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The Amazon’s second largest river, the Negro River, has reached its lowest levels since official measurements began 121 years ago.Michael Dantas/AFP via Getty Images
Amazon’s mighty rivers are running dry
The Amazon is facing a severe drought that has pushed water levels to dangerous lows. The lack of water has forced a major hydropower plant to shut down, dried up sources of drinking water and isolated tens of thousands of people in communities that are accessible only by boat. The bodies of endangered pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) have also washed up on shore. Climate change and deforestation have probably contributed to a series of wildfires that has made it harder for the rainforest to recover from extreme droughts. The El Niño weather event is making things worse, and it is still on the rise.
The New York Times | 7 min read
There’s still hope for Greenland’s ice sheet
Greenland’s melting will accelerate abruptly if the average global temperature increases by 2.3 °C above pre-industrial levels. But there’s still hope: even if temperatures cross this threshold, modelling suggests that humanity can significantly reduce the extent of melting if greenhouse gases are cut and warming is throttled back to 1.5 °C within a few centuries. This doesn’t mean that humanity should wait to take action against climate change, the researchers say, because ice loss could still cause up to several metres of sea-level rise.
World’s largest offshore wind farm is on
The world’s largest offshore wind farm has spun its first turbine and started sending power to the UK grid. The Dogger Bank Wind Farm is located 130 kilometres off the north-east coast of England. It will boast a total of 277 wind turbines and power more than six million UK homes once it is completed in 2026. Each rotation of the turbines’ huge 107-metre blades can produce enough energy to power an average UK home for two days.
New Scientist | 2 min read (free registration required)
COP28 marks end of the global stocktake
The first global stocktake (GST) of the world’s progress towards our climate goals is set to conclude at the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in December. The stocktake, which was set up as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, will happen every five years and aims to inspire countries to ratchet up their own commitments. Go deep into the timeline of the GST — and its possible sticking points — in this in-depth explainer.
Nature Climate Change | 4 min read
Features & opinion
How to save corals by spraying clouds
Pumping sea mist into the air might brighten clouds and keep corals in the Great Barrier Reef from frying under the Sun, writes biological oceanographer Daniel Patrick Harrison. Clouds with more water droplets reflect more sunshine, keeping the oceans below cooler. Harrison and his colleagues are already sending microscopic sea water droplets into the sky. The idea is not new — scientists have been considering it for more than 30 years — but this is the first time that the technology is being tested.
When cash-for-carbon trades go wrong
The world’s largest carbon-offsetting company, South Pole, sold millions of carbon credits and then didn’t do what it had promised. South Pole claimed to be protecting a swath of land near Lake Kariba on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, but exaggerated how much it had preserved and how much of that money — around US$40 million dollars — was going to the local communities. “It’s nothing to do with the environment or safeguarding our flora and fauna,” says Zimbabwean farmer Iain Foulds, a critic of the company. “This was about money.”
The attraction of non-rare-earth magnets
Magnets that don’t rely on rare-earth elements might accelerate the green-energy transition. Alternatives that are cheaper, more plentiful and less polluting — such as iron nitride, based on iron and nitrogen — are surfacing. But the shift away from well-established supply chains and production processes won’t be easy.
Infographic of the week
New tools can be used to adapt crops to air pollution and a changing climate, whether it’s genetic modification, statistical methods that help to explain genetic variation or plant breeding at the molecular level.E. Agathokleous et al./Nature Food
