Climate Letter #968

How climate change is worsening nitrogen pollution.  This fine article clearly explains all of the various dimensions to this problem, including the serious end results.  The role of climate change is expressed by greater patterns of rainfall in the presence of warmer temperatures, regularly becoming more common.

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Mongolia is suffering from increased desertification due to rising drought and temperatures.  Almost one-third of this country is occupied by the barren wastes of the Gobi desert, which is expanding northward.  Temperatures have risen by 2C in the past 70 years, much faster than the global average.  This is a real-life example of how climate change has already begun to cause a loss of habitability in more vulnerable places.
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Global food trade, flowing in ever-greater volumes, faces risks of serious disruption (Washington Post).  In addition to the potential for damage to suppliers there are fourteen critical “choke points” in the transportation chain that are subject to breakdown.  Climate change is a key risk factor in every aspect of the trade, all of which is explained quite well in this article.
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Out-of-control wildfires are currently causing serious damage in many parts of the world.  This is a rapidly growing trend, and many studies agree that the trend will continue to worsen as a direct result of climate change.  Mediterranean Europe is an area that has recently awakened to the severity of this threat.
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A new study questions the baseline used in calculating the rise in global temperatures.  Their main finding is that enough greenhouse gas was emitted between 1750 and 1875 to raise the temperature by 0.2 degrees C during that period.  That increase should be included in a “true” representation of the gain realized since the beginning of the industrial era.  Before 1750 the CO2 level mainly hung around 280 ppm but has been rising ever since.  The calculations we actually use in setting targets of 1.5C or 2.0C start in the late 19th century when the CO2 ppm  was higher.  Nothing is likely to change, but this information provides a strong hint that putting more emphasis on targeting 1.5 and less on 2.0 is not a bad idea.
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Extra comment:  For people living in Mongolia, Somalia, Bangladesh, the Marshall Islands and the like there is no carbon budget.  We shot through it long ago.  The budget only exists in the imagination of some wealthier and better-situated countries.
Carl

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