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Uh oh: Antarctica might melt much faster than we thought
Posted by Slate: Eric Holthaus on April 2nd, 2016
Slate: Sea level rise--perhaps the most consequential effect of climate change--just got a whole lot more urgent. If you live near the coast, this is your wakeup call.
In a study released Wednesday, a new estimate of how much Antarctic ice would melt in a warmer world nearly doubles previous projections of sea level rise by the end of the century. And it might be even worse than that: The study did not explore the true worst-case scenario, and its lead author said the work is still incomplete. Taken...
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Bernie Absolutely Right: Climate Change Makes Terrorism Worse
Posted by Slate: Eric Holthaus on November 15th, 2015
Slate: At Saturday night's second Democratic presidential debate, just a day after ISIS launched horrific coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, moderator and Slate political columnist John Dickerson asked Bernie Sanders a straightforward question: "Sen. Sanders, you said you want to rid the planet of ISIS. In the previous debate you said the greatest threat to national security was climate change. Do you still believe that?'
Sanders didn't hesitate: "Absolutely.'
On Twitter, David Axelrod—the architect...
Hurricane Patricia made worse by climate change
Posted by Slate: Eric Holthaus on October 24th, 2015
Slate: Hurricane Patricia--now the strongest hurricane ever measured--is expected to make landfall in Mexico late Friday. According to the latest official forecast from the National Hurricane Center, Manzanillo, a city of 100,000 people, appears to be in Patricia's direct path.
After seeing the incredible data gathered by hurricane hunter aircraft overnight, a few meteorologists have argued that Patricia could be thought of as a Category 7 hurricane--though the official Saffir-Simpson scale only goes...
Welcome to Global Warming’s Terrifying New Era
Posted by Slate: Eric Holthaus on March 21st, 2015
Slate: On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that Earth's global temperature for February was among the hottest ever measured. So far, 2015 is tracking above record-warm 2014--which, when combined with the newly resurgent El Niño, means we're on pace for another hottest year in history.
In addition to the just-completed warmest winter on record globally (despite the brutal cold and record snow in the eastern U.S.), new data on Thursday from the National Snow and...
Climate change may be causing a global coffee shortage
Posted by Slate: Eric Holthaus on February 26th, 2014
Slate: An epic drought -- Brazil's worst in decades -- is threatening exports from the world's largest coffee exporter and driving up wholesale prices worldwide. We've officially entered the realm of bloggers' worst-case scenario.
Now, let's not get too hasty. The world is not going to run out of coffee next week. Analysts still estimate an increasingly tight global coffee surplus of less than 1 percent of total production through the remainder of the year. But the Brazilian drought is causing a significant...