Klimat Live – New method reduces toxic dyes in water

The sixth and largest report to date from IPCC was released today. A thousand researchers and authors and 86,000 references are the basis for the sharpest message to date: “The world’s leaders must act now to avoid a climate catastrophe”.

As early as 2030, 1.5 degrees of warming could be a fact if the Paris Agreement is not followed. The panel further stated that climate change affects the entire earth and they stress that it is caused by human emissions.

Markku Rummukainen from SMHI is Sweden’s representative in the IPCC. He concludes that adaptations are not enough and that the risks of climate effects are greater than previously estimated.

– Climate change is already causing negative extensive and increasingly irreversible damage to ecosystems and human systems. We must reduce emissions quickly in order to limit the climate effects that we pass on to future generations, he says at SMHI’s press conference.

An important part of slowing down development concerns energy use. Removing carbon from the energy sector and reducing carbon dioxide emissions is highlighted as crucial. The synthesis report points, among other things, to wind and solar power and electrification, which are now decreasing in price.

– There have been large price reductions and there is great potential in the coming ten-year period to scale up wind and solar power more, says Markku Rummukainen.

Read more about the conclusions here

On Mount Svarthammaren in Queen Maud’s Land in Antarctica, one of the world’s largest colonies of the seabird Antarctic petrel nests. The number varies from year to year, but between 20,000 and 200,000 pairs of Antarctic petrels come there each year to mate and lay their eggs in nests on the bare rock face, states Research & Progress in an article. But in January 2022 there were only three breeding pairs.

For the related ice petrel, the situation was much the same. Only a few nests were found. There was not a trace of the area’s most common bird of prey, the South Pole grebe, which feeds on the Antarctic petrel’s eggs during its breeding season.

That all these tens of thousands of birds failed to breed is due to extreme weather conditions. This is what researchers from the Norwegian Polar Institute have concluded in a study published in Current Biology.

Andreas Nord is a docent at Lund University and researches birds. He thinks the study’s results are serious and says that this is one of the more dramatic examples of how climate change can affect birds.

– Extreme weather is extremely difficult for all living things because it is impossible to adapt to. When something extreme enough happens, it doesn’t matter how adaptable you are, he tells Forskning & Framsteg.

French television has started to include the climate aspect in its weather forecasts.

– We should not just say that tomorrow it will be sunny or rain. We will explain why, says information manager Alexandre Kara.

As of this week, the weather forecasts on channels France 2 and France 3 are called the “weather and climate journal”, a new initiative to spread knowledge about climate change, French media reports. They should therefore not only present how the weather will be, but also the reasons behind it.

– It’s about explaining the weather in a different way. We should not just say that tomorrow it will be sunny or rainy. We will explain why, says Alexandre Kara, who is head of information at France Télévisions, to AFP. Read the full article here.

In a survey on concerns about natural damage, it appears that the place of residence affects what Swedes worry about. In Southern Sweden, there are more people than in the rest of Sweden who worry that storms or mold and insect attacks will affect their home. And in Stockholm, in central Sweden and in Småland, there is a larger proportion than in the rest of the country who worry about low groundwater levels.

– There could probably be many explanations. But it cannot be ignored that there are more people who live in a place that has been affected by extreme weather in the past, who worry about that particular weather. The storm Gudrun in 2005 in southern Sweden, the fires in Västmanland in 2014 or the drought and lack of water on Öland and Gotland leave their mark, says Martin Hedberg, meteorologist and natural damage specialist at Länsförsäkringar.

Stockholmers also stand out in that a larger proportion of Stockholmers worry about flooding due to heavy rainfall. More areas in Sweden, than just Stockholm, have had heavier rain, but cities are generally more vulnerable to flooding. Fires mainly affect the forest counties with a tangible danger to life, home and property.

– It may also be the frequency of the problems that creates concern, if there is a risk basically every year. Mold and insect attacks are more common in southern and western Sweden, while snow loads (lots and heavy snow) mainly affect northern Sweden, comments Martin Hedberg in a press release.