Hot Blobs. These pools of severe warmth at the ocean surface have, during recent years, fueled all kinds of climate change related extreme weather ranging from droughts to floods to record hurricanes.
(Hot blob southeast of Australia features ocean temperatures as high as 8 F [4.5 C] above average. This is an extreme climate and severe weather-triggering feature related to climate change. One that has also been associated with strong, persistent atmospheric ridges and related high pressure systems. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)
The blobs themselves often form under persistent and strong high pressure systems which lock-in both heat and high rates of evaporation. These highs, sometimes called resilient ridges, are thought by a number of experts to be an upshot of changes to both atmospheric circulation and energy balance as a result of the Earth warming. They are an example of the kinds of extreme climate and related severe weather triggering outliers you would tend to expect in a warming world. A new kind of weather phenomena producing new effects.
Today, sea surface temperatures between Australia and New Zealand are ranging as high as 8 F (4.5 C) above average. A very significant warm temperature departure for this area of ocean. One that well meets the qualification for the term ‘hot blob.’ The large blocking high associated with the blob has, for some time now, been circulating very high volumes of moisture evaporating off these much warmer than normal waters over Eastern Australia. This moisture loading provides fuel for powerful storms in the form of both more explosive atmospheric lift and higher rainfall potential.
(Ridge-tough dipole triggers extreme weather in region prepped by moisture venting off an ocean hot blob. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)
All that heat and moisture bleeding off the hot blob just needed a catalyst to produce the kind of climate change related event I’ve been calling a ‘rain bomb.’ And, unfortunately for Southeast Australia, just this kind of catalyst in the form of a sharp facing trough in the Jet Stream and related upper level low forming over South Australia is on the way.
From today through late Friday, this low will generate added atmospheric energy that will produce very severe thunderstorms over Southeast Australia. Ones capable of generating extreme rainfall amounts in excess of 2 inches per hour over certain locations. With total rainfall amounts hitting between 4 inches (100 mm) and 12 inches (300 mm) between now and late Friday.
(Predicted extreme rainfall event is being fueled by very warm sea surface temperatures to the east.)
The storm system will also generate strong winds, lightning, and tidal flooding for some locales.
This is a dangerous event risking loss of property and life with a number of climate change related factors involved. Those in the areas affected should stay tuned to local weather (BOM) and government emergency management for storm and response information.
As the climate-wrecking fossil fuel age was climbing to dominance in 1943, Winston Churchill perhaps made the most famously telling Freudian slip of all time. In an attempt to laud the transition from the horse and buggy to the fossil-fuel driven car, he said to an audience at Harvard:
“Man has parted company with his trusty friend the horse and has sailed into the azure with the eagles, eagles being represented by the infernal combustion engine–er er, internal combustion engine. [loud laughter] Internal combustion engine! Engine!”
And as people from the Arctic to the Maldives to Bangladesh to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico can now attest, the effects of the gasses produced by internal combustion have indeed started to become quite infernal as the leading edge of climate change related disasters begins to take hold.
(The LA auto show this week was dominated by new electrical vehicles.)
But at the same time that seas are rising and the weather is worsening, there is renewed hope that all this infernal combustion and related climate wrecking carbon dioxide spewing into the atmosphere may start to taper off. For if the age of unsustainable fossil fuels was heralded by an infernal engine, then the age of sustainability itself is being heralded by blessed batteries and the cars they power.
UBS — 1 in 6 New Cars to be Electric by 2025
For the electrical transition is happening now. And it’s charging up as we speak.
According to a recent report by UBS, the number of affordable, desirable electrical vehicles will vastly expand between now and 2020. Multiple vehicles that are competitive with, if not matching the performance of, Tesla’s Model 3 will be available by that time. These models will continue to proliferate through 2025.
(UBS estimates rapid increases in EV market share. This is bad news for fossil fuels and good news for sustainability.)
At the same time, prices for both batteries and vehicles are expected to fall. Total cost of ownership for electrical vehicles is already less than a comparable fossil fuel based car for a number of models. This is due to lower fuel and maintenance costs. However, overall total cost of ownership is expected to be less on average than fossil fuel cars by the early 2020s. Meanwhile, base price for EVs is expected to out-compete that of fossil fuel based cars by 2025 even as EVs are expected to consistently outperform ICE vehicles by that time.
As a result, UBS expects that between 6 and 25 percent of all new cars will be electric by 2025 with the average between these two predicted ranges hitting 16 percent or 1 in 6 of all new cars sold.
Volkswagen Invests More than $12 Billion in EVs
Tesla, presently the global EV market leader, is today’s company to beat. And Volkswagen, recently stung by an emissions scandal, appears to be stepping up to the plate as a serious challenger.
The company, this month, decided to invest 12 billion dollars to build as many as 40 electrical vehicle models in China. A market that by itself may support as many as 6-9 million EV sales per year by 2025. Volkswagen, in total, aims to sell 1.5 million electrical vehicles per year at that time.
(Volkswagen electrical car, SUV and Hippie Van spotted in California on November 27th. Image source: Clean Technica.)
Already, the company is developing multiple high-quality models to include an electric version of its iconic hippie bus, an electric car based on traditional Volkswagen styling, and a new SUV crossover called the CROZZ. All are expected to have a 200+ mile electric range and feature better performance than their fossil fuel counterparts.
Movement Toward Electrification Across Entire Industry
But it’s not just Volkswagen that appears ready to move aggressively toward electrification, pretty much every major automaker is adding new EVs between now and 2022 — with a number focused on total or near total electrification (see Jaguar video at top of post).
To name just a few, GM plans 20 new electrical models over the next six years, Ford plans 13 by 2020, and both Daimler and Renault plan to have 8 BEVs on the road by 2022. New entrants like BYD and Tata are also advancing electrical vehicles in their home markets of India and China. And the above-mentioned Jaguar expects all its new vehicles to have electric or hybrid electric drive trains by 2020.
Tesla Still Leading the Charge, But Will that Last?
Though numerous factors have driven the industry toward electrification to include falling battery costs, concerns about mass devastation from human-caused climate change, and drives by cities like Paris and nations like China to clean up air quality, it was Tesla, primarily, that proved to the world that EVs could be mass produced at market-setting quality and performance.
Meanwhile, indications are that production bottle necks may be starting to clear for the market-setting Model 3. Panasonic recently announced that battery production for the vehicle is about to speed up even as the company introduced reservation options for non employees this past week. If this is the case, Tesla is in the process of securing at least a 1-2 year jump on most major automakers.
As the race between Tesla and the rest of the auto industry to produce the next trend-setting EV ramps up, it looks like the main loser will be that old pollution-belching infernal combustion engine. Good riddance.
(Hurricane force wind gusts are driving a wedge of above freezing air into Baffin Bay and over Western Greenland at a time when these regions should be seeing well below freezing conditions. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)
(Large region of 20 to 30 C, or 36 to 54 F, above average temperatures is predicted to blanket Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago after moving north through Baffin Bay over the next two days. Image source: Global and Regional Climate Anomalies.)
Strong warm air invasions of the Arctic at this time of year are a signal coming from human-forced climate change. As the northern pole darkens with winter, a global warming related phenomena called polar amplification ramps up. In addition, during recent years, we’ve seen warm air slots tend to develop beneath strong ridging features in the upper level Jet Stream. This year, the warm air slots have tended to form over the Bering Sea along the Pacific side of the Arctic and progress northward into the Chukchi. This has resulted in a large zone of ice free waters for a typically frozen region between Alaska and Siberia as warm winds and storm force waves have continuously beat the ice back.
