🏔️ Swiss Village Buried After Glacier Collapse

🏔️ Swiss Village Buried After Glacier Collapse

On Wednesday, the village of Blatten in Switzerland was largely destroyed after part of a glacier collapsed and crashed down into the valley. Thankfully, the village of 300 people had been evacuated ahead of time due to fears that the glacier was disintegrating. However, one person has been reported missing and many homes are destroyed. Climate change is causing the glaciers to melt faster, and the permafrost that holds the high mountains together is also thawing. This is not the first village to be evacuated due to concerns of glaciers melting and causing landslides, and it won’t be the last. The most recent report on Switzerland’s glaciers suggests they could all be gone within a century if global temperatures are not kept within a rise of 1.5C of pre-industrial levels. Many scientists believe that threshold has already been surpassed, meaning the glaciers thaw will continue to accelerate, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides, and threatening more communities.

Imogen Foulkes, BBC News

🥇 Direct Air Capture Competition for Carbon Removal

Deep Sky, one of Canada’s more high-profile carbon removal startups, will host a carbon removal competition. Eight different versions of a similar direct air capture technology will take in air, remove the carbon dioxide, and send it to a central plant where it will be compressed and liquified for storage deep underground. Deep Sky plans to take the most effective versions of the technology and deploy them on a commercial scale all over Canada. Companies like Deep Sky see a growing need for this type of technology as the world continues to warm, and Canada sees this as an opportunity to become a world leader in carbon removal as the U.S. takes a step back.

The Weather Network via CBC News

🔥 Multiple Years of Extreme Heat Predicted

According to a new five-year forecast released on Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.K. Meteorological Office, there is an 80% chance that the world will break another annual temperature record by 2030. The forecast estimates there is an 86% chance that one of the next five years will pass 1.5C and a 70% chance that the five years as a whole will average more than that global milestone. These projections come from more than 200 forecasts using computer simulations run by 10 global centers of scientists. 10 years ago, the same teams predicted about a 1% chance that one of the upcoming years would exceed the critical 1.5C threshold, which happened last year. Experts say that with the next five years forecast to be more than 1.5C warmer than pre-industrial levels, more people will be at risk of severe heat waves and severe wildfires, bringing more deaths and severe health impacts.

Seth Borenstein, AP News

Need to Catch Up?

If you’re new here, or if you missed any of our other newsletters in May, here is a recap:

• 🚙 Less Bug Splatter on U.K. Vehicles

• 🍳 Cooking Emissions Rival Fossil Fuels in L.A.

• 🤰 Climate Change Could Make Pregnancy Riskier

• 🐧 Penguin Poop Mitigates Climate Change