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Sports Reporter Makes His Feelings Very Clear When He's Made to Cover Morning Weather During Blizzard
The Iowa reporter was assigned to cover early morning weather instead of his normal sports coverage on Thursday
By Ingrid Vasquez Published on December 23, 2022 12:32 AM
Mark Woodley is showing news viewers what happens "when you ask the sports guy to come in to cover a blizzard in the morning show."
The KWWL sports anchor went viral after his live coverage of the blizzard-like conditions in Waterloo, Iowa, got over two million views on Twitter due to his candid remarks about being out in the negative-degree weather on Thursday.
"This is a really long show. Tune in for the next couple hours to watch me progressively get crankier and crankier," he quipped on-air.
This is what you get when you ask the sports guy to come in to cover a blizzard in the morning show. pic.twitter.com/h0RL9tVQqg
— Mark Woodley (@MarkWoodleyTV) December 22, 2022
Understanding Global Change
Discover why the climate and environment changes, your place in the Earth system, and paths to a resilient future.
Burning of fossil fuels
The burning of fossil fuels refers to the burning of oil, natural gas, and coal to generate energy.
We use this energy to generate electricity, and to power transportation (for example, cars and planes) and industrial processes. Ever since the invention of the first coal-fired steam engines of the 1700s, our burning of fossil fuels has steadily increased. Across the globe each year we now burn over 4,000 times the amount of fossils fuels burnt during 1776. The effects of the burning of fossil fuels, especially carbon dioxide, are having far-reaching effects on our climate and ecosystems.
The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of current climate change, altering the Earth’s ecosystems and causing human and environmental health problems.
Flares burn at sunset in the Bakken oil and gas fields in North Dakota Credit: Jeff Peischl/CIRES and NOAA
Fossil fuels form over millions of years from the burial of photosynthetic organisms, including plants on land (which primarily form coal) and plankton in the oceans (which primarily form oil and natural gas). To grow these organisms removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the ocean, and their burial inhibited the movement of that carbon through the carbon cycle. The burning of this fossil material returns this carbon back into atmosphere as carbon dioxide, at a rate that is hundreds to thousands of times faster than it took to bury, and much faster than can be removed by the carbon cycle. Thus, the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels accumulates in the atmosphere, some of which then dissolves in the ocean causing ocean acidification.
---omitted embedded links---
The burning of fossil fuels affects the Earth system in a variety of ways. Some of these ways include:
* Releasing the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) into the atmosphere, which intensifies the greenhouse effect (the re-radiation of heat in the atmosphere), increasing the Earth’s average air temperatures. These greenhouse gases can remain in the atmosphere for decades to hundreds of years.
* Emitting an array of pollutants that reduce air quality and harm life, especially sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and airborne particles such as soot. Poor air quality can cause respiratory disease.
* The airborne particles also increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere, which has a slight cooling effect. The reason is that the airborne particles, such as soot and sulfate aerosols (from sulfur dioxide), reflect some sunlight back into space, increase cloud formation, and make clouds more reflective. The net effect of burning fossil fuels is warming because the cooling is small compared with the heating caused by the greenhouse effect, in part because airborne particles only stay suspended in the atmosphere for a few days to months, while greenhouse gases that cause warming remain in the atmosphere for many decades to hundreds of years.
* Changing patterns of snow and ice melt. Airborne particles (especially soot) that settle on snow increase the absorption of sunlight due to their dark color, heating the surface of the snow causing melting. In certain parts of the world, the presence of soot (in addition to global warming) has caused winter ice and snow melts earlier and faster today than in previous decades, which also changes local patterns of freshwater availability.
* Increasing the acidity of precipitation. Sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and carbon dioxide (CO2) react with water vapor, oxygen, and other chemicals to form acid rain. Acid rain can contaminate freshwater sources, resulting in harmful algal blooms that reduce water oxygen levels and harm fish populations and other wildlife. Additionally, acid rain increases chemical weathering of rocks, including manmade structures.
Using large amounts freshwater. Power plants that burn fossil fuels cool their systems by removing freshwater from local rivers and lakes. The warm water returned to nearby ecosystems can cause stress for local species.
Can you think of additional cause and effect relationships between the burning of fossil fuels and other parts of the Earth system?
