Bob Berwyn
Ars Technica
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Past articles by Bob:
Antarctic researchers say a marine heatwave could threaten ice shelves
The rise of ocean heat in Antarctica could potentially disrupt the global climate system. → Read More
Study Shows Protected Forests Are Cooler
Measured at a global scale, protected forests with legal limits on human activity are significantly cooler than neighboring forests that lack protections, scientists reported in a new Science Advances study today. The researchers compared land surface temperatures and warming rates in protected areas to those in unprotected zones across five major biomes—boreal, temperate and tropical […] → Read More
Western forests, snowpack, and wildfires appear trapped in vicious climate cycle
Extreme 2020 wildfires affected the water cycle in key mountain forests. → Read More
Can Wolves and Beavers Help Save the West From Global Warming?
Restoring and protecting beaver and wolf populations and reducing cattle grazing across large tracts of the western United States could be a big part of meeting President Joe Biden’s goal of conserving at least 30 percent of the country’s lands, lakes and rivers by 2030, a new study suggests. Both animals are keystone species that […] → Read More
A Climate-Driven Decline of Tiny Dryland Lichens Could Have Big Global Impacts
Lichens that help hold together soil crusts in arid lands around the world are dying off as the climate warms, new research shows. That would lead deserts to expand and also would affect areas far from the drylands, as crumbling crusts fill winds with dust that can speed snowmelt and increase the incidence of respiratory […] → Read More
Ocean Warming Doubles Odds for Extreme Atlantic Hurricane Seasons
For storm-battered residents of the Caribbean, the Southeast and the Gulf Coast, new research on hurricanes is rarely good news, with recent studies showing trends toward stronger storms that intensify suddenly near the coast and maintain their strength longer after hitting land. A study published on Wednesday in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics reinforces […] → Read More
Shifts in El Niño May Be Driving Climates Extremes in Both Hemispheres
The record-breaking heat wave last week in East Antarctica, the coldest region on Earth, saw temperatures surge as much as 85 degrees Fahrenheit above average, bringing readings near freezing and unexpected surface melting instead of the usual sub-zero conditions. The heat wave adds to a quickly growing list of previously “unthinkable” climate events, and puts […] → Read More
Global Wildfire Activity to Surge in Coming Years
As global warming heats the air and land, drying out trees and other plants, people around the world need to reset their expectations of where, when and how long wildfires will burn, warns a new global wildfire report released today. In a sweeping look, the scientists who authored the report for the United Nations Environmental […] → Read More
Scientists Join Swiss Hunger Strike to Raise Climate Alarm
In early November, as politicians promised more climate action in their opening speeches at the United Nations climate talks in Glasgow, Guillermo Fernandez started a hunger strike in Switzerland’s Federal Square, saying he wouldn’t eat again until the Swiss Federal Assembly agreed to a climate science briefing. He said he wanted to spur his own […] → Read More
In a Summer of Deadly Deluges, New Research Shows How Global Warming Fuels Flooding
While global warming shifts some parts of the world into an age of persistent fires, others have been ravaged by intensifying rainfall and deadly floods, sure signs that Earth’s water cycle is becoming more volatile, with increasingly intense rain and floods punctuating longer dry periods. Most recently, at least 21 people died in Aug. 21 […] → Read More
Surface Water Vulnerable to Widespread Pollution From Fracking, a New Study Finds
Fossil fuels don’t just damage the planet by emitting climate-warming greenhouse gases when they are burned. Extracting coal, oil and gas has a huge impact on the surface of the earth, including strip mines the size of cities and offshore oil spills that pollute country-sized swaths of ocean. Years of research has shown how the […] → Read More
New Arctic Council Reports Underline the Growing Concerns About the Health and Climate Impacts of Polar Air Pollution
The Arctic is now warming three times as fast as the global average, and faces an ongoing barrage of dangerous climate and environmental pollutants, Arctic Council experts warned at the start of their meetings in Reykjavik, Iceland this week. Black carbon, or soot, remains high on the list of concerns because of its negative effect […] → Read More
Extreme Heat Risks May Be Widely Underestimated and Sometimes Left Out of Major Climate Reports
While scientists warn with increasing urgency that global warming is sharply increasing the likelihood of deadly heat waves, many regions are doing little to protect vulnerable populations. Recent research shows that the global death toll from extreme heat is rising, but still, “Large parts of society don’t think of heat as a threat,” said University […] → Read More
Nature is Critical to Slowing Climate Change, But It Can Only Do So If We Help It First
No matter how many solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars are built between now and 2030, the world won’t meet its increasingly ambitious climate targets without a lot of help from forests, fields and oceans. “Achieving net-zero by 2050 will not be possible without nature,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said on April 22 at […] → Read More
For a City Staring Down the Barrel of a Climate-Driven Flood, A New Study Could be the Smoking Gun
Not all of the water from the planet’s melting glaciers is pouring into rivers and oceans. A surprising amount is building up behind unstable piles of rubble left behind by the retreating ice. As the Earth continues to warm, the swelling lakes threaten to burst through the glacial moraines holding them back and wash away […] → Read More
Global Ice Loss on Pace to Drive Worst-Case Sea Level Rise
From the polar caps to the glaciers of Europe, Asia and South America, global warming is melting the planet’s ice faster than ever and speeding the inundation of the world’s coastlines. New research shows the annual melt rate grew from 0.8 trillion tons in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tons by 2017, and has accelerated […] → Read More
Many Overheated Forests May Soon Release More Carbon Than They Absorb
The last decades have been filled with dire warning signs from forests. Global warming has contributed to thinning canopies in European forests and to sudden die-offs of aspen trees in Colorado, as well as insect outbreaks that are killing trees around the world. In many places, forests are not growing back. New research shows that […] → Read More
2020 Ties 2016 as Earth’s Hottest Year on Record, Even Without El Niño to Supercharge It
European climate scientists have tallied up millions of temperature readings from last year to conclude that 2020 was tied with 2016 as the hottest year on record for the planet. It’s the first time the global temperature has peaked without El Niño, a cyclical Pacific Ocean warm phase that typically spikes the average annual global […] → Read More
Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero
Parts of the world economy may have been on pause during 2020, dampening greenhouse gas emissions for a while. But that didn’t slow the overall buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which reached its highest level in millions of years. If anything, research during the year showed global warming is accelerating. Symptoms of the fever include […] → Read More
Warm Arctic, Cold Continents? It Sounds Counterintuitive, but Research Suggests it’s a Thing
Scientists suspect that rapid warming in the Arctic is causing more climate extremes farther south, including bouts of severe cold and snow in the Northeast. → Read More