Court sides with youth in historic climate case against Ontario

ecojustice

Seven Ontario youth are celebrating a landmark victory handed 

down by the province’s top court. The Court of Appeal ruled in 

favour of their youth-led climate lawsuit against the Ontario 

government. The ruling confirms that Ontario’s weak target is 

risking the lives and well-being of Ontarians. Story here.

Later is too late’: seniors show up for climate across Canada

Canada's National Observer

Seniors across Canada attended “rocking chair rallies,” marches, movie nights, town halls and other protests Monday to stress the importance of fighting climate change. Details here.

Study reveals Canadian wildfires are affecting US air quality and raising health concerns

PHYS ORG

Wildfire NWT - 2004.

Climate-driven wildfires are rapidly transferring harmful particulate matter containing toxic chemicals over long distances, compromising air quality in the New Jersey and New York City areas, according to Rutgers Health research. Story here.

DANIELLE SMITH'S CROCODILE TEARS

 

So the Republican Premier of Alberta thinks a few tears will help us forgive her. She is complicit in the disaster which struck Jasper, a world heritage site. Now much of it is a smouldering ruin. Shame on you, Smith. Your fawning/unconditional/blind/unwavering support for the tar sands over the ages and refusal to get on board in the fight against climate calamity by supporting alternative, sustainable energy sources ought to make you a figure of everlasting shame and disgrace. Resign your position and pick up a backpack sprayer to fight the fires you are responsible for...you'd be serving a more worthwhile purpose than you are now.

L.P.

John Pomeroy Has Seen the Okanagan’s Hotter, Drier Future

THE TYEE

The noted hydrologist projects a harsh shift in the region’s climate and water supply.

Fire in the desert

PNAS

Fueled by invasive grasses and climate change, desert fires are growing larger and more dangerous. Story here.

Native ecosystems are losing the race against invasives, with potentially dangerous consequences for desert cities like Tucson. The city’s outskirts are shown here in the midst of the 2020 Bighorn Fire, which came alarmingly close to foothill homes. Image credit: Unsplash/Frankie Lopez.

Giant Sequoias Are in Big Trouble. How Best to Save Them?

YaleEnvironment360

by Jim Robbins

A Daniel G Rego photo.

California’s ancient sequoias — some of which have stood more than 1,000 years — are facing an existential threat from increasingly intense wildfires linked to climate change. But federal efforts to thin forests to reduce fire risks are drawing pushback from conservation groups. Story here.

Canada burns - Canada’s relentless battle with record heat and devastating wildfires

Jamie Sandison - Canada's National Observer

My analysis of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a staggering revelation — more than 150 monthly temperature records have been broken across Canada this year. Details here.

Danielle Smith Rips Off the Mask

The Tyee

Alberta Premier,
Danielle Smith.

Her combative, gaslighting persona was put away for the election campaign. It was back this week. Details here.

Climate change more than doubled the likelihood of extreme fire weather conditions in Eastern Canada

World Weather Attribution

During May and June 2023 Canada witnessed exceptionally extreme fire-weather conditions, leading to extensive wildfires that burned over 13 million hectares. Story here.

Extreme heat in Canada, US, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change

WORLD WEATHER ATTRIBUTION

Following a record hot June, large areas of the US, Canada, Mexico, Southern Europe and China experienced extreme heat in July 2023, breaking many local high temperature records. Details here.

Please also read; 

Climate crisis made spate of Canada wildfires twice as likely, scientists find

New research method determines health impacts of heat and air quality

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

Even moderate temperature increases can cause more emergency hospital visits and deaths. Story here.

Is Earth ready for some sunblock?

 MOTHER CORP News

Big ideas for slowing climate change — and big risks, too

BLOGGER URGES LOCAL ACTION TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE

Increased risk of extreme rainfall due to warming

Journal: Nature Climate warming is causing a decrease in snowfall and increase in rainfall at high altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, and is predicted to increase the risk of extreme rainfall, suggests a study published in Nature.  The intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events is expected to increase as global warming continues to affect the planet. Of particular concern are extremes in rainfall, which often cause more damage than similar snowfall events due to their instantaneous runoff, increasing the risk of floods, which can cause infrastructure damage and landslides. Precisely how increases in global temperature will affect extreme rainfall events remains unclear.  To assess how climate change might be driving a shift in precipitation patterns, Mohammed Ombadi and colleagues combined data from climate observations from between 1950 and 2019 with future projections, up to 2100, taken from Earth system models. Their results suggest that warming is causing an increase in rainfall extremes within regions of high elevation in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in regions usually dominated by snowfall. On average, the intensity of extreme rainfall events is estimated to increase by 15% per 1 °C of warming. These patterns are seen both in the historical observations and future projections. The estimated rate of increased rainfall in high altitudes is approximately double that of low altitudes, highlighting the increased vulnerability of mountainous regions to extreme precipitation.   These results may guide infrastructure and mitigation strategies to avert the damage such rainfall events could cause, as well as making predictions of their occurrence more precise, the authors conclude.