Visit the greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, and temperature pages to learn more about how burning fossil fuels affects global climate and ecosystems.
https://ugc.berkeley.edu/background-content/burning-of-fossil-fuels/
'Every breath you take': Air pollution stifles Europe's health targets
By Juliette Portala
November 24, 2022 11:13 AM CST, Last Updated 7 hours ago
The Eiffel Tower is surrounded by a small-particle haze which hangs above the skyline in Paris, France, December 9, 2016
as the City of Light experienced the worst air pollution in a decade.
REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
Summary
* 238,000 premature deaths from fine particules in EU in 2020
* Air pollution worsens respiratory and cardiovascular diseases
* Also damages land and water ecosystems, crops and forests
Nov 24 (Reuters) - Air quality in Europe is improving but still poses high risks, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said on Thursday, as fine particles exposure led to at least 238,000 premature deaths in the 27-nation EU in 2020.
"Air pollution is still the largest environmental health risk in Europe," the EEA said. "While emissions of key air pollutants and their concentrations in ambient air have fallen significantly over the past two decades in Europe, air quality remains poor in many areas."
Between 2005 and 2020, the number of early deaths from exposure to fine particulate matter fell by 45% in the European Union, in line with the bloc's zero pollution action plan target of a 55% cut in premature deaths by 2030.
However, 96% of the EU's urban population was still exposed in 2020 to concentrations of fine particules that were above the World Health Organization's guideline level of 5 microgrammes per cubic metre.
Air pollution aggravates respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, with heart disease and stroke cited as the most common causes of related early deaths.
"Further efforts will be needed to meet the zero pollution vision for 2050 of reducing air pollution to levels no longer considered harmful to health," the EEA said.
The European Commission proposed in October to set stricter thresholds for air pollution but also to enhance the right of citizens to clean air. This could include provisions to claim compensation for health damage in case of quality standards breaches.
But air pollution does not only damage health.
According to the EEA, 59% of forested areas were exposed to harmful ground-level ozone in the European Economic Area, damaging vegetation and reducing biodiversity.
In 2020, critical levels of nitrogen deposition were found in 75% of the ecosystem of the 27 member states. This represents a fall of 12% since 2005, against the EU objective for a 25% decline by 2030.
Reporting by Juliette Portala, Editing by Gareth Jones
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/every-breath-you-take-air-pollution-stifles-europes-health-targets-2022-11-24/
UN weather report: Climate woes bad and getting worse faster
By SETH BORENSTEIN, 2 hours ago
FILE - Women carry belongings salvaged from their flooded home after monsoon rains, in the Qambar Shahdadkot district of Sindh Province, of Pakistan, Sept. 6, 2022.
Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before,
the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022, in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)
HARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before, the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations.
“The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action -- ambitious, credible climate action.”
In its annual state of the climate report, the United Nations’ weather agency said that sea level rise in the past decade was double what it was in the 1990s and since January 2020 has jumped at a higher rate than that. Since the decade began, seas are rising at 5 millimeters a year (.2 inches) compared to 2.1 millimeters (.08 inches) in the 1990s.
The last eight years have been the warmest on record, the WMO said in a report that didn’t break new ground but was a collection of recent weather trends, data and impacts in one central place.
“The melting (of ice) game we have lost and also the sea level rate,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas told The Associated Press. “There are no positive indicators so far.”
The only reason that the globe hasn’t broken annual temperature records in the past few years is a rare three-year La Niña weather phenomenon, he said.
The data on sea level and average temperatures are nothing compared to how climate change has hit people in extreme weather.
The report highlights the summer’s incredible flood in Pakistan that killed more than 1,700 people and displaced 7.9 million, .. https://apnews.com/article/floods-pakistan-south-asia-islamabad-25ee9dc0ec7aee6f4f2ef7b557216ee7
a crippling four-year drought in East Africa that has more than 18 million hungry, .. https://apnews.com/article/business-indian-ocean-kenya-africa-droughts-193a7d69a05182455cc163aa59751aeb
the Yangtze River drying to its lowest level in August, .. https://apnews.com/article/china-droughts-economy-chongqing-13e7b32da8113aea92e4f69b4aaf62cd
and record heat-waves broiling people in Europe and China. ..
https://apnews.com/article/london-western-europe-north-sea-weather-461aa7026cc00292aaae5161b9f62fcb
https://apnews.com/article/floods-china-shanghai-weather-heat-waves-4abf4c36226d2bc850f7a57069f8462a
“This latest report from the World Meteorological Organization reads like a lab report for a critically ill patient, but in this case the patient is Earth,” said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod, who wasn’t part of the report.
Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record high levels, with potent methane increasing at a record pace, the report said. .. https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration-roses-ae91e7f826e992219f5ba4c1d7598f8d
That means more than just warming temperatures on land. Ice, both Greenland’s ice sheet and the world’s glaciers, are shrinking precipitously, the report said. For the 26th year in a row, Greenland lost ice when all types of ice are factored in. The volume of glacier snow in Switzerland dropped by more than one-third from 2001 to 2022, the report said.
But 90% of the heat trapped on Earth goes into the ocean and the upper 2000 meters (6561 feet) of the ocean is getting warmer faster. The rate of warming the last 15 years is 67% faster than since 1971, the report said.
That ocean heat “will continue to warm in the future – a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales,” the report said.
Outside experts weren’t surprised by the report and said no one should be.
“What climate scientists have warned about for decades is upon us. And will continue to worsen without action,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. “Two things must go away: Climate delayism and speaking about climate change impacts in the future tense. It’s here.”
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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE edited
Vital Signs of the Planet
"--Untold human suffering" is in the near future as U.N. warns climate change is pushing Earth closer to extreme warming--"
https://climate.nasa.gov/
What Is Climate Change?
Understanding our planet to benefit humankind
[...]
Explore
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Before-and-after images of Earth
Global Ice Viewer
Climate change's impact on ice
Earth Minute Videos
Animated video series illustrating Earth science topics
Climate Time Machine
Climate change in recent history
Climate Change Resources
An extensive collection of global warming resources for media, educators, weathercasters, and public speakers.
Multimedia
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Resources
For EducatorsStudent and educator resources
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Webquests, Climate Kids, and more
https://climate.nasa.gov/
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
Vital Signs of the Planet
What Is Climate Change?
Understanding our planet to benefit humankind
[...]
https://climate.nasa.gov/
Shelter from the storm(s), The Poetics of Space
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poetics_of_Space
Growth is used to crush our aspirations for a better life.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/12/liz-truss-anti-growth-coalition-class-power
New Zealand proposes taxing cow burps, angering farmers
By NICK PERRY today
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change.
The government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products.
But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry’s main lobby group, said the plan would “rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand” and see farms replaced with trees.
Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldn’t decrease food production.
“Our plan was to keep farmers farming,” Hoggard said. Instead, he said farmers would be selling their farms “so fast you won’t even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off.”
Opposition lawmakers from the conservative ACT Party said the plan would actually increase worldwide emissions by moving farming to other countries that were less efficient at making food.
New Zealand’s farming industry is vital to its economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nation’s largest export earner.
There are just 5 million people in New Zealand but some 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep.
The outsized industry has made New Zealand unusual in that about half of its greenhouse gas emissions come from farms. Farm animals produce gasses that warm the planet, particularly methane from cattle burps and nitrous oxide from their urine.
The debate in New Zealand is part of a broader global reckoning about farming’s impact on the environment and the steps some say are needed for mitigation.
In the Netherlands, farmers have dumped hay bales on roads and driven tractors along busy highways to protest government proposals to slash emissions of damaging pollutants.
In New Zealand, the government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes a pledge that it will reduce methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050.
Under the government’s proposed plan, farmers would start to pay for emissions in 2025, with the pricing yet to be finalized.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said all the money collected from the proposed farm levy would be put back into the industry to fund new technology, research and incentive payments for farmers.
“New Zealand’s farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food,” Ardern said.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said it was an exciting opportunity for New Zealand and its farmers.
“Farmers are already experiencing the impact of climate change with more regular drought and flooding,” O’Connor said. “Taking the lead on agricultural emissions is both good for the environment and our economy.”
The liberal Labour government’s proposal harks back to a similar but unsuccessful proposal made by a previous Labour government in 2003 to tax farm animals for their methane emissions.
Farmers back then also vehemently opposed the idea, and political opponents ridiculed it as a “fart tax” — although a “burp tax” would have been more technically accurate as most of the methane emissions come from belching. The government eventually abandoned the plan.
