Mother Nature (WRATH)

[BOREALIS]

From destruction to deadly heat, Associated Press photographers capture climate change in 2024

A world altered by climate change

After heat records were smashed and a torrent of extreme weather events rocked countless countries in 2023, some climate scientists believed that the waning of the El Nino weather pattern could mean 2024 would be slightly cooler.

It didn’t happen that way.

This year is expected to break 2023’s global average temperature record and the effects of the warming — more powerful hurricanes, floods, wildfires and suffocating heat — have upended lives and livelihoods.

All year, Associated Press photographers around the globe have captured moments, from the brutality unleashed during extreme weather events to human resilience in the face of hardship, that tell the story of a changing Earth.

https://apnews.com/article/photo-gallery-climate-2024-flooding-heat-928163df24a7a73d619bb138d80ac560

[BOREALIS]

G20 talks in Rio reach breakthrough on climate finance, sources say''

By Jake Spring and Lisandra Paraguassu
November 17, 2024 3:59 PM CST Updated 3 hours ago

'Trump essentially campaigned against electric car manufacturing. Trump is protectionist; Musk opposes tariffs.
On climate change, they are opposed'

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/world-looks-g20-rio-breakthrough-climate-talks-2024-11-17/

----------------
Trump picks oil industry executive, climate change denier to lead Energy Department
Chris Wright, a fossil fuel CEO, has said ‘there is no climate crisis’ and likened Democrats’ efforts to combat global warming to communism
https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-picks-oil-industry-executive-climate-change-denier-to-lead-energy-department/
---------------

Summary

* U.N. officials urge G20 leaders to break COP29 stalemate
* Wealthy nations asking more countries to foot climate bill
* Climate accord may only get trickier with return of Trump


[1/11] Praia de Botafogo beach, Rio de Janeiro, November 17, 2024. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Diplomatic tensions over global warming spilled over into the G20 summit negotiations in Brazil this week, with sources saying the 20 major economies reached a fragile consensus on climate finance that had eluded U.N. talks in Azerbaijan.

Heads of state arrived in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday for the G20 summit and will spend Monday and Tuesday addressing issues from poverty and hunger to the reform of global institutions. The talks must now also grapple with how to address escalating violence in Ukraine after a deadly Russian airstrike on Sunday.

Still, the ongoing U.N. climate talks have thrown a spotlight on their efforts to tackle global warming.

While the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, is tasked with agreeing a goal to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars for climate, leaders of the Group of 20 major economies half a world away in Rio are holding the purse strings.

G20 countries account for 85% of the world's economy and are the largest contributors to multilateral development banks helping to steer climate finance.

"The spotlight is naturally on the G20. They account for 80 percent of global emissions," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. He expressed concern about the state of the COP29 talks in Baku and called on G20 leaders to do more to fight climate change.

"Now is the time for leadership by example from the world's largest economies and emitters," Guterres said.

U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell wrote a letter to G20 leaders on Saturday imploring them to act on climate finance, including boosting grants for developing nations and advancing reforms of multilateral development banks.

However, the same fights that have plagued COP29 since it began last week became central to G20 negotiations, according to diplomats close to the Rio talks.

[...]

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/world-looks-g20-rio-breakthrough-climate-talks-2024-11-17/

[BOREALIS]

1,000 Active-Duty Soldiers Called Up to Assist with Hurricane Helene Response

Military.com | By Thomas Novelly
Published October 02, 2024 at 12:24pm ET

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday mobilized 1,000 active-duty soldiers to assist in recovery and relief efforts in communities hit by Hurricane Helene -- one of the most devastating storms in recent history.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon's top spokesman, said in a statement that the troops were requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. The 1,000 troops, an Infantry Battalion Task Force formed from the XVIII Airborne Corps, are from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units from Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

"These soldiers are assembling and moving to the affected areas within the next 24 hours, and will join other service members from the Department of Defense who are already supporting FEMA's response to Hurricane Helene," Ryder said in the statement.

[...]

Listen to article now
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/10/02/1000-active-duty-soldiers-called-assist-hurricane-helene-response.html?ESRC=eb_241003.nl&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eb&utm_campaign=20241003

[BullNBear52]

Before the floods, Asheville was called a ‘climate haven.’ Is anywhere safe?
As climate change leads to more severe hurricanes, mountain communities like Asheville, N.C., face growing flood danger.

The downtown skyline is viewed on a sunny autumn day in October 2016 near Asheville, N.C. Often called a climate haven, Asheville's resiliency is being reconsidered. (George Rose/Getty Images)
By Shannon Osaka and Sarah Kaplan
October 1, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. EDT
Asheville, N.C., seemed like an ideal place to escape the worst effects of global warming. In recent years, media outlets and real estate agents named the city a “climate haven” because of its cooler-than-normal temperatures in the South and a location far inland from the flooding-pummeled coasts. Last year, the Asheville Citizen Times reported on worries that the city would become overcrowded from climate-change migration.

Ask your climate questions. With the help of generative Al, we'll try to deliver answers based on our published reporting.
Then, the flooding came. In some areas of western North Carolina, four to five months of rain fell in less than three days. More than 40 people have died in Buncombe County, where Asheville is the county seat, as homes, businesses, roads and livelihoods were swept away in the rising waters of Hurricane Helene.

The floods illuminate two truths about a world transformed by global warming, experts say. It is unlikely that any places will be truly safe from climate change — and even high-elevation, inland areas are vulnerable to drowning in a world where planetary warming is fueling heavier rains.


Debris is seen in the aftermath of Helene on Monday in Asheville. (Mike Stewart/AP)
It is a law of physics that, for every degree Celsius increase in temperature, air is able to hold 7 percent more water vapor. This phenomenon increases the moisture available for storms, making individual events wetter than they otherwise would be and increasing the risk of unprecedented rain.

The United States and countries around the globe are already experiencing what could lie in store. Last year, areas of Vermont were deluged by devastating rains that would have been exceedingly rare in an unchanged climate. This summer, a town in southern New Mexico was struck by eight floods in four weeks, after wildfires destroyed vegetation and subsequent rain funneled directly into neighborhoods. And just a few weeks ago, floods and heavy rain surged over Central Europe.

🌱
Follow Climate & environment

Follow
Although some have called this age the “Pyrocene,” because of growing wildfires, scientists also emphasize the world is heading toward a watery future of surging oceans and worsening floods.

“What happened in western North Carolina really speaks to the challenge of atmospheric warming generating heavier rainfall,” said Nicolas Zegre, director of the Mountain Hydrology Lab at West Virginia University. “That is a tremendous amount of water that has nowhere to go.”

Two preliminary analyses released Monday suggested that climate change contributed to Helene’s catastrophic rains. One study, led by Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, found the precipitation in Georgia and the Carolinas — which in some places exceeded 30 inches in three days — was made up to 20 times more likely because of human-caused warming. A second study, from European researchers, found that tropical cyclones like Helene are 20 percent wetter than they would have been in a world without climate change.

Although neither analysis has been formally published in a journal, both utilized well-established, peer-reviewed techniques to detect warming’s influence on the storm.

Climate change is also shifting the behavior of hurricanes, research suggests, by heating up the oceans where they form. Elevated water temperatures provide more fuel for tropical cyclones, helping them to become more intense. This, in turn, allows the storms to linger longer over land, where they can cause more damage.

Hurricanes used to lose 75 percent of their intensity in the first day after making landfall, but a 2020 study in the journal Nature found they now decay by about 50 percent. “As the world continues to warm,” wrote the Japan-based researchers, “the destructive power of hurricanes will extend progressively farther inland.”

While scientists say that changes in flooding are more difficult to link to climate change than changes in precipitation — partly because it also depends on the moisture of the soil before an extreme rain event, and the local infrastructure’s ability to funnel away water — intense rainfall is likely to spur changes in flooding across the country.

According to a study by Stanford University researchers, around one-third of flood damages in the United States between 1988 and 2017 were spurred by changes in extreme precipitation — which in turn, were made more likely by climate change.

The danger is especially acute in mountainous areas like Appalachia, where steep topography and shallow soils inhibit the absorption of rainfall. “There’s really nowhere for water to go except down slope,” said West Virginia University’s Zegre.

Unfortunately, he added, that means water runs off into narrow valleys and secluded hollers where many homes and businesses lie.

That reality became evident this past weekend, as Helene turned roads into rivers and inundated downtowns throughout western North Carolina. In Asheville’s River Arts District, brown floodwaters reached the roofs of eclectic galleries and trendy craft breweries. The central streets of Boone were transfigured by water and mud. In the small, working-class enclave of Swannanoa, entire homes had been washed away in the storm.

Yet experts said that federal flood maps often underestimate the risks faced by inland communities. According to a 2020 report by the First Street Foundation, areas of Appalachia rank near the top of zones with “hidden flood risks” — that is, areas where the Federal Emergency Management Agency underestimates the risks of a severe flood. The foundation calculated that 18 percent of the county’s properties were at risk of flooding, compared with 2 percent calculated by federal officials.

“People associate hurricane risks with coastal areas,” said Frances Davenport, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Colorado State University. “But they represent a really large amount of inland coastal flooding in the United States.”

According to the National Hurricane Center, more than half of the hurricane deaths that occurred between 2013 and 2022 could be attributed to freshwater flooding from rainfall, rather than storm surges by the coast.

Other areas at high risk of inland flooding include the Pacific Northwest, areas of Pennsylvania and Upstate New York, and some Midwestern states like Iowa and Wisconsin, according to the First Street Foundation report.

Mohammed Ombadi, a hydroclimatologist at the University of Michigan, noted that mountainous areas are at particularly high risk for flash floods — sudden surges of water that often catch people off-guard. When water is accelerated downhill, it can turn gentle creeks into deadly torrents within hours.

These events can be difficult to forecast, Ombadi said, but his research suggests that mountain communities become more flood-prone if they experienced rainfall in the days and weeks before an extreme precipitation event.

“If it’s just enough to make soil moisture conditions a little bit higher, that would increase the risk of flooding significantly,” he said.

In the days before Helene made landfall, its moisture was sucked into a front that ran ahead of the hurricane, swamping the U.S. Southeast before the main storm arrived. This kind of “predecessor rain event” is associated with high-intensity hurricanes, studies suggest — meaning that it could become more common as warming oceans give rise to more and more severe storms.

Yet even as flood dangers grow, many Americans are moving into risky areas like Buncombe County. An analysis by Redfin showed that flood- and fire-prone counties gained thousands of residents last year, even as safer counties lost residents. While more Americans are becoming aware that climate change is affecting their homes, the push to find affordable housing and amenities is still stronger than any concerns about natural disasters.

Sometimes, that development puts even more people in harm’s way.

Jesse Keenan, a professor of sustainable real estate and urban planning at Tulane University in New Orleans, says that Asheville has seen people moving in from more coastal areas of North Carolina.

“There’s no such thing as a climate haven,” Keenan said. “There are ‘sending zones’ and there are ‘receiving zones.’ And Asheville is no doubt becoming — and has already been — a receiving zone.”

Even with the catastrophic floods, Keenan predicted, the region could attract more people. As the area begins to rebuild, he expects wealthy developers and families to move in, seizing an opportunity to buy up cheap land. “Wealthy people come in and buy up land after disasters,” he said. “This disaster will actually fuel development.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/10/01/asheville-climate-haven-flooding-hurricane/

[BOREALIS]

Climate Change...
From the unique vantage point in space, NASA collects critical long-term observations of our changing planet.

Using five decades of satellite, airborne, ground, and space-station based observations, NASA-funded researchers are working to understand Earth's evolving, interconnected systems and to decipher natural and human-caused changes.
Those space-based views are supplemented by cutting-edge modeling tools, new technologies for observation, and hundreds of scientists and engineers. “NASA is committed to empowering scientists, decisionmakers, and people around the world to make data-based decisions when it comes to climate," says NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

Visit NASA's Global Climate Change website https://climate.nasa.gov/

NASA's leading climate change website provides accurate, accessible, and actionable information about our rapidly changing climate, from the global perspective of NASA. Visit the website.

Recent NASA Climate News Highlights

[...]

https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/

[BOREALIS]

List of snowiest places in the United States by state

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The list of snowiest places in the United States by state shows average annual snowfall totals for the period from mid-1985 to mid-2015.
Only places in the official climate database of the National Weather Service, a service of NOAA, are included in this list. Some ski resorts and unofficial weather stations report higher amounts of snowfall than places on this list. Official weather stations are usually located in populated places and snowfall statistics for isolated and unpopulated areas are often not recorded.

Mount Rainier and Mount Baker in Washington are the snowiest places in the United States which have weather stations, receiving 645 inches (1,640 cm) annually on average. By comparison, the populated place with the highest snowfall in the world is believed to be Sukayu Onsen in the Siberian-facing Japanese Alps. Sukayu Onsen receives 694.5 inches (1,764 cm) (nearly 58 feet) of snow annually. Nearby mountain slopes may receive even more.[1]

The amount of snow received at weather stations varies substantially from year to year. For example, the annual snowfall at Paradise Ranger Station in Mount Rainier National Park has been as little as 266 inches (680 cm) in 2014-2015 and as much as 1,122 inches (2,850 cm) in 1971–1972.[2]

Weather stations with highest snowfall in the United States by state, 1985-2015
GRAPHICS:
[...]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_snowiest_places_in_the_United_States_by_state

[BOREALIS]

‘Pandemic of snow’ in Anchorage sets a record for the earliest arrival of 100 inches of snow

The city is well on track to break its record of 134.5 inches.


People pose in front of Snowzilla, a snowman measuring more than 20 feet tall in Anchorage, Alaska, on Jan. 10.Mark Thiessen / AP

Jan. 30, 2024, 3:12 AM CST / Source: The Associated Press
By The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Even by Alaska standards, there’s a lot of snow this winter.

So much snow has fallen — so far, more than 8.5 feet— that roofs on commercial buildings are collapsing around Anchorage and officials are urging residents to break out their shovels to avoid a similar fate at home. Over the weekend, there was nearly 16 more inches of snowfall, pushing Alaska’s largest city past the 100-inch mark earlier than at any other time in its history.

The city is well on track to break its all-time record of 134.5 inches.

Now, even winter-savvy Anchorage residents are getting fed up with the snow-filled streets and sidewalks, constant shoveling and six days of pandemic-era remote learning. It’s already in the record books with this year’s snowfall, at eighth snowiest with a lot of time left this season.

“It’s miserable,” said Tamera Flores, an elementary school teacher shoveling her driveway on Monday, as the snow pile towered over her head. “It’s a pandemic of snow.”

Last year, 107.9 inches fell on Anchorage, making this only the second time the city has had back-to-back years of 100-plus inches of snow since the winters of 1954-55 and 1955-56.

This year, the roofs of three commercial structures collapsed under loads of heavy snow. Last year, 16 buildings had roofs collapse with one person killed at a gym.

The city last week issued guidance urging people to remove snow from their home roofs. Officials said there were snow loads of more than 30 pounds per square foot.

“That is a lot of weight,” the notice said. It gave the example of a home with 1,500 square feet of roof with 30 pounds per square foot of snow, which would be supporting about 45,000 pounds, or “about 8 full size light duty pickup trucks.”

Since it’s so early in the season, people should think about removing the snow, especially if there are signs of structural distress. These include a sagging roof; creaking, popping, cracking or other strange noises coming from the roof, which can indicate its under stress from the snow; or sticking or jammed doors and windows, a sign the snow might be deforming the structure of the house.

Signs have popped up all over town from companies advertising services to remove the snow from roofs.

Some fun has come from a whole lot of snow.

The deluge of snowfall this year prompted one Anchorage homeowner to erect a three-tiered snowman standing over 20-feet-tall. Snowzilla, as it’s named, has drawn people to snap photos.

Last week, Anchorage had below zero temperatures overnight for seven days, and it only snowed after it warmed up Sunday.

But Anchorage residents may not be able to hold on to the old adage that it’s too cold to snow.

Sunday’s storm was the first time since 1916 that over an inch of snow fell in Anchorage when temperatures were 2 degrees or colder, said Kenna Mitchell, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

And a return to bitter cold is likely what’s on tap later this week. An upper level high pressure system could move back in, dropping temperatures back to below zero at night, possible into the minus 10s.

“This winter is definitely rough, but us Alaskans are definitely built different,” resident Damon Fitts said as he shoveled the driveway at his residence.

“We can handle 100 inches of snow and still make it to work on time,” he said. “We can put up with a lot.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pandemic-snow-anchorage-sets-record-earliest-arrival-100-inches-snow-rcna136311

[12yearplan]

[BullNBear52]

The guy pushing the Camaro uphill should have left it in the garage. That rear wheel car ain't going anywhere in the snow.

[BOREALIS]

More than 60 million people under winter weather alerts as snow and ice still blanket much of the U.S.

