Fogbow

Canada’s 2023 wildfires created four times more emissions than planes did last year – report
Months-long fires spewed about the same amount of carbon dioxide that 647m cars put in the air in a year, data shows

Associated Press
Thu 27 Jun 2024 17.55 CEST

Catastrophic Canadian warming-fueled wildfires last year pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than India did by burning fossil fuels, setting ablaze an area of forest larger than the US state of West Virginia, new research has found.

Scientists at the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland calculated how devastating the impacts of the months-long fires in Canada in 2023 that sullied the air around large parts of the globe. They figured it put 3.28bn tons (2.98 metric tons) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air, according to a study update published in Thursday’s Global Change Biology. The update is not peer-reviewed, but the original study was.

The fire spewed nearly four times the carbon emissions as airplanes do in a year, study authors said. It’s about the same amount of carbon dioxide that 647m cars put in the air in a year, based on US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... -emissions

Stephen King @StephenKing wrote: Sarasota average temperature in June of 1993: 80 degrees.
Sarasota average temperature in June of 2024: 91 degrees.

Drew Tuma @DrewTumaABC7 wrote: HIGHS TODAY
San Jose 102° (record)
San Rafael 103° (record)
Santa Rosa 105° (record)
Oakland 90° (record)
Kentfield 103° (record)
Napa 103°
Concord 107°
Livermore 106°
Redwood City 98°
Fremont 96°
Hayward 99°
San Francisco 84°

► Show Spoiler

Steven Rattner @SteveRattner wrote: In 2023, the US consumed more energy from renewables than coal for the first time in over 100 years.

We still have a ways to go, though, with fossil fuels accounting for 83% of national energy consumption.

cc: @EIAgov

Temperatures 1.5C above pre-industrial era average for 12 months, data shows
Copernicus Climate Change Service says results a ‘large and continuing shift’ in the climate

Ajit Niranjan
Mon 8 Jul 2024 04.00 CEST

The world has baked for 12 consecutive months in temperatures 1.5C (2.7F) greater than their average before the fossil fuel era, new data shows.

Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record, scientists found, creating a year-long stretch in which the Earth was 1.64C hotter than in preindustrial times.

The findings do not mean world leaders have already failed to honour their promises to stop the planet heating 1.5C by the end of the century – a target that is measured in decadal averages rather than single years – but that scorching heat will have exposed more people to violent weather. A sustained rise in temperatures above this level also increases the risk of uncertain but catastrophic tipping points.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which analysed the data, said the results were not a statistical oddity but a “large and continuing shift” in the climate.

“Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm,” he said. “This is inevitable unless we stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the oceans.”

Copernicus, a scientific organisation that belongs to the EU’s space programme, uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to track key climate metrics. It found June 2024 was hotter than any other June on record and was the 12th month in a row with temperatures 1.5C greater than their average between 1850 and 1900.

Because temperatures in some months had “relatively small margins” above 1.5C, the scientists said, datasets from other climate agencies may not confirm the 12-month temperature streak.



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... data-shows