In achieving any kind of real progress toward an important end, it’s necessary to set goals that are difficult to attain. To aim further than you think you can go. And that’s even more important for a climate crisis that will produce catastrophic outcomes if we don’t set some very serious renewable energy, emissions reduction, and sustainability goals.
(This is your home.)
Because the important end that we are now trying to attain involves saving the future. Future prosperity, future vitality, future generations of human beings and living creatures. In the end it’s about the future of your home. For each 0.1 C of additional warming will bring with it more risk. More potential for increased harm.
It doesn’t matter if you live in Miami or Bangladesh. In Norfolk or Washington DC. In London or LA. In Calgary or Quebec. Where you live is where climate change is happening now. And where you live is where the future catastrophic impacts from climate change will be felt if we don’t do the necessary work.
In saying this, I can also say with confidence that we have a pathway out of this crisis. We have the renewable energy technology available now that is capable of replacing fossil fuel burning — so long as it is deployed on a mass scale. We have the ability to make our energy systems more efficient. We have the ability to change the way we manage lands and farms. And we can do all this — getting to net zero carbon emissions — without the kind of (post-Maria Puerto Rico-like) austerity invoking collapse of the global economy that the mongers of fear, uncertainty and doubt falsely say is necessary.
But to do this, to prevent catastrophe — not harm, because we are already going to see harm — we have to set our goals high. We have to try to achieve what might not be possible. And that’s why we aim for 1.5 C. Because this is your home. And we will employ every tool in our kit in our fight to save it.
Hat tip to Dr. Michael E Mann
robertscribbler 
Exposing the Big Game
/ July 13, 2018Reblogged this on The Extinction Chronicles.
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wili
/ July 13, 2018https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=323.0;attach=104528;image
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wili
/ July 13, 2018https://www.hln.be/wetenschap-planeet/milieu/ijsberg-van-100-meter-hoog-bedreigt-kust-van-groenland-inwoners-uit-voorzorg-geevacueerd~acad4f17/
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wili
/ July 13, 2018Click to see stunning images of the enormous bergs that broke off of a Greenland glacier.
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Karin65
/ July 13, 2018Thank you Robert for all the work you do. You care deeply about our planet, our home. My home is Ontario, and it saddens me to see what is happening in my Province. A few weeks ago we had a Provincial election, and Doug Ford (yes, the brother of the infamous mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, RIP) now leads a majority conservative government. After 15 years of Liberal rule, the electorate wanted a much needed change, as the scandals, overspending and sense of entitlement were awful. I have noticed over the years that the longer a government is in power, the more corrupt it becomes. That applies to any government, right, left, or middle! Despite all these negatives, the Liberals had in the last 15 years made some strides to address climate change, closing down the coal fired generating stations, increasing wind and solar farms, a cap and trade agreement with Quebec and California, increasing hydro generation, generous subsidies to purchase electric cars, and various programs to increase energy efficiency, and more.
OMG. Before he is even sworn in as Premier, he cancels the green energy programs where households can update insulation and heating systems. He announces the end of cap and trade, (I’m not sure how that can even be done with all the contracts and credits that businesses have). He fires the science advisor to the government. He cancels a wind farm project in eastern Ontario, again not sure how that will work as contracts are in place. He appoints a family friend as Health advisor, at 350K yearly salary. Plus he changes the sex-ed curriculum back to the 1998 program. We don’t want our children to have any texting or on line information that may save them from sex predators. OK, the last two items have nothing to do with climate change, but they show the cronyism and lack of foresight from our new government. These backward steps are not what we need, especially in our fight against climate change.
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018The GOP comes pre-corrupted…
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Karin65
/ July 16, 2018It gets worse. Customers who have electric cars on order are left high and dry. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tesla-electric-car-incentive-end-1.4747325
The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change is now called Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. Hmmm, no mention of climate change. I believe a lot of US government departments also dropped the words “climate change”
Heads in the sand!
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Brian
/ July 17, 2018> he cancels the green energy programs where households can update insulation and heating systems
Can you please clarify this statement? Is this actually preventing homeowners from updating their insulation and heating systems? Or is it just removing a subsidy that homeowners, who were doing what they should be doing anyways, were getting paid to do so?
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Abel Adamski
/ July 19, 2018Sorry Brian
It is a matter of assisting those who could be financially constrained from doing so and at the same time helping everyone else and the planet as well, so I can only see your comment as screw everyone and the planet, all that matters is me and my $
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Brian
/ July 21, 2018I don’t live in Ontario, it wasn’t my money. I’m okay with the taxes I pay. I understand the financially-constrained bit, but I honestly don’t think that that is a significant uptake of the program, because it will probably be a percentage-base rebate rather than a full-cost subsidy. If people are financially-constrained, they won’t do activities like this with percentage-based rebates; they’ll need full-subsidy up-front.
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wili
/ July 13, 2018“Preparing for the health impacts of a fiery future”
“Consider this: last year’s wildfires in Northern California produced the highest levels of pollution ever recorded in the area.
In just two days, those fires produced as much pollution as all the state’s cars do in a year.
Wildfire smoke is laden with particulate matter, which triggers asthma, worsens lung and heart disease, and is linked to premature births and low birth weight babies.
And, as fires incinerate everything in their path — including plastics, paints and pesticides — they release toxins into the environment. In Sonoma County last year, for example, melted plastic pipes may have contaminated drinking water with benzene.
The health impacts of wildfire travel long distances: smoke from last year’s Northern California wildfires was detected more than 500 miles away in Mexico. In 2002, smoke from fires in Quebec drifted down the U.S. East Coast, causing a nearly 50 percent increase in hospital admissions for respiratory disease…”
A couple of my students did a project related to this for one of my classes. I required them to research and propose a policy change (or something similar) that could have a lasting impact on the world that related to GW. One student who worked with kids in a school in central Minnesota talked in class about how there was no warning to take kids inside when smoke from a distant fire became very thick at ground level in the area.
I pointed out that, whether or not that fire could be traced to GW (I think it could, as it was one of the mega fires in Canada from a few years ago, iirc), the incidence of major fires was likely to go up with GW, so if she could convince the authorities to make a policy to issue official warnings in schools (at least) when air quality levels were predicted to be bad, that would fit the requirements. She did just that, and the proposal was accepted and the new policy is now in place at least in one county in central MN!
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bostonblorp
/ July 13, 2018Even if we (very likely) overshoot 1.5C we have to do everything possible to get back there. There’s a real danger in moving the goalpost out.. “well we missed 2C but 3C is where we draw the line!”
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Robert E Prue
/ July 14, 2018So, in 5 or 10 years from now there’s not going to be much ice in the Arctic ocean during summer. How much of a blip in warming will that cause? What other effects will low summer ice have on the Earth’s climate system?
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rhymeswithgoalie
/ July 14, 2018Ice cover reduces the flow of heat from the Arctic Ocean water to the atmosphere above it. More arctic heat means faster melt of landbound ice, plus the northern jetstream will have even less of an arctic vs. mid-latitude difference to power it around the planet. Slower, meandering jet stream means more stalled weather systems, which means longer droughts, longer storms, etc.
Melting of ice takes heat, and when the ice is melted the ambient temperature goes up, the permafrost melts faster, and its CO2 and CH4 is released faster.
I completely left out any ecosystem damage, invasion by mid-latitude predators, walrus cubs abandoned and starving and so forth.
Good news: Oil tankers can take a short cut across the Arctic Ocean in summer. 😦
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bostonblorp
/ July 14, 2018The albedo loss has resulted in warming equal to about 1/4 of all carbon emissions in terms of extra forcing.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/9/3322
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Mick Walker
/ July 15, 2018Does that pose the question then; should albedo loss be added to CO2e?
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018No. It’s a part of base climate sensitivity. Doing that would be double counting.
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018This feedback is a measure of climate sensitivity.
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hexagram32
/ July 16, 2018An ice-free Arctic may happen this year… not 5-10 years.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
“Complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice in September 2018 is within the margins of a trend based on yearly annual minimum volume…”
And then the real tipping point will happen, when all the energy required to melt ice now directly heats the water…
How much of a blip in warming will that cause?
“The amount of energy absorbed by melting ice is as much as it takes to heat an equivalent mass of water from zero to 80°C.”
The arctic may not ever re-freeze after this point.
There as never been a human alive on the planet without ice in the arctic. I personally don’t think it’ll be a “blip” that can be “managed”.
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018Possible. But the present trend line is not indicative of such an event. We would have to see very rapid acceleration of melt on a never before seen scale. Human caused climate change can produce such events. But there is little indication at this time that it’s happening now.
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Brian
/ July 17, 2018And to suggest it won’t refreeze in the winter is beyond irresponsible at best.
Further, was this volume measurement or an area measurement?
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Abel Adamski
/ July 19, 2018Brian, yes during the transition period there will be refreeze which will trend down slowly over time, but that refreeze will just provide that cold spot that defines the thermal gradient which will be increasing. So more extreme weather conditions until the refreeze is minimal;.
So not the get out of Goal card you may think
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Erik Frederiksen
/ July 14, 2018William D. Nordhaus: ”A target of 2½ °C is technically feasible but would require extreme virtually universal global policy measures.” https://www.scribd.com/document/335688297/Nordhaus-climate-economics
If he is correct, then given the absence of those “extreme virtually universal global policy measures”, we may be looking at a 3C world or even worse.
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Michele
/ July 14, 2018http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2018/07/13/el-nino-likely-will-develop-this-year/#.W0liRdhKjow
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018Thanks for this, Michele.
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mlp in nc
/ July 14, 2018Leland Palmer
Just FYI.
Arctic News for 7/13/18 opens with figures on the extraordinarily rapid rise in the SST (about 2.5C/yr 1015-2018) of the west Svalbard hot spot in the last few years. I double checked today and found a SST of 15.9C, not too far off from their 16.6C). They use the word ‘exponential’, never good.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
(In the later part of the post they use JAXA data to show a record low in sea ice volume, and though that not what the PIOMAS shows, the difference in the two is, taking measurement variables into account, not that great.)
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Brian
/ July 17, 2018It’s irresponsible to use word ‘exponential’, which implies an unlimited check on growth. There are natural limits in place in these systems; the water itself north of Svalbard will not reach 80C for example.
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Leland Palmer
/ August 1, 2018It’s a difficult situation when Arctic News has a tendency to exaggerate, but is the only information source reporting on a phenomenon that looks truly anomalous to me. Yes, it is irresponsible to use the word exponential, but the change that is happening in these anomalies seems at least very rapid. Also Sam Carana;s graph suggests 80 degrees Farenheit, not Celsius, in 2020. Sea surface temperatures at 16.6 C are already 61.9 degrees F.
The activation of the methane hydrates in the area is what I’m afraid of, something that appears to have happened before if the hundreds of millions of pockmarks from methane release on the ocean floor in the Barents Sea are any indication.
Methane hydrates in the area could also be relict metastable methane hydrate, formed under ice sheets in pressure conditions that no longer exist. The pressure now being removed, these hydrates could be far outside the current methane hydrate stability zone, and could be especially susceptible to dissociation.
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mlp in nc
/ August 1, 2018Yes, and a SSTA of 3.0 – 8.7C (SST 8.9 – 16.7C) is creeping through the Bering Strait on Earth Nullschool today. Didn’t find much info but at least one report says methane in the Beaufort is under control https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/microbes-chomp-on-seafloor-methane-before-it-reaches-the-atmosphere/. Still, the -OH must be very good at its job.
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Leland Palmer
/ August 3, 2018Yes, the modeling by Reagan and his collaborators at the now defunded IMPACTS group of national labs and universities seemed to show that the sea floor methane eating bacteria would do a good job of keeping methane from dissociating hydrates out of the atmosphere…at first. Only later, as basin scale shortages of nutrients ramp up and the ability of ocean basins to metabolize methane becomes overwhelmed, would there be significant methane releases into the atmosphere. One severe impact that they modeled would be oceanic hypoxia as oceanic oxygen levels are depleted, and as oxygen levels are depleted they modeled increasing methane releases into the atmosphere.
But what is the possible link between ocean temperature anomalies and methane, if any? Increased absorption of sunlight by dissolved methane in the water? Atmospheric heating caused by increased methane release, and then transfer of that heat into the water? Heat possibly released by bacteria as they metabolize methane?
I get the feeling we are dealing with a totally unexpected side effect of global warming with these temperature anomalies- one of the “unknown unknowns” of global warming.
Or, it could just be the tail end of anomalously warm ocean currents, maybe.
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mlp in nc
/ August 3, 2018I find dealing with methane something like the fog of war. Just noticed that Arctic News, apparently as worried as you, is mentioning those hot spots yet again only a couple of weeks later. I even checked them again on Earth Nullschool and got a transient 13.2C SSTA in the west one, the highest ever.
Also noted they posted a worrisome graph of methane levels in Barrow for this year, showing a sudden, anomalous increase. Not only a dragon’s breath, but a dragon’s flame. I double checked with the NOAA website and it is indeed lifted straight from their page, hour average of in-situ methane. Here is the link:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=BRW&program=ccgg&type=ts.
Nothing like it for the year before, but couldn’t get yearly data before that. Bears watching.
Also noted bouncing METOP levels, occasionally hitting 2500-2600, and today the average is up to 1883.
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/soundings/iasi/m1/t1/D1/mr_ch4.074.gif.
I wish I could grasp why, with all this (and Shakova and Semiletov’s kilometer wide plumes venting directly to atmosphere, etc), global methane levels are rising as sluggishly as they are.
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Leland Palmer
/ August 19, 2018Well, in the atmosphere, the hydroxyl radical does a good job of oxidizing methane. So methane lifetime in the atmosphere is on the order of 10 years or so.
In the oceans, the methanotroph bacteria do a good job of metabolizing methane.
What atmospheric modelers like Isaksen are worried about is that as methane from permafrost decay or from methane hydrate dissociation increases, the hydroxyl radical oxidation mechanism starts to be overwhelmed, and methane lifetime in the atmosphere increases. Also indirect effects of methane release start to add up, including increases in stratospheric water vapor, secondary CO2 and tropospheric ozone. So Isaksen models a strong feedback from methane release to atmospheric forcing.
In the oceans, modelers like Reagan of the now defunded IMPACTS group of national labs and universities were showing results that predicted very strong oceanic anoxia in some areas of the Arctic, including the Sea of Okhotsk, as methane from the hydrates is released. As basin scale availability of nutrients becomes overwhelmed by methane from the hydrates, bacterial communities slow down their metabolism of methane, and increasing fractions of it start to go directly into the
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Leland Palmer
/ August 19, 2018…atmosphere. (Sorry, computer glitch of some sort)
So the main concerns about methane are long term, if the hydrates start to dissociate in a massive way.
But there are these “unknown unknown” concerns as well. Nobody knows in any great detail what happened during past hyperthermal events likely associated with methane hydrate dissociation, other than that mass extinctions occurred. Are there short term concerns like relict metastable methane hydrate that formed under ice sheets, with the pressure from those ice sheets now gone? Are there geographic accidents like the existence of the shallow East Siberian Arctic Shelf that could make the hydrate dissociation scenario especially bad this time? And what are those damned temperature anomalies near Svalbard?
So far, global warming is looking a lot like a perfect storm, to me. The news is about as bad as it can get, I think. I think that we have a brief “window of opportunity” to tip the whole climate system over into a truly massive hyperthermal event.
The only good news I can see is the drop in price of solar and wind, and increasing production of electric cars. The drop in price of solar alone could save us, I think.
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mlp in nc
/ August 20, 2018Yes, but if the hydroxyl levels are overwhelmed, it will be catastrophic. I have read that global levels can’t be measured (“Hydroxyl radical isn’t something we can measure directly at a global scale” https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/after-2000-era-plateau-global-methane-levels-hitting-new-highs) so prediction must be tricky. And how do scientists know that that hydroxyl hole over the Pacific is a natural phenomenon?
Though just local, I am still concerned by the Barrow methane flare and will report with relief when levels drop back to the usual.
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wili
/ July 14, 2018“How global warming is causing ocean oxygen levels to fall”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-global-warming-is-causing-ocean-oxygen-levels-to-fall
“Research shows that human-caused global warming is the principal cause of marine oxygen loss. Humans also play an additional role through the input of nutrients to the oceans in coastal regions, though the individual processes at play are not straightforward to disentangle.
Warming affects the ocean and its dissolved oxygen content in several ways. Among other things, it influences the solubility of oxygen in the water. The warmer the water, the less gas that can dissolve in it.
Until now, this process mainly affected the upper few hundred meters of the oceans, which have been in contact with the atmosphere most recently. This effect explains up to 20% of the total marine oxygen loss so far and about 50% of that in the upper 1,000 metres of the oceans.
In addition, warming alters patterns of global ocean circulation, which affects the mixing of oxygen-rich surface waters with deeper oxygen-poor water. It also changes how quickly organisms metabolise and respire, which affects consumption of marine oxygen.
Finally, there are indirect impacts of warming on upper-ocean nutrient supply and subsequent production and downward export of organic matter available for respiration throughout the ocean.”