Dangerously cold and icy conditions continue to pose risks, including in Portland, Oregon, where three people were killed by a power line downed by the weather.

03:31
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/60-million-americans-winter-weather-alerts-snow-ice-still-blanket-much-rcna134476

Jan. 18, 2024, 10:17 AM CST / Updated Jan. 18, 2024, 6:36 PM CST
By Erin McGarry and David K. Li

At least 66 million people were under winter weather alerts Thursday, as dangerous icy conditions continued to pose risks — including in Oregon, where three people were killed by a falling power line.

While temperatures won't be as frigid Thursday as in recent days in much of the United States, snow and ice posed challenges for millions who are stepping outside.

Chicagoans could see up to 4 inches of snow when it starts falling Thursday afternoon and into Friday morning's rush hour.

Freezing rain could make for treacherous driving conditions in Memphis and Nashville in Tennessee.
Light to moderate snowfall could begin in much of the mid-Atlantic on Thursday with as much as 5 inches hitting Philadelphia, perhaps 4 inches coming down on New York City and 2 inches hitting Boston by the end of Saturday.

At least 14 people have died in Tennessee in recent days due to the snow and plummeting temperatures, officials said.

Since Sunday, more than 9 inches of snow have fallen on Nashville where public schools remained closed on Thursday and will be again on Friday.

The continuing snow in western New York forced Tops Friendly Markets to close its Erie County stores at 4 p.m. Wednesday. The area’s major supermarket chain reopened at 6 a.m. Thursday.

“It’s our priority to ensure a safe environment for our associates and customers, and we thank the community for their support and understanding,” the company said in a statement Thursday.

In Kansas, Interstate 70 westbound at Hays was closed Thursday due to the weather.

"High winds and blowing snow is creating black ice making it extremely dangerous to drive, and we are getting overwhelmed with crashes and slide offs," a spokesman for the Kansas Highway Patrol said on X.

A look at I-70 in Trego County. Very dangerous driving conditions!


Freezing rain and snow slammed the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday and public schools in Portland, Oregon, remained closed Thursday.

Portland firefighters urged residents to pay special attention to trees and power lines where accumulation of snow and ice threaten to bring them down — and potentially lead to tragedy.

A power line fell Wednesday on a SUV Wednesday, killing three people when they got out of the vehicle and touched the ground, Portland firefighters said. A baby was rescued by a bystander and unharmed.

"If you do go outside in the next few days, including to a park or natural area, please be aware of your surroundings, and check around you for any downed power lines or hanging branches," the city told residents.

A power line fell Wednesday on a SUV Wednesday, killing three people when they got out of the vehicle and touched the ground, Portland firefighters said. A baby was rescued by a bystander and unharmed.

"If you do go outside in the next few days, including to a park or natural area, please be aware of your surroundings, and check around you for any downed power lines or hanging branches," the city told residents.

GRAPHICS Wintry weather
This map shows the relative severity and potential disruptive impact of winter weather in the next 24 hours.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/60-million-americans-winter-weather-alerts-snow-ice-still-blanket-much-rcna134476


Notes: Data current as of Jan. 18, 7:20 p.m. ET. This map updates every two hours.
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/wssi/wssi.php

[BOREALIS]

AP Photos: This is what it looks like as winter blasts the US into a deep freeze

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 3:31 PM CST, January 17, 2024

Winter turned its icy glare on the U.S. this week, blanketing cities and states from east to west with snow and sending temperatures into an Arctic spiral.

In Buffalo, New York, residents trekked through at least 18 inches of new snow that fell on top of the three feet that had arrived over the weekend. Heavy lake-effect snow shut down city hall, canceled school in several districts and led to travel bans across multiple suburbs.


Footprints appear on a residential street after at least 18 inches of new snow fell overnight - on top of the three feet that arrived over the weekend in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Thompson)


An elderly man warms his hands by the fire he created across the street from a homeless encampment under a major interstate freeway Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)


A motorist is pushed through the snow Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. A snowstorm blanketed the area with up to eight inches of snow and frigid temperatures. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)


Ken Whitehead clears the sidewalk outside Blues City Cafe as snow falls on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024 in Memphis, Tenn. (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian via AP)


Graphic designer Emily Brewer shovels out her driveway in order to drive to work in Sioux City, Iowa, early on Friday, Jan. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)


Ice forms on a truck's wheel as temperatures dropped below freezing, Monday, Jan. 15, 2024, in Conroe, Texas. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)


Silvestre, 6, of Washington, sleds over a snow bump on the hill at the U.S. Capitol, as schools are closed due to a winter storm, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

[...]

https://apnews.com/article/united-states-winter-weather-photo-gallery-cfcf2bc41af9e55fc5ea75baf5269a5b

[BOREALIS]

September sizzled to records and was so much warmer than average scientists call it ‘mind-blowing’

By SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated 9:23 PM CDT, October 4, 2023

After a summer of record-smashing heat, warming somehow got even worse in September as Earth set a new mark for how far above normal temperatures were, the European climate agency reported Thursday.
https://apnews.com/article/un-hottest-summer-climate-change-b7c7936070952da781af01288607b1f1
https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment

Last month’s average temperature was 0.93 degrees Celsius (1.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1991-2020 average for September. That’s the warmest margin above average for a month in 83 years of records kept by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“It’s just mind-blowing really,” said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo. “Never seen anything like that in any month in our records.”

While July and August had hotter raw temperatures because they are warmer months on the calendar, September had what scientists call the biggest anomaly, or departure from normal. Temperature anomalies are crucial pieces of data in a warming world.

“This is not a fancy weather statistic,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said in an email. “It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. It destroys assets, infrastructure, harvest.”

Copernicus calculated that the average temperature for September was 16.38 degrees Celsius (61.48 degrees Fahrenheit), which broke the old record set in September 2020 by a whopping half-degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s a huge margin in climate records.

The hot temperatures stretched across the globe but they were chiefly driven by persistent and unusual warmth in the world’s oceans, which didn’t cool off as much in September as normal and have been record hot since spring, said Buontempo.

Earth is on track for its hottest year on record, about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, according to Samantha Burgess, Copernicus’ deputy director.

This past September was 1.75 degrees Celsius (3.15 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the mid-1800s, Copernicus reported. The world agreed in 2015 to try to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial times.

The global threshold goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is for long-term temperature averages, not a single month or year. But scientists still expressed grave concern at the records being set.

“What we’re seeing right now is the backdrop of rapid global warming at a pace that the Earth has not seen in eons coupled with El Nino, natural climate cycle” that’s a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide, said U.S. climate scientist Jessica Moerman, who is also president of the Evangelical Environmental Network. “This double whammy together is where things get dangerous.”

Though El Nino is playing a part, climate change has a bigger footprint in this warmth, Buontempo said.

“There really is no end in sight given new oil and gas reserves are still being opened for exploitation,” Otto said. “If you have more record hot events, there is no respite for humans and nature, no time to recover.”

Buontempo said El Nino is likely to get warmer and cause even higher temperatures next year.

“This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
___

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate

https://apnews.com/article/record-hot-climate-change-el-nino-copernicus-1d80d23b98efd62d20b79f83619dfb82

--------------------------------------------------

SEARCH: Absolutely Gobsmackingly Bananas
https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Absolutely+Gobsmackingly+Bananas&qpvt=absolutely+gobsmackingly+bananas&FORM=EWRE

[BOREALIS]

How climate change is impacting sports around the world

Your favorite golf tournament or that long-awaited soccer match may look a bit different in the future

Devika Rao
By Devika Rao
published 14 hours ago

“From the greenhouse gases emitted from transporting equipment, athletes and fans all over the world," Euronews reported, "to the harm done to ecosystems by venue construction, high-density events and poor waste management,” it's clear that the athletic sector has played a role in the worsening climate crisis. .. https://theweek.com/climate-change/1018375/what-happens-if-we-dont-meet-our-climate-goals
In turn, however, climate change is making it more difficult for athletes worldwide to partake in their favorite sports, as rising temperatures complicate the games they know and love.
]
Skiing and snowboarding

Winter sports in particular, like skiing and snowboarding, are feeling the climate change-induced heat. One French ski resort had to close permanently due to a lack of snow, CNN reported, and more will likely follow suit.

Many resorts already rely on artificial snow to keep things running. However, “the whole idea that ski resorts could continue to operate as they currently do, plugging any gaps with artificial snow, is fundamentally flawed,” Luca Albrisi, the lead author of the Clean Outdoor Manifesto, told Wired. To help financially, some resorts have repurposed portions of their land to make it more conducive to non-snow-related activities, like mountain biking. “I would say the next years will be a boom for mountain bike parks, especially for all the ski areas under 1,500 meters,” industry insider Felix Saller told the outlet.

Track and field

Outdoor summer sports are also in for a rude awakening. A number of track and field events take place outside, which could pose a health risk for athletes in the event of extreme heat. “We have a challenge everywhere we look. The welfare of the athletes for me always needs to be primary," Sebastian Coe, president of the governing body World Athletics, told Reuters. "It's not beyond the wisdom of all of us to figure this out. But this is a challenge that isn't going to go away.”

During the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, “marathon and race-walking events were moved 800 kilometers north” due to high temperatures, Reuters wrote. To prepare for the heat, athletes turned to ice vests and acclimated themselves in saunas. “Constituent groups like sport are going to have to figure this out for themselves, because I don't think we can rely on governments to remotely get to grips with what is going to be a massive shift in reality in the next few years,” Coe remarked.

Soccer

The 2022 FIFA World Cup faced backlash over its environmental impact as well as human rights concerns in host country Qatar. That year's was also the first World Cup to be held at the end of fall, rather than during the summer, because of intense heat. “Rising sea levels, intensified heat waves, increased risk of megafires, floods and deteriorating air quality all pose major threats to both amateur and professional soccer,” Thomas Deshayes and Paquito Bernard wrote for The Conversation last year.

The biggest concerns for the sport are low air quality and heat; however, infrastructure destruction due to drought and wildfires is also cause for concern. “Since it is estimated that these conditions will become more frequent in the near future … it is possible to estimate a greater number of postponements and cancellations of practices and games,” the pair wrote.

Golf

Golf courses, which notably require a controversial amount of water for maintenance, are also falling victim to the global environmental crisis: A climate change-induced rise in sea levels is eroding the coastlines where many iconic courses are located. “Some of our most historic, famous and revered golf courses are at risk, and it is something every coastal course needs to think hard about,” Tim Lobb, the president of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects, told The New York Times.

“We are feeling it now with increases in unplayable holes, winter course closures and disruption to professional tournaments,” Steve Isaac, then with golf governing body R&A, told Phys. org in 2018. One of Scotland’s oldest courses — St. Andrews — is actively at risk. “We will help to protect golf courses if we do the right things to protect the environment and mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change,” Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, told the Times.

https://theweek.com/environment/climate-change-impacting-sports

[12yearplan]

Without its ice cooling the planet, Antarctica could transform from Earth's refrigerator to a radiator, experts say.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66724246
 
Antarctic sea-ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts

[12yearplan]

“The planetary boundaries concept is a heroic attempt to simplify the world, but it is probably too simplified to be of use in practically managing Earth,” he continued. “For example, the damage and suffering from limiting global heating to 1.6C using pro-development policies and major investments in adapting to climate change would be vastly less than the damage and suffering from limiting warming to 1.5C but doing this using policies that help the wealthy and disregard the poor. But the concept does work as a science-led parable of our times.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/earth-well-outside-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-scientists-find

[BOREALIS]

From Europe to Canada to Hawaii, photos capture destructive power of wildfires

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 8:12 PM CDT, August 23, 2023

The destructive power of wildfire has been a defining feature of a summer of climate extremes.

Dozens of people on multiple continents have died. Blazes have reduced homes and businesses to rubble. Thick smoke has darkened skies and carried fine-particle pollution thousands of miles from its source.

It’s a ghastly pattern that climate scientists around the world say has been worsened and fueled by human-caused global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions have greatly increased the chances of hot, dry weather that makes severe fires more likely. And while proper management can help — for instance, controlled burns and clearing out overgrown forests — it’s not always enough to beat the odds as climate change drives fire seasons to start earlier and last longer.


Local residents watch the wildfire in Avantas village, near Alexandroupolis town, in the northeastern Evros region, Greece, Aug. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Achilleas Chiras)


Smoke from a wildfire on the outskirts of the Greek capital covers the sun as it sets over the Parthenon temple atop of the ancient Acropolis in Athens, Aug. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)


President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden take an aerial tour on Marine One over areas devastated by the Maui wildfires, Aug. 21, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


Crosses honoring victims killed in a recent wildfire are posted along the Lahaina Bypass in Lahaina, Hawaii, Aug. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)


Residents try to clean the forest to prevent it from flames as fire advances in La Orotava in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)


Residents try to reach their houses in Benijos village as a wildfire advances in La Orotava in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Aug. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)


Residents try to reach their houses in Benijos village as police block the area as a wildfire advances in La Orotava in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain on Aug. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)

[...]

https://apnews.com/article/photography-wildfires-climate-fire-greece-hawaii-spain-canada-22266a7cc68dd98c8753a8fe8b72c109

[BOREALIS]

Environment and Climate Change

Effective April 1, 2023: the Departments of Lands and Environment and Natural Resources have merged into one.

https://www.gov.nt.ca/ecc/en/services/wildfire-update

[BOREALIS]

Raging wildfires and extreme weather are devastating communities across the globe

Across the globe, raging wildfires and extreme weather are taking a toll as the people on fire-ravaged Hawaiian island of Maui begin to grapple with the death and destruction.


A general view shows the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

By The Associated Press
Updated 2:14 PM CDT, August 17, 2023

An out-of-control wildfire on the Spanish Canary island of Tenerife has burned thousands of acres .. https://apnews.com/article/spain-wildfires-tenerife-62c6c843d82adc325bdf5b92033afced .. and nearly 8,000 people were evacuated or confined. Regional President Fernando Clavijo said 250 firefighters and members of the Spanish army are tackling flames on the key tourist destination. Clavijo said the fire, which occurred in extremely hot temperatures, had a nearly 30-kilometer-long (19-mile) perimeter.

Here’s what else is happening related to extreme weather and the climate right now:

—-In Canada, residents of the Northwest Territories’ capital began fleeing an approaching wildfire Thursday .. https://apnews.com/article/canada-wildfires-northwest-territories-ca509a053f45f3797b93286f94d6b198 .. in long convoys while air evacuations were underway — the latest chapter in Canada’s worst fire season. The fire was within 16 kilometers (10 miles) of the northern edge of Yellowknife. Although some rain was forecast for the region, first responders were taking no chances.
—-In Hawaii, the governor vowed to block land grabs by developers seeking to exploit residents who were burned out by the fires that leveled the historic Maui town of Lahaina, report Bobby Caina Calvan, Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Christopher Webber.

With it’s floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and wildfires, Hawaii is increasingly under siege .. https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-wildfires-recovery-maui-lahaina-land-c8cfcacd2e63bdcd66ec13f2963cea8e .. from disasters, especially wildfires, report Seth Borenstein, Mary Katherine Wildeman and Bobby Caina Calvan. And as residents reel from the most recent one, many are dealing with mental health issues, reports Claire Rush.
—-In Northern California, wind-whipped wildfires near the California-Oregon border forced evacuations Wednesday after gusty winds from a thunderstorm sent a lightning-sparked wildfire racing through Klamath National Forest.
—-In the Baja California region, Hurricane Hilary formed off Mexico’s Pacific coast Thursday, and forecasters said it could bring heavy rain to the U.S. Southwest by the weekend.

QUOTABLE:

“My intention from start to finish is to make sure that no one is victimized from a land grab.” — Hawaii Gov. Josh Green in the aftermath of deadly and destructive Maui wildfires. “People are right now traumatized. Please do not approach them with an offer to buy their land.

https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-spain-wildfires-hurricane-mexico-extreme-weather-b0db40cd74f5341abbcd98d84448b6c3

[12yearplan]

.. and the super rich/right wing lobby keeps (effectively) resisting the necessary changes;
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/11/super-rich-pollution-earth-climate-crisis

[BullNBear52]

What We Know About the Wildfires in Hawaii
The fire has been contained, but access to the islands is limited, and as the focus turns to search efforts, the death toll could rise.


Much of Lahaina was destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire in western Maui, Hawaii.Credit...Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Adeel Hassan
Published Aug. 10, 2023
Updated Aug. 11, 2023, 3:47 a.m. ET

A summer of ferocious weather across much of the United States reached the country’s most remote state on Wednesday, 2,500 miles off the West Coast, in Hawaii.

What began at the start of the week as scattered brush fires on the state’s biggest islands, Hawaii and Maui, turned deadly by midweek. By Thursday, at least 55 people had been confirmed dead in the nation’s most lethal wildfire since the Camp fire in California killed 85 people in 2018.

The rapid spread of the flames caught state officials and residents by surprise.

