Arguments
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #31, 2021
Posted on 5 August 2021 by Doug Bostrom
Want to make a dangerous bet?
Modes of climate science denial run across a spectrum, with the "soft" end being "climate change has happened in the past what's the big deal," through "we don't really know what'll happen" and ending with the fully delusional "it's not possible for humans to change the climate this is a plot to make us all poor." All of these assertions tempt us to make a bet: we'll "win" if we carry on with business as usual (BAU) with regard to our fossil fuel habits.
"BAU" isn't a bet we want to take and we have plenty of previous house odds collected together for helping us to that decision. Thresholds of temperature change for mass extinctions (open access) by Song et al. and just published in Nature Communications falls like the proverbial ton of bricks on the entire continuum of denial. Evidence from past extinction events paints a clear picture. Given the rapid pace of change we've set in motion and without arresting or at least slowing down those changes the record shows that we can expect massive extinctions in the natural world equal to the worst in Earth's history. In establishing this conclusion the authors also show that certainly climate has changed in the past, but- given conditions we've created- our own style of change will lead to an utterly disastrous outcome should we fail to come to grips with our mess. Finally, the compounds we've released into the atmosphere are quite able to effect lethal changes in climate, as can easily be read from the paleographic record and as the paper so demonstrates. This article's introduction features an excellent conveyance of supporting work, offering us laypersons quick access to at least a tenuous hold on the subject in play. The abstract:
Climate change is a critical factor affecting biodiversity. However, the quantitative relationship between temperature change and extinction is unclear. Here, we analyze magnitudes and rates of temperature change and extinction rates of marine fossils through the past 450 million years (Myr). The results show that both the rate and magnitude of temperature change are significantly positively correlated with the extinction rate of marine animals. Major mass extinctions in the Phanerozoic can be linked to thresholds in climate change (warming or cooling) that equate to magnitudes >5.2 °C and rates >10 °C/Myr. The significant relationship between temperature change and extinction still exists when we exclude the five largest mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic. Our findings predict that a temperature increase of 5.2 °C above the pre-industrial level at present rates of increase would likely result in mass extinction comparable to that of the major Phanerozoic events, even without other, non-climatic anthropogenic impacts.
Housekeeping
We've recently been working intensively with an excellent group of newly recruited volunteers to populate the Skeptical Science glossary system with full references for citations supporting our rebuttals. This has been a rewarding effort in many ways.
A spin-off from citations-to-references work applicable here at New Research is to slightly improve our coverage of hot-off-the-press research papers. The assembly process for NR involves passing a list of just-published article titles through the Unpaywall (unpaywall.org) and Crossref (crossref.org) APIs so as to gather article meta information that is otherwise arduous to assemble by hand. A few lookups to those APIs typically fail, not least because as the arrticles we list here are new, some have not yet arrived in the databases driving the API and hence produce no results. Failed API lookups have until now often been dropped from output as available labor does not permit manual intervention in such cases.
To partially ameliorate the problem of ghosted articles, we've added "secondary search" logic to our process. Failed API lookups are passed to a more direct search procedure to locate an article link and also attempt to identify a DOI for the given search target. Reasonably plausible (by fairly crude logic) results of this "hail Mary" pass are added to a given week's listing. Such entries are indicated by "(provisional link)" and while the accuracy of these is certainly not perfect the net results are better than complete drops. We'll continue to improve this process and in the meanwhile readers should feel free to provide correct URLs in comments below, which we'll happily accept.
In order to more fully address the problem of our pace of assembly exceeding that of publisher additions to the DOI ecoystem we'll also be reprocessing and updating each given edition of NR approximately 2 weeks after initiial publication, given that this is a matter of only a few minutes' work. This reprocessing will happen on the day of assembly of new editions. For instance, edition #29 has been reprocessed today.