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longboren
/ July 14, 2018Thank you Robert for your eloquent and heartfelt message. Hopefully your message will get beyond the “choir” who already understand what’s at stake to the “fellow travelers” who don’t realize just how serious our problem (predicament?) is. I also thank you for the wealth of information and science that you present, and your site has become a principal source of info for me in my various personal discussions with deniers and people who think this is the grandkid’s problem. However I also believe that the climate scientists who know as well as anyone what is happening should make the emotional appeals that our human limbic brain actually responds to, even if they are not comfortable or suited to that. When non-climate change scientists make these emotional arguments they are often nitpicked to pieces. In the end if we actually start working toward dealing with this problem on an emergency basis, it will have been the emotional appeals, not the scientific information, that carries the day. Sad, but most likely true.
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mlp in nc
/ July 14, 2018+1.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read this. It’s a doubtful comfort, but for those of us fond of little lab mice, the psychologists, doing their best to explain the seemingly inexplicable, have found the mice are not doing any better than us.
Sticking with the wrong choice. Rats do it, too. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180713111925.htm
Sunk cost fallacy in mice, rats and humans. Jul 13, 2018. U. Minnesota Medical School
Summary: New research has shown that mice, rats, and humans all commit the sunk cost fallacy.
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018Cold facts often illicit a lower response level. Leadership that appeals to our better angels is needed to move forward. The reaction of cynical critics is a sign that you’re saying what needs to be said.
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mjsteicke
/ July 15, 2018This heatwave comes hot on the heels (pun appropriate) of recent flooding in Japan. While I do not have the fugues I would imagine that due to Japan’s topography these temperatures would be accompanied by high humidity. It is noteworthy that counties with first world infrastructure are not immune from the increasing effects of climate change on weather such as heat and floods, or other phenomena such as sea level rise. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180715/p2g/00m/0dm/002000c
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wili
/ July 15, 2018hottest La Niña year to date on record
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/heatwave-sees-record-high-temperatures-set-around-world-this-week
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018Thanks for this, Wili.
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kassy
/ July 16, 2018Construction conundrum: where did all the sand go?
…
Andrew Cooper, professor of coastal studies at the University of Ulster and co-author of ‘The Last Beach’, says: “Most natural sand beaches are disappearing, due partly to rising sea levels and increased storm action, but also due to massive erosion caused by the human development to the shore.” The environmental cost of losing natural beaches is that they are simply much better at protecting inland areas than anything we can build. Orrin Pilkey, Cooper’s co-author, says: “Beaches absorb the power of the ocean waves, reducing them to a gentle swash that laps the shoreline. They move sand around to maximise the absorption of wave energy and then recover in the days, months and years to follow.”
These natural forces are nothing compared with the man-made sand crisis the world faces today. It’s the global environmental time-bomb that no-one’s ever heard of, and that is, with the world’s construction industry booming like never before, the demand for sand is going through the roof. We’re heading for a global shortage of the world’s most extracted natural resource and most > < consumed apart from water. This demand comes mainly from the concrete and asphalt industries used to expand the world’s 31 megacities. This will increase, as the UN forecasts that there will be at least another 10 by 2030.
and much more on:
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/07/construction-conundrum-where-did-all-the-sand-go/
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kassy
/ July 16, 2018A Deadly Air Conditioning Problem Could Strike Us All by 2050
Everything has a price.
DAVID NIELD 15 JUL 2018
As the world warms up, millions of us turn up the air conditioning, and that dependence on cooling technology could be causing hundreds of deaths by 2050.
That’s the conclusion of researchers studying the impact of air con that relies on coal, gas, and oil for its power. More power for more cold air means more polluting particulate matter in the sky – and that means additional deaths.
By the middle of the century we could be talking about an average of 654 more deaths every year in the US from increases in particulate matter, plus 315 more deaths from higher ozone levels.
…
https://www.sciencealert.com/deadly-air-conditioning-problem-developing-by-2050
At least this problem has a real easy solution.
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018Which is why it needs to be linked to wind, solar, batteries.
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kassy
/ July 16, 2018And related:
To solve global warming, we need to expand cooling, report finds
In a warming world, expanding access to cooling technologies without jeopardizing climate change goals is going to be a major challenge, according to a new report by the Sustainable Energy for All group.
Why it matters: Cooling needs are not only for expanding access to air conditioning as the earth becomes hotter, but applies to many other aspects of the modern economy like medical and food supply chains. The report shows that 1.1 billion people face “cooling access risks.”
Show less
The big picture: 470 million people live in poor, rural areas that lack access to safe food and medicines and 630 million are located in hotter, poor urban slums with little or no cooling to protect them against extreme heat waves.
…
Details (well 2 (or II 😉 ) of them)
There are 9 countries with the biggest populations facing cooling risks, including: India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, China, Mozambique and Sudan.
Cooling, from the air conditioners in our homes to the systems that regulate temperature at computer data centers and grocery stores, is already responsible for about 10% of global warming.
https://www.axios.com/solving-global-warming-requires-action-on-cooling-a6c1224f-4697-4d43-89ad-e37a5fe2e0ac.html
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robertscribbler
/ July 16, 2018Air conditioning is becoming a matter of survival in many regions. And it needs to be linked to renewable energy if we’re not going to make the broader problem worse.
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Greg
/ July 17, 2018Inflection point has arrived. Dig in and fight. Bookmark these two articles today for one of the “probable futures”, as Native Americans would describe them. Also, take any money you have in savings and buy Tesla stock. In 15 years either sell the highly valuable stock and give all praise to Elon and keep fighting or, alternatively, kiss the money and best probable future goodbye, the one we hope for, and our insanity trashed. I will read these articles repeatedly to anyone who will listen and share them with family again in 15 years, as a kind of epitaph of our failure or, alternatively, as a reminder that we miraculously hauled ass and steered away from the danger ahead. I don’t see a.middle way now – that is denier alley. I have no doubt one of our tasks in the next few years, before we see the summer Arctic ice gone, will be to have a plan and communications strategy in place that guides leadership with restraint at the next major inflection point. At that point it is very likely our governments will be scrambling to formulate and then execute gargantuan geoengineering projects in an attempt to mitigate. Projects could include sulfur seeding, or space shades, or similar schemes to reduce incoming long wave radiation. That is when even a small group such as here can really make an historic difference by helping avoid insanity 2.0. Godspeed.
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Greg
/ July 17, 2018I don’t even know where to start with this. This is the kind of false information and conclusion that feeds the trolls.
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Tom Jerome
/ July 17, 2018Robert –
I know you are a big Musk supporter, but I have to say I’ll be looking at other e car producers when I buy my next vehicle, due to this:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-unmasked-as-top-donor-to-house-republican-pac
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Abel Adamski
/ July 17, 2018Worth noting that as with most businessmen he donates to a broad spectrum including the $33K to the GOP Superpac.
Nate Silver has a list of his donations since 2010 excluding current which have not officially been updated, including Obama, Hilary etc etc
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/elon-musk-donates-to-gop-group-to-keep-republican-control-of-congress/
(the actual source of the Daily Beast article)
I wouldn’t call $33K a major contribution for someone of Elons assets, more a covering bet to minimize potential GOP negative actions.
Another of an increasing barrage of attacks on Tesla, aiming at the man behind it, so Tom look further into it and don’t be sucked in.
However he was rather foolish with the Thailand gig, unlike Puerto Rico and SA’s big battery where the experts and professionals were out of their depth, in this case they were on top of it. However the media is focusing on the mini sub, he also had a flexible plastic tube there that would have saved the day if the waters rose. Feed it all the way and have an airlock on the end and pressurise it with air allowing them to squeeze through. but the media ignores that.
Elons comment re the UK diver (Single 62 year old Briton resident in Thailand – does raise questions) was a pissed response to the divers comment on air on CNN to shove it where it hurts. So in context quid quo pro. Though to be fair the Phillipines and especially Thailand is a popular place for retirees with limited funds as the living is cheap, infrastructure and communications and medical facilities are of a high standard in most areas
However out of line and huge ammo against him and Tesla
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paul
/ July 18, 2018Abel, Are you too suggesting that all single male Western expats in Thailand are paedophiles, or just British cave-divers that call out Musk PR stunts?
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Abel Adamski
/ July 19, 2018” Though to be fair the Phillipines and especially Thailand is a popular place for retirees with limited funds as the living is cheap, infrastructure and communications and medical facilities are of a high standard in most areas”
Not at all, but it has been an issue for decades that there are an appreciable percentage and Thailand used to be a magnet for the seamy tourist trade, whether it still is I no longer have contacts in the area so can not say.
So as I said Elon was out of line with that comment, but it would be interesting to see if he sues as that would entail detailed investigation into his life and history there, so that may well not happen
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Vic
/ July 19, 2018Paul, calling Musk’s attempt to save children from drowning a “PR stunt” is a strong sign your thinking has been compromised by the effects of fossil fuel propaganda. There’s no need to feel shame about it, they’re very clever at what they do and millions of decent, intelligent people succumb to it every day.
I’m not a doctor, but I think and sincerely hope that reading the following article might help in your recovery.
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-full-story-behind-Elon-Musks-involvement-with-the-Thai-cave-rescue-effort
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Greg
/ July 17, 2018Tom,
I don’t even know where to start with this. This is the kind of false information and conclusion that feeds the trolls. There are $10 billion in short sellers pushing a disinformation campaign. Please don’t support it
here. Elon does stupid things, as we all do, but he is an ally of the first order.
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Tom Jerome
/ July 17, 2018Thanks for the additional information. I stand corrected. Perhaps, Elon should just stick to what he is good at.
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Brian
/ July 17, 2018He’s like a snake-oil-salesman where you know the snake-oil is actually very good. What his companies sell & make are both very good and very needed; it’s just the way he goes about it that upsets some people. Is smarmy a politically-correct term?
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Leland Palmer
/ August 1, 2018Don’t find his actions or style in the least bit smarmy. Old GOP disinformation trick- if you can’t criticize the substance, criticize the style. I like his style.
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kassy
/ July 17, 2018First off the EU doing it wrong:
IS LNG A ‘US$22 BILLION DISTRACTION’?
…
The European Union has spent U$250 million on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects in the marine sector to date, according to a study released in June, providing 50% partnership funding with the private sector to support a total of US$500 million investment. But according to University Maritime Advisory Services (UMAS), a consultancy division of University College London, this spending will have no significant climate benefits at best and could potentially increase greenhouse gas emissions from shipping.
Under one scenario in the report, rolling out LNG infrastructure for shipping in Europe would cost US$22 billion and deliver, at best, a 6% reduction in ship greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared to the replaced diesel. The study, commissioned by environmental non-governmental organisation Transport & Environment (T&E), argues that these findings make LNG incapable of achieving the reductions required under the recently adopted International Maritime Organisation (IMO) strategy on reducing GHG emissions from ships.
The authors point to a “high-level failure” in EU planning, in which short-term improvements to air pollution via replacing heavy fuel oil with LNG mean that shipping is locking in fossil fuel infrastructure for decades to come. Even if public funding on LNG infrastructure ceased by 2025 or 2030, total public expenditures over this period would still amount to US$0.95-1.5 billion; which is at least a five-fold increase from what has already been spent on LNG bunkering infrastructure to date under EU’s CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) and TEN-T (Trans-European Transport Network) projects.
The study predicts that, if the growth of LNG as a marine fuel continues, reducing total annual emissions from shipping in-line with the initial IMO objective – at least 50% GHG reduction by 2050 on 2008 levels – would only be possible through offsetting and links to other carbon markets. But, the researchers note, “the letter and spirit of IMO’s commitment requires absolute in-sector reductions without market linkages”.
and much more on:
http://www.motorship.com/news101/lng/is-lng-a-us$22-billion-distraction
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kassy
/ July 17, 2018The wind drought is totally what you expect for the current weather…(but the headline guy didn’t know and he likes alliteration so here is “weird” for you).
Weird ‘wind drought’ means Britain’s turbines are at a standstill
…
Britain is experiencing a “wind drought” that has slowed or halted the blades on turbines around the country.
July’s wind energy output so far is down 40 per cent when compared to the same period last year – despite more wind turbines having been installed in the interim, according to new figures.
“We’ve been typically doing between 2 to 3 gigawatts of wind [generation],” says Rob Gross of Imperial College London, which complied the data, “At a windier time of the year we might be doing 9 or 10.”
An unusually prolonged period of high pressure is to blame for the drought, says Grahame Madge, a spokesman for the UK Met Office.
The jet stream has remained further north, meaning an area of dense, high pressure air over the UK hasn’t budged.
“It’s like a lid, it keeps everything still,” says Madge. “From the forecast looking out over the next couple of weeks, there doesn’t seem to be any significant change on the way.”
and more on:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2174262-weird-wind-drought-means-britains-turbines-are-at-a-standstill
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Pasander
/ July 17, 2018Wind power in Finland has been producing some 10…15% of its nameplate capacity during the last week or so (with no spikes!). It also does this often on the coldest days of the winter.
Wind power is total bullshit.
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kassy
/ July 18, 2018That’s like claiming sailing is total bs after sailing into the doldrums.
Windpower has obvious limits but if you have a lot of stormy weather you get more power too.
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nigel64
/ July 19, 2018We need a dislike button for the unreconstructed pasander above. Wind power is an essential part of a diverse energy base. We also need to reformat society so we don’t need so much travel.
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kassy
/ July 17, 2018Kelp Is Undertaking Epic Voyages To Reach Antarctica And We Finally Know How
…
Antarctica is surrounded by the circumpolar current, an endless loop of water pushing ever-eastward, driven by the powerful southern winds and unobstructed by land, other than being forced through the narrow gap between the Antarctic Peninsula and Tierra del Fuego. Although whales and seabirds can power across this obstacle, few other life forms can do so, keeping the frozen continent almost biologically isolated from the rest of the planet.
At least that is what was believed, until the Universidad de Concepción’s Dr Erasmo Macaya, unable to do the work he had come to King George Island to do, spent a lot of time walking along the beaches looking at seaweed. Macaya noticed that some of the kelp didn’t look like it should be there. The oceans off Antarctica, cold as they are, do support some kelp species, but Macaya’s finds were Durvillaea antarctica, which somewhat ironically does not normally live close to the continent with which it shares its name.
…
Fraser and Macaya consulted Dr Adele Morrison, also of ANU, about how it was possible for species that cannot swim to make this voyage. “Strong westerly winds and surface currents are expected to drive floating objects north and away from Antarctica, but when the disruptive influence of Antarctic storms is factored in, that all changes,” Morrison said in a statement.
Morrison’s modeling in Nature Climate Change showed the storms create a random effect, dispersing kelp fronds that start a journey together. “Suddenly some of these biological rafts were able to fetch up on the Antarctic coastline,” Morrison said.
The work explains not only the presence of kelp in Antarctica, but microplastics on the same beaches. Fraser told IFLScience these plastics are now being found in quantities too large to be explained by lazy tourists, and must also be crossing from areas to the north.
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/kelp-is-undertaking-epic-voyages-to-reach-antarctica-and-we-finally-know-how/
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longboren
/ July 18, 2018One of the principal ways different species are transported around the world is in the ballast tanks of ships. Now that we have cruise ships around Antarctica, this seems to me as a strong possibility. There are plenty other avenues, of course, but ballast tanks makes sense in this context. Some island nations (with isolated environments) have developed rules to prevent ships from dumping ballast water in their harbors. Ballast water is how zebra mussels entered the Great Lakes, for instance.
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mlp in nc
/ July 18, 2018Methane Is Giving Noctilucent Clouds a Boost by Bob Henson.
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6
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bostonblorp
/ July 18, 2018Arctic permafrost set for faster carbon leak
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-permafrost-set-for-faster-carbon-leak/
We knew this was likely to happen but discouraging to see confirmed all the same.
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longboren
/ July 18, 2018Re Musk donating some money to the GOP. People being repulsed by these donations is the type of ideological purity that has lead the GOP to where it is today. While I do not favor Republicans I can see where a businessman with broadbased interests might find reasons for contributing to their support from time to time. Although I personally predict that the Dems over the next few cycles will essentially do the same thing as the Reps, because if for no other reason it has worked spectacularly well for them from the standpoint of cementing in their power, I think it is a really bad idea going forward from the standpoint of fostering democracy. Without a center (which I am not necessarily in, by the way) we will default to “pendulum politics,” where leadership will shift more often and the emphasis will be undoing the previous administrations actions. (This actually happened back in Russian history where the next tsar undid what their parents did for a number of generations in a row). Pendulum politics is actually a form of do nothing politics since everything is temporary. Since the world has been kicking the can down the road in the economic sphere for so long, it appears to the average person (whose standard of living is declining) that the center no longer has any good answers. So we will oscillate between the extremes. The other disadvantage of pendulum politics is that untenable solutions will be put in place (to maintain the purity of ideology); i.e. taking extreme positions results in boxed into a corner if things go wrong. All this, as we need a steady hand and long term policies to deal with our climate problems.