The death toll is likely to rise.
Firefighters continued to battle flare-ups on Thursday, but the fires have been largely contained, officials said. The fires were still generating smoke and ash.

Thousands of residents and tourists have been evacuated, and U.S. Army personnel were conducting search-and-recovery efforts on Thursday, Maui County officials said. There are still many road closures on Maui and the island of Hawaii.

The death toll could rise as rescuers travel to parts of the state that have been blocked by fires or road closures. Dozens of people have also been injured, some of them critically.

“In 1960, we had 61 fatalities when a large wave came through the Big Island,” Gov. Josh Green said on Thursday in an interview with CNN, referring to the island of Hawaii. “This time, it’s very likely that our death totals will significantly exceed that.”

About 1,500 tourists were expected to leave Maui on Thursday, joining the 11,000 people who had already been evacuated. Officials strongly discouraged new arrivals.

What caused the fire?
Brush fires had already ignited on Maui and the island of Hawaii by Tuesday. Those fires were stoked on Wednesday by a combination of low humidity and strong mountain winds, brought by Hurricane Dora, a Category 4 storm that was moving hundreds of miles to the south across the Pacific Ocean. What initially ignited the brush fires is unknown.

Worsening drought conditions in recent weeks probably also contributed to the fire. Nearly 16 percent of Maui County was in a severe drought on Tuesday, an uptick from about 5 percent the week before, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

On Maui on Tuesday, some schools and tourist attractions were closed, and several thousand residents lost power — and were still without it as of Thursday night. The brush fires had also led to some earlier evacuations on Maui and the island of Hawaii, some of which have been lifted.

The town of Lahaina suffered the most damage.
The fires were most intense along the western coast of Maui, where there was no power, phone or cell service on Thursday morning. That side of the island is generally drier and receives less rain.

Lahaina, a coastal town of 12,000 that was once the royal capital of Hawaii, was leveled, and some residents there ran into the ocean to avoid the heat and flames. They were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard. Survivors described fleeing for their lives from a fast-moving “total inferno.”

Mayor Richard Bissen of Maui County said on Wednesday that 1,000 acres had burned, and Governor Green said 1,700 buildings had been destroyed. There has been no word on when residents of Lahaina will be able to return to their homes.

Wildfires in the state are getting worse.
The area burned annually by wildfires in Hawaii has quadrupled in recent decades. Declining rainfall and rising temperatures have left the islands more susceptible to blazes, climatologists say.

Invasive grasses that are highly flammable have crowded out native vegetation in some areas, and climate change has exacerbated dry and hot conditions in the state, allowing wildfires to spread more quickly.

What’s next?
The state should be out of immediate danger now, with Hurricane Dora moving farther away. The winds are expected to slow on Friday and remain that way into early next week, according to the National Weather Service.

Governor Green, who had been traveling out of the state since the end of July, toured Maui on Thursday. In a short video on social media, he said the destruction was extraordinary and that well over 1,000 buildings had been destroyed.

While officials are focused on rescue operations and protecting property, an investigation on the exact causes of the disaster is likely to begin soon.

“We are still in life preservation mode,” Adam Weintraub, a spokesman for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said on Thursday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/us/maui-wildfires-hawaii.html

[BOREALIS]

A ‘once every 7.5 million years’ event is currently unfolding in Antarctica:
‘To say unprecedented isn’t strong enough’

Story by Laurelle Stelle •
4h


Currently winter in Antarctica
© Provided by The Cool Down

In the past eight years, sea ice in Antarctica has reached a new record low four times, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports. ..
"Antarctic sea ice levels dive in 'five-sigma event', as experts flag worsening consequences for planet"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-24/antarctic-sea-ice-levels-nosedive-five-sigma-event/102635204

The first three times, ice levels that have dropped in the summer have rebounded in the winter.

But this year — during what is currently winter in Antarctica — scientists have confirmed that the ice is not re-forming, leaving long stretches of the Antarctic coastline bare.

What’s happening?

According to physical oceanographer Edward Doddridge, this is the first time an event like this has been observed, the ABC reports — and it’s extremely unlikely to have happened on its own.

“To say unprecedented isn’t strong enough,” Doddridge told the ABC. “This is a five-sigma event. … Which means that if nothing had changed, we’d expect to see a winter like this about once every 7.5 million years. … There are people saying it could be natural variability … but it’s very unlikely.”

According to Doddridge and others, the most likely cause is human activity. People create air pollution through activities like burning fuel, and that pollution traps heat on our planet, heating up the atmosphere and the ocean. Some combination of warmer water and higher-energy weather patterns is likely what’s melting the ice, scientists told the ABC.

video
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/weather/scientists-no-quick-fix-for-antarctic-sea-ice-loss/vi-AA1eZHMY?ocid=msedgdhp&t=47

Why does the loss of Antarctic ice matter?

Polar ice is a major factor in the Earth’s “albedo,” which is the amount of light reflected from the surface instead of being absorbed. When there’s more ice, the planet’s albedo is higher, and the sun doesn’t warm it as quickly. When ice melts, the planet starts absorbing more heat.

This also creates “ice-albedo feedback,” the ABC says — a vicious cycle in which melting ice makes the ocean heat up faster, causing even more ice to melt. If too much of the polar ice is lost, it could reach a tipping point that will lead to the Earth heating up much more quickly.

Petra Heil, a sea ice physicist from the Australian Antarctic Division, told the ABC, “We might end up in a new state. That would be quite concerning to the sustainability of human conditions on Earth, I suspect.”

A much hotter environment has frightening implications for human health. It could also destroy the fish we rely on for food, the farmland where we grow crops, and the rainforests we need for oxygen.

What can be done about the vanishing ice?

The best hope for the planet is to stop the runaway air pollution causing our planet to heat up. However, it needs to happen quickly.

“I think a lot of people have the time line too long out, saying this won’t affect them,” Heil told the ABC. “I’m pretty convinced that this is something my generation will experience.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/a-once-every-7-5-million-years-event-is-currently-unfolding-in-antarctica-to-say-unprecedented-isn-t-strong-enough/ar-AA1f6rP5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=1c80635c69214932b661f5618582413b&ei=13

[12yearplan]

It was nice knowing you all..

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/29/something-weird-is-going-on-search-for-answers-as-antarctic-sea-ice-stays-at-historic-lows

[BullNBear52]

WEATHER AND NATURAL DISASTERS
South Florida records ocean temperature of over 101 degrees Fahrenheit, potentially a record
PUBLISHED TUE, JUL 25 20233:10 PM EDT
thumbnail
Catherine Clifford

KEY POINTS
A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded an ocean temperature on a buoy at Manatee Bay, Florida, of over 101 degrees on Monday.
It’s one of the hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded, but it’s unclear whether it will be considered a record because the measurement came in a murky part of the ocean.
Record-high temperatures in Florida oceans threaten the coral reef.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/25/florida-ocean-temp-tops-over-101-degrees-fahrenheit-possible-record.html

Who needs a hot tub?

[BOREALIS]

Sick of hearing about record heat?
Scientists say those numbers paint the story of a warming world

BY SETH BORENSTEIN
Published 3:46 AM CDT, July 22, 2023


A man walks across an almost dried up bed of river Yumana amid hot weather in New Dehli, India, May 2, 2022

The summer of 2023 is behaving like a broken record about broken records.

Nearly every major climate-tracking organization proclaimed June the hottest June ever. .. https://apnews.com/article/heat-record-temperature-climate-change-el-nino-cb53a97161b0725ef94cae9b53bf1f81
Then July 4 became the globe’s hottest day, albeit unofficially, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer. .. https://apnews.com/article/global-record-breaking-heat-july-27069b5380117534d78f1f40a6edc7a0
It was quickly overtaken by July 5 and July 6. .. https://apnews.com/article/global-heat-record-hottest-climate-change-july-7d55e351fc97f5cd6368bda60ed2bf31
Next came the hottest week, a tad more official, stamped into the books by the World Meteorological Organization and the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

With a summer of extreme weather records dominating the news, meteorologists and scientists say records like these give a glimpse of the big picture: a warming planet caused by climate change.
It’s a picture that comes in the vibrant reds and purples representing heat on daily weather maps online, in newspapers and on television.

Beyond the maps and the numbers are real harms that kill. More than 100 people have died in heat waves in the United States and India so far this summer.

Records are crucial for people designing infrastructure and working in agriculture because they need to plan for the worst scenarios, said Russell Vose, climate analysis group director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He also chairs a committee on national records.

In the past 30 days, nearly 5,000 heat and rainfall records have been broken or tied in the U.S.
and more than 10,000 records set globally, according to NOAA. Texas cities and towns alone have set 369 daily high temperature records since June 1.

Since 2000, the U.S. has set about twice as many records for heat as those for cold.

“Records go back to the late 19th century and we can see that there has been a decade-on-decade increase in temperatures,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, keeper of the agency’s climate records. “What’s happening now is certainly increasing the chances that 2023 will be the warmest year on record. My calculations suggest that there’s, right now, a 50-50 chance.”

The larger the geographic area and the longer stretch of time during which records are set, the more likely the conditions represent climate change rather than daily weather. So the hottest global June is “extremely unlikely” to happen without climate change, as opposed to one city’s daily record, Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said.

Still, some local specifics are striking: Death Valley has flirted this summer with the hottest temperature in modern history, though that 134 degree Fahrenheit (56.7 Celsius ) record is in dispute.

Phoenix grabbed headlines among major U.S. cities on Tuesday when it marked a 19th consecutive day of unrelenting mega heat: 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) or more. It kept going, reaching a 22nd straight day on Friday. The daytime heat was accompanied by a record stretch of nights that never fell below 90 Fahrenheit (32.2 Celsius).

“Everybody’s drawn to extremes,” Vose said. “It’s like the Guinness Book of World Records. Human nature is just drawn to the extreme things out of curiosity.”

But the numbers can be flawed in what they portray.

The scientific community “doesn’t really have the vocabulary to communicate what it feels like,” said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, who co-chaired a groundbreaking United Nations report in 2012 warning of the dangers of extreme weather from climate change.

“I don’t think it captures the human sense, but it really does underscore that we live in a different world,” Field said of the records.

Think of the individual statistics as brush strokes in a painting of the world’s climate, Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald said. Don’t fixate on any specific number.

“The details of course matter, but the thing that really matters, especially for the impressionist painting, is when you step back and take a look at everything that’s happening,” Mahowald said.

She and other climate scientists say long-term warming from burning coal, oil and natural gas is the chief cause of rising temperatures, along with occasional boosts from natural El Nino warmings across parts of the Pacific, like the planet is experiencing this year.

El Nino is a natural temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide and adds an extra warm boost. An El Nino formed in June and scientists say this one looks strong. For the previous three years El Nino’s cool flip side, La Nina, dampened a bit of the heat humans are causing.

A super El Nino spiked global temperatures in 1998, then was followed by less warming and even some flat temperatures for a few years until the next big El Nino, Mahowald said.

Weather won’t worsen each year and that should not become a common expectation, but it will intensify over the long run, she said.

The University of Michigan’s Richard Rood used to blog about climate records for Weather Underground, but in 2014 he got sick of continuously new extremes and stopped.

“I think we need to get away from that sort of record-setting sensationalism at some level and really be getting down to the hard work,” he said, addressing the need for people to adapt to a warmer world and get serious about slashing emissions causing hotter, more extreme weather.

NOAA tracks weather observations from tens of thousands of stations throughout the U.S. and its global calculations incorporate data from more than 100,000 stations, Vose said.

When those records come in, the agency checks their quality and calculates where the numbers fit historically. NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information in North Carolina is the arbiter of national records, while the local National Weather Service offices handle those for individual cities, Vose said.

A special international committee deals with world records and, at times, scientists disagree on the reliability of 100-year-old data. Those disagreements come into play over questions such as determining the hottest temperature recorded on Earth.

Validating records takes time. Because of a backlog of extreme weather events to analyze, officials haven’t finished approving 130 degree Fahrenheit records from 2020 and 2021 at Death Valley, Vose said.

“Our primary job is keeping score, meaning what happened? How unusual was it?” he asked. “It’s not like we take great joy in saying it was the warmest year on record. Again.”

It’s the bigger picture that matters, Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini said.

“Look at them all together in the aggregate sense of the atmospheric orchestra,” Gensini said. “There are so many clear signs that we are just not living in the same type of climate that we were.”
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment

https://apnews.com/article/record-breaking-heat-climate-change-environment-7bcb569321504065cbf2356a34ba8902

[12yearplan]

Carbon capture and release;
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172342732;

[BullNBear52]

Thanks and added your post as a sticky. The temps have moderated to the mid 80s with low humidy.

But the forecast will be back in the 90s with lots of rain but nothing like the floods in the northeast.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/07/11/us/flooding-vermont-ny-new-england

I lived in VT for a couple of years when I was young and the devastation is sad to see.

[BOREALIS]

Minnesota had a few days earlier this summer with temp. in the 90's, but recently near the average high of 83. (Minneapolis-St.Paul) area.

A few days ago we received alot of Canadian smoke, but the air is clear now.

Here's a good site to check the Current Air Quality,

www.airnow.gov
AirNow.gov

AirNow is your one-stop source for air quality data. Our recently redesigned site highlights air quality in your local area first, while still providing air quality information at state, national, and world views.

?? https://www.airnow.gov/?city=Raleigh&state=NC&country=USA

[BOREALIS]

Summer Heat Waves Killed 61,000 in Europe Last Year, Study Says

Researchers suggest that strategies to cope with higher temperatures aren’t keeping pace with global warming.


A firefighter in a parking lot cries and puts one hand on his forehead as great clouds of gray and orange-tinted wildfire smoke billow up in the distance behind him.
Delger Erdenesanaa

Wildfires in northwestern Spain during a heat wave in July 2022. Spain was among the European countries with the highest heat-related death rates last summer.Credit...Emilio Fraile/Europa Press, via Associated Press

By Delger Erdenesanaa
July 10, 2023, 11:00 a.m. ET

More than 61,000 people died because of last year’s brutal summer heat waves across Europe, according to a study published on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02419-z

The findings suggest that two decades of efforts in Europe to adapt to a hotter world have failed to keep up with the pace of global warming.

“In an ideal society, nobody should die because of heat,” said Joan Ballester, a research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and the study’s lead author.

This summer is likely to be even worse: On top of climate change, the Earth has entered a natural El Niño weather pattern during summer for the first time in four years, bringing about conditions that will turn up the heat in many parts of the world.
The season is already shattering various global temperature records. .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/climate/climate-change-record-heat.html

The researchers who studied last year’s heat waves used data collected by the European Union from 35 countries, including some nonmember states.

Most of the people who died were women, especially those older than 80. Among younger people, men died at higher rates. Mediterranean countries, where temperatures were highest at the time, suffered most: Italy, Spain and Portugal had the highest heat-related mortality rates.

------
Latest News on Climate Change and the Environment
Card 1 of 5

Heat records. As an astonishing surge of heat across the globe shattered temperature records from North America to Antarctica, forecasters warned that the Earth[could be entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/climate/climate-change-record-heat.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-climate&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_levelup_swipe_recirc .. driven by continued emissions of heat-trapping gases and the return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern.
-----

Extreme heat had been expected that summer based on how much the planet had warmed overall in the past decade, Dr. Ballester said. When temperatures spiked, many European governments had “heat action plans” ready, developed in response to a more unexpected and deadlier heat wave in 2003, but those adaptations weren’t enough to prevent mass casualties, he said.

As climate change continues, the world can expect more and more deaths from extreme heat, Dr. Ballester added.

The European Union’s statistics office, Eurostat, regularly publishes the number of excess deaths (deaths above the expected average for a given time period) in European countries. Dr. Ballester and his colleagues took the official reports of total excess mortality from June through August 2022 and estimated how many of those deaths could be attributed to heat instead of other unusual factors like the coronavirus.

They used epidemiological models, meaning they matched recent historical temperature trends in different regions of Europe with mortality trends over the same period, to establish numerical relationships between deaths and temperature swings in those areas.

“When there is an up and down of temperature, we always observe an up and down of mortality,” Dr. Ballester said.

His team’s findings echo those of a study done shortly after the 2003 European heat wave, with some of the same collaborators. The earlier research found more than 70,000 excess deaths in Europe during the summer of 2003.

The previous study did not separate heat-related deaths from other excess deaths, so Dr. Ballester cautioned that the two numbers couldn’t be compared directly. The 2003 study also covered only 16 European countries, while the new study covers more than twice as many. When the researchers limited the results of this new modeling to those same 16 countries, they ended up with just over 51,000 heat-related deaths.

The researchers are working on applying the same epidemiological models to the 2003 heat wave to more precisely compare the two years. Barring drastically different numbers after a similar analysis, their results suggest that public policies adopted after 2003 have helped slightly reduce extreme heat’s toll.