According to opinion polls, Ardern’s Labour Party has slipped in popularity and fallen behind the main opposition National Party since Ardern won a second term in 2020 in a landslide victory of historic proportions.
If Ardern’s government can’t find agreement on the proposal with farmers, who have considerable political sway in New Zealand, it’s likely to make it more difficult for Ardern to win reelection next year when the nation goes back to the polls.
https://apnews.com/article/business-new-zealand-animals-emissions-reduction-climate-and-environment-6f8847bc10ecdd0ba4d5c23bdab5617d
Thousands of salmon found dead as Canada drought dries out river
A lack of rain on the western coasts saw 65,000 dead salmon wash up on the creek
British Columbia’s western coasts have seen little rain over the past five weeks and several regions are in drought level four. Photograph: Handout
Leyland Cecco
Wed 5 Oct 2022 14.09 EDT
Tens of thousands of dead wild salmon scattered along a creek bed are the latest casualty of a drought that has gripped the province of British Columbia for more than a month and left communities bracing for more devastation.
In a video clip posted to social media, the carcasses of pink and chum salmon are seen piled near the community of Bella Bella.
0:25
This is Neekas, Heiltsuk Territory. All of these salmon went into the creek, the creek dried up b/c of no rain so far this fall, and just died, and this is just one reach! Global warming is killing everything. This is such a sad scene. Video credit, Sarah Mund pic.twitter.com/vYhEKwD5mN
— William Housty (@WilliamHousty) October 4, 2022
California wells run dry as drought depletes groundwater
By TERRY CHE Atoday
02:48
https://apnews.com/article/california-droughts-climate-and-environment-e49c8c5c34ead7ef7f83b770082f20bc
FAIRMEAD, Calif. (AP) — As California’s drought deepens, Elaine Moore’s family is running out of an increasingly precious resource: water.
The Central Valley almond growers had two wells go dry this summer. Two of her adult children are now getting water from a new well the family drilled after the old one went dry last year. She’s even supplying water to a neighbor whose well dried up.
“It’s been so dry this last year. We didn’t get much rain. We didn’t get much snowpack,” Moore said, standing next to a dry well on her property in Chowchilla, California. “Everybody’s very careful with what water they’re using. In fact, my granddaughter is emptying the kids’ little pool to flush the toilets.”
Amid a megadrought plaguing the American West, more rural communities are losing access to groundwater as heavy pumping depletes underground aquifers that aren’t being replenished by rain and snow.
More than 1,200 wells have run dry this year statewide, a nearly 50% increase over the same period last year, according to the California Department of Water Resources. By contrast, fewer than 100 dry wells were reported annually in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The groundwater crisis is most severe in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland, which exports fruits, vegetables and nuts around the world.
Shrinking groundwater supplies reflect the severity of California’s drought, which is now entering its fourth year. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 94% of the state is in severe, extreme or exceptional drought.
California just experienced its three driest years on record, and state water officials said Monday they’re preparing for another dry year because the weather phenomenon known as La Nina is expected to occur for the third consecutive year.
Farmers are getting little surface water from the state’s depleted reservoirs, so they’re pumping more groundwater to irrigate their crops. That’s causing water tables to drop across California. State data shows that 64% of wells are at below-normal water levels.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/california-droughts-climate-and-environment-e49c8c5c34ead7ef7f83b770082f20bc
Can the hurricane TV reporters come inside now? Please?
September 29, 20221:23 PM ET
Wind gusts blow across Sarasota Bay as Hurricane Ian churns to the south on Wednesday in Sarasota, Fla.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images
When I saw a tree branch fly into The Weather Channel's intrepid anchor Jim Cantore, just as he was struggling to stand up against intense winds reporting from the middle of the storm during Hurricane's Ian's landfall Wednesday, I couldn't help a fleeting, terrible thought:
Climate change makes storms like Ian more common
September 29, 202212:45 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/29/1125875383/climate-change-makes-storms-like-ian-more-common
2:09
The storm surge from Hurricane Ian is the “crazy variable here right now," says @BillWeirCNN from Punta Gorda, Florida. “This is exactly what climate scientists have been warning about for a long time.” https://t.co/qPONcBnBLv pic.twitter.com/aJDunN7Uzc
— CNN (@CNN) September 28, 2022
Early Photos of Hurricane Ian’s Landfall in Florida
Alan Taylor | September 29, 2022 | 21 Photos In Focus
Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwest Florida yesterday as a Category 4 storm, causing catastrophic flooding, wind damage, and power outages affecting millions. Ian also heavily damaged at least two causeways, cutting off the only land connection to several barrier islands.