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wili
/ July 18, 2018This island nation is making the fastest-ever shift to renewables
The island nation of Palau plans to stop buying diesel and go 100% solar by the end of 2019–and offer a blueprint for other island nations to do the same.
https://amp.fastcompany.com/90203041/this-island-nation-is-making-the-fastest-ever-shift-to-renewables
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Abel Adamski
/ July 19, 2018https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/fossil-fuel-industries-climate-lobbying_us_5b4f8fdee4b0de86f4894831
Fossil Fuel Industries Outspend Clean Energy Advocates On Climate Lobbying By 10 To 1
That’s one reason why climate bills fail even though most Americans think global warming is happening.
Fossil fuel producers, airlines and electrical utilities outspent environmental groups and the renewable energy industry 10 to 1 on lobbying related to climate change legislation between 2000 and 2016, according to a new analysis released Wednesday.
The research, which will be published Thursday in the journal Climate Change, suggests that, at a time when the majority of Americans understand global warming and support government action to deal with it, industry lobbying still has far greater influence in Washington.
“Public opinion is pretty much a minor factor in deciding what Congress is going to do,” said Robert Brulle, the study’s author and a sociologist at Drexel University.
Money spent on lobbying, he said, is likely a much bigger determinant of whether federal legislation gets off the ground.
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longboren
/ July 19, 2018Furthermore, if clean energy advocacy spending rises, the fossil fuel forces can EASILY overwhelm those increases. Bot and paid for! Whatever underpinnings remained for our democracy, Citizens v United reduced them to dust. In today’s news, there has been a move to allow PACs to hide their donors. I don’t think the traditional political route to change is currently open for effective use at the national level. Maybe state and local levels, though.
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kassy
/ July 19, 2018Why Our Intuition About Sea-Level Rise Is Wrong
Interview with geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica about sea level rise (and sea levels falling near melting ice sheets) and earths slowing rotation also informing us about ice melt:
http://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/why-our-intuition-about-sea_level-rise-is-wrong-rp
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Abel Adamski
/ July 24, 2018Worth noting this article is by a Tectonic plate expert and is about the consequences of Melt of the Ice sheets and glaciers, the physical structure of the globe and the relationship with gravity.
A rather densely packed with information and very valuable contribution.
It isn’t just the world getting warmer or increased rainfall, it is the consequences on the actual planet and how that could play out for the lifeforms that share it’s bounty
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kassy
/ July 19, 2018A new theory on AMOC and it’s effects:
Slowing Gulf Stream current to boost warming for 20 years
The prospect of the Gulf Stream slowing down and even stopping altogether has worried many experts in recent years.
Some believed that this would cause a rapid cooling around the world with resulting global chaos.
But this new study finds the Gulf Stream go-slow will have a significant impact on planetary temperatures, but not in a chilled out way.
Researchers say a slower current will carry less heat down to the deep oceans meaning more will enter the atmosphere.
….
Prof Tung and his colleagues have reconstructed what’s happened with the flow of the Amoc over the past 70 years. They found a natural pattern with declines, flat periods and increases over the decades.
…
It works like this – The warm waters from tropical regions are carried up to the North Atlantic where the current sinks them deep into the oceans, with cooler waters then returning south in their stead.
When the Amoc current moves faster, more of the heat that is trapped in our atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is taken and stored up to 1,500m below the surface of the ocean. When it slows down, less heat is sequestered in the seas and so our land surface temperatures increase.
What’s the evidence for this new Amoc theory?
When the Amoc was at a minimum between 1975 and 1998, more heat entered the atmosphere and global temperatures gradually went up. When the current started to accelerate from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, and sink more heat it coincided with a so-called slowdown in the pace of global warming.
Now the authors say that the big decline is Amoc flow since 2004 means less heat going into the waters and more into the air, leading to higher global temperatures. And that is likely to continue.
Will the slowdown in the Atlantic current continue?
That’s unlikely according to this study.
“We think that the decline of Amoc is reaching the minimum and if history repeats, we will think this one will last about two decades.”
“Where we have direct measurements, such as off the coast of Florida, the measurements there have flattened since 2011. In the northern Atlantic it is still declining.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44875508
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entropicman
/ July 20, 2018Rahmstorf and Mann are not impressed.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/07/does-a-slow-amoc-increase-the-rate-of-global-warming/
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Abel Adamski
/ July 24, 2018They do point out it is chock full of holes and based on premises that have been demonstrated incorrect plus misrepresenting previous research.
Not a good look that the BBC publishes it as fact without even a simple fact check and crosscheck of references quoted
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wharf rat
/ July 19, 2018Wildfires rage in Arctic Circle as Sweden calls for help
Sweden worst hit as hot, dry summer sparks unusual number of fires, with at least 11 in the far north
The worst affected country, Sweden, has called for emergency assistance from its partners in the European Union to help fight the blazes, which have broken out across a wide range of its territory and prompted the evacuations of four communities.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/18/sweden-calls-for-help-as-arctic-circle-hit-by-wildfires
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Abel Adamski
/ July 20, 2018https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/20/life-after-coal-the-south-australian-city-leading-the-way?
Life after coal: the South Australian city leading the way
It was a coal town, predicted to be wiped out by the closure of two ageing power plants. Now Port Augusta has 13 renewable projects in train
In mid 2016, this region was on the brink, hit by the closure and near collapse of coal and steel plants. Now it’s on the cusp of a wave of construction that investors and community leaders say should place the region at the vanguard of green innovation – not just in Australia but globally. There has been an explosion in investment, with $5bn spread over the next five years. There are 13 projects in various stages of development, with more than 3,000 construction and 200 ongoing jobs. The economy of this once-deflated region has been transformed and those who live here are starting to feel hopeful again.
The Port Augusta mayor, Sam Johnson, a 32-year-old former Liberal member, is continually surprised at how resistant some are to the idea that the energy environment has changed. “You might choose to ignore what’s happening here now because we’re out of sight, out of mind, but the reality is that what’s happening here is going to be happening on the eastern seaboard in the next 10 years,” he says.
Two years on, the Port Augusta city council lists 13 projects at varying stages of development. And Whyalla has unearthed a potential saviour in British billionaire industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, who not only bought the steelworks but promised to expand it while also spending what will likely end up being $1.5bn in solar, hydro and batteries to make it viable.
Gupta says the logic behind his investment in solar and storage is simple: it’s now cheaper than coal.
Whyalla seems to have fewer issues in the wake of Gupta’s arrival in July 2017. Seeing a business opportunity that governments and publicly listed companies did not, he promised to initially spend $1bn to double the steel mill’s production and convert it to a “green steel” model he has applied in other countries. This includes using more recycled steel and investing heavily in clean energy close to the plant. He is spending $700m building two farms of solar panels, a cogeneration plant to convert the waste gases from steel production into electricity, the country’s largest lithium-ion battery and up to three pumped hydro plants in disused mining pits in the Middlebank Ranges. He says more will follow.
Both Gupta and Johnson say the message for the rest of the country is: embrace change.
Gupta says: “Be braver. Be more entrepreneurial. Take risks … It is very difficult to change things in Australia. Everyone is too stuck in their ways.”
Johnson says: “You can resist change as much as you like, but the reality is, if you’re in a community that has a coal-fired power station, its days are numbered. The market is dictating that change whether we like it or not.
“My advice is: learn from the Port Augusta experience. I wish the federal government would.”
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Abel Adamski
/ July 20, 2018They did us no favors
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/19/scott-pruitt-formaldehyde-report
Scott Pruitt aides protected him from formaldehyde while suppressing report on its dangers
Staff organized for his new desk to be aired out in a warehouse for a week so as to reduce even the smallest chance of exposure
Staff at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) organized for a new office desk to air out in a remote warehouse for a week so that former agency head Scott Pruitt wouldn’t have to breathe in any traces of the carcinogenic chemical formaldehyde from his furniture, emails obtained by Politico have revealed.
At the same time, Pruitt was refusing to more strictly regulate the chemical, despite sitting on a report that said it’s putting Americans at risk of leukemia and throat cancer.
Last month it emerged key figures in the EPA were suppressing an agency report, completed just before Donald Trump took office, that found that a majority of Americans inhale unacceptably high levels of formaldehyde vapor in the course of daily life, which puts them at risk of developing cancer of the blood, throat and nose. According to Politico, a trade group representing the businesses could face new regulations if the study were released had frequent access to EPA officials and successfully pressured them to refrain from publishing the report.
Pruitt himself, however, was protected from inhaling the chemical.
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kassy
/ July 20, 2018‘This Was Preventable’: Football Heat Deaths and the Rising Temperature
…
Through her grief, a shocked Giordano tried to figure out how this could have happened and concluded Zach’s high school had not taken the potential for heat stroke seriously.
So she spent the last year trying to convince Florida authorities to tighten their heat-safety rules. Giordano shared Zach’s story with the leadership of the Florida High School Athletic Association, but she was only partly successful; the association bucked its own medical advisory committee by voting to “strongly recommend,” but not mandate, a first-aid tool experts say could have saved Zach’s life—a cooling tub, water and some ice.
…
and much more on:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20072018/high-school-football-practice-heat-stroke-exhaustion-deaths-state-rankings-health-safety
And you would think that the Florida High School Athletic Association would put saving kids lives first…. 😦
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bostonblorp
/ July 23, 2018Concern over heat for the Tokyo Olympics
https://www.dw.com/en/japan-heat-wave-raises-concerns-over-tokyo-2020-summer-olympics/a-44775921
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Andy_in_SD
/ July 21, 2018https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fcad443f4-8c3e-11e8-a0fd-e428ecc3ac12.png?crop=720%2C480%2C0%2C0&resize=1370
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Andy_in_SD
/ July 21, 2018That was an infographic from this article regarding the great barrier reef and it’s potential pending collapse.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/great-barrier-reef-now-close-to-collapse-thanks-to-climate-change-gzkmxmd8m
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Andy_in_SD
/ July 21, 2018Siberia fires
http://www.arctic.io/explorer/8/2018-07-19/3-N63.0486-E113.83637
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kassy
/ July 21, 2018The strange reason why migratory birds are too exhausted to mate
Geese have a problem. Some are arriving at their Arctic mating grounds so exhausted they’re not in the mood anymore.
Shifting environmental signals caused by global warming are making the birds race northward on their spring migration, flying faster and skipping the stops they normally use to rest and refuel, according to a study in ‘Current Biology’.
….
Their migration is triggered by changes in daylight. As days grow longer in spring, the geese take sunlight as a cue to head north. The goal is to arrive early enough to take advantage of the tender spring greens that are especially beneficial for chicks.
Once the birds are en route, environmental cues like lots of greenery make them realise that spring has arrived early. They then change their behaviour, increasing airspeed and skipping the rest stops they ordinarily use to fuel their travel and to fatten themselves up for the weeks of egg-laying ahead.
The geese take the time to rebuild their strength when they arrive, but that means nesting is delayed. As a result, their chicks are born when the food supply is past its prime.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/environment/flora-fauna/the-strange-reason-why-migratory-birds-are-too-exhausted-to-mate/articleshow/65077930.cms
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mlp in nc
/ August 3, 2018Kassy,
As usual, the poets are there first. In the poem ‘Agony’ by Guiseppi Ungaretti:
“O como la quaglia
passato il marte
nei primi cespugli
perche di voltare
non ha pu voglia”
“Or like a quail
in the first bush
after crossing the ocean
for it has no desire
to fly anymore”
-tr. Ravi Kopra
(The usual caveat, translations vary. Also “because it has no wish to fly anymore”. )
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Abel Adamski
/ July 23, 2018One worth paying attention to for our own sanity/survival
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/07/21/twitter-thread-survival-in-a-dark-time/
They’re counting on you burning out. Don’t – we need you.
Here’s help.
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aspera
/ July 27, 2018Reminds me of Carolyn Baker’s work and books. For instance: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1583947124/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3
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bostonblorp
/ July 24, 2018Weakening jet stream contributed to major heat wave
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/22/heatwave-northen-hemisphere-uk-algeria-canada-sweden-whats-the-cause
This bit really stood out to me:
>> Montreal’s morgue has been swamped with the bodies of those who have died because of the heat, and many corpses have had to be stored elsewhere in the city. Montreal coroner Jean Brochu said it was first time the city’s morgue had been overwhelmed this way.
This is our reality now.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 24, 2018Meanwhile back in lala land
https://qz.com/1334389/in-a-blow-to-states-rights-trump-proposes-to-yank-californias-electric-car-and-air-pollution-regulatory-authority/
In a blow to states’ rights, Trump is reportedly trying to kill California’s clean car regulations
The Trump administration is expected to release a plan this week that halts tightening fuel efficiency standards and revokes California’s unique ability to impose stricter air pollution controls. The move aims to undo some of the top tools in the US for combating climate change promoted by former president, Barack Obama.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 24, 2018The Stuff of nightmares
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity
How tech’s richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse
And they are knowingly bringing it on as a byproduct of the need for ever more
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kassy
/ July 24, 2018The Greek wildfires are taking an awful toll in human lives:
Greece wildfires: 60 dead in holiday area
At least 60 people have died in wildfires in the Attica region around Athens, in Greece’s worst fire disaster in more than a decade.
Flames fanned by strong winds devastated the seaside village of Mati, devouring homes and cars.
Rescuers found the bodies of 26 adults and children who had apparently hugged each other as they died, trapped by the inferno just metres from the sea.
more on:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44932366
And also:
Japan heatwave declared natural disaster as death toll mounts
Japan’s weather agency has declared a heatwave sweeping the country a natural disaster, with at least 65 deaths recorded in the past week.
An agency spokesman warned that “unprecedented levels of heat” were being seen in some areas.
More than 22,000 people have been admitted to hospital with heat stroke, nearly half of them elderly, emergency officials say.
The heatwave shows no sign of abating, forecasters say.
On Monday, the city of Kumagaya reported a temperature of 41.1C (106F), the highest ever recorded in Japan.
In central Tokyo, temperatures over 40C were also registered for the first time.
more on:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44935152
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Jeremy in Wales
/ July 25, 2018The fires in Greece are absolutely horrific, possibly because of numerous holidays there, or having Greek neighbours as a kid in Cardiff or the terrible treatment of the Greeks after the financial crash. I just hope the fires were not set deliberately as has been a “tradition” to gain planning for plots of land.
But weather related deaths are not found just in Greece, at least 20 dead and 100 missing as a dam under construction collapses in Laos after heavy rain.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44935495
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kassy
/ July 24, 2018Hello Robert there seems to be 1 comment stuck in moderation (july 23). Can you release it? TIA.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 25, 2018The wheels are turning.
Note in Australia we have compulsory Superannuation for employees to reduce the pension burden on future governments (9.5% of salary contributed by the employer at a tax discount rate, with salary sacrifice at the same tax discount plus ability to add up to $100K per annum available for the employee{usually latter years) with internal profits and capital gains taxed at a greatly reduced rate, funds locked up until retirement age then paid as regular payments or lump sum TAX Free) – those funds are massive and Not for Profit Industry Funds (basically Trade Union based with directors from unions and employers) that have minimal fees and charges and do not have to pay dividends outperform the banks and insurance funds by a large margin and now make up a major proportion of the industry with the bigger ones managing 10’s of Billions, for a small country one or two are in the biggest 50 world pension funds which really adds up over 40 years and the banks and insurance companies are screaming foul as members flee in droves.
Super funds are over 25% of the funds invested in markets and are major investors in infrastructure (at least the Industry ones are), why they weather Global Financial issues far better.
So this action is not just a big deal, but a huge one for the investment industry in Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-25/super-fund-rest-sued-for-not-doing-enough-on-climate-change/10029744
P.S a couple of good articles also linked on the page
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Abel Adamski
/ July 25, 2018https://climatecrocks.com/2018/07/24/thread-why-would-trump-and-putin-collude-keywords-oil-gas-arctic-climate/#more-53584
Thread: Why Would Trump and Putin Collude? Keywords: Oil, Gas, Arctic, Climate
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Abel Adamski
/ July 25, 2018An excellent piece of work by Peter. Long, dense with many links
Very much puts things into perspective
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/07/24/thread-why-would-trump-and-putin-collude-keywords-oil-gas-arctic-climate/#more-53584
Thread: Why Would Trump and Putin Collude? Keywords: Oil, Gas, Arctic, Climate
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Abel Adamski
/ July 25, 2018Sorry for double up, don’t know how that happened
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kassy
/ July 25, 2018Sea level rise has already sunk Carolinas beach property values — by $1.6 billion, study finds
Sea levels are rising and the southeast has already lost billions in property value, a recent study shows.
Scientists have found $7.4 billion was lost in home values across North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Florida because of sea level rise flooding from 2005 to 2017.
Scientists at First Street Foundation — a technology nonprofit dedicated to increasing awareness of sea level rise — used data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, local governments, the National Weather Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to estimate flood risks.
Scientists used data from local governments to determine changes to property values over time.
