Seit vor sieben Jahren die vielbeachtete sogenannte Krefelder Studie herauskam, ist das Insektensterben in aller Munde. Auch in der Schweiz machen Umweltorganisationen regelmässig einen verheerenden Rückgang der Zahl der Insekten geltend. Alex Reichmuth wollte es genauer wissen und ging dem angeblichen Insektensterben in der Schweiz auf die Spur. Das Resultat im Nebelspalter: Es gibt keine Belege dafür (https://www.nebelspalter.ch/themen/2024/12/kaum-belege-fuer-ein-insektensterben-in-der-schweiz).
Reichmuths Faktencheck
Kaum Belege für ein Insektensterben in der SchweizDie Ausgangslage: Glaubt man den Umweltorganisationen, gibt es in der Schweiz ein besorgniserregendes Insektensterben.
Warum das wichtig ist: Insekten sind zweifellos wichtig für Mensch und Umwelt. Seit vor sieben Jahren die sogenannte Krefelder Studie in Deutschland eine massive Abnahme der Zahl der Insekten in den letzten Jahrzehnten ergeben hat, ist auch hierzulande von stark rückläufigen Beständen dieser Tiere die Rede. Doch gibt es wirklich Belege für ein Insektensterben in der Schweiz?
Nachzulesen im Nebelspalter (https://www.nebelspalter.ch/themen/2024/12/kaum-belege-fuer-ein-insektensterben-in-der-schweiz). Der Faktencheck kann nach 20 Sekunden Werbung freigeschaltet werden.
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Clayton Page Aldern auf der Freitag:
Alzheimer, Depression und Angstzustände: Verändert der Klimawandel unsere Gehirne?
Kinder, die 2012 während des Hurrikans Sandy im Mutterleib waren, leiden heute öfter an psychischen Erkrankungen. Neurowissenschaftler ahnen: Der Klimawandel macht krank. Sorgen bereitet ihnen auch die Ausbreitung einer hirnfressenden Amöbe.
Weiterlesen (paywall)
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Wie beeinflussen Schwankungen der Sonnenaktivität das Klima auf der Erde? Teil 2 (von 3) von Javier Vinós auf Climate Etc.:
How we know that the sun changes climate (II). The present
Part 2 of a 3-part series. Part I is here.
The effect of the Sun on climate has been debated for 200 years. The basic problem is that when we study the past, we observe strong climatic changes associated with prolonged periods of low solar activity, but when we observe the present, we are able to detect only small effects due to the 11-year solar cycle. There are several possible explanations for this discrepancy. But the main question is how the Sun affects climate.
In this article we examine the effects on climate caused by the 11-year solar cycle over the last few cycles and their relation to recent climate change.
- The IPCC Says…
In its 5th Assessment Report, the IPCC used climate models to calculate the Sun’s contribution to warming. These models only take into account changes in the total energy coming from the Sun, which is known to vary by only 0.1%. Therefore, the IPCC’s answer is that the Sun has contributed nothing to the warming.[i] This is absurd given our knowledge of past climate and the fact that we passed through a 70-year solar maximum in the 2nd half of the 20th century, one of the most active periods of solar activity in thousands of years.
The IPCC is ignoring a large body of evidence that the Sun affects climate in ways that cannot be explained by these energy changes alone. We have space to review only a few of these unexplained effects. Let’s start with the surface.
- Sun’s Effect on the Surface
Most of the Sun’s energy reaches the surface of the planet. If this energy increases by 0.1%, then every point on the surface receives 0.1% more. One would expect this to cause a small overall warming, estimated by scientists to be two hundredths of a degree Celsius, which is undetectable. But that is not what is being observed. Several studies show that over the solar cycle, the surface is warming 4 times more than expected, 0.1°C, and it is doing so in an extremely irregular way with large spatial variations.[ii]
Weiterlesen (hier auch Abbildungen)
Lesetipp: Wer sich für das Thema interessiert, wird im Buch „Unerwünschte Wahrheiten: Was Sie über den Klimawandel wissen sollten“ fündig. In Kapitel 8 („Welchen natürlichen Einfluss übt unsere Sonne auf das Erdklima aus?“) wird das Wissen in leicht verständlicher Form mit vielen Verweisen auf die Fachliteratur zusammengefasst.