97 articles by 628 contributing authors
Observations of climate change, effects
20th century cooling of the deep ocean contributed to delayed acceleration of Earth’s energy imbalance
Bagnell & DeVries Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467
Variability and changes to the mean meridional circulation in isentropic coordinates
Lucas et al. Climate Dynamics
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382
Marine heatwaves in the Mozambique Channel
Mawren et al. Climate Dynamics
10.1007/s00382
Enhanced joint effects of ENSO and IOD on Southeast China winter precipitation after 1980s
Zhang et al. Climate Dynamics
10.1007/s00382
Recent degradation of interior Alaska permafrost mapped with ground surveys, geophysics, deep drilling, and repeat airborne lidar
Douglas et al. The Cryosphere
Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc
Trends in Probabilities of Temperature Records in the Non-Stationary Climate of South Africa
McBride et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7329
Spatial and temporal changes in dry spells in a Mediterranean area: Tuscany (central Italy), 1955-2017
Bartolini et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7327
Multistage spatiotemporal variability of temperature extremes over South China from 1961 to 2018
Wang et al. Theoretical and Applied Climatology
10.1007/s00704
Climate-driven acceleration in forest evapotranspiration fuelling extreme rainfall events in the Himalaya
Singh et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Surface water, vegetation, and fire as drivers of the terrestrial Arctic-boreal albedo feedback
Webb et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Early summer soil moisture contribution to Western European summer warming
Stegehuis et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
10.1029/2021jd034646
Long-term spatiotemporal variability in occurrences of wet and dry days across South Mongolian Plateau
Wang et al. Atmospheric Research
10.1016/j.atmosres.2021.105795
Observed changes in seasonal drought characteristics and their possible potential drivers over Pakistan
Ullah et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7321
The spatial and seasonal dependency of daily precipitation extremes on the temperature in China from 1957 to 2017
Chen et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7320
The development of long temperature and precipitation series for Ascension Island
Jones & Lister International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7314
Estimating centennial-scale changes in global terrestrial near-surface wind speed based on CMIP6 GCMs
Shen et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Pervasive changes in stream intermittency across the United States
HydroShare Resources
Open Access 10.4211/hs.fe9d240438914634abbfdcfa03bed863
Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects
Uncertainty in optimal fingerprinting is underestimated
Li et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects
Linking global land surface temperature projections to radiative effects of hydrometeors under a global warming scenario
Li et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
A climate database with varying drought-heat signatures for climate impact modelling
Tschumi et al. Geoscience Data Journal
Open Access pdf 10.1002/gdj3.129
Projected Impacts of 1.5°C and 2°C Global Warming on Temperature and Precipitation Patterns in South America
Rodrigues Torres et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7322
Caribbean Low-Level Jet future projections using a multiparameter ensemble of RegCM4 configurations
Vichot?Llano et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7319
Tropical cloud-radiative changes contribute to robust climate change-induced jet exit strengthening over Europe during boreal winter
Albern et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Estimating centennial-scale changes in global terrestrial near-surface wind speed based on CMIP6 GCMs
Shen et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Eastern equatorial Pacific warming delayed by aerosols and thermostat response to CO2 increase
Heede & Fedorov Nature Climate Change
10.1038/s41558
Advances in climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection
Evaluation of Clouds, Radiation, and Precipitation in CMIP6 Models Using Global Weather States Derived from ISCCP-H Cloud Property Data
Tselioudis et al. Journal of Climate
10.1175/jcli
Better representation of dust can improve climate models with too weak an African monsoon
Balkanski et al. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp
Cryosphere & climate change
Faster decline and higher variability in the sea ice thickness of the marginal Arctic seas when accounting for dynamic snow cover
Mallett et al. The Cryosphere
Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc
Sensitivity of ecosystem-protected permafrost under changing boreal forest structures
Stuenzi et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access pdf 10.1088/1748
Recent degradation of interior Alaska permafrost mapped with ground surveys, geophysics, deep drilling, and repeat airborne lidar
Douglas et al. The Cryosphere
Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc
Seasonal evolution of Antarctic supraglacial lakes in 2015-2021 and links to environmental controls
Dirscherl et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc
Antarctic Peninsula Regional Circulation and Its Impact on the Surface Melt of Larsen C Ice Shelf
Zhang et al. Journal of Climate
10.1175/jcli
Winter snow depth on Arctic sea ice from satellite radiometer measurements (2003-2020): Regional patterns and trends
Lee et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl094541
Shallowing Glacial Antarctic Intermediate Water by Changes in Sea Ice and Hydrological Cycle
Li et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl094317
Sea level & climate change
