2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14

Posted on 7 April 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 31, 2024 thru Sat, April 6, 2024.

Story of the week

Proxy measurement via Facebook “engagement” suggests a widely welcoming audience for Prof. Andrew Dessler’s The Climate Brink article How extreme was the Earth’s temperature in 2023. With our recent Earth surface temperature record gaining prominent media coverage— including many direct remarks by scientists employing adjectives not normally found in scientific parlance— it’s not surprising that readers may appreciate an oasis of context and perspective of the kind Dessler provides. A couple of well supported key points come through in this treatment. Only a few years ago we saw a surface temperature graph remarkably similar to what’s unrolling right now. Meanwhile, our recent experience remains within projections of climate models and can’t truly be seen as an unanticipated outcome (do let’s note: as usual we’re seeing how climate models are fit for purpose and yield useful climate prognosis). Untreated in popularized analysis is the recent behavior of the world ocean’s temperature. Given the much larger amount of energy involved and our general discomfort with hugely consequential mysteries of this kind, it would be helpful to have this gap plugged— but that is a more fundamentally difficult scientific problem. 

Before March 31

• New tech won’t save us from climate change. Here’s what will, Nature, BBC Science Focus Magazine, Dr Jonathan Foley. The one thing we need to save us from climate catastrophe is the one thing technology can’t provide.
• From Michigan to Nebraska, Midwest States Face an Early Wildfire Season, Science, Inside Climate News, Kristoffer Tigue. Lede: “The blazes come after a record dry winter in the region. ‘Year to date, we’ve had ‘close to 300 wildfires statewide’ a Wisconsin official said. “The normal year-to-date 10-year average is about 40 fires.’ ”
• Hacking planet Earth will not save us from ourselves, Newsroom, Kevin Trenberth. A number of geoengineering methods have been proposed as a way to cool our warming planet but the problem is the increasing amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – the pressure instead must increase to cut emissions and use of fossil fuels
• Natural Gas Is Scamming America, Climate Town on Youtube, Rollie Williams.
• Geoengineering Faces a Wave of Backlash Over Regulatory Gaps and Unknown Risks, Today’s Climate, Inside Climate News, Kikley Price. “Technologies to slow global warming by manipulating the environment are rapidly advancing, but some experts want to pump the brakes”