FSF used the data to create an interactive tool — Flood iQ — that allows people to search communities and individual properties to see how much value they’ve lost, and could lose in the future due to sea level rise.
for more (and the link to the tool) see:
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/science-technology/article215476785.html
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wharf rat
/ July 25, 2018Flooding in East, heat in West: Double whammy hits US
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/25/east-coast-flooding-west-coast-heat-wave/832252002/
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kassy
/ July 25, 2018LikeLike
mlp in nc
/ July 26, 2018Kassy,
Thanks for posting.
I missed this one. Where did you find it?
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kassy
/ July 26, 2018Basically you right click on the video -> copy URL into new window -> then in YouTube click on the channel name and select videos (or uploads for the newest).
There is quite a lot of videos there that have not been posted here and it is well worth following.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 26, 2018Robert has been a very bust boy with his video’s, at least one a day last few days
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Jean Swan
/ July 26, 2018Maybe:https://www.wunderground.com/cat6
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mlp in nc
/ July 26, 2018Good one.
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mlp in nc
/ July 26, 2018Robert,
Is there one place that lists all of your video blogs?
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kassy
/ July 26, 2018That would be the YouTube Videos page on his channel. See my post above for the route.
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mlp in nc
/ July 26, 2018Thanks.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ July 25, 2018Having a slight obsession with LED lighting as the local council has just put in LED lights in my street and other surrounding streets.
A couple of obsevations:
One is outside our house and definetly throws less light into the upper floor while the light on the road is brighter and closer to true colour. The lights spill less light into surrounding areas, the back garden is darker and I can see the stars more clearly than before. That in itself may let more people connect with nature and the physical world. Hopefully it will help wildlife, nesting birds, hedgehogs etc.
Another silly thought is whether in a city like Cardiff (population 325,000 approx) where some 40,000 lights are being replaced saving some 4MWh is whether this will slightly reduce the heat island affect and make night times in the summer more bearable. This is probably more important in tropical cities or in humid climates?
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Andy_in_SD
/ July 26, 2018I don’t think it will affect the heat island effect, as blacktop and concrete are the biggest factors there. The big gainers would be the power consumption, longer life bulbs, and perhaps there is a benefit via a less yellowed wavelength (thing look less crappy). Not sure about incidental light noise, if there is a gain or loss there.
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kassy
/ July 26, 2018His ‘slice of heaven’ is disappearing: How sea level rise threatens the Grand Strand
Like many longtime residents of the Grand Strand, Ed Black often divides his life in Garden City into two time periods: before Hurricane Hugo and after. …. But now, a new threat might be making it even more vulnerable. Sea rise has the potential to jeopardize the place Black has called home for almost 60 years.
“We really don’t want to leave, it’s a family home,” he said. “I don’t know what the solution is.”
and much more on:
https://www.islandpacket.com/news/state/south-carolina/article215415285.html
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Abel Adamski
/ July 27, 2018Time for a smile
https://www.ft.com/content/942eb4e8-8fee-11e8-b639-7680cedcc421
Diary of a sweaty climate change sceptic
How should a steadfast denier account for the heatwave?
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david distefano
/ July 27, 2018i have been on vacation and coming home i see that there has been no new stories. is everything o k with robert or is he also on vacation. he probably needs one with all the climatic problems our world is going through.
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kassy
/ July 27, 2018For the new stories go to YouTube (see the comments above).
California’s Fires Are Creating Volcanic Clouds
All three of the state’s major blazes are making rare pyrocumulus clouds right now
…
The speed with which pyrocumulus clouds form and change, combined with the heat of the fire, can lead to quick, massive temperature swings in the atmosphere, producing unpredictable and severe winds. These can exacerbate the intensity of wildfires, and cause them to move or otherwise behave in unpredictable ways. And that all can put the lives of firefighters and the public at risk.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2330891/california-wildfire-pyrocumulus-clouds
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wharf rat
/ July 28, 2018Network Of Tesla Powerwall Batteries Saves Green Mountain Power $500,000 During Heat Wave
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Jean Swan
/ July 28, 2018And here in Oklahoma regulators say no to a good thing..https://newsok.com/article/5602857/pso-pulls-plug-on-massive-wind-catcher-energy-project
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Greg
/ July 29, 2018“Hope is stubborn. It exists in us at the cellular level and works up from there, as part of the urge to live. So hope will persist. The question is, can we put it to use?” An interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, author of New York 2140, climate ScI-Fi about rapid sea level rise and realism about geo-engineering:
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b4e54bde4b0de86f487b0b9
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mlp in nc
/ July 29, 2018Glaciers in East Antarctica also ‘imperiled’ by climate change
Usually seen as less vulnerable, they carry the potential to add 16 feet to global sea level
U. California – Irvine https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180726161009.htm
In a paper published this week in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters, the glaciologists estimate that between April 2002 and September 2016, the two glaciers lost about 18.5 billion tons of ice per year — equivalent to 0.7 millimeters (0.03 inches) of global sea level rise over the analyzed time period.
UCI’s researchers discovered this by applying a locally optimized technique to data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery & Climate Experiment satellite mission, combined with mass balance approximations from regional atmospheric climate models and ice discharge measurements by NASA’s Operation IceBridge and Measures projects.
“Both of these glaciers are vulnerable to the intrusion of warm ocean water and hold considerable potential for sea level rise,” said co-author Eric Rignot, Donald Bren Professor and chair of Earth system science at UCI. “This work highlights that East Antarctic glaciers are as important to our future as those in the continent’s western regions.”
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mlp in nc
/ July 30, 2018Horrible air quality over California and Nevada from the uncontrolled fires.
https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_state&stateid=29&mapcenter=1&tabs=1
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Robert in New Orleans
/ July 30, 2018How Louisiana solar power prospects shifting to business, utility-scale projects
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/business/article_9f085332-90df-11e8-9254-33e078026bb3.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share
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wili
/ July 30, 2018Six of California’s Most Destructive Wildfires Have Struck in the Past 10 Months
The Carr Fire near Redding has joined five other large fires since Oct. 2017 on the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires list. Through 7 a.m. PDT July 30, the Carr Fire had destroyed 966 structures and killed six people, ranking as the ninth most destructive wildfire.
https://weather.com/news/news/2018-07-30-california-20-most-destructive-wildfires-carr-fire
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Leland Palmer
/ August 1, 2018Hi wili-
The damned fires are back, in Northern California. We’ve got something like 125 million dead trees, left over from the drought of 2011-2016. We’re going to bump up our fire insurance coverage, if we can. My wife is researching online which companies paid out the best after the Santa Rosa fires of 2017.
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mlp in nc
/ July 31, 2018Largest king penguin colony has shrunk nearly 90%.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180730120408.htm
Summary:
The world’s biggest colony of king penguins is found in the National Nature Reserve of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (TAAF). Using high-resolution satellite images, researchers have detected a massive 88 percent reduction in the size of the penguin colony, located on Île aux Cochons, in the Îles Crozet archipelago. The causes of the colony’s collapse remain a mystery but may be environmental.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 31, 2018https://climatecrocks.com/2018/07/29/global-heat-wave-will-hit-your-wallet-soon/#more-53624
On top of the toll from forest fires and floods worldwide
Apart from the reported impact on agriculture and food, we also have the impact on electricity
A heatwave across swathes of North America, Europe and Asia, coupled with a worsening drought in some areas, is causing spikes in the prices of anything from wheat to electricity. Cotton plants are stunted in parched Texas fields, French rivers are too warm to effectively cool nuclear reactors and the Russian wheat crop is faltering.
French farmers aren’t the only ones finding the weather too hot to handle. The country’s fleet of nuclear power plants is also suffering.
Rivers have become too warm to effectively cool the reactors, and Electricite de France SA may be forced to cut output later this week at two stations. The hot weather also has forced a German coal-fired plant to curb operations and reduced the availability of some plants in Britain fired by natural gas.
The West Texas cotton belt – the world’s most productive area for the crop – is brown, baked, cracked and dusty. The dryness is so bad that close to half of the state’s crop is in poor or very poor condition, U.S. government data show. About 4.5 million acres of the fiber are planted in the region, 60 percent of which depends on rain because it isn’t irrigated.
As the blazing sun beats down, combine harvesters working the normally fertile breadbasket of Saxony-Anhalt in former communist East Germany kick up giant clouds of dust as they roll over the cracked earth.
“It hasn’t really rained since April and that’s the main growth period for our grains and the other crops—we’ve never seen anything like it,” said Juliane Stein of Agro Boerdegruen, a farming conglomerate formed after German reunification in 1990.
“We’ve reached the point here in Germany where we’re talking about a natural disaster that’s a threat to our livelihood.”
And we only just a tad over 1C
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wili
/ July 31, 2018https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/early-august-to-bring-dangerous-heat-wave-to-western-europe/70005642
Early August to bring dangerous heat wave to western Europe
“It is not out of the question for temperatures to reach 49 C (120 F) in southwestern Spain and parts of southern Portugal Friday into Sunday,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Tyler Roys said.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ July 31, 2018This research may help explain why the Chinese are leading the world in the renewables:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/31/chinas-most-populous-area-could-be-uninhabitable-by-end-of-century
Scary and surely will affect areas other than N,China plain and Persian Gulf,as Wili points out above would not want to be in Spain this weekend as it is often humid next to the Med.
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wili
/ August 1, 2018Thanks for bringing this up, JiW. Here’s a link with more detailed maps of what areas are likely to be hardest hit: https://news.mit.edu/2018/china-could-face-deadly-heat-waves-due-climate-change-0731
I note that some of the darkest red and even purple (32+ degrees wbt) colored areas are along the coast of Jiangsu Province, just north of Shanghai. Most of that province is at or below one meter above sea level.
It’s not much consolation that they will therefore likely be under the ocean waves before those wetbulb temperatures reach some of those locations!
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wili
/ August 1, 2018Anyone unfamiliar with the rather scary concept of wetbulb temperatures and their effects could do worse than starting here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
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wili
/ August 1, 2018LikeLike
bill h
/ July 31, 2018Astonishing drop in arctic sea ice extent: close to 500 sq km in just 2 days
https://moyhu.blogspot.com/p/latest-ice-and-temperature-data.html
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bill h
/ July 31, 2018I should provide a bit more explanation to previous comment: you need to scroll down a long way(Nick Stokes’ blog has a vast array of data and data visualisations!).
Scroll down to “NH and SH data” then click on the gray circle above “NSIDC NH”.The 2018 line the black line, now close to the all time 2012 level.
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bill h
/ July 31, 2018Further graphic:
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mlp in nc
/ July 31, 2018Australia facing extremely intense rain storms.
Landmark study shows how heavy, short rain storms are intensifying more rapidly than would be expected with global warming. Jul 30, 2018. Newcastle University
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180730120245.htm
The team of international scientists, led by Dr Selma Guerreiro at the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK, has for the first time found increases in short, intense rain storms over Australia over the past 50 years.
The storms are substantially larger than would be expected under climate change.
Published today in Nature Climate Change, the study shows that in Australia:
1, Extreme daily rainfall events are increasing as would be expected from the levels of regional or global warming that we are experiencing
2. the amount of water falling in hourly rain storms (for example thunderstorms) is increasing at a rate 2 to 3 times higher than expected, with the most extreme events showing the largest increases.
3. large increase has implications for the frequency and severity of flash floods, particularly if the rate stays the same into the future.
Professor Seth Westra, co-author from the University of Adelaide, Australia, said:
“These changes are well above what engineers currently take into account when determining Australia’s flood planning levels or designing stormwater management and flood defence infrastructure.
“If we keep seeing this rate of change, we risk committing future generations to levels of flood risk that are unacceptable by today’s standards.”
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Abel Adamski
/ August 1, 2018Some creative people are getting on board
https://www.fastcompany.com/90210705/ad-industry-supergroup-forms-to-battle-climate-change
Ad industry supergroup forms to battle climate change
Potential Energy, a coalition of 17 ad agencies, convinced hundreds of U.S. students to donate 60 seconds of their graduation speech to climate change.
More than 250 students, in over 134 cities and 24 states, used 60 seconds of their speech to make the same pledge. “In the next four years, 17 million of us will be eligible to vote. That makes Generation Z this country’s largest swing state. Not red, not blue, but human. And together we have the power to shape the world we want to live in. So today I’m pledging to vote on three basic human rights: equality across race, gender, and sexual orientation; safety from gun violence; and action on climate change. If you care about the world we’re inheriting, I encourage you to take the pledge with me. Together we can create a healthier, safer, brighter America. We are the adults now.”
The idea for the coalition came after Marshall’s son took a course by Harvard’s Director for the Center for the Environment Dan Schrag, and couldn’t understand why more people weren’t aware of the solutions for the climate energy challenge. The disconnect between what he was learning and what was part of the public climate debate showed him that climate change had a marketing issue, a topic his advertising exec dad knew a bit about. While many agencies have worked on one-off PSA campaigns, the elder Marshall is bullish on what they can do together.
“Climate change is a uniquely large and complex problem, and as such needs uniquely new approaches. It is also big enough to accommodate multiple players,” says Marshall. “As the saying goes, two minds are better than one. In our case, we have the best talent from 17 different agencies bringing their unique skills and processes to get to better creative outcomes.”
Climate change-awareness campaigns are a dime a dozen, but Marshall says the core premise of Potential Energy is that the old narratives of anti-capitalism haven’t worked: We need answers which aren’t based on guilt and cutting back individually, but rather in stoking the business and innovation potential in finding a solution.
“Anyone lucky enough to see Dan (Schrag) present on the issue quickly learns that the way to solve climate change isn’t through sacrifice as much as it is through innovation,” says Marshall. “The entire global energy system of the world needs to change, and quickly. And that is as much an opportunity for our clients as it is a threat. It’s the biggest capitalist opportunity the world has ever seen.”
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Abel Adamski
/ August 1, 2018California’s Birds Are Testing New Survival Tactics on a Vast Scale
Retracing the steps of a century-old wildlife survey, ecologists find that birds are making remarkable adaptations to climate change.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 1, 2018If I may make a suggestion to all the Scribblers – apart from don’t forget the Raven
Robert is doing a great job on Youtube even if it has meant less time to the blog, it expands the message and to help with that (for some reason the video’s aren’t working for me) it would help if the video’s were shared as widely as possible and liked as much as possible (maybe get through more to people used to TV rather than reading)
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mlp in nc
/ August 1, 2018That’s unfortunate. I am able to get his YouTube channel. Here are two recent
Does this posting work for you?
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Abel Adamski
/ August 2, 2018Thanks mlp.
RS’s videos don’t seem to work for me on Firefox, but are fine on Googles offering and on Opera and Brave.
However don’t forget how Youtube works, it is about the likes to attract new viewers
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Suzanne
/ August 1, 2018I agree Abel. Robert’s video’s are wonderful. I also hope they reach a new and wider audience. I know it is easier for me to put on his video’s while doing other work than it is to come to the blog. I am really enjoying them.
Hope all is well with you.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 2, 2018Thanks Suzanne
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Michael Steicke
/ August 1, 2018The average temperatures for July 2018 in Australia have been released by the Bureau of meteorology (BOM) with it being 1.24 degrees celsius above average. I saw preliminary figures for New Zealand for July and they seem to be a fair bit above average also, particularly in the southern two thirds (bottom part of the North Island and the South Island). Here is the climate summary for Australia from the BOM: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml
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Suzanne
/ August 1, 2018I am sure most of you have seen this at the NY Times today…but just in case..check it out. A worthy read/share article:
“Losing Earth: The Decade we almost stopped Climate Change”
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Tom Jerome
/ August 1, 2018I heard the author of this article on NPR this morning. The entire issue of the NYT weekly magazine (included in the Sunday print edition I believe) will be devoted to Climate Change.
Meanwhile, the primary culprit in blocking action on climate change was John Sunnu (sp?) of the GHW Bush administration. Tag him for crimes against humanity of the first order.
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John S
/ August 2, 2018Thanks for posting this Suzanne. Its a very interesting read for someone on the other side of the world who wondered what the hell happened to dealing with CO2 pollution after the 70’s. It was a pre-eminent issue of the time.
One memory from 1979 …
One of the residents of our student house announces he has searched the internet for “Larsen Ice Shelf” and found a single reference document, of which the only content is one line
“Depressed aren’t you”
He thought it was hilarious, even more so when he confessed to creating the page.
Student black humour prank of the week.
And while we chortled, there was an unease to the room, the unspoken thought by all “surely we aren’t going to stuff this up, are we???”
It’s been a long 40 years.
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mlp in nc
/ August 2, 2018>
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wharf rat
/ August 1, 2018Last Month in Death Valley Was Hottest Month Ever Recorded on Earth
Average temperature over day and night: 108.1 degrees
http://www.newser.com/story/262766/july-in-death-valley-was-earths-hottest-month-ever-recorded.html
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Greg
/ August 2, 2018Truth hurts. “almost without exception. every single time we’ve covered (climate change) it’s been a palpable ratings killer, so the incentives are not great.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 24, 2018
Worthy of discussion.
