Never-before-seen high temperatures and high humidity are resulting in thousands of heat injuries and hundreds of heat deaths across India. In some places, wet bulb readings appear to be approaching 35 C — a level of latent heat never endured by humans before fossil fuel burning forced global temperatures to rapidly warm. A reading widely-recognized as the limit of human physical endurance and one whose more frequent excession would commit the human race to enduring an increasing number of episodes of killing heat. A boundary that scientists like Dr. James Hansen warned would be exceeded if a human-forced warming of the world was not halted.
*****
And it is in this newly dangerous climate context that temperatures near 125 degrees Fahrenheit settled in over India’s border region with Pakistan yesterday. A blistering wave of crippling heat hitting never-before-seen readings over that highly-populated nation. In Phalodi, India, the mercury rocketed to 123.8 degrees Fahrenheit (51 degrees Celsius). This reading exceeded India’s previous all-time record high for any location which stood at 123.1 degrees Fahrenheit (50.6 degrees Celsius) set on May 25, 1886. Across the border in Pakistan, temperatures crossed “critical” thresholds this week, hitting 124.7 degrees Fahrenheit (51.5 degrees Celsius) Thursday in the city of Jacobabad as officials in that state issued health warnings to the public.
(Temperatures rocketed to 123-125 F along India’s border with Pakistan on Thursday. These are the hottest temperatures ever recorded for this region of the world. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)
Closer to the coast, temperatures rose as high as 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 C). In the city of Surat, hospitals were strained by an influx of people suffering from heat injuries. People afflicted with giddiness, unconsciousness, dehydration, a bloody nose, abdominal pain, chest pain, and other heat related injuries flooded local health care facilities with emergency calls. As of Thursday, SMIMER hospital had reported 1,226 calls related to heat casualties since the start of May.
Local Surat weather services reported periods when temperatures spiked to 38-42 C and humidity — supplied by moisture flooding off the heating Arabian Sea — remained near 65 percent. These are wet bulb readings in the range of 32 to 34.4 C — a combination of heat and humidity that is very dangerous to anyone exposed for even brief periods.
340 Heat Deaths in Dehli
Across India, the story of heat casualties was much the same. Though no official national estimate of heat related injuries or deaths has yet been given, the current heatwave and related drought is far worse than that experienced during 2015 when 2500 people lost their lives in the excessive heat. But it’s reasonable to assume that heat injuries across India now number in the tens of thousands with tragic heat deaths likely now numbering in the hundreds to thousands.
In the capital city of Delhi, reports were coming in that the homeless population — swelled by farmers who lost their livelihoods due to a crippling three-year-drought — was suffering hundreds of heat-related deaths. As of Thursday, official estimates identified 340 total heat deaths among this increasingly vulnerable population.
Severe Drought and Record Heat — Conditions Consistent with Human-Caused Climate Change
Heat building into extreme record ranges and mounting heat casualties come as India suffers what is likely its worst drought on record. Last month, international water monitors identified 330 million people suffering from water shortages across India. As a result, the government has been forced to resort to extreme measures — posting guards at dwindling reservoirs, sending water trains to provide people in hard-hit regions with a life-saving ration of water, and planning to divert water from the greatly shrunken Ganges to aid parched regions.
Extreme heat of this kind, wet bulb temperatures approaching 35 C, heatwave mass casualties, and a never-before-seen drought are all conditions related to a human-forced warming of the globe. Though El Nino, during the 20th Century, brought with it a cyclical heat, a potential monsoonal weakening, and an increased risk of drought, the severity of the crisis now afflicting India is too great to be pinned on El Nino alone. India has now suffered three years of delayed monsoons — delays which began before the current El Nino took hold. Water levels in the Himalayas are low due to a decadal warming that has forced snow packs to retreat which has, in its turn, left India’s rivers increasingly vulnerable to drying. And global temperatures hitting in the range of 1.3 C above 1880s levels are absolutely adding intensity to the current heatwave and dryness.
Links:
Heatwave Mass Casualties Strike India in 2015
Heatwave Injuries Mount in Surat
India Shatters All-Time Hottest Temperature Record on Thursday
Hat Tip to DT Lange
Hat Tip to Colorado Bob
robertscribbler 
Spike
/ May 20, 2016I’m pretty sure the figures are under reported. People may be found dead and the cause not be appreciated, or develop complications which are put down as the prime cause of death. Many will be the very poor who nobody in authority bothers about too much. Even so I saw a report last year suggesting substantial increases in heat deaths in India over a decade.
http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/61-rise-in-heat-stroke-deaths-over-decade-60404#
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Loni
/ May 20, 2016It’s tough to see the innocents pay the price.
I don’t wish tragedy on anyone, but those fires close to the tars sands in Canada seemed almost atoning, perhaps if these extreme heat events took place within the ‘belt way’ we might see Mr. Inhofe as for his snowball back.
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Loni
/ May 20, 2016‘ask for his snowball back’.
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Suzanne
/ May 20, 2016Those numbers are just staggering.. both the temperatures and the deaths.
I get that a plane crash is a tragedy, but does anyone else think all the attention yesterday’s crash is getting…along with the media, and Trump ready to jump on it being “terrorists” before the facts are in…is just a bit crazy..when so many are dying of the heat in India?
Already, 340 dead in India from this heat wave…but I don’t see cable news covering this terrible event. I just don’t get it.
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Bill H
/ May 20, 2016Suzanne, Very few climate related disasters make it into the MSM unless they are in rich countries – an example being Ft McMurray. When Pacific islands like Fiji, on the other hand, are devastated by Class 5 cyclones there’s scarcely a mention. Typhoon Hayaan in the Philippines eventually forced its way into the MSM, but only when thousands of people died. If a million lose “merely” their homes and livelihood, well,… move along, nothing to see here.
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Ryan in New England
/ May 21, 2016Absolutely, Suzanne, the situation is completely nuts. The main story every day on the mainstream news outlets should be the topics and issues reported on here by Robert. Every day it seems new records and devastating and unprecedented events are occurring somewhere on the globe due to anthropogenic climate change. The general public is completely unaware of the planetary emergency we are in the midst of.
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George W. Hayduke
/ May 20, 2016This headline made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. By the time I got to the end it sounded like some of the dystopian I’ve read but no, it’s coming true…
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Exposing the Big Game
/ May 20, 2016Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
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Skip
/ May 20, 2016And then added to the deaths of those people, there are dying animals as well, I am sure,
Also you don’t have to die to have your health compromised.
And then there is the whole ‘quality of life’ drain: If a person or animal can’t get out of that heat, that must be pretty tough to deal with.
And water shortages too? Yiyiyi.
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eric smith
/ May 20, 2016I heard that ALL plants at about 121 degrees F. Thoughts anyone?
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eric smith
/ May 20, 2016All plants DIE at 121. Sorry.
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wili
/ May 20, 2016Certainly SOME plants die at that temperature. But I’m pretty sure there are desert plants that regularly survive temperatures higher than that.
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wili
/ May 20, 2016This paper on cactuses claims that half of those hardy plants die at 52 C (125.6F), and essentially all die at 59 C (138.2). So I’m guessing the latter temperature would be closer to the upper limit for all plants. For most food-bearing plants, your limit may be closer. And of course this isn’t taking into account dryness, wind, sun, or other stress factors.
Click to access 105%20Smith%20et%20al%201984%20Ecology.pdf
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Robert in New Orleans
/ May 20, 2016Very few people here the good ole US of A know about what is going on in Asian sub continent and even fewer give a rats ass about it. The issue will only hit home when it is too dangerous to go their favorite beach on the Gulf Coast or Florida during the summer.
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Skip
/ May 20, 2016Actually the media in the states seems to more or less disregard the rest of the world it is in someone’s political interest that they do so. I expect that many have no clue about the Beast there in Canada, or how extraordinary it is, nor what it portends.
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wili
/ May 20, 2016Indeed, even as tens of thousands of people were dying of GW-juiced European heat wave of 2013, there was very little coverage in the US press, and still very few Americans even know that it happened.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016– 18:10 UTC
I posted a couple of interesting links on Robert’s previous Fort Mac past you might want to check out.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016News | May 20, 2016
Study helps explain sea ice differences at Earth’s poles
From NASA
Why has the sea ice cover surrounding Antarctica been increasing slightly, in sharp contrast to the drastic loss of sea ice occurring in the Arctic Ocean? A new NASA-led study finds the geology of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are responsible.
A NASA/NOAA/university team led by Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, used satellite radar, sea surface temperature, land form and bathymetry (ocean depth) data to study the physical processes and properties affecting Antarctic sea ice. They found that two persistent geological factors — the topography of Antarctica and the depth of the ocean surrounding it — are influencing winds and ocean currents, respectively, to drive the formation and evolution of Antarctica’s sea ice cover and help sustain it.
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2445/
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Loni
/ May 21, 2016Great reference, dtlange, thank you.
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Skip
/ May 20, 2016“Psychology and global warming: what stops us from preventing the coming disaster”
This is a pretty good, not hard to grasp analysis of how GW denial operates.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016I think he also states that Walmart something like China’s eighth largest trading partner.
Stores like this are wall to wall ‘MADE IN CHINA’. And mostly produced via coal often shipped to them so cheap non-essential goods can be shipped back to the US and distributed via diesel — even as clouds of aerosol pollution from China drifts across the Pacific in one horrendous cycle.
OUT
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 21, 2016I understand PERFECTLY why I and other non-psychotic persons comprehend our plight and wish to reverse our self-destruction, and Rightwingers do not. It is entirely a matter of ideology, ie of psychology, of the manner in which the Rightwing ‘mind’ operates. I began to comprehend that process as a child, although I must say, the Right have evolved quickly over the years, into more and more poisonous and destructive forms.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016LikeLike
climatehawk1
/ May 20, 2016Plus, the Oklahoma legislature has taken a run lately at ending tax credit incentive for wind power–in an extremely windy state that could easily be a national leader.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016Eric Fisher Verified account @ericfisher 5h5 hours ago Boston, MA
Big plume of wildfire smoke from Canada making the skies milky today.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016Scott Bachmeier @CIMSS_Satellite 3h3 hours ago
Larger-scale view of Canadian wildfire smoke over Northeast US, Maritime Provinces, Atlantic
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016– This has been a common sight due the buildup of aerosols for quite a while. It’s good to see others make a connection.
Jeremy Reiner Verified account @jreineron7 3h3 hours ago
Milky sunshine today….smoke plume (wildfire) drifting in from Canada.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016om Purdy @TomPurdyWI 1h1 hour ago
Full bright solar halo in southern Wisconsin right now.
Filtered by Canadian wildfire smoke.
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Cate
/ May 20, 2016Yes! we’re seeing that high milky haze here in central Newfoundland today, which gives the sunlight a kind of brassy tone, something like the light during an eclipse. From time to time, there’s a whiff of—something on the wind, and you think, Fire? Forest fire has a distinctive organic, and not unpleasant (at first) scent, as the thin peat itself burns to the bedrock.
Fort Mac is clear across the continent. Next stop for this smoke on a strong sou’westerly: Greenland.
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dnem
/ May 20, 2016This post strikes me with a different kind of dread. As a kid who rooted for every snow storm to be a blizzard and who donned a football helmet and went out into Gloria’s eyewall when it passed over my house in 1985, I still get a certain thrill and charge from extreme storms. Obviously I don’t cheer the destruction, but a huge storm is a thing of awe and beauty. A 35 deg C wet bulb temperature is an abomination. The thought of being trapped in that with no AC, no cool basement, no respite at all makes me feel queasy and claustrophobic.
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utoutback
/ May 20, 2016As predicted in William deBuys excellent book, A Great Aridness:Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest, water will become an ever increasing problem. Lake Mead is now at it’s lowest level since 1937, when it was being filled.
Perhaps Americans will “give a rat’s ass” when the climate story hits home.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/05/19/lake-mead-declines-lowest-level-history/84628000/
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Robert in New Orleans
/ May 20, 2016A Great Aridness is a very good book and should be required reading by every high school student west of the Mississippi River. I read it myself a few years ago and was simultaneously enlightened and depressed at the same time. I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah and have traveled extensively in the desert southwest and I see another epic crisis in the making. And by the time that the local populations come to grip with their predicament, there will be no answers or solutions other then to emigrate out of the area in mass.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/01/17/392184/review-a-great-aridness-climate-change-and-the-future-of-the-american-southwest/
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climatehawk1
/ May 20, 2016Scheduling tweet on the Lake Mead item, thanks.
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todaysguestis
/ May 21, 2016Lake Mead declines to lowest level in history
“Human-caused climate warming will drive larger and larger flow reductions as long as emissions of greenhouse gases continue,” said Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment.
“The river is over-allocated even before climate change is factored in,” Overpeck said in an email. He said he thinks the negotiations will probably “focus on how to reduce the over-allocation, but will eventually have to focus on sharing the pain as climate change continues to reduce the flows.”
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2016/05/19/lake-mead-declines-new-record-low/84597120/
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016– There’s quite a bit of info here:
American Geophysical Union.
– blogs.agu.org/fromaglaciersperspective/2016/05/20/clephane-bay-ice-cap
May 20, 2016
Clephane Bay Ice Cap, Baffin Island Being Erased from Map
The southern part of the Cumberland Peninsula on Baffin Island features many small ice caps. Here we examine the disappearance of two and the separation of two others from 1995 to 2014. Way (2015) noted that on the next peninsula to the west, Terra Nivea and Grinnell Ice Cap had lost 20% of their area in the last three decades. The retreat and disappearance of ice caps in the area have led to a INSTAAR project at UColorado-Boulder examining vegetation that had been buried and is now being exposed. Gardner et al 2011 and Sharp et al (2011) both note that the first decade of the 21st century had the warmest temperatures of the last 50 years, the period of record. They identified that the mass loss had doubled in the last decade versus the previous four for Baffin Island. This is causing ice caps like Dexterity and those around Clephane Bay to melt away
-2013 Landsat image no retained snowpack.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016http://blogs.agu.org/fromaglaciersperspective/2016/05/20/clephane-bay-ice-cap-baffin-island-erased-map/#.Vz9Sudib_pU.facebook
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Robert in New Orleans
/ May 20, 2016Does anybody know what the highest wet bulb temperature ever recorded in the continental USA was and when it occured?
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wili
/ May 20, 2016I think it was in Appleton, Wisconsin in the heatwave of the summer of ’95. The good people of Appleton pretty much stayed in their AC. Most of the folks in India do not have that option.
“The highest Heat Index ever recorded in the US was an astonishing 148 degrees in Appleton, Wisconsin on July 15, 1995 according to weatherunderground.com, when air temperature was 101 degrees with relative humidity at 71%”
Not sure how this translates into WBT, though.
http://www.alabamawise.org/hot-and-humid-can-feel-worse-than-death-valley-heat-record/
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wili
/ May 20, 2016And note: “The 2015 Indian heat wave saw Wet Bulb Temperatures in Andhra Pradesh reach 30 °C.
A similar reading during the 1995 Chicago heat wave was also reached”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
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Scott
/ May 21, 2016Appleton got close. That’s a dewpoint of 32 degrees centigrade. Here’s a calculator: just enter the data in Fahrenheit, and then convert to centigrade.
http://www.dpcalc.org/
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jyyh
/ May 20, 2016Ah, the new normal touching India.
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donesoverydone
/ May 20, 2016Reblogged this on things I've read or intend to.
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wili
/ May 20, 2016Recall that last year a location in Iraq reached 33.5 wbt in August.
So now, already in May this year we are seeing wbt readings up to 34.4.
I don’t like where that projection takes us.
“A heat wave in Iraq in August 2015 saw temperatures of 48.6°C (119.5°F) and a dew point of 29.5°C (85.1°F) in Bandar-e Mahshahr, Iran and Samawah. This implied a wet bulb temperature of 33.5°C (92.5°F).[13] The government “urged residents to stay out of the sun and drink plenty of water”
https://weather.com/news/news/iraq-iran-heat-middle-east-125-degrees
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wili
/ May 20, 2016So I guess we’re about to start seeing WBT’s above the deadly 35 C .
When I first heard a few years ago that the earth could start seeing these kinds of unprecedented and lethal combinations of temperature and humidity, I really though that this was a very remote and unlikely thing to see on this planet, certainly not something that would occur anywhere for many decades to centuries into the future.
But here we are on the threshold of seeing these deadly temps, probably for the first time on the planet since before modern humans evolve, if not much much longer.
And it’s only 2016.
One wonders and shudders at what the future, even the near-term future, has in store.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 20, 2016Keep an eye on the snow pack in the high mountains , the Pakistani MET office said these high readings are penetrating way up slope. Glacial outburst flooding, is serious possibility.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 20, 2016Here’s a baseline shot –
Terra/MODIS
2016/141
05/20/2016
05:40 UTC
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016– Yeah, I was wondering what was happening at higher elevations.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016– Here’s a May 7 link:
The well being of many countries and their populations are tied to this area.
Climate Change Watch: Avalanches and rainfall cause devastation in Gilgit-Baltistan
Recently heavy rainfall and stormy weather in the northern areas has triggered landslides and avalanches in different areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, specifically in Nagar, Skardu and Ghizer.