Multiple climate change-driven tipping points for coastal systems
Barnard et al. Scientific Reports
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598
Paleoclimate
Glaciers and ice caps through the Holocene: A pan–Arctic synthesis of lake–based reconstructions
Larocca & Axford Axford
Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp
Clumped isotope evidence for Early Jurassic extreme polar warmth and high climate sensitivity
Letulle et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp
Biology & climate change
(provisional link) Thresholds of temperature change for mass extinctions
10.1038/s41467-021-25019-2
Projecting coral responses to intensifying marine heatwaves under ocean acidification
Klein et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.15818
Multiple climate change-driven tipping points for coastal systems
Barnard et al. Scientific Reports
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598
Sensitivity of ecosystem-protected permafrost under changing boreal forest structures
Stuenzi et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access pdf 10.1088/1748
Genetic and physiological traits conferring tolerance to ocean acidification in mesophotic corals
Scucchia et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.15812
Managing mixed stands can mitigate severe climate change impacts on French alpine forests
Jourdan et al. Regional Environmental Change
10.1007/s10113
Combined control of multiple extreme climate stressors on autumn vegetation phenology on the Tibetan Plateau under past and future climate change
Li et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108571
Assessing climate change tolerance and the niche breadth-range size hypothesis in rare and widespread alpine plants
Haynes et al. Oecologia
10.1007/s00442
The call of the emperor penguin: Legal responses to species threatened by climate change
Jenouvrier et al. Global Change Biology
Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.15806
(provisional link) Forest resilience to global warming is strongly modulated by local-scale topographic, microclimatic and biotic conditions
10.1111/1365-2745.13752
Ambient climate determines the directional trend of community stability under warming and grazing
Liu et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.15786
GHG sources & sinks, flux
A seamless ensemble-based reconstruction of surface ocean pCO2 and air–sea CO2 fluxes over the global coastal and open oceans
Chau et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg
Observation system simulation experiments in the Atlantic Ocean for enhanced surface ocean pCO2 reconstructions
Gregor Ocean Science
Open Access pdf 10.5194/os
Sustained-flux global warming potential driven by nitrogen inflow and hydroperiod in a model of Great Lakes coastal wetlands
Yuan et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
10.1029/2021jg006242
Derivation of seawater pCO2 from net community production identifies the South Atlantic Ocean as a CO2 source
Ford et al.
Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg
Committed and projected future changes in global peatlands – continued transient model simulations since the Last Glacial Maximum
Müller & Joos Biogeosciences
Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg
Analysis of the Seasonal and Interannual Variations of Air-Sea CO2 Flux in the Chukchi Sea Using A Coupled Ocean-Sea Ice-Biogeochemical Model
Zheng et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
10.1029/2021jc017550
Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions Changes in An Urban Area of Tokyo, Japan, Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study during the State of Emergency in April–May 2020
Sugawara et al. Geophysical Research Letters
Open Access pdf 10.1029/2021gl092600
Seasonal not annual precipitation drives 8-year variability of interannual net CO2 exchange in a salt marsh
Chu et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108557
(provisional link) East Asian CO2 level change caused by Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Soil respiration strongly offsets carbon uptake in Alaska and Northwest Canada
Watts et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Spatial distribution of CO2, CH4 and N2O in the Great Barrier Reef revealed though high resolution sampling and isotopic analysis
Reading et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl092534
Shallowing Glacial Antarctic Intermediate Water by Changes in Sea Ice and Hydrological Cycle
Li et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl094317
Important constraints on soil organic carbon formation efficiency in subtropical and tropical grasslands
Mitchell et al. Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.15807
Storm-scale and seasonal dynamics of carbon export from a nested subarctic watershed underlain by permafrost
Koch et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
10.1029/2021jg006268
Hot moments drive extreme nitrous oxide and methane emissions from agricultural peatlands
Anthony & Silver Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.15802
CO2 removal & mitigation science & engineering
(provisional link) Achieving negative emissions through oceanic sequestration of vegetation carbon as Black Pellets
10.1007/s10584-021-03170-5
Changes in rock matrix compressibility during deep CO2 storage
Kim & Makhnenko Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology
10.1002/ghg.2106
Decarbonization
Emissions projections for US utilities through 2050
Grubert Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Modelling of integrated local energy systems: Low-carbon energy supply strategies for the Oxford-Cambridge arc region
Chaudry et al. Energy Policy
Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112474
Climate change communications & cognition
(provisional link) How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the climate change debate on Twitter?