The present warm air invasion for Greenland may be a signal that a similar warm air slot is attempting to develop over Baffin Bay going forward. Or it may be a fluke in the overall pattern. Watch this space.
UPDATE 11/29/2017: As predicted, temperatures over the Petermann Glacier hit above freezing at around 2200 UTC yesterday. According to climate reanalysis, temperatures for the region are ranging between 50-54 F above average in present model estimates for 11/29. In other words, the warm air invasion progressed as expected and resulted in above freezing temperatures for brief periods across Western and Northern Greenland.
10: At 2200 UTC yesterday, according to climate reanalysis by Earth Nullschool, temperatures over the Petermann Glacier in NW Greenland hit 1.9 C or 35.42 F. In other words, the forecast has been confirmed. pic.twitter.com/SDI7Thnt4h
Overall temperatures for Greenland are presently 15.5 F (8.6 C) above average in the models while the Arctic as a whole is 9.9 F (5.5 C) above average.
Conservative allies of fossil fuel based utilities are currently in control of the Australian federal government. And they have been working to provide captive grid-tied energy consumers for their political backers — polluting power system owners. Because these systems are more expensive than their renewable energy counterparts, the price of electricity went up.
(Guess what? That green glass you see on the school in this image comes from hundreds of solar panels. Solar is versatile and increasingly inexpensive. You can put it on rooftops, building sides, car roofs, fuel station overheads, build it in traditional utility arrays, construct it on co-generating farms, or float it on reservoir surfaces. Image source: Inhabitat and EPFL.)
This choice, enabled by falling renewable energy prices, is one that people around the world will be more and more able to make as time moves forward. And it’s the case even in instances where national governments of western democracies are heavily influenced by fossil fuel special interests — as is presently the case in Australia. The primary reason is that when conservative governments support fossil fuels and nuclear over renewables, power prices to society rise.
The cost of both wind and solar energy are now less than every traditional power source even in more mature markets like the United States. In this major market, according to Lazard, the levelized price of nuclear is 14.8 cents per kWh, coal is 10.2 cents per kWh, gas is 6 cents per kWh, solar is 5 cents per kWh, and wind is 4.5 cents per kWh. That’s right. Renewables are about 1/3 the price of nuclear, half that of coal, and 10-20 percent less than gas in the U.S.
(The levelized cost of wind and solar energy keeps falling. This is making continued fossil fuel development an expensive and untenable prospect. Image source: Lazard.)
But in places like Australia and in the developing world, this price difference is even greater. In the developing world, there are less legacy fossil fuel power systems — which makes it a no-brainer just to go ahead and build less expensive renewables. And islands like Australia traditionally suffer from higher import costs for fossil fuels and clunky or inefficient fossil fuel energy system components.
Levelized cost is a way of measuring total life-cycle costs. It includes such costs as fuel, transmission and construction. Because renewables do not require fuel and because they are based on technologies that benefit from both advancement and economies of scale, they are able to continuously increase efficiency and reduce cost over time. Fossil fuel based power systems are mated to very inefficient combustion and to mining and extraction of fuels that grow more scarce over time. As such, the power systems they are based on tend to have difficulty reducing costs and are subject to market shocks and scarcity of feedstocks.
These simple economic facts put the political backers of fossil fuels at a disadvantage on the issue of base economics. But these direct cost related factors don’t even begin to count in the terrible external costs of fossil fuels ranging from ramping damages due to climate change and direct health impacts by adding toxic particles to the air and water. As such, fossil fuels are both economically and morally untenable. But such simple and easy to understand facts haven’t stopped republicans like Trump in the U.S. and LNP members like Turnbull in Australia from trying to ram these harmful and expensive energy sources down the throat of an increasingly outraged public.
Here’s a smart guy. Probably a few years younger than me. A meteorologist by degree and a climate journalist by trade. A guy with two kids that, as is clear from his twitter comments, mean all the world to him. And he’s finally gotten to that point in his study of climate change where he’s thrown his hands up and said — this stuff scares the crap out of me, can we please all just do something about it?
(The calving front of the Pine Island Glacier as seen by a NASA DC-8 aircraft. Image source: Commons.)
For him, as with any of us, the point of existential realization can come through overexposure to a wide range of worsening climate problems. Declining ocean health, rising extreme weather, how much faster we are warming the world up than during the worst hothouse extinction, can all weigh heavily on the heart and mind of any compassionate, feeling person who takes these subjects seriously enough to actually read the science. For Eric, the big deal, and it is a very, very big deal, was sea level rise.
Ice Apocalypse
Yesterday, Eric penned this seminal article on the issue of ice cliff stability as explored by glacier scientist Robert DeConto entitled Ice Apocalypse.
Ice cliff stability is a pretty technical term. One that may make the eyes of your typical reader gloss over. But when we consider that the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica can be upwards of two miles high, then the question of whether or not the cliffs of those great ice mountains are stable may start to generate a flicker of warning. May conjure up a phantom of the titanic roar set off when such ice giants tumble away into the sea as has happened throughout the deep history of Earth whenever the world warmed up by a certain amount.
When I think of the words ice cliff stability, my mind’s eye pictures a vast wall of numbing white-blue stretching hundreds of feet high. It expands both left and right as far as I can see. And it looms over an endless warming ocean. Waiting for a colossal fall if just that right amount of extra heat is applied.
Ice is fragile. It’s not like stone. It doesn’t flex much. It doesn’t give much. And even minor stresses are enough to make it shatter. We see this with ice cubes in a cup of water at home. Put an ice cube into relatively warmer water, and that little 1×2 inch block will snap and crack. Now just compound that fragility. Set it on the massive scale of a mile-high glacier. Not too hard to image what can happen.
(2012 filming of massive calving event at Jakobshavn Glacier.)
It’s happened already at Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. The ocean warmed. The ice shelf protecting the glacier dissolved. And the front of the gigantic glacier fell like great, enormous, white dominoes. We’ve seen it happening in films like Chasing Ice. And we’ve struggled to grasp the enormous scale of it.
Our burning of fossil fuels did this.
Jakobshavn is, even now, contributing to a more rapid rate of global sea level rise. But the amount of ice held back by Jakobshavn is small when compared to the vast volumes kept in check by the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers of West Antarctica. What Robert DeConto did, and what has apparently scared Eric Holthaus so much, was apply a computer model based on observations of Jakobshavn ice sheet collapse to these larger Antarctic ice masses.
The DeConto study unearthed results that, indeed, looked apocalyptic. From Grist:
A wholesale collapse of Pine Island and Thwaites would set off a catastrophe. Giant icebergs would stream away from Antarctica like a parade of frozen soldiers. All over the world, high tides would creep higher, slowly burying every shoreline on the planet, flooding coastal cities and creating hundreds of millions of climate refugees.
All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years — much too quickly for humanity to adapt…
Instead of a three-foot increase in ocean levels by the end of the century, six feet was more likely, according to DeConto and Pollard’s findings. But if carbon emissions continue to track on something resembling a worst-case scenario, the full 11 feet of ice locked in West Antarctica might be freed up, their study showed.
The DeConto study is just one scientific exploration of what could happen in West Antarctica this Century. And, already, reassurances to a worried Eric Holthaus are forthcoming.