In France, the more than 10,000 extra deaths in the summer of 2003 had political consequences .. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/15/world/heat-is-easing-in-europe-but-not-for-leaders-in-france.html .. , including the resignation of the country’s director general for health.
Over the past 20 years, officials there and elsewhere in Europe have invested in early warning systems for extreme heat, public cooling centers, volunteer forces to check on older residents, and better coordination between social services and hospitals.

But the changes throughout Europe haven’t been enough. “It’s a spectrum” across different regions and populations, Dr. Ballester said.

Older people remain highly vulnerable, especially those without access to air-conditioning, and so are people who work outdoors. Older women were likely the worst-off group last summer simply because they live longer than men into the ages when people are most frail and likely to die during intense heat, Dr. Ballester said. He said other researchers have studied the reasons for demographic differences in mortality rates: For example, men tend to have worse health outcomes at younger ages, and some outdoor occupations, like construction, are dominated by men.

This paper did not compare deaths among people of different races or ethnicities, but that’s another important factor in vulnerability to heat, said Juan Declet-Barreto, a senior social scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists who studies the health effects of environmental hazards and wasn’t involved in this study. While Dr. Declet-Barreto is less familiar with demographics in Europe, he said that in the United States people who work outdoors and are more exposed to heat tend to be immigrants of color.

Eurostat does not have a breakdown of excess mortality data by race, ethnicity or immigration status, an agency spokesperson wrote via email. Dr. Ballester and his colleagues recommended in their paper that the countries reporting to Eurostat better coordinate how they collect and share health data, including more demographic breakdowns. This year, the European Parliament proposed a regulation to do just that.

Even without additional demographic information, the study is “very timely” given this summer’s extreme heat, Dr. Declet-Barreto said. He thought the study’s methods seemed sound, given that “there’s a fairly well-known relationship in public health between heat and excess deaths.” He also agreed that comparing the 2022 and 2003 heat waves was helpful for revealing what health and policy interventions are still needed.

Four years ago, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies published a guidebook .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/climate/red-cross-heat-waves.html .. to help city officials respond to heat waves, and its recommendations included changes to homes and physical infrastructure, like improving energy efficiency and ventilation.

Dr. Declet-Barreto said that he and other public health researchers have found that the most important factor in preventing deaths during heat waves is expanding access to air-conditioning.


Learn More About Climate Change

* If you struggle to understand the science behind climate change, let us walk you through the basics.

* What’s causing global warming? How can we fix it? Our F.A.Q. will tackle your climate questions, big and small.

* Replacing all of our polluting machines with electric versions could be the key to fighting climate change. But electrifying almost everything is a formidable task.

* Is carbon capture really an effective counterweight to the overheating planet? Here’s how these technologies work.

* Half the world could soon face dangerous heat. We measured the daily toll it is already taking.

* New data reveals stark disparities in how different U.S. households contribute to climate change. See your neighborhood’s climate impact.

* Wildlife is disappearing around the world as humans take over too much of the planet. Meet some of the animals that are running out of places to live.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/climate/heat-waves-europe-deaths.html

[BullNBear52]

Been in the mid 90s here in NC everyday recently. But it also rains as well so the mowing continues once a week. We really haven't seen a crystal clear blue sky for a while with the fires in Canada. Even on a clear day the sky is hazy.

I try and get the yard work done by noon because of the heat index.

The TX governor is an absolute idiot imo where the temps are over 100.

Texas governor signs bill rescinding water breaks as deadly heat grips state. Amid a dangerous heatwave that has brought blistering temperatures across Texas, the state's governor signed a law this week eliminating local rules requiring water breaks for workers.Jun 24, 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/greg-abbott-texas-governor-bill-water-breaks-heatwave#:~:text=Texas%20governor%20signs%20bill%20rescinding%20water%20breaks%20as%20deadly%20heat%20grips%20state,-Measure%20will%20nullify&text=Amid%20a%20dangerous%20heatwave%20that,requiring%20water%20breaks%20for%20workers.

[BOREALIS]

Tuesday set an unofficial record for the hottest day on Earth. Wednesday may break it.

BY MELINA WALLING AND SETH BORENSTEIN
Published 9:05 PM CDT, July 4, 2023

The planet’s temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in decades and likely centuries, and Wednesday could become the third straight day Earth unofficially marks a record-breaking high.
It’s the latest in a series of climate-change extremes that alarm but don’t surprise scientists.

The globe’s average temperature reached 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a common tool based on satellite data, observations, and computer simulations and used by climate scientists for a glimpse of the world’s condition. On Monday, the average temperature was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (17.01 degrees Celsius), setting a record that lasted only 24 hours.

For scientists, it’s a sweaty case of I-told-you-so.

“A record like this is another piece of evidence for the now massively supported proposition that global warming is pushing us into a hotter future,” said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, who was not part of the calculations.

On Wednesday, 38 million Americans were under some kind of heat alert, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Sarah Kapnick. She said the global heat is from a natural El Nino warming of the Pacific that heats up the planet as it changes worldwide weather on top of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.


MORE CLIMATE COVERAGE

Global sizzling: July was hottest month on record, NOAA says

BY SETH BORENSTEIN
Published 2:21 PM CDT, August 13, 2021

Earth sizzled in July and became the hottest month in 142 years of recordkeeping, U.S. weather officials announced.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/science-environment-and-nature-climate-change-f6cb3a4f7c2ecdb333a4f0fcfb1025f8

-----
2022 was fifth or sixth warmest on record as Earth heats up

BY SETH BORENSTEIN
Published 11:11 AM CDT, January 12, 2023

DENVER (AP) — Earth’s fever persisted last year, not quite spiking to a record high but still in the top five or six warmest on record, government agencies reported Thursday.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/science-weather-us-news-climate-and-environment-af0300e0682b4fa0bdc7f0c039adeb9f
-----

Fever chart: Earth had its hottest decade on record in 2010s

Published 4:09 PM CDT, January 15, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record, two U.S. agencies reported Wednesday. And scientists said they see no end to the way man-made climate change keeps shattering records.

“If you think you’ve heard this story before, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said at the close of a decade plagued by raging wildfires, melting ice and extreme weather that researchers have repeatedly tied to human activity.

Schmidt said Earth as a whole is probably the hottest it has been during the Holocene — the past 11,500 years or so — meaning this could be the warmest period since the dawn of civilization. But scientists’ estimates of ancient global temperatures, based on tree rings, ice cores and other telltale signs, are not precise enough to say that with certainty.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/fires-us-news-ap-top-news-climate-change-science-9ba6b553a63f93ed70aa4405b2cbcf04

https://apnews.com/article/global-record-breaking-heat-july-27069b5380117534d78f1f40a6edc7a0

[BOREALIS]

AP PHOTOS: From NYC’s skyline to Washington DC’s monuments, wildfire haze envelopes familiar sites

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published 5:24 PM CDT, June 7, 2023

As firefighters in Canada battled hundreds of wildfires, the smoke spreading south engulfed New York City, Washington D.C. and beyond in a yellowish haze on Wednesday as people, many wearing masks, passed by familiar landmarks obscured by the smoky fog.

The New York City skyline could barely be seen across the Hudson River from New Jersey, while the Washington Monument and National Mall were enveloped in a rainless gray haze, where at one point a single jogger ran.

The New York Yankees took on the Chicago White Sox Tuesday night in a Yankee Stadium blanketed under a heavy amber pall, but Wednesday’s game was postponed because of the hazardous air quality.

In New York, commuters fished out pandemic-era face masks in the face of the hazardous conditions as masked street vendors did a brisk business selling them to those who had run out.

Haze from northern wildfires obscured the sun Wednesday morning as horsemen rode their mounts towards the track ahead of the Belmont Stakes horse race, scheduled for Saturday.















[...]
https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-haze-canada-new-york-washington-0d24be8f977dc3e43fbbf17e363edfed

[BOREALIS]

Canada Wildfires Are Still Burning—Why and When Will it End?

BY ALEKS PHILLIPS ON 6/30/23 AT 10:18 AM EDT

Canada is already on track to have its worst season for wildfires, with over 20 million acres of forest burned, as a mix of hot and dry conditions is having devastating consequences for wildlife and poses increasing health risks for people in the path of smoke clouds.

The latest official maps as of Friday show the most intense wildfires in Canada are focused in Quebec and western Ontario, as well as in Alberta province, which borders Montana.

In the past day, the danger has also become "extreme" in northern parts of Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

As of June 29, figures from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) show that there were 497 active fires, or which 229—nearly half—were out of control. In the year to date, 8.1 million hectares (about 20 million acres) of land have been burned.

Cities in northeastern U.S. states have been impacted by plumes of smoke descending on southerly winds, reducing visibility and causing the U.S. government to issue alerts for some places.

What Caused Canada's Wildfires?

What makes 2023's wildfire season so remarkable is that the area burned already this year has exceeded the previous record set in 1995, when 7.1 million hectares (17.5 million acres) of land were burned across the entire year.

Canada's wildfire season typically runs from May to October, suggesting the situation could grow worse as 2023 progresses. Meanwhile, NASA said earlier this week that smoke clouds had already made it as far as western Europe.

In recent weeks, northern continental America has seen warm, dry weather with little rain, after a relatively dry winter.

"You have a lot of heat and dryness at this moment in time, which means there's a lot of potential fuel," Mark Maslin, a professor of earth system sciences at University College London (UCL), told Newsweek.

"The other thing is that the forests aren't managed, and therefore all of that fuel—i.e. the dead wood, et cetera—isn't cleared, just because [the forests are] massive," he said. "And so what you have is a stockpile of fuel which can be ignited very easily."

Experts largely agree that the widespread forest blazes, and the conditions that have allowed for them, are another example of extreme weather caused by climate change.
https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-extreme-weather-events-worse-1460125

As the average temperature of the earth warms, more energy is being pushed into the weather system, contributing to greater volatility in the jet stream—a current of air that divides colder atmospheric patterns toward the poles from warmer climes near the tropics.

This makes it shift further northward and southward than usual, precipitating freak hot weather events in area closer to the poles than historically expected, such as 2022's heatwaves in Europe, .. https://www.newsweek.com/wildfires-europe-weather-heatwave-temperature-france-spain-portugal-uk-footage-videos-1725337. ..
and cold snaps further towards the equator, such as the winter freeze as far as Texas in December.

"Quite a lot of these [wildfires] are burning quite a long way from where you would expect a strong local, human influence—so there clearly is a role of climate change coming into this," Chris Brierley, an associate professor of climate science at UCL, told Newsweek.

There are concerns that humans may, inadvertently, be lighting the touchpaper on such arid conditions. At the end of May, Nova Scotia's Premier Tim Houston warned residents not to flick cigarette butts due to the risk of combustion.

Maslin said that even something as seemingly insignificant as a broken glass bottle could "concentrate sunlight and cause a spark."

Why Are They Still Burning?

Official figures .. https://ciffc.net/statistics (with graphics) .. show that the number of wildfires across Canada picked up rapidly from the end of April, and the weekly totals have been increasing since then. In the year to date, there have so far been 3,053 wildfires.

"The problem is that, once the fires start, because it's so dry and hot, there's nothing preventing them from becoming wildfires and burning vast areas of forest," Maslin explained.

The climate author added that while trees with deep roots would be able to draw water from deep underground, a dry underlayer to the forest was "like a keg of gunpowder just waiting to go off."


Smoky haze from wildfires in Canada diminishes the visibility of the Chrysler Building on June 7, 2023 in New York City.
DAVID DEE DELGADO/GETTY IMAGES

Air quality was expected to improve on Thursday as a weather front moved into northern Quebec, with hopes that heavy rain would damp down the wildfires and bolster firefighting efforts.

However, Steven Flisfeder, a meteorologist at Canada's Environment and Climate Change department, told reporters on Wednesday that the heaviest rain was expected to miss the worst-affected areas, according to the Toronto Star.

The latest forecast for the region by Environment Canada says that there will be patches of cloud on Friday, with chances of showers on Saturday. A long-range forecast by Weather25 suggests a more consistent stretch of rain could arrive in the second week of July.

When Will Canadian Wildfires End?

Firefighting efforts alone are unlikely to quell the blazes.

Bringing the current swath of wildfires to a halt depends not merely on there being rain, but consistent or heavy rain over an extended period.

This is because wildfires can only be prevented by stopping the two main conditions that lead to them starting—dry fuel and hot conditions that make ignition more likely.

"They will end once there is enough precipitation to dampen the actual ground enough that the fires can't either spread or catch in the first place," Maslin said, adding: "When the temperature's also lower, you find that less combustion actually occurs."

When that will be is hard to say, but there will have to be enough rain to soak the dry ground and dead wood that is allowing the blazes to spread so rapidly, which has the added effect of preventing combustion events in the first place.

Smoke or Heat: Summer 2023 for Many

Earlier in the week, Cleveland, Ohio, became so engulfed in smoke that the city's skyline disappeared while New York has been subject to an orange haze.

Air particle pollution is as of Friday considered at unhealthy levels in parts of Washington D.C., Pittsburgh and Baltimore, as well as many other areas on the East Coast and in the Great Lakes regions, according to government air quality monitoring site AirNow.

At present levels, it recommends residents avoid strenuous outdoor activities, shorten the amount of time they have to spend outside or wait for the air quality to improve before exercising in the open.

"The biggest problem with wildfires apart from the immediate danger is the decrease in air quality," Maslin said. "This is very severe because the soot and smoke can cause huge issues [for] people with sensitive respiratory diseases."

As well as potentially exacerbating conditions such as asthma, the particulates from the wildfires can compound pollution already produced by humans.

According to Advisory Board, a healthcare research firm, experts have warned that exposure to the smog can be as damaging to the lungs as smoking 22 cigarettes a day. Maslin likened the effects to that of a city with bad air quality "multiplied multiple times."

At the same time as the Northeast and Midwest is facing a haze of smoke, meteorologists have issued excessive heat warnings for swaths of the U.S. Southwest caused by a heatwave that is expected to continue into next week, with temperatures sustained above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

On Thursday, the National Weather Service said the heatwave is expected to ease somewhat early next week, before conditions return to "typical summertime heat" towards the latter half of the week.

However, it noted that heat-related dangers to people remain elevated "due to the longevity of this ongoing heatwave."

Meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have said that the same static weather pattern causing the unusually hot, dry conditions in Canada had then caused both the smoky air descending over northern America and the oppressive heat in the south.

"Pick your poison," Greg Carbin, forecast operations chief for the agency's Weather Prediction Center, told WRAL on Thursday, adding: "As long as there's something to burn, there will be smoke we have to deal with."

READ MORE
Before and after photos show Cleveland "disappear" into wildfire smoke
https://www.newsweek.com/before-after-photos-cleveland-ohio-disappear-wildfire-smoke-1809836

Why Chicago now has the worst air quality in the world
https://www.newsweek.com/why-chicago-worst-air-quality-world-1809446

Space satellite images show wildfire smoke engulfing Midwest U.S.
https://www.newsweek.com/satellite-images-show-wildfire-smoke-over-midwest-1807198

https://www.newsweek.com/canada-wildfires-burning-why-explainer-1810132

[BOREALIS]

Canadian wildfire smoke reaches Europe as Canada reports its worst fire season on record

By Joe Sutton, Taylor Ward and Zoe Sottile, CNN
Updated 6:22 PM EDT, Tue June 27, 2023


Smoke from Canada's record-breaking fire season has crossed the northern Atlantic and is now impacting portions of western Europe, according to the UK Met Office.

Canada has officially marked its worst wildfire season on record, with smoke from the blazes crossing the Atlantic Ocean and reaching western Europe on Monday.

Canada has had a dramatic start to wildfire season, with at least 19,027,114 acres already charred across the country. Wildfire activity in Canada typically peaks from June to August, leaving more than half of the peak season still to come.

As a result of the unprecedented start to the wildfire season, this year has become the worst fire season on record, surpassing the previous benchmark set in 1989 for the total area burned. In 1989, at least 18,254,317 acres were burned in the country, according to fire statistics from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

And the smoke from the wildfires, which wrapped New York City .. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/07/weather/new-york-air-pollution-canada-wildfires-climate-wednesday/index.html .. in a cloud of smog earlier this month, has now reached as far as the United Kingdom, according to the UK Met Office.


The smoke that has made its way into Europe has done so via the jet stream – strong winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere. This means the smoke will not lead to dramatically worse surface air quality like the Northeast US experienced a few weeks ago.

“Whilst the smoke is high up in the atmosphere, it may make for some vivid sunrises and sunsets in the next few days,” the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, wrote on Twitter.

Forecast models show the smoke lingering in the upper levels of the atmosphere over Europe for much of this week.

CNN previously reported that smoke from the wildfires reached Norway at the start of June. Because the smoke is injected at high altitudes, it’s able to stay in the atmosphere longer and travel farther distances.

