Climate Explained News Today

2023 could become the nation's costliest severe-weather year on record.

The Arctic region is warming much faster than the rest of the planet. The rapid loss of ice affects the polar jet stream, which influences weather patterns across the northern hemisphere.

But the key point to note is that we simply cannot continue to produce greenhouse gases and the demand for natural gas, as for coal and oil, will soon have to decline rapidly. In its draft package of recommendations to the Government, New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission has called for a stop to new connections to the natural gas grid for commercial and residential buildings after 2025. In that context, comparing the retail price of gas with electricity is not useful unless all other co...

Matt Palmer/Unsplash The gravitational changes when Antarctica melts do indeed affect sea levels all over the world – but not enough to save New Zealand from rising seas. “First, the addition to the sea occasioned by the melting of the ice from off the Antarctic land would tend to raise the general level of the sea. “Secondly, the removal of the ice would also tend to shift the Earth’s centre of gravity to the north of its present position – and as the sea must shift along with the ...

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Even with all humanity’s carbon emissions to date, there’s a lot less carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere than Venus, and Earth is further away from the Sun. But if carbon emissions continue at the current rate, is there any risk of ...