The last four years were the warmest ever recorded, and now, according to new research, 2018-2022 could also be “anomalously warm” – even beyond what the steady increase in global warming would produce on its own, the Washington Post reports. The study, published in Nature Communications, found that the time period could include another record warmest year, as well as an an increased risk of heat extremes. Their research also suggests that the oceans will warm more rapidly than the air above land, which could increase the risk of hurricanes, typhoons and other extreme weather. Rather than using traditional climate simulation techniques, the scientists developed a new statistical method to “search through simulations of climatic conditions in the 20th and 21st Century and look for situations that are comparable to the present day”, BBC News reports. They then used these climatic “analogues” to deduce future possibilities. Florian Sevellec, an associate professor in ocean physics at Southampton University, and the study’s lead author, told the Times that warm phase they predict in their study would be due to both global warming and ‘natural variability’: “On top of this long-term warming, we suggest that the natural variability puts us in a warm phase that superimposes a warm anomaly [about] twice as big as the effect of global warming on its own.” The Guardianexplains: “From 1998 to 2010, global temperatures were in a ‘hiatus’ as natural cooling (from ocean circulation and weather systems) offset anthropogenic global warming. But the planet has now entered almost the opposite phase, when natural trends are boosting man-made effects.” Prof Gabi Hegerl, of Edinburgh University, praised the paper but suggested that wider analysis was also needed: “The findings suggest it’s more likely we’ll get warmer years than expected in the next few years. But their method is purely statistical, so it’s important to see what climate models predict based on everything we know about the atmosphere and the oceans.” The research was widely covered elsewhere, including in the Mirror, the Independent, the Daily Express, the Metro, the Daily Telegraph and the Mail Online.

The UN’s agriculture chief José Graziano da Silva, has warned that improving the planet’s “frequently forgotten” soil health should be a key priority for tackling climate change and mitigating its impacts, BusinessGreen reports. “Soil degradation affects food production, causing hunger and malnutrition, amplifying food-price volatility, forcing land abandonment and involuntary migration-leading millions into poverty”, da Silva said at a soil science conference in Rio de Janeiro. “Maintaining and increasing soil carbon stock should become a priority,” he urged, noting the potential of soils to sequester and store carbon dioxide.

Scientists have managed to produce a carbon-storing mineral known as magnesite in a lab, an advancement which “could boost the burgeoning field of carbon capture and storage”, the Independent reports. Every ton of magnesite is capable of removing around half a ton of CO2 from the atmosphere, a the process normally takes thousands of years. But the researchers managed to condense the process to a few days, by using polystyrene microspheres as a catalyst to speed up the reactions that form this rock. Professor Ian Power, who led the study, commented: “For now, we recognise that this is an experimental process, and will need to be scaled up before we can be sure that magnesite can be used in carbon sequestration…This depends on several variables, including the price of carbon and the refinement of the sequestration technology, but we now know that the science makes it doable”.

The UK is on the verge of generating its electricity without coal during the summer, according to new research conducted by Imperial College London on behalf of the energy group Drax. Coal produced less then 1% of the nation’s electricity supply in June, and wasn’t used at all for 12 days during that month. The latest quarterly report also discovered that there were twice as many coal-free hours between April and June this year as in the whole of 2016 and 2017 combined.

In the years ahead, “media outlets will eventually abandon their desire for ‘balanced’ coverage and cease pandering to climate sceptics, in the same way that flat-Earthers are not invited to debate with astronomers”, predicts Joseph Curtin, in a comment piece for the Irish edition of the Times. However, “As we make this transition to a more realistic debate, we must avoid a new pitfall: we should not skip from scepticism to hopelessness”, he warns. “Instead, we must be inspired to act…Ireland must demonstrate that a vibrant economy can be combined with bold climate action.” He suggests that “a big carbon tax increase is not a silver bullet but it would be an important step in the right direction”.

A feature in the Washington Post investigates how a toxic algal bloom that is ‘poisoning’ wildlife along Florida’s southwest coast could have been exacerbated by human activity. Allowing fertiliser to run off into natural water sources is the “main culprit”, she writes, but human-caused climate change also plays a role. “As air and ocean temperatures increase, the environment becomes more hospitable to toxic algal blooms in several ways”, Fritz explains. Cyanobacteria flourishes at warmer temperatures, while extreme rain events wash more fertiliser into the ocean. Sea level rise could also encourage the algae: “As places such as Tampa, Miami and Charleston, S.C., lose shoreline, the ocean gains more shallow, warm water along the coast, and a larger area of highly favourable breeding ground for algae.”

“Record temperatures raise wrenching questions about the future viability of cities such as Phoenix”, writes Oliver Milman, in the latest instalment of the Guardian’s ‘Sweltering cities’ series. “Heat is rapidly becoming a national problem”, Milman writes, “heat already kills more Americans than floods, hurricanes or other ecological disasters”. And it’s set to get worse: “Climate change is spurring increasingly punishing heatwaves that are projected to cause tens of thousands of deaths in major US cities in the coming decades”, he explains. In another article for the series, Philip Oldfield asks: “What would a heat-proof city look like?” “With the frequency and intensity of heatwaves increasing we need to urgently tackle the excess heat we face both inside our buildings, and in our cities’ outside spaces”, he writes. The piece continues: “Fortunately, there are many ways in which we can mitigate the urban heat island effect – while also creating more attractive places to live, work and play.”

Jair Bolsonaro, a frontrunner in the race for Brazil’s presidency, has said that he would withdraw Brazil from the Paris climate agreement if he wins the election in October. His comments echo the remarks of US president Donald Trump, who has said that he intends to pull the US out of the international climate pact. Bolsonaro is polling second behind Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but “Lula” is currently in jail for corruption and likely to be disqualified by the courts, Climate Home explains. UN environment chief Erik Solheim was unimpressed by Bolsonaro’s position: “A rejection of the Paris Agreement is a rejection of science and fact…It’s also a false promise, because politicians who present climate action as a cost to society have got it all wrong”, he commented. Earlier this year, Carbon Brief published a profile detailing how Brazil, one of the world’s key emitters, is positioned to tackle climate change.

The next four years could be “anomalously warm”, according to a new forecast published in Nature Communications. The period of warming could be “associated with an increased likelihood of intense to extreme temperatures,” the researchers say. “For 2018–2022, the probabilistic forecast indicates a warmer than normal period, with respect to the forced trend. This will temporarily reinforce the long-term global warming trend.”