1. Over at Grist, @EricHolthaus has mega-piece on Antarctica’s Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers. My take: He’s right these are very worrying glaciers (esp. Thwaites), but I’m not sure about some of the dire sea level rise scenarios in the article. https://t.co/zB0NvRlZVY
But the problem with the DeConto study, as with any other form of serious climate risk, is that there are plausible scenarios in which terrible catastrophic events are possible even if their degree of likelihood is still somewhat debatable. And reasonable precaution would dictate that even if there were just a 10-20 percent chance of DeConto like events coming to pass, we would do everything we could to avoid them. The risk of this scenario emerging, however, is probably a bit higher. As numerous studies have identified the potential for 6, 8, or even 12 feet of sea level rise by as early as 2100.
The Future of Mega-Thunderstorms Looks Grim if We Continue to Burn Fossil Fuels
Eric’s appeals to his Twitter friends related to his article were touching to me in that I feel like I go through similar shocks with each passing week. And what should be a time of national thanksgiving even as more than half of Puerto Rico’s population is still in the dark 63 days after the climate change amplified blow of Hurricane Maria is no exception.
To put this in context, an 80 percent increase in the amount of rain that fell in the Ellicott City Flood in Maryland last year would have produced nearly ten inches of rain in an hour and a half.
(The rainfall intensity in large thunderstorm clusters was found to be greatly enhanced under worst case fossil fuel burning scenarios [RCP 8.5] according to a recent Nature Study. Image source: NCAR, Nature, and Weather Underground.)
As with ice cliff instability, we find ourselves faced with another scientific term in the new study — mesoscale convective systems (MCS). And to translate this term we can simply say that MCSs are gigantic clusters of thunderstorms. The study found that rainfall amounts in the largest of thunderstorm complexes were greatly enhanced as warming proceeded along a business as usual track.
From the Study author’s statement to Weather Underground:
“These new simulations of future MCS rainfall are concerning, because they show very large increases in the amount of rain that a given MCS is likely to produce. The MCSs that we would today consider to be ‘extreme’ in terms of precipitation would become more commonplace in the future. There are also some regions that currently don’t see a lot of MCS activity that might start seeing some of these heavily raining MCSs in the future.”
These increases are on top of already elevated rates of rainfall intensity we presently see today in destructive events that our infrastructure and disaster planning is clearly not prepared for (as seen during Harvey). So as we take the time to give thanks for the great bounty that many of us still have, perhaps we should also take the time to think of the things we can do to keep safe what we have worked so hard for and care so much about and to do our best to help those who are less fortunate. Who have already fallen casualty to a time of troubles.
Tesla may still be the industry leader in global electrical vehicle sales. And though a very important player — primarily as a gadfly that’s helping to spur key renewable energy innovation through clean energy business models and competition — this story of a breakout in new energy production isn’t just about Tesla.
Electrical vehicle sales saw broad growth in all major markets. However, China experienced very rapid expansion of EV sales and was the primary driver of such a large jump with 160,000 electrical cars sold there in the 3rd quarter alone. Europe came in second with around 70,000 EV sales with North America following third with more than 55,000 EV sales. Since Bloomberg only tracked these major markets, total global EV sales were likely even higher, particularly when you consider that EV sales in places like Japan, India, other parts of Southeast Asia, and Australia are also on the rise.
China’s incentives aimed at cleaning up dirty air through EV purchases weighed strongly. In addition, pledges by various cities, states and nations to fully transition to electrical vehicles coupled with numerous policy incentives are helping to produce a ground swell of rising EV demand. However, EVs are also increasingly available, lower cost, and feature an expanding array of capabilities that are often competitive with or superior to their global warming producing fossil fuel competitors. And a number of new developments indicate that EV sales will continue to rapidly expand in the near term.
Signs the Model 3 Production Log Jam May Be Starting to Clear, Serious Competition on the Rise
In the coming months, Tesla plans to be adding thousands of high-quality, lower cost Model 3s to its trend-setting volume. For 2017, the company is likely to hit near 100,000 sales in total. But if Tesla is able to achieve 5,000 Model 3 per week production by early 2018, that number could more than double in the follow-on year.
(The 2018 Nissan Leaf sold a pheonomenal 14,000 units during October of 2017. A record setting number of an all-electrical vehicle launch. Image source: Nissan.)
Nissan launched its longer range Leaf on October 1 of 2017 in Japan and Europe. And early reports indicate that sales of this model have just been going gangbusters. In total, 14,000 of the vehicles are reported to have moved in just one month — close to Tesla’s goal of hitting 20,000 per month by early 2018. The 2018 Leaf features a shorter range than the Model 3 (150 miles vs 210 for the base Model 3). But it also has a more attractive base price of 30,000 dollars (5,000 dollars lower than the base Model 3). And though not as zippy or sporty as the Model 3, the Leaf’s new design and 147 horsepower are nothing to shake a stick at. In total, for the same price, Leaf buyers are now getting a far more attractive and capable zero emissions vehicle. And though not in the same class as the Model 3, the Leaf is a serious competitor for those without the extra cash.
Hunger for lower cost EVs was also evident in Chevy’s sales of 2,871 Bolts in the U.S. during October. Though nowhere near the pheonomenal Leaf sales totals, the Bolt is giving Tesla a serious run for its money on its home turf in the U.S. And the high quality, 238 mile range Bolt is certainly a competitor of note. Priced about the same as the Model 3’s base vehicle at around 36,000 dollars, the Bolt is unable to compete on performance in any measure other than range. And its economy styling is certainly less appealing. However, the Bolt is nonetheless capable of capturing serious market share. Probably at least in the range of 30,000 to 50,000 annual sales.
With 500,000 pre-orders, the lower cost, longer range EV market still appears to be the Model 3’s to lose. And with a production ramp struggling to reach 440 vehicles by end October, Tesla looked like it was in a bit of a bind as competitors circled in. Yet some clouds appear to be readying to clear for Tesla as lots swell with Model 3s and the company opens up Model 3 orders to regular reservation holders. An indicator that production may finally be starting to ramp.
Understanding the Context — Sooner or Later, Model 3 Ramp is Imminent
In other words, the fact that Tesla is now transferring reservations into orders is an indicator that Tesla is now more confident in its ability to clear bottle necks and to rapidly ramp production. With a large number of employee pre-orders that need to be completed before it starts to meet regular customer orders, it appears that Tesla may be set to hit in excess of 1,000 Model 3s produced per week sooner than feared. However, we’ve seen hopeful signs of Tesla hitting an early production ramp disappointed before. So this news may just be another false signal.
What do you think? Will Tesla meet new competition coming from Chevy and Nissan by hitting a faster production ramp soon? Or are the Tesla woes of September and October here to stay for at least another few months? Please feel free to provide your take in the comments section below.
2017 annual mean prediction updated using Oct data. Probability of ~94% it will be the 2nd warmest yr in the GISTEMP record. pic.twitter.com/Ot7V8wGR5z
This year, the periodic Equatorial cooling known as La Nina is again taking place in the Pacific during fall following a very mild warming during winter and spring. But despite the appearance of a second such periodic cooling event, according to NASA 2017 is 94 percent likely to be the second warmest year ever recorded (see above).
October readings have come in and at 0.9 C above NASA baseline (1.12 C above 1880s averages), temperatures are disturbingly high. The month is now the second hottest ever seen by modern humans. With only October of 2015 coming in warmer at 1.08 C above the 20th Century baseline (1.3 above 1880s).
