Tim Radford – Forests of southwest US face mass die-off by 2100

Tens of millions of trees in California are now at risk because of sustained drought, according to new research. And a different study in a different journal foresees a parched future for the evergreen forests not just in the Golden State but in the entire US southwest. Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California and colleagues …

Tim Radford – West Antarctic ice cascades towards crisis

Just a few more decades of ocean warming would be enough to destabilise the relatively small region of ice by the Amundsen Sea − starting a cascade of slipping and sliding that would tip enough ice into the ocean to raise sea levels by three metres. The loss of ice would continue for centuries. Two scientists at the Potsdam Institute …

Deirdre Fulton – Geoengineering Schemes Sound Too Good to be True? That’s Because They Are.

As a historic heat wave ravages the Middle East and glaciers continue rapidly melting into the sea, a “thought-experiment” devised by German researchers has demonstrated—yet again—that the best way to avoid the effects of catastrophic climate change is to keep fossil fuels in the ground. According to a paper (pdf) published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, geoengineering “technofixes” …

Scientists Say Geo-Engineering the Sky Necessary to Save Coral Reefs By Derrick Broze

A group of scientists from universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia have released a new study calling for geoengineering of the climate in order to save the coral reefs from a process known as “bleaching.” The researchers, including authors from the Carnegie Institution for Science, the University of Exeter, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the …

Long-lived carbon dioxide warms the world for many millennia By Tim Radford

Gun the engine, and the ignition of fossil fuel produces not just working energy but heat that dissipates quickly into the atmosphere. But it also produces carbon dioxide that dissipates into the atmosphere. And in less than two months, according to new research, that pulse of carbon dioxide will have engendered more heat for the planet than the original touch …