Avalanches and landslides greatly affected the downstream population in the Karakorum, Himalaya and Hindu Kush (HKH) regions. The heavy downpour was caused by fresh westerly wave.
…
The northern mountainous region of Pakistan… Spanning an area over 4.2 million sq km, the (HKH) region is especially diverse in ecological terms. It has the largest area covered by glaciers and permafrost outside the polar region, and is therefore often referred to as the “Third Pole” and the “Water Tower of Asia” as it stores a large volume of water, particularly in the form of snow and ice.
…
The impacts of climate change on the world’s fresh water supply is a burning issue in the world, especially in the HKH region. There are 1.2 billion people (approx) living in downstream, extending from Pakistan to China and Nepal. Recent increases in the area’s population has put further stress on fresh water supply.
– dailypakistan.com.pk/opinion/blog/snow-avalanches-
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016http://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/opinion/blog/snow-avalanches-and-rainfall-devastation-in-gilgit-baltistan/
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016https://twitter.com/SciDevNet_SA/status/732593788967784449
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Colorado Bob
/ May 20, 2016Siberia remains under thick cloud cover, but the finger prints of the fires are showing up –
SNPP/VIIRS
2016/141
05/20/2016
03:10 UTC
Smoke from Russian wildfires over the Pacific Ocean
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Bill H
/ May 20, 2016We should remember that 35 degrees is the limit for people with a fully operational set of sweat glands. As people age their ability to lose heat through sweating falls off. I recall that by the age of eighty the mechanism has more or less stopped functioning.
No doubt the “skeptics” will come out with the canard: “more people die from cold than from heat” on the basis that in colder countries there is an increase in mortality in the winter months. This, however, is largely down to the fact that respiratory viruses are far more active in winter, and they carry off a great many immuno-compromised people. Cold temperatures are, in themselves, largely incidental.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 20, 2016Bill H –
When the Russian heatwave was getting started the first deaths were drunken Russian men who couldn’t swim and were drowning. That was in the first news stories. Later when you could cut the air in Moscow with a knife, that angle dropped off the presses.
Excellent point by the way about that cold weather hobby horse.
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 20, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 20, 2016Pakistan city readies graves, hospitals, in case heat wave hits again
Pakistani grave digger Shahid Baloch is taking no chances.
Like many people in the port city of Karachi, he was caught out by the severity of last summer’s heat wave which killed more than 1,300 people, and has hired a digger to excavate three elongated trenches big enough for 300 bodies.
“Thanks to God, we are better prepared this year,” said Baloch, 28, who works with three brothers at the vast Karachi cemetery run by the charitable organisation Edhi Foundation.
When the heat wave struck in the summer of 2015, hospitals, morgues and graveyards in the city of 20 million people were overwhelmed, and drug addicts, day labourers and the elderly were the biggest victims of the searing heat.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/pakistan-city-readies-gra/2802708.html
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 20, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 20, 2016Demystifying Climate: And It’s All Free
By: Dr. Ricky Rood , 11:48 PM GMT on May 19, 2016
Ever now and then I need an easy blog. This is one of them.
First, some time ago, I mentioned that I was collaborating with Andrew Gettelman on a book. It’s out! It’s free! That is, the electronic version is free. The title is Demystifying Climate Models: A Users Guide to Earth Systems Models. There is a real paper book that you can buy, and I am sure that Springer would appreciate the business.
Link
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climatehawk1
/ May 20, 2016Tweet scheduled.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 20, 2016‘Half a million flee homes’ as Sri Lanka grapples with deadly floods, landslides
Severe flooding in Sri Lanka has forced half a million people to flee their homes across the island nation, officials say, as the death toll from days of torrential rain and landslides rose to more than 60.
Link
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016– Off the charts in the Arctic:
Zack Labe @ZLabe 3h3 hours ago
Probably an image best representing this year’s #Arctic climate… off the charts (2m freezing degree day anomalies)
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wili
/ May 21, 2016Holy….!
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dtlange
/ May 20, 2016LikeLike
Cate
/ May 21, 2016They’re talking about a negative AMO maybe kicking in? I get a tick mark for knowing that’s the circulation in the Atlantic, but for a gold star—what does that mean in terms of our weather over the next wee while….?
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Colorado Bob
/ May 20, 2016Arctic Sea Ice Goes Far Beyond Record Low Extent for May
By: Bob Henson , 4:01 PM GMT on May 20, 2016
Link
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June
/ May 21, 2016There was a link in Bob Henson’s post to Robert’s Fort McMurray post.
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Griffin
/ May 21, 2016Interesting bloom just to the southwest of Iceland has shown up today. Sure is a big one.
https://lance.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r01c02.2016141.terra
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Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016Watch it and let us know.
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016Ah, as if right on cue! NASA is in our neighbourhood now with the NAAMES project. They will be flying out of St John’s, Newfoundland periodically over the next few years, studying the phytoplankton blooms in the NW Atlantic in the context of climate change.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/2016-earth-expeditions-naames
At the same time, just across the way in Greenland, NASA is carrying out the big OMG project. It’s interesting to note that these two big multi-year projects on climate change in the NH right are happening at this very strategic location in the NW Atlantic.
I’m no conspiracy theorist, not at all, but it does amuse me to wonder if it’s more than a coincidence that Canada and Denmark (Greenland) will have NASA parked on our soil for the next five years or so, while NASA’s eyes and ears are focused on the Labrador Sea and NW Atlantic at the very time the Arctic is expected to become navigable in summer. One does need to know who will be taking advantage of the new Arctic Ocean/NW Passage-Labrador Sea shipping route!
Seriously now—the very good thing about NAAMES from the Newfoundland perspective is that NASA’s presence alone will help to raise awareness of climate change. Right on.
😀
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Griffin
/ May 21, 2016Wow! Thank you for the link Cate, that is really interesting.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016We need song here.
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Wharf Rat
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016This is pretty cool; –
We never saw this
The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun Mafia III
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Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016Eric Burton is 70 years old.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016One more ,
Blind Faith – Blind Faith (1969) (Full Album)
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Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016I didn’t make this album, Eric did.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016Can’t find my way home.
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Greg
/ May 21, 2016“The day the moon blew up” Robert, for a break, here is an interview by Bill Gate with Neal Stephenson about his most recent novel, Seveneves, in which the moon blows up and Earth has two years to deal with humanity’s demise from moon debris. Some rich science fiction when you have some time (ha!). Bill eats a burger in his model X by the way – all filmed in virtual reality. How ironic.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Seveneves
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wili
/ May 21, 2016Jesus cried. He wept and died.
I guess he went up to heaven.
I been downtown such a long long time
I’ll never make it home by 7…
Won’t you come and take me home…
I’ve been too long at the fair…
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
We’ve all been to freakin’ long at the fair.
Just lookin’ for someone to take us back to our true home…
Lord, I just can’t stand it…any more.
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redskylite
/ May 21, 2016Thanks for a brilliant song
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redskylite
/ May 21, 2016The heatwave deaths are not all by heat-stroke, sadly life is becoming to hard and not worth living for too many. Farmers as mentioned in the moving narrative by Robert in particular.
“The Indian Express newspaper reported that more than 400 farmers in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra alone had taken their own lives this year.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-heatwave-farmers-suicide-killing-themselves-51-record-temperature-climate-change-global-a7039841.html
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– SE Asia – Thailand – Severe Drought
Drought has take toll on Kwan Phayao and its fish stocks
Kwan Phayao, the biggest fresh-water lake in the North, is fast drying up with many fish getting killed due to the extreme hot weather.
Mr Vivat Prarom, director of the fishery research and development centre in Kwan Phayao, said that the water in the lake, reputed to be the 4th biggest of the country, has substantially depleted exposing some of the lake bottom which eventually cracked
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/content/162976
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– Fort McMurray Fire:
They can’t seem to wait to get back into the oil.
Canadian wildfire finally contained, but heavy smoke delays oil production
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/20/canadian-wildfire-finally-contained-but-heavy-smoke-delays-oil-p/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_term=Autofeed#link_time=1463782000
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016Oil is a national addiction in Canada.
OTTAWA—A new report suggests Canada ranks 14th among 16 peer countries when it comes to environmental performance, with only the United States and Australia doing worse.
The report by the Conference Board of Canada on Thursday gives Canada a “D” grade based on nine indicators covering climate change, air pollution, and freshwater management.
On climate change, the agency says with 20.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions are among the highest of the peer countries, with only the U.S. and Australia faring worse.
“These results show that Canada needs to encourage more sustainable consumption. Protecting the environment from damage is not a problem for tomorrow but a challenge for today,” said Louis Theriault, the Conference Board’s vice-president for public policy.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/04/21/canada-gets-a-d-on-environmental-report-card.html
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– Remember, Toronto, CAN is just a bridge crossing away from Detroit, USA motor city. They tied the auto-industry ‘knot’ decades ago when large grotesque gas guzzling/emitting cars were all the rage. Then there was all of wide expanse of conquered land to drive across.
And when the Tar Sands scam became lucrative — we can see what happened.
OUT
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Cate
/ May 22, 2016Exactly, dt.
The bold new climate change plan for Ontario leaked by the Globe and Mail a week or so ago hasn’t hit national attention here yet—$7 billion for renewables over four years, with all houses to move to electric heat ASAP(76% currently on gas).
The newspaper report predicts huge resistance from the combined economic power houses of the auto and oil industries in southern Ontario.
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– I came across this Copernicus BIOMASS BURNING AEROSOLS site that I don’t remember seeing much of. Though I think Robert may have linked to it.
When I look at the sky these years of days — I say to myself, “All is aerosol”. (Wet or dry — wet and dry.)
Copernicus May 20-21, 2016
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016http://macc.copernicus-atmosphere.eu/d/services/gac/nrt/nrt_opticaldepth!36!Biomass-burning!Northern%20Hemisphere!macc!od!enfo!nrt_opticaldepth!latest!!/
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016Global Dust Aerosols
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– I had a feeling that something sulfate or sulfuric was abundant besides the obvious black carbon. Glad to see it is being monitored.
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016dt, thanks for those images. Another hazy morning here out on the Rock, with brassy sunshine, very unusual for May here, and more like a late July or August morning. What are those sulphate aerosols?
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– Cate, I’m glad you asked. Here’s a copy/paste description of some of the attributes of sulfate aerosols.
-washington.edu/…/1969e
An aerosol is a suspension of very fine particles of a solid, or of droplets of a liquid, in a gaseous medium. Fog, smoke, and volcanic dust are naturally occurring examples of aerosols. Sulfates are salts that contain a charged group of sulfur and oxygen atoms: SO , the basic constituent of sulfuric acid.
###
– nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Aerosols
Human-Made Aerosol [sulfate]
While a large fraction of human-made aerosols come in the form of smoke from burning tropical forests, the major component comes in the form of sulfate aerosols created by the burning of coal and oil. The concentration of human-made sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere has grown rapidly since the start of the industrial revolution. At current production levels, human-made sulfate aerosols are thought to outweigh the naturally produced sulfate aerosols. The concentration of aerosols is highest in the northern hemisphere where industrial activity is centered….
The sulfate aerosols also enter clouds where they cause the number of cloud droplets to increase but make the droplet sizes smaller. The net effect is to make the clouds reflect more sunlight than they would without the presence of the sulfate aerosols. Pollution from the stacks of ships at sea has been seen to modify the low-lying clouds above them. These changes in the cloud droplets, due to the sulfate aerosols from the ships, have been seen in pictures from weather satellites as a track through a layer of clouds. In addition to making the clouds more reflective, it is also believed that the additional aerosols cause polluted clouds to last longer and reflect more sunlight than non-polluted clouds.
– Small soot and sulfate aerosols are seen in these microscope slides. Trapped in the atmosphere, these tiny particles can have an important effect on climate. Credit: Mihály Pósfai, Arizona State University
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– During the dry season, smoke covers wide swaths of the Amazon. Isolated towers of cumulus clouds poke through the dense layer of smoke in this photograph taken from an airplane in 2005. Credit: Ilan Koren, Weismann Instutute
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016dt, thanks for the info on sulfate aerosols. So they actually work to help reflect sunlight? So is this why some studies suggest that if we cut emissions sharply, we might drop the aerosols so quickly (as happened in a limited way with the 9/11 planes) that solar heating could temporarily increase? Bit of a damned if you do or don’t scenario, although it doesn’t seem like something that we’d have to worry about right yet.
We can smell smoke today, very faintly and intermittently. I’m hoping it’s Fort Mac and other known fires, and not something that’s popped up nearby. Wicked hot here now. 27C in my backyard. We don’t get much hotter than this in the dog days.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– Besides the give and take of aerosols reflecting/refracting sunlight, etc. it is the sheer scale of the amount of corrosive sulfate and nitrogen/nitric compounds in the atmosphere that concerns me.
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g. orwell
/ May 22, 2016To Cate: re.: “…So is this why some studies suggest that if we cut emissions sharply, we might drop the aerosols so quickly (as happened in a limited way with the 9/11 planes) that solar heating could temporarily increase?”-can’t give citations now, but, my ‘impression’ is that decrease of aerosols wouldn’t lead to temporary, but instead, essentially long term temp. increase.
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Cate
/ May 22, 2016I’m thinking acid rain now, among other kinds of nasty rain, and all its unpleasant outcomes. What we’ve done to the rain—to the “breeze with some smoke in its eye”—was probably the first environmental issue of my generation. This is the classic statement, as fresh today as 50 years ago.
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Erik Sayle
/ May 21, 2016Fascinating image of worlds shipping routes. Hypnotic. I think ships should be solar powered. They could easily put solar panels on containers or tow a light boat with solar panels. Imagine the carbon footprint of buying things produced far away. Ships, Trucks, Trains etc.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11503152/shipping-routes-map
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Erik Sayle
/ May 21, 2016I guess Solar on big cargo ships still has a way to go. But it seems not much progress in this area due to primarily international borders which ships traverse. Nonetheless Its logical for some things today such as supplemental electricity under steam and while in port.
http://www.vox.com/2015/12/23/10647768/shipping-environmental-cost
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Griffin
/ May 21, 2016Great points Erik. This article is from back in March but the amount of pollution that is discussed is staggering.
“Developers say that 55 liners a year, each weighing around 48,000 tonnes, would be expected to spend up to three days “hotelling” at Greenwich. Using their auxiliary diesel engines while moored, they would burn around 700 litres of diesel an hour for six months of the year in a borough considered a hot spot for air pollution.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/31/huge-cruise-ships-will-worsen-london-air-pollution-campaigners-warn
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Griffin
/ May 21, 2016And this article from today is right on point.
“We can smell, see and taste it. These ships are like blocks of flats. Sometimes there are five or more in the docks at the same time. The wind blows their pollution directly into the city and as far we can tell, there is no monitoring of their pollution. We are pushing for them to use shore power but they have resisted.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/21/the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship-and-its-supersized-pollution-problem?CMP=share_btn_tw
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016Griffin, thanks for that cruise ship link. I shared it on my FB page with this intro:
The world is not our playground any more. As long as mass transport depends on filthy fuels, we have to stop insisting that discretionary mass travel is a right. This is how climate change bites into our deepest assumptions and demands a transformation—a revolution between the ears—-in the way we interact with the planet and our fellow-voyagers upon it.
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016” These ships are like blocks of flats. ” And strip malls — to wit, everything available and suitable on/for dry land — not the sea. All via disposable income.
Just like dogs on the shore bird dependent beach — the same mentality — totally unsuitable and damaging to the natural habitat. (Something I’ve dealt with and tried to stop, myself.)
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016https://o.twimg.com/2/proxy.jpg?t=HBhaaHR0cHM6Ly9tZWRpYS5ndWltLmNvLnVrL2I5ODA5YTIyNzg3MmIzZTdiNjIxZTFjNmE1ZjNiNzM5ODcxMjAwNjEvMF8xNTRfMzUwMF8yMTAxLzM1MDAuanBnFNg2FM4cHBSEBhSUAwAAFgASAA&s=zx9QeGYnBUqoFiWA53tvVGS5QQoSVaGkmNmWtYmz90g
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wili
/ May 21, 2016http://www.reuters.com/video/2016/05/20 … =368574166
Pakistan digs mass graves as heat wave looms
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redskylite
/ May 21, 2016Health !, health of the oceans, planet and health of inhabitants (including homo sapiens), the consequences of climate change are all about health. So I was somewhat reassured to see that The American College of Physicians have issued a position statement emphasizing that climate change poses a catastrophic risk to human health. Who is going to be busier than physicians in the near future ? Politicians ? I don’t think so. Great article in the medical journal “Medscape”, totally ignore the two ignorant feedback comments by the predictable despicable deniers.
