The Washington Post notes that this summer exposed human civilization to its hottest season ever. In late July, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, we experienced the four hottest days ever recorded. “Nearly 7,000 weather stations in the United States broke daily temperature records.” Lethal heatwaves struck the northern hemisphere, there was a very powerful Asian monsoon and outbreaks of wildfires grew larger, exacerbated by heat and aridity (winter temperature records were also broken in Antarctica). This is, of course, not a surprise, but rather is exactly the kind of summer we can expect as greenhouse gases continue to trap energy on the planet. One scientist noted that, soon, “what we’re experiencing right now will be looked back upon as a mild year. We are inevitably in for a rough ride.”

One of the greatest challenges in preparing for sea level rise is understanding how quickly it will happen. The faster it happens, the harder it will be for our communities to adapt. Key to the rate of rise is the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. If it disintegrates quickly, sea level could be 2 meters higher than it otherwise might be. The New York Times reports on recent research suggesting that one scenario for ice sheet disintegration appears less probable than before. This new study concludes from modeling that rapid disintegration due to ice-cliff instability — where the retreating Thwaites glacier has ever-larger ice cliffs at its face that collapse more rapidly — seems less likely. While this is a welcome perspective, the author notes: “We’re not saying that we’re safe. The Antarctic ice sheet is going to disappear; this is going to happen. The question is how fast.”

There is still much we need to learn (and measure) with regards to Antarctic glaciers (and Thwaites in particular) before we assert that the risk of sea level rise acceleration has been reduced. Another new paper, which studied a large number of sea level rise models, concludes that “the choice of ice sheet model remains the leading source of uncertainty in multi‐century projections” for sea level rise. This is because there are still unknowns regarding the dynamics of ice sheets in the face of the rapid temperature rise we are experiencing (rapid for humans, insanely rapid for ice sheets). Indeed, we still cannot model the collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf, even though it happened before our very eyes.

When you think of it, it seems a bit funny to use the level of something that is known to change (hourly and over centuries) as a standard (e.g., is Mt. Rainer still 14,411 feet above sea level?). The New Yorker examines the cultural history of the concept of sea level, which emerged as a standard not entirely based on scientific principles. Indeed, scientists simultaneously struggled to find a universal baseline for sea level, while at the same time documenting its continuous change. For many decades, different countries had different baselines for sea level, as science continued to understand sea level adequately to explain the past and project the future. Ironically, the author notes a 1959 warning from the American Petroleum Institute (API) that, if the world continued to burn oil, “the ice caps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise.”

The AP reports that, just as the API predicted, sea level rise is accelerating. According to the United Nations, global average sea level rose 1.3 centimeters a decade from 1900-1970, but this jumped to 1.9 centimeters per decade from 1970 to 2006. From 2006 to 2018, the rate rose to 3.7 centimeters a decade (Donald Trump’s make-believe statistics notwithstanding). This article describes in some detail the situation in the South Pacific, where low-lying island nations are particularly vulnerable and sea level is rising faster than the global average. Other cities that are seeing higher-than-average sea level rise include “Shanghai, Perth, London, Atlantic City, New Jersey; Boston, Miami and New Orleans.” Grist describes how land subsidence is making sea level rise along the U.S. Gulf Coast more severe, allowing storm surges to move farther inland. The subsidence is not consistent across the region, and is much more severe in areas where groundwater extraction has been higher.

One response to coastal flooding is “managed retreat,” in which residents of low-lying areas relocate themselves voluntarily (some point out that the alternative is chaotic retreat). South Carolina is a leader in this effort, and Inside Climate News notes that “in June 2023 the South Carolina Office of Resilience (SCOR) published a resilience plan estimating that 700,000 flood-prone houses will have to be torn down, and mapping where those areas are along the coast.” Planning for managed retreat is one thing; making it happen is another. Finding the resources, and then convincing residents to accept buyouts, has proven to be difficult. Often, unscrupulous developers purchase damaged homes, repair them and then sell them to unsuspecting new buyers (there is no national standard for disclosing flood risk to prospective buyers).

When “managed retreat” comes up before me in my role as an appointed official, I normally respond by saying “retreat to where?” Grist illuminates some of the complications at the relocation end of “managed retreat” by examining the challenges facing Houston’s effort to relocate some 200,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. At the time, Houston Mayor Bill White opened the Astrodome to those leaving New Orleans, and dedicated his city to helping these displaced people in a humanitarian effort that was widely admired. But political complications ensued, and, “despite the fact that the evacuees didn’t make life harder for most native Houstonians, the city’s longtime residents still soured on them, confronting them with the same attitudes that international migrants often face upon arriving in the United States.” While a planned retreat and an emergency relocation are not completely analogous, there is no doubt that social and economic issues will complicate such efforts.

The New York Times is in Minnesota where the state’s largest coal-fired power plant is being replaced by large solar and battery facilities. The Sherburne County Generating Station has been operating using three coal units, one of which is already closed with the other two closing in the next few years. This is happening around the country, and consequently coal is producing only 16% of the nation’s electricity as opposed to 52% in 1990. While most people in the community understand that this is a transition that cannot be stopped, there is uncertainty and anxiety about whether the solar project can really replace the coal plant (both for economic opportunities and power production). There has already been an impact to local farmers, as leases for solar at $900/acre are causing landowners to switch from leasing to farmers at $200/acre. The Times reports on the efforts to have large solar arrays also support biodiversity by selecting and maintaining plant communities that share sites with the panels.

The New York Times examines the revolution that has occurred for solar power in the past decade as costs have plummeted. A “moonshot” goal from 10 years ago was to get solar module costs down to $1/watt, but now they have reached 10¢/watt and are being produced at a massive scale. In 2023 alone, manufacturing costs dropped by almost half. The author notes that Pakistan is importing so much rooftop solar technology from China that, in just six months, “the country increased its electricity capacity by 30 percent.” There are a wide array of impacts that are emerging, including a regular experience of “negative prices” in electricity markets when electrical supply exceeds demand. There are also geopolitical implications, as arid countries long dependent upon imported energy obtain more autonomy when domestic energy is more available.

Inside Climate News reports on a recent study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which shows that the average size of residential solar installations in the country has increased from 2.4 KW in 2000 to 7.4 KW in 2024. This is predominantly due to the panels themselves being more efficient (how much incident solar energy is converted to electricity). As of 2011, no residential panels achieved 20% efficiency but, by last year, more than 90% of panels met that mark. Average prices in the U.S. for residential solar have declined from $14.20/watt in 2004 to $4.20/watt in 2024.

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