10.1016/j.envsci.2021.07.011
Climate change risks and global warming dangers: a field analysis of online US news media
Sonnett Environmental Sociology
10.1080/23251042.2021.1960098
Climate change action as a project of identity: Eight meta-analyses
Vesely et al. Global Environmental Change
Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102322
Creating empathy for the more-than-human under 2 degrees heating
Rock & Gilchrist Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
10.1007/s13412
Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change
Challenges and opportunities for food systems in a changing climate: A systematic review of climate policy integration
Medina Hidalgo et al. Environmental Science & Policy
Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2021.07.017
Assessing vulnerability of wetland fisheries to climate change: a stakeholders’ perception-based approach
Naskar et al. Climate and Development
10.1080/17565529.2021.1956410
Improved management may alleviate some but not all of the adverse effects of climate change on crop yields in smallholder farms in West Africa
Raes et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108563
Pathways to sustaining tuna-dependent Pacific Island economies during climate change
Bell et al. Nature Sustainability
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41893
Hydrology & climate change
Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions
He et al. Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467
Spatial and temporal changes in dry spells in a Mediterranean area: Tuscany (central Italy), 1955-2017
Bartolini et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7327
Climate-driven acceleration in forest evapotranspiration fuelling extreme rainfall events in the Himalaya
Singh et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Pervasive changes in stream intermittency across the United States
HydroShare Resources
Open Access 10.4211/hs.fe9d240438914634abbfdcfa03bed863
Climate change economics
Optimal Emission Prices Over the Business Cycles
Lintunen & Vilmi Environmental and Resource Economics
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10640
(provisional link) REDD+ finance in Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam: Stakeholder perspectives between 2009-2019
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102330
The effect of differentiating costs of capital by country and technology on the European energy transition
Polzin et al. Climatic Change
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584
Climate change mitigation public policy research
A framework for localizing global climate solutions and their carbon reduction potential
Brown et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2100008118
(provisional link) A sustainable development pathway for climate action within the UN 2030 Agenda
10.1038/s41558-021-01098-3
Enough? The role of sufficiency in European energy and climate plans
Zell-Ziegler et al. Energy Policy
Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112483
What next for local government climate emergency declarations? The gap between rhetoric and action
Howarth et al. Climatic Change
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584
An industrial policy framework for transforming energy and emissions intensive industries towards zero emissions
Nilsson et al. Climate Policy
Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2021.1957665
Mapping forward-looking mitigation studies at country level
Lepault & Lecocq Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Distributional effects of carbon pricing when considering household heterogeneity: An EASI application for Austria
Eisner et al. Energy Policy
Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112478
Deepening our understanding of which policy advice to expect from prioritizing SDG targets: introducing the Analytic Network Process in a multi-method setting
Toth et al. Sustainability Science
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11625
Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research
Scientific models in legal judgements: The relationship between law and environmental science as problem-feeding
Thorén et al. Environmental Science & Policy
10.1016/j.envsci.2021.07.018
The trap of climate change-induced “natural” disasters and inequality
Cappelli et al. Global Environmental Change
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102329
Toward transformative climate justice: An emerging research agenda
Newell et al. WIREs Climate Change
10.1002/wcc.733
Resettlement capacity assessments for climate induced displacements: Evidence from Ethiopia
Zena Walelign Climate Risk Management
Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2021.100347
(provisional link) Vulnerable City, recipient city, or climate destination? Towards a typology of domestic climate migration impacts in US cities
Multiple climate change-driven tipping points for coastal systems
Barnard et al. Scientific Reports
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598
Understanding institutional barriers in the climate change adaptation planning process of the city of Beirut: vicious cycles and opportunities
Zea-Reyes et al. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11027
Climate change impacts on human health
The mortality cost of carbon
Bressler Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467
Heat-health vulnerabilities in the climate change context—comparing risk profiles between indoor and outdoor workers in developing country settings
Venugopal et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748
Climate change impacts on human culture
Anticipatory Culture in the Bering Sea: Weather, Climate, and Temporal Dissonance
Baker Weather, Climate, and Society
10.1175/wcas
Global population-weighted degree-day projections for a combination of climate and socio-economic scenarios
Spinoni et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7328
Other
The Relationship Between Teleconnections, Surface Temperature, and Cold Air Outbreaks
Smith & Sheridan International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7318
Scientific models in legal judgements: The relationship between law and environmental science as problem-feeding
Thorén et al. Environmental Science & Policy
10.1016/j.envsci.2021.07.018
Climate change attribution and legal contexts: evidence and the role of storylines
Lloyd & Shepherd Climatic Change
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584
New insights into future tropical climate change
Stuecker Nature Climate Change
10.1038/s41558
Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives
The power of large-scale community science in addressing anthropogenic change
Alaasam & Ouyang Global Change Biology
Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.15741
The call of the emperor penguin: Legal responses to species threatened by climate change
Jenouvrier et al. Global Change Biology
Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.15806
The mortality cost of carbon
Bressler Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467
State of the UK Climate 2020
Kendon et al. International Journal of Climatology
Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.7285
Obtaining articles wihout journal subscriptions
We know it's frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of US$ 9,373, for most of us US$ 42 is significant money to wager on an article's relevance and importance.