“Physicians Must Respond to Climate Change: An Interview With ACP President Damle”
To read this article and question and answer session; google/search engine the above text (“Physicians Must Respond to Climate Change: An Interview With ACP President Damle”) and select the Medscape returned news item in the results.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) recently released a position statement emphasizing that climate change poses a catastrophic risk to human health, including more respiratory and heat-related illness, vector-borne diseases, malnutrition, and behavioral health problems, and stating that physicians have a crucial role to play in fighting it. In support of that position, the College released a toolkit to help physicians both advocate for effective climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and educate their communities. Medscape spoke with Nitin Damle, MD, MS, current ACP president, about the toolkit. Dr Damle is a practicing internist and senior/managing partner at South County Internal Medicine in Wakefield, Rhode Island, and a clinical associate professor of medicine at Alpert Medical School, Brown University. He also spoke about changes that he has initiated in his own practice to address this serious public health issue.
Medscape: Why should the ACP take on climate change? Some physicians have suggested, given how busy they are with a huge array of clinical issues, that this is not an issue that they can or should tackle. Why do physicians need to take this on?
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Ryan in New England
/ May 21, 2016Does everybody remember how crazy 2015 was in regards to the rapidly changing environment? Last year already seems like the good ol’ days compared to the total insanity we are experiencing this year. It’s difficult to even keep up with all of the news, and each report or study seems to be dealing with a record setting/unprecedented event. The worst fears of climate scientists from the 80s are all becoming a reality. The Arctic ice cap is currently melting away. The far North is experiencing outrageous fires that didn’t exist decades ago. The forests of the West are being decimated by pine beetles that used to be kept in check by cold temperatures. The glaciers and snowpack are disappearing from mountain regions, a valuable source of freshwater that is vital for agriculture and necessary for communities that have traditionally depended on meltwater from glaciers/snowpack. The world’s corals are dying from extreme bleaching events. Wet bulb temperatures are now approaching 35C. Droughts are becoming severe enough to have profound ramifications for the social fabric of various countries around the world. The oceans are becoming too acidic for the sea life that builds calcium carbonate shells. The Greenland ice sheet is rapidly melting, creating a cool pool in the North Atlantic, with implications for the Gulf Stream and storm creation. Antarctica melt is accelerating and contributing to sea level rise. The sea levels are rising far faster than anybody expected. The strongest storms the world can create have become even stronger. Heatwaves have become more intense. Precipitation has become more intense resulting in unprecedented floods. Mosquito and tick born diseases are spreading to new latitudes.
Everything that was predicted to happen back in the 1980s has become a reality, along with many unexpected changes. It makes my head want to explode when deniers claim AGW isn’t real. It is, and it’s happening all around us, just open your eyes!
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016Ryan that’s a great litany of grievances to take to court—and I say court, because this is a criminal matter in my view. Here’s the thing: not only did scientists know and predict correctly that climate change would happen and how, in all the ways you have listed, we are now discovering proof that BIg Oil also knew—and pretty much threw all its resources into suppressing or respinning the truth.
In this decades-long crime of wreaking deliberate harm upon people, other species, habitats, etc, Big Oil has committed a criminal atrocity against the entire biosphere. We must make our governments hold these evil corporations to account immediately.
Our governments must demand that they make amends in good faith by abandoning FF entirely and putting all their huge resources into renewables on the tightest time schedule possible—on a war-footing type of schedule.
As you so eloquently demonstrate, we are in a battle for our lives now.
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016PS “Big Oil” is my personal shorthand for fossil fuel interests, so in my mind includes Big Coal, Big Gas, Little Fracking, etc. 😀
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Genomik
/ May 22, 2016Actually seems on the surface to be a good stregy. Criminal prosecution and reparations are to build a solar industry asap. They can run part of the solar industry, that should incentivize them.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 22, 2016Cate, ‘court’ is the word. The Big Denialists from fossil fuels, Rightwing politics, the MSM and other backwaters of human perfidy. MUST face trials for crimes against humanity through environmental destruction one day. I thought that model laws were being drawn up for this purpose some years ago, awaiting enactment in one jurisdiction or another, some day. The thought of condign punishment might induce a few of these to ‘rat out’ their accomplices, aiding the process of revealing, then destroying, this vast criminal enterprise.
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Suzanne
/ May 21, 2016Ryan….I completely agree. My “gut” has been in overdrive since last year. Bad, bad vibes for the past few years…but something even worse this year…can’t even articulate it.
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Kate Holtkamp
/ May 21, 2016I am with you on the gut feeling, Suzanne. It was bad last year and has only become more intense.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 22, 2016I got that feeling, just a little, when I heard of the ‘greenhouse effect’ decades ago, in high-school science, and thought of how the powers that be would react. But I must say they have FAR exceeded even my foreboding over the subsequent decades. Now the feeling is part unsurprise, much sadness, a great deal of inevitability fulfilled and an awful burden of rage.
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Ryan in New England
/ May 21, 2016Robert, you’re doing an amazing job staying on top of all of the rapidly developing events around the world. Truly a superb job. It’s been hard for me to keep up with at all. Between your posts and all the wonderful comments and links, I’m overwhelmed with information. Thank you so much for providing us with this valuable resource!
And thank you to all the fellow Scribblers who help to make this place what it is 🙂
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016And Ryan, echoing you, and thanking you for remembering to say exactly what I’m sure many of Scribblers feel about this great work Robert is doing.
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todaysguestis
/ May 21, 2016AMOC slowdown: Connecting the dots
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/05/amoc-slowdown-connecting-the-dots/
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todaysguestis
/ May 21, 2016Pakistan digs mass graves as heat wave looms
http://finance.yahoo.com/video/ai-revolution-210617613.html
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todaysguestis
/ May 21, 2016Scorching heat prevails throughout Pakistan, Larkana sizzles at 52°C
http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/05/20/national/scorching-heat-prevails-throughout-pakistan-temperature-likely-to-reach-52c-in-larkana/
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Abel Adamski
/ May 21, 2016A bit of a heads up on Graphene (2 dimensional carbon) – a possible valuable byproduct of Atmospheric CO2 Extraction rather than fuel or CO2 storage.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/160013/20160521/graphene-makes-thin-rubber-stronger-and-stretchier.htm
Graphene is arguably one of the most versatile materials in the world. Previous studies have shown that this carbon-based component can be used to make better water filtration systems, alternatives to batteries, touchscreens on mobile phones and even bionic devices that will be better absorbed by the human body.
Now, scientists at the University of Manchester in the UK have found that graphene can also be used to improve the strength and elasticity of rubber.
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Abel Adamski
/ May 21, 2016http://www.techtimes.com/articles/150905/20160418/scientists-create-graphene-based-sensor-that-detects-air-pollution-in-your-home.htm
A graphene-based sensor that can incredibly detect harmful air pollution at home, has been developed by scientists from the University of Southampton and the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST).
Supposedly, the commercially available environmental sensors today, can detect chemical gases only with concentrations of parts per million (ppm). It cannot detect low concentrations of parts per billion (ppb).
However, the newly innovated graphene sensor comes equipped with the advanced capability of detecting low concentrations of ppb.
This capability enables it to detect each and every CO2 molecule, as well as volatile organic compound (VOC) gas molecules that are individually present within the interiors of varied buildings and houses. These molecules are even found on household goods and furniture.
“In contrast to the commercially available environmental monitoring tools, this extreme sensing technology enables us to realize significant miniaturization, resulting in weight and cost reduction in addition to the remarkable improvement in the detection limit from the ppm levels to the ppb levels.” said Mizuta.
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Abel Adamski
/ May 21, 2016And for something OT, but fascinating
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2
No one could see the colour blue until modern times
Until relatively recently in human history, “blue” didn’t exist.
As the delightful Radiolab episode “Colours” describes, ancient languages didn’t have a word for blue — not Greek, not Chinese, not Japanese, not Hebrew. And without a word for the colour, there’s evidence that they may not have seen it at all.
How we realised blue was missing
In the Odyssey, Homer famously describes the “wine-dark sea.” But why “wine-dark” and not deep blue or green?
A researcher named Jules Davidoff traveled to Namibia to investigate this, where he conducted an experiment with the Himba tribe, who speak a language that has no word for blue or distinction between blue and green.
When shown a circle with 11 green squares and one blue, they couldn’t pick out which one was different from the others — or those who could see a difference took much longer and made more mistakes than would make sense to us, who can clearly spot the blue square.
But the Himba have more words for types of green than we do in English.
So before blue became a common concept, maybe humans saw it. But it seems they didn’t know they were seeing it.
If you see something yet can’t see it, does it exist? Did colours come into existence over time? Not technically, but our ability to notice them may have…
For more fascinating information about colours, including information on how some “super-seeing” women may see colours in the sky that most of us have never dreamed of, check out the full Radiolab episode.
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Yvan Dutil
/ May 21, 2016Actually, I am been told this is mostly an urban legend.
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016More on what “wine-dark” might possibly mean (remembering that Homer was, according to tradition , blind, so his testimony vis a vis colours might be suspect…. 😉
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– Here’s something I’ve been holding onto for a while that tells us quite a bit about our biases and failings. It’s a ‘RadioLab’ episode.
Why is the blue sky white?
“… Tim pays a visit to the New York Public Library, where a book of German philosophy from the late 19th Century helps reveal a pattern: across all cultures, words for colors appear in stages. And blue always comes last. Jules Davidoff, professor of neuropsychology at the University of London, helps us make sense of the way different people see different colors in the same place. Then Guy Deutscher tells us how he experimented on his daughter Alma when she was just starting to learn the colors of the world around, and above, her.” [He left ‘blue’ out of their common color vocabulary.]
Near the end of the piece:
The young daughter repeatedly says, “sky is ‘white’.
Maybe her young eyes have never seen the sky colored the blue.
But all the while has seen other things that are blue.
While dear biased Dad likely has seen a blue sky in his youth but now assumes sky is always blue.
So daughter gives accurate description of the sky she actually sees.
But the piece doesn’t consider this aspect — my mind boggles at this.
Very interesting language and perception acquisition though.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/?utm_source=local&utm_medium=treatment&utm_campaign=daMost&utm_content=damostviewed
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016As a painter, I was taught to use three hues of blue for sky: the greenish cerulean for the area closest to the horizon (washing out to pinky white or Naples yellow if desired), cobalt for the sky at about 45 degrees, and the glorious depths of purplish ultramarine for the zenith, for the “long delirious burning blue” that John Geillespie Magee describes in his great sonnet, High Flight. There would be some dispute about the sky here today, with its veils of aerosols, white to milky blue, as if bled of its natural colour.
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Abel Adamski
/ May 22, 2016Actually I was a tad suspect myself, sapphires and turquoise have been gemstones for a long time, and Stonehenge mark 1 was built with Blue rocks that had to be moved a great distance, so the color blue definitely had significance in the neolithic
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Cate
/ May 23, 2016Interesting thread, Abel. You’ve got me reading up on the history of indigo, which was prized as a dye in ancient Greece and Rome. Perhaps the comparative lack of “blue” references in historical times might simply be a function of the fact that it was a very hard colour to produce with natural dyes, much like purple. In paint, likewise, the pigments for blue, such as lapis lazuli for ultramarine, were rare and expensive until the Industrial Revolution. Could be another reason why “blue” appeared to come late to the colour party.
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Jeremy in Wales/Cymru
/ May 24, 2016It not that ancient peoples did not see blue they just had a more fluid way of describing colour and that was based on the quality of a hue rather than its wavelength. Welsh/Cymraeg certainly had a historically different way of describing colour that can be identified in place names but the pressure of a larger more dominant culture has led to the current anglo viewpoint on colour being accepted. The following from wikipedia expresses in clearer language what has happened:
“The Welsh word glas is usually translated as “blue”; however, it can also refer, variously, to the color of the sea, of grass, or of silver. The word gwyrdd (a borrowing from Latin viridis) is the standard translation for “green”. In traditional Welsh (and related languages), glas could refer to certain shades of green and grey as well as blue, and llwyd could refer to various shades of grey and brown; however, modern Welsh is tending toward the 11-color Western scheme, restricting glas to blue and using gwyrdd for green, llwyd for grey and brown for brown.”
Llwyd in Welsh was anglicised to Lloyd and since it now means grey it seems appropriate that Lloyds is known for banking and insurance!
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Abel Adamski
/ May 21, 2016Nature never ceases to amaze, to sleep IMO indicates an awareness or intelligence
http://www.inquisitr.com/3118703/do-trees-sleep-birch-trees-recorded-resting-branches-at-night-for-the-first-time/
For the first time, scientists from Austria, Finland, and Hungary have observed physical changes in trees that correspond to the sleeping patterns in humans, leading to the question: do trees sleep?
and that other article I posted previously where trees in the forest share their nutrients and electrons between themselves
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JPL
/ May 21, 2016Because science…
Portland school board bans climate change-denying materials
Nice work, Portland!
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016Yes, indeed!
‘The resolution passed Tuesday evening calls for the school district to get rid of textbooks or other materials that cast doubt on whether climate change is occurring and that the activity of human beings is responsible. The resolution also directs the superintendent and staff to develop an implementation plan for “curriculum and educational opportunities that address climate change and climate justice in all Portland Public Schools.
Bill Bigelow, a former PPS teacher and current curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, a magazine devoted to education issues, worked with 350PDX and other environmental groups to present the resolution.
“A lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt, and obviously the science says otherwise,” Bigelow says, accusing the publishing industry to bowing to pressure from fossil fuels companies. “We don’t want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry.”
– portlandtribune.com/sl/307848-185832-portland-school-board-bans-
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Eric Thurston
/ May 21, 2016This is a bit OT but I think it relates to the issues of geo-engineering and unintended consequences. I find it rather chilling.
http://grist.org/article/you-better-learn-about-this-new-technology-before-it-transforms-the-world/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=weekly-static
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016Brian Brettschneider @Climatologist49 3h3 hours ago
Visible MODIS image of Barrow, Alaska, taken near midnight local time. #MidnightSun
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto 4h4 hours ago
A Sri Lankan child is helped to walk through the floodwaters in #Colombo
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– Fewer funerals — imagine that!
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016Trees near center of frame are bending toward the sucking force of the firestorm.
That thick black is likely due to the enormous amount of rapidly combusted biomass (and terpenes, etc.)
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June
/ May 21, 2016JAXA/IJIS arctic sea ice extent for May 20th: 10,989,954 square km
From commenter Magma at Neven’s ASIF:
Earliest date for IJIS sea ice extent to drop below 11,000,000 km2
1. May 20, 2016
2. May 29, 2015
3. June 3, 2011
Average date
2003-2015: June 9
2000s: June 15
1990s: June 24
1980s: July 3
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,230.2300.html
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016Words fail. Unthinkable numbers.
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– USA California
Oil industry money flowing into Silicon Valley state Senate race
A coalition of oil companies, including Chevron, Valero and Tesoro, this month contributed $339,000 to fund TV ads and website work for Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, who is challenging state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, for the 15th District seat. The industry group, which calls itself the Coalition to Restore California’s Middle Class, is seeking to oust Beall.
In response, San Francisco billionaire financier and environmental philanthropist Tom Steyer on Thursday donated $500,000 to fund efforts to support Beall. Radio ads will begin Monday.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_29918520/oil-industry-money-flowing-into-san-jose-state
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– Colorado – Fracking
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016‘California – Oil industry money flowing into Silicon Valley state Senate race”
This, after seditious and ruthless Republicans packed the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
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Cate
/ May 21, 2016Meanwhile, back at Fort Mac: the post-apocalyptic phase continues as bears, possibly “emboldened” and feeling “entitled”, roam the streets in search of food.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/black-bears-fort-mac-1.3593045
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dtlange
/ May 21, 2016– Via climatehawk1
Straight to the heart of the matter.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 21, 2016Thanks, DT! I met at least a couple of these folks Wednesday at a climate seminar at Dartmouth sponsored by NextGen NH. Nice to see them doing some additional outreach. Awareness is definitely growing around here, though as always, too slowly.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– Good, ch1.
I suppose we should sort of ‘date stamp’ Keeling Curve CO2 readings on all birth certificates at time of birth.
Gad!
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Kevin Jones
/ May 22, 2016Yeah, dt. In 2-3 years some of us will be turning +100. (1950 = ~ 312ppm)
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Leland Palmer
/ May 24, 2016Hi DT, Kevin-
Yes, when I was born, it was about 315 ppm. Yes just a few years to turning 100. Perhaps during the next El Nino year? Or sooner?
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Colorado Bob
/ May 21, 2016Indian media reported 16 deaths in Rajasthan, where nearly 17,000 villages were facing water shortages.
Heatstroke has claimed 109 lives in southern Andhra Pradesh state, where pre-monsoon showers have broken the hot spell, a state government statement said.
