Monthly Archives: December 2019

More commentary on the permafrost report reviewed in yesterday’s letter.  This review from Vox offers a well-written summary of the key points plus more comments from Ted Schuur, the report’s author, a map of the extensive land coverage of permafrost … Continue reading →

The Arctic Report Card from NOAA, released yesterday, has an extremely troubling section about how permafrost is melting and releasing carbon to the atmosphere (Arctic Program).  This was written in the form of an essay by a scientist who is … Continue reading →

The 2019 Arctic Report Card has been issued by NOAA, as summarized by Inside Climate News.  As in all recent years the message is all about trends and statistics that are troublesome, going well beyond the total impact of gobal … Continue reading →

An emerging new vulnerability to Earth’s food system has been discovered (University of Oxford).  In a new study, “scientists show how specific wave patterns in the jet stream strongly increase the chance of co-occurring heatwaves in major food producing regions … Continue reading →

A major new report shows urgent concern over deoxygenation of the world’s oceans (EcoWatch).  The report is the work of 67 scientists from 17 countries.  The loss of oxygen has two major causes:  nutrient pollution and climate change.  “While a … Continue reading →

Scientists can now describe the carbon buildup that caused the PETM (University of Birmingham).  “The PETM is the largest natural climate change event of Cenozoic time and an important yardstick for theories explaining today’s long-term increase in the average temperature … Continue reading →

A new study tells of how the entire globe will be affected by the extraordinary warming around the poles (National Geographic).  This magazine story has a good introduction to an important study that is quite thorough on the subject and … Continue reading →

A terrific analysis of various trends in the growth of fossil fuel emissions through 2019 (Carbon Brief).  I urge you to take a little time studying each of the charts, which could not be expressed more clearly.  They all have … Continue reading →

Important new information about the effect of industrial aerosols on Earth’s climate (SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research).  Burning fossil fuels adds a great deal of pollution to the atmosphere in the form of particulate matter.  Scientists have always realized … Continue reading →

A new study clarifies the close link between ice shelves and the glaciers behind them (BBC News).  “A new study finds the diminishing thickness of ice shelves is matched almost exactly by an acceleration in the glaciers feeding in behind … Continue reading →