Fires continue to rage across Canada

The wildfires have continued to burn across multiple provinces in Canada. There were at least 53 new wildland fires on Sunday, according to the National Fire Situation Report from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Alberta had the most at 23, followed by Ontario and Quebec, which had eight each, according to the report.

On Monday, the agency reported at least 27 new wildland fires, with 16 in British Columbia.

The record wildfire season continues to impact air quality throughout parts of North America. On Friday, Environment Canada warned in a bulletin that smoke would continue to cause poor air quality in many parts of the country. In Ottawa, Canada’s capital, government air quality readings reached a high of 10 on Sunday, representing a “high risk,” before moderating Monday morning.

And in addition to sending smoke to western Europe, the fires have also resulted in plumes of smoke impacting parts of the US. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana all issued air quality alerts on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

As the climate crisis escalates, scientists expect that wildfire seasons will increase in severity, especially as droughts and heat become more common and more severe across the world. .. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/21/world/climate-heat-wave-wildfires-weather-explainer-intl/index.html

Correction: A previous version of this article gave the wrong year for the previous benchmark of total area burned. It is 1989.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/americas/canada-wildfire-season-worst-2023/index.html

[BOREALIS]

Spain: Heat strokes and dehydration deaths soared in summer of 2022, the hottest year on record

By CIARÁN GILES
Published 11:09 AM CDT, June 27, 2023

MADRID (AP) — Deaths in Spain from heat stroke and dehydration in the hottest months of 2022 — the hottest year on record — jumped by 88% compared to the same period in 2021, the National Statistics Institute said Tuesday.

The Institute said 122 people died of heat stroke and 233 of dehydration between May and August last year when temperatures soared in a succession of heat waves. A total of 189 people died from the two conditions in 2021.

The data came as Spain sizzled in its first official heat wave of the year, with the state weather agency, AEMET, predicting temperatures to hit 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) in much of the country during a hot spell expected to last until Thursday.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/spain-heat-deaths-a65fe7b5f42b748388a92b536c86b39f

=============================================
Canadian wildfires are causing the worst air in the US in cities like Chicago and Detroit

By MELINA WALLING, MELISSA WINDER and TRISHA AHMED
Published 1:33 PM CDT, June 27, 2023

CHICAGO (AP) — Drifting smoke from the ongoing wildfires across Canada is creating curtains of haze and raising air quality concerns throughout the Great Lakes region and in parts of the central and eastern United States.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow.gov ..https://www.airnow.gov/ .. site showed parts of Illinois, lower Michigan and southern Wisconsin had the worst air quality in the U.S. on Tuesday afternoon, and Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee had air quality categorized as “very unhealthy.”

In Minnesota, a record 23rd air quality alert was issued Tuesday through late Wednesday night across much of the state, as smoky skies obscure the skylines of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy issued an air quality alert for the entire state. Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources also issued an air quality advisory for the state.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/canadian-wildfires-chicago-smoke-air-quality-aqi-e120fa48b44e6c8560b13712ba76ee1d

=============================================
Smoke from Canadian wildfires prompts a record 23rd air quality alert in Minnesota

Published 12:22 PM CDT, June 27, 2023

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Wildfire smoke from Canada prompted officials on Tuesday to issue a record 23rd air quality alert for much of Minnesota through late Wednesday night as smoky skies obscure the Minneapolis and St. Paul skylines.

Smoke from wildfires in Ontario and Quebec moved into Minnesota late Monday, and ground-level smoke is expected to linger across southern, east-central and northeastern Minnesota. That includes the Twin Cities area, up to the northeast corner of the state and down to the southwest and southeast corners.

If it seems like there have been an unusually high number air quality alerts this summer, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says that’s correct. The MPCA tweeted that Tuesday marked the 23rd air quality alert in Minnesota this year, breaking the previous record of 21 in 2021. Minnesota usually averages two or three alerts in a season.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-air-quality-smoke-canadian-wildfires-unhealthy-63a62cb01db013e73055fdcef853c7e3

===============================================
Rainfall likely won’t be enough to extinguish Quebec wildfires causing US smoke, officials say

Published 3:25 PM CDT, June 27, 2023

MONTREAL (AP) — Rainfall likely won’t be enough to extinguish the wildfires ravaging northern Quebec, but the wet weather could give firefighters a chance to get ahead of the flames, officials said Tuesday, as Canada surpassed the record for area burned by wildfires this week.

Drifting smoke from wildfires across Canada is creating curtains of haze and raising air quality concerns throughout the Great Lakes region, and in parts of the central and eastern United States.

Meanwhile, NASA is reporting that smoke from wildfires in northern Quebec has reached Europe. The American space agency said satellite imagery from Monday showed smoke extending across the North Atlantic Ocean to the Iberian Peninsula, France and other parts of western Europe.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/canada-wildfires-smoke-quebec-rain-a0e287ea5117cccadb9e6917304635ea

[BOREALIS]

Poor air quality from Canadian wildfires affects people as far as away as North Carolina

https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-canada-quebec-smoke-new-york-washington-86eb7685c5330c548fd93891fffcfd65

By JENNIFER PELTZ, ROB GILLIES and MICHAEL R. SISAK
39 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) — On air quality maps, purple signifies the worst of it. In reality, it’s a thick, hazardous haze that’s disrupting daily life for millions of people across the U.S. and Canada, blotting out skylines and turning skies orange.

With weather systems expected to barely budge, the smoky blanket billowing from wildfires in Quebec and Nova Scotia and sending plumes of fine particulate matter as far away as North Carolina and northern Europe should persist into Thursday and possibly the weekend.




Minnesota is OK ...so far

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air-water-land-climate/current-air-quality-conditions

[BullNBear52]

Yankee Stadium the other day.

[BullNBear52]

It has spread here to NC and though it's a sunny day it's also hazy with an odor of a campfire.

[BOREALIS]

AP PHOTOS: From NYC's skyline to Washington DC's monuments, wildfire haze envelopes familiar sites

By The Associated Press
49 minutes ago

https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-haze-canada-new-york-washington-0d24be8f977dc3e43fbbf17e363edfed

[BOREALIS]

‘I can taste the air’: Hazardous smoke from wildfires hangs over millions in Canada, US

By JENNIFER PELTZ and ROB GILLIES
26 minutes ago


Pedestrians pass the One World Trade Center, center, amidst a smokey haze from wildfires in Canada, Wednesday, June 7, 2023, in New York. Smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest on Wednesday, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, holding up flights at major airports and prompting people to fish out pandemic-era face masks. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)


A man talks on his phone as he looks through the haze at the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J., Wednesday, June 7, 2023. Intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern U.S. in a dystopian haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)


The sun rises over a hazy New York City skyline as seen from Jersey City, N.J., Wednesday, June 7, 2023. Intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern U.S. in a dystopian haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK (AP) — Smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest on Wednesday, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, holding up flights at major airports, postponing Major League Baseball games and prompting people to fish out pandemic-era face masks.

While Canadian officials asked other countries for additional help fighting more than 400 blazes nationwide that already have displaced 20,000 people, air quality with what the U.S. rates as hazardous levels of pollution extended into central New York, northeastern Pennsylvania and, later, the New York metropolitan area. Massive tongues of unhealthy air extended as far as North Carolina and Indiana, affecting millions of people.

“I can taste the air,” Dr. Ken Strumpf said in a Facebook post from Syracuse, New York, which was enveloped in an amber pall. The smoke, he later said by phone, even made him a bit dizzy.

The air quality index, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency metric for air pollution, exceeded a staggering 400 at times in Syracuse, New York City and Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. A level of 50 or under is considered good; anything over 300 is considered “hazardous,” when even healthy people are advised to curtail outdoor physical activity.

In Baltimore, Debbie Funk sported a blue surgical mask as she and husband, Jack Hughes, took their daily walk around Fort McHenry, a national monument overlooking the Patapsco River. The air hung thick over the water, obscuring the horizon.

“I walked outside this morning, and it was like a waft of smoke,” said Funk. She said the couple planned to stay inside later Wednesday, as officials were urging.

Canadian officials say this is shaping up to be the nation’s worst wildfire season ever. It started early on drier-than-usual ground and accelerated very quickly, exhausting firefighting resources across the country, fire and environmental officials said.

Smoke from the blazes in various parts of the country has been lapping into the U.S. since last month but intensified with recent fires in Quebec, where about 100 were considered out of control Wednesday — which, unsettlingly, was national Clean Air Day in Canada.

The smoke was so thick in downtown Ottawa, Canada’s capital, that office towers just across the Ottawa River were barely visible. In Toronto, Yili Ma said her hiking plans were canceled and she was forgoing restaurant patios, a beloved Canadian summer tradition.

“I put my mask away for over a year, and now I’m putting on my mask since yesterday,” the 31-year-old lamented.

Quebec Premier François Legault said the province currently has the capacity to fight about 40 fires — and the usual reinforcements from other provinces have been strained by conflagrations in Nova Scotia and elsewhere.

Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre spokesperson Jennifer Kamau said more than 950 firefighters and other personnel have arrived from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and more are due soon.

In Washington, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden has sent more than 600 firefighters and equipment to Canada. His administration has contacted some U.S. governors and local officials about providing assistance, she said

The largest town in Northern Quebec — Chibougamau, population about 7,500 — was evacuated Tuesday, and Legault said the roughly 4,000 residents of the northern Cree town of Mistissini would likely have to leave Wednesday. But later in the day, Mistissini Chief Michael Petawabano said his community remains safe and asked residents to wait for instructions from Cree officials.

Eastern Quebec got some rain Wednesday, but Montreal-based Environment Canada meteorologist Simon Legault said no significant rain is expected for days in the remote areas of central Quebec where the wildfires are more intense

U.S. National Weather Service meteorologist Zach Taylor said the current weather pattern in the central and eastern U.S. is essentially funneling in the smoke. Some rain should help clear the air somewhat in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic this weekend or early next week, though more thorough relief will come from containing or extinguishing the fires, he said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said 1 million N95 masks would be available at state facilities. New York City Mayor Eric Adams told residents of the United States’ most populous city to limit outdoor activities and parks officials closed beaches as smoke smudged out the skyline.

The Federal Aviation Administration paused some flights bound for LaGuardia Airport and slowed planes to Newark Liberty and Philadelphia because the smoke was limiting visibility. It also contributed to delayed arrivals at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, where a heavy haze shrouded the Washington Monument and forced the cancellation of outdoor tours.

Major League Baseball put off games in New York and Philadelphia, and even an indoor WNBA game in Brooklyn was called off. On Broadway, “Killing Eve” star Jodie Comer had difficulty breathing and left the matinee after 10 minutes; the show restarted with an understudy, show publicists said.

Schools in multiple states canceled sports and other outdoor activities, shifting recess inside. Live horse racing was canceled Wednesday and Thursday at Delaware Park in Wilmington. Organizers of Global Running Day, a virtual 5K, advised participants to adjust their plans according to air quality.

New Jersey closed state offices early, and some political demonstrations in spots from Manhattan to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, were moved indoors or postponed. Striking Hollywood writers were pulled off picket lines in the New York metropolitan area.

The smoke exacerbated health problems for people such as Vicki Burnett, 67, who has asthma and has had serious bouts with bronchitis.

After taking her dogs out Wednesday morning in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Burnett said, “I came in and started coughing and hopped back into bed.”

Still, she stressed that she’s concerned for Canadians, not just herself.

“It’s unfortunate, and I’m having some problems for it, but there should be help for them,” she said.

___

Gillies reported from Toronto. Contributing were Associated Press journalists Randall Chase in Dover, Delaware; Michael Hill in Albany, New York; David Koenig in Dallas; Aamer Madhani in Washington; Brooke Schultz in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Lea Skene in Baltimore; Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York; Ron Todt in Philadelphia; Corey Williams in West Bloomfield, Michigan; and Mark Kennedy, Jake Offenhartz, Karen Matthews and Julie Walker in New York.

___

This story has corrected the attribution of material about forecast for rain in Quebec to Montreal-based Environment Canada meteorologist Simon Legault, not Quebec Premier François Legault

https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-canada-quebec-3291016eaa4905177c90feae02a139c5

[BullNBear52]

Arizona Limits Construction Around Phoenix as Its Water Supply Dwindles
In what could be a glimpse of the future as climate change batters the West, officials ruled there’s not enough groundwater for projects already approved.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/climate/arizona-phoenix-permits-housing-water.html
Arizona has determined that there is not enough groundwater for all of the housing construction that has already been approved in the Phoenix area, and will stop developers from building some new subdivisions, a sign of looming trouble in the West and other places where overuse, drought and climate change are straining water supplies.

The decision by state officials very likely means the beginning of the end to the explosive development that has made the Phoenix area the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country.

The state said it would not revoke building permits that have already been issued and is instead counting on new water conservation measures and alternative sources to produce the water necessary for housing developments that have already been approved.

On Thursday, Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said Arizona was not immediately running dry and that new construction would continue in major cities like Phoenix. The analysis prepared by the state looked at groundwater levels over the next 100 years.

“We’re going to manage this situation,” she said at a news conference. “We are not out of water and we will not be running out of water.”

Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs, gets more than half its water supply from groundwater. Most of the rest comes from rivers and aqueducts as well as recycled wastewater. In practical terms, groundwater is a finite resource; it can take thousands of years or longer to be replenished.

The announcement of a groundwater shortage means Arizona would no longer give developers in some areas of Maricopa County new permits to construct homes that rely on wells for water.

The announcement is the latest example of how climate change is reshaping the American Southwest. A 23-year drought and rising temperatures have lowered the level of the Colorado River, threatening the 40 million Americans in Arizona and six other states who rely on it — including residents of Phoenix, which gets water from the Colorado by aqueduct.

The Phoenix area occupies a valley in southern Arizona, cradled by mountain ridges and sliced by the Salt and Gila rivers. The landscape is filled with lush golf courses, baseball diamonds, farm fields and swimming pools, contrasted against rocky brown terrain that surrounds it.

The county uses some 2.2 billion gallons of water a day — more than twice as much as New York City, despite having half as many people.

[BOREALIS]

G7 energy, environment leaders haggle over climate strategy

By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MARI YAMAGUCHI today

' Noam Chomsky: There Are Signs of Hope Amid Climate Crisis'


Japan's Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, center left, with Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura, center right, speaks at the beginning of a plenary session in the G-7 ministers' meeting on climate, energy and environment as they co-chair the meeting in Sapporo, northern Japan, Saturday, April 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)


G-7 ministers on climate, energy and environment pose for a photo during its photo session in Sapporo, northern Japan, Saturday, April 15, 2023.
Front row, from left are Vannia Gava, Italy's Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Ecological Transition, EU Oceans and Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, Italy's Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Japan's Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura, Japan's Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, Germany's Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, Canada's Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada's Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Germany's Economy and Climate Minister Patrick Graichen.
Back row, from left are U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, France's Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher, France's Ecological Transition Minister Christophe Bechu, Britain's Environment Secretary Therese Coffey and Britain's Energy Secretary Grant Shapps. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

SAPPORO, Japan (AP) — Energy and environment ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy nations met Saturday in northern Japan, seeking to reconcile the world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels with the urgency of ending carbon emissions to stave off the worst consequences of climate change.

The meetings in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo are aimed at forging a consensus on the best way forward, ahead of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima in May.

“We are facing the challenge of promoting reforms to resolve climate change ... and achieving energy security at the same time,” economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told the ministers as the meetings began.

Speaking on the sidelines of the meetings, U.S. Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said the G-7 was “powerfully positioned to be able to lead” in the effort to stem global warming. “We appreciate Japan’s leadership and its stewardship of G-7 this year.”

But differences persist over how, and how quickly, to end carbon emissions, especially at a time when the war in Ukraine has deepened concerns over energy security, complicating that effort.

The talks in Sapporo will also focus on biodiversity loss and other global challenges. But climate change tops the agenda of the closed door meetings. At the G-7 summit last year in Germany, the countries set a common goal of achieving a fully or predominantly decarbonized electricity supply by 2035.

U.S. officials voiced support for Japan’s strategy centering on so-called clean coal, hydrogen and nuclear energy to bridge the transition to renewable energy. Others are pushing for a faster transition to renewable energy.

The head of the United Nations recently called for an end to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040. While emissions among the G-7 nations, especially in Europe, have begun falling, they are still rising globally, especially in big, increasingly affluent economies like India and China.

The G-7 nations hope to lead by example, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.

“We expect that those countries see that this can be done and the nations that have the wherewithal to make these investments to be first out give hope to others to be able to do it as the technology lowers the cost,” she said.

The U.S. government’s approval of fossil fuel initiatives such as the Willow project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope have drawn criticism for their environmental impact and for running counter to President Joe Biden’s pledges to cut carbon emissions and move to clean energy.

There’s a strong business case for climate-friendly policies, Granholm said, given the estimated $23 trillion global market in clean energy by 2030.