The intense heat wave in western Gujarat state has claimed 17 lives this month, with temperatures touching 118 F.
http://www.pressherald.com/2016/05/21/indias-extreme-heat-a-mortal-threat/
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Colorado Bob
/ May 22, 2016Record-Breaking Heat Grips India Amid Rash of Farmer Suicides
One agricultural region, Marathwada, located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, saw some 400 suicides through mid-May this year, according to a report published on Tuesday in The Indian Express newspaper. Over the past 16 months, 1,548 distressed farmers have been reported dead from suicide in the region, the paper said.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/record-breaking-heat-grips-india-amid-rash-farmer/story?id=39263639
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Colorado Bob
/ May 22, 2016Sorry but the Daily Mail put this up first –
Why sea ice in Antarctica has INCREASED while the Arctic melts: Nasa study reveals how climate change has affected the poles
Nasa combined data on sea temperature, land form and ocean depth
Found geology and Southern Ocean are responsible for the difference
These influence the strength and direction of winds and ocean currents
Winds drive formation of Antarctica’s sea ice cover and help sustain it
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3601710/Why-sea-ice-Antarctica-INCREASED-Arctic-melts-Nasa-study-reveals-climate-change-affected-poles.html#ixzz49L98dxCe
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 22, 2016Cute. They print a (presumably) factual article while emphasizing the denier meme with capital letters in the headline. My dim recollection from learning about newspapers as a cub reporter several eons ago is that about half the readers only read the headline …
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Colorado Bob
/ May 22, 2016Bingo !
But the study is spot on . And the graphics are pretty good.
I have long thought of the ACC as the last fort of the cold . Now we see the heat is tunneling under the walls of the fort.
A while back, I looked at the sea floor map down there .
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Colorado Bob
/ May 22, 2016A really great site –
Detailed Maps of Ocean Floor Relief
http://www.orangesmile.com/travelguide/afoto/ocean-maps.htm
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– A very detailed set of maps — will keep it handy.
That tight area between Antarctica and Cape Horn is most intriguing in that it is also where surface winds are most energetic.
– worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopag
‘Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, remain a maritime legend to this day, as sailing around this remote point and then through the Drake Passage was (and is) one of the most challenging nautical routes on the planet. ‘
Shortening sail: Cape Horn.
– Garthsnaid off Cape Horn photo by Alexander Harper Turner, ~1920
– pinterest.com
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Colorado Bob
/ May 22, 2016Beaufort final update
This isn’t a final update as such, because I will certainly be mentioning events in the Beaufort Sea in upcoming ASI updates. But it is the last in a series of blog posts I have written (one, two and three) about this unprecedented event that started over 6 weeks ago and has led to a heavily cracked ice pack and a huge amount of open water on the American side of the Arctic.
The event has received some attention on other blogs and in the mainstream media. Just yesterday this image was posted on NASA’s Visible Earth website, comparing this year to 2015 and 2014 (mind you, the Beaufort Sea opened up early last year as well):
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2016/05/beaufort-final-update.html?cid=6a0133f03a1e37970b01b7c86063c4970b#comment-form
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Colorado Bob
/ May 22, 2016Pan–ice-sheet glacier terminus change in East Antarctica reveals sensitivity of Wilkes Land to sea-ice changes
Abstract
The dynamics of ocean-terminating outlet glaciers are an important component of ice-sheet mass balance. Using satellite imagery for the past 40 years, we compile an approximately decadal record of outlet-glacier terminus position change around the entire East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) marine margin. We find that most outlet glaciers retreated during the period 1974–1990, before switching to advance in every drainage basin during the two most recent periods, 1990–2000 and 2000–2012. The only exception to this trend was in Wilkes Land, where the majority of glaciers (74%) retreated between 2000 and 2012. We hypothesize that this anomalous retreat is linked to a reduction in sea ice and associated impacts on ocean stratification, which increases the incursion of warm deep water toward glacier termini. Because Wilkes Land overlies a large marine basin, it raises the possibility of a future sea level contribution from this sector of East Antarctica.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/5/e1501350
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Colorado Bob
/ May 22, 2016The legacy of “An Inconvenient Truth,” explained by 16 really smart people
How profoundly did An Inconvenient Truth reshape the public understanding of climate change? The short answer: a lot. To mark the movie’s 10-year anniversary, Grist asked leading policymakers, advocates, and personalities to reflect on the film’s impact and legacy.
Link
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Andy in SD
/ May 22, 2016Fires in northwestern Australia
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Jay M
/ May 22, 2016RE: antarctic seafloor source of ice mass fragility
build your villa on Vinson Massif, 16000 alt and cross your fingers
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– USA – Eastern Kansas:
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting:
May 21, 2016
Warming Far Outpacing Climate Action as UN Negotiators Meet in Bonn
BONN–The opening of the United Nation’s annual mid-year climate conference in Bonn Germany offered up dramatically contrasting messages this week: national leaders and political negotiators congratulated themselves, proudly celebrating the “historic Paris Agreement,” while environmentalists warned somberly that the Earth is far worse off than most people realize, with the political will for climate action still falling far behind the fearfully rapid pace of warming.
http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/warming-far-outpacing-climate-action-un-negotiators-meet-bonn
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 22, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016Good, thx.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– New York Times front page photo: “Beating the Heat” in India but the dead are also beating the heat but you wouldn’t know that here. A ‘stunning’ photo yet the brutal conditions are hopefully to be found elsewhere.
Above the fold: the photo is surrounded by political Welfare, NRA/Trump, Israel/Gaza type pieces. Opioid use the USA is the bigger story yet no mention of the reasons so many Americans reject their present reality for an opioid fog.
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redskylite
/ May 22, 2016Another forest ablaze in far eastern Russia –
This is the unnerving scene on a highway linking the city of Chita with Khabarovsk and Vladivostok in the Far East of Russia. Seasonal fires are raging, posing an acute threat to motorists.
Eyewitness Valeria told local Zab TV: ‘Cars were stopping. The oncoming traffic was not visible at all. We tried to drive very slowly. Then we saw a fuel truck. It rushed through this hell at full speed, with the knowledge that any spark can destroy it.
‘The driver obviously feared for his life. It was like hell. A terrible feeling. It was very scary. We saw three forest patrol vehicles. They just stood there and the fire epicentres were right behind them. But they could not do anything. No one helped them.’
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0682-beware-smoke-forest-fires-pose-terrifying-traffic-hazard-in-siberia/
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Spike
/ May 22, 2016This will make Europe’s position very difficult – already we have far too many countries with active extreme right parties threatening our social cohesion, feeding on the current situation re refugees.
“Climate change will significantly worsen the living conditions in the Middle East and in North Africa,” says Professor Jos Lelieveld, one of the lead authors of the research.
“In future, the climate in large parts of the Middle East and North Africa could change in such a manner that the very existence of its inhabitants is in jeopardy.”
Days of 46C will occur five times more often than was the case at the turn of this century. By 2050, the number of summer days with peak temperatures – perhaps up to 50C – will double to about 80 days per year. Meanwhile the barometer is unlikely to drop below 30 degrees at night.
Plus 40C days will become the norm rather than the exception.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/soaring-temperatures-make-much-middle-east-north-africa-unlivable-755427127
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Abel Adamski
/ May 22, 2016http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2016/05/21/on-the-brink-climate-change-looms-over-egypt/
Increasing public awareness as the impacts bite
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Abel Adamski
/ May 22, 2016http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/may/22/africans-face-famine-after-crops-fail
50 million Africans face hunger after crops fail again
UN fears that food aid will not arrive in time to help people of ravaged countries
The severest El Niño in 30 years was expected to tail off in the next month as hot equatorial waters in the Pacific returned to normal temperatures, but its effects would be felt for many more months, said the World Food Programme. Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s humanitarian chief, said: “The collective impact of the El Niño phenomenon has created one of the world’s biggest disasters for millions of people, yet this crisis is receiving little attention.
“The numbers are staggering. One million children in eastern and southern Africa alone are severely acutely malnourished, and across southern Africa 32 million people need assistance and that figure is likely to increase.” The UN predicts that food will start running out on a large scale by July, with the crisis peaking between December and next April.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016Re Europe’s ‘position’:
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Mblanc
/ May 25, 2016Have you read the article DT. I mean, the Daily Caller as a source, with contributions from a DC intern?
I’ve unwittingly posted some pretty dodgy links here myself, so I know its dead easy to do. You post so much good stuff that I can’t help feeling this slipped through the net.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 25, 2016Right, easy to do, inasmuch as the headline sounds neutral. I did tweet at Mr. Tveitdal to let him know the Daily Caller is a bad source, FWIW.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 26, 2016What about methane emissions, Svein?
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Abel Adamski
/ May 22, 2016The Republicans are on top of it all, they got the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/21/texas-republican-party-gay-grammar-wording
Texas Republican party inadvertently suggests most Texans are gay
Grammar trouble in state party’s platform appears to say ‘homosexual behavior’ is ‘shared by majority of Texans’
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Abel Adamski
/ May 22, 2016http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2016/05/22/not-just-climate-change-and-global-warming/
From Sri Lanka
To common a pattern worldwide, the Repubs even want to trash the EPA in the US and The OZ LNP seek to reduce environmental laws and regulations
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016Via my dear wife:
(I don’t recall a link to this WU.)
Arctic Sea Ice Goes Far Beyond Record Low Extent for May
By: Bob Henson , 4:01 PM GMT on May 20, 2016
…
On Thursday, the fire covered some 1.2 million acres–twice the size of Rhode Island–and was beginning to extend into Saskatchewan. As noted by blogger Robert Scribbler, this fire already has spanned more area than all of Alberta’s fires in 2015 combined. Soot from the Fort McMurray fire, and from major wildfires burning across parts of Siberia, could exacerbate the loss of sea ice by falling atop the ice and darkening the surface, thus increasing its ability to absorb sunlight.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/arctic-sea-ice-goes-far-beyond-record-low-extent-for-may
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016OK, I missed the May 20 WU RS link posted by June on the RS Fort Mac page.
Thx June.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016Way to go, Robert!
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016NA – 7 day outlook — A bit of latitudinal reach to the north in places.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– High Country News:
Past and present fauna
Writers bear witness to the “Age of Loneliness,” in the midst of a mass extinction.
Some environmentalists and scientists have begun calling our current epoch the “Anthropocene” to acknowledge the gross changes humans have induced in global ecosystems. But the biologist and author Edward O. Wilson has proposed an alternative name: “Eremocene,” or the Age of Loneliness, a name that alludes to the fact that we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, one for which humans are primarily responsible. The impending loss of so many of our fellow creatures means that humanity faces what can best be described as a kind of “species loneliness.” Regardless of what we call this new epoch, there are witnesses emerging — writers attuned to their environment — who are keenly aware of the implications of species loss, and who vow to bear witness to the songs of past beings and savor the life that remains.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/48.8/past-and-present-fauna?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5741e73604d3017de94d22e6&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
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John Allen
/ May 24, 2016Edward O. Wilson writes eloquently and with passion on how humans have exacted such a toll on the planet. The events now unfolding I don’t believe can be halted. The time to act was 50 years ago around the time of the fist Earth Day in 1970. Nothing much was done and now, here we are. The population has almost doubled and carbon pollution continues it’s escalating relentless rise, with govts unwilling to do what’s needed to give a decent long term outcome. We scream, nobody in position of power does anything. The climate talks sound good, but again don’t really do much good. Sorry my outlook isn’t as good as Wilson’s, but we’ll all see soon as the planet continues to warm perhaps to another mass extinction taking humans along with it.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 26, 2016John Allen, it could explain the ‘Silence of the Universe’. Intelligence, if I can use that term in relation to Homo destructans, may indeed be more dangerous than we imagined, if there is a wide range of psyches among the ‘intelligent’ species, encompassing types that we label ‘psychopaths’. Whenever I read another ranting denialist diatribe in a local Murdoch rag, our predicament seems eminently understandable.
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– USA – Colorado River – Glen Canyon Dam
Unplugging the Colorado River
Could the end be near for one of the West’s biggest dams?
May, 20.
Climate change is fundamentally altering the environment, making the West hotter and drier. There is less water to store, and few remaining good sites for new dams.
Many of the West’s big dams, meanwhile, have proved far less efficient and effective than their champions had hoped. They have altered ecosystems and disrupted fisheries. They have left taxpayers saddled with debt.
And in what is perhaps the most egregious failure for a system intended to conserve water, many of the reservoirs created by these dams lose hundreds of billions of gallons of precious water each year to evaporation and, sometimes, to leakage underground. These losses increasingly undercut the longstanding benefits of damming big rivers like the Colorado, and may now be making the West’s water crisis worse.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/opinion/unplugging-the-colorado-river.html
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016Brian Brettschneider @Climatologist49 2h2 hours ago
Highest temps in Alaska in 2016 through May 20th. #akwx (corrected for typo)
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– “In our society, language can be everything.”
– I’m sure glad they’re paying attention to something, in the past, I’ve tried to argue.
Individual deliberate actions by humans at the root of so much that confronts us.
The acceptance of gross misstatements like the ones this article are speaking of undoubtedly made it very easy for climate denials to set in.
– And we keep adding more cars/trucks with more distractions into a finite landscape.
‘It’s No Accident: Advocates Want to Speak of Car ‘Crashes’ Instead’
That is the position of a growing number of safety advocates, including grass-roots groups, federal officials and state and local leaders across the country. They are campaigning to change a 100-year-old mentality that they say trivializes the single most common cause of traffic incidents: human error.
“When you use the word ‘accident,’ it’s like, ‘God made it happen,’ ” Mark Rosekind, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said at a driver safety conference this month at the Harvard School of Public Health.
“In our society,” he added, “language can be everything.”
Almost all crashes stem from driver behavior like drinking, distracted driving and other risky activity. About 6 percent are caused by vehicle malfunctions, weather and other factors.
…
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wili
/ May 23, 2016And it’s more than even that. Cars and trucks and car/trucks are lethal weapons. When you are driving one around at anything more than about 5 mph, you essentially doing the same thing as walking around with a loaded shotgun pointed at everyone’s mid driff with your finger on the trigger…if you happen to pull the trigger because you are suddenly shocked or pushed or distracted or you trip…can we really call that an ‘accident.’ Most people wouldn’t.
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016Yeah wili, and it all shows how much that willfully dangerous behavior can be somehow socially tolerable and/or acceptable.
Not to mention how many are dependent on climate disrupting fossil fuels — all the way from air pollution to GHG.
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Cate
/ May 23, 2016When I went to live in the UK, I noticed right away that car accidents were always called “crashes” in news reports. It sounded more shocking than “accident”, so I put it down to either the necessity to save headline space or the British press’s habit of sensationalism. Never thought of it this way, that that one word can minimise our ability to blame human error. Makes sense.
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Mblanc
/ May 25, 2016Here in the UK we have a special type of crime, called causing death by dangerous driving, as opposed to say, manslaughter or murder, which are normally used when causing the death of another person.
Its widely regarded as the best way to kill someone, because of the lesser sentence one can expect. Is there a similar double-think in the US?
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dtlange
/ May 22, 2016– A bit more here:
(Recklessness in one’s community leads to being reckless with the climate.)
Preliminary estimates by the nonprofit National Safety Council show deadly crashes rose by nearly 8 percent in 2015 over the previous year, killing about 38,000 people.
Dr. Rosekind has added his voice to a growing chorus of advocates who say that the persistence of crashes — driving is the most dangerous activity for most people — can be explained in part by widespread apathy toward the issue. Changing semantics is meant to shake people, particularly policy makers, out of the implicit nobody’s-fault attitude that the word “accident” conveys, they said.
…
… accident is simply the wrong word. “I’m betting it’s one of the most commonly used words that is used inappropriately,”.
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Cate
/ May 23, 2016Starlings have arrived in Tuktoyaktuk.
Well, okay, a starling. Just one. So far.
This is the first, but knowing starlings, I reckon it’s unlikely to be the last.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/european-starling-sighting-tuktoyaktuk-1.3590399
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Ryan in New England
/ May 23, 2016bill McKibben on why the attempt by shareholders to get Exxon-Mobil to reduce emissions is a waste of time, and why divestment is the only sane strategy. As always, McKibben has a great perspective on the topic.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/20/exxon-shareholders-climate-change-reform-divest
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 26, 2016Ryan, the simple fact is that fossil fuel ‘assets’ as entered in the accounts of the extractive, refining and utilising corporations, and their banks, and the various investors in these ‘assets’, represent tens of trillions of US dollars. Reducing their value to near enough to zero, as decarbonisation requires, would crash ‘Free Market’ capitalism, unless undertaken on a time-scale of decades that is incompatible with averting a climate destabilisation Holocaust. So, any and all attempts to use ‘Market mechanisms’ or work with the ‘men in suits’ MUST fail. There is going to be a crash of Free Market capitalism one way or another. Either one where humanity survives, or one where it does not.
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Ryan in New England
/ May 23, 2016Some good news on the renewable energy front, Portugal ran for four days on just renewables.
Portugal kept its lights on with renewable energy alone for four consecutive days last week in a clean energy milestone revealed by data analysis of national energy network figures.
Electricity consumption in the country was fully covered by solar, wind and hydro power in an extraordinary 107-hour run that lasted from 6.45am on Saturday 7 May until 5.45pm the following Wednesday, the analysis says.