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/08/02/in-a-summer-of-climate-horrors-media-says-only-climate-people-care/
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wili
/ August 3, 2018https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-400-toronto-gun-violence-arctic-wildfires-house-of-frightenstein-johnny-clegg-and-more-1.4761861/we-ain-t-seen-anything-yet-even-the-arctic-is-burning-as-wildfires-rage-around-the-world-1.4761878
“Some of the biggest fires that we’ve seen worldwide now are occurring in the subarctic,’ says science writer “
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wharf rat
/ August 3, 2018Tesla Model 3 Sales Rocket To New High In July, Sets Records
By our estimations, Tesla sold an astounding 14,250 Model 3s in July.
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-sales-rocket-to-new-high-in-july/
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wharf rat
/ August 3, 2018California Wildfires
California has been warming rapidly; since 1975, temperatures have been increasing at about 5.5°F per century, and they’re already 3.1°F hotter than they were in 1895. Summertime temperatures have been rising even faster; since 1975 they’re going up at 7.2°F per century
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kassy
/ August 3, 2018It’s not all fires:
Lynchburg floods: Flooding fears spark evacuations in US city
Evacuation orders have been issued in parts of Lynchburg, Virginia, over fears a dam may fail amid flooding.
The College Lake Dam exceeded its capacity after up to 6in (15cm) of rain fell on Thursday evening, Lynchburg Water Resources Department said.
The city of Lynchburg is the closest settlement downstream of the structure.
If the dam fails completely, 17ft (5m) of water could flood it in seven minutes, the National Water Service said.
Lynchburg has a population of about 80,000 and lies in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45054961
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wili
/ August 3, 2018Spain’s new government commits to massive clean energy build-out
“Spain’s conservative government tried to stop the transition away from coal, but has been replaced by a coalition which will focus on reinvigorating the economy with clean energy. From scrapping unpopular taxes on solar to creating a Green Fund, the future of renewables looks bright”
https://energytransition.org/2018/07/spains-new-government-commits-to-massive-clean-energy-build-out/
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wharf rat
/ August 4, 2018California ‘fire tornado’ had 143 mph winds, possibly state’s strongest twister ever
https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2018/08/03/fire-tornado-california-carr-fire-143-mph-winds/897835002/
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Leland Palmer
/ August 18, 2018More YouTube footage of the fire tornado:
It seems like we’re going to see more of these, most likely, I think. In the Canadian fires of a year or two ago, we were seeing weather systems associated with massive fires, that created lightning that started more fires.
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Leland Palmer
/ August 25, 2018For some reason, this video is starting in the middle. The best views of the fire tornado come near the beginning, so manually drag the time pointer back to the beginning of the video, to see the fire tornado.
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wharf rat
/ August 4, 2018North Korea warns of ‘natural disaster’ amid heatwave
North Korea says a heatwave is threatening a “natural disaster” and has called on its citizens to help protect crops from drought.
The Korean peninsula is experiencing record temperatures and South Korea has reported 28 deaths from the heat.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45062431
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wili
/ August 4, 2018Newly identified evidence indicates that the Southern Ocean will likely stop absorbing as much CO₂ as it recently has been doing, with continuing anthropogenic radiative forcing:
Title: “How much longer will Southern Ocean slow climate change?”
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/how-much-longer-will-southern-ocean-slow-climate-change/
Extract: “The vast and wild ocean current sucks up more than 40 per cent of the carbon dioxide we produce, acting as a temporary climate-change buffer by slowing down the accumulation of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
Yet the same westerly winds that play a critical role in regulating its storing capacity are now threatening its future as a CO2 bank, by bringing deep carbon-rich waters up to the surface.
Many climate models predict that the westerly winds overlying the ocean would get stronger if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continued to risk.
A new international study suggests that in the past, strong westerlies have been linked to higher levels of atmospheric CO2 due to their impact on the Southern Ocean carbon balance.
That meant stronger westerlies could actually speed up climate change if mankind continued to emit as much CO2 as it does today.
…
“Our new records of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds suggest there have been large changes in wind intensity over the past 12,000 years.
“This is in marked contrast to climate model simulations that predict only relatively small wind speed changes over the same period.”
…
Yet, Mikaloff-Fletcher added, sea surface carbon data suggested that there was a reversal of this trend in the early 2000s, when the Southern Ocean began taking up carbon much more quickly, even though the westerlies didn’t slow.
“The mechanisms behind this change still aren’t fully explained, which makes it hard to predict whether this is a short-term effect or a long-term one,” she said.
“The Macquarie study suggests that the sudden increase in Southern Ocean carbon uptake may not persist on longer timescales.””
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wharf rat
/ August 4, 2018Mendocino Complex Becomes California’s 7th Largest Wildfire; Deadly Carr Fire Ignited by Flat Tire, Officials Say
2 hours ago
Combined, the Mendocino Complex now surpasses the size of the deadly Carr Fire burning near Redding, California, and has burned an area larger than New York City.
https://weather.com/news/news/2018-08-04-norhtern-california-wildfires-carr-ferguson-mendocino
=
New evacuations in Lake, Colusa counties as Mendocino Complex fires grow to more than 200,000 acres
Updated 21 minutes ago
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8601943-181/mendocino-complex-fires-in-lake
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Paul in WI
/ August 5, 2018Extreme Heat Could Make One Third of Planet Uninhabitable
Climate scientist Michael Mann says that, under a business-as-usual scenario, the mass displacement of billions could trigger an unprecedented national security crisis.
https://therealnews.com/stories/extreme-heat-could-make-one-third-of-planet-uninhabitable
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Paul in WI
/ August 5, 2018Unsurvivable heatwaves could strike heart of China by end of century
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/31/chinas-most-populous-area-could-be-uninhabitable-by-end-of-century
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Paul in WI
/ August 5, 2018Here’s an article from Science Daily that relates to the two previous posts about future extreme heat:
Humidity may prove breaking point for some areas as temperatures rise, says study
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171222090302.htm
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Paul in WI
/ August 5, 2018From The Guardian:
Pollution is slowing the melting of Arctic sea ice, for now
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
A recent paper just published in the Journal of Climate by the American Meteorological Society takes an in-depth look at how fast the Arctic ice is melting and why. According to the paper, the authors completed a detection and attribution study of Arctic sea ice decline from 1953 to 2012. That is 60 years of data that tell the picture of climate change. The “detection” part of this study was about detecting what long-term trends are apparent over these six decades. The “attribution” part of the study is figuring out what is the cause of the trends.
Why six decades? Well the authors wanted to go back as far as they could while still accessing high-quality records of the ice extent. They used three different sets of data that record the extent of ice in the region.
In terms of attribution, the authors looked for “fingerprints” of human activity. Humans emit greenhouse gases that trap heat. We know that and we have known that for a long time. Greenhouse gases make the Arctic warmer. But, other things are happening too. There are natural changes to the Arctic. There are also other human pollutants that affect the ice. For instance, humans emit small particles called “aerosols” that can get into the atmosphere and block sunlight. So, these human aerosol emissions can actually cause cooling.
The authors concluded that the combined cooling effect from human aerosols was detected in all three datasets of ice. That means, it didn’t matter whose measurements you used – the effect of aerosol cooling was present.
So how much of an effect do aerosols have? It turns out 23% of the warming caused by greenhouse gases was offset by the cooling from aerosols. Unfortunately, this isn’t good news. It means that if/when humans reduce our aerosol pollution, the warming in the Arctic and the ice loss there will be worse.
This puts us into a Faustian bargain. We want to reduce airborne pollution, like sulfur aerosols. But, if we do that, it makes the effects of greenhouse gas pollution worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/aug/03/pollution-is-slowing-the-melting-of-arctic-sea-ice-for-now
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Paul in WI
/ August 5, 2018From the New York Times:
Trump Administration Unveils Its Plan to Relax Car Pollution Rules
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
The Trump administration on Thursday put forth its long-awaited proposal to freeze antipollution and fuel-efficiency standards for cars, significantly weakening one of President Barack Obama’s signature policies to combat global warming.
The proposed new rules would also challenge the right of states, California in particular, to set their own, more stringent tailpipe pollution standards. That would set the stage for a legal clash that could ultimately split the nation’s auto market in two.
The administration’s plans immediately faced opposition from an unusual mix of critics — including not only environmentalists and consumer groups but auto-industry representatives as well as individual states — who are now launching efforts to change the plan before it is finalized.
The plan, jointly published by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department, would roll back a 2012 rule that required automakers to nearly double the fuel economy of passenger vehicles to an average of about 54 miles per gallon by 2025. It would halt requirements that automakers build cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars including hybrids and electric vehicles.
That Obama-era rule, which aimed to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions while reducing oil consumption, was opposed by automakers who said it was overly burdensome. However, Thursday’s proposal goes much further than many major automakers wanted, and manufacturers are now worried that years of legal challenges and regulatory uncertainty could complicate their business.
The governor of California, Jerry Brown, said his state was prepared to fight. “For Trump to now destroy a law first enacted at the request of Ronald Reagan five decades ago is a betrayal and an assault on the health of Americans everywhere,” he said.
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Paul in WI
/ August 5, 2018From the Guardian:
Last year was warmest ever that didn’t feature an El Nino, report finds
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Last year was the warmest ever recorded on Earth that didn’t feature an El Niño, a periodic climatic event that warms the Pacific Ocean, according to the annual state of the climate report by 500 climate scientists from around the world, overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and released by the American Meteorological Society.
Rising temperatures linked to increased suicide rates
Read more
Climate change cast a long shadow in 2017, with the planet experiencing soaring temperatures, retreating sea ice, a record high sea level, shrinking glaciers and the most destructive coral bleaching event on record.
Overall, 2017 was third warmest year on record, Noaa said, behind 2016 and 2015. Countries including Spain, Bulgaria, Mexico and Argentina all broke their annual high temperature records.
Puerto Madryn in Argentina reached 43.4C (110.12F), the warmest temperature ever recorded so far south in the world, while Turbat in Pakistan baked in 53.5C (128.3F), the global record temperature for May.
Concentrations of planet-warming carbon dioxide continued on an upward march, reaching 405 parts per million in the atmosphere. This is 2.2ppm greater than 2016 and is the highest level discernible in modern records, as well as ice cores that show CO2 levels back as far as 800,000 years. The growth rate of CO2 has quadrupled since the early 1960s.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/01/state-of-the-climate-report-noaa-2017-third-warmest
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Paul in WI
/ August 5, 2018Scientists see fingerprints of climate change all over California’s wildfires
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Much of the heat that’s gripped California and hastened the spread of deadly wildfires recently is due to a strange but familiar shift in the jet stream — one that’s haunted the West with threatening fire conditions in the past and could cause more hot, dry spells in the future, especially with a changing climate.
The jet stream, the river of wind high above the Northern Hemisphere, has been weaker and wavier in the past few weeks, scientists say. Instead of pushing weather systems along as it usually does, it’s allowing the patterns to stagnate.
Not only has this meant searing temperatures for the West Coast, where the hot spot of Death Valley averaged a record 108 degrees last month, but also for Scandinavia and Japan. Norway and Sweden flirted with a rare 90 degrees at the Arctic Circle this week, while the Japanese city of Kumagaya recently landed that nation’s highest-ever temperature: 106. Other places, such as the East Coast, have endured relentless rain, even flooding.
“We’re seeing this mix of conditions across North America and Europe, but they’re all connected,” said Jennifer Francis, a professor at Rutgers University who studies atmospheric circulation. “The weather patterns are just stuck. They’re trapped.”
The shift in the jet stream that’s driving the stagnation, say Francis and other climate scientists, is almost certainly tied to global warming.
It’s just one of the ways that climate change is probably contributing to the spree of fires in California that has killed eight people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes.
California’s fire season, most fundamentally, is saddled with higher temperatures — with or without a heat wave, scientists say. The greenhouse gases emitted from cars, power plants and factories, which trap sunlight and warm the atmosphere, have created baseline conditions that are more hospitable to wildfire. Water loss from soil and plants is generally up while snowmelt and river flows are down.
A study last year by researchers at Columbia University and the University of Idaho found that human-caused warming was drying out forests so much that peak fire seasons across the West have expanded every year by an average of nine days since 2000.
https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Scientists-see-fingerprints-of-climate-change-all-13128585.php?t=b89a06a7a6&ipid=newsrecirc
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wharf rat
/ August 6, 2018LikeLike
wharf rat
/ August 6, 2018more
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-blames-fires-on-california-for-diverting-water-to-pacific_us_5b67a4d4e4b0b15abaa47772
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wharf rat
/ August 6, 2018The largest fire in California history was last Dec, in SoCal. Mendocino Complex is only 8000 acres smaller, so we might have the record by tomorrow. The NW portion is getting close to the Redwood Valley fire from last year, so there is not much vegetation. The Carr Fire is now #12.
Top 20 Largest California Wildfires
Click to access Top20_Acres.pdf
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kassy
/ August 6, 2018Meanwhile of twitter the cronies are laboring:
To kill climate rule, Trump’s EPA wants to redefine danger of soot
…
After decades of increasingly strong assertions that there is no known safe level of fine particle exposure for the American public, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Donald Trump’s administration is now considering taking a new position. The agency is floating the idea of changing its rulemaking process and setting a threshold level of fine particles that it would consider safe.
The change would affect how EPA counts the health benefits of reducing fine particles when crafting rules aimed at reducing other pollutants, like greenhouse gases. If the plan moves forward, it could have implications for how well EPA’s regulations protect human health.
The Trump administration introduced the idea in the fall of 2017, when it publicly released a proposal for repealing the Clean Power Plan, a former President Barack Obama-era rule to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. While the rule wasn’t focused on fine particles, it would have reduced them anyway by requiring plant operators to install new technology to cut CO2 emissions.
The authors of the rule had counted the health benefits from reducing particles in their justification for why the benefits of regulating greenhouse gases outweighed the costs of implementing it. The health benefits of cutting CO2become even more evident when paired with the “co-benefits” of cutting fine particles.
This process of weighing the economic pluses and minuses of any particular rule is known, in EPA lingo, as a cost-benefit analysis. It’s a key factor in determining whether a rule makes sense both in terms of its environmental and health benefits and in the costs it imposes on industry.
Critics see EPA’s latest proposal on particulates as a way to undermine efforts to establish strict controls on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, by making the benefits of regulating them seem significantly lower.
Much more on:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/kill-climate-rule-trumps-epa-wants-redefine-danger-soot
Bottom line: if you are in the US and you own a power plant or sell coal/oil etc this is fine but if you are just a citizen you can die for someone elses profit.
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mlp in nc
/ August 6, 2018Possible connection between U.S. tornado activity, Arctic sea ice.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180806104253.htm
The team believes that the reduction in tornado activity boils down to how the diminishing Arctic sea ice controls the path of the jet stream. As Arctic sea ice retreats, the jet stream migrates from its traditional summer path over states like Montana and South Dakota to areas farther north, and the atmospheric conditions that are favorable for tornado formation follow suit.
“Tornadoes and their parent thunderstorms are fueled by wind shear and moisture,” Trapp said. “When the jet stream migrates north, it takes the wind shear along for the ride, but not always the moisture. So, even though thunderstorms may still develop, they tend not to generate tornadoes because one of the essential ingredients for tornado formation is now missing.”
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wili
/ August 6, 2018“Living in South Florida in the summer and not having the beach as option is not a great place to be.”
Red tides in the Gulf of Mexico and toxic blue-green algae in inland waters are killing animals and stoking outrage in South Florida.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/toxic-red-tide-making-floridians-sick-angry-n897181
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Robert in New Orleans
/ August 6, 2018California’s fires are creating another problem: Fleeing insurers
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-wildfires-property-insurers-cancel-policies-because-of-risk/
Residents of U.S. towns damaged by wildfires may need to prepare for another repercussion: insurers that decide to cancel policies because of increased risks from more frequent fires.
Just wait until the housing market collapses from the lack of affordable insurance or in some cases no insurance at all. 😦
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wharf rat
/ August 7, 2018LikeLike
Paul in WI
/ August 7, 2018Yet another reason to aim for 1.5C:
A new study being reported by The Guardian lays out the possibility that reaching 2C may strengthen positive feedback loops to such an extent that further warming becomes inevitable regardless of of reductions to human carbon dioxide emissions after that point is reached.
Domino-Effect of Climate Events Could Push Earth into a ‘Hothouse’ State
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/06/domino-effect-of-climate-events-could-push-earth-into-a-hothouse-state
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Paul in WI
/ August 8, 2018Here’s a follow-up article in The Guardian about the previous comment regarding “Domino-Effect of Climate Events Could Push Earth into a Hothouse State”:
“Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/07/climate-change-catastrophe-political-will-grassroots-engagement
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kassy
/ August 8, 2018YouTube Is Now Fact-Checking Videos About Climate Change
YouTube is now adding fact checks to videos that question climate change, BuzzFeed News has confirmed, as a part of its ongoing effort to combat the rampant misinformation and conspiratorial fodder on its platform.
Starting July 9, the company added a blurb of text underneath some videos about climate change, including scientifically accurate explainers as well as those questioning the scientific consensus. The text comes from the Wikipedia entry for “global warming,” and states that “multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming.”
….