Early images are now coming in, showing some of the destruction caused by this unusually intense storm.
Hints: View this page full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ?/?.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/09/hurricane-ian-makes-landfall-florida-photos/671596/
1. A man takes photos of boats damaged by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida, on September 29, 2022. #
4. Damaged homes and debris are shown in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, in Fort Myers, Florida, on September 29, 2022. #
8. Smoldering homes are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, on September 29, 2022, in Fort Myers Beach. #
Authorities transport a person out of the Avante nursing home in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, in Orlando, Florida, on September 29, 2022. #
Stedi Scuderi looks over her Fort Myers apartment after floodwater inundated it when Hurricane Ian passed through the area on September
Damaged boats sit on and near the shore in Fort Myers on September 29, 2022. #
Brenda Brennan sits next to a boat that pushed against her apartment during the hurricane on September 29, 2022, in Fort Myers. #
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/09/hurricane-ian-makes-landfall-florida-photos/671596/
==============================================
Photos: The Aftermath of Hurricane Fiona in Eastern Canada
Alan Taylor |September 26, 2022 | 14 Photos In Focus
After causing heavy damage across parts of the Caribbean and Bermuda last week, Hurricane Fiona moved north toward Eastern Canada, making landfall this weekend as a post-tropical cyclone. The downgraded storm still packed heavy rain and winds, gusting up to 110 mph, driving storm surges and knocking down trees and power lines. Hundreds of thousands remain without power as emergency crews and utility workers work to clear debris and rebuild lines. Below is a collection of recent images from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland.
Hints: View this page full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/09/photos-hurricane-fiona-canada/671557/
Good for the person good for the planet
.. purpose is “the deepest driver of well-being there is.”
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/we-ve-reached-peak-wellness-most-of-it-is-nonsense?utm_source=pocket-newtab
.. the Earth herself is already working in the depths of the human psyche to heal our troubled urban-industrial culture. "The needs of the planet," Roszak believes, "are the needs of the person. The rights of the person are the rights of the planet."
https://www.amazon.ca/Person-Planet-Creative-Disintegration-Industrial/dp/0595297471
Great website unfortunately. I'm kinda hopeful cuz God (my version ;) is
On my/our side.
My God is the one of chaos - how things are ordered. See A. Camus
Luckily, the emotional animals that humans are are pretty good in a crisis
(google wikipedia ;)
Backstory to the fact that a simple revolution in consciousness can turn the tide.
The picture can not be clearer.
Even Numbnuts are confused.
Mass suicide is a myth
https://www.britannica.com/story/do-lemmings-really-commit-mass-suicide
For he who will die
Is he who will kill?
Maybe I want to see the wheatfields
Over Kiev and down to the sea
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62996212
The Effects of Climate Change
The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come.
https://climate.nasa.gov/
“Have we really contemplated what happens when you mess with our global and ecological systems to that degree?” said University of Miami climate risk scientist Katharine Mach, who wasn’t part of the study. She said it shows ripples and cascades that are troublesome. “This is a profound reason for concern in a changing climate.”
Short answer is we r fucked. Sure, some will die a nuanced and poetic death..
Still dead.
Study: Four major climate tipping points close to triggering
By SETH BORENSTEIN September 8, 2022 GMT
Even if the world somehow manages to limit future warming to the strictest international temperature goal, four Earth-changing climate “tipping points” are still likely to be triggered with a lot more looming as the planet heats more after that, a new study said.
An international team of scientists looked at 16 climate tipping points — when a warming side effect is irreversible, self-perpetuating and major — and calculated rough temperature thresholds at which they are triggered.
None of them are considered likely at current temperatures, though a few are possible. But with only a few more tenths of a degree of warming from now, at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial times, four move into the likely range, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.
The study said slow but irreversible collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets,
more immediate loss of tropical coral reefs around the globe,
and thawing of high northern permafrost that releases massive amounts of greenhouse gases trapped in now frozen land
are four significant tipping points that could be triggered at 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, which is three-tenths of a degree (half a degree Fahrenheit) warmer than now. Current policies and actions put Earth on a trajectory for about 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, according to some projections.