News of the zero emissions landmark comes just days after Germany announced that clean energy had powered almost all its electricity needs on Sunday 15 May, with power prices turning negative at several times in the day – effectively paying consumers to use it.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/portugal-runs-for-four-days-straight-on-renewable-energy-alone
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Greg
/ May 23, 2016Robert, in case it was missed,a shoutout from Jeff Masters in his new piece ‘Arctic Sea Ice Goes Far Beyond Record Low Extent for May’, “As noted by blogger Robert Scribbler…”
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/arctic-sea-ice-goes-far-beyond-record-low-extent-for-may
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Greg
/ May 23, 2016The Fort McMurray wildfire remains out of control. It is estimated to cover 522,892 hectares, including 741 hectares in Saskatchewan. There are 17 additional fires in Alberta.
There are 1,880 firefighters, 104 helicopters, 295 pieces of heavy equipment and 29 air tankers currently battling the fires (all 18).
Oil sands companies losing up to $50 million a day as fires rage: analysts
(cRRKampen, I know your reaction already . . . . )
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Greg
/ May 23, 2016from underground’s daddyjames.
http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-5793-1642C499FF0DE4CF
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016‘Fort McMurray, Anzac, Gregoire Lake Estates, Fort McMurray First Nation, Fort McKay First Nation and some camps north of Fort McMurray remain under a mandatory evacuation order.’
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Up north – AK:
But still there is still so much RED-ORANGE-BROWN warmth in coastal AK, and up and around the top.
Brian Brettschneider @Climatologist49 3h3 hours ago
The 6-10 day outlook from CPC has some blue in Alaska for the first time since March 14th! #akwx
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Continental USA
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Coal Dust in Cascadia – Marine and terrestrial – Many aspects to consider.
Coal Dust Threatens Cascadia’s Water and Wildlife
A look at the science.
On the West Coast, proposed coal terminal developments would potentially threaten some of the North America’s most iconic and sensitive bodies of water, including the Fraser River, the Salish Sea, the Columbia River, and San Francisco Bay.
…
… based on earlier research, that “surfactants,” the chemical adhesives commonly used to reduce coal dust escaping from trains, can actually boost the ability of coal pollutants to enter the environment. The Washington State Department of Natural Resources raises similar concerns about surfactants.
… coal may pose a less severe chemical hazard in the marine environment than in the terrestrial one. They note that coal has “well documented” physical effects similar to other suspended or deposited sediments. It abrades, smothers, dims light, and clogs both breathing and feeding organs.
Coal’s chemical impacts are also cause for concern. One study in Canada found that coal in the water can be a source of acidity, salinity, trace metals, hydrocarbons, chemical oxygen demand, and potentially macronutrients. In fact, Washington’s Department of Natural Resources says that materials in coal can react with seawater to produce “localized ocean acidification.”
http://www.sightline.org/2016/05/12/coal-dust-threatens-cascadias-water-and-wildlife/
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Below: I have seen this same sort of thing in Santa Barbara, Ca due to power blowers blasting soot covered traffic dust up onto the undersides of leaves and branches — where it adheres. All other locations show the black on topside surfaces. Power blowers have to go — never to seen again.
– Coal on plants
‘In South Africa, for example, a 2004 study found that coal dust from the Richards Bay Coal Terminal harms local mangrove trees and related ecosystems by impairing the trees’ ability to photosynthesize. The researchers noted: “…[coal] dust on the undersurface of leaves is not removed by wind, rain, or even physical washing. The undersurface of the leaves, as well as the rough surfaces of twigs, branches, and trunk, tend to accumulate dust and appear black.’
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– There’s some revealing info and photos here;
These Aerial Photos Explain Why Europe Has Such a Lower Carbon Footprint Than the U.S.
The average European has about half the carbon footprint of the average American, but that isn’t necessarily because the average German is trying to be greener than someone in Montana. In part, it’s a function of sprawl; American suburbs have a hefty footprint largely because of long communities and oversized houses.
In a new series of aerial photos, commissioned by Yale 360, photographer Alex MacLean flew over Europe to document land use patterns, along with the continent’s transformation to renewable energy.
http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/these-aerial-photos-explain-why-europe-has-such-lower-carbon-footprint-us?utm_content=bufferb74bc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016LikeLike
Ryan in New England
/ May 23, 2016East Antarctica, the part of Antarctica that many assume is less vulnerable to warming, is melting faster than expected. And a particular glacier is more susceptible to melt than previously suspected, and can significantly raise sea levels once a critical threshold is reached.
“The evidence coming together is painting a picture of East Antarctica being much more vulnerable to a warming environment than we thought,” said Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. “This is something we should worry about.
“Totten Glacier is losing ice now, and the warm ocean water that is causing this loss has the potential to also push the glacier back to an unstable place.”
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/antarctic_glacier_melt_could_raise_sea_levels_by_3_meters_20160521
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Ryan in New England
/ May 23, 2016Jeff Masters has a good piece (with charts/graphs) on the record low Arctic sea ice. The part I enjoyed the most was this…
On Thursday, the fire covered some 1.2 million acres–twice the size of Rhode Island–and was beginning to extend into Saskatchewan. As noted by blogger Robert Scribbler, this fire already has spanned more area than all of Alberta’s fires in 2015 combined. Soot from the Fort McMurray fire, and from major wildfires burning across parts of Siberia, could exacerbate the loss of sea ice by falling atop the ice and darkening the surface, thus increasing its ability to absorb sunlight.
I’ve always said Robert does great reporting/writing, but knowing you’re blog is read (and linked to) by pillars of the meteorological/scientific community is a compliment far greater than any I could hope to provide.
Robert, you do important work and have a far reaching impact that touches every corner of the globe. Keep it up, buddy! 🙂
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/arctic-sea-ice-goes-far-beyond-record-low-extent-for-may
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Ryan in New England
/ May 23, 2016Oh no, I just noticed the Masters blog was already mentioned and linked to! Sorry everybody. I’ve been really busy and haven’t had the time to stay caught up with all of the comments and links. The amount of information provided here, both by Robert and all the wonderful comments, is hard to keep up when you’re like me and read every comment and click on every link.
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Abel Adamski
/ May 23, 2016Very true
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Permafrost thaw dumps climate-warming soil into Arctic Ocean: study
That’s according to a new study from the University of Alberta which uncovered a 39 per cent increase in dissolved soil flowing from the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean………. “We know that that thaw depth is deepening at many places throughout the Arctic, and we also know that the prevalence of these slumps is increasing in magnitude as well,” said the study’s lead author Suzanne Tank from the University of Alberta in a May 13 news release.
Tank said “we have good evidence here to say that changes in climate and permafrost degradation” are responsible for the increased flow of carbon found in the topmost layer of soil, which is rich in organic matter thanks to plant growth.
Usually this carbon is locked up in permafrost, but with permafrost thaw accelerating, more of this carbon getting unearthed.
http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674permafrost_thaw_dumps_climate-warming_soil_into_arctic_ocean_mackenz/
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Good find – it makes sense. It’s also another observable trail of our altering of our eco-sphere. One that we will regret.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Here’s how Notley NDP cuts to pine beetle budget helped FUEL Fort McMurray fire
In Alberta, it’s estimated that the mountain pine beetle will kill 40% to 70% of the pine tree population in the Grande Prairie to Slave Lake region will die as a result of the infestation in that region. As we know, the NDP cut the wildfire budget by $15 million, but here’s what else was cut – the budget to keep the pine beetle population under control. NDP MLA Eric Rosendahl confirmed that $2 million was taken from that project.
The NDP are responsible for significant cuts to the wildfire budget, even though they were fully aware that they were an issue, especially since they partially blamed overspending by $300 million on wildfires last year for not being able to balance the budget.
http://www.therebel.media/here_s_how_notley_ndp_cuts_to_pine_beetle_budget_added_fuel_for_the_fire
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Abel Adamski
/ May 23, 2016Anyone surprised. ?
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-climate-change-golf-course-223436
The billionaire, who called global warming a hoax, warns of its dire effects in his company’s application to build a sea wall.
Donald Trump says he is “not a big believer in global warming.” He has called it “a total hoax,” “bullshit” and “pseudoscience.”
But he is also trying to build a sea wall designed to protect one of his golf courses from “global warming and its effects.”
The New York billionaire is applying for permission to erect a coastal protection works to prevent erosion at his seaside golf resort, Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, in County Clare.
A permit application for the wall, filed by Trump International Golf Links Ireland and reviewed by POLITICO, explicitly cites global warming and its consequences — increased erosion due to rising sea levels and extreme weather this century — as a chief justification for building the structure.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016India braces for more heat after temperatures break records
The number of heat waves had nearly doubled in the 10 years to 2010 from earlier decades, the meteorological office said. The number in the last six years had also risen from prior to the year 2000, but identifying clear trends requires more data.
http://in.reuters.com/article/india-heatwave-temperature-monsoon-rain-idINKCN0YE1CB
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Spike
/ May 23, 2016More evidence of the developing Early Anthropocene Climatic Optimum. Mid-Anthropocene Thermal Maximum here we come.
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Abel Adamski
/ May 23, 2016http://www.vox.com/2016/5/23/11742006/game-of-thrones-season-6-episode-5-white-walkers-climate-change
Interesting, Game of Thrones is actually about Climate Change and our response
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Madness — Total and complete madness planned at Tokyo Olympics — the so called ‘sporting’ event dominated by corporate logo $$$ and millisecond athleticism.
– show stopper
A man-made meteor shower launched by satellite could open the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo
Japanese research company ALE is bidding to create an artificial meteor shower for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. The project, Sky Canvas, goes beyond your average fireworks display: It involves launching a satellite into space “loaded with about 500 to 1,000 ‘source particles’ that become ingredients for a shooting star,” the company explains.
The company, which is aiming to launch its first satellite in the second half of 2017, outlines how the project works:
When the satellite stabilizes in orbit, we will discharge the particles using a specially designed device on board. The particles will travel about one-thirds of the way around the Earth and enter the atmosphere. It will then begin plasma emission and become a shooting star.
http://qz.com/689794/a-man-made-meteor-shower-launched-by-satellite-could-open-the-2020-olympic-games-in-tokyo/?utm_source=YPL
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 26, 2016dt, it sounds like ‘The Day of the Triffids’. I, if God spares me, for one, will not be watching. In any case, Fukushima might blow again before 2020. I mean TEPCO have no idea what is going on, so I won’t be surprised any way.
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Royal Society Publishing;
0523
Increasing western US forest wildfire activity: sensitivity to changes in the timing of spring
Abstract
Prior work shows western US forest wildfire activity increased abruptly in the mid-1980s. Large forest wildfires and areas burned in them have continued to increase over recent decades, with most of the increase in lightning-ignited fires. Northern US Rockies forests dominated early increases in wildfire activity, and still contributed 50% of the increase in large fires over the last decade. However, the percentage growth in wildfire activity in Pacific northwestern and southwestern US forests has rapidly increased over the last two decades. Wildfire numbers and burned area are also increasing in non-forest vegetation types. Wildfire activity appears strongly associated with warming and earlier spring snowmelt…
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150178
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– ‘The Royal Society was founded in 1660 to promote the new experimental philosophy of that time, embodying the principles of Sir Francis Bacon. Henry Oldenburg was appointed as the first secretary to the Society and he was also the first editor of the Society’s journal Philosophical Transactions. The first issue of Philosophical Transactions appeared in March 1665 and featured Oldenburg’s correspondence with leading European scientists. In its formative years Isaac Newton had seventeen papers published in the journal…’
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– From Dahr Jamail’s latest article – words I and others here have spoken: “Changes that normally occur over a matter of centuries are transpiring over decades.”
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return
Monday, 23 May 2016
…
“Changes that normally occur over a matter of centuries are transpiring over decades,” according to the report. “The Nisqually Glacier, for example, one of Rainier’s 28 named glaciers, has been disappearing since 1983. It’s currently at a historic minimum and still shrinking – more than 3 feet every 10 days.”
Paul Kennard, a National Park Service geomorphologist, said of the rapidity of the decline of the glaciers, “If you look at it on a graph, it’s like a Ping-Pong ball just fell off the edge of the table.”
And things have only sped up since then, both in terms of hotter temperatures as well as loss of ice on the Pacific Northwest iconic mountain.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36133-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-concentration-has-passed-the-point-of-no-return
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016…
And with the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide increasing, temperatures are increasing right alongside it, and with higher temperatures comes a lowering of the oxygen content of most of the global oceans before 2040.
Yes, that is as scary as it sounds. According to a recent press release from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a reduction in the amount of dissolved oxygen in the oceans due to ACD is already happening, and will become widespread before 2040.
Matthew Long, the lead author of the study that this press release is based on, stated, bluntly:
Loss of oxygen in the ocean is one of the serious side effects of a warming atmosphere, and a major threat to marine life. Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change. This new study tells us when we can expect the impact from climate change to overwhelm the natural variability.
The press release added, “Scientists know that a warming climate can be expected to gradually sap the ocean of oxygen.” This is literally making it harder for fish to breathe, as well as exacerbating the effects of ACD and ocean acidification.
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June
/ May 23, 2016This is something that is almost never mentioned in the MSM, so most people just don’t get it. Thus the endlessley repeated meme that ‘the climate has always changed, it’s no big deal.’ They seem to have no appreciation that the current rate of change leaves no time for the adaptation that changes on a geological time frame allow. It’s so maddening.
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June
/ May 23, 2016Oops…meant to reply regarding Dahr Jamail’s article.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 26, 2016June, I feel no regret that the morons are destroying themselves, but I get very angry when I contemplate how their malignant, ignorant, imbecility is wiping out the rest of us and most life on the planet.
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– And something relating to Bob’s permafrost silt link:
Positive feedback loops have been wreaking havoc in the Arctic as well.
Arctic Ocean acidification is being sped up by erosion and river runoff in Siberia. As the permafrost is thawing there, coastlines across Russia are falling into the ocean, along with rivers dumping massive amounts of carbon into the ocean, which is all combining to ramp up the acidification, which is bad news for all things living in the once-pristine waters of the Arctic.
In Austria, the glaciers are melting so fast, they have retreated an average of 72 feet during last year alone, which is more than twice the rate of the previous year, according to a recent survey.
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– All in all, it’s a ‘killer’ piece by Dahr.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 23, 2016Scheduling tweet on this too, thanks.
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Tom
/ May 24, 2016but, but, . . . technology!
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016NWS Seattle @NWSSeattle 32m32 minutes ago
More than half of flood-related deaths occur in vehicles. How? Check out this video:
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016LikeLike
June
/ May 23, 2016Support for Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. Microbes help keep planet’s temperature stable.
“Science pierces riddle of why clouds form”
“…When the sun shines brightly they get to work, and the gas they produce then makes aerosols that seed clouds which reflect sunlight and damp down the planetary temperatures again.”
http://climatenewsnetwork.net/science-pierces-riddle-clouds-form/
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 23, 2016-ncdc.noaa.gov/news/evaluating-tropical-cyclone-exposure-and-vulnerability
Evaluating Tropical Cyclone Exposure & Vulnerability
Over the past few decades, the locations where tropical cyclones reach their maximum intensity have been shifting toward the poles. For the western North Pacific Ocean in particular, this shift has also affected the region’s exposure to the impacts of tropical cyclones, according to a new paper published in the Journal of Climate titled “Past and Projected Changes in Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclone Exposure (link is external).”
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Oceans — Not really a surprise here but it is significant:
Swarms of Octopus Are Taking Over the Oceans
Something strange is happening to the oceans. As coral reefs wither and fisheries collapse, octopuses are multiplying like mad. As soon as they perceive weakness, they will amass an army and invade the land, too.
Okay, that last statement is probably pure paranoia. But it is a bit unsettling that cephalopods—squids, octopuses, cuttlefish—are booming, and scientists don’t know why. An analysis published today in Current Biology indicates that numerous species across the world’s oceans have increased in numbers since the 1950s.
“The consistency was the biggest surprise,” said lead study author Zoë Doubleday of the University of Adelaide. “Cephalopods are notoriously variable, and population abundance can fluctuate wildly, both within and among species.”
http://gizmodo.com/swarms-of-octopus-are-taking-over-the-world-s-oceans-1777790453
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Squids on the rise as oceans change
“Our analyses showed that cephalopod abundance has increased since the 1950s, a result that was remarkably consistent across three distinct groups,” says lead author Dr Zoë Doubleday, Research Fellow in the Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences.
“Cephalopods are often called ‘weeds of the sea’ as they have a unique set of biological traits, including rapid growth, short lifespans and flexible development. These allow them to adapt to changing environmental conditions (such as temperature) more quickly than many other marine species, which suggests that they may be benefiting from a changing ocean environment.”
The Eureka Press Release
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– And then ‘calamari’ became a very popular offering…
– The Voice of America just chimed in with this headline:
The Calamari Are Coming!
http://www.voanews.com/content/cephalopd-numbers-on-the-rise/3342191.html
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Cate
/ May 23, 2016Cephalopods are wicked smart.
It’s a trap! 😉
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 23, 2016Hmm, I was betting on the corvids, but OK, I can live with cephalopods as our successors. One evolution factoid I enjoy is that octopuses have eyes that are better designed than humans’.
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Abel Adamski
/ May 24, 2016I knew it has all been a conspiracy by aliens manipulating our easily duped politicians and military industrial complex.