The Heartland Institute, for example, a conservative think tank that posts videos of its staff and others questioning climate change, told BuzzFeed News that it noticed the change a few weeks ago, and had not been notified by YouTube. Spokesperson Jim Lakely declined to comment on the policy or its impact. PragerU, a nonprofit online “university” that made some of the other affected videos, says YouTube’s policy shows its political bias.
“Despite claiming to be a public forum and a platform open to all, YouTube is clearly a left-wing organization,” Craig Strazzeri, PragerU’s chief marketing officer, said by email. “This is just another mistake in a long line of giant missteps that erodes America’s trust in Big Tech, much like what has already happened with the mainstream news media.”
etc
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/youtube-climate-change-denial
So adding a link to actual factual information makes you left-wing now…
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Jean Swan
/ August 8, 2018Oregon’s Supreme Court has handed a major victory to Portland, upholding the city’s right to greatly restrict fossil fuel infrastructure. The measure has been a source of controversy and considerable back-and-forth over the past few years as business groups have sought to challenge the ordinance.
On Tuesday, the court declined to review a Oregon Court of Appeals decision issued in January that affirmed Portland’s constitutional right to prohibit new fossil fuel infrastructure, including storage and distribution terminals for oil and gas. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-08-07/portlands-efforts-to-crack-down-on-fossil-fuels-just-won-big/
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generativity
/ August 8, 20181.5 C target reinforced today, 8-8-18, to reduce fat tails of extreme precip events, esp in monsoon regions like SW USA …
https://m.phys.org/news/2018-08-half-degree-precipitation-extremes.html
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mlp in nc
/ August 10, 2018North American diets require more land than we have, study finds. Aug 9, 2018.
U of Guelph. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180809112407.htm
Summary:
Researchers found that if the global population followed the United States Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines, there would not be enough land to provide the food required.
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Paul in WI
/ August 10, 2018A new study published in the journal Nature indicates that geoengineering using reflective particles and aerosols in solar management may negatively affect food production:
Engineering Earth’s climate might quell global warming, but it could come with a cost
https://mashable.com/2018/08/08/geoengineering-sunlight-climate-change/#UDOeVIBScsqp
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wharf rat
/ August 10, 2018Organic solar cells set ‘remarkable’ energy record
Manufacturers have long used silicon to make solar panels because the material was the most efficient at converting sunlight into electricity.
But organic photovoltaics, made from carbon and plastic, promise a cheaper way of generating electricity.
This new study shows that organics can now be just as efficient as silicon.
Commercial solar photovoltaics usually covert 15-22% of sunlight, with a world record of 26.6% reached in Japan in 2016.
Organics have long lingered at around half this rate, but this year has seen some major leaps forward.
In April researchers were able to reach 15% in tests. Now this new study pushes that beyond 17% with the authors saying that up to 25% is possible.
This is important because according to estimates, with a 15% efficiency and a 20 year lifetime, organic solar cells could produce electricity at a cost of less than 7 cents per kilowatt-hour.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45132427
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mlp in nc
/ August 10, 2018NEWS 08 August 2018.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05914-3
Dengue rates plummet in Australian city after release of modified mosquitoes
An Australian city has seen local cases of dengue fever plunge after it was blanketed with mosquitoes modified to block transmission of the virus.
Over 28 months beginning in October 2014, researchers and community members intentionally released roughly 4 million Aedes aegypti mosquitoes over 66 square kilometres in the northeastern city of Townsville. The insects carried Wolbachia bacteria that block them from transmitting dengue, Zika and some other disease-causing viruses.
A team led by microbiologist Scott O’Neill at Monash University in Clayton, Australia, tracked the mosquito release — the first time the strategy has been trialled across an entire city. Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes quickly spread the bacteria to local populations. In an inner-city suburb called Belgian Gardens, for instance, nearly 100% of mosquitoes carried Wolbachia one year after the release period. The results were posted to Gates Open Research on 1 August1.
Townsville, which has a population of around 187,000, has faced periodic dengue outbreaks since 2001. In the 44 months after the releases began, however, local authorities recorded just 4 locally acquired dengue cases, compared with 54 locally acquired cases over the 44 preceding months. (During the same period after the release, 51 imported cases were reported.)
Similar trials with Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes are being carried out in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, which has a much higher incidence of dengue than Townsville. These trials include control areas in which mosquitoes have not been released, so they should provide stronger evidence that the strategy can reduce dengue cases. Ongoing releases in greater Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Bello and Medellín in Colombia will test whether the strategy can succeed in dense metropolises where dengue is rife.
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kassy
/ August 10, 2018Here is an interesting oddity:
Does Mount Everest’s record wet summer point to a ‘profound change’ in the Earth’s climate?
Rain and snow are falling on the world’s highest peak at twice their normal rates at a time of extreme weather globally, Chinese scientists say
….
High precipitation totals on the north side of Everest are unusual because any moisture carried by wind from the Indian Ocean into the Himalayas tends to fall in south-facing “rain shadow areas” in countries such as Nepal and India.
Only a small amount of moisture would be expected to make it over Everest onto the Chinese side, which is typically sunny even during the wet season.
But this year is shaking up preconceptions about regional weather trends.
“Our speculation is that the monsoon activities over the Indian Ocean this year might have been abnormally strong,” Wang said.
“Otherwise it would not be able to bring so much water over the mountain. We are still waiting for data collected from the south [of Everest]. It will give us a better picture of what is going on,” he said.
…
But Yu Wusheng, a researcher at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, said the wetter trend was disturbing.
“Recently we have received reports of some strange events on the Tibetan Plateau. For instance, some areas were hit by large scale snowstorms in July. This is absolutely abnormal,” said Yu, who studies Tibet’s water cycle and ecology on behalf of the institute, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
“I am afraid these are not isolated local events but part of a profound change in the climate system sweeping across the planet.”
He suggested that the big ice melt at Earth’s poles could be disrupting normal weather patterns.
… and then much more on:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2159054/does-mount-everests-record-wet-summer-point-profound-change
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kassy
/ August 10, 2018And crisis in Belgium (first world problems but still) :
The chips are down in Belgium as heatwave hits supply of frites
…
The has shrunk Belgium’s early crop of potatoes by about one-third compared with an average year. Without significant rainfall over the next few weeks, the key September and October harvests could be smaller still.
The heat impacts not only the yield, but the size of the potatoes and the roughness of their skins. If they are too tough, they cannot be handled by the peeling machines used by chip manufacturers.
The price of the bintje potato, the traditional variety used in creating the frite, or frieten, as people say in the Flemish-speaking north of the country where the crisis has most been felt, has already shot up.
…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/10/the-chips-are-down-in-belgium-as-heatwave-hits-supply-of-frites
Lets hope our dutch farmers do better. 🙂
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kassy
/ August 10, 2018And on a slightly more serious note:
Blocking sunlight to cool Earth won’t reduce crop damage from global warming
Proposals to inject sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere to block and scatter sunlight and reduce global temperatures could, some say, also increase crop yields because of reduced heat stress on plants. A new study shows that other effects counterbalance the positive effects of reduced heat stress. Specifically, blocking sunlight reduces photosynthesis, which offsets any improvement from slightly cooler temperatures. The team based their analysis on the effects from two previous volcanic eruptions.
for details:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180808134302.htm
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Paul in WI
/ August 11, 2018Here’s a new article from Ars Technica:
“Researchers suggest we could tip into a hothouse Earth—here’s what that means”
Multiple tipping points may do far more than eliminate glacial cycles.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/what-prompted-all-the-headlines-about-a-hothouse-earth/
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Paul in WI
/ August 11, 2018And along those same lines, another article from Ars Technica from back in June:
“What happened last time it was as warm as it’s going to get later this century?”
Kids today will be grandparents when most climate projections end—does the past have more hints?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/are-past-climates-telling-us-were-missing-something/
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Paul in WI
/ August 11, 2018Here’s a link to another article about the research study that started the recent discussions about the hothouse Earth:
“Planet at risk of heading towards “Hothouse Earth” state”
Keeping global warming to within 1.5-2°C may be more difficult than previously assessed
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2018-08-06-planet-at-risk-of-heading-towards-hothouse-earth-state.html
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Paul in WI
/ August 11, 2018And here’s the link to the original PNAS study about the hothouse Earth:
“Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene”
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115
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wharf rat
/ August 11, 2018Cliff Mass puts a brown paper bag on your doorstep … sets it on fire … and rings the doorbell
Cliff Mass has joined the ranks of those who want you to believe that California’s wildfire problem isn’t getting worse.
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wharf rat
/ August 11, 2018From Tamino’s article, “the Mendocino complex alone had consumed 304,402 acres”
“That’s us”, Rat said proudly(?); “it’s the largest fire in state history, and is now 325,226 acres”. It’s actually 2 fires. The largest, the River fire, at 276,306, is 2nd largest by itself, less than 6000 acres behind the Thomas fire of last year. The Carr fire, over by Tony Watts, has moved into 10th.
This is current through 8/9…
Top 20 Largest California Wildfires
Click to access Top20_Acres.pdf
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kassy
/ August 11, 2018Ah thanks for that. I really like Tamino’s style but hadn’t read anything by him for a while.
All refreshed now.:-)
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mlp in nc
/ August 11, 2018Can some help clarify? I want to be sure I understand the figures properly but I keep running up against contradictions. First with radiative forcing, are we really 5X above normal (preindustrial), as per the IPCC charts? or are the radiative forcing charts something used for models and not a valid comparison? And second, how does the methane component of radiative forcing fit in with the ‘e’ part of CO2e?
The figures I see are: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/the-evolution-of-radiative-forcing-bar-charts/
1. Total radiative forcing difference between a glacial and an interglacial is +0.05 watts/m2. The AR5 SPM gives 2.29 W m2. for positive forcing. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/the-evolution-of-radiative-forcing-bar-charts/
That’s 5X. Right?
2. The amount of forcing contributed by methane or methane with other anthropogenic greenhouse gasses is quite high, for example 43% and 61% of the total positive forcing from AR4 and AR5 SPM. How is that different from the ‘e’ part of CO2e, which is currently 20%?
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kassy
/ August 12, 20181) Are you sure about that 0,05?
“Someone who distrusts all models can examine the change in temperature and solar forcing between glaciation (ice age) and interglacial (no ice age) periods. The change in temperature, revealed in ice core samples, is 5˚C, while the change in solar forcing is 7.1 W/m2.
The computed climate sensitivity is therefore 5/7.1 = 0.7 K(W/m2)-1. We can use this empirically derived climate sensitivity to predict the temperature rise from a forcing of 4 W/m2, arising from a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 from pre-industrial levels. The result is a predicted temperature increase of 3˚C, which is perfectly consistent with the IPCC predictions of 1.5 to 4.5˚C (Seinfeld and Pandis, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 1102).”
Even if the value was ok you can not directly calculate it like that.
The 2.29 is the change since 1750:
As with the SAR version, the confidence levels are present, there has been a switch from 1850 as a baseline in the SAR version, to 1750 in order to capture the beginning of the industrial rise in the GHGs
If we take the 7.1 above you could say we added 2.29 since 1750 but we added this on an unknown value in that 7.1 range. Somewhere in the higher end of that range i bet.
2) For CO2e:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_equivalent
Depends on where you get the 20% number from
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kassy
/ August 12, 2018And mlp in nc in case your head starts to hurt here is a nice soothing video of the artic: 😉
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mlp in nc
/ August 14, 2018Kassy,
Yes, a typo. Should have been 0.5 W/m2.
Thanks for the discussion. I just cannot compare the two. Where did you get the explanation of the ECS? And I laughed when I saw the video. Just what I needed!
Also just to note: Doubling of the CO2 keeps coming up in climate sensitivity, but it wasn’t a doubling of CO2 that brought us out of the glacial. It was a 56% increase, from a baseline of 180. A 56% increase from a baseline of 280 is 437.
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mlp in nc
/ August 14, 2018Related came through today.
Scientists trace atmospheric rise in CO2 during deglaciation to deep Pacific Ocean. Aug 13, 2018. Oregon State University.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180813113338.htm
Summary:
How carbon made it out of the ocean and into the atmosphere has remained one of the most important mysteries of science. A new study, provides some of the most compelling evidence for how it happened — a ‘flushing’ of the deep Pacific Ocean caused by the acceleration of water circulation patterns that begin around Antarctica.
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kassy
/ August 15, 2018Most of it was from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
Doubling is used because it is both a very reasonable target (watch us go) and also it allows some shorthand:
“Climate sensitivity is often evaluated in terms of the change in equilibrium temperature due to radiative forcing due to the greenhouse effect. According to the Arrhenius relation,[14] the radiative forcing (and hence the change in temperature) is proportional to the logarithm of the concentration of infrared-absorbing gasses in the atmosphere. Thus, the sensitivity of temperature to gasses in the atmosphere (most notably carbon dioxide) is often expressed in terms of the change in temperature per doubling of the concentration of the gas.”
The reason you don’t need the full 100% (or close) is that albedo change is a huge factor.
A place having ice year round reflects instead of absorbs the incoming radiation but once it loses the ice in summer it will absorb it and warm the whole summer which will mean refreeze is later. And later it becomes year round.
It also depends on where the ice is on earth because the summers are longer if it’s closer to the equator (like at the end of the ice ages).
Will post some other possibly interesting links below.
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kassy
/ August 15, 2018About all the measures.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument
A piece by Spencer Weart (part 2 by raypierre of RealClimate goes into more detail).
Mr Weart wrote The Discovery of Global Warming and a website to go with it.
https://history.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
It also has great chapters on the older more primitive climate models.
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Barbara Burnett
/ August 12, 2018Robert, tomorrow it will be 30 days since you posted this article. Hope you and yours are well and simply taken a well-deserved break.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 13, 2018Robert has been a very busy boy on Youtube.
This is his channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZRjODCB2xMOw80Tbvujugg
I do think it is a pity he does not devote a lttle time to updating this particular resource with it’s fantastic archive not only of articles, but helpful and informed comments and links from his loyal and informed band of Scribblers.
I do understand that Youtube is where most of the millenials etc go rather than blogs, however integrating the two would be of great value IMO
However youtuibe channels lives and dies on likes, so please support him in that area as well
Regards Abel
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kassy
/ August 13, 2018Totally agree with you Abel.
It could be as simple as leading with the most interesting story of the time (mainly for inspiration for the headline) and link some others. Just “Here is an update on article X For the latest northern fires see . For latest arctic weather and melt report . Etc.
BTW: Views are also important and adding subscribers never hurts either.
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wili
/ August 13, 2018Global solar capacity is expected to reach 1TW by 2023, even with the reduction in Chinese growth:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Worlds-Solar-Power-Capacity-To-Hit-Major-Milestone-By-2023.html
Quote
China is now likely to install 141 GW of solar capacity between now and 2023, compared to previous estimates of 206 GW, according to the report.
“Annual installations of 20-25GW will be the new normal for China, rather than 30-40GW,” it says.
After 2019, however, global solar capacity additions will be around 120 GW each year, with total solar capacity expected to cross the 1 TW mark by 2023.
Last week, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) said its data indicated that there were 1,013 GW—crossing the 1-TW milestone—of combined wind and solar PV generating capacity installed worldwide as of June 30, 2018. According to BNEF estimates, the second terawatt of wind and solar will arrive by the middle of 2023 and cost 46 percent less than the first.
(thanks to KF on asif for this)
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wili
/ August 13, 2018One Terawatt is approximately the current capacity of all US power plants combined.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 14, 2018In the Southern Hemisphere, ENSO and PDO are not the only players.
There is another “erratic juvenile” that is growing in influence young SAM that is season specific and interacts with the above
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-14/southern-annular-mode-and-how-it-affects-our-weather/10106134
Southern Annular Mode: The climate ‘influencer’ you may not have heard of
In the world of climate drivers El Nino is the big name. The Bureau of Meteorology has a whole section on its website dedicated to monitoring it, and updates are hotly anticipated.
Today’s update said El Nino was staying at “watch”, so there is a 50 per cent chance of an El Nino this season, twice the normal likelihood.
El Nino is monitored closely because it is associated with dry conditions in eastern Australia, but it is not the only climate driver to be keeping an eye on this year.
The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is the teenager of climate drivers — it is temperamental, misunderstood and increasing in strength.
Earlier this year SAM had a hand in keeping things dry, and now it is tangled up in the westerlies that have been battering the south over the past week.
It even has the potential to team up with El Nino this summer.
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wili
/ August 14, 2018LikeLike
Andy_in_SD
/ August 14, 2018Hey Robert, hope you are OK.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 15, 2018https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZRjODCB2xMOw80Tbvujugg
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Mike S
/ August 20, 2018Abel, does this mean no more articles posted here at all? I don’t know how to contact Robert directly about that.