“People see people getting jobs in this area. People who start to drive electric vehicles who don’t need to pay gasoline prices know that it’s much cheaper to drive EVs. It’s all becoming obvious to people,” she said while touring the Suiso Frontier, the world’s first and only liquid hydrogen carrier, a showcase of the latest technology for what Japan’s leaders call a “hydrogen society.”

While Japanese farm fields increasingly are sown with solar panels rather than crops and its gusty coastlines are studded with wind turbines, the country still expects for about 60% of its energy to come from fossil fuels in 2030, with renewables accounting for up to 38%. New fuels and nuclear power would account for the rest.

Meanwhile, Japan is scrambling to protect communities from extreme weather and other impacts from global warming. Sweltering summers, torrential downpours that trigger flooding and landslides, and violent storms have become the norm.

In Sapporo, Japan is seeking an endorsement of its so-called “GX transformation” plan, which its leaders say is designed to foster energy sufficiency and phase out carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.

Legislation yet to be enacted would entail issuing 20 trillion yen ($150 billion) in bonds to help attract 150 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) in combined public-private investment in decarbonization. The law also calls for a carbon-pricing system to make businesses pay for their carbon emissions.

Environmental activists say the plan will keep the country’s dwindling nuclear industry on life support while undermining the transition to renewable energy sources.

“As the world tries to overcome two crises of climate and energy, especially in Japan, we need to drastically increase renewables,” said Takejiro Sueyoshi, co-representative of the Japan Climate Initiative, a non-government organization of 768 member companies and organizations.

“Discussions in Japan have gone backward as if we were in the 20th century. We must smash a wedge into the debate to push it forward rather than backwards,” he said.

The JCI urged the officials meeting in Sapporo to push for more ambitious targets, noting that Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy already get more of their electricity from renewable sources than Japan’s 2030 target and that despite its own faltering progress toward phasing out fossil fuels, the United States will get most of its electricity from renewable energy by 2035.

“There’s no time left. The window for change is closing, but there is still hope. We need to use the sense of crisis as a turning point,” Sueyoshi said.

The G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. ___

AP writer Yamaguchi contributed from Tokyo.

https://apnews.com/article/climate-emissions-japan-g7-environment-energy-b7f09410b09c1f86fe3a4527d1d3ba0d

[BullNBear52]

The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin
Bitcoin mines cash in on electricity — by devouring it, selling it, even turning it off — and they cause immense pollution. In many cases, the public pays a price.
By Gabriel J.X. DanceGraphics by Tim Wallace and Zach Levitt
Gabriel J.X. Dance traveled to Texas and North Dakota, interviewed Bitcoin miners, energy experts, scientists and politicians and analyzed thousands of records detailing mining operations for this story. Send tips.

Published April 9, 2023
Updated April 10, 2023, 10:35 a.m. ET
Texas was gasping for electricity. Winter Storm Uri had knocked out power plants across the state, leaving tens of thousands of homes in icy darkness. By the end of Feb. 14, 2021, nearly 40 people had died, some from the freezing cold.

Meanwhile, in the husk of a onetime aluminum smelting plant an hour outside of Austin, row upon row of computers were using enough electricity to power about 6,500 homes as they raced to earn Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

The computers were performing trillions of calculations per second, hunting for an elusive combination of numbers that Bitcoin’s algorithm would accept. About every 10 minutes, a computer somewhere guesses correctly and wins a small number of Bitcoins worth, in recent weeks, about $170,000. Anyone can try, but to make a business of it can require as much electricity as a small city.

In Texas, the computers kept running until just after midnight. Then the state’s power grid operator ordered them shut off, under an agreement that allowed it to do so if the system was about to fail. In return, it began paying the Bitcoin company, Bitdeer, an average of $175,000 an hour to keep the computers offline. Over the next four days, Bitdeer would make more than $18 million for not operating, from fees ultimately paid by Texans who had endured the storm.

The New York Times has identified 34 such large-scale operations, known as Bitcoin mines, in the United States, all putting immense pressure on the power grid and most finding novel ways to profit from doing so. Their operations can create costs — including higher electricity bills and enormous carbon pollution — for everyone around them, most of whom have nothing to do with Bitcoin.

Until June 2021, most Bitcoin mining was in China. Then it drove out Bitcoin operations, at least for a time, citing their power use among other reasons. The United States quickly became the industry’s global leader.

Since then, precisely how much electricity Bitcoin mines are using in America and their effect on energy markets and the environment have been unclear. The Times, using both public and confidential records as well as the results of studies it commissioned, put the most comprehensive estimates to date on the largest operations’ power use and the ripple effects of their voracious demand.

CleanSpark Sandersville, Ga. 49,000 households
Coinmint Massena, N.Y. 186,000
Core Scientific Calvert City, Ky. 104,000
Core Scientific Denton, Texas 83,000
Merkle Standard Usk, Wash. 75,000
US Bitcoin Kearney, Neb. 73,000
Riot Platforms
Bitdeer
Austin
One dot equals one household
College Station
Rockdale
GA.
ILL.
IND.
KY.
MONT.
NEB.
N.Y.
N.C.
N.D.
OHIO
PA.
S.C.
TENN.
TEXAS
WASH.
15 miles


The computers in these buildings in Kearney, Neb., use about as much electricity as the 73,000 homes around them.

Aerial view showing rows of buildings in a complex that is surrounded by tan bare dirt.
An operation in Dalton, Ga., is using nearly as much power as the surrounding 97,000 households.

Aerial view showing rows of buildings in a lot surrounded by large industrial structures and wooded areas.
And Riot Platforms’ mine in Rockdale, Texas, uses about the same amount of electricity as the nearest 300,000 homes, making it the most power-intensive Bitcoin mining operation in America.

Aerial view showing rows of industrial-scale buildings in a cleared lot surrounded by a body of water and extensive wooded areas in the distance.
Riot’s operation is less than a mile away from the Bitdeer mine. Combined, they use more power than all of the households within a 40-mile radius.

HOUSEHOLD DENSITY ?

Map shows dots representing the households surrounding Rockdale, Texas, that use an equivalent amount of energy as the Riot Platforms and Bitdeer mines. The households that use an equivalent amount of energy stretch from Austin to College Station.
Each of the 34 operations The Times identified uses at least 30,000 times as much power as the average U.S. home.

Map shows the locations of major Bitcoin mines in the United States. States with the most mines include Texas, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania and North Dakota.
Altogether, they consume more than 3,900 megawatts of electricity.

Circles sized according to power usage

Map shows bitcoin mines sized according to power usage. The Riot Platforms mine in Rockdale, Texas, uses 450 megawatts per hour.
That is nearly the same amount of electricity as the three million households that surround them.

HOUSEHOLD DENSITY ?

Map shows three million dots surrounding each of the largest Bitcoin mines in the United States, representing households that use an equivalent amount of energy. The Merkle Standard mine in Usk, Wash., uses about the same amount of electricity as the 75,000 households surrounding it.
It is as if another New York City’s worth of residences were now drawing on the nation’s power supply, The Times found.

In some areas, this has led prices to surge. In Texas, where 10 of the 34 mines are connected to the state’s grid, the increased demand has caused electric bills for power customers to rise nearly 5 percent, or $1.8 billion per year, according to a simulation performed for The Times by the energy research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

The additional power use across the country also causes as much carbon pollution as adding 3.5 million gas-powered cars to America’s roads, according to an analysis by WattTime, a nonprofit tech company. Many of the Bitcoin operations promote themselves as environmentally friendly and set up in areas rich with renewable energy, but their power needs are far too great to be satisfied by those sources alone. As a result, they have become a boon for the fossil fuel industry: WattTime found that coal and natural gas plants kick in to meet 85 percent of the demand these Bitcoin operations add to their grids.

Their massive energy consumption combined with their ability to shut off almost instantly allows some companies to save money and make money by deftly pulling the levers of U.S. power markets. They can avoid fees charged during peak demand, resell their electricity at a premium when prices spike and even be paid for offering to turn off. Other major energy users, like factories and hospitals, cannot reduce their power use as routinely or dramatically without severe consequences.

In some states, notably New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, Bitcoin operators’ revenue can ultimately come from other power customers. The clearest example is Texas, where Bitcoin companies are paid by the grid operator for promising to quickly power down if necessary to prevent blackouts. In practice, they rarely are asked to shut down and instead earn additional money while doing exactly what they would have been doing anyway: seeking Bitcoin. Five operations have collectively made at least $60 million from that program since 2020, records show.

Several of the companies are being paid through these agreements a majority of the time they operate. Most years, they are asked to turn off for only a few hours, at which point they are paid even more.

The windfall for Bitdeer during Winter Storm Uri came through this program, in exchange for a fraction of the power it typically used. The company did not respond to requests for comment. Another Bitcoin company made tens of millions of dollars reselling electricity during the storm — and ultimately stands to earn as much as $125 million — according to its financial filings, which were previously reported by the Tech Transparency Project. A third company told investors that another natural disaster like Uri could be a significant business opportunity.

“Ironically, when people are paying the most for their power, or losing it altogether, the miners are making money selling energy back to Texans at rates 100 times what they paid,” said Ed Hirs, who teaches energy economics at the University of Houston and has been critical of the industry.

In interviews and statements, many of the companies said they were no different from other large power users except for their willingness to shut off quickly to benefit the grid. Several objected to the method The Times and WattTime used to estimate their emissions, which calculated the pollution caused by the additional power generated to satisfy the mines’ demand, showing it to overwhelmingly come from fossil fuels.

The companies said this method held them to an unfair standard.

“The analysis cited could be used to attack any industry that consumes power,” said David Fogel, the chief executive of Coinmint, which operates in upstate New York. “I think the entire notion of singling out specific industries like this is unfair.”

But WattTime’s method is the one many energy and climate experts recommend for measuring the environmental effects of increased power use by any industry, particularly one that grows so large so suddenly.

Editors’ Picks

How to Make a Simple Roast Chicken, According to a French Mom

A Swedish Warship Sank in 1628. It’s Still Yielding Secrets.

As Her Music Is Reconsidered, a Composer Turns 135. Again.
Some in the industry have pushed back against suggestions that it is directly responsible for any environmental harm.

Climate Forward There’s an ongoing crisis — and tons of news. Our newsletter keeps you up to date. Get it in your inbox.
A May 2022 letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, signed by many of the biggest companies, said their operations “released” no pollutants. “Bitcoin miners have no emissions whatsoever,” it said. “Associated emissions are a function of electricity generation.”

Nic Carter, a partner at a crypto-focused venture capital firm and a prominent Bitcoin advocate who told The Times he was the letter’s primary author, said he was playing a “language game” when he wrote that Bitcoin mining has no emissions. At the time, he said, he felt the industry was being unfairly singled out.

“Maybe the more sincere point is like, we’re already fully aware of the emissions associated with utilities generating grid power,” he said.

Many academics who study the energy industry said Bitcoin mining was undoubtedly having significant environmental effects.

“They’re adding hundreds of megawatts of new demand when we already face the need to rapidly cut fossil power,” said Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor who studies electrical grid emissions.

“If you care about climate change,” he added, “then that’s a problem.”

Flooding Into America
Bitcoin, conceived in 2008, introduced most of the world to the concept of cryptocurrencies. Instead of trusting banks to track the value of accounts, the system publishes transactions on a public ledger called a blockchain. Proponents said that cutting out middlemen would free people from financial institutions, government oversight and fees.

So-called mining is a fundamental part of the system: When a computer guesses correctly, it updates the ledger and collects six and a quarter new Bitcoins. Then the guessing game begins again.

Initially, hobbyists could win with personal computers, but as the value of each Bitcoin soared — from under $1,000 in 2017 to above $60,000 in 2021 — mining increasingly became an industrial endeavor. (The price has since dropped and, as of publication, was roughly $28,000.)

The only way for miners to better their odds is to add computing power, which requires more electricity. But as the number of guesses increases, the algorithm makes the game more difficult. This has created an energy arms race.

The mines’ scale can draw gasps from people in the power industry. A one-megawatt mine consumes more energy each day than a typical U.S. home does in two years. The electricity coursing through a 100-megawatt operation at a given moment could power about half the homes in Cleveland, according to federal data.

To offset the emissions created each year from the power use of the Bitdeer mine in Rockdale, Texas, nearly 12 million trees would have to be planted and grown for a decade.

1 of 9
Show another
Aspects of the industry have previously been reported in news articles and government and nonprofit white papers, including broad estimates of the environmental effects. But The Times cross-referenced financial disclosures, land records and satellite imagery to create the first national accounting of the biggest operations. The analysis includes mines operating at approximately 40 megawatts or higher, although dozens more exist below that threshold.

Of course, other industries, including metals and plastics manufacturing, also require large amounts of electricity, causing pollution and raising power prices. But Bitcoin mines bring significantly fewer jobs, often employing only a few dozen people once construction is complete, and spur less local economic development.

Their financial benefit flows almost exclusively to their owners and operators. In 2021, the year Bitcoin’s price peaked, 20 executives at five publicly traded Bitcoin companies together received nearly $16 million in salary and over $630 million in stock options, records show.

The industry has been less profitable since then, as Bitcoin’s value has dropped and electricity prices have climbed. Two of the largest United States-based companies have filed for bankruptcy. Still, new mines continue to open across the country

There are ways to operate a cryptocurrency using far less electricity. Last year, Ethereum, the second-most-popular cryptocurrency, reduced the electricity needed to power the network by more than 99 percent by switching its algorithm. Now it rewards people and trusts them to update the ledger because they are willing to put up their own money as collateral, not because they have spent money to power guessing computers, as Bitcoin does.

But Bitcoin advocates oppose changing their algorithm, saying that it has proved resistant to attacks for longer and at a greater scale than any other approach. In practice, they say, the more computers making guesses, the safer the network.


500 feet

Vexcel Imaging

Ninety-two percent of the power demand of the Genesis Digital Assets mine in Pyote, Texas, is met by fossil fuel plants, causing 546,000 tons of carbon pollution each year.

Aerial view showing ten large buildings next to rows of smaller structures surrounded by dirt and sparse plants.
As Bitcoin mining has spread, countries around the world have found that operations strained their power grids. In 2019, China declared the industry “undesirable” and banned it in 2021. Many operations moved to Iran and Kazakhstan, which also enacted restrictions.

Got a confidential news tip?The New York Times would like to hear from readers who want to share messages and materials with our journalists. nytimes.com/tips
And shipping pallets piled high with Bitcoin-mining computers started arriving in America, where some states welcomed them in.

The Land of Coal and Oil
Video

Applied Digital Bitcoin mine in Jamestown, N.D.CreditCredit...Video by Tim Wallace
Just north of Jamestown, N.D., the land is flat, trees are scarce and, in winter, snow drifts can easily top 10 feet. Even when brisk prairie winds blow, the shrill whine of the fans within Applied Digital’s Bitcoin mine can be heard a half-mile away.

They are working to cool more than 30,000 computers, stacked two stories high, stretching for hundreds of feet alongside signs that read “Danger — High Voltage.” The radiating heat melts the snow on one side of each of the operation’s eight buildings.

Video

Applied Digital Bitcoin mine in Jamestown, N.D.
The mine has 33 employees and uses nearly 10 times as much electricity as all the homes in the 16,000-person town. It is one of three mines in the state that together consume nearly as much power as every home in North Dakota.

Few other states have been as welcoming to Bitcoin companies. In October 2021, Gov. Doug Burgum presented an economic development award to local officials and a power provider for bringing a mine to Grand Forks. Months later, he announced the development of a $1.9 billion Bitcoin operation in Williston. And last spring, he flipped a switch at the Jamestown mine’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The Bitcoin operations’ effect on the state’s economy is simple, said Josh Teigen, the commerce commissioner: “They are propping up our fossil fuel industry, and that’s exactly what we want.”

North Dakota has an abundance of lignite, a type of coal primarily used to generate electricity. Mr. Teigen said the state hopes to ultimately capture the carbon from fossil fuel power plants and store it underground, reducing emissions while keeping the coal industry alive.

The state also has a large amount of wind power, which is what attracted Applied Digital, said Wes Cummins, its chief executive.

His company is not alone. Many Bitcoin businesses promote their ability to operate in rural areas where renewable energy is abundant.

But those claims have hit a hard reality: A vast majority of that renewable energy would be used even in the absence of the mines, so fossil fuel plants almost always need to produce additional electricity as a result of their operations.

For example, the Jamestown mine’s power demand causes coal or natural gas energy providers to generate electricity more than 90 percent of the time, WattTime found.

Using a technique known as marginal emissions analysis, WattTime examined each mine’s location and power use, identified which types of power plants had generated the additional energy needed, and estimated the resulting pollution. That method, and WattTime in particular, were recommended in a report by the Crypto Climate Accord, an initiative to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint supported by more than 200 cryptocurrency companies.

The analysis found that the 34 mines’ power use was causing nearly 16.4 million tons of carbon pollution each year.

