2019 in climate change
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This article documents notable events, research findings, effects, and responses related to global warming and climate change during the year 2019.
Summaries[]
- In November, BioScience published a Warning article stating "we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency" and that an "immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis".[1]
Measurements and statistics[]
- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and the WMO reported that 2019 was the second hottest year in its 140-year climate record—0.04°C (0.07°F) cooler than 2016—with the U.K. Met Office ranking it among the three hottest.[3]
- NOAA also reported that ocean heat content—the amount of heat stored in the upper levels of the ocean—was the highest ever recorded.[3]
- NOAA also reported that both the Antarctic and Arctic oceans recorded their second smallest average annual sea-ice coverage during the 1979–2019 period of record.[3]
- The WMO Global Atmosphere Watch in-situ observational network showed that carbon dioxide (410.5±0.2 ppm), methane (1877±2 ppb) and nitrous oxide (332.0±0.1 ppb) reached new highs in 2019, respectively constituting 148%, 260% and 123% of pre-industrial levels.[4]
- The fire season in Sakha (Siberia) was unprecedented in the 20-year MODIS record in terms of an earlier start and northern extent, with some fires burning only about 11 km from the Chukchi Sea.[5] From March through June, the burned area was greater than 2.9 times the 20-year mean.[5]
- The Rhodium Group estimated that China contributed over 27% of total 2019 global greenhouse gas emissions (14 of 52 gigatons), surpassing the emissions of all OECD countries combined, though trailing them in per capita emissions; China was followed by the U.S. (11%), India (6.6%), Europe-27 (6.4%).[6]
Events and phenomena[]
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Actions and goals[]
Political, economic, cultural actions[]
- In 2019, Amazon and Global Optimism co-founded The Climate Pledge whose signatory companies pledge net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, stimulating investment in low-carbon products and services.[7]
- In March, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, also receiving a nomination the following year.[8]
- In September, Thunberg spoke at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, criticizing world leaders for inaction on climate change.[9]
- In December, Thunberg was named TIME Person of the Year.[10]
- In Norway, electric cars comprised 54% of all new vehicle sales for 2019, making it the first country to have sold more electric cars than petrol, hybrid, and diesel engines in a year.[11] The government planned to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2025.[11]
Mitigation goal statements[]
Adaptation goal statements[]
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Consensus[]
- The consensus among research scientists on anthropogenic global warming grew to 100%, based on a review of 11,602 peer-reviewed articles on "climate change" and "global warming" published in the first 7 months of 2019.[13]
- A 2019 survey indicated a clear majority of people around the world think climate change is happening and that it is all or partly down to human actions.[14] However, 17% of Americans polled agreed that "the idea of manmade global warming is a hoax that was invented to deceive people", only Saudi Arabia and Indonesia having a higher proportion of people doubtful of manmade climate change.[14]
Projections[]
- In January, the World Economic Forum listed top 10 risks by likelihood (extreme weather events as #1, failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as #2, man-made environmental damage and disasters as #6) and by impact (failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as #2, extreme weather events as #3, man-made environmental damage and disasters as #9).[15]
Significant publications[]
- "Emissions Gap Report 2019" (PDF). UNenvironment.org. U.N. Environment Programme. 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 November 2020.
- Herring, Stephanie C.; Christidis, Nikolaos; Hoell, Andrew; Hoerling, Martin P.; Stott, Peter A., eds. (January 2021). "Explaining Extreme Events or 2019 From a Climate Perspective" (PDF). AMetSoc.net. American Meteorological Society. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 January 2021.
- Myers, Joe; Whiting, Kate (16 January 2019). "These are the biggest risks facing our world in 2019". WEForum.org. World Economic Forum. Archived from the original on 14 January 2021.
- Ripple, William J.; Wolf, Christopher; Newsome, Thomas M.; Baarnard, Phoebe; et al. (5 November 2019). "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency". BioScience. 70 (1): 8–12. doi:10.1093/biosci/biz088.
- Watts, Nick; Amann, Markus; Arnell, Nigel; Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja; et al. (13 November 2019). "The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate". The Lancet. 394 (10211): 1836–1878. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32596-6. PMID 31733928. S2CID 207976337.
- "Arctic Report Card: Update for 2020 / The sustained transformation to a warmer, less frozen and biologically changed Arctic remains clear" (PDF). National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). December 2020. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 December 2020. The Report Card comprises specific reports including:
- • York, A.; Bhatt, U.S.; Gargulinski, E.; Grabinski, Z.; et al. (December 2020). "Wildland Fire in High Northern Latitudes". NOAA.gov. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). doi:10.25923/2gef-3964. Archived from the original on 10 December 2020.
See also[]
- Climatology § History
- History of climate change policy and politics
- History of climate change science
- Politics of climate change § History
References[]
- ^ Ripple et al. 2019.
- ^ "Global Climate Change / Vital Signs of the Planet". climate.NASA.gov. NASA. 31 December 2019. Archived from the original on 31 December 2019.
- ^ a b c "2019 was 2nd hottest year on record for Earth say NOAA, NASA". NOAA.gov. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 15 January 2020. Archived from the original on 11 December 2020.
- ^ "WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin / The State of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere Basd on Global Observations through 2019". WMO.int. World Meteorological Organization. 23 November 2020. p. 2. Archived from the original on 1 December 2020.
- ^ a b York et al. 2020.
- ^ Larsen, Kate; Pitt, Hannah; Grant, Mikhail; Houser, Trevor (6 May 2021). "China's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Exceeded the Developed World for the First Time in 2019". RHG.com. The Rhodium Group. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021.
- ^ "About The Climate Pledge". TheClimatePledge.com. 2019. Archived from the original on 6 March 2021.
- ^ Solsvik, Terje (26 February 2020). "Climate activist Thunberg heads growing field of Nobel Peace Prize candidates". Reuters. Archived from the original on 10 November 2020.
- ^ "Transcript: Greta Thunberg's Speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit". NPR.org. 23 September 2019. Archived from the original on 3 October 2019.
- ^ Alter, Charlotte; Haynes, Suyin; Worland, Justin (December 2019). "TIME 2019 Person of the Year / Greta Thunberg". TIME. Archived from the original on 11 December 2019.
- ^ a b Dawson, Bethany (5 January 2021). "Norway becomes first country to sell more electric cars than petrol vehicles". The Independent. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021.
- ^ Cook, John; Oreskes, Naomi; Doran, Peter T.; Anderegg, William R. L.; et al. (2016). "Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming". Environmental Research Letters. 11 (4): 048002. Bibcode:2016ERL....11d8002C. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002.
- ^ a b Powell, James (20 November 2019). "Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming". Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 37 (4): 183–184. doi:10.1177/0270467619886266. S2CID 213454806.
- ^ a b Milman, Oliver; Harvey, Fiona (8 May 2019). "US is hotbed of climate change denial, major global survey finds". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 21 December 2020.
- ^ Myers & Whiting 2019.
External links[]
Categories:
- 2019 in science
- Climate change
- History of climate variability and change
- Global environmental issues
- 2019 in the environment