service classification that typically encompasses new hires but can also include military veterans, longtime employees who’ve switched positions, or those who were hired on a fast track or work with a disability – and sudden departures within the deferred resignation program put in place by Elon Musk’s DOGE unit have led to a loss of about 1,000 of FEMA’s 25,000 employees. The Washington Post reported that one of the agency staffers fired was a 15-year employee and a chief for the National Flood Insurance Program. According to the Washington Post, another wave of firings is expected, targeting employees who work in climate-related diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Such cuts could result in slower disaster responses, longer waits for payouts, and reduced implementation of resilience efforts, ultimately increasing the risk of damage from climate change-enhanced extreme weather. In addition, firings could hamper efforts to update the agency’s significantly outdated flood maps, which are critical for determining flood risk and insurance rates.
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Posted on 2 March 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 23, 2025 thru Sat, March 1, 2025.
This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Policy and Politics (17 articles)
- Trump bars federal scientists from working on pivotal global climate report by Ella Nilsen & Laura Paddison, CNN, Climate, CNN, Feb 21, 2025
- US Cultural Revolution: Gutting of National Science Foundation & Its Climate Research by Michael Barnard, CleanTechnica, Feb 22, 2025
- Project 2025: What environmental cutbacks has Trump made in a month and what’s next? Trump is ‘erasing climate action’ within federal agencies and giving the green light to big polluters. by Staff, Euro News Green, Feb 20, 2025
- National Science Foundation staff axed by Trump fear for US scientific future An inside tale: Probation extended, tenure revoked, a scramble to merge research portfolios, and more by Brandon Vigliarolo, Science, The A Register, Feb 21, 2025
- Farmers Sue Over Deletion of Climate Data From Government Websites The data, which disappeared from Agriculture Department sites in recent weeks, was useful to farmers for business planning, the lawsuit said. by Karen Zraick, Climate, New York Times, Feb 24, 2025
- Boiling Point: Want to fight climate change? Then talk about climate change by Sammy Roth, Climate & Environment, Los Angeles Times, Feb 25, 2025
- CCC: Reducing emissions 87% by 2040 would help ‘cut household costs by £1,400’ by by Simon Evans, Josh Gabbatiss & Molly Lempriere, Policy, Carbon Brief, Feb 26, 2025
- The far right just made huge gains in a country once seen as a climate champion. It’s a pattern happening across the world by Laura Paddison, Climate, CNN, Feb 26, 2025
- Congress Set to Vote on Repeal of Biden Administration Climate Regulations by Nicholas Kusnetz, Fossil Fuels, Inside Climate News, Feb 26, 2025
- EPA head urges Trump to reconsider scientific finding that underpins climate action, AP sources say by Matthew Daly, AP News, Feb 26, 2025
- NOAA fires about 800 employees, with more possible Friday by Ella Nilsen & Tami Luhby, CNN Politics, Feb 27, 2025
- Any fool can break things Elon Musk is vandalizing America's greatest treasures by Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, Feb 28, 2025
- Congress is reversing a tax on this climate superpollutant The Senate voted to overturn an EPA rule requiring oil companies to pay a fine for emitting methane, a powerful greenhouse gas by Maxine Joselow, Climate, Washington Post, Feb 27, 2025
- A thank you note from China they are thankful that we are turning over leadership of the 21st century to them by Andrew Dressler, The Climate Brink, Feb 28, 2025
- Who is Importing Donald Trump’s Anti-Climate Agenda to Germany? An investigation by CORRECTIV maps the influential axis of think tanks and politicians encouraging Europe to “drill baby drill”. by Annika Joeres, Elena Kolb & Katharina Huth, DeSmog International, Feb 21, 2025
- Experts Say Attempted Mass Firing of NOAA Workers May be Illegal and Threatens Public Safety Weather forecasters, climate modelers, glacier scientists and crew members on research ships received termination emails, while a federal judge simultaneously ordered the Trump administration to rescind firing orders. by Bob Berwyn & Lauren Dalban, Inside Climate News, Mar 01, 2025
- Scientists scorn EPA push to say climate change isn’t a danger, say just look around at the world by Seth Borenstein, Climate, AP News, Feb 27, 2025
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Posted on 1 March 2025 by Sue Bin Park
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Are high CO2 levels harmless because they also occurred in the past?
While the Earth adapted to high carbon dioxide levels in the past, modern civilization cannot without major consequences.
Past periods of high CO2 brought about a climate vastly different from our own. During the Eocene “hothouse” period around 55 million years ago, CO2 concentrations peaked at 1,600 parts per million. That epoch saw ice-free poles and palm trees above the arctic circle.
The last time CO2 was as high as today was 3 million years ago. Global temperatures were as much as 7°F (4°C) warmer and sea levels were as much as 80 feet (25 meters) higher.
Given that 40% of the population lives around 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the coast, rising sea levels from CO2 emissions threaten a global climate refugee crisis.
The rapid CO2 rise today, compared to the gradual rise historically, compounds the danger, with our food systems and ecosystems already struggling to adapt.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as the one highlighted here.
Sources
NASA Carbon Dioxide
NOAA Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Nature Future climate forcing potentially without precedent in the last 420 million years
NOAA Models and fossils face off over one of the hottest periods in Earth's history
NOAA What’s the hottest Earth’s ever been?
United Nations PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION LIVING IN COASTAL AREAS
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