- Here's an excellent collection of tips and techniques for obtaining articles, legally.
- Unpaywall offers a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that automatically indicates when an article is freely accessible and provides immediate access without further trouble. Unpaywall is also unscammy, works well, is itself offered free to use. The organizers (a legitimate nonprofit) report about a 50% success rate
- The weekly New Research catch is checked against the Unpaywall database with accessible items being flagged. Especially for just-published articles this mechansim may fail. If you're interested in an article title and it is not listed here as "open access," be sure to check the link anyway.
How is New Research assembled?
Most articles appearing here are found via RSS feeds from journal publishers, filtered by search terms to produce raw output for assessment of relevance.
Relevant articles are then queried against the Unpaywall database, to identify open access articles and expose useful metadata for articles appearing in the database.
The objective of New Research isn't to cast a tinge on scientific results, to color readers' impressions. Hence candidate articles are assessed via two metrics only:
- Was an article deemed of sufficient merit by a team of journal editors and peer reviewers? The fact of journal RSS output assigns a "yes" to this automatically.
- Is an article relevant to the topic of anthropogenic climate change? Due to filter overlap with other publication topics of inquiry, of a typical week's 550 or so input articles about 1/4 of RSS output makes the cut.
A few journals offer public access to "preprint" versions of articles for which the review process is not yet complete. As it is the journal's decision to do so, we respect that and include such items in New Research. These are flagged as "preprint."
The section "Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives" includes some items that are not scientific research per se but fall instead into the category of "perspectives," observations of implications of research findings, areas needing attention, etc.
Articles are presented with a title link via the original publisher URL so as to preserve provenance information, and when (usually) available, a more permanent DOI link. When a publicly accessible PDF version of an article is found, a direct link is provided.
What does "(provisional link)" mean?
When the input list for New Research is processed, some articles do not produce a result from the journal databases we employ. Usually this is because the publisher has not yet supplied information to doi.org for the given article. In these cases and in order to still include timely listing of articles, we employ an alternate search tactic. While this method is usually correct, sometimes the link shown will lead to an incorrect destination (available time does not always permit manual checking of these). We invite readers to submit corrections in comments below.
Each edition of New Research is reprocessed some two weeks after intitial publication to catch stragglers into the DOI ecosystem. Many "provisional links" will end up being corrected as part of this process.
Suggestions
Please let us know if you're aware of an article you think may be of interest for Skeptical Science research news, or if we've missed something that may be important. Send your input to Skeptical Science via our contact form.
Journals covered
A list of journals we cover may be found here. We welcome pointers to omissions, new journals etc.
Previous edition
The previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.
On the volunteering task, which I know I missed the deadline for...in addition to cataloging existing references and fixing broken links, any desire to expand upon the citations included within the articles? Some of the articles are quite old and new research has come out that further supports the points.
On human fingerprints chart for example you cite 2 studies to back up the claim of decreasing diurnal temperature range. I have found 25 more studies that also support it.
Hi Dawei! Feedback like this is always welcome and you can provide it via the Google form linked at the bottom of each rebuttal where it says "Argument feedback". If you fill that out we can also follow up via email if need be. Thanks!