We are doomed I tells yah.
But seriously they are interesting critters and extremely smart.
http://www.inquisitr.com/2331741/you-might-not-believe-it-but-octopuses-are-aliens-reveals-new-dna-study/
A new DNA study has revealed that octopuses are so weird that they may be categorized as ‘aliens’.
Researchers from the University of California conducted their study on a two-spot California octopus, discovering the probable reasons behind octopuses’ evolved central nervous systems and their fantastic ability to deceptively camouflage.
The late British zoologist Martin Wells was the first to describe the sea-inhabiting creatures as “aliens,” primarily because octopuses’ protein-coding structures are much more evolved than even humans.
But now the first full cephalopod genome sequence shows that octopuses (not to be confused with octopi) are extremely different from any other animal – with their genome showing a staggering level of complexity. The new DNA study, published in the scientific journal Nature, has identified the presence of more than 33,000 protein-coding genes in octopuses, significantly more than humans.
And that is not all. According to Irish Examiner, scientists also confirmed that the DNA of an octopus is highly rearranged– like cards shuffled and reshuffled in a pack – containing several “jumping genes” that can leap around the genome.
Humans have often found themselves astounded by octopuses’ abilities to carry out functions which would be deemed impossible for most animals – now we know why it is so easy for an octopus to open a jar of jam!
The octopus appears to be utterly different from all other animals, even other molluscs, with its eight prehensile arms, its large brain and its clever problem-solving abilities. Martin Wells said the octopus is an alien. In this sense, then, our paper describes the first sequenced genome from an alien.”
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Hilary
/ May 24, 2016Off topic for this post I know but just a story from our local national aquarium to amuse you all:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/13/the-great-escape-inky-the-octopus-legs-it-to-freedom-from-new-zealand-aquarium
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Cate
/ May 23, 2016And here’s yet another little back-pages by-the-by nugget on the Fort Mac fire: the fire burned a radioactive waste site.
I’ll say that again: a nuclear waste site was burned over.
But no problems, chin up, smile! It’s all safe and sound, nothing for us to worry our pretty little heads about.
http://www.euronews.com/2016/05/18/the-nuclear-waste-site-at-the-heart-of-canadas-wildfires/
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Yvan Dutil
/ May 23, 2016There is effectively no problem. Those «nuclear waste» are soil contaminated by uranium ore. They are buried under one foot of clay. Fire would have no impact.
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Cate
/ May 24, 2016Good to know. Thank you, Yvan.
I noted this mainly because it wasn’t noted anywhere else. I like to watch what makes it to the main TV news broadcasts and websites and what doesn’t. I think it’s important to understand who controls what news gets foregrounded and why. This story was ignored in favour of other Fort Mac stories, and I just found that a bit strange given that radioactive waste is an issue in itself for many people.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016The Climate Feedback site is up a running –
A Scientific Reference to Reliable Information on Climate Change
What if online coverage could be peer-reviewed?
Using the Hypothesis annotation platform, our community of scientists go through a variety of online media articles and provide ‘feedback’ on the scientific accuracy of the information presented. Readers can view these annotations directly alongside the original texts and see exactly where the article’s information is consistent — or inconsistent — with scientific thinking and state-of-the-art knowledge in the field.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016RS –
You really should add these guys to your blog roll.
Their funding page
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/climate-feedback-a-guide-to-reliable-climate-news–2#/
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Abel Adamski
That Trump story really blew up today. I hope those Irish officials turn him down , again.
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todaysguestis
/ May 23, 2016Arctic sea ice melt “like a train wreck” says US scientist
Snowmelt has started at the earliest date yet in 73 years, according to the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“It looks like late June or early July right now,” said David Douglas, research biologist with the US Geological Survey.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/05/23/arctic-sea-ice-melt-like-a-train-wreck-says-us-scientist/
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 23, 2016Scheduling tweet, thanks.
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redskylite
/ May 24, 2016Posting it thanks from me too. .
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016U.S. Leads Globe in Oil Production for Third Year
May 23rd, 2016
The U.S. led the world last year in producing both oil and gas, federal government estimates published Monday show, even as the country committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. was the globe’s leading producer of crude oil for the third year in a row in 2015. Government estimates show that crude oil production has continued to grow across the country, from nearly 8 million barrels of oil per day in 2008 to about 15 million in 2015. The U.S. produced about 14 million barrels per day in 2014.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-leads-globe-oil-production-for-third-year-20368
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Wharf Rat
/ May 24, 2016“Government estimates show that crude oil production has continued to grow across the country, from nearly 8 million barrels of oil per day in 2008 to about 15 million in 2015. ”
Not even close…
Thu Mar 31, 2016 2:20pm EDT
U.S. Jan. crude output falls 56,000 bpd to 9.179 million bpd: EIA
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-eia-monthly-idUSKCN0WX2GY
The all-time peak monthly US oil production took place in November 1970, when output averaged 10.044 million barrels per day
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016– Some bits from Circle of Blue:
WaterNews
Alaska Senators Worry about Canadian Mines
Alaska’s congressional delegation sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry to note its concern about gold and copper mines proposed in British Columbia. The representatives Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and Rep. Don Young — worry that mine pollution will tarnish streams that flow into Southeast Alaska, home to some of the world’s richest salmon runs.
Southeastern Senators Concerned about Rivers Too
Senators from Alabama and Florida sent a letter to the Senate Republican leadership to ask for help. The senators — Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson of Florida and Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby of Alabama — want the longstanding problem of water allocation in river basins shared with Georgia to be resolved.
The best way to do this, the senators argue, is by interstate compact, like so many of the western states.
Early Snowmelt in American West
Except for Colorado and southern Wyoming, mountain peaks are quickly losing their white caps, according to the National Water and Climate Center. Snowpack in the Cascades and the northern Rockies is about half of normal for this time of year. Why? Temperatures in this region over the last 60 days have been between 2 degrees and 8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than usual.
http://www.circleofblue.org/2016/federal-water-tap/federal-water-tap-may-23-u-s-senators-worry-local-water-problems/
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dtlange
/ May 23, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 23, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016I’ve been looking at Trump’s secret wall . He’s going to need it . It;s facing directly into teeth of the North Atlantic.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Trump+International+Golf+Links+%26+Hotel+Ireland/@52.747293,-11.7254986,7z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x79bc7df71e1ffc46!8m2!3d52.747293!4d-9.5017972
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redskylite
/ May 24, 2016But at least Trump’s professionals acknowledge climate change . . .
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hasn’t had to answer many questions about his position on climate change yet. But in a handful of colorful tweets over the last few years, Trump has made it clear that he rejects the conclusions of climate science, opting for descriptors like “hoax” and “bullshit.”
………
“If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland.”
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/trump-owned-golf-course-cites-sea-level-rise-in-seawall-permit/
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016But it didn’t dump radioactive water into the North Pacific forever. Or spew it over Northern Europe. It just failed. How many deaths ? Zero? Let’s look at the Russians on the roof of the reactor –
Chernobyl Uncensored – Documentary
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Not one person has ever died when a wind mill , or a solar plant has ever failed. Or that years of expensive ongoing clean-up has ever happen .
EVER.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016People believe that nuclear will save us. But if we drop the ball, It’s billions of dollars. And thousands of people. Just trying to keep our finger in
dike we should have never built.
And all of that is “dead money”.
Everyone believes the “left” killed nuclear power in the US. But that’s not true, Wall Street wouldn’t buy their bonds.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 23, 2016Hmm, well not quite true. To the best of my knowledge, no member of the public has been killed by a wind turbine failure, but there was at least one European who died when the wind turbine he was working on malfunctioned.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016We have 4 melting reactors our of our control.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016But solar plant will be hyped.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Hell in a bucket.
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Ryan in New England
/ May 23, 2016As everyone here already knows, the denier’s arguments are all BS and ignore the data or misrepresent it. A recent study confirms this.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/23/climate-denial-arguments-fail-a-blind-test
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Ryan in New England
/ May 23, 2016If we continue to burn all fossil fuels and don’t take action, the world will warm 10C in the coming centuries according to a new study.
The planet would warm by searing 10C if all fossil fuels are burned, according to a new study, leaving some regions uninhabitable and wreaking profound damage on human health, food supplies and the global economy.
The Arctic, already warming fast today, would heat up even more – 20C by 2300 – the new research into the extreme scenario found.
“I think it is really important to know what would happen if we don’t take any action to mitigate climate change,” said Katarzyna Tokarska, at the University of Victoria in Canada and who led the new research. “Even though we have the Paris climate change agreement, so far there hasn’t been any action. [This research] is a warning message.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/23/world-could-warm-by-massive-10c-if-all-fossil-fuels-are-burned
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John Allen
/ May 24, 2016Anything much over 4 degrees C will kill us and most of life we know on the planets surface. 10′ C equates to a new start for Mother Nature.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016The night of the Chernobyl disaster , 2 women showed up at my door. I cast them away.
The worst choice I ever made.
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Shawn Redmond
/ May 23, 2016What’s the aqua marine colour in the normally steely blue north Atlantic east of Greenland and to the south of Iceland? I’ve been looking back in the archives of arctic.io and can’t seem to find anything similar. Is this fresh water? Tremendous amount if it is.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Hell is coming to breakfast ?
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wili
/ May 23, 2016It’s essentially the only part of the global oceans that is cooling instead of warming. This is not good. rs has talked about it, but here also is a recent article on it from rc: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/05/amoc-slowdown-connecting-the-dots/
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Andy in SD
/ May 24, 2016If you look on the lower 1/4 of the west side of Greenland, you’ll see the same thing. But there you can see the source as well. You can see the fjords and river outflows cranking out the same thing. I believe it is exactly as you surmised as well, fresh water.
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Griffin
/ May 24, 2016Hi Shawn, it is likely phytoplankton. Cate provided this link earlier in this thread about how NASA is studying phytoplankton in the North Atlantic this year. That is a huge bloom for sure.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/2016-earth-expeditions-naames
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Shawn Redmond
/ May 24, 2016Thanks for the input guys. this stuff is way above my pay grade. The interest and concern however covers all pay grades.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016Let’s us be clear
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Shawn Redmond
/ May 23, 2016The table is set and I believe I see the waiter coming now. That was fast, it should still be good and hot!
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Colorado Bob
/ May 23, 2016In The Mood
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Colorado Bob
/ May 24, 2016[The tune that won WW II.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 24, 2016It goes on forever
Moonlight Serenade
\
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Wharf Rat
/ May 24, 2016Temperatures Could Rise Far More Than Previously Thought If Fossil Fuel Reserves Burned
http://www.desmog.ca/2016/05/23/temperatures-could-rise-far-more-previously-thought-if-fossil-fuels-burned
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Leland Palmer
/ May 24, 2016As bad as these estimates are, these are still primarily CO2 based estimates.
If global average temperatures increase by 10 degrees C and the Arctic warms by 20 degrees C, do we really expect that the methane hydrates would stay mostly intact?
In this study, they calculate 8 degrees C from CO2, but only 2 degrees C of temperature rise from all of the other greenhouse gases.
I don’t think they included really large amounts of methane. According to the modeling by the IMPACTS group of national labs and universities in 2012, long before we get to those levels of warming whole ocean basins would be anoxic and their ability to oxidize methane into CO2 would be exhausted. Much of the methane from the shallower hydrates would be escaping directly into the atmosphere at that point. Published estimates of the total methane hydrate inventory vary widely, from about .004 trillion tons of carbon as methane to over 70 trillion tons of carbon as methane, with consensus estimates of 5-20 trillion tons. Methane hydrate deposits that are thinly distributed and uneconomic to exploit would still add to globa d
According to numerous authorities on atmospheric chemistry including Isaksen, release of large amounts of methane would result in massive atmospheric chemistry changes, multiplying the lifetime and so the greenhouse forcing of methane, as well as injecting water vapor from methane oxidation into the stratosphere, and greatly increasing low altitude ozone.
Click to access IsaksenGB2011.pdf
These sound like straightforward CO2 based estimates, that neglect the oceanic and atmospheric chemistry effects of massive methane release.
And heating from any source will increase water vapor – the strongest greenhouse gas – by something like 7% per degree of global heating.
If we ever get to that stage, we’re talking End Permian sorts of conditions, I think, only increased because the sun is maybe 2-3% hotter now than it was during the End Permian. We’re coming out of a series of ice ages, so methane hydrate inventories may be at an all time high. And the planet has likely never seen rates of CO2 increase like this before, and our release is both unnaturally fast and unnaturally unidirectional.
As bad as these estimates are, I don’t think they are bad enough to be realistic, if we burn all the fossil fuels. The estimates also are based on 5 trillion tons of carbon in the fossil fuels – but there could also be at least 5 additional trillion tons of carbon in the methane hydrates, not counting the strong positive feedback from atmospheric chemistry effects of massive methane hydrate release.
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Leland Palmer
/ May 24, 2016Oh, sorry, about the middle of the post:
Methane hydrates that are thinly distributed and uneconomic to exploit would still add to oceanic anoxia and acidification, and limit the ability of ocean basins to oxidize methane.
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Leland Palmer
/ May 25, 2016The researchers themselves say that 5 trillion tons of carbon in the fossil fuels is a low estimate:
“Researchers used the lower boundary of estimates of known fossil fuels, Tokarska said in an interview with DeSmog Canada.
“The (amount of untapped fossil fuels) could be much higher as we didn’t consider unconventional sources, and then the warming would be much higher,” Tokarska said.”
They didn’t include unconventional fossil fuels like tar sands and oil shales. They didn’t include the methane hydrates and the direct forcing from the subsequent methane. And they didn’t include secondary atmospheric and oceanic chemistry effects from the probable huge methane release.
This is not a worst case estimate, and the researchers themselves admit that. At least in terms of fossil fuel estimates, this is a very conservative estimate.
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redskylite
/ May 24, 2016A detailed report of some of the specific problems that tribes are facing under Climate Change.
Indigenous populations in the U.S. are at increased vulnerability to the impacts of climate change on human health for a myriad of reasons.
. . . . . . . . .
“We have been experiencing an increasingly dangerous situation with sea level rise and intensified storms,” Quinault President Fawn Sharp said in a statement posted to the U.S. climate resilience and toolkit website. “Our people must be protected. We will take whatever measures are necessary to see that they are.”
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/05/23/extreme-heat-week-combats-climate-change-resilience-strategies-tribes-164561
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Caroline
/ May 24, 2016Does anyone have any updates on methane levels/indications of methane hydrates destabilizing with all this heat?
Re: methane hydrates: I had no idea this was going on . . . . .
“The Icy Fire Beneath Norway’s Seabed
Trapped by deep ocean pressure and cold temperatures along continental shelves, methane hydrates could be an energy windfall or a looming disaster. Norway is spending millions to discover whether this ice-like form of natural gas will prove boon or bane.”
https://www.newsdeeply.com/arctic/articles/2016/03/25/the-icy-fire-beneath-norways-seabed
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Cate
/ May 24, 2016Caroline, there are a few discussions on methane (seeps, hydrates, etc) over at the ASIF—Arctic Sea Ice Forum, although a lot of the talk there goes right over my head frankly. 😉
In general, methane hydrates, “clathrate guns”, and so on seems to be a bit of an elephant in the climate change room. When I asked over at ASIF what would be the implications for climate, weather, the biosphere, etc, of a “blue ocean” in the Arctic, the issue of methane hydrates was near the top of the list—but if you google it, you end up running around in doomsday scenario circles—not helpful.
I thought this 2013 Guardian article does clear up some points:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/aug/05/7-facts-need-to-know-arctic-methane-time-bomb
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Caroline
/ May 24, 2016Thanks Cate. Glad I’m not the only one who has a hard time comprehending the ASIF! I get frustrated with my lack of comprehension related to the science of the posts but also I feel that it is absurd to get caught up in exactly WHEN the arctic will be ice free. Is that a debate really worth focusing on at this point? Seems to be the case there much of the time.
I agree about methane clathrates being the elephant in the room . . . keeps me awake at night. Wondering how we will know when/if significant (i.e. clathrate gun officially fired) hydrate destabilization occurs.
Just got back from the boreal forest (what is left of it) in n. Wisconsin. Very eery. Dying trees, high/dry winds, extreme fire conditions and diminished spring bird songs. Reality is starting to sink in that things will never be the same (even though I’ve felt this for decades) . . . . hard to know how to be around my teen daughter. I feel so sad much of the time and try to put on a brave face; feigning “it will all be OK” is all but impossible when it is NOT going to be OK.
We as homo sapiens are in unchartered territory climate wise and emotion wise. How can anyone can fully integrate the emotional reality of what we are facing related to loss of species/ecosystems/diversity . . . life . . . .? This is a new realm of grief never before experienced by humans.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 24, 2016The science blog Real Climate has some good articles on methane, Cate. If you Google the terms you usually use and then add site:realclimate.org after the terms, you should be able to find them easily.
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Griffin
/ May 24, 2016All I can say is that you sounded like you just wrote out my own thoughts Caroline.