(Heat transfer into the polar zones is increased during La Nina periods. This effect is enhanced by polar amplification related to human caused climate change. This week, very high relative temperature departures are expected for the Arctic. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)
Over the past two years, La Ninas (cooling Pacific) appear to have been at least partly off-set by very strong warming in the Arctic and Antarctic. Atmospheric circulation tends to transport more heat into the polar zones as the Pacific cools. This is due to the fact that temperature differential between Equator and poles during La Nina is less and the lower temperature differential causes the upper level winds to slow and meander. Coupled with polar amplification due to human-caused climate change, the result can be some pretty extreme temperature departures. This week is no exception as Arctic temperatures by Thursday through Saturday are expected to be between 4 and 5 degrees Celsius above average for the entire region above the 66 North parallel.
Such record warm temperatures do not occur in isolation. They help to drive extreme weather events such as severe droughts, rainfall, and powerful hurricanes. They are also accelerating sea level rise by melting glaciers even as both warming temperatures and related increasing ocean acidification contribute to dead zones, coral reef deaths and declining ocean health. Global temperature rise coupled with rising CO2 is therefore producing a major systemic crisis the world over.
Unfortunately, with human-caused climate change, these kinds of devastating events have become far more frequent. With the Earth warming by around 1.1 to 1.2 C above pre-industrial averages, there are now four times as many instances of extreme weather than there were as recently as the 1970s.
There are now 400 extreme weather events every year, four times as many as in 1970 pic.twitter.com/XU1JyOIehe
What this means is that anywhere around the world now, the hammer of severe weather and related damages is four times more likely to fall than in the past. That the tempo of such events is now greatly increased. All thanks to continued fossil fuel burning, atmospheric CO2 levels that will average around 407 ppm over the coming months, the heat that these greenhouse gasses are continuing to add to the Earth’s climate system, and a failure to transition swiftly enough to more sustainable practices and zero carbon energy sources to prevent ramping damages.
Major Rain Event Strikes Athens — With More Severe Weather in the Forecast
Today, the major blow appears to have fallen on Greece. To the west of this country, over the Mediterranean, a cut off low is creating instability throughout the region. An intense, thick, moist warm air flow is moving in from the south. This warm and very water dense air is then colliding with a colder air mass to the north. Upper level instability is feeding powerful convection erupting in the atmosphere above Greece. And this convection is producing some mountainous thunderheads.
The rains stretched over a broad area from Greece to the Turkish coast — spurring declarations of emergency throughout the area. As with many of the increasingly fierce new disasters, it will take weeks or more to get a final tally of the total damages. But this event is probably not over.
Unfortunately, the cut-off low is expected to continue to circulate near this already flooded region for the next 3-4 days. Forecasts call for additional rainfall totals of up to 15 inches as the low churns and continues to generate outsized convection over an already hard-hit area.
Over the past few years, something pretty amazing and hopeful happened. Global carbon emissions began to stabilize. This was caused, primarily, by stronger emissions reduction policies in China even as the rest of the world moved steadily away from coal burning and more and more toward adopting clean energy systems provided by the likes of wind, solar and electrical vehicles.
But during 2017, there appears to have been a return to rising emissions rates from both China and the rest of the world. As a result, a rather bad global climate situation is continuing to worsen.
China’s Swing Back to Coal and More Rapid Growth Result in Rising Emissions
As the major present emitter of carbon dioxide and a host to hundreds of hothouse gas spewing coal plants, any big move by China can also really move the global carbon emission total. We saw this in practice from 2013 to 2016 as China began to reign in rampant coal consumption and as global emissions levels subsequently responded.
(During recent years, global carbon emissions have plateaued. But during 2017, a new record high was reached on the back of a return to increased rates of coal burning in places like China. The peak year of fossil fuel burning and the year at which net negative carbon emissions occur are very important factors in determining future warming. And even the best case emissions scenarios will likely lead to 2 C or greater warming this Century. Impacts from 2 C warming will be very difficult to manage with a high likelihood that at least some widespread catastrophic impacts would occur. 3 C warming would be terrible — with very widespread harm and disruption. And it is unlikely that most nations would survive the impacts related to 4 to 6 C warming. Image source: University of East Anglia.)
This year, we see a bit of backsliding by this key energy and climate player due to a combined reduction in hydro based power supply and strong annual rates of economic growth.
(Most energy and climate experts did not expect to see a potential peak in global carbon emissions until at least the early 2020s. However, 2013 to 2016’s plateau did provide a hopeful look at what was possible. In order to see an actual peak, the countries of the world will have to be far more aggressive about shutting down fossil fuel based energy sources and rapidly deploying renewables. Image source: The University of East Anglia.)
So even without the big bump in China’s emissions, the world, as a whole would have experienced some CO2 emissions growth. But this single country accounted for almost half of all carbon emissions growth around the world during 2017. And it is worth noting that even a relatively minor reduction in carbon emissions by China this year would have resulted in an extension of the global carbon emission plateau.
(Annual rates of atmospheric CO2 accumulation are now higher than 2 parts per million per year. The last time atmospheric CO2 levels were as high as they are now — around 407 parts per million — the oceans were between 25 and 75 feet higher than they are today. Image source: The University of East Anglia.)
The present increase is problematic in that it also makes it less likely that warming this Century will be limited to 1.5 or 2 C. The scientific community has often identified these as safer limits for warming. But we should be clear that no level of warming is entirely safe. That present warming in the range of 1.1 to 1.2 C above preindustrial levels is already causing harmful impacts like shifting climate zones, more instances of damaging, extreme weather, worsening wildfires, and ramping rates of sea level rise that are threatening islands and coastal cities. We should also be clear that present atmospheric greenhouse gas levels in the range of 407 ppm CO2 and 491 ppm CO2e imply a warming close to or above the 1.5 to 2 C threshold range by the end of this Century even if these levels were to merely remain stable.
An Increasingly Urgent Situation — But the Means of Lessening the Damage is at our Disposal
The urgency of the situation, therefore, cannot be understated. We are presently living in a time during which the safety of global civilization requires that we rapidly reduce to zero presently unprecedented annual levels of greenhouse gas emissions. And the first step to doing this is a swift as possible cessation of fossil fuel burning enabled by a transition to renewable energy.
It is worth noting that 2017’s rate of carbon emissions growth was less than the 3 percent annual rates experienced during the decade of the 2000s. Back then, less well developed renewable energy technology and very rapid economic growth in places like China resulted in far higher annual emissions gains than we see at present. So 2017’s gain may be a blip due to circumstances as combined wind, solar, and electrical vehicle advances begin to take hold of the larger energy and emissions trend. That said, challenges to rates of renewable energy adoption and related rates of carbon emissions reduction coming from right-wing governments like the Trump Administration should not be discounted. Failure to act by leaders in the U.S. and around the world or attempts to return to increasing rates of coal, oil, and gas burning are measures that will result in serious harm going forward.
We are thus at a moment of crisis when it comes to global emissions. We can continue to move forward on replacing fossil fuels with zero emitting energy sources. Or we can return to the very harmful increases in global carbon emissions of the past — at which point the damages we see from climate change will be rapidly enhanced.
Massive disruption which results in cascading failure of basic services such as food, water transport and power. That’s the primary catastrophic risk coming from human forced climate change. And we are now in the process of multiplying the potential for such extreme events by continuing to burn fossil fuels and to dump carbon into the atmosphere.
