Notices by CelloMom On Cars (cellomomoncars@mastodon.social), page 6

" Four people died in Spain, two in France and two in Italy as an early summer heatwave continued to grip much of Europe .

"In the coming days, we'll see the consequences, particularly on the most vulnerable, and I'm thinking particularly of the elderly," she said.

Swiss utility Axpo shut down one reactor unit at the Beznau nuclear power plant and halved output at another on Tuesday because of the high temperature of river water."

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/two-die-spain-wildfire-two-deaths-france-european-heatwave-2025-07-02/

"Germany will carry out emergency repairs on its autobahn this weekend after #ExtremeHeat in recent days blew up large chunks of concrete along key stretches of the highway."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-04/germany-s-autobahn-cracks-after-heat-wave-hits-europe

"Heatwaves are becoming more frequent in Europe, putting electricity grids under severe stress. Complementing the vast volumes of solar, solutions like clean flexibility and interconnection can help maintain grid stability."

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/heat-and-power-impacts-of-the-2025-heatwave-in-europe/

"Fire evacuations in Greece and Turkey while temperatures in Spain and Portugal hit 46C."

And rivers will be running low this summer, with consequences for shipping, power generation, and agriculture.

https://www.ft.com/content/6390eb2c-6415-4a53-bcfa-ea086dc2ef02

"Up to 94% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate families were wiped out. Tropical forests – which served, as they do today, as important carbon sinks that helped regulate the planet’s temperature – also experienced massive declines.

The decline of tropical forests locked Earth in a hothouse state, confirming scientists’ suspicion that when our planet’s climate crosses certain “tipping points”, truly catastrophic ecological collapse can follow."

https://theconversation.com/around-250-million-years-ago-earth-was-near-lifeless-and-locked-in-a-hothouse-state-now-scientists-know-why-260203

The ‘Great Dying’ wiped out 90% of life, then came 5 million years of lethal heat. New fossils explain why

"The loss of vegetation during the mass extinction event significantly reduced the planet’s ability to store carbon, meaning very high levels remained in the atmosphere.

The study ... shows what might happen if rapid global warming causes the planet’s rainforests to collapse in the future — a tipping point scientists are very concerned about."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/02/climate/great-dying-extinction-tipping-point-tropical-forests

Here is the research paper,
"Energy costs of communicating with AI"

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2025.1572947/full

Thanks to @Ciclop for the link.

"Researchers in Germany tested 14 large language model (LLM) AI systems by asking them both free-response and multiple-choice questions. Complex questions produced up to six times more carbon dioxide emissions than questions with concise answers.
In addition, “smarter” LLMs with more reasoning abilities produced up to 50 times more carbon emissions than simpler systems to answer the same question, the study reported."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/22/climate/ai-prompt-carbon-emissions-environment-wellness

"Analysis by MIT Technology Review provides an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses—down to a single query—to trace where its carbon footprint stands now, and where it’s headed

The latest reports show that 4.4% of all the energy in the US now goes toward data centers.
Individuals may end up footing some of the bill for this AI revolution."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/

"Google’s carbon emissions have soared by 51% since 2019 as [ "AI" ] hampers the tech company’s efforts to go green.

The International Energy Agency estimates that datacentres’ total electricity consumption could double from 2022 levels to 1,000TWh (terawatt hours) in 2026, approximately Japan’s level of electricity demand. AI will result in datacentres using 4.5% of global energy generation by 2030, according to calculations by the research firm SemiAnalysis."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/google-emissions-ai-electricity-demand-derail-efforts-green

"Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US.

Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/29/lone-star-ticks-increase-climate-crisis

Memorable quote:

"Lone star ticks are aggressive and can speedily follow a human target if they detect them. “They will hunt you, they are like a cross between a lentil and a velociraptor,” said Sharon Pitcairn Forsyth, a conservationist who lives in the Washington DC area."

A lentil and a velociraptor. Dang.
Anyway, learn how to stay away from them.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/29/lone-star-ticks-increase-climate-crisis

Much climate news remains behind paywalls.
(But climate denying news tends to be freely accessible).

"The vast majority of Americans (83%) say they have not paid for news in the past year, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March.

At the same time, 74% run into paywalls at least sometimes when they are looking for news online. "

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/24/few-americans-pay-for-news-when-they-encounter-paywalls/

Volcanic aerosols have a cooling effect. But "Hunga Tonga’s eruption presented a unique scenario: As a submarine volcano, it introduced an unprecedented amount of water vapor into the stratosphere, increasing total stratospheric water content by about 10%."

But water vapour is a wildcard; it's looking like the eruption gave global cooling not heating. So the exceptional heat in the past two years is even harder to account for.

https://scitechdaily.com/volcanic-turnaround-how-hunga-tongas-eruption-contradicts-global-warming-expectations/

“Records will continue to fall next year, especially as the growing #ElNiño begins to take hold, exposing billions to unusual #heat,” said Andrew Pershing, vice president for science at Climate Central. “While #climate impacts are most acute in developing countries near the equator, seeing climate-fueled streaks of #ExtremeHeat in the US, India, Japan and Europe underscores that no one is safe from #ClimateChange.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-09/-no-one-is-safe-from-climate-change-after-hottest-12-months-ever-recorded

"This year is "virtually certain" to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday, after data showed last month was the world's hottest October in that period.

Last month smashed through the previous October temperature record, from 2019, by a massive margin [0.4C], the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said."

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/this-year-virtually-certain-be-warmest-125000-years-eu-scientists-say-2023-11-08/

Surge in #OceanHeat is a sign #ClimateChange is accelerating

"The rate of warming in the oceans has more than quadrupled since 1985, suggesting global warming in general has undergone a marked acceleration."

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2465689-surge-in-ocean-heat-is-a-sign-climate-change-is-accelerating/

'Looking back at the most extreme months of heat in the second half of 2023 and early 2024 when the previous records were beaten at times by more than 0.2C, an enormous anomaly, he said scientists were still baffled: “We don’t have a quantitative explanation for even half of it. That is pretty humbling.”"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/15/we-should-have-better-answers-by-now-climate-scientists-baffled-by-unexpected-pace-of-heating

"The world's cloud cover has been shrinking significantly and may help explain the extraordinary heat of the last two years, new research led by NASA found."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-19/shrinking-cloud-cover-driving-temperature-records/105428180

"Ocean temperatures are now rising at a rate of 0.27C per decade, compared to 0.06C 40 years ago. That acceleration is fueled by an increase in the Earth’s energy balance, which has roughly doubled since 2010 as greenhouse gas concentrations have increased and disappearing ice has meant less sunlight is reflected back into space, the study concluded."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-28/global-warming-helps-quadruple-rate-of-ocean-heating-in-recent-years