climate change tagged posts

A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute and the number will jump another 20% by 2021, creating an environmental crisis some campaigners predict will be as serious as climate change. New figures obtained by the Guardian reveal the surge in usage of plastic bottles, more than half a trillion of which will be sold annually by the end of the decade. The demand, equivalent to about 20,000 bottles being bought every second, is driven by an apparently insatiable desire for bottled water and the spread of a western, urbanised “on the go” culture to China and the Asia Pacific region.

More than 480bn plastic drinking bottles were sold in 2016 across the world, up from about 300bn a decade ago. If placed end to end, they would extend more than halfway to the sun...

Climate change from rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) is having two major effects in our seas – global warming and ocean acidification – and the combination of these threats is affecting marine life from single organisms to species communities. Researchers from the University of Portsmouth are helping to build an artificial reef that could protect vulnerable marine ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea against climate change.

The reef is made of small plastic structures that mimic natural coralline algae (algae with calcium carbonate structures), which have a similar ecological function to corals. Coralline algae form reefs that are able to host different species to create highly diverse and complex environments.

Due to their calcium carbonate structures, coralline algae are extreme...

In the azure waters of the Red Sea, Maoz Fine and his team dive to study what may be the planet’s most unique coral: one that can survive global warming, at least for now.

The corals, striking in their red, orange and green colours, grow on tables some eight metres (26 feet) underwater, put there by the Israeli scientists to unlock their secrets to survival.

They are of the same species that grows elsewhere in the northern Red Sea and are resistant to high temperatures.

Fine’s team dives in scuba gear to monitor the corals, taking notes on water-resistant pads.

“We’re looking here at a population of corals on a reef that is very resilient to high temperature changes, and is most likely going to be the last to survive in a world undergoing very significant warming and acidification of sea w...

Donald Trump is facing huge criticism at home and abroad after pulling the US out of the Paris agreement on climate change. The US president says it is too harmful to American jobs. Syria and Nicaragua are the only other United Nations members that are not signatories.

Barack Obama, who signed the treaty last year, has condemned Trump’s decision. The previous president says the US will miss out as 190 countries “reap the benefits in jobs and industries” created by embarking on a low-carbon future. Trump has said he is happy to rejoin if the US can get better terms but world leaders say the treaty is non-negotiable.

Overseas allies of the US – including some of the closest, including Australia – have reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris deal...

Vibrant coral reefs in the South China Sea have been decimated due to a combination of global warming and local weather. The combined factors produced a 42 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperatures around the Dongsha Atoll, killing 40 percent of its coral population, according to a study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The reef system relies on wind and waves to flush warm, shallow water out of the reefs and bring in cooler water from the open ocean. Corals can only survive within certain temperature limits: when those limits are exceeded, corals get stressed and release the algae they need to survive. One hundred percent of the coral reefs bleached in the 2015 event, ending with 40 percent of them dead.

“Dongsha Atoll is typically hit with tropical storms and strong winds in ...

Coral reefs, kelp forests and other marine ecosystems may be tougher than we give them credit for, a new study suggests. While countless scientific reports have documented the ravages of climate change on oceanic life, a survey of the researchers who wrote them provides a silver lining: An overwhelming majority noticed examples of sea life withstanding climate change.

“There are instances where sensitive ecosystems have shown remarkable resilience after climatic events. You can think of them as ‘bright spots’: They demonstrate that there are conditions under which ecosystems can persist even with major climate disturbances,” said Jennifer O’Leary, a marine conservation biologist with California Polytechnic State University and leader of the study.

The results of the survey were compil...

New climate model projections of the world’s coral reefs reveal which reefs will be hit first by annual coral bleaching, an event that poses the gravest threat to one of the Earth’s most important ecosystems.

These high-resolution projections, based on global climate models, predict when and where annual coral bleaching will occur. The projections show that reefs in Taiwan and around the Turks and Caicos archipelago will be among the world’s first to experience annual bleaching.

Other reefs, like those off the coast of Bahrain, in Chile and in French Polynesia, will be hit decades later, according to research recently published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

“These predictions are a treasure trove for those who are fighting to protect one of the world’s most magnificent and i...

Humans are going to have to do a lot more if we want to save the world’s coral reefs. Climate change is quickly killing coral through a process called coral bleaching. In 2016, coral reefs suffered the biggest die-off ever. Some regions of the Great Barrier Reef lost up to 35 percent.

Coral bleaching is probably exactly what you’re imagining: Colorful corals turn white and die. When major changes take place in the ecosystem, corals expel the algae that gives them their color. Since algae is the corals source of food, they begin to starve.

Scientists say if current climate trends continue, 99 percent of reefs will experience annual bleaching by the end of the century. Catastrophic events could begin as early as 2043.

And even the Paris climate agreement can’t save the reefs...

Coral reefs around the globe already are facing unprecedented damage because of warmer and more acidic oceans. It’s hardly a problem affecting just the marine life that depends on them or deep-sea divers who visit them.

If carbon dioxide emissions continue to fuel the planet’s rising temperature, the widespread loss of coral reefs by 2050 could have devastating consequences for tens of millions of people, according to new research published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS.

To better understand where those losses would hit hardest, an international group of researchers mapped places where people most need reefs for their livelihoods, particularly for fishing and tourism, as well as for shoreline protection...

A UN review of national plans to cut carbon says they are well short of the levels needed to keep the rise in global temperatures under 2C. The report finds that by 2030 the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere will be some 25% above that mark. The analysis takes into account the pledges that countries have made under the Paris climate agreement.

Many scientists say that technology to remove carbon from the air will now be needed to meet the Paris targets.

The UN Emissions Gap Report, prepared by an international team of scientists, finds that by 2030, global emissions are expected to reach 54 to 56 gigatonnes of CO2.

The authors say this is far above the 42 gigatonnes needed to have a good chance of staying below 2 degrees by the end of the century, and a long way from the 39 gigatonnes...