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Hier was zum Wundern:
Krishna Ramanujan, Cornell University:
Kenyan fishers face increased drowning risk from climate change
Fatal drownings are a big risk for small-scale fishers on Africa’s largest lake, with many of those deaths attributed to bad weather—conditions that are likely to worsen with climate change, according to a new study.
Lake Victoria—bordering Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda—is heavily fished by some 200,000 fishers, in spite of frequent severe thunderstorms and its reputation as one of the most dangerous bodies of water in the world.
These findings are especially concerning considering that thunderstorms, wind and rain are predicted to become more intense and up to 10 times more frequent by the end of the century, the authors note in the study, published in PLOS ONE.
„Drowning deaths are really a neglected risk factor,“ said Kathryn Fiorella, assistant professor in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health in the College of Veterinary Medicine and a co-corresponding author of the study. The other co-corresponding author is Ranaivo Rasolofoson, a postdoctoral researcher, formerly in Fiorella’s lab, and currently at Duke University.
„The main goal of our work was to understand what are the risk factors that people see contributing to drowning deaths,“ Fiorella said.
On top of climate issues, overfishing has reduced commercial Nile perch populations over the last few decades, the authors wrote. Fishers now focus predominantly on sardine-like omena, which are found far offshore and must be fished for at night, and attracted using lights. The shift has made fishers more vulnerable to drowning, since thunderstorms are more likely to occur at night, when visibility is low, making rescues far more challenging.
Liebe Leser, was halten Sie davon? Schreiben Sie uns gerne.
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Michelle Klampe, Oregon State University:
Chemical analysis of natural CO₂ rise over the last 50,000 years shows that today’s rate is 10 times faster
Today’s rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase is 10 times faster than at any other point in the past 50,000 years, researchers have found through a detailed chemical analysis of ancient Antarctic ice.
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provide important new understanding of abrupt climate change periods in Earth’s past and offer new insight into the potential impacts of climate change today.
„Studying the past teaches us how today is different. The rate of CO2 change today really is unprecedented,“ said Kathleen Wendt, an assistant professor in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and the study’s lead author.
„Our research identified the fastest rates of past natural CO2 rise ever observed, and the rate occurring today, largely driven by human emissions, is 10 times higher.“
Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a greenhouse gas that occurs naturally in the atmosphere. When carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere, it contributes to warming of the climate due to the greenhouse effect. In the past, the levels have fluctuated due to ice age cycles and other natural causes, but today they are rising because of human emissions.
Ice that built up in Antarctic over hundreds of thousands of years includes ancient atmospheric gases trapped in air bubbles. Scientists use samples of that ice, collected by drilling cores up to 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) deep, to analyze the trace chemicals and build records of past climate.
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Roger Pielke Jr auf The Honest Broker:
Climate Cooking
How a few billionaires helped push climate science to the extremesThis is a story of American democracy. In one sense, it’s a noble story. People with shared values came together to petition the government and the public on their political aims, just as envisioned by James Madison in Federalist 10.
In another sense it’s a story of privilege and conceit – the privilege in American democracy that accompanies being mindbogglingly wealthy and the conceit that climate politics could be best pursued by corrupting the scientific literature on climate change.
Before proceeding, let’s make a few things absolutely clear. There is no doubt that climate change is real, and is significantly influenced by our activities, particularly through the emissions of carbon dioxide. I have long advocated for aggressive mitigation action and adaptation to climate variability and change. At the same time, I have also long argued that upholding scientific integrity should go hand-in-hand with effective climate action.
At the center of the corruption of climate science discussed here sits a highly technical scenario of the future called Representation Concentration Pathway 8.5 or RCP8.5. Longtime readers of THB will no doubt be familiar with RCP8.5 and its consequences, but for anyone needing a quick primer, have a look at our short paper in Issues in Science and Technology.
Today, I add further details to this incredible story by explaining the important role in promoting RCP8.5 played by billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg.