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Yale Environment 360
Texas Heat Index Rising Faster Than Temperature, Study Finds
A new study of summer weather in Texas finds the heat index — an indicator of how hot it feels outside — is rising much faster than the temperature. The reason, scientists say, is that warming is leading to a rise in humidity. Historically in Texas, severe heat would be paired with lower humidity, making it possible to cool off by sweating. But now Texas is seeing high heat and humidity together. In hot, muggy weather, the air is so saturated with water that sweat sticks to the skin rather than evaporating. As a result, it feels warmer than a thermometer alone would suggest.
Nations Are Undercounting Emissions, Putting UN Goals at Risk
They are supposed to be the climate-savers’ gold standard — the key data on which the world relies in its efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions and hold global warming in check. But the national inventories of emissions supplied to the United Nations climate convention (UNFCCC) by most countries are anything but reliable, according to a growing body of research.
As Carbon Air Capture Ramps Up, Major Hurdles Remain
Texas is by far the top emitter of greenhouse gases in the United States: The oil-rich state releases twice as much carbon dioxide as the runner-up state, California, and as much as the entire country of Germany. But the air in Texas may soon get a slight reprieve. Last April,...
More Than Half of Commutes Globally Made by Car, Study Finds
A new study of urban transport finds that most commuters globally are getting to work by car, fueling pollution, particularly in wealthier regions. The study analyzed transport data from nearly 800 cities worldwide, finding that around 51 percent of commutes are made by car, while 26 percent are made by public transit, 16 by bike, and 6 percent on foot. But the study, published in Environment International, revealed huge variation between regions.
How Lightly Grazed Lands Can Lock Away Huge Sums of Carbon
A new study finds that scaling back grazing on most pastureland worldwide would dramatically increase the amount of carbon stored in soils. By thinning grasses, cows, sheep, and other animals reduce competition for sunlight and nutrients. This spurs the growth of new grass, which conveys carbon from the air into the soil. But too much grazing can denude fields and dredge up carbon stored in the ground.
Warming Waters Bringing More Sharks to the Alabama Coast
Over the past two decades, the number of young bull sharks in Mobile Bay, Alabama has multiplied fivefold, a new study finds. Sharks thrive in warm, shallow coastal waters where prey abound. Globally, warming waters are driving sharks to new areas where they were previously scarce. Great white sharks, tiger sharks, and bull sharks have all edged northward.
Besieged in Their Native California, Giant Sequoias Are Thriving in Britain
Worsening drought and wildfires in California are pushing giant sequoias, the biggest trees on Earth, into decline. But sequoias that have been planted in Britain are flourishing, new research finds. “The history of these trees in Britain is fascinating — initially as symbols of wealth and power, through to now...
How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy
Last November, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry shook hands on a pledge to triple renewable energy globally by 2030. It was hailed as a welcome revival of climate cooperation between the world’s biggest and second-biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and offered hope that the two veteran climate negotiators had found a way through a blizzard of negative diplomatic exchanges to keep alive the prospects for greater global ambition on tackling climate change.
Indonesia Grossly Underestimating Methane Leaking from Coal Mines
Emissions of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, from Indonesian coal mines are eight times higher than official estimates would suggest, a new report finds. Indonesia is the world’s third-largest producer of coal, after India and China, and its mines are a fast-growing source of methane, which is found in pockets alongside coal seams, analysts say.
Solar Accounted for More Than Half of New Power Installed in U.S. Last Year
Solar accounted for most of the capacity the nation added to its electric grids last year. That feat marks the first time since World War II, when hydropower was booming, that a renewable power source has comprised more than half of the nation’s energy additions. “It’s really monumental,” said...
Great Barrier Reef Sees Mass Bleaching as Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High
Beset by severe heat throughout the Australian summer, the Great Barrier Reef is undergoing a mass bleaching, its fifth in eight years. Warm waters cause corals to expel the colorful algae that live inside them, turning reefs white. Reefs can recover if waters cool, but extended periods of heat may prove lethal. Aerial surveys of the Great Barrier Reef show widespread bleaching in shallow waters, said Roger Beeden, chief scientist with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
As Flooding Increases on the Mississippi, Forests Are Drowning
Mike Valley saw 10 years ago that the trees were dying. A fourth-generation commercial fisherman on the upper Mississippi River, Valley, 63, had fished for half a century among the backwater channels, sloughs, oxbow lakes, islands, marshes, and floodplain forests that lie between the high sandstone bluffs on both sides of the river at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where he lives.
In Mongolia, a Killer Winter Is Ravaging Herds and a Way of Life
The temperature was minus 45 degrees F when Uuganaa, a 27-year-old nomad with a wife and two children, woke to the howling winds outside his “ger,” a felt-covered traditional Mongolian dwelling. Sensing something amiss, he hurriedly put on his heavy fur coat and noted that another blanket of snow had fallen during the night. Then he shoveled his way outside.
Scientists Vote Down Proposal to Declare Anthropocene Has Begun
For more than a decade, scientists have been mulling whether the Earth had entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, marked by the profound impact humans have had on the planet. Today, a committee of experts has reportedly decided on the matter. By burning fossil fuels, spreading fertilizers, detonating nuclear...
Great Lakes Ice Cover Hits New Lows
On the North American Great Lakes, ice cover usually peaks in late February or early March. But currently, the lakes are nearly ice-free. Typically in late winter, ice sprawls across more than 40 percent of the lakes, but at present, ice cover stands at just around 4 percent. For the past half-century, ice cover has trended down as winters have grown warmer, declining by a quarter on average since 1973. At the same time, ice season has shortened by nearly a full month.
Cambodian Offset Project Led to Arrests, Evictions of Indigenous People, Report Alleges
Indigenous people in southern Cambodia faced forced evictions and criminal charges after their ancestral lands were marked out for a carbon offset project, a new report alleges. In 2015, Cambodian officials, working with the conservation group Wildlife Alliance, set aside more than 1,900 square miles of rainforest in the Cardamon...
In Rush for Lithium, Miners Turn to the Oil Fields of Arkansas
The town of Smackover, Arkansas, was founded a hundred years ago when a sawmill operator got lucky: his wildcat oil well yielded a gusher. For a time in the 1920s, the oil field beneath the clay hills and swampy creeks in this stretch of southern Arkansas was the world’s most productive site. Now, boosters say the region will help usher the world into an oil-free future, thanks to the discovery of underground brines that are rich in lithium.
Boiling, Filtering Water Can Get Rid of Microplastics, Study Finds
A new study finds that boiling and then filtering tap water can remove up to 90 percent of microplastics. Minute particles of plastic, no larger than a grain of sand, have been found in every corner of the globe, from the bottom of the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the Mediterranean, to the clouds floating over Mount Fuji, in Japan. Shed from car tires, fleece sweaters, and myriad other plastic items, microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics are getting into our food and drinking water, and even the air we breathe. Scientists have found microplastics in blood and breast milk and in the lungs of people undergoing surgery — all troubling discoveries as microplastics have also been shown to damage human cells.
How a Solar Revolution in Farming Is Depleting World’s Groundwater
There is a solar-powered revolution going on in the fields of India. By 2026, more than 3 million farmers will be raising irrigation water from beneath their fields using solar-powered pumps. With effectively free water available in almost unlimited quantities to grow their crops, their lives could be transformed. Until the water runs out.
Africa’s Tropical Glaciers Have Shrunk by 90 Percent, Study Finds
Glaciers atop Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Rwenzori Mountains in East Africa are shrinking at an alarming rate as the region heats up. These glaciers, which sit close to the equator, are highly vulnerable to warming. In the last two decades they have lost roughly half their area, and since the turn of the last century, they have shrunk by 90 percent, according to a new study published in Environmental Research: Climate.
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Yale Environment 360 is an online magazine offering opinion, analysis, reporting, and debate on global environmental issues.
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