“Let’s hope we’re not right,” said study co-author Tim Lenton, an Earth systems scientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. “There’s a distinct chance some of these tipping points are going to be unavoidable. And therefore it’s really important we do some more thinking about how we’re going to adapt to the consequences.”
Timing is a key issue for tipping points in two ways: when they become triggered and when they cause harm. And in many cases, such as ice sheet collapses, they could be triggered soon but their impacts even though inevitable take centuries to play out, scientists said. A few, such as the loss of coral reefs, cause more harm in only a decade or two.
“It’s a future generation issue,” said study lead author David Armstrong McKay, a University of Exeter Earth systems scientist. “That ice sheets collapsing is kind of that thousand-year timescale, but it’s still bequeathing an entirely different planet to our descendants.”
The concept of tipping points have been around for more than a decade but this study goes further looking at temperature thresholds for when they may be triggered and what impacts they would have on people and Earth and in the past 15 years or so “the risk levels just keep going up,” Lenton said.
Lenton likes to think of tipping points like someone leaning back on a folding chair.
“When you start tipping over backwards you have in that case a very simple kind of feedback on the forces of gravity operating on propelling you backwards until SPLAT,” Lenton said.
Study co-author Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, likened it to someone lighting a fuse on a bomb “and then the fuse will burn up until the big bang and the big bang may be further down the line.”
While the ice sheets with several meters or yards of potential sea rise can reshape coastline over centuries, Rockstrom said to him the loss of coral reefs is his biggest concern because of the “immediate impacts on human livelihoods.” Hundreds of millions of people, especially poorer tropical area residents, depend on fisheries linked to the coral reefs, McKay said.
With just a few more tenths of a degree new tipping points become more possible and even likely that includes a slow down of northern polar ocean circulation that can ripple into dramatic weather changes especially in Europe, loss of certain areas of Arctic sea ice, glaciers collapsing worldwide and utter failure of the Amazon rain forest.
Some of these tipping points, like the permafrost thaw, add to and accelerate existing warming, but don’t think “it’s game over” if temperatures hit 1.5 degrees of warming, which is quite likely, McKay said.
“Even if we do hit some of those tipping points, it will still lock in really substantial impacts we want to avoid, but it doesn’t trigger some sort of runaway climate change process,” McKay said. “That’s not the case at 1.5 degrees. And that means that how much further warming occurs beyond 1.5 is still mostly within our power to effect.”
That’s a crucial point that these are tipping points for individual regional disasters not the planet as a whole, so it’s bad, but not world ending, said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth, who wasn’t part of the study, but said it was important nuanced research that quantified tipping points better than before.
“Have we really contemplated what happens when you mess with our global and ecological systems to that degree?” said University of Miami climate risk scientist Katharine Mach, who wasn’t part of the study. She said it shows ripples and cascades that are troublesome. “This is a profound reason for concern in a changing climate.”
https://apnews.com/article/science-climate-and-environment-10b36a73b486ed5c0bde05db4151ccb0
Severe heat and droughts are wreaking havoc across the globe
Wildfires, crop shortages, and energy restrictions are putting pressure on governments, and people.
By Ellen Ioanes Aug 21, 2022, 5:42pm EDT
A picture taken on August 21, 2022, shows boarding pontoons on Lake Serre-Poncon in the French Alps,
as water level decreased 14 meters due to drought. Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images
For all embedded links: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/21/23315264/droughts-extreme-heat-climate-crisis
The summer of 2022 has seen significant, sustained drought across the globe, from Europe to China to the US and Africa, and has brought with it serious ripple effects, from energy shortages to severe food insecurity.
Places like California in the US have suffered from droughts for years, with statewide restrictions on water use becoming the norm. But record droughts in other areas of the world, like Europe and Asia, are affecting everything from agriculture to energy transport. Many places now suffering from severe heat and drought — like the UK — don’t necessarily have the infrastructure to deal with such weather extremes. And when rain does eventually fall, it’s likely to cause flooding due to sustained heat and dryness.
This summer’s widespread drought doesn’t paint a particularly hopeful picture for our collective climate future, and though China and other places are turning to creative approaches like cloud seeding to at least protect agriculture, heat waves are likely to get more severe in the future — contributing to further drought. That means more wildfires, more challenges for agriculture, particularly in poor countries, and more displacement and famine.
