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The image on the right shows sea surface temperatures on July 6 for the years 2014 to 2018 at a location near Svalbard (at 77.958°N, 5.545°E), with an exponential trend added based on the data. The combination image below shows sea surface temperatures on July 6 for each of these years, with the location highlighted by a green circle: 2014:  -0.8°C or 30.6°F 2015:   6.2°C or 43.2°F 2016:   8.3°C or 47.0°F 2017: 14.4°C or 57.9°F 2018: 16.6°C or 61.9°F The situation reflects the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice over the years and constitutes a stark warning of imminent sea ice collapse and its consequences for the world at large. [ click on images to enlarge ] The image on the right shows the sea surface temperature on July 18, 2018, at that location. It was as warm as 17.2°C or 63°F near Svalbard. This compares to a sea surface temperature of 5°C or 41.1°F in 1981-2011 at that location (at the green circle). For more background on the warm water near Svalbard, als...

An excellent new paper by Mark Jacobson et al. describes 100% clean and renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for 53 towns and cities in North America. In the video below, Mark Jacobson discusses the 'Path to a 100% Renewable World'. Clean and renewable energy is not only cheaper, it also avoids health and climate damage many times greater than those savings. Additionally, clean and renewable energy provides more long-term full-time jobs, provides more robust and stable energy and provides greater energy safety and security, all with less need for land and water. Furthermore, clean and renewable energy avoids costs of insurance against nuclear accidents, avoids conflicts over fossil fuel resources, avoids pollution of oceans, soil and groundwater and avoids infrastructure for transport of drilling & mining equipment and fuel. Reductions in mining, drilling and fracking can also avoid falls in land values, with benefits for land owners and fo...

[ click on image to enlarge ] As an earlier Arctic-news analysis shows, Earth may have long crossed the 1.5°C guardrail set at the Paris Agreement. Earth may have already been in the Danger Zone since early 2014. This is shown by the image on the right associated with the analysis, which is based on NASA data that are adjusted to reflect a preindustrial baseline, air temperatures and Arctic temperatures. As the added 3rd-order polynomial trend shows, the world may also be crossing the higher 2°C guardrail later this year, while temperatures threaten to keep rising dramatically beyond that point. What is the threat? As described at the Threat , much carbon is stored in large and vulnerable pools that have until now been kept stable by low temperatures. The threat is that rapid temperature rise will hit vulnerable carbon pools hard, making them release huge amounts of greenhouse gases, further contributing to the acceleration of the temperature rise. Further release of greenhouse gases ...