Category: Climate Change

Few realistic scenarios left to limit global warming to 1.5°C

  Press release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) Few realistic scenarios left to limit global warming to 1.5°C in line with the Paris Agreement. All levers must be pulled, some to a challenging level, to achieve this ambitious climate target. These levers include the energy system but also for instance land-use. Unrealistically optimistic scenarios tend to over-estimate e.g. carbon capture and storage potentials. 05/14/2021  Of … Read more Few realistic scenarios left to limit global warming to 1.5°C

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Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium

Press release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 02/25/2021 Never before in over 1000 years the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has been as weak as in the last decades. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Ireland, Britain and Germany. The researchers compiled so-called proxy data – taken mainly from natural archives like ocean sediments … Read more Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium

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Coal and COVID-19

Light at the end of the tunnel? Time to maybe turn from the temporary distractions of the 4-year T-virus (but never forget how insecure this democratic essay is) to the way more massively lethal potential (a potential recognized and endorsed with sadistic jouissance by the T-virus) of what homo stupidus stupidus has done to the planet. Interestingly enough that other, biological, virus we are dealing with right now, may … Read more Coal and COVID-19

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CO2 & Covid-19

Press Release from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 10/14/2020 Biggest CO2 drop: Real-time data show Covid-19’s massive impact on global emissions While the ongoing Corona pandemic continues to threaten millions of lives around the world, the first half of 2020 saw an unprecedented decline in CO2 emissions – larger than during the financial crisis of 2008, the oil crisis of the 1979, or even World War … Read more CO2 & Covid-19

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Climate Change triggers Migration

Climate Change triggers migration – particularly in middle-income and agricultural countries   Weather-related displacements from 2008 to 2015 totaled 172.3 million people. More than 14 million people were displaced by weather in 2015, with a record of 38.3 million set in 2010, an El Nino year. The annual average was 21.5 million people displaced by weather-related events. Chart courtesy of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (iDMC) and the Norwegian … Read more Climate Change triggers Migration

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Meanwhile, & despite the Virus, Global Warming Needs Action Too!

Press Release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research 23/03/2020 Coal exit benefits outweigh its costs Coal combustion is not only the single most important source of CO2, accounting for more than a third of global emissions, but also a major contributor to detrimental effects on public health and biodiversity. Yet, globally phasing out coal remains one of the hardest political nuts to crack. New computer simulations by … Read more Meanwhile, & despite the Virus, Global Warming Needs Action Too!

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The Endgame: Climate Change as Weapon

Thinking on these images from Mozambique, Zimbabwe & elsewhere I suddenly realize that what I had only dimly perceived or hadn’t wanted to believe was most likely true: the climate change deniers in power (or even those out of power or refusing to think on this for personal convenience) don’t do this simply out of a combination of obtuseness, stupidity, religiously motivated anti-science idiocy, and personal greed leading them … Read more The Endgame: Climate Change as Weapon

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Rainfall extremes are connected across continents: Nature study

Press Release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research 31/01/2019 Extreme rainfall events in one city or region are connected to the same kind of events thousands of kilometers away, an international team of experts finds in a study now published in one of the world’s leading scientific journals, Nature. They discovered a global connection pattern of extreme rainfall – this could eventually improve weather forecasts and hence … Read more Rainfall extremes are connected across continents: Nature study

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The living lab experiment “Climate-Neutral Living in Berlin” takes stock

Press Release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research 31/01/2019The living lab experiment “Climate-Neutral Living in Berlin” takes stock: Everyone can contribute to climate stabilization, but without politics it won’t succeed “Climate-Neutral Living in Berlin” – for one year, more than 100 Berlin households have tried to shift to a more climate-friendly everyday life, from families with children, partners, flatmates to singles. In the living lab experiment headed … Read more The living lab experiment “Climate-Neutral Living in Berlin” takes stock

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PIK on Climate Summit COP24 in Katowice

The UN climate summit COP24 in Katowice, Poland, closed; below PIK’s statement which I think is somewhat overoptimistic, remembering that the Paris agreement does not entail any compulsion toward change. COP24 President Michal Kurtyka’s celebration (cf. pix above) at the end of COP24  seems wildly out of proportion with what was actually achieved. On this issue, Johan Rockström, resilience scientist who as Director Designate is leading the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research together … Read more PIK on Climate Summit COP24 in Katowice

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