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Ryan in New England
/ May 24, 2016Caroline, I know exactly how you feel (except for having a daughter). When I was last in Colorado I nearly wept at the vast expanse of forest turned dead and gray by warmer temps and beetle infestation. It was everywhere I went. Hours of driving and we could never find pristine forest. Completely heartbreaking and overwhelming when confronted by the scale of destruction.
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Leland Palmer
/ May 24, 2016There seem to be indications that methane plumes off Svalbard and along the Oregon / Washington coast are increasing along the shallow end of the methane hydrate stability zone. There are some indications that is happening along the Atlantic east coast of the U.S.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2015/10/14/bubble-plumes-off-washington-oregon-suggest-warmer-ocean-may-be-releasing-frozen-methane/
These releases are relatively small, hard to distinguish from the background, and appear to be orderly. Modeling from the IMPACTS group of national labs and universities anticipated that we will see plumes along the shallow end of the hydrate stability zone, as that zone migrates into deeper water as temperatures increase.
On the other hand, ocean acidification is proceeding more rapidly than anticipated, and some of the deep upwelling water is very acidic indeed. Due to rapid oxidation of methane into CO2 by currently healthy bacterial communities, methane would I think show up mainly as CO2, first, and as anomalous amounts of acidity from deep upwelling water, I think. This acidification could also come from CO2 increases in the atmosphere and decay of organic material along the continental shelves, and most of it probably does come from these sources – so far.
Another possible indication of deep methane release, in my opinnion – anomalous algae blooms. These are happening along many continental shelves and seem especially apparent in the Arctic. You can hunt for these using the NASA worldview web portal, using the chlorophyll A data product.
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Caroline
/ May 24, 2016Thanks for this information Leland.
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robertscribbler
/ May 24, 2016Overall, the state of play has been similar to what we’ve seen for the past few years:
1. We get reports of various disturbing hotspots.
2. There is no observed massive release that would be indicative of a clathrate gun type event.
3. The mainstream science remains doubtful that such large events will occur in shorter timescales.
4. The larger risk appears to be that total carbon cycle feedbacks could hit between 10 and 35 percent of the human emission by the end of this Century. This is still a bad emission rate similar to natural system emissions that lead to past hothouse events. Something that would have serious consequences on top of the human carbon spike if it continued for centuries to millennia.
It’s worth noting that the rate of methane accumulation in the Earth atmosphere has slowed somewhat during 2015-2016. So we’re not seeing an escalating ramp of atmospheric methane accumulation at this time.
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016What you say, Robert, mirrors my general reading of the situation.
Thanks for it.
DT
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Cate
/ May 24, 2016Thanks for the perspectives, guys. I think we can maybe not worry too much about the methane bombs yet?
Caroline, for what it’s worth, I share your sadness. It is almost unbearable, and certainly inexpressible., to see what Is happening to our beautiful planet in all its amazing diversity, and to think what may happen to all the peoples of the world, individually and collectively, the wealth and beauty of human cultures, our arts, our technological advances, our shared histories and achievements. .
I find it impossible to think through the prospects of losing all this without an overwhelming sense of despair. But I think it’s important to back off from that big view and to take this very personally, in terms of our own children—your daughter, my son. When they were little–and even now that they’re grown, we felt we would fight like tigresses to protect them. You know that feeling—mother anger! Nothing is more powerful or more fearful. That’s what we have to summon up now, only this time we have to enlist everyone on the planet in order to win the battle.
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Leland Palmer
/ May 25, 2016Hi Robert, Caroline, Cate and DT-
We should be finding out how much of the anomalous acidification we are seeing is due to oxidation of methane, and how much is due to CO2 from decay of organic material and increases in atmospheric CO2. Isotope ratio studies might tell us, as would likely mass balance studies and modeling of all the affected species like bicarbonate, sulfate, and nitrates.
We should not be satisfied with our current lack of knowledge about the size of the global methane hydrate inventory. There is a class of hydrates – high salt hydrates – that are at the triple point of gas/solid/liquid system and those are likely much less stable than more conventional hydrates, and there may be as much as 0.1 trillion tons of those, by a very rough estimate. Governments should spend the money, and get the relevant information from the oil corporations, to find out what is going on.
Our current state of ignorance is very alarming, and we should not be satisfied with it.
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016Zack Labe @ZLabe 4h4 hours ago
Nearly vertical swath of convection in the center of CONUS over the last 24-hours (MAX radar reflectivity composite)
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016FILE UNDER: ASPHALT/TARMAC – THAT BLACK HEAT ABSORBING SEMI STABLE BITUMEN PASTE WE CARPET OUR CAR CRAZY WORLD WITH.
Caught on camera: A dangerous, melting road in Gujarat
-Published on May 22, 2016
Pedestrians in Gujarat’s Valsad had a nasty surprise waiting for them on Saturday. As they got onto this road, shoes and slippers stuck to the melting tar. Dismay written large on their faces, they struggled to free their shoes. Some retreated altogether, others gingerly braved the crossing.
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016Days past: NA – California – La Brea Tar Pits
Animals Trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits
-sdgateswriter.com/2015/08/07/mammoths-maniacs-and-money
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016Animals Trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits Would Take Months to Sink
New research shows that animals trapped in the tar would linger for months on end
…
Once stuck in a tar seep, animals would eventually sink into the earth. But that’s not the only reason they were deadly, says Earth, describing new research. Once ensnared, animals would linger on the surface for months—often 17 to 20 weeks. Stuck there, they were tempting bait to roaming scavengers.
Dire wolves, which roamed the western U.S. until 11,000 years ago, were often tricked by what seemed like an easy meal, says the Page Museum, which works with fossils from the tar pits. More than 4,000 dire wolves have been pulled from the pits, the museum says: “Most were probably trapped while attempting to feed on other animals stuck in the asphalt.”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/animals-trapped-in-the-la-brea-tar-pits-would-take-months-to-sink-6006035/?no-ist
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016“linger for months on end’
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016David Lange @DavidLange2 19 Feb 2013
PHOTO: #Asphalt sealant degrading Santa Barbara parking lot
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016Above photo: May 6, 2012.
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Wharf Rat
/ May 24, 2016The Dire Wolf collects his due
while the boys sing round the fire
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016LikeLike
rlmcr (@rlmcr57)
/ May 24, 2016According to the news today, the heatwave in India continues, and no doubt so will heat-related deaths. I can’t help thinking back to a story on a report finding the Middle East may be too hot for people to keep living there by the end of this century. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/persian-gulf-heat-1.3290285
When I read recent stories on temperature records I wonder if they’re being a little too conservative with that projection! Seems more likely that we will have mass waves of emigration from the tropic zones a lot sooner. And considering the way Europe and Australia are reacting to a few thousand migrants from Syria and North Africa, what will be the reaction of the global north to billions of climate refugees trying to flee the tropics? And then what will be the long term prognosis for survival of the human race?
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Mblanc
/ May 25, 2016A few thousand migrants? I thought the figure was 5 million displaced from Syria, although most of them are in adjacent countries.
The general point about the potential for climate induced mass population movements is entirely correct though. The reaction in more northerly countries will not be pretty, particularly if those countries are being destroyed internally, by neo-liberal austerity madness, as is happening in Europe.
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Josh
/ May 24, 2016“North Yorkshire council backs first UK fracking tests for five years
Council approves shale gas tests in village of Kirby Misperton despite receiving 4,375 objections to the plans
Fracking is set to take place in Britain for the first time in five years after councillors approved tests in North Yorkshire, sweeping aside thousands of objections from residents and campaigners.
Tests for shale gas can now take place in the village of Kirby Misperton, in the Ryedale district, after councillors gave the green light to UK firm Third Energy.
The decision was greeted with boos, jeers and honking horns from crowds of anti-fracking campaigners outside County Hall in Northallerton, where residents raised fears of catastrophic seismic activity, health problems and pollution during a rancorous two-day hearing.”
. . .
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/24/anti-fracking-activists-declare-war-north-yorkshire-ruling-kirby-misperton
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Josh
/ May 24, 2016.. and from a related article, I thought this was notable:
“The Conservative councillor added: “I’m totally against nuclear power stations and if we’ve got the resources under the ground – we’ve got coal there, we’ve got gas there, we’re bringing it round the world to try and run this country with all these things that we’re importing. And we’ve got it on our doorstep. But it’s just how we do it.
Advertisement
‘I’m not an expert, I’m not a professor. The number of professors that were talking – we get one saying yes, and one saying no.'”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/24/anti-fracking-activists-declare-war-north-yorkshire-ruling-kirby-misperton
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Mblanc
/ May 25, 2016Sad news, although it has taken 5 years since the last attempt was stopped because of small earthquakes.
The fear is that this will open the floodgates for more sites, but I think that will be fought every step of the way, and we look to the next government to put a stop to further development.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 26, 2016But Josh, there may have been 4700 objections from Leftists, Commos and trouble-makers, but there were about 50 in favour, from ‘risk-takers’ and ‘entrepreneurs’. You can bet, too, that the names of all 4700 ‘Luddites’ have been filed somewhere, ‘for future reference’. The explosion is coming. When the parasite elite’s hatred and contempt for the proles is SO blatant, even the most thoroughly brainwashed are going to wake up.
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Josh
/ May 27, 2016I try to take comfort in the hope that anthropogenic climate change will become undeniable to the general public, along with the urgency of action that may accompany that.
But I hope that happens sooner rather than later.
At present climate protest is viewed with suspicion (by some). But if everybody sees the danger, this may change.
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dnem
/ May 24, 2016Score one for BAU. VietJet Airlines orders 100 Boeing 737 passenger jets. This is the kind of sunk cost into long-lived FF infrastructure that we should be avoiding. At least they have bikini-clad flight attendants, though 😉
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/boeing-seals-deal-11-3-billion-sale-737-max-jets-vietjet-airlines/
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Abel Adamski
/ May 24, 2016Unfortunately very few will read it, being in the religion sector of the ABC in Oz, now it is being run effectively by the IPA and Murdochs News Ltd even fewer people pay attention to it as it is literally now a waste of time, no longer the source for news and current affairs and sharp interviews.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/05/24/4468424.htm
Good well written article from the religious perspective
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 24, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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Cate
/ May 24, 2016Abel, thanks for that link, which I followed through and came across this interesting Oz initiative: a multi-faith member-based association of people interested in looking the implications of climate change for faith and moral/social justice issues. An array of resources for anyone seeking a focus on morality and faith in the midst of this crisis.
http://www.arrcc.org.au/
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Abel Adamski
/ May 25, 2016Also a very interesting quote in that article.
Perspective, our indigenous aborigines history goes back over 40,000 years at least. their dream time legends have been analysed and record the slr at the end of the ice age etc etc and are actually a fairly accurate verbal record of the lands history over that time with cave paintings going back over 30,000 years.
“A young Aboriginal man from the Northern Territory captured this well recently when he told a meeting of Indigenous people:
“We’ve got a calendar that never been changed in 60,000 years. You can predict everything off this calendar. It tells you when the dugongs are fat, when the turtle are fat, when to go look for magpie geese. It was all perfectly done so that we could survive off our land. But now we have to freestyle it.”
And Denialists bleat about climate always changes, MWP, LIA etc etc
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 24, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 24, 2016– Emissions – Shipping & Aviation – Something I’ve repeatedly alluded to;
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 24, 2016FYI: The Society of Environmental Journalists [and RS type bloggers] has a section devoted to climate change.
Climate Change: A Guide
to the Information and Disinformation
http://www.sej.org/initiatives/climate-change/overview
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016EJToday: Top Headlines
EJToday is SEJ’s selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day’s EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.
“The Zika Virus Spread Is Our Own Fault, WHO Chief Says”
“The Zika epidemic and the birth defects it’s causing are both the fault of governments that abandoned programs to control mosquitoes and to provide even the most basic family planning assistance to young women, the head of the World Health Organization said Monday.”
…
“Climate Change Takes Center Stage At Exxon, Chevron Annual Meetings”
“Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp will face their toughest-ever push by shareholders concerned about a warming world at annual meetings on Wednesday, as the Paris accord to tackle climate change ratchets up investor pressure on two of the world’s largest oil companies.”
…
http://www.sej.org/headlines/list/Climate%20Change/*/*
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016“… it is criminal to sit passively by and do nothing with the information that seven million people die…
– A hard truth that underlies the urgency of fossil fuel, and other related activities, with one result being climate change. Also see Short Lived Climate Pollutants.
Inaction on air pollution, ecological ruin homicidal: UNEP chief
By OLIVE BURROWS, NAIROBI, Kenya, May 24 – United Nations Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner has compared failure to address the causes of air pollution and environmental degradation in general, to the premeditated killing of one by another.
While he admits that the comparison may not be technically accurate, he says it is criminal to sit passively by and do nothing with the information that seven million people die annually as a result of air pollution in a worsening situation given a World Health Organisation report that global air pollution levels increased by eight percent between 2008 and 2013.
https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2016/05/inaction-air-pollution-ecological-ruin-homicidal-unep-chief/
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016‘Exhaust fumes, for example, are responsible for 30 percent of particulate emissions in European cities and up to 50 percent in other countries.’
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Abel Adamski
/ May 25, 2016DT
I have this bad habit of following the link jungle trail .
Another excellent article (same author)
https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2014/06/charcoal-trade-poses-greater-risks-than-poaching/
Charcoal trade poses greater risks than poaching
NAIROBI, Kenya, June 24 – A report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Interpol shows that trade in charcoal is a greater security threat than poaching.
The report, titled The Environmental Crime Crisis, established a direct link between the illegal charcoal trade and terrorism whereas it was unable to establish a direct link between poaching and terrorism despite the presence of what UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said was anecdotal evidence.
The magnitude of the illegal charcoal trade, the report’s Editor in Chief Christian Nellemann said, was especially disconcerting at a value of $1.9 billion in Africa annually.
Much funding terrorist groups
You mentioned some time ago re the cessation of the charcoal tfade in England, it is postulated that it was the Black Plague that saved the forests of Europe.
Charcoal burning and to a lesser degree Coal were the foundations of civilisation, civilisation and cities were founded on pottery fired in charcoal fueled kilns, which morphed into metal ore smelters, thus bronze age, then as air injection by initially manual bellows raised the temperatures , then came the iron age, then came coal as an even more dense fuel.
The progression of one step at a time tells the story, now time for the next step
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016Tim McGill @WGNWeatherGuy 1h1 hour ago
Magnificent supercell thunderstorm in Kansas amazes tornado chasers
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dtlange
/ May 24, 20160524
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016– “the continuous nature of exposure and the number of people affected”.
Air pollution exposure may raise heart disease risk
Study found exposure linked to poorer blood sugar, cholesterol measures
…
Cardiovascular and lipid disorders are the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Society’s Endocrine Facts and Figures Report
…
“While air pollution is linked with relatively small changes in cardiometabolic risk factors, the continuous nature of exposure and the number of people affected gives us cause for concern…”.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160524144659.htm
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Mark from OZ
/ May 25, 2016Great links dt! Always! Many thanks to all!
Made me reflect that not THAT long ago (100-140 years) human waste was swirling ankle deep through the city streets of growing cities like Melbourne (and others) and that ‘something’ had to be done as Typhoid and other diseases similarly took heavy tolls on the people before collective action was initiated. Public water /sewerage works made huge gains here as it was the right thing to do (and was way past due).
What’s so different about the air we breath that we continue to degrade the O2 systems that permit us life?
And, ‘complementing’ land based transport’s pollution, the container ship and cruise ships are enormous contributors and seem to operate with impunity as they are ‘out of sight’.
Seems to me we’re ‘hip’ deep in atmospheric waste yet analogous alarm, outrage and action are only relatively small voices. Perhaps the stunning mortality experienced previously amongst our ancestors is the required catalyst for real action.
http://phys.org/news/2016-05-nanostructured-filters-shipping-pollution.html
(article on tech for reducing maritime pollution) Numbers still ghastly!)
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016MFO — “‘hip’ deep in atmospheric waste”. That’s us alright. 🙂
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Colorado Bob
/ May 24, 2016200,000 year old soil found at mysterious crater, a ‘gate to the subterranean world’
Many Yakutian people are said to be scared to approach the Batagaika Crater – also known as the Batagaika Megaslump: believing in the upper, middle and under worlds, they see this as a doorway to the last of these.
The fearsome noises are probably just the thuds of falling soil at a landmark that is a one kilometre-long gash up to 100 metres (328 feet) deep in the Siberian taiga.
Batagaika started to form in 1960s after a chunk of forest was cleared: the land sunk, and has continued to do so, evidently speeded by recent warmer temperatures melting the permafrost, so unbinding the layers on the surface and below. Major flooding in 2008 increased the size of the depression which grows at up to 15 metres per year.
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0678-200000-year-old-soil-found-at-mysterious-crater-a-gate-to-the-subterranean-world/
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016– Good find.
I wonder if there is any audio of the ‘fearsome noises ‘.
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 24, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ May 24, 2016Earliest Snowmelt on Record Observed in Arctic
Snow is melting in Barrow, Alaska, earlier than it ever has since scientists at NOAA’s Barrow Observatory began recording it.