All 34 Bitcoin Mines and the Emissions They Cause
The nonprofit tech company WattTime used data provided by The Times to calculate how much of the additional electric generation the operations required was met by fossil fuel plants, and the carbon emissions that resulted.
Bitcoin mine Power Fossil fuel Emissions CO2/year
Riot Platforms
Rockdale, Texas 450 MW 96% 1,918,000 tons
Atlas Power
Williston, N.D. 240 MW 79% 1,043,000 tons
Cipher Mining
Odessa, Texas 207 MW 92% 837,000 tons
US Bitcoin
Upton County, Texas 200 MW 92% 809,000 tons
Rhodium Enterprises
Temple, Texas 185 MW 90% 739,000 tons
Bitdeer
Rockdale, Texas 170 MW 96% 725,000 tons
Coinmint
Massena, N.Y. 150 MW 72% 457,000 tons
Core Scientific
Calvert City, Ky. 150 MW 91% 783,000 tons
Viking Data Centers
Akron, Ohio 150 MW 99% 705,000 tons
Core Scientific
Dalton, Ga. 142 MW 78% 627,000 tons
Show more
Source: WattTime analysis, New York Times research Power levels are as of March 9 and based on information from each company or its most recent prior public statement. Fossil fuel percentages do not include energy imported from other states, the type of which is unknown; that results in low numbers for the Merkle Standard mine in Usk, Wash., and the Atlas Power mine in Butte, Mont.
“I’m very surprised,” Mr. Cummins said, when told the estimates for Applied Digital’s Jamestown operation. He said his operation uses the electricity that is available on the grid and cannot control whether it comes from clean or dirty sources, which is affected by all customers’ demand. The miners generally prefer calculating emissions based on that mix of power.

Using that method, WattTime estimated that they consume 54 percent fossil fuel-generated power, resulting in nearly 10.4 million tons of carbon emissions.

Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, a Bitcoin lobbying group, said in an email that the industry incentivizes the development of new renewable and natural gas plants. But power industry experts say that while some current wind farms may be benefiting modestly, renewable generation takes years to build and usually requires commitments from customers who can guarantee that they will buy power for a decade or more.

According to Dr. Jenkins at Princeton, the Bitcoin operations’ near-constant power demand is more likely to keep fossil fuel plants in business than to lead to more renewable energy.


Vexcel Imaging

300 feet

Ninety-nine percent of the power demand of the Stronghold Digital Mining operation in Nesquehoning, Pa., is met by fossil fuel plants, causing 192,000 tons of carbon pollution each year.

Aerial view showing rows of buildings within three cleared areas surrounded by green grass and trees.
This proved true in upstate New York, where a gas-powered plant reopened and now powers a Bitcoin mine. Three other large operations are run by companies that also own the fossil fuel plants where they operate, including two burning waste coal in Pennsylvania.

Some of the Bitcoin companies that WattTime found to be causing the most pollution have held themselves out as supporting renewables.

For example, Riot Platforms’ chief executive described Bitcoin mining as “uniquely beneficial and supportive of renewable energy.” Ninety-six percent of the power demand added by the company’s mine was met by fossil fuels, the WattTime analysis showed.

Bitcoin Miners’ Power Play
Mining Bitcoin produces steady revenue, but using so much electricity can also be a business model.

Moments of extreme weather provide especially stark examples. Take June 23, 2022 — the eighth straight day of near-100-degree temperatures around Austin, which allowed Riot Platforms to demonstrate several ways they can turn electricity into money.

Like many industrial buyers, the company had prepurchased its power at a fraction of the price available to residential customers. Riot’s mine runs at 450 megawatts — the largest in the country.

Each day that June, its computers’ guesses were winning Bitcoin worth an average of about $342,000. But the company had two additional ways to improve its profit margins.

First, it had signed up for the Responsive Reserve Service, a Texas power grid program that offers a way to quickly reduce strain if the grid becomes overloaded, acting as insurance against blackouts. The program pays miners, and other companies, for promising to stop using electricity upon request. In reality, they are rarely asked to shut down, but are still paid for making the pledge.

From midnight to nearly 4 p.m. on June 23, Riot earned more than $42,000 from the program while continuing to mine Bitcoin. (Overall in 2022, Riot made nearly $9.3 million from participating in the program nearly 85 percent of the time, the data shows, though the grid operator asked companies to actually lower their use for about 3.5 hours.)

Around that time, the company switched to the second technique: avoiding fees that Texas charges to maintain and strengthen the power grid. It did so by briefly shutting off almost completely.

To incentivize big customers to conserve electricity, those fees are based on how much electricity they use during several peak summer moments. Riot reduced its power use by more than 99 percent.

By 6:30 p.m., the company had resumed mining. If Riot had been fully operating all day, it would have incurred an estimated $5.5 million in fees — costs that are largely made up by other Texans. Over the course of the year, this saved Riot more than $27 million in potential fees.

The company’s actions were described in data published by the Texas grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT. Though the records refer to power suppliers by pseudonyms, The Times was able to identify six of the 10 Texas operations in the data.

One final mechanism lets some companies make extra money when electricity prices spike: They can stop mining and resell electricity to other customers. That earned Riot roughly $18 million last year.

From Bitcoin mining, the company earned $156.9 million last year.

Five of the six Texas mines in the power grid data participate in the Responsive Reserve program. All six chose to turn off nearly every time fees were assessed in 2022, saving an estimated $62 million in fees.

When asked whether Bitcoin companies are disproportionately able to take advantage of both programs, ERCOT said in a statement that it “does not discriminate based on the type or activity” of the companies that sign up.


Nearmap

300 feet

Ninety-two percent of the power demand of the Core Scientific mine in Denton, Texas, is met by fossil fuel plants, causing 501,000 tons of carbon pollution each year.

Aerial view showing a building complex with rows of large structures surrounded by brown ground and green plants.
It is not unusual for companies in Texas to be able to anticipate moments when fees will be assessed and to reduce their demand, but unlike Bitcoin miners, most can stop using on average 5 percent to 30 percent of their electricity, industry consultants say.

In a statement, Riot said it reducing its power load helped all power customers.

“The company’s decision to actively reduce its load during anticipated times of peak demand adds to grid reliability and ultimately helps to reduce peak power prices,” the statement said.

Mr. Bratcher of the Texas Blockchain Council said the benefits outweigh the cost.

“In addition to providing jobs and positive economic impact, Bitcoin miners turn off when power prices rise and that power is then available for commercial and residential users,” he said.

Others say the companies are capitalizing on weaknesses in programs designed for very different industries.

“I think they’re exploiting the system,” said Severin Bornstein, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies electricity pricing. “But they will say, ‘You know, the system was already there,’ and I’m sympathetic to that in some ways.”

After accounting for the savings and revenue from each of the strategies, Riot told investors its electricity cost in 2022 was 2.96 cents per kilowatt-hour.

By comparison, the average price for other industrial businesses in Texas was 7.2 cents. For residents, it was 13.5 cents.

‘Texas Will Be the Crypto Leader’
These opportunities have led some of the country’s largest Bitcoin operations to choose Texas.

5% +$73m
9% +$245 million
4% +$123m
5% +$39m
4% +$218m
5% +$592m
4% +$487m
5% +$45m
Houston
San Antonio
Dallas
Austin
El Paso
Amarillo
Midland
TEXAS

The 10 Texas mines identified by The Times use more than 1,800 megawatts of energy combined, forcing more expensive power generators to run.

Circles sized according to energy usage

Map shows Bitcoin mines in Texas. About half of the mines are in West Texas near Midland.
That has increased power bills in the state by $1.8 billion a year, according to the Wood Mackenzie simulation.

+
Increase in total electricity costs by region

Map shows the increase in total power bill costs by region due to Bitcoin mines’ electricity demand. In the North Central region, total power bill costs increased by 592 million dollars.
In West Texas, where several Bitcoin mines have settled, bills have increased by nearly 9 percent.

+
Percentage increase by region

Map shows the percentage increase in power bills by region, with the highest increase of nearly 9 percent in West Texas.
“It’s a massive financial burden to Texans,” said Ben Hertz-Shargel, who leads grid-related research at Wood Mackenzie, and was part of the team that conducted the market-based simulation for The Times based on historical ERCOT data. Because of how the Texas market operates, the increases are steepest for residential customers, said Mr. Hertz-Shargel, who has previously criticized Bitcoin’s dependence on electricity as “inessential.”

Others say increased prices will incentivize the development of cheaper types of power generation.

“Expanding Texas generation is crucial, and allowing different energy sources to compete in the market will help drive down prices,” said Gideon Powell, chief executive at Cholla, an energy exploration company in Texas that is developing Bitcoin mines.

As of last month, ERCOT had approved plans to connect an additional 4,000 megawatts of Bitcoin operations this year, which would nearly triple their consumption in Texas.

In Congress, Democrats have called for a precise inventory of operations’ power use and resulting emissions. Republicans have largely supported the industry, including by introducing a congressional resolution last month affirming its importance to the country’s energy goals and economy.


Vexcel Imaging

250 feet

Ninety-two percent of the power demand of the Galaxy mine in Afton, Texas, is met by fossil fuel plants, causing 400,000 tons of carbon pollution each year.

Aerial view showing a large building with a white roof and rows of attached rectangular structures surrounded by dirt.
And in Texas, the companies have powerful allies. Gov. Greg Abbott said in a tweet that “Texas will be the crypto leader” and hosted the Texas Blockchain Council at the governor’s mansion. The grid’s former interim chief executive declared himself “pro Bitcoin,” and the current vice chair of the grid’s board is a former adviser to the Texas Blockchain Council. Still, in March, three Republican state senators joined in sponsoring a bill that would restrict tax breaks for miners and place strict limits on their participation in programs like the Responsive Reserve.

In Rockdale, where two of the largest mines in the country operate just outside the city limits, the city manager, Barbara Holly, told The Times that the town used to be “a fairly wealthy little community.” She said that changed when a large industrial plant that had provided thousands of jobs closed more than a decade ago. “It just cut the legs out from under this community,” she said.

It was the old aluminum smelter, now home to the Bitdeer mine.

Produced by Gray Beltran and Ege Uz. Additional graphics work by Jon Huang. Reporting was contributed by Mr. Huang, Zach Levitt, Aimee Ortiz, Julie Tate and Tim Wallace.

About the Analysis

The Times identified large Bitcoin mines by reviewing public statements, news articles and financial disclosures, then used satellite imagery and land records to determine each operation’s precise location and the specific part of the U.S. electric grid it connects to. Operations can grow and shrink often; The Times’s analysis reflects information available as of March 9. Companies confirmed the operating levels of 21 mines, declined to confirm specific numbers for five others and did not respond to repeated requests regarding the remaining eight. WattTime’s calculations were based on each mine operating 95 percent of the time — a commonly accepted industry figure — except in the case of two companies that provided alternate numbers: Coinmint and TeraWulf. WattTime’s calculations also assumed miners’ offline hours were during the highest-polluting times.

Wood Mackenzie produced annual estimates based on locations and power levels and accounted for miners shutting down during the most expensive moments.

To calculate the number of households that collectively consume as much electricity as certain mines, The Times used 2020 census data on occupied housing units from the University of Minnesota’s IPUMS NHGIS system and 2021 average national and state-level household electricity consumption rates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand.

On maps comparing energy consumption of mines to nearby communities, households were placed randomly within census blocks. Regions on the Texas map were based on the state grid operator’s list of counties within each of the grid’s weather zones.

NEW
More to Discover
Expand to see more
Sarah Puil, the chief executive of the upscale boxed wine company Boxt, said that borrowing and raising money are more difficult and expensive now.
BUSINESS

From Winemakers to Builders, Borrowers Brace for Fallout From Bank Turmoil

OPINION

The Case for Staying Married to a Spouse You Cannot Stand
Scot Sandage
BUSINESS

Retirement-Age Money Issues: Planners Weigh In on Your Questions
More in Business
Scot Sandage
BUSINESS

Retirement-Age Money Issues: Planners Weigh In on Your Questions

Save for later
Try Something Different
Sarah Puil, the chief executive of the upscale boxed wine company Boxt, said that borrowing and raising money are more difficult and expensive now.
Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
BUSINESS

From Winemakers to Builders, Borrowers Brace for Fallout From Bank Turmoil

Save for later

Alice Piaggio
OPINION

The Case for Staying Married to a Spouse You Cannot Stand

Save for later
Jascha Heifetz, here in a 1933 portrait, toured Israel in April 1953. On his program: a sonata by Richard Strauss who was banned at the time for his Nazi ties.
Ullstein Bild, via Getty Images
ARTS

Jascha Heifetz in the Case of the Violinist and the Fanatical Doorman

Save for later
Jon Rahm after receiving his green jacket and trophy for winning the Masters.
SPORTS

Jon Rahm Wins His First Masters

Save for later
Your Saved Articles
See all

OPINION

The Most Profound Loss on Campus Isn’t Free Speech. It’s Listening.
For more stories return to home
Gabriel J.X. Dance is the deputy investigations editor. His reporting focuses on the nexus of privacy and safety online and has prompted Congressional inquiries and criminal investigations. @gabrieldance

Tim Wallace is a senior editor for geography. He makes visual stories with information gathered from land, sky and space. He has a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. @wallacetim

Zach Levitt is a graphics editor focusing on cartography and data visualization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/bitcoin-mining-electricity-pollution.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[BOREALIS]

Ten photographs that made the world wake up to climate change

By Nell Lewis, CNN
Updated 4:43 AM EDT, Thu March 30, 2023

Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.


Waterfalls pour off a Nordaustlandet ice cap in Svalbard, Norway, during an unusually warm summer in 2014

CNN
Water cascading from a wall of ice with gray brushstrokes of clouds overhead makes for a beautiful image – but the story behind it is one of destruction; Earth’s glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate due to human-caused climate change.

Canadian photographer Paul Nicklen remembers taking the photograph. It was August 2014, and temperatures in Svalbard, Norway, were unusually warm – hovering above 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius). As he came around the corner of an ice cap on Nordaustlandet island, he saw more than a dozen waterfalls pouring off its face.

“It was the most poetic, beautiful scene I’d ever seen, but it was also haunting and scary,” he recalls. The picture came to symbolize the realities of climate change and became Nicklen’s best-selling fine art image. It appeared multiple times in National Geographic, was used by Al Gore in his climate talks, and graced the cover of Pearl Jam’s 2020 album “Gigaton,” the title of which refers to the unit used to calculate ice mass.

Its beauty is central to its impact, believes Nicklen. “When you take a photograph that is in focus, properly exposed, moody and powerful, it creates a visceral reaction,” he says. “It has to be beautiful and engaging, it has to invite you in … and it has to have a conservation message.”

In 2014, Nicklen, along with his wife Cristina Mittermeier, and later joined by Andy Mann (both also award-winning photographers), co-founded the nonprofit organization SeaLegacy, which uses film and photography to raise awareness of climate issues and help protect the planet.

“Photography is one of the most effective and powerful tools we have to tell complex stories, like the story of climate change,” says Mittermeier.


n emaciated polar bear staggers on the search for food. The photograph, taken in 2017, received widespread attention, sparking a conversation around climate change.

She witnessed this power with one of her own photographs, taken in August 2017, which showed a starving polar bear. After being published in National Geographic, the photo and accompanying video went viral, shared on social media and by news organizations worldwide. It sparked a global conversation on climate change, provoking responses ranging from concern and empathy to climate denial. But there was no denying that it shook the world: “People still remember it and have strong reactions when they see it,” Mittermeier reflects.

As guest editors for CNN’s Call to Earth series, Nicklen and Mittermeier selected these two images, along with eight others, that they believe have alerted the world to the climate crisis.

War photographers


A kangaroo jumps past a burning house in Lake Conjola, Australia in December 2019. That season's bushfires were among the worst the country had ever seen, with nearly three billion animals killed or displaced.
Matthew Abbott/The New York Times

Nicklen compares photographing climate change to photographing conflict. “We’re out there on the front lines of the war being waged against our planet. It’s emotionally draining, exhausting,” he says.

In recent decades, as climate disasters have become more frequent and intense, images have more explicitly captured the urgency of the situation. Six dead giraffes, bodies emaciated from the lack of food and water, photographed by Ed Ram, show the horror of Kenya’s prolonged ongoing drought, which has threatened and displaced animals and humans alike. Photographs of wildfires, like those that ravaged Australia in 2019 and 2020, show the scale of devastation, with homes on fire and wildlife fleeing in despair.


The bodies of six giraffes lie on the outskirts of Eyrib village in Sabuli wildlife conservancy, Kenya, in 2021. A prolonged drought in the northeast of the country and the wider Horn of Africa has created food and water shortages for both animals and local communities.
Ed Ram/Getty Images

“They show that climate change isn’t just happening somewhere else, it’s happening everywhere,” says Mittermeier. “All of a sudden, it will come knocking a lot closer to your own door.”