One thing I’ve noted recently is that even though Tesla Model 3 production is definitely going up and staying strong, recent sales of OTHER EV models in the U.S. have stagnated- I saw charts showing sales of Nissan Leafs and Chevy Bolts were actually BELOW year-ago levels, wondering what was going there.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 25, 2018I suspect as Model3’s are rolling out and people that may have purchased one of those are driving and experiencing friends model 3’s and placing an order for a Model 3 instead, this being an order does not register as a sale, and lets face it Tesla owners have an advantage with rechardging availabity, they can use the same ones the majors use, plus they have the superior and extensive Tesla network, plus the home or work charging. So advantages going the Tesla path apart from an extremely good vehicle with a recognised long life battery and range
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mlp in nc
/ August 14, 2018Here’s Earth Nullschool CO map today, with North America looking a lot like China.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/08/14/0900Z/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/orthographic=254.39,41.34,1025/loc=-120.226,47.585
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wili
/ August 14, 2018“Guest post: Why BECCS might not produce ‘negative’ emissions after all”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-beccs-might-not-produce-negative-emissions-after-all
Extract: “In our new study, published in Nature Communications, my colleagues and I find that expansion of bioenergy in order to meet the 1.5C limit could cause net losses in carbon from the land surface. Instead, we find that protecting and expanding forests could be more effective options for meeting the Paris Agreement.”
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Leland Palmer
/ August 18, 2018It’s a complicated subject. It’s possible that just looking at the carbon content of the land surface could produce misleading results. It seems possible that the local carbon content of the land surface could decrease under BECCS if a dense forest is replaced by biomass crops. But at the same time, BECCS could be working, transferring carbon from the atmosphere to deep underground.
The study is kind of misleading, I think, or at least the way the coverage of the study is framed is misleading. Is it really necessary to build BECCS plantations where dense forests currently stand?
I would like to see all of the carbon tracked, and the question of whether carbon is moving from atmosphere to deep underground tracked directly.
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Leland Palmer
/ August 25, 2018Allow me to repeat that BECCS simultaneously displaces fossil fuel use, produces electricity that can be used for electric cars displacing yet more fossil fuel use, and puts carbon back underground. And it can be done at a profit, especially under any reasonable carbon tax or carbon credit system. A reasonable carbon credit system would pay BECCS at least twice, maybe approaching 3 times, for each ton of carbon. put back underground. Carbon credits should count fossil carbon displaced, electricity produced, and carbon put back underground, because that is how BECCS impacts the carbon balance – massively. A workable solution to the global warming problem must be profitable – unprofitable processes will not be implemented fast enough to impact the problem massively enough to do any good. So the theoretical benefits of biochar could be overpowered by the simple reality that biochar asks people to bury charcoal instead of sell it.
The IPCC, with all it’s flaws mainly involving being too conservative, is composed of competent scientists, and they got the BECCS question right, in my opinion. No other technology can impact the carbon balance math like BECCS.
Don’t replace dense forest with BECCS plantations, may be the message of this study. Don’t grow trees that take 100 years to mature as biomass crops may be another lesson. On the other hand, global warming induced firestorms may change standing forests from carbon sinks into carbon sources. I think myself that we need to put as much carbon safely back underground as possible, as quickly as possible.
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Josh
/ August 15, 2018Experts ‘gobsmacked’ by NSW winter fires.
https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/experts-gobsmacked-by-nsw-winter-fires/news-story/fcf8f5c629c11232e5165ada91677f16
Scientists are “gobsmacked” that out-of-control bushfires are burning on the NSW south coast during winter, leading to a total fire ban across much of the state.
Equally troubling, one expert says, is global warming means the northern and southern hemisphere fire seasons are overlapping, which is stretching global firefighting resources.
“We’re seeing something which is unusual in the extreme,” environmental change academic David Bowman told AAP on Wednesday.
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kassy
/ August 15, 2018So a good case for no new big coal mines, transferring to a renewable grid etc.
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kassy
/ August 15, 2018So here is a prediction. The next 4 years years will be unusually warm:
‘Komende vier jaren worden waarschijnlijk ongewoon warm’
De komende vier jaar krijgen we te maken met hoge temperaturen. Dat vergroot de kans op droogteperiodes en hogere hevigere orkanen, blijkt uit een nieuwe analyse die de Nederlandse klimaatonderzoeker Sybren Drijfhout samen met een Franse collega ontwikkelde.
De twee bestudeerden de gemiddelde wereldtemperatuur van de afgelopen 140 jaar en probeerden patronen te ontdekken.
…
Drijfhout en zijn collega concludeerden dat de kans dat de aarde tot 2022 warmer dan normaal is aanzienlijk is. Dat is volgens hen een gevolg van een soort pauze in de opwarming van de aarde die tussen 2000 en 2014 optrad. In die periode hebben de oceanen meer warmte opgenomen, die nu alsnog terugkomt.
https://www.nu.nl/klimaat/5415350/komende-vier-jaren-worden-waarschijnlijk-ongewoon-warm.html
The next four years will probably be unusually warm
The next four years we will get high temperatures. This increases the chance of droughts and bigger tropical cyclones according to a new analysis by dutch climate researcher Sybren Drijfhout and a french colleague.
…
They concluded the chance of Earth temperatures to be above average is considerable. This is a consequence of the sort of warming of the earth between 2000-2014. Oceans absorbed more heat then which is returning.
*So basically they find patterns in big weather data which are the result of underlying ocean trends modified by our climate. If this prediction pans out it will be really bad for the Arctic sea ice.
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kassy
/ August 15, 2018LikeLiked by 1 person
Ringrás (@ring_ras)
/ August 16, 2018State of emergency declared in Florida due to toxic algal bloom:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/08/14/red-tide-algaes-deadly-trail-of-marine-animals-has-triggered-a-state-of-emergency-in-florida/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.da23e337eaa6
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mlp in nc
/ August 16, 2018A horror upon us. The toxic consequences are much worse than the article makes out. Here is the introduction to brevetoxin from Wiki: “Brevetoxin (PbTx), or brevetoxins, are a suite of cyclic polyether compounds produced naturally by a species of dinoflagellate known as Karenia brevis. Brevetoxins are neurotoxins that bind to voltage-gated sodium channels in nerve cells, leading to disruption of normal neurological processes and causing the illness clinically described as neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP).”
There appears to be a real possibility large parts of coastal Florida could become uninhabitable very soon. Even presently what should Floridians do, leave in summer and come back in winter? Can’t even this wake up government?
Over a decade ago my grandfather said “The earth is angry”.
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mlp in nc
/ August 16, 2018And here is a recent article from our local paper. When I went to the beach as a child, we swam happily without a thought of shark danger.
https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article216630240.html
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kassy
/ August 16, 2018The key to Trump’s climate reversal? New math
The Trump administration’s plan to roll back Obama regulations calls for altering the cost-benefit balance, but that opens the door to legal challenges
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/16/trump-climate-change-obama-cost-benefits-740455
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kassy
/ August 17, 2018Smoke From Western Wildfires Reaches Europe
For the pictures see: https://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2018/08/16/smoke-from-western-wildfires-reaches-europe/
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kassy
/ August 17, 2018Fracking is destroying U.S. water supply, warns shocking new study
Toxic wastewater from fracking jumps 14-fold from 2011 to 2016 — and it may get 50 times bigger by 2030.
…
The game-changing study from Duke University found that “from 2011 to 2016, the water use per well increased up to 770 percent.” In addition, the toxic wastewater produced in the first year of production jumped up to 1440 percent.
…
One key point the study makes is that, unlike other energy sources, much of the water fracking uses is essentially lost to humanity. Either the water doesn’t escape the shale formation or, when it does come back to the surface, it “is highly saline, is difficult to treat, and is often disposed through deep injection wells.”
Therefore, even though other forms of energy have a higher intensity of water use, “the permanent loss of water use for hydraulic fracturing from the hydrosphere” may still be higher.
…
https://thinkprogress.org/fracking-is-destroying-americas-water-supply-new-study-9cb163923d24/
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mlp in nc
/ August 17, 2018https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180816143035.htm
‘Abrupt thaw’ of permafrost beneath lakes could significantly affect climate change models.
Aug16, 2018. University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The researchers found the release of greenhouse gases beneath thermokarst lakes is relatively rapid, with deep thawing taking place over the course of decades. Permafrost in terrestrial environments generally experiences shallow seasonal thawing over longer time spans. The release of that surface permafrost soil carbon is often offset by an increased growth in vegetation.
“Thermokarst lakes provide a completely different scenario. When the lakes form, they flash-thaw these permafrost areas,” said Walter Anthony, an associate professor with UAF’s Water and Environmental Research Center. “Instead of centimeters of thaw, which is common for terrestrial environments, we’ve seen 15 meters of thaw beneath newly formed lakes in Goldstream Valley within the past 60 years.”
Emissions from thermokarst lakes aren’t currently factored into global climate models because their small size makes individual lakes difficult to include. However, the study’s authors show that these lakes are hotspots of permafrost carbon release. They argue that not including them in global climate models overlooks their feedback effect, which occurs when the release of greenhouse gases from permafrost increases warming. That feedback is significant because methane is about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas.
Existing models currently attribute about 20 percent of the permafrost carbon feedback this century to methane, with the rest due to carbon dioxide from terrestrial soils. By including thermokarst lakes, methane becomes the dominant driver, responsible for 70 to 80 percent of permafrost carbon-caused warming this century. Adding thermokarst methane to the models makes the feedback’s effect similar to that of land-use change, which is the second-largest source of human-made warming.
Unlike shallow, gradual thawing of terrestrial permafrost, the abrupt thaw beneath thermokarst lakes is irreversible this century. Even climate models that project only moderate warming this century will have to factor in their emissions, according to the study.
“You can’t stop the release of carbon from these lakes once they form,” Walter Anthony said. “We cannot get around this source of warming.”
Ref: Katey Walter Anthony, Thomas Schneider von Deimling, Ingmar Nitze, Steve Frolking, Abraham Emond, Ronald Daanen, Peter Anthony, Prajna Lindgren, Benjamin Jones, Guido Grosse. 21st-century modeled permafrost carbon emissions accelerated by abrupt thaw beneath lakes. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9
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kassy
/ August 18, 2018‘Weird’ warm water has California surfers stoked, experts searching for answers as ocean temperatures near 80 degrees
It’s weird because this time it is surface warming (warming related to el nino warms the whole column or more of the top part at least).
https://www.pe.com/2018/08/17/weird-warm-water-has-california-surfers-stoked-experts-searching-for-answers-as-ocean-temperatures-near-80-degrees/
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wharf rat
/ August 18, 2018LikeLiked by 2 people
wharf rat
/ August 18, 2018The U.S. just suffered the hottest May-June-July on record
For the three-month period of May to July, the entire contiguous United States (CONUS) “ranked hottest on record,” as the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, California tweeted out Wednesday, adding that “records go back to 1895.”
Death Valley had the hottest average monthly temperature for any recording station in the world, 108.1 degrees F. As the National Park Service points out, “If that doesn’t sound hot to you, realize that is the average temperature for the month, including overnight lows.”
in California in particular, “July was off the charts: The state saw its hottest July and hottest month on record with an average temperature of 79.7 degrees F.”
https://thinkprogress.org/hottest-may-june-july-in-us-history-ea200870459d/
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wharf rat
/ August 18, 2018LikeLiked by 2 people
Paul in WI
/ August 20, 2018Radar images show large swath of West Texas oil patch is heaving and sinking at alarming rates
From the article:
Analysis indicates decades of oil production activity have destabilized localities in an area of about 4,000 square miles populated by small towns, roadways and a vast network of oil and gas pipelines and storage tanks
Two giant sinkholes near Wink, Texas, may just be the tip of the iceberg, according to a new study that found alarming rates of new ground movement extending far beyond the infamous sinkholes.
That’s the finding of a geophysical team from Southern Methodist University, Dallas that previously reported the rapid rate at which the sinkholes are expanding and new ones forming.
Now the team has discovered that various locations in large portions of four Texas counties are also sinking and uplifting.
Radar satellite images show significant movement of the ground across localities in a 4000-square-mile area — in one place as much as 40 inches over the past two-and-a-half years, say the geophysicists.
“The ground movement we’re seeing is not normal. The ground doesn’t typically do this without some cause,” said geophysicist Zhong Lu, a professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU and a global expert in satellite radar imagery analysis.
“These hazards represent a danger to residents, roads, railroads, levees, dams, and oil and gas pipelines, as well as potential pollution of ground water,” Lu said. “Proactive, continuous detailed monitoring from space is critical to secure the safety of people and property.”
The scientists made the discovery with analysis of medium-resolution (15 feet to 65 feet) radar imagery taken between November 2014 and April 2017. The images cover portions of four oil-patch counties where there’s heavy production of hydrocarbons from the oil-rich West Texas Permian Basin.
The imagery, coupled with oil-well production data from the Railroad Commission of Texas, suggests the area’s unstable ground is associated with decades of oil activity and its effect on rocks below the surface of the earth.
The SMU researchers caution that ground movement may extend beyond what radar observed in the four-county area. The entire region is highly vulnerable to human activity due to its geology — water-soluble salt and limestone formations, and shale formations.
“Our analysis looked at just this 4000-square-mile area,” said study co-author and research scientist Jin-Woo Kim, a research scientist in the SMU Department of Earth Sciences.
“We’re fairly certain that when we look further, and we are, that we’ll find there’s ground movement even beyond that,” Kim said. “This region of Texas has been punctured like a pin cushion with oil wells and injection wells since the 1940s and our findings associate that activity with ground movement.”
Lu, Shuler-Foscue Chair at SMU, and Kim reported their findings in the Nature publication Scientific Reports, in the article “Association between localized geohazards in West Texas and human activities, recognized by Sentinel-1A/B satellite radar imagery.”
http://blog.smu.edu/research/2018/03/20/radar-images-show-large-swath-of-texas-oil-patch-is-heaving-and-sinking-at-alarming-rates/
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Jean Swan
/ August 21, 2018I hope my anti fracking friends here in Okla see this
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Abel Adamski
/ August 21, 2018Send it to them
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kassy
/ August 20, 2018Australia’s prime minister has abandoned plans to rein in greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to stave off a leadership coup from within his own party.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/20/australian-pm-dumps-key-climate-policy-to-stave-off-leadership-revolt
How long until the next elections? And will that help?
Kind of wierd (or not, oil A$s and all that) that the policians are trying to get rid of climate change solutions while the NSW coast burns in winter (See post by Josh on August 15).
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kassy
/ August 20, 2018As the Arctic Heats Up, Summer Weather Is Lingering in Place
…
“While it might not sound so bad to have more prolonged sunny episodes in summer, this is in fact a major climate risk,” the scientists, led by Dim Coumou of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said in a statement. “We have rising temperatures due to human-caused global warming, which intensifies heat waves and heavy rainfall, and on top of that we could get dynamical changes that make weather extremes even stronger – this is quite worrying.”
In the coming decades, this disruption of global atmospheric circulation systems could cause “very extreme extremes,” particularly in major agricultural regions, the study concludes.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 21, 2018https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/21/arctics-strongest-sea-ice-breaks-up-for-first-time-on-record
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kassy
/ August 20, 2018https://e360.yale.edu/digest/as-the-arctic-heats-up-summer-weather-is-getting-stuck-in-place
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Barbara Burnett
/ August 21, 2018Robert, please don’t abandon this blog and switch to making only You-Tube videos, as good as they are. I miss not only your input but the input and interaction among those who visit this site. That’s what kept me coming back– so many insights from so many “civilian scientists” as well as so many distinguished scientists. Plus I find it hard to send a You-Tube link to a friend and assume that they will watch it. Nor can I quote portions of a video pertaining to a particular issue–not without transcribing it. Please don’t abandon this blog. It’s one of the last remaining places that I get current climate data–in a format that I can easily zero in on specific new data.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 21, 2018Make that comment on his Youtube channel
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Mike S
/ August 21, 2018Recent EV sales have been a mixture of good news and bad news. The good news is that Tesla Model 3 production is increasing rapidly. The bad news is that most non-Tesla EV sales are flat compared to last year.
View stats at this URL:
https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
It seems like Chevy Bolt and Volt, Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius Prime, Ford Fusion Energi, and BMW i3 have monthly sales in 2018 that are about the same, or even less, than an average month in 2017.
I was hoping that the big increase in Model 3 production and sales would be like a rising tide that would lift all boats, but it seems disappointing that’s not happening. The tiny sales numbers for these other brands are just stagnant. Tesla’s sales will soon be 90 percent or more of EV sales, largely due to no increase in sales for the other players in the EV market.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 21, 2018Their problem is charging rate and availability of decent charging network, those that would go EV are going Tesla, apart from SUV type vehicles and cheaper versions so they still sell, but their take up is not increasing as the new buyers are going Tesla, remember as Elon says and I see it in comments on the EV and Tesla blogs, the new owners are ecstatic and share that with their friends and colleagues some of who’m place their Tesla order instead of looking at a Bolt or another brand, this because it at this time is just an order conceals the actual increase in sales
The dual motor performance is creating serious excitement it is awesome apparently
Note Tesla according to Bloomberg is up around 5900/week now so 6000/week by end Aug on track, 7000/week end Q3 very possible. For a start up that has had to build from scratch to have achieved that is very impressive. (that is a lot of batteries)
An excellent site out of many that covers Tesla keeping you up to date
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMFmrcGuFNu_59L0pHcR0OA
Recommend the FUD one, and especially the is Elon OK rip apart of the NYT article on Elon – an eye opener, they can tend to be long but enjoyable and informative
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kassy
/ August 21, 2018NOAA Survey Shows Shocking Lack Of Thermal Barrier Between Northern And Southern Bering Sea
NOAA Fisheries scientists conducting their annual trawl survey of the southern Bering Sea ecosystem survey found unprecedented conditions of warm ocean temperatures and significant changes in the cod and pollock numbers and conditions.
