Thanks to Shale, U.S. CO2 Emissions Continued to Decline in 2016

by Nicole Jacobs, October 3, 2017 in ClimateChangeDispatch


The report, which bases its CO2 emissions estimates off International Energy Agency (IEA) and BP data through 2016, found the global CO2 levels essentially remained flat in 2015 and 2016. As BP noted earlier this year, the global trend is “well below the 10-year average growth of 1.6% and a third consecutive year of below-average growth” and that “during 2014-16, average emissions growth has been the lowest over any three-year period since 1981-83.”

Tropical explosive volcanic eruptions can trigger El Niño by cooling tropical Africa

by M. Khodri et al., October 3,  2017 in Nature


Stratospheric aerosols from large tropical explosive volcanic eruptions backscatter shortwave radiation and reduce the global mean surface temperature. Observations suggest that they also favour an El Niño within 2 years following the eruption. Modelling studies have, however, so far reached no consensus on either the sign or physical mechanism of El Niño response to volcanism