Mittermeier remembers the work of her friend and one of her great influences, Gary Braasch, who she describes as a “chronicler of climate change.” The photographer, who died in 2016, dedicated the last two decades of his life to documenting how the Earth was changing in response to global warming – from Antarctica, with its melting glaciers, to Bhola Island in Bangladesh, where sea level rise and increasing erosion have turned villages into islands. Braasch’s commitment to the cause blazed the way for Nicklen and Mittermeier’s generation of conservation photographers.


Villagers stand on a remnant of a road in Bhola Island, Bangladesh, in 2005. The area, at the mouth of the Ganges delta, is still suffering from accelerated erosion due to sea level rise.

The slow retreat

These photos, taken in 2007 and 2022, show the retreating Sólheimajökull glacier in Iceland. In the last two decades, the speed of glacier melt is estimated to have doubled due to global warming.

At times however, climate change can be tediously slow to chronicle. Sea levels rise by a matter of millimeters each year – a barely visible increment despite happening at a faster rate than ever before. But such changes add up, and if they are visually documented over years or decades the impact becomes clear.

“It’s like photographing a slow-moving tsunami,” says Mittermeier. “It’s often hard to see in the moment, but when two images are put side-by-side, it’s hard not to see the impact the climate crisis is having.”

Read: Scientists are listening to glaciers to discover the secrets of the oceans
http://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/27/world/glaciers-listening-c2e-spc-intl-climate-scn/index.html

The work of photographer James Balog has been crucial in creating the visual narrative of climate change, she says. Using a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers around the world, his Extreme Ice Survey has demonstrated how glaciers are vanishing over time. The extensive archive of photos of each glacier taken year-round at every daylight hour has also provided a baseline from which future changes can be measured.

“It became just irrefutable proof,” says Mittermeier. “That was a very important moment for climate photography.”
. . .
Coexistence

Polar bears move into an abandoned weather station in Kolyuchin, Russia. The majestic mammals are at particular risk from climate change, which is melting the Arctic sea ice that they depend on.

Mittermeier and Nicklen also selected images where humans and nature collide. One effect of climate change is a dramatic loss of biodiversity. Since 1970, wildlife populations have plummeted by 69%, due predominantly to land-use change that has fragmented crucial habitats, and also rising temperatures, which have led to mass mortality events,
according to the WWF’s 2022 Living Planet Report. .. https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-US/#:~:text=Wildlife%20populations%20plummet%20by%2069,in%20species%20populations%20since%201970.

Read: The icy patience of an Arctic photographer
http://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/arctic-photography-florian-ledoux-climate-c2e-spc-intl-scn/index.html

With the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the globe, the ice that polar bears depend on is melting away. Dmitry Kokh’s photograph “House of Bears,” one of the winners of the 2022 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, shows polar bears roaming an abandoned Soviet settlement on Kolyuchin Island. While the buildings had long been deserted, Mittermeier believes it points to the increasing problem of polar bears – with no ice left to hunt on – encroaching on human spaces and encountering local people, leading to tragic outcomes for both sides.


Alice, Stanley and their child were displaced as floods destroyed their house in Kenya in 2017. They are photographed at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy together in the same frame as Najin, one of the last two northern white rhinos in the world. It's part of photographer Nick Brandt's "The Day May Break" series that portrays people and animals impacted by environmental destruction.

The effects of climate change will – and are already – hitting animals and humans alike. “It’s impossible to deny that we are all in this together,” says Mittermeier. “We are all impacted in devastating ways, and we cannot separate ourselves from the life we share this planet with.”

The series “The Day May Break” from photographer Nick Brandt portrays this by showing people and animals affected by environmental destruction. The photographs, taken in animal sanctuaries around the world, feature people that have been displaced by climate change events such as drought or floods, and animals that have been victims of habitat destruction or wildlife trafficking. Portraying both in the same frame shows how deeply our fates are intertwined.

Hope


A school of bright cardinalfish swerve to make way for a sea lion in the Galápagos. The archipelago off the coast of Ecuador is famous for its vibrant marine life and is one of the largest marine protected areas in the world.
Courtesy of Cristina Mittermeier
Among the images of devastation and displacement, there are also those that signify hope. In Brandt’s work, he points out that the subjects of the images, both people and animals, are survivors – “And therein lies hope and possibility,” he wrote in an email.

Read: The ocean’s ‘blue carbon’ can be our secret weapon in fighting climate change
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/02/opinions/mittermeier-nicklen-oceans-blue-carbon-climate-change-scn-spc-c2e/index.html

For Mittermeier and Nicklen, and SeaLegacy as a whole, striking a message of hope is vital to the wider mission. “Martin Luther King didn’t start his famous speech by reminding us that we live in a nightmare – he told us what the dream is,” says Mittermeier. “You have to point out what it is that we’re aspiring to and show where the hope is.”

The hope, she believes, is in wildlife and the ocean. Humans are just waking up to the role that both play in mitigating climate change, and restoring nature will be crucial in averting the crisis. For Mittermeier, her photograph of a sea lion rising up to the surface in the Galapagos – one of the largest marine protected areas in the world – shows how ocean life can flourish with the right protection. And Nicklen’s photograph of a bowhead whale represents to him one of our greatest allies in decarbonization: not only are whales’ bodies enormous stores of carbon, their feces fuels phytoplankton which soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.


Bowhead whales, like this one photographed near Baffin Island in Canada, can live to more than 200 years old. Some may have witnessed first-hand the effects of climate change since the Industrial Revolution.
Courtesy of Paul Nicklen
By showing off the beauty of the planet, the couple believe they can show people it is still worth fighting for.

“We’re trying to climb to the tallest mountain and scream from the mountaintops that this planet is dying, and that we are at risk,” says Nicklen.

“But the only emotion greater than fear is hope,” adds Mittermeier. “And the only way you can feel hope is if you take action.”

03:48
PROTECTORS OF THE SEA (at end of article)

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/world/climate-change-photography-paul-nicklen-cristina-mittermeier-c2e-spc-intl-scn-climate/index.html

[BullNBear52]

Before and after: New photos show remarkable recovery at California’s most beleaguered reservoir

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/us/lake-oroville-before-and-after-storms-climate/index.html

[BOREALIS]

Warm water melts weak spots on Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier', say scientists

By Cassandra Garrison
February 15, 2023 11:26 AM CST Last Updated 29 min ago

MEXICO CITY, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Scientists studying Antarctica's vast Thwaites Glacier - nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier - say warm water is seeping into its weak spots, worsening melting caused by rising temperatures, two papers published in Nature journal showed on Wednesday.

Thwaites, which is roughly the size of Florida, represents more than half a meter (1.6 feet) of global sea level rise potential, and could destabilize neighboring glaciers that have the potential to cause a further three-meter (9.8-foot) rise.

As part of the International Thwaites Glacier collaboration - the biggest field campaign ever attempted in Antarctica - a team of 13 U.S. and British scientists spent about six weeks on the glacier in late 2019 and early 2020.

Using an underwater robot vehicle known as Icefin, mooring data and censors, they monitored the glacier's grounding line, where ice slides off the glacier and meets the ocean for the first time.

In one of the papers, led by Cornell University-based scientist Britney Schmidt, researchers found that warmer water was making its way into crevasses and other openings known as terraces, causing sideways melt of 30 meters (98 feet) or more per year.

"Warm water is getting into the weakest parts of the glacier and making it worse," Schmidt told Reuters.

"That is the kind of thing we should all be very concerned about," she said about the findings which underscored how climate change is reaching isolated Antarctica.

The other paper's findings, which Schmidt also worked on, showed about five meters (16 feet) per year of melt near the glacier's grounding line - less than what the most aggressive thinning models previously predicted.

But she said the melting was still of grave concern.

"If we observe less melting... that doesn't change the fact that it's retreating," Schmidt said.

Scientists have previously depended on satellite images to show the behavior of the ice, making it difficult to get granular details. The papers represent the first time a team has been to the grounding line of a major glacier, providing a look right where "the action begins," Schmidt said.

The findings will help in the development of climate change models, said Paul Cutler, program director of Antarctic Sciences at the National Science Foundation. He reviewed the papers, but was not involved in the research.

"These things can now be taken on board in the models that will predict the future behavior, and that was exactly the goal of this work," he said.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/warm-water-melts-weak-spots-antarcticas-doomsday-glacier-say-scientists-2023-02-15/

[BOREALIS]

Greta Thunberg's 'The Climate Book' urges world to keep climate justice out front

February 9, 20236:28 AM ET
Barbara J. King


Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg waits in Erkelenz, Germany, to take part in a demonstration
at a nearby a coal mine on Jan. 14.
Michael Probst/AP

Climate activist Greta Thunberg who, at age 15, led school strikes every Friday in her home country of Sweden — a practice that caught on globally — has now, at 20, managed to bring together more than 100 scientists, environmental activists, journalists and writers to lay out exactly how and why it's clear that the climate crisis is happening.


https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Book-Facts-Solutions/dp/0593492307/ref=asc_df_0593492307/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=598289157286&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14234041474337276685&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1020156&hvtargid=pla-1660415298430&psc=1

Impressively, in The Climate Book, Thunberg and team — which includes well-known names like Margaret Atwood, George Monbiot, Bill McKibben and Robin Wall Kimmerer -- explain and offer action items in 84 compelling, bite-size chapters.

Most critically, they — and Thunberg herself in numerous brief essays of her own — explain what steps need to be taken without delay if the world is to have a reasonable chance of limiting global temperature rise as stated in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The document aims to keep the temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius (and better yet below 1.5 degrees Celsius).

The essays also explain why climate justice must be at the center of these efforts.

Reading The Climate Book at a deliberate pace over some weeks (it's a lot to absorb), the cumulative impact on my understanding of the crisis through its data, cross-cultural reflections, and paths for step-by-step change became mesmerizing.

If you think the rich nations of the world are making real progress towards achieving limits on global warming, think again. In one essay, Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the Universities of Manchester, Uppsala and Bergen, puts it this way: "Wealthy nations must eliminate their use of fossils fuels by around 2030 for a likely chance of 1.5C, extending only around 2035 to 2040 for 2C... We are where we are precisely because for thirty years we've favoured make-believe over real mitigation."

What does Anderson mean by "make-believe"? In her own chapter, journalist Alexandra Urisman Otto describes her investigation into Swedish climate policy, specifically its net zero target for 2045. She discovered a discrepancy between the official number of greenhouse gases emitted each year — 50 million tons — and the real figure, 150 million tons. That lower, official figure leaves out "emissions from consumption and the burning of biomass," which means the target is way off, she writes. If all countries were off by that much, the world would be heading straight for a catastrophic increase of 2.5 to 3C.

What does that mean, emissions from consumption and the burning of biomass? John Barrett, professor of energy and climate policy at the University of Leeds, and Alice Garvey, sustainability researcher at the same university, explain that "emissions from consumption" means emissions are allocated to the country of the consumer, not the producer. Because industrial production is often outsourced to developing economies, in a world where climate justice were front and center, the consumer country (in this example, Sweden) would take the burden of lessening the emissions from consumption.

As for biomass, that refers to burning wood for energy, and sometimes other materials like kelp. Burning wood for energy causes more emissions per unit of energy than fossil fuels, explain Karl-Heinz Erb and Simone Gingrich, both social ecology professors at Vienna's University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences.

Alice Larkin, professor of climate science and energy policy at the University of Manchester, adds "a highly significant complication" to this disturbing picture: international aviation and shipping aren't typically accounted for in national emission targets, policies, and carbon budgets, either.

This under-reporting situation, I would wager, isn't known even by many climate-literate citizens. It certainly wasn't to me.

One urgent goal, then, is transparency in climate-emission figures. Beyond that, Thunberg says, distribution of climate budgets fairly across countries of the world must be a priority. Without climate justice, policies are unlikely to succeed. An especially effective subsection of the book, "We are not all in the same boat," brings this point to life.

Saleemul Huq, director of a Bangladeshi international center for climate change, puts the point squarely: The communities most devastated by climate change "are overwhelmingly poor people of colour." But Bangladeshi citizens shouldn't be thought of as passive victims, Huq emphasizes. Communities work together to prepare for the effects of climate disasters in ways not often seen in the global north. For example, "An elderly widow living alone will have two children from the high school assigned to go and pick her up" in case of hurricane or other emergency.

Globally, then, what to do? First, we can hold industrial and corporate interests accountable and push back on their messages placing the burden solely on the individual, a tactic that allows the worst of the status quo carbon-emissions activities to continue.

Beyond this, it's not enough "to become vegetarian for one day a week, offset our holiday trips to Thailand or switch our diesel SUV for an electric car," as Thunberg puts it. Participating in recycling may lead to feel-good moments, but in fact, in the words of Greenpeace activist Nina Schrank, it's "perhaps the greatest example of greenwashing on the planet today." Even the 9% of plastic that does get recycled ends up (after one or two cycles) dumped or burned.

Thunberg herself has given up flying. In the book she writes, "Frequent flying is by far the most climate-destructive individual activity you can engage in." Though she writes that lowering her personal carbon footprint isn't her specific goal in sailing (instead of flying) across the Atlantic — she hopes to convey the need for urgent, collective behavioral change. "If we do not see anyone else behaving as if we are in a crisis, then very few will understand that we actually are in a crisis," she writes.

We can join Thunberg in giving up- or at least reducing- a flying habit if we have one. Three further steps, out of many offered in the book, are these: Switch to plant-based diets. Support natural climate solutions, by protecting forests, salt marshes, mangroves, the oceans, and all the animal and plant life in these habitats. Pressure the media to go beyond the latest story on a heat wave or collapsing glacier to focus on root causes, time urgency, and solutions. Thunberg writes that "No entity other than the media has the opportunity to create the necessary transformation of our global society."

Social norms can and do change, Thunberg emphasizes. That's our greatest source of hope — but only if we keep climate justice front and center at every step.

Barbara J. King is a biological anthropologist emerita at William & Mary. Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity is her seventh book. Find her on Twitter @bjkingape

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1150729582/greta-thunbergs-the-climate-book-urges-world-to-keep-climate-justice-out-front

[BOREALIS]

UN chief: Rising seas risk ‘death sentence’ for some nations

an hour ago

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that sea levels will rise significantly even if global warming is “miraculously” limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius — and said Earth is more likely on a path to warming that amounts to “a death sentence” for countries vulnerable to that rise.

Every fraction of a degree counts, since sea level rise could double if temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and increase exponentially with further temperature increases, the U.N. chief said. He spoke at the opening of a U.N. Security Council meeting on sea level rise, which was hearing from 75 countries, and said the council has a critical role in building support for actions to fight climate change.

Under any scenario, countries like Bangladesh, China, India and the Netherlands are all at risk, and large cities on every continent will face serious impacts, including Cairo, Lagos, Maputo, Bangkok, Dhaka, Jakarta, Mumbai, Shanghai, Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, New York, Buenos Aires and Santiago, he added.

The World Meteorological Organization released figures Tuesday, cited by Guterres, that say global mean sea level will rise by about 2 meters to 3 meters (about 6.5 to 9.8 feet) over the next 2,000 years if warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. With a 2-degree Celsius increase, seas could rise up to 6 meters (19.7 feet), and with a 5-degree Celsius increase, seas could rise up to 22 meters (72 feet), according to the WMO.

“Our world is hurtling past the 1.5-degree warming limit that a livable future requires, and with present policies, is careening towards 2.8 degrees — a death sentence for vulnerable countries,” Guterres said.

Guterres said the danger is especially acute for nearly 900 million people who live in coastal zones at low elevations, or one out of every 10 people worldwide.

The consequences are unthinkable, Guterres said: Low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear, the world would witness a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale and competition would become ever fiercer for fresh water, land and other resources.

Guterres has been trying to call the world’s attention to the dangers posed by climate change, to spur action. In October, he warned that the world is in “a life-or-death struggle” for survival as “ climate chaos gallops ahead” and accused the world’s 20 wealthiest countries of failing to do enough to stop the planet from overheating. In November, he said the planet is heading toward irreversible “climate chaos” and urged global leaders to put the world back on track to cut emissions, keep promises on climate financing and help developing countries speed their transition to renewable energy.

The landmark Paris agreement adopted in 2015 to address climate change called for global temperatures to rise a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times, and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Guterres said the world must address the climate crisis as the root cause of rising seas, and the Security Council has a critical role to play in building the political will required.

https://apnews.com/article/politics-climate-and-environment-united-nations-security-council-antonio-guterres-5df7986b2b27989acb729d4da17155f8

[12yearplan]

Counter point - what do you think?

[12yearplan]

Infrastructure Biden thanks and way to go!:
https://ceo.ca/@newswire/exro-partners-with-greentech-renewables-sw-to-bring

[12yearplan]

environmental mandate .. sorta like wear ur mask only install ur coil