United in Science: We are heading in the wrong direction

Geneva, 13 September 2022 (WMO) - Climate science is clear: we are heading in the wrong direction, according to a new multi-agency report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which highlights the huge gap between aspirations and reality. DETAILS HERE.

Crab populations are crashing. Could losing their sense of smell be one of the important reasons why?

University of Toronto

Thayne Tuason took this shot at

Ocean Shores WA in 2020. He labelled it, "dungeness crab die off..."  and commented, "Some people might contend they were just "molting", but these crabs looked mostly dead to me and not just a bunch of empty shells as would have been the case if it was them naturally shedding their exoskeleton.

    A new U of T Scarborough study finds that climate change is causing a commercially significant marine crab to lose its sense of smell, which could partially explain why their populations are thinning. Story here.

Oil Company Gave $200K to Group Accusing Pipeline Opponents of Taking Secret Money

DeSmog Blog

Alberta-based Indian Resource Council quietly received funding from CNRL, corporate documents reveal. Details here.

Record 2021 heat wave could become once-per-decade event

A study offers new insights into the record 2021 Western North America heat wave

Combined unusual weather systems, supercharged by climate change

COLUMBIA CLIMATE SCHOOL

The heat wave that hammered western North America in late June and early July 2021 was not just any midsummer event. Over nine days, from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon and beyond, it exceeded average regional temperatures for the period by 10 degrees C and, on single days in some locales, by an astounding 30 C. Among many new daily records, it set a new national benchmark for all of Canada, at 121.3 F in Lytton, British Columbia. The next day, the entire town burned down amid an uncontrollable wildfire—one of many sparked by the hot, dry weather. Across the region, at least 1,400 people died from heat-related causes. More here.

North American boreal trees show a decline in the survival of saplings in response to warming or reduced rainfall.

Nature 

Four separate papers exploring how forests and tree species respond to global changes — such as rising temperatures — are published in Nature this week. The studies highlight some of the challenges forests in North America and the Amazon may face in response to climate change.

Temperate deciduous tree with a dendrometer band, of the type used in the study, in the ForestGEO plot at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, VA.

Credit: Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira

A study of nine North American boreal tree species, including maples, firs, spruces and pines, shows a decline for all species in the survival of saplings in response to warming or reduced rainfall. In a five-year open-air field experiment, Peter Reich and colleagues found that fir, spruce and pine species abundant in southern boreal forests had the largest reductions in growth and survival due to changes in climate. 

Temperate deciduous tree with a dendrometer band, of the type used in the study, in the ForestGEO plot at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, VA.Credit: Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira

However, the species that experienced lower rates of mortality and were more likely to experience growth in response to warming, such as maples, are rarer in southern boreal forests and are unlikely to expand their distribution in this region fast enough to compensate for regeneration failure of the current dominant species.

 An otherwise barren, unnamed valley in the west-central Brooks Range of Alaska, USA, supports a population of boreal white spruce that likely provides the seeds carried many kilometers away by winter wind to germinate in Arctic tundra. Credit: Roman Dial

In another paper, Roman Dial and colleagues describe the northward migration of a North American population of white spruce (Picea glauca) into the Arctic tundra, unoccupied by this species for millennia, at a rate of more than 4 km per decade. The authors found that increasing temperatures together with winter winds, deeper snowpack and increased soil nutrient availability have supported this treeline advance. They argue that increasing Arctic tree cover could lead to a decrease in the habitat available for migratory species and a redistribution of carbon stores.

Two white spruce trees, each probably under 30 years old, overlook a remote tundra valley in northwest Alaska, USA. Recent climate warming, winter winds, and an increasing deep snowpack are facilitating the colonization of Arctic tundra by this boreal species. The trekking pole is one meter long. Credit: Roman Dial

Kristina Anderson-Teixeira and colleagues paired dendrometer band measurements with 207 tree-ring chronologies from 108 forests across temperate deciduous forests of eastern North America. They found that warmer spring temperatures advance the timing of stem growth but have little effect on total annual stem growth. The authors suggest that barring rapid acclimation of these forests to warming conditions, they are unlikely to sequester increasing amounts of carbon as temperatures rise.

In this picture at the Ely site (one of two of the experiment) we see one of the ambient plot in the foreground and some heated plots in the background.  All plants are in the process of fall senescence with slowly developing differentiation in plant senescence between ambient (and the research plots surrounding vegetation) and warmed plots due to the effect warming has on plant phenology.

Finally, Hellen Fernanda Viana Cunha and colleagues show that limitations in the availability of phosphorous directly impact the productivity of the Amazon forest by restricting its responses to CO2 fertilization. This may potentially affect forest resilience to climate change.