Jillian W Gregg’s research while affiliated with Oregon State University and other places

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Publications (14)


BioScience - Cover - Volume 74, Issue 12, December 2024
BioScience - Cover - Volume 74, Issue 12, December 2024
  • Cover Page
  • File available

December 2024

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305 Reads

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Jillian W Gregg

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Cover: Devastation in Asheville, North Carolina, following the effects of Hurricane Helene, which caused billions of dollars of damage in the Southeast United States and other regions. In this issue’s “2024 State of the Climate Report,” an international team of scientists, led by Oregon State University’s William Ripple and Christopher Wolf, present alarming evidence that climate change is worsening at a dangerous pace. In the report, the authors update 35 annually published “planetary vital signs,” which provide ongoing timeseries of human climate-related activities and climate responses, and discuss the growing frequency of extreme weather events. Photograph: Bill McMannis, via Flickr (CC-BY 2.0).

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Figure 1. Unusual climate anomalies in 2023 and 2024. Ocean temperatures (a, b) are presently far outside their historical ranges. These anomalies reflect the combined effect of long-term climate change and short-term variability. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1. Each line corresponds to a different year, with darker gray representing later years. All of the variables shown are daily estimates.
Figure 2. Timeseries of climate-related human activities. The data obtained since the publication of Ripple and colleagues (2023a) are shown in red (dark gray in black and white). In panel (f), tree cover loss does not account for forest gain and includes loss due to any cause. For panel (h), hydroelectricity and nuclear energy are shown in supplemental figure S3. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1.
Figure 3. Timeseries of climate-related responses. The data obtained before and after the publication of Ripple and colleagues (2023a) are shown in gray and red (dark gray in black and white), respectively. For area burned (m) and billion-dollar flood frequency (o) in the United States, the black horizontal lines show changepoint model estimates, which allow for abrupt shifts (see the supplement). For other variables with relatively high variability, local regression trendlines are shown in black. The variables were measured at various frequencies (e.g., annual, monthly, weekly). The labels on the x-axis correspond to midpoints of years. Billion-dollar flood frequency (o) is influenced by exposure and vulnerability in addition to climate change. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1.
Figure 4. Photograph series depicting the impacts of climate-related disasters. First row (left to right): Rescue of people stranded by floods in the city of Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil, 2024; Duda Fortes, Agência RBS), “Drought in Ethiopia due to rains unrealised” (Ethiopia, 2011; Oxfam East Africa; CC BY 2.0). Second row: Firefighters contain a bushfire burning around the town of Aberdare (Australia, 2013; Quarrie Photography, Jeff Walsh, Cass Hodge; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0), The aftermath of Hurricane Matthew (Haiti, 2016; UN Photo/Logan Abassi; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Third row: Inspection of a storm-damaged roadway in California (United States, 2023; Andrew Avitt/USDA Forest Service), Remnants of a house on Leyte island that was destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan (The Philippines, 2013; Trocaire/Wikimedia; CC BY 2.0). All quotes are from the Climate Visuals project (https://climatevisuals.org). See supplemental file S1 for details and more pictures.
Figure 5. Climate change spotlight topics. Already, many serious climate impacts are occurring, including coral bleaching (a) and permafrost thaw contributing to orange rivers with reduced fish abundance and drinking water quality (b). Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of scientific publications related to solar radiation modification (c). A survey of hundreds of IPCC senior authors and review editors indicates that the majority expect catastrophic warming of at least 2.5 degrees Celsius this century (d). Extreme heat is expected to disproportionately affect people in less wealthy countries that have lower emissions (e). Climate change could eventually contribute to societal collapse—a possibility that is increasingly being considered by researchers (f). See supplemental file S1 for data sources and details. Photographs: (a) Acropora/Wikimedia Commons, (b) Ken Hill/National Park Service.
The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth

October 2024

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2,252 Reads

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25 Citations

BioScience

Our aim in the present article is to communicate directly to researchers, policymakers, and the public. As scientists and academics, we feel it is our moral duty and that of our institutions to alert humanity to the growing threats that we face as clearly as possible and to show leadership in addressing them. In this report, we analyze the latest trends in a wide array of planetary vital signs. We also review notable recent climate-related disasters, spotlight important climate-related topics, and discuss needed policy interventions. This report is part of our series of concise annual updates on the state of the climate.


Visualizing a restorative pathway. Each panel shows a different planetary vital sign, including historical estimates and projections through 2100 under the SSP1-1.9 scenario, when available. Stylized projections for the proposed restorative pathway are only shown for cases where it likely differs substantially from SSP1-1.9; these projections are intended as a general qualitative overview of the pathway. All variables show a history of rapid change, often beginning around 1850 when fossil fuel use began to accelerate rapidly. See supplemental methods for sources and details on the variables.
An environmental and socially just climate mitigation pathway for a planet in peril

January 2024

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309 Reads

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8 Citations


The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory

October 2023

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1,087 Reads

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108 Citations

BioScience

Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in an unchartedterritory. For several decades, scientists have consistently warnedof a future marked by extreme climatic conditions because of es-calating global temperatures caused by ongoing human activitiesthat release harmful greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Un-fortunately, time is up. We are seeing the manifestation of thosepredictions as an alarming and unprecedented succession of climate records are broken, causing profoundly distressing scenesof suffering to unfold. We are entering an unfamiliar domain re-garding our climate crisis, a situation no one has ever witnessedfirsthand in the history of humanity.In the present report, we display a diverse set of vital signsof the planet and the potential drivers of climate change andclimate-related responses first presented by Ripple and Wolf andcolleagues (2020), who declared a climate emergency, now withmore than 15,000 scientist signatories. The trends reveal newall-time climate-related records and deeply concerning patternsof climate-related disasters. At the same time, we report mini-mal progress by humanity in combating climate change. Giventhese distressing developments, our goal is to communicate cli-mate facts and policy recommendations to scientists, policymak-ers, and the public. It is the moral duty of us scientists and ourinstitutions to clearly alert humanity of any potential existentialthreat and to show leadership in taking action. This report is partof our series of concise and easily accessible yearly updates on thestate of the climate crisis.








Citations (9)


... In the current times of worsening climate change, more extreme environmental events, and increasing biodiversity loss, among other ecological challenges, humanity needs as many people as possible to understand and use ecological science, especially regarding its applications to environmental management and policy development (Ripple et al. 2024). Ensuring that future societies and workforces are better positioned to address social-ecological challenges, particularly those related to environmental injustices and inequalities, should be a central goal for ecology education (Johnson and Mappin 2005, Lewinsohn et al. 2015, Martusewicz et al. 2020, Kellogg 2023. ...

Reference:

Diversifying Ecology Education for Everyone Through More Inclusive, Interdisciplinary, and Accessible Teaching
The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth

BioScience

... Forests are best understood through the multitude of relationships, connections, interdependencies and feedbacks that shape them, and CMNs are part of these processes (Perry et al., 1989;Simard et al., 2012;Beiler et al., 2015;Bennett et al., 2017). The intent of Simard (2021) was to engage people in how CMNs help shape temperate forests, and whether the unraveling of these connections and relationships through industrial forest management is worth the risks of biodiversity loss and climate change (Moomaw et al., 2019;IPCC, 2023;Ripple et al., 2024;Betts et al., 2024), or whether more holistic approaches are needed (Mazzocchi, 2012;Filotas et al., 2014;Sands et al., 2023;Robinson et al., 2021;Drever et al., 2021;Mina et al., 2022). Metaphors such as "mother tree" were used to help make these concepts more relatable to the public. ...

An environmental and socially just climate mitigation pathway for a planet in peril

... Scientists and environmentalists from around the planet are sounding code red alarms. No less than 15,000 scientists issued a sobering warning in late 2023 that the entire Earth is "under siege " [ 9 ]. Another article in a leading journal, Science Advances , cautioned that "Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity " [ 10 ]. ...

The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory
  • Citing Article
  • October 2023

BioScience

... Two recent studies assert humanity's ability to feed 10 billion people; all we need to do is completely reinvent global agriculture (Gerten et al., 2020;Springmann et al., 2018). But whatever might be possible hypothetically in the future, a warming atmosphere, melting tundra, burning forests, shrinking and dying rivers, acidifying oceans, bleaching corals and dwindling wildlife all testify to humanity's excessive numbers today (Ripple et al., 2020;Richardson et al., 2023). We are grossly overpopulated now, here, in the actual world we love and completely depend upon (Götmark et al., 2021). ...

World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021

BioScience

... 13 However, even though renewable energies are less expensive and minimize some harmful effects to the environment, such as greenhouse gas (GHG's) emissions, they are still considerably less consumed than fossil fuels. 14 The transition to renewable energy is a global trend that has been incorporated into energy policies in several countries. 10 Countries must develop a regulatory framework ensuring energy efficiency and integration of the population. ...

Special Report World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency 2022

... We note that interacting stressors, ocean response dynamics, GHG emissions overshoot, and cascade considerations have yet to be sufficiently evaluated. These and other uncertainties around TP sensitivities for such a crucially important ecosystem underline the imperative of robust assessment (Aronson and Precht, 2016;Dixon et al., 2021;Heinze et al., 2021;Laffoley et al., 2022;Lenton et al., 2023a) and, in the case of knowledge gaps and uncertainties, employing a precautionary principle (Rockström et al., 2021;OECD, 2022;Deutloff et al., 2023;Lenton et al., 2023b;Ripple et al., 2023;284 P. Pearce-Kelly et al.: Considerations for determining warm-water coral reef tipping points Fletcher et al., 2024) favouring lower-range threshold values. Recognising threat severity is essential if the necessary response actions are to be realised. ...

Many risky feedback loops amplify the need for climate action
  • Citing Article
  • February 2023

One Earth

... Most of the time, we are not aware of the impact this has on groundwater. Evidence of the consequences of climate change-induced impairment on our environment is growing by the day (Ripple et al., 2022), but the resulting impacts on groundwater are still largely unknown (Riedel 2019). Since groundwater is the most important source of raw drinking water (Margat and Van der Gun 2013), the possible negative effects of global warming on its quantity and quality cannot be ignored. ...

World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency 2022

BioScience

... It has been endorsed by the main global health organizations such as World Health Organization or World Organisation for Animal Health, and it is increasingly adopted by environmental institutions such as United Nations Environmental Program or the International Union for Nature Conservation (FAO, UNEP WHO, and WOAH 2022;Kock & Caceres-Escobar 2022). Most OH discussions focus on environmental, human and animal health issues (Ripple et al. 2022), but effective communication is essential to public health (World Health Organization 2005), and it should be further stressed in a OH perspective (Cipolla et al. 2015). The fact that none of the questions included in the afore-mentioned Eurobarometer deal with ZEDs constitutes a good example of the relatively low interest that this issue has received to date. ...

Zoonotic Diseases and Our Troubled Relationship With Nature

... While mitigation has historically been prioritized, adaptation is gaining recognition as a critical policy imperative [4]. Both strategies can work synergistically to create transformative solutions that address climate change while also uncovering opportunities [5]. The construction sector, a significant contributor to environmental damage, heavily relies on non-renewable resources, which not only harm the environment but also contribute to indoor air pollution [6]. ...

Six steps to integrate climate mitigation with adaptation for social justice
  • Citing Article
  • February 2022

Environmental Science & Policy