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These tiny mangroves hold vast stores of carbon
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on March 29th, 2016
Climate Central: Squat mangrove forests that seem at first blush to simply eke by along the coasts of Baja California are sitting on a big secret — one with sweeping implications in an era of accelerating climate change. Despite their diminutive appearance, scientists discovered that these mucky coastal ecosystems store huge amounts of carbon, helping to slow global warming. The peninsula’s low-growing mangrove forests harbor at least as much carbon as towering mangrove forests found elsewhere, scientists led by...
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California Snowpack Returns, But Fears Held For Future
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on March 23rd, 2016
Climate Central: California's main water reservoir -- its mountain snowpack -- has made a triumphant return to the Sierra Nevada following severe shortfalls in recent years.
A string of winter storms boosted by El Niño has restored much of the mountain snow that melts through summer to help top up the state's reservoirs, but the prognosis for the decades ahead remains grim.
The return of California's snowpack this winter has relieved water managers and skiers alike.
Climate change is projected to corrode...
As U.S. Coastal Cities Swell, Rising Seas Threaten Millions
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on March 14th, 2016
Climate Central: A growing number of Americans are moving into homes nestled between the idyllic beaches of the Florida Keys -- part of a national trend that's seeing coastal populations swell even as the seas swell dangerously around them.
That combination of rising populations and rising seas could see millions of Americans living in homes that flood regularly during the decades ahead, according to a nationwide analysis published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
That's unless steps are taken to...
Mud shortage eroding California’s climate defenses
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on March 4th, 2016
Climate Central: As the birdwatchers of Arrowhead Marsh strain through binoculars for glimpses of California clapper rails, they could easily miss the warning signs of an obscure threat to the species' survival.
Grassy banks at the heart of the marsh are sloughing at the edges. With a spike in sea levels looming, chunks of mud are already dissolving into the tidal waterway, shrinking one of the few remaining homes of a species that once nested throughout the marshes that ringed San Francisco Bay's sweeping watershed....
Indonesia’s fires blamed potent greenhouse gases
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on January 23rd, 2016
Climate Central: Indonesian fires that are expected to flare up again in the coming months may affect temperatures far away from the nation's watery borders.
Carbon dioxide and methane from the fires is already known to be accelerating global warming, and new research is linking high levels of another potent greenhouse gas with forest and peat fires in Indonesia and elsewhere.
Analysis of tropospheric data gathered using specially-modified jets during Guam-based missions has linked elevated levels of ozone...
Earth is Experiencing a Global Warming Spurt
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on January 5th, 2016
Climate Central: Cyclical changes in the Pacific Ocean have thrown earth's surface into what may be an unprecedented warming spurt, following a global warming slowdown that lasted about 15 years.
While El Niño is being blamed for an outbreak of floods, storms and unseasonable temperatures across the planet, a much slower-moving cycle of the Pacific Ocean has also been playing a role in record-breaking warmth. The recent effects of both ocean cycles are being amplified by climate change.
A 2014 flip was detected...
With CO2 boost, marshes can rise to meet flood risks
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on December 24th, 2015
Climate Central: In the race to keep their verdure heads above rising seas, marshes that protect coastal regions from floods, storms and erosion harbor the botanical equivalents of nitro boosters: rapid growth fueled by climate-changing pollution.
The same greenhouse gas that's doing most to warm the planet and uplift its seas can also work as a fertilizer. New research suggests that rising levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could help communities of marsh plants grow quickly enough to keep...
The forgotten U.N. climate goal: 1.5°c
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on November 20th, 2015
Climate Central: While much of the attention on a historic Paris climate meeting in the coming weeks will focus on the confounding task of trying to keep global warming below 2°C, or 3.6°F, a battle over another goal -- one that has been forgotten by many -- will be playing out in the negotiating halls.
Delegates representing island states and others whose homelands are most threatened by rising seas will be pushing for the formal adoption of a long-overlooked goal, one that limits warming to less than 1.5°C,...
How the U.S. West Can Live with Fire
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on May 28th, 2015
Climate Central: Homes and stables were evacuated during a rattling evening southeast of Los Angeles last month, as tall flames licked property lines while they chewed through pine needles, dead leaves and other fuels that had built up in scrub and forest during a decades-long absence of fire.
Firefighters eventually prevailed against the Highway Fire--so-named because it began near a highway--by corralling it and watching as it burned out. But the 1,000-acre conflagration was an anxiety-inducing prelude to what's...
California’s forests have become climate polluters
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on April 30th, 2015
Climate Central: California introduced a world-leading carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program to drive down pollution rates after lawmakers approved an ambitious climate protection law in 2006. It also changed rules affecting utilities, spurring investments in some of the biggest solar power plants the world has yet seen.
But an emerging body of research shows it's going to take more than a clean energy blitz to help the state comply with the historic California Global Warming Solutions Act.
A Californian task...