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2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #06
Posted on 9 February 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 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 Change Impacts
- Marshall Islands` vanishing kit for a team under threat from climate crisis The isolated Pacific nation is trying to build its first football team amid a battle for survival against rising sea levels by Niall McVeigh, The Guardian, Feb 02, 2025
- January sets an unexpected temperature record Despite long-faded El Niño conditions, 2025 saw the warmest January on record by Zeke Hausfather, The Climate Brink, Feb 02, 2025
- Climate change puts African cocoa production under pressure by Wageningen University, Phys.org, Feb 03, 2025
- Half a degree rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans, scientists warn by King's College London, Phys.org, Feb 04, 2025
- Guest post: How climate change is causing `ecological grief` for farmers in Ghana Mental health problems induced, in part, by climate change are becoming increasingly common as the world warms, including the number of people experiencing “ecological grief”. by Carbon Brief Staff, Carbon Brief, Feb 04, 2025
- Deaths of 30,000 fish off WA coast made more likely by climate change, research finds Analysis drawing on satellite data and 13 climate models concludes that global heating makes marine heatwaves 20 times more likely by Petra Stock, The Guardian, Feb 04, 2025
- Mapped: How `natural` world heritage sites are threatened by climate extremes “Natural” world heritage sites, such as the Galápagos Islands, Serengeti national park and Great Barrier Reef, could be exposed to multiple climate extremes by the end of the century, researchers warn. by Ayesha Tandon, Carbon Brief, Feb 05, 2025
- Third of Earth's Landmass Could Soon Be Too Hot For Over 60s by Kelly McNamara, Environment, AFP/Science Alert. Feb 5, 2025, Feb 5, 2025
- New Research Led by James Hansen Documents Global Warming Acceleration The rapid meltdown of polar ice could shut down a key ocean current by 2050, triggering catastrophic surges of sea level rise along the U.S. East Coast and dangerous climate shifts in northwestern Europe. by Bob Berwyn, Science, Inside Climate News, Feb 4, 2025
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
- What's the deal with enhanced rock weathering to store CO2? A conversation with scientist Zeke Hausfather. by David Roberts, Volt, Feb 7, 2025
Climate Policy and Politics
- Scientists brace `for the worst` as Trump purges climate mentions from websites Trump administration pulling references online ‘won’t make crisis’ stop impacting Americans’ lives, say expert by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Feb 04, 2025
- The scramble to save critical climate data from Trump’s war on DEI “Policymakers and the public and communities need good information to make the best policy decision, whatever that is." by Naveena Sadasivam, Politics, Grist, Feb 05, 2025
- UN gives countries more time to submit "quality" climate plans for 2035 China, the EU and India are among big polluters set to miss this month’s deadline for new targets as concerns grow of a “softening” in climate ambition by Chloé Farand, Climate Home News, Feb 06, 2025
- Trump’s reversal of climate policies risks undermining U.S. manufacturing — and could cost people jobs by Thomas Stuart, Environment & Energy, The Conversation US, Feb 5, 2025
Climate Science and Research
- Climate Graph Series by Mark Subbarao, Scientific Data Visualizations, Feb 1, 2025
- New 3-D Study of the Greenland Ice Sheet Shows Glaciers Falling Apart Faster Than Expected Crevasses are widening faster as meltwater drives fissures deeper into the ice and lubricates the base of glaciers, increasing concerns about how quickly their melting will raise sea levels. by Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, Feb 3, 2025
- What's the difference between climate and weather models? It all comes down to chaos by Andy Hogg, Aidan Heerdegen and Kelsey Druken, The Conversation, Feb 06, 2025
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #6 2025 A weekly survey of academic research on human-caused climate change as well as government and NGO reports on related matters. by Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Skeptical Science, Feb 06, 2025
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science
- When Climate Research Fuels Climate Myths: Author Insights from a Misused Publication By equipping ourselves with preventive strategies, mitigation tools, and trusted networks, we can guide misinformed conversations back to accuracy and preserve the value of rigorous research. by Julia R. Andreasen, EOS, Feb 3, 2025
- Fact brief - Is methane the largest driver of recent global warming? by Sue Bin Park, Skeptical Science, Feb 08, 2025
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions
- Sabin 33 #14 - Do we have sufficient mineral resources for solar development? by Bärbel Winkler, Skeptical Science, Feb 04, 2025
Miscellaneous (Other)
- 2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #05 A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. by Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, Skeptical Science, Feb 02, 2025
- What caused the Gulf Coast’s incredible January snowstorm? It broke century-plus records for cold and snow in some spots – even as much of the nation had a less-than-brutal month. by Bob Henson, Eye on the Storm, Feb 07, 2025
If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!
The first two articles in this week’s Climate Policy and Politics category are cause for significant concern, but should not be a surprise.
A related ‘non-surprise’ is the Feb 7, 2025, NPR item 'Unprecedented': White House moves to control science funding worry researchers. This is not really ‘unprecedented’. It is just current day actions in the endless attacks on learning by anti-progress groups.
Anti-progress, anti-learning, groups have a history of opposing ‘learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’. They attack ‘science/learning that they dislike’ because developing and maintaining support and excuses for their desired beliefs requires reduced awareness and the promotion of misunderstandings.
Learning is understandably biased towards progressive improvements that challenge many developed beliefs and interests. Prolonging the popularity of understandably harmful misunderstandings requires control over what is learned.
Efforts to limit understanding of the harm done by desired actions (and lack of actions) include dictating what is learned. That is not a new tactic. It wasn’t even new in 2017. Earlier examples of attacks on ‘increased awareness and improved understanding that challenge harmful misunderstandings’ include the Canadian Government’s War on Science. (internet search: Harper or Canadian Government War on Science). The following ‘search find’, among many, is a detailed description of the fundamentals of that pre-2017 War on Science that is still relevant today regarding wars on learning around the world, not just Canada back Then (and it is titled with an incisive protest punchline):
“Harper’s attack on science: No science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy” by Carol Linnitt in the May 2013 issue of ‘Academic Matters – OCUFA’s Journal of Higher Education’.