As a result, they received emergency funding to unexpectedly bring their trawl survey north from St. Matthew Island to Diomede Island to investigate.
…
The scientists are expecting some potentially big changes in fish species distribution due to the disappearance of a “cold pool” within the Bering Sea south of St. Lawrence Island. The cold pool is created by super-cooled briny water made from salt leaking from winter sea ice and dropping to the seafloor. This annual thermal barrier typically keeps the fishes of the southern Bering Sea in their preferred warmer water.
After many years of diminishing sea ice, the past winter of 2017 was unprecedented with near open water conditions throughout the winter months. It seems that the extensive open water season last winter was long enough to make a big difference.
Britt tells more about how they found the familiar cold pool missing.
“We started this year’s southern survey going east to west right across the shelf from the Aleutians to St. Matthew Island. We had watched this winter as to the unprecedented lack of sea ice in the Bering Sea. We noticed that it was extraordinarily low. It was very ephemeral and gone. It had us very much worried about water temperatures for summer 2018,” he recounted.
As part of the survey, the scientists monitor the ocean temperatures near the seafloor because of the importance of the thermal barrier formed by cold salty waters associated with sea ice coverage that is formed annually.
“Its extent from one year to the next —due to the extent and timing of the annual sea ice coverage in the Bering Sea— can have a huge impact on the distribution and types of fish populations between the northern and southern Bering Sea shelf,” Britt continued.
“At the same time, it becomes a refuge for species from the Arctic that are adapted to those temperatures. It gives them an ability to kind of sneak down in here and use resources in an area that wouldn’t otherwise be available,” Britt explains. “The extent or length of that cold pool can be really valuable in structuring fish distributions and populations throughout the region.
“As we started moving across [the Bering Sea shelf], to the north we were not recording any 2°C water. For the first time in 37 years of surveying the Bering Sea, we could not find the cold water barrier.”
…
In the 2010 survey, the researchers found an average cold pool along the area of the ice extend. The cold pool was not strong but it was enough to structure the populations of fish in these regions, according to Britt.
In 2017, researchers found a cold pool running between St. Lawrence Island and St. Matthew Island.
“What do you think we found this year?” Britt asked. “No cold pool. None. In 37 years of surveys, this is the first time we have not found in a single water station with a bottom temperature of less than 1° Celsius,” Britt said. “When we got to the point in the survey and realized there was not going to be a cold pool, we’re not seeing pollock the way we should see them, we are not seeing invertebrate population where we should be seeing them. And, we’re hearing about seabird die-offs.”
…
“But, holy cow! What do you think we saw two days ago? Almost entirely fat, adult pollock. This catch is just shy of five tons!”
Someone in the audience says, “Wow.”
“Of that five tons, 4.1 tons are adult pollock,” Britt said. “There were also 800 pounds of every size of cod.”
But they did almost no invertebrates like crab. “The invertebrate population should have been the dominant catch in the trawl in this region,” he said.
There is great pressure on the fitness of other organisms, Britt pointed out. “They have to eat something.”
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PlazaRed
/ August 21, 2018The contents of this link are very disturbing:-
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/weather/arctic%e2%80%99s-strongest-sea-ice-breaks-up-for-first-time-on-record/ar-BBMdd4K?li=BBoPWjQ
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kassy
/ August 22, 2018For a wealth of information go to Nevens forum:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?board=3.0
For daily (or other interval) watching i suggest to start with 2018 Sea Ice Area and Extent data because this is the data/background stuff.
Next is the 2018 Melting Season thread this is full of all kinds of graphics (weather, worldview, animation of melt products etc). A-Teams work really stands out and he posted a lot of interesting things on this phenomenon.
For details on the ice north of Greenland go to post 2662 by TorBejnar (on page 55) and start there.
Skip all the weather prediction graphs and other stuff and focus on A-Teams posts on this and the comments on them.
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PlazaRed
/ August 21, 2018This is something that may be going to cause a very big problem for the people of Hawaii:-
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Hurricane-Watches-Are-Ferocious-Lane-Draws-Closer-Hawaii
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mlp in nc
/ August 22, 2018Marine heatwaves under global warming.
T. L. Frölicher et al. Nature, vol 560, pp360–364 (2018).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0383-9
Abstract
Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are periods of extreme warm sea surface temperature that persist for days to months1 and can extend up to thousands of kilometres2. Some of the recently observed marine heatwaves revealed the high vulnerability of marine ecosystems3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 and fisheries12,13,14 to such extreme climate events. Yet our knowledge about past occurrences15 and the future progression of MHWs is very limited. Here we use satellite observations and a suite of Earth system model simulations to show that MHWs have already become longer-lasting and more frequent, extensive and intense in the past few decades, and that this trend will accelerate under further global warming. Between 1982 and 2016, we detect a doubling in the number of MHW days, and this number is projected to further increase on average by a factor of 16 for global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to preindustrial levels and by a factor of 23 for global warming of 2.0 degrees Celsius. However, current national policies for the reduction of global carbon emissions are predicted to result in global warming of about 3.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the twenty-first century16, for which models project an average increase in the probability of MHWs by a factor of 41. At this level of warming, MHWs have an average spatial extent that is 21 times bigger than in preindustrial times, last on average 112 days and reach maximum sea surface temperature anomaly intensities of 2.5 degrees Celsius. The largest changes are projected to occur in the western tropical Pacific and Arctic oceans. Today, 87 per cent of MHWs are attributable to human-induced warming, with this ratio increasing to nearly 100 per cent under any global warming scenario exceeding 2 degrees Celsius. Our results suggest that MHWs will become very frequent and extreme under global warming, probably pushing marine organisms and ecosystems to the limits of their resilience and even beyond, which could cause irreversible changes.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 22, 2018This explains so much, from the TV series Dr Who, or is it reality
from Wikepedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slitheen
The Slitheen were a family of Raxacoricofallapatorian criminals. The Slitheen were rivals (and “cousins”) of the Blathereen family, (TV: The Gift) cousins of the Rackateen family and descendants of the Slavereen who were descended from the Changleen family, the earliest descendants of the Huspick Degenerate. (WC: Monster File: Slitheen)
The Slitheen were from Raxacoricofallapatorius originally and bribed their way into government. Their rule crashed the planet’s economy and eventually, the population rose up against them. (TV: The Gift) The entire family was tried and found guilty in perpetuity and sentenced to death. (TV: Boom Town) The Judoon forced the Slitheen out and many of them fled justice
The Slitheen disguise themselves by fitting into the skins of their victims, using compression fields created by a collar worn around their necks to squeeze their huge size into a slightly smaller space. Initially the compression ratio was limited, so the disguises tended to be obese people.
The exchange of gases that compression entails also builds up within the acquired skin, causing very loud flatulence in humans
Members of the Slitheen family have green skin, though there is variation in the skin tone of other Raxacoricofallapatorian families. In The Sarah Jane Adventures episode The Gift, members of the Slitheen-Blathereen family group are seen to have orange skin.
HMMM almost sounds vaguely familiar
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kassy
/ August 22, 2018Well if Raxacoricofallapatorius can do it the US can do it too. 🙂
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kassy
/ August 22, 2018Video from near the North Pole, hat tip Jim Hunt:
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Greyson Smythe
/ August 23, 2018National Geographic: Exclusive: Some Arctic Ground No Longer Freezing—Even in Winter
In April he sent a team of workers out with heavy drills to be sure. They bored into the soil a few feet down and found thick, slushy mud. Zimov said that was impossible. Cherskiy, his community of 3,000 along the Kolyma River, is one of the coldest spots on Earth. Even in late spring, ground below the surface should be frozen solid.
Except this year, it wasn’t.
Every winter across the Arctic, the top few inches or feet of soil and rich plant matter freezes up before thawing again in summer. Beneath this active layer of ground extending hundreds of feet deeper sits continuously frozen earth called permafrost, which, in places, has stayed frozen for millennia.
But in a region where temperatures can dip to 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the Zimovs say unusually high snowfall this year worked like a blanket, trapping excess heat in the ground. They found sections 30 inches deep—soils that typically freeze before Christmas—that had stayed damp and mushy all winter. For the first time in memory, ground that insulates deep Arctic permafrost simply did not freeze in winter.
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Thomas Mazanec
/ August 23, 2018Haven’t posted in awhile.
Retiring?
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Abel Adamski
/ August 25, 2018Extremely prolific on Youtube, see links above, views, likes and sharing the links helps, a whole new audience and youtube has a far greater reach than a blog , especially for the younger generation
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Leland Palmer
/ August 24, 2018Dear Robert-
Running a blog like this is hard, depressing work. You are my hero, man. It must be hard to take, the same depressing shit day after day. Day after day, having to deal with the damned trolls, writing about subjects that you have already written about.
On the other hand, Tesla Model 3 production is up to maybe 6000 cars per week. The price of solar is dropping like a rock. And the methane hydrates have still not destabilized, that we know about anyway.
I hope that you are all right, and are not retiring. I miss your posts, and your wonderful clear perspective on the global warming issue.
Would financial contributions help?
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kassy
/ August 24, 2018Hm i guess you are not following him on youtube.
Click on his name to go to the channel (basically list of videos).
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kassy
/ August 24, 2018Maybe this is more apt:
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kassy
/ August 24, 2018The Glaciers on Earth’s ‘Third Pole’ Are Bursting, Causing Deadly Floods
…
Last week, a glacier in northeastern Afghanistan burst and flooded the Panjshir River basin, killing at least ten people. The floodwater triggered landslides as it carved through the valley and damaged 56 houses, washed out two bridges, wrecked a highway, broke an irrigation canal, and swamped farmland, according to an internal report from the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) , an intergovernmental agency based in Nepal. That same week, a glacier in western China released 35 million cubic meters—or 14,000 Olympic swimming pools—of fresh water into the Yarkant River basin, prompting evacuations, Greenpeace East Asia reported. Both disasters struck in places that are not traditionally at risk for glacial outbreak floods, but catastrophes like these seemed poised to become the new normal.
and much more on:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3q9je/the-glaciers-on-earths-third-pole-are-bursting-causing-deadly-floods
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mlp in nc
/ August 25, 2018I have a comment that really fits under Robert’s recent video on red tide and algae (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbXYcBtgTwM). I am a little unsure where is the best place for it but I am putting it here because I appreciate all the thoughtful folks who comment here and to say that I would really hate to see you attrit.
The comment is a bit anticlimactic, but here it is: I have been reading Paul Doiron, a native Mainer who sets his novels in his home state. He repeatedly describes the smell of algae when describing Maine’s lakes and ponds, which is quite depressing me. This is Maine, for heaven’s sake. The distance between Tampa, Fl and Portland, ME is 1,284 miles.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 25, 2018Just for interest
https://www.fastcompany.com/90226230/nasa-atmospheric-visualizations-are-pretty-terrifying-these-days
NASA atmospheric visualizations are pretty terrifying these days
A new palette shows aerosols in a clear way, and makes it look like the Apocalypse.
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Greyson Smythe
/ August 26, 2018Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’
The ‘Godfather of Coral’ predicts a ‘planetary catastrophe’
“Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all marine species everywhere has some part of their life cycle in coral reefs,” he says. “So, you take out coral reefs and a third to a quarter of all species gets wiped out. Now that is ecological chaos, it is ecological collapse.”
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Greyson Smythe
/ August 26, 2018Mars Today – A ‘Business-As-Usual’ Model for Earth Tomorrow
Parallels between methane explosions in the Yamal and on Mars – by Dr. David Page
From April.
These explosions on Mars and Earth, both new-to-science, offer a unique opportunity for climatic inquiry across two worlds, having already occurred on Mars and now underway on Earth. Can this ‘snapshot’ of an abrupt, mass-devolatilisation event in-progress tell us anything about current events in Siberia? There is reason to believe that the Siberian explosions are only just beginning as neither the 1000s of onshore lake depressions across the Yamal-Pangody region nor the methane-venting ‘pockmarks’ of the various Arctic sea-floors show any evidence of explosive genesis, having thermokarstic- and subsidence-origins, respectively. What Mars shows is that once a certain permafrost stability threshold is passed, either through increasing temperature or decreasing pressure, the explosive ‘reaction’ appears to cascade.
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Joe Clarkson
/ August 26, 2018I guess it’s time to delete this bookmark and bookmark your youtube site, but it’s a shame, since I much prefer the written word to video.
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bearingwitness
/ August 26, 2018Me too – listening to/ watching a video is not my strongest “learning style”…
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Kiwi Griff
/ August 26, 2018I am here for the links we all contribute.
Dont like using bandwidth watching videos much prefer the printed word.
No one person can pick up as much interesting content alone as well as all of us can from many sources all around the world .
Please Robert roll over a new comment forum for your loyal blog participants every few weeks even if its just a thread header with no content from you. It takes to long to re read and pick up the extra comments when a thread gets to long.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 27, 2018Fully agree.
maybe I am old school but I can read and comprehend the blog in a minute or so and then progress to the comments, I find the visual and verbal of Youtube as a slower and lesser means of informing as it is no longer simple to refer back and forth in the article, besides all the other youtube links that pop up can be a distraction .
So sorry to say, whilst I will still support Robert in his endeavours and have great respect for him and what he is doing I will be looking for another blog that can at least partly replicate what RS has achieved here
Plus it does not have the massive depth and breadth of the informed comments and links with occasional bits to brighten the soul.
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mlp in nc
/ August 27, 2018As if things couldn’t get any more bizarre – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-protect-oil-facilities-from-climate-change-coastal-spine/. August 22, 2018, 3:04 PM
Big oil asks government to protect its Texas facilities from climate change.
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Robert in New Orleans
/ August 27, 2018The perfect example of the privatization of profit and the socialization of cost.
And it will not help them anyway in my opinion as the raising seas will overwhelm this Maginot Line in no short order.
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wharf rat
/ August 27, 2018Mendocino Complex Fire is now over 50% bigger than our previous biggest, last Dec’s fire in SoCal.
RanchFire MendocinoComplex [update] northeast of Ukiah (Mendocino/Lake/Colusa/Glenn Counties) is now 402,468 acres and 67% contained. Add another 50K acres for the River Fire.
The Carr Fire is 7th largest, so 3 of our 7 largest fires have been since Dec, ’17.
https://twitter.com/CAL_FIRE?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
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Robert in New Orleans
/ August 27, 2018Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’
The ‘Godfather of Coral’ predicts a ‘planetary catastrophe’
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/08/world/great-barrier-reef/
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cushngtree
/ August 28, 2018I hope people keep up this blog. It’s a shame Robert no longer oversees, but his safeguards against trolls are still working well, it’s hard to find a comment section that isn’t crazy-making with all the idiot sentiments. Robert’s blogs were always excellent, but I’ll admit it’s the comments that made this one bookmark-worthy. (I’m also an “I’d rather read it than hear it” type)
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Kiwi Griff
/ August 28, 2018When you read text you can quickly skip/skim content that is not interesting or contains background content you already know.
With an on line video you can’t reliably edit out chaff at a similar speed to reading.
Most read at about 220wpm speech is about 150.
The format of a well moderated blog allows for much extra information added from an informed audience than a video on you tube aimed at the general population does.
It seems to me that content from realist sites debunking nonsense has decreased as climate change has become undeniable.
Blogs like hot topic, hot whopper have scaled back the number of posts or stopped adding new content.
The denial echochambers have become plainly insane to those not wrapped up in the extremes of far right ideology.
This is an interesting take on the change.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 29, 2018https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-pollution-causes-huge-reduction-in-intelligence-study-reveals?
Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals
Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’
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Abel Adamski
/ August 29, 2018https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/27/crime-of-voting-texas-woman-crystal-mason-five-years-prison?
US voter suppression: why this Texas woman is facing five years’ prison
Fort Worth is suffering a crisis of democracy – just 6% of electors voted in the last midterms – so why is it aggressively pursuing those who mistakenly cast ballots?
One of the distressing side-effects of her prosecution is that her children now say they will never vote. “It’s very discouraging,” she said. “My kids need to vote, but they say they won’t as how can they trust what’s in the fine print?”
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mlp in nc
/ August 29, 2018>
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kassy
/ August 29, 2018That is some crazy story….i think the fact that only 6% vote in Dalles and Fort Worth amazed me the most…About 51k voted in FW so you only need to organize 60k people to take over the election… The easiest way these people could change things would be just to go vote.
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cushngtree
/ August 29, 2018And risk going to prison? Yeah, I can understand why her kids say “no way”!
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marcyincny
/ September 7, 2018Where has everyone gone?
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