Maria’s recent landfall in Puerto Rico and resulting unprecedented disruption can be seen as a microcosm of the kind of damage that might ultimately be inflicted upon a whole region or nation. And the various failed responses by the Trump Administration and related denial-based attitudes within the Republican Party do little to inspire confidence in the ability of at least one major party to effectively respond to a rising danger it pretends does not exist at all.
Many of the 3.4 million people still living in Puerto Rico have been forced to go without reliable access to water, food, and power for 54 days now. Trump Administration failure to mobilize a major effort to respond to the largest power outage and infrastructure disruption in U.S. history has been coupled with the allowance of vulture capitalist firms like Whitefish to prey on Puerto Rico by charging excess fees for power restoration.
(Climate Change amplifies hurricane impacts. What this means is that as the world warms, hurricanes produce more damage. If this is the case, then governments are going to have to step up and act responsibly to prevent loss of life. Republicans and the Trump Administration have done exactly the opposite in Puerto Rico. Images source: Climate Signals.)
Lack of power itself can be deadly. Such a loss results in a critical shortage for medical equipment necessary to save people’s lives even as it removes key infrastructures like street lights and communications. Incubators, defibrillators, respirators, pulse monitors and a hundred other life saving devices all go dark when the lights go out. Furthermore, lack of clean water and ready access to food increases instances of infection. And damage to roads prevents access by emergency personnel to people falling into harm’s way.
Vulture Capitalism + Climate Change Denial = Failed Responses and Profiteering in the Face of Rising Disasters
A party that has also done far, far more than its fair share to deny and prevent responses to the human caused climate change from fossil fuel emissions that made Maria far, far worse. For the storm emerged from warmer than normal oceans that helped to pump up its peak intensity. It was one of many storms made worse by climate change — for studies now indicate that at least 63 percent of all extreme weather events have now been pumped up in a warming atmosphere or over a warming ocean. And with just 1.2 C worth of warming achieved, the worse is still to come.
With the republican party both causing these disasters to worsen and ensuring that their damaging impacts are amplified by delayed responses, irresponsible choices for firms contracted to bring infrastructure back up and running, and overall malfeasance, it’s pretty clear that only a numb-skull would vote for such mouth-breathers. But here we are.
But if the ‘bad aliens’ have taken the side of the fossil fuel industry, we should not also ignore the angelic race hailing from the Blue Star who have decided to come to the aid of humankind and life on Earth. For a secret weapon in the fight to save the world from climate disaster is now steadily being deployed. And the global fossil fuel based auto industry doesn’t even begin to have a clue as to what’s about to hit them.
(Blue Star alien spaceship? Smart, living renewable energy technology, wrapped in a car’s body? Warrior fighting global climate disasters? Or all of the above? Tesla’s Model 3 poses an out-of-context threat to the world’s fossil fuel based automakers. Image source: Clean Technica.)
Like the body snatchers, this weapon has also taken the form of something we humans see as normal and innocuous. It has come to inhabit mere automobiles. For beneath the metal hoods, glass windows and roofs, and sustainably designed interiors of seemingly familiar Tesla road vehicles resides the electrical beating heart of alien technology. A living, almost biological, smart-tech that is pulsing within the fixed metal, plastic, and glass forms we see across the world and on its streets and byways.
The tech possesses living characteristics in that it can change and grow. For after each Tesla is produced, the starship inside awakens, empowering these vehicles to transform in a very autobot-like fashion. Possessed of the much the same hardware as many ‘normal’ electrical vehicles, the smart, alien tech that runs the battery in the breast of each machine is capable of learning and improving. Vehicles coming off the lines with a mere 200 mile range may see improvements that jump it to 230 miles (see Your Tesla May Have Secret Powers). Starship Model 3s with stated 310 mile ranges may suddenly and unexpectedly stretch their legs to 334 miles. The cars may learn to accelerate better using the physical materials that they already possess. They may learn to charge faster. And sitting in their driveways at night, after drinking deep of afternoon solar panel trapped energy, they may dream strange dreams of a vital new world that beats back the oppression of global hothouse extinction even as they learn to cut off the choking fumes of coal-fired powerplants.
(Are we really living in a space opera? No. But the stakes are just as epic. Video source: Iscandar.)
But this starship — posing as automobile — counter-force faces a serious challenge. Earthling means of mass producing the new alien technology that will give each person the opportunity to possess a world-saving starship is presently struggling to ramp up to face down the dark forces of hothouse extinction. Tesla is, after all, just a flawed human-run company. And so only 440 of the cutting-edge Model 3 craft had been produced by the end of October.
The orange skinned, one eyed, fossil fueled political people eaters have, thus far, been unsuspecting of the Blue Star forces in their midst. Perhaps Tesla’s mighty struggle to produce these new craft will provide for them some foreshadowing of the death blow to their nefarious designs that is to follow.
“Suddenly what was once thought to be a problem confined to the third world has arrived in southern Europe.” — Euronews.
*****
We’ve been taught that human-caused climate change through fossil fuel burning only affects poor people. That it only affects the third world. That if you’re rich, or if you live in places like the U.S. and Europe, you’re safe — or at least safer.
We’ve been misinformed.
Climate Change in Our Front Yard
Here, on this blog, again and again, we’ve been warning that climate change impacts EVERYONE. That no-one is really safe from either its direct or systemic impacts. From the subsistence farmer in Africa to the Wall Street hedge fund manager, the damage is ultimately equally bad.
The reason is that the worsening climate change related impacts of sea level rise, extreme weather, acidifying and anoxic oceans are ultimately so far reaching that you can’t call any place on Earth realistically safe from harm. And even if you do avoid the barrage of these varied impacts personally, the damage from rising levels of warming is eventually so deep and widespread that there is serious risk of collapse to the various systems civilization relies on to function — like water, power, transportation, and food supply.
(Despite popular misconception, the wealthier countries of the world are not immune to or even really very resilient to the impacts of climate change. We are seeing this start to bear out now in numerous places to include Southeastern Europe. Namely, the Iberian Peninsula where drought is severely impacting Portugal and Spain. Image source: Global Drought Monitor.)
Though the effects may well be milder at the present 1.2 C warming than they would be at 2 C, 3 C, 5 C or more, they are starting to hit now. And they are hitting indiscriminately across broad regions from Canada, to California, to New York City, to New Orleans, to Brazil, to Bangladesh, to Russia, to Puerto Rico, to India and China, and to more far-flung and wildly varied locations than we can list here. The systemic collapse of Puerto Rico due to a global warming amplified hurricane, can be seen as a relative microcosm to what’s in store for broader global civilization if we don’t get our act together in reducing carbon emissions zero and then net-negative , limiting future warming to more manageable levels, and hardening societies to warming related impacts as rapidly as possible.
Rain in the Forecast, But Global Warming Will Bring Worsening Droughts to the Region
Human-caused global warming increases the likelihood of extreme drought by increasing the rate of both precipitation and evaporation. Because this effect is uneven, as the world warms, the prevalence tips toward the extremes. In other words, more of the rain we receive falls less frequently but in heavier events. In addition, rising temperatures enhance the onset and intensity of drought.
For Spain and Portugal, climate zones are moving north. This means that desert-like temperatures and conditions from across the Med in the Sahara are more frequently invading. A reality that most of Southern Europe will eventually face if the Earth continues to warm. That said, forecasts for this winter call for some relief in the form of increased precipitation. For Spain and Portugal, it couldn’t come too soon. But with conditions having been consistently drier than normal over recent years, it will take a very significant pattern change to alleviate presently severe conditions.
We all know someone who thinks this way. Put a stack of scientific evidence in front of them that reaches to the moon, and they will still disbelieve that human-caused climate change is real, harmful, and getting to be so bad that it’s increasingly capable of wrecking our lives. It is the very definition of ‘head-in-sand’ thinking. A pro-fossil fuel PR and politically-driven neurosis that American ideologues and other quacks appear to have perfected — afflicting so many of us through the medium of viral misinformation.
But such views of denial have real and devastating consequences in that they have often sabotaged the necessary societal and governmental response to a growing crisis.
Just a reminder — it's Election Day!! That, on climate, US is now most backward in world b/c of Republicans. #GOTVhttps://t.co/N5idp5wJfc
(Yesterday, democrats created a blue wave election in repudiation of bad republican/Trump policies including Trump’s refusal to sign the Paris Climate Agreement. Members of the #Resistance cited Paris as one of the key reasons for demonstrated unity in support of democrats — both progressive and moderate — in opposition to Trump and in favor of helpful climate and energy policies.)
Just ask the 3.4 million people of Puerto Rico who have now gone for 49 days without power after a global warming fueled storm leveled their island. One hundred thousand of them — the lucky ones — have managed to escape this parcel of U.S. territory and avoid living in a world without access to electricity, water, reliable food supplies, decent transport, and medical care. They are now some of the likely 20-30 million refugees that will be produced by worsening climate change related weather, wildfires, sea level rise, and crop disruption this year alone. A number that will rapidly grow in years to come if we don’t adequately address the key disaster enablers — a warming planet and rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Upside Down America
Here, in the land of the American Dream, the dream is being slowly crushed by fossil fuel burning. And, yes, too by people like Trump who are working to prevent government policies that move us away from that harmful energy source and the carbon emissions that keep making the problem worse and worse and worse.
(COP 23 seeks to build on the momentum already developed under the Paris Climate Agreement.)
Yesterday, with Syria’s signature of the Paris Climate Agreement, the U.S., under Trump, is now the only nation that is not a party to it. Though not the ultimate ideal response to climate change, the Paris Agreement, if held to, will move the world rapidly away from the high level of harmful fossil fuel burning and related carbon emissions that are presently ongoing. Paris alone is not enough to prevent about 3 degrees Celsius worth of warming this Century. A level of warming that will bring a number of far worse climate outcomes than we see today. But it does get us off the very harmful path toward 5 C or more that comes from business as usual coal, gas and oil burning. The world, and the dedicated ratifiers of Paris — who now include everyone but Trump’s upside down version of America — recognize that the agreement is just the first step in a number of necessary global policy moves to address climate change (hence the convening of COP 23 in Bonn). A response that will need to rapidly escalate if we are to preserve the safety and stability of modern civilization.
Toxic Thinking = Terrible Policy
Trump’s moves seem completely irrational, idiotic, and nonsensical to anyone who understands the reality of climate and the severe harm that ultimately comes from fossil fuel burning. It does, however, make sense in the frame of a kind of small-minded world-view. One that puts the profits and protection of a single industry over the short term ahead of the safety of everyone and everything else over the medium to long term. Trump’s actions are directly aimed at protecting environmentally destructive fossil fuels from more advanced and less harmful energy sources. His action is less U.S. interest focused than it is aimed at protecting a global industry. For a sitting President would recognize the substantial benefit of the hundreds of thousands of jobs the renewable energy industry is creating even as it replaces more feeble job producers like coal.
(It’s an upside down world that features the U.S. as the only global climate policy laggard. Trump’s world. Image source: World Resources Institute.)
The U.S. has long been a renewable energy innovator. A leader in solar, wind, and electrical vehicle technology. And we are certainly capable of helping to lead the world both away from ever-worsening climate nightmares even as we begin to realize the amazing health and economic benefits granted by clean energy. Trump, however, like many of his republican fellows, appears bound and determined to sabotage this new, jobs-rich, industry in favor of the older, dirty and very dangerous fossil fuels. That’s where his own economic and political interests lie. That can be the only explanation for his otherwise irrational actions that now run counter to the far more clear-thinking leadership of the entire world.
Evidence of harmful collusion and conflict of interest damaging to the United States related to the Trump Campaign and its associates has now grown beyond the scope of any of our deepest fears.
With more indictments likely on the way from Mueller there can be little doubt that the present scandal surrounding Trump and Russia is unprecedented in U.S. history. That evidence of the Russia-related influence over Trump campaign members is deep, pervasive, and on numerous occasions rises to the level, not just of alleged and proven criminality, but of firm allegations of some of the worst, most disloyal, crimes a U.S. citizen can commit during peacetime.
We often describe such crimes and allegations as ‘white collar.’ The comparison is unfortunate, because the term white is often associated with purity. There is, however, nothing pure about such acts as they tend to produce more collateral damage on a systemic level than even the worst ‘normal’ crimes.
Facebook, Twitter, and Kushner Targeted by Investments From Russian Oil Giant
And it is here that we come, at last, to new allegations based on a German news dump known as the Paradise Papers. The dump, which includes a mass of documents describing the shady dealings involved in the world’s off-shore tax havens, has created a media firestorm. It has also revealed yet more ties between top Trump campaign and administration officials and Russia. Ties related to increasing evidence of Trump-Russia linked attempts to influence U.S. media, corporations and their holders during the period leading up to and including the 2016 election.
Milner once advised the Russian government on technology through a presidential commission chaired by Dmitry Medvedev, the former president and current prime minister. Now based in California’s Silicon Valley, Milner has invested $7bn in more than 30 online companies including Airbnb, Spotify and the Chinese retailers Alibaba and JD.com (emphasis added).
Motives for Meddling
These investments by both Russia and Milner are material to present Trump-Russia collusion and Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 election in a number of ways.
Representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google are set to face hostile questions from Congress about how Russia used their platforms to influence U.S. politics. The problem of unfriendly foreign powers spreading propaganda is not new. It has happened for centuries.
What is new, however, is the reach of the Internet and modern social networks and the speed with which they can launch and propagate misinformation campaigns. This duo has made it easy to spread misinformation and target specific communities with detail that was previously unimaginable.
Tech companies have denied this is happening while happily raking in huge profits from the misuse of their platforms. Only in the past week did Twitter agree to ban ads from state-sponsored Russian news sites, years after government intelligence agencies and media critics called into question whether those sites were publishing outright lies.
Third, Russia’s investment in Cadre through Milner looks a lot like just one more part of a much larger apparent effort by Russia to gain influence over the Trump Campaign. The investment in Cadre was, thus, substantial enough to put Milner on Kushner’s radar. Furthermore, it is notable that Kushner, at first, failed to disclose his investment interest in Cadre to the U.S. government when initially signing on with the Trump Administration in January of 2017.
Motive for meddling? Russia-Exxon oil exploration deals got shelved by sanctions following Ukraine invasion. pic.twitter.com/0wGl7uAJHV
Russia itself had considerable motive to support and influence the Trump Campaign. Manafort’s pro-Russian lobbying efforts ultimately failed and U.S. sanctions following the Ukraine invasion put a major damper on Russian oil and gas production expansion efforts. Exxon, whose former CEO is now Trump’s Secretary of State, was barred from cooperating with Russian oil companies in the Arctic (please also see Exxon fined for violating Russian sanctions). And related efforts by the Obama Administration to enhance responses to climate change called into question the need for new Russian oil and gas in the first place. Hillary Clinton’s moves to support Obama’s climate change policies and to further solidify American policy resolve against Russian aggression adds further economic and political motivation for Russian meddling in support of Trump.
So the massive investments by Milner and Gazprom-linked firms in both social media and in Kushner-backed Cadre should be viewed in this larger energy, climate, and geopolitical policy context.
“Up till now, we basically had a stationary [East Antarctic] ice sheet, and now it’s started to move,” — Catherine Walker, NASA post-doctoral fellow.
*****
East Antarctica. Home to most of the world’s remaining land ice. Scientists previously thought that this last bastion of somewhat stable ice in the world would only slowly succumb to the slings and arrows of human-caused climate change. That its ice giants would still sleep for some time — giving the world more time to stave off or avoid worsening rates of sea level rise. Unfortunately, new evidence reveals that this is not the case. That the best time to act on sea level rise was 20+ years ago, and that the second best time to act, in cutting fossil fuel based CO2 emissions, is now.
(Warm water upwelling near East Antarctica’s Totten Glacier threatens to accelerate global sea level rise. Image source: Texas Institute for Geophysics.)
(The Totten Glacier itself contains enough ice to raise seas by 11-13 feet, which is comparable to all of West Antarctica. Its glacial catchment, however, is larger. Image source: Australian Antarctic Division.)
The primary cause of Totten’s melt acceleration is wind-diven warm ocean currents starting to encroach upon the glacier. These warm currents dive deep and then upwell near the glacier faces and along their weak underbellies. What the new research shows is that CO2-based warming from fossil fuel emissions is increasing the heat content of the waters even as it drives the strengthening of winds that bring these waters into more frequent direct contact with glaciers like Totten.
“Upwelling is driven not purely by the broad-scale magnitude of wind, but by the gradient in wind—how strong the wind is at one latitude versus how strong it is at a different latitude. And CO2 in the atmosphere is modeled to increase the wind gradient around Antarctica, and then therefore increase upwelling around Antarctica.”
Glaciers are very difficult to move when sitting still. But once they get moving, it’s very difficult to stop what amounts to a moving mountain of ice. Forces now encroaching upon Antarctica are now conspiring to trigger the seaward movement of various gigantic glaciers. Once that happens, a certain amount of sea level rise gets locked in. This new research indicates that Greenland and West Antarctica aren’t the only systems that are capable of seeing glaciers released in this fashion. With the new research from Totten, East Antarctica is starting to come into play as well. And that means that multi-meter sea level rise this Century is not out of the question.
Electrical vehicles are a key element of the clean energy revolution. They are more efficient than fossil fuel driven vehicles; they produce zero particulate tailpipe emissions. When mated with solar and wind, they produce zero carbon emissions in operation. And they can serve as storage units for renewable energy sources all as their mass production drives the net cost of batteries continually lower.
So if you’re worried about climate change, and you’re well informed (not misinformed, confused, or focused on various shiny objects presently circulating the media), then you’re really interested in seeing electrical vehicle adoption hitting a high ramp in the near future. For those in this group, the October U.S. electrical vehicle report should serve as some hopeful news even as federal action under President Trump tilts more and more toward extreme anti-climate change response policy.
25th Consecutive Month of Record U.S. EV Sales
According to Inside EVs, plug-in electrical vehicle and hybrid sales saw their 25th month of consecutive record gains. About 14,598 electrical vehicles sold during October — which was 33 percent greater than during October of 2016. The yearly total for the U.S. during 2017 is now 157,039. This roughly matches 2016’s accumulated sales from January to December of 158,614. Given present trends, and given the fact that EV sales tend to ramp up during November and December, it is likely that U.S. numbers will hit near or slightly above the 200,000 mark by year end.
(U.S. Electrical Vehicle Sales During October. Image source: Inside EVs.)
GM’s Chevy Bolt rocketed to the top of the list for the month with 2,781 sales. The Bolt has benefited from broader dealer availability and appears to be riding the wave of excitement produced by the Model 3, which is still not available in the mass market. The car is also low-cost, long range, and extraordinarily well reviewed — despite lacking the larger charging network support available to Tesla owners. Annual Chevy Bolt 2017 sales still lag behind that of Tesla’s market-leading Model S — with 20,750 sales for the Model S and 17,083 sales for the Bolt.
The second best-selling plug-in car during October was Toyota’s Prius Prime at 1,626. Toyota’s plug-in electric hybrid has also been very well reviewed by buyers and features a range extending gas engine that completely removes range anxiety (although this is less of an issue for Teslas and the Bolt which presently boast ranges in excess of 200 miles).
Chevy’s Volt takes up the third spot on the heels of the Prius Prime with 1,362 sales. This hybrid boasts a longer electrical range than Toyota’s Prime and the position of an established leader in the field. However, the Prime’s popularity is now giving the Volt a run as top plug-in-hybrid with annual sales neck-and-neck between the two at 16,710 (Volt) and 16,682 (Prime) respectively.
Tesla’s Model S and X vehicles rounded out the 4th and 5th spots for the month with 1,120 (S) and 850 (X) U.S. sales. For the year, Tesla’s Model S is still the top selling EV with 20,750 U.S. sales and the Model X is the 4th best selling U.S. EV with 16,140 total sales. Tesla sales efforts tend to follow an uneven track with greater sales pushes toward end-quarter. So Tesla’s October lag is par for the course for the company which saw a record 3rd quarter of 2017 with 26,150 cars sold globally during July, August and September. To match this level, Tesla total sales will have to ramp during November and December. However, it is worth noting that sales of Tesla EVs have grown significantly in places like Europe during recent months — hitting 4,662 in Europe during September alone.
Aspirational Tesla Struggles to Meet Vision of Mass EV Production
Tesla is presently struggling to ramp up production of its highly sought-after, signature Model 3. With upwards of 500,000 reservations, the nascent company is seeking to make a leap to major automaker status on the platform of an electrical-vehicle-only line. Tesla bet on a highly automated line and a simplified design to achieve a rapid Model 3 ramp to meet this demand and to ensure cash flow into 2018. However, issues with suppliers and with managing such a high level of automation has caused the Model 3 production ramp to splutter. In total, reports estimate that around 405 Model 3s have been produced through the end of October with 145 produced that month. Tesla, acknowledging difficulties, has rolled back its production ramp by 3 months — aiming for 5,000 Model 3s per week by March.
Our forecast for Model 3 production by end year has dropped to 2,000 with between 75,000 and 200,000 Model 3s produced for 2018. However, if problems with Model 3 production do not soon clear, the total for 2017 could drop to between 700 and 1,000. Hopefully, Tesla can transport itself out of its various circles of mass production hell and avoid such a lag.
Tesla has a history of missing ambitious targets and then catching up with time. Tesla’s Model X production ramp also encountered difficulties, but the all-electric SUV swiftly became a global best seller once production bottlenecks cleared. That said, these are tough signs in a tough time for Tesla, and for those (like this writer) who support the spirit of Tesla’s fully-integrated all-renewable based business model. Renewable energy foes have been emboldened by Tesla’s struggle with Tesla bears making rabid statements almost daily. The next 3-6 months will be make or break for Tesla — determining whether the company falls behind a growing pack of high-quality electrical vehicle producers or whether it continues to be an industry leader. And, in so many ways, Tesla’s success or failure will help to make or break U.S. global renewable energy leadership. For EVs, as a whole, have found new sources of leadership coming from China and Europe even as many automakers invest more heavily in electrical vehicle lines.
According to news reports, Republicans intend to use their tax cut plan to remove incentives for electrical vehicle ownership by the end of 2017. Presently, buyers of all-electric vehicles enjoy a $7,500 tax credit. An incentive that helps the U.S. clean up its air and reduce the kinds of greenhouse gas emissions that fuel sea level rise, more powerful storms, and worsening droughts, deluges, and wildfires.
(In the U.S., more than 200,000 people die every year as a result of outdoor air pollution to which vehicle transportation is now the primary contributor resulting in 53,000 such deaths per year. That’s more deaths than from vehicle accidents. Moreover, air pollution impacts like asthma, stroke, heart attacks, and reduced lung function are far more widespread. Image source: EPA.)
Though such a policy might not be much of a surprise coming from the party of a Rick Perry, who today falsely claimed that fossil fuel burning prevented sexual assault against women, climate change denier Inhoffe, and tilting at windmills Donald Trump, it would have wide-ranging negative impacts for every American. Impacts like bad air quality which is a health risk for everyone, worsening climate change which is now causing many Americans to lose their homes or be forcibly displaced, and loss of economic advantage coming from new jobs and new industry.
Presently, U.S. automakers hold a global edge in high quality electrical vehicle adoption due to this and other related policy supports. Top EV automakers like Tesla, GM and Ford who produce renowned vehicles like the Model S, Model 3, and the Chevy Bolt. But, apparently, it looks like Republicans are now using tax policy as a means to legislate an attack on this innovation, which result in reduced fossil fuel demand, more energy independence for the U.S., and far less in the way of harmful particulate and greenhouse gas emissions.
(Tesla stock reacts negatively to news that Republicans are adding a provision to remove electrical vehicle incentives to their tax bill. Image source: Google Finance.)
Tesla bears, who have been rabidly consuming and perpetuating bad news (a good portion of it exaggerated or invented) about the leading U.S. electrical vehicle manufacturer, went nuts over the Republican announcement today. Tesla share prices dropped from around $320 to $296 following the move. More than a bit of this investor flight appears to be irrational. Ironically, Tesla is less exposed to risk from removal of this tax cut than automakers like GM due to the fact that it is already approaching the 200,000 EV limit under the tax credit. After this point, tax incentives for EVs from individual automakers drop off. And Tesla has already sold 250,000 vehicles globally with more than 150,000 of those sales coming from the U.S.
Republicans have once again proven that they are the anti-renewable energy, pro harmful impacts from climate change party. They have also once again proven that their capacity to use tax policy to greatly increase a variety of bad effects — ranging from worsening inequality in the U.S., to undercutting innovation and American technological leadership, to fighting directly against the very solutions and mitigations for a rapidly worsening climate situation.
The globe should be cooling relative to recent and near record warm summer temperatures. But it isn’t. La Nina like conditions, the Pacific Ocean pattern that generally precipitates globally cooler weather, is again spreading across the Equatorial Pacific. Yet if you’re living in Dallas, Texas, or many other places across the globe, you wouldn’t know it.
For this week, temperatures in Dallas are expected to exceed all previous records since monitoring began back in 1898.
(Record warm temperatures predicted for Dallas later this week. Image source: Euro Model.)
According to meteorologist Ryan Maue, and to reanalysis of Euro weather model data, Dallas is expected to see temperatures between 90 and 94 degrees Fahrenheit by Friday of this week. Readings that would be considered pretty hot for a normal summer day occurring on November 3rd. That’s really odd. Especially when you consider the fact that Dallas has never experienced a 90+ degree high temperature from October 31 through December 29 in all of the past 119 years.
If Dallas does hit 94 on Friday, that will be 21 degrees (F) above typical high temperatures there for this time of year.
(According to GFS Model Reanalysis, the globe has warmed through Northern Hemisphere Fall despite a trend toward La Nina. Image source: Global and Regional Climate Anomalies.)
Drawing back from focus on the Dallas region, we find that the world overall is also warming relative to June through September temperature departures. A climate change associated warming that appears to have been kicked off, primarily, by warmer than normal temperatures at the poles (see previous article). This despite cooling Equatorial Pacific Ocean surface waters associated with a 55 to 65 percent of La Nina formation by winter.
In a normal climate system, we would expect a trend toward La Nina to produce relative cooling. But this does not appear to be happening as June warm temperature departures were lower than those during August through October. Preliminary GFS reanalysis indicates that October warm temperature departures were higher than those occurring in September — likely hitting around 1.1 C above 1880s averages (see image above).
So despite a weak La Nina forming, it again appears that polar warming is a major driver for global temperatures as fall moves into winter. Climatologists take note.
Human-caused climate change via fossil fuel burning produces a number of stranger things. And some of the weirdest happen to occur in the polar regions of our world.
One of the foremost of these odd impacts is called polar amplification. Under polar amplification, the warming effects of elevated greenhouse gasses are concentrated at the poles. This is due to reduced reflectivity (albedo) from smaller snow and sea ice concentrations, due to the increased intensity of the greenhouse effect in colder and darker regions, and due to increased energy transfer from lower latitudes into upper latitudes due to weakening of the polar Jet Stream.
Over the next week, this kind of polar amplification is predicted to generate very extreme warm temperatures for both poles of our world.
In the Arctic, temperatures in both Northern Greenland and on the Siberian side of the Arctic Ocean are predicted to hit ranges higher than 20 degrees Celsius above average (36 degrees Fahrenheit) with some readings over Northeastern Siberia striking near the 30 C above average mark by early next week (54 degrees F). This will produce near or above freezing temperatures over both Siberia and sections of the Arctic Ocean near or north of the 80 degree North Latitude line. Overall, temperatures are predicted to average as high as 4.4 C above average for the entire Arctic. A very considerable warm temperature departure consistent with the heightened levels of global warming the world has been experiencing during recent years.
(Even as the Arctic is predicted to heat up, the Antarctic is also expected to experience much warmer than normal conditions. Image source: Global and Regional Climate Anomalies.)
Primary atmospheric drivers for these warming events are large synoptic warm wind patterns drawing above average temperatures into both the Arctic and Antarctic. In the Arctic, winds crossing hundreds of miles of warm Pacific Ocean in association with the back side of a high pressure system moving over the Bering Sea will draw these very warm temperatures northward. In the Antarctic, warm winds funneling southward from Australia will reinforce the influence of a strong high pressure dome over East Antarctica even as another strong synoptic warm wind pattern feeds into West Antarctica off the Pacific and Southern Oceans later in the week.
It’s very early for temperatures over parts of Antarctica to be pushing above freezing. And it’s rather late for such similar temperatures to be continuing to invade so far north into the Arctic. So much warmth will have an ongoing deleterious impact to both sea and land ice as well as snow cover. Contributing to the overall pattern of warming and melt we’ve seen for both Antarctica and the Arctic during recent years as global temperatures have risen into a range from 1 C to 1.2 C above 1880s averages.
RELATED STATEMENTS AND INFORMATION:
Warm, downsloping winds predicted to drive above freezing temperatures over East Antarctica's Amery Ice Shelf in this 12 h GFS model run. pic.twitter.com/TUNnlfEdFg
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