Staff at the observatory reported snowmelt occurred May 13, the earliest snowmelt date in 73 years of record-keeping, beating the previous mark set in 2002 by a full 10 days.
https://www.wunderground.com/news/arctic-circle-earliest-snowmelt-ever
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dtlange
/ May 24, 2016Exxon Mobil faces ‘change or die’ moment on climate
A significant group of shareholders are seeking to force Exxon Mobil to acknowledge the growing threat from climate change at the company’s AGM on Wednesday.
The company says that the shareholder resolutions are unnecessary, while the investigations by several states are “politically motivated.”
…
Broad coalition
For around a quarter of a century, a varied collection of climate activists and institutions concerned about rising temperatures have attempted to get Exxon Mobil to move forward on the issue of climate change.
This year, they believe the coalition attempting to force change on the issue, is the strongest ever assembled. Investors with at least $8tn under management have indicated they will support greater recognition of the climate change issue.
At the AGM here in Dallas, the company faces resolutions including one to appoint a board member who has a high degree of climate expertise.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36332076
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Abel Adamski
/ May 25, 2016Who will be the scapegoat. ?
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– USA – Water – “Last year, the reservoir reached a low point of about 1,075 feet, but not until late June. ”
As Lake Mead dwindles, can an interstate water war be far behind?
… Lake Mead, the main reservoir holding Colorado River water for California, Arizona and Nevada, has reached its lowest point since it began filling behind Hoover Dam in 1935. As of midnight Sunday, the lake reached 1,074.37 feet above sea level. It’s expected to keep falling until mid-summer, reaching 1,070 feet before seasonal agricultural demand falls off and it begins to fill again. Last year, the reservoir reached a low point of about 1,075 feet, but not until late June.
The long-term prospects for Colorado River supply are dire. Demand for its water among the seven states of the river basin–chiefly California and Arizona–hopelessly outstrips the supply, and has been almost since the seven states in its basin worked out an allocation deal in 1922. That interstate compact, brokered by then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, was based on an estimate of river flows that was flagrantly inflated and never has been met. Since then, the recognition of claims from Mexico and Southwestern Indian tribes has only increased demand. Climate change and drought are making the crisis worse.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-lake-mead-water-20160523-snap-story.html
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– USA Reservoirs – Current Levels vs Capacities
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– vox.com/2016/5/23/11736340/lake-mead-water-drought-southwest
Dean Farrell)
The size of the circles is proportional to the capacity of the reservoir.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– California snowpack and Lower Colorado Region rivers.
image can be downloaded ant viewed larger.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– NWSBayArea Verified account @NWSBayArea May 15
2nd graphic expands on #drought awareness – Sierra Nevada snow water content & Lake Mead elevation now 1075 feet.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– Wildfire safety tip: If possible: “Jump into the black.” It has already burned.
Dave Zaniboni @SBCFireInfo May 2 Santa Barbara, CA
Gaviota grass fire
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016At this rate a full centimeter comes along pretty quickly:
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Wharf Rat
/ May 25, 2016It’s still 5/24 where I am, so Happy Birthday, Bob. We don’t need a weatherman to know the wind is blowing differently than it was when you wrote this.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016Air Traffic – Atlantic
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016I hope to find a similar graphic for the PNW & Polar Routes.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016Meanwhile – USA air
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– Point: each one is heavier than air.
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Cate
/ May 25, 2016My cousin is an air-traffic controller at Gander, Newfoundland, which is responsible for all traffic in the NW Atlantic. He says they have seen air traffic boom in the past decade or so. “The whole world is on the move,” he says, shaking his head.
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redskylite
/ May 25, 2016Middle Classes subsidizing the rich, time to end subsidies and adapt to the times, at least stop new development in flood prone areas . . . . .
The system is hard to justify, with middle-class taxpayers living inland having to subsidise mostly upper-income owners of coastal homes.
“Government-provided insurance made sure that premiums were low enough to sustain ongoing development and a massive relocation of population to regions which, we now know, are borderline inhabitable,”
“Lloyd’s, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, says the US government must stop providing insurance subsidies to homeowners building on flood plains and in coastal areas exposed to mounting risks related to climate change.
According to a report in London’s Financial Times, Lloyd’s says the US government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which subsidises insurance cover for householders in regions vulnerable to floods and storms, encourages irresponsible house building.”
http://climatenewsnetwork.net/insurance-aid-props-up-climate-risk-homes/
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redskylite
/ May 25, 2016Buffy Sainte Marie strong at nearly 75 . . . Interview by vancitybuzz
You shared your song, “Carry It On,” freely over social networks in support of those helping to raise awareness about climate change. Tell us more about the song’s message.
Regardless of the blisters of any one moment, we shouldn’t despair. Regardless of being “only here by the skin of our teeth” at any moment, we need to hang on to our link with Life and apply positive action every way we can.
Life is beautiful if you’ve got the sense to take care of your source of perfection. Mother Nature: She’s the daughter of God and the source of all protection. Look right now and you can see She’s only here by the skin of Her teeth as it is, so take heart and take care of your link with life.
What are your thoughts on the pledges put forth at the Paris Climate Change Conference to reduce domestic emissions?
Don’t let this current crop of bozos get away with their banking scams and the political misdirection that keeps big exploiters in power. Just because a group of bullies wants to own all available natural resources doesn’t mean they should. Their conclusions are self-serving and ridiculous. We need to act as a counter-balance every day. Non-violent action and alternative conflict resolution are more important than ever as we take to the streets, the media and the Internet.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– She’s great!
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Ryan in New England
/ May 25, 2016And again we find that Exxon-Mobil knew about climate change and the consequences before the general public. And again, we learn that they chose to ignore the science in favor of sophisticated marketing and propaganda to ensure their power and influence persists into the future.
My father, James F Black, PhD, started working for Standard Oil (part of which later became Esso and then Exxon) during the second world war. He had a distinguished career over 40 years, garnering dozens of patents through his wide-ranging research.
In 1977, he briefed some of Exxon’s top executives about the risks of burning fossil fuels. A year later, in recapping his presentation in an internal company memo, he wrote: “Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”
By the end of that 10-year window, however, company executives had started ignoring science, cancelling research projects and investing in “spin”. They poured millions of dollars into advocacy groups and public relations campaigns designed to cast doubt on the scientific realities of climate change. As Exxon entered this period, my father would lament: “A company is in trouble when it falls into the hands of the accountants.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/25/exxon-climate-change-greenhouse-gasses
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ May 25, 2016Tweeted, thanks.
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Ryan in New England
/ May 25, 2016And here’s even more about Exxon-Mobil and their efforts to sabotage any efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
ExxonMobil moved to squash a well-established congressional lecture series on climate science just nine days after the presidential inauguration of George W Bush, a former oil executive, the Guardian has learned.
Exxon’s intervention on the briefings, revealed here for the first time, adds to evidence the oil company was acutely aware of the state of climate science and its implications for government policy and the energy industry – despite Exxon’s public protestations for decades about the uncertainties of global warming science.
Indeed, the company moved swiftly during the earliest days of the Bush administration to block public debate on global warming and delay domestic and international regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to former officials of the US Global Change Research Program, or USGCRP.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/25/exxonmobil-climate-change-scientists-congress-george-w-bush
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Ryan in New England
/ May 25, 2016And rushing to defend poor Exxon-Mobil from attorney-general investigations are, wait for it, Republicans on the House Science Committee!
“It is remarkable that a do-nothing Congress that has refused to take any action on climate change is now attempting to disrupt this important investigation into potential corporate malfeasance,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s spokesman Eric Soufer said in a statement.
“The irony of this letter is breathtaking, as its signatories appear to be part of a multi-pronged media campaign funded by the fossil fuel industry aimed at suppressing the free exchange of ideas among scientists, academics, and responsible law enforcement. New York will continue to work with and collaborate with its colleagues across the country, and those with expertise in this area, to protect its citizens from fraud,” said Soufer.
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/19052016/house-republicans-assail-climate-fraud-investigations-exxon-lamar-smith
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016My father warned Exxon about climate change in the 1970s. They didn’t listen
Claudia Black-Kalinsky
Perhaps 2015 wouldn’t have broken all temperature records had they acted then – but it’s not too late to do something now
…
As the daughter of one of the Exxon scientists who first told senior management about greenhouse gases in the 1970s, I find it ironic that the reason for these investigations is the company’s failure to follow the same hard-numbers approach that made Exxon so successful in the first place.
My father, James F Black, PhD, started working for Standard Oil (part of which later became Esso and then Exxon) during the second world war. He had a distinguished career over 40 years, garnering dozens of patents through his wide-ranging research.
In 1977, he briefed some of Exxon’s top executives about the risks of burning fossil fuels. A year later, in recapping his presentation in an internal company memo, he wrote: “Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/25/exxon-climate-change-greenhouse-gasses?CMP=twt_gu
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– Blip! I repeated Ryan’s earlier post. I saw it — but it must not have registered in my wee brain. Blip!
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Caroline
/ May 25, 2016How Megafires Are Remaking American Forests
Supersize fires are burning up bird habitat, killing trees, and turning forests into open range. Climate change will only make it worse.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150809-wildfires-forest-fires-climate-change-science/
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– Likely, the invasives will thrive and bury the native.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 25, 2016LikeLike
June
/ May 25, 2016A post by Ross Gelbspan looking at the big picture of the international cooperation that will be needed to combat climate change, with a plan for moving forward. Ross has written two great books on global warming, “The Heat is On” and “Boiling Point”. He also has a website http://www.heatisonline.org
“Taking Five to Think Big on Global Warming”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ross-gelbspan/taking-five-to-think-big_b_10108724.html
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Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016Extreme warnings issued that Lake Baikal could ‘drain dry like the Aral Sea’
Newspaper Izvestia this week was blunt in assessing the eco-damage threat to Baikal, a natural reservoir which contains around 20% of the world’s unfrozen freshwater.
‘Baikal might share the destiny of the Aral Sea,’ it stated. ‘Construction of three hydro power stations on the Selenga River and its tributaries can cause the unique lake to dry out.’
The 25 million year old lake – a UNESCO world heritage site – is ‘on the edge of environmental catastrophe and if certain measures are not taken, it might disappear just like the Aral sea.’
The impact of proposed Mongolian hydro projects could also be to threaten the Buryatian capital city, Ulan-Ude, in the event of an accident to one of three planned dams.
Environmental activist Sergey Shapkhayev warned: ‘Potential damage from the third hydro power station which will be located on the Eg River (a Selenga tributary) could cause a huge catastrophe. Hydrological experts believe that this power station is the most dangerous of all.
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/features/f232-extreme-warnings-issued-that-lake-baikal-could-drain-dry-like-the-aral-sea/
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– So much of what we see these days are linked to the export business $$$ just like USA coal to Asia, etc.
– Siberian Times: “…a deputy of the Russian parliament, said: ‘We have unique scientific potential and expertise in construction, and that is why it is possible to transfer power from Siberia and develop new export agreements. ”
– russia-now.com/en/50842/lake-baikal-may-disappear: “… reports that Moscow is planning to sell or even give water to China that have infuriated Russians in ways that recall Siberian river diversion ideas in the 1980s
… the Russian energy ministry was unable to provide any reaction to this story because its specialists on this issue are currently in Mongolia, an indication of how serious this threat to Baikal is being taken and of how far the two sides are from reaching any agreement.”
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ May 26, 2016dt, that reads like agit-prop disinformation designed to drive a wedge between Russia and China, to you know who’s (their mutual enemy)advantage. To me at least.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016The meat industry
UN expert calls for tax on meat production
People could be deterred from eating meat by increasing its price further up the supply chain, stemming rise in consumption and environmental damage
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/25/un-expert-calls-for-tax-on-meat-production
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– newscientist.com/article/2089867-treating-cows-with-antibiotics
Treating cows with antibiotics doubles dung methane emissions
Antibiotics given to cattle can have far-reaching effects in an ecosystem, changing the make-up of microbes in the guts of dung beetles and increasing methane emissions from faeces.
Researchers have analysed dung and the ecosystem it supports from cattle given a course of the antibiotic tetracycline. Such antibiotics are commonly given to livestock to prevent diseases and stimulate growth, even though this can lead to the development of drug-resistant bacteria.
The team found that the dung of treated cows produced nearly twice as much methane – an important greenhouse gas – as that of non-treated ones.
-Dung beetles’ gut microbes are affected by antibiotics
Cyril Ruoso/FLPA
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016Current atmospheric models underestimate the dirtiness of Arctic air
Black carbon aerosols–particles of carbon that rise into the atmosphere when biomass, agricultural waste, and fossil fuels are burned in an incomplete way–are important for understanding climate change, as they absorb sunlight, leading to higher atmospheric temperatures, and can also coat Arctic snow with a darker layer, reducing its reflectivity and leading to increased melting. Unfortunately, current simulation models, which combine global climate models with aerosol transport models, consistently underestimate the amount of these aerosols in the Arctic compared to actual measurements during the spring and winter seasons, making it difficult to accurately assess the impact of these substances on the climate.
Link
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– And in the nearby tar sands we get this:
Oil sands found to be a leading source of air pollution in North America
A cloud of noxious particles brewing in the air above the Alberta oil sands is one of the most prolific sources of air pollution in North America, often exceeding the total emissions from Canada’s largest city, federal scientists have discovered.
The finding marks the first time researchers have quantified the role of oil-sands operations in generating secondary organic aerosols, a poorly understood class of pollutants that have been linked to a range of adverse health effects.
The aerosols are minute particles, roughly 1/10th the diameter of a human hair or less, that are created when chemical-laden vapours from the mining and processing of bitumen react with oxygen in the atmosphere and are transformed into solids that can drift on the wind for days.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/oil-sands-found-to-be-a-leading-source-of-air-pollution-in-north-america/article30151841/
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– theverge: “the oil sands produce human-caused secondary organic aerosols — a major contributor to air pollution — at a rate of about 45 to 84 tons per day.
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Cate
/ May 25, 2016Surprise surprise—our national public broadcaster, the CBC, is also reporting on this study. They mention that the highest concentrations fall in Edmonton—the provincial capital and seat of govt.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/oilsands-soas-1.3599074
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016“the highest concentrations fall in Edmonton’ More fitting if it was Calgary
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Genomik
/ May 25, 2016GREAT VIDEO. Very uplifting video showing how quickly PV and EV will disrupt our current automobile industry. Using examples of how fast things like smartphones disrupted basic cell phones and the automobile disrupted horses he shows how quickly things will change for solar, battery, EV, and shared cars.
He says something like the transportation costs of electricity in old school electrical grids means that in 10 years local solar will be cheaper than old school even if the big power plant on other side charges nothing!
So much disruption will happen in next 5-10 years and it’s all great for cutting co2. It still might be too late to stop the climate from irreversible changes, but we can hope.
I urge you to listen to this it seems very fact filled and positive. Heck if any of you invest it can inform you of longs and shorts. For example it might be good to short car companies that are not embracing EV for example.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016New research confirms continued, unabated and large-scale amphibian declines
Local action key to reversing losses
Link
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Cate
/ May 25, 2016Sculpture by Isaac Cordal, entitled “Politicians discussing global warming.”
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Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016Priceless
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Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016Images, and art move people, think of the little girl running down the road in Vietnam after the napalm attack. We gave up napalm after that, Men had been using fire in war since it’s beginnings. But that little girl running because we dropped jellied gasoline on her changed us.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016Cate –
I’m linking this as much as can. As an old failed artist , I know great work when I see it. This is a defining image of our times. Many thanks for it.
People won’t respond to starving polar bears, or white coral on the Great Barrier Reef.
But a bunch of jackasses in neck deep water still talking, …………… perfect.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016– If it was me, I’d have show their hair on fire too.
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Abel Adamski
/ May 26, 2016I must admit Hy Brazil is the defining video
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June
/ May 25, 2016“Taking Five to Think Big on Global Warming”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ross-gelbspan/taking-five-to-think-big_b_10108724.html
This is an article by Ross Gelbspan outlining a binding global plan for tackling the thorny issues involved in getting all the countries of the world to cooperate in reducing carbon emissions. Ross has written two great books on global warming, “The Heat is On” and “Boiling Point”, and has a website http://www.heatisonline.org/main.cfm?
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016You know when they found all that tar, and it is tar. They said , ok. Because the Saudis turned a valve and light sweet crude flowed on to the tankers. They didn’t pump oil. Their “lifting costs” were zero.
This is golden chance for the Saudis to kill the tar sands.
And they have never failed to kill anything that threatens them .
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016Good point.
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dtlange
/ May 25, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016I watched the oil game all my life, anything threatens them , they attack.
“anything threatens them”.
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Colorado Bob
/ May 25, 2016I watched the oil game all my life.
These are the richest, most powerful people the world has ever seem. And they’ve have been at it a long time. . Since JD Rockefeller sent his salesmen to China . They gave away free lamps because he drowning in kerosene.
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dtlange
/ May 26, 2016“drowning in kerosene.’ Then the kerosene became aviation fuel — and the sky is full of aircraft — Boeing, Douglas, et al.
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