Droughts are everywhere, and they have a variety of causes
Droughts aren’t unprecedented events; they’ve happened throughout history and have contributed to devastating effects like famine and displacement. In the US, the most severe drought incident on record is the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, in which low rainfall, extreme heat, and severe financial distress caused by the Great Depression, among other factors, intersected to cause crop failure, poverty, and displacement in parts of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.
The droughts now plaguing parts of North America, the Horn of Africa, China, the United Kingdom, and wider Europe don’t necessarily have just one cause. In many cases, droughts are a combination of particularly low rainfall and high temperatures. When temperatures rise, water evaporates more quickly, and when it does fall, it’s more likely to fall as rain instead of snow due to those same high temperatures, as Vox’s Neel Dhanesha explained. In California and the American West, snowpack — layers of snowfall kept frozen due to temperatures below freezing, which then melt as temperatures rise — is a significant source of water. Less snowpack due to higher temperatures, then, means that water sourcing is less reliable, and probably will continue to be in the coming decades — contributing to drought.
As Vox’s Benji Jones wrote, agriculture in parts of California and Arizona is suffering due to drought in the Colorado River and low water levels in two reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Farmers are the primary users of water from the Colorado River, and while some have already cut their supply, the drought isn’t likely to subside any time soon — meaning that future cuts will be necessary. That will be a problem for many Americans already reeling from high food prices due to inflation, Jones wrote:
PHOTOS: One Third of Pakistan is under water in catastrophic floods
August 30, 20222:43 PM ET
Hannah Bloch, Peter DiCampo
One-third of Pakistan is inundated, as floods sweep through the country this summer. The catastrophic floods, resulting from monsoon rains that began in June, are unprecedented in scale and scope.
So far, they have affected some 33 million people — about 14% of Pakistan's population — causing death, damage, displacement and loss whose effects will be felt for months and years to come.
More than 1,000 people have been killed. Agriculture, a mainstay of Pakistan's economy, has been overwhelmed as fields drown. Nearly half the cotton crop has been lost in southern Sindh province.
Pakistan's Federal Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman has called the flooding a "crisis of unimaginable proportions." Of Sindh — which is still bracing for more floods as rivers to the north swell and burst their banks — she tweeted: "The crops are gone, lives ruined, livelihoods wiped out, roads swept away, houses destroyed or barely standing ... Where to pump/drain the water? There's water everywhere."
Pakistani authorities estimate rebuilding will cost upward of $10 billion, and are pleading for help. The U.S. announced Tuesday that it's providing $30 million for shelter, food and sanitation. China, Turkey, the European Union and the United Arab Emirates also are sending aid.
The United Nations has launched a joint appeal with Pakistan's government for $160 million. "The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding," said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who will visit the country on Friday. He referred to the flooding as a "climate catastrophe."
Here are images showing some of the extent of destruction and emergency response efforts.
A flooded area after heavy monsoon rains in Charsadda district in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Aug. 27. Charsadda is one of many Pakistani areas hit hard by floods in past years as well.
Residents move their belongings from their submerged houses after heavy monsoon rainfall in the Rajanpur district of Pakistan's Punjab province on Aug. 24.
Shahid Saeed Mirza/AFP via Getty Images
A man walks over his collapsed mud house after heavy monsoon rains in Jaffarabad district, Balochistan province, on Aug. 28.
Fida Hussain/AFP via Getty Images
People gather next to a section of a road damaged by flood waters in the Madyan area of Pakistan's northern Swat Valley, on Aug. 27. Thousands of people living near flood-swollen rivers in Pakistan's north were ordered to evacuate.
MORE:
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/08/30/1119979965/pakistan-floods-monsoon-climate
Zombie ice from Greenland will raise sea level 10 inches
By SETH BORENSTEIN 51 minutes ago
FILE - A boat navigates at night next to large icebergs in eastern Greenland on Aug. 15, 2019. Zombie ice from the massive Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10 inches (27 centimeters) on its own, according to a study released Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. Zombie or doomed ice is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but it’s no longer getting fed by those larger glaciers. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10.6 inches (27 centimeters) -- more than twice as much as previously forecast — according to a study published Monday.
That’s because of something that could be called zombie ice. That’s doomed ice that, while still attached to thicker areas of ice, is no longer getting replenished by parent glaciers now receiving less snow. Without replenishment, the doomed ice is melting from climate change and will inevitably raise seas, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.
“It’s dead ice. It’s just going to melt and disappear from the ice sheet,” Colgan said in an interview. “This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate (emissions) scenario we take now.”
Study lead author Jason Box, a glaciologist at the Greenland survey, said it is “more like one foot in the grave.”
The unavoidable ten inches in the study is more than twice as much sea level rise as scientists had previously expected from the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet. The study in the journal Nature Climate Change said it could reach as much as 30 inches (78 centimeters). By contrast, last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report projected a range of 2 to 5 inches (6 to 13 centimeters) for likely sea level rise from Greenland ice melt by the year 2100.
What scientists did for the study was look at the ice in balance. In perfect equilibrium, snowfall in the mountains in Greenland flows down and recharges and thickens the sides of glaciers, balancing out what’s melting on the edges. But in the last few decades there’s less replenishment and more melting, creating imbalance. Study authors looked at the ratio of what’s being added to what’s being lost and calculated that 3.3% of Greenland’s total ice volume will melt no matter what happens with the world cutting carbon pollution, Colgan said.
“I think starving would be a good phrase,” for what’s happening to the ice, Colgan said.
One of the study authors said that more than 120 trillion tons (110 trillion metric tons) of ice is already doomed to melt from the warming ice sheet’s inability to replenish its edges. When that ice melts into water, if it were concentrated only over the United States, it would be 37 feet (11 meters) deep.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/science-oceans-glaciers-greenland-climate-and-environment-9cd7662658ebbeaba05682352de8aa87
Droughts around the world uncover ancient artifacts
Thu, August 25, 2022 at 7:14 AM
2:31
https://news.yahoo.com/droughts-around-world-uncover-ancient-121452099.html
World's Biggest Ice Sheet in Antarctica in Serious Trouble Due to Global Warming
It's about size of the entire United States.
8:30 AM
by Frank Landymore / Earth & Energy
Breaking the Ice
The East Antarctic ice sheet is the biggest in the world at around the size of the United States.
But changing ocean currents, which are in large part driven by climate change, are forcing warmer waters its way and could cause the ice sheet to destabilize and melt, according to shocking new research published in Nature Climate Change this week.
Until now, not a lot was known about the East Antarctic ice sheet’s role in climate change compared to the neighboring West Antarctic ice sheet, the researchers claim in a piece for The Conversation.
Scientists have long suspected that the West Antarctic sheet is melting and significantly contributing to rising sea levels.
But according to the latest study, its eastern counterpart may become a big contributing factor as well.
Chilling News
The team focused on a specific part of the East Antarctic ice sheet known as the Aurora Subglacial Basin in the Indian ocean, which, until now, scientists believed to be protected by a layer of cold water known as dense shelf water.
So when the team discovered there was "unequivocal" warming in the ocean surrounding the East Antarctic ice sheet at a rate of up to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1930, alarm bells went off.
That’s a change of up to 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit per decade on average, a rate which, since the 1990s, has been as high as 1.62 degrees.
Climate Driver
Those rates are being driven by a strong belt of westerly winds known as the Southern Annular Mode. Thanks to an increase of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, the winds are moving further south towards Antarctica, bringing warmer waters with them.
If those waters cause the Aurora Subglacial Basin to melt, global sea levels could rise by over 16 feet.
The researchers also challenge the assumption that ocean warming begins at its surface, and believe their findings indicate that it actually starts in deeper water — which, if confirmed, could seriously harm marine life ecosystems.
These are some pretty harrowing implications for global climates. Sea levels are already rising at rapid rates — and having a significant chunk of Antarctica melt would only serve to drastically exacerbate the issue.
More on climate change:
Scientists Warn of Devastating Mass Extinction Event Caused by Climate Change
https://futurism.com/the-byte/mass-extinction-event-climate-change
https://futurism.com/the-byte/worlds-biggest-ice-sheet-antarctica-trouble
Exclusive: Glaciers vanishing at record rate in Alps following heatwaves
July 26, 2022 1:20 AM CDT
Last Updated 17 hours ago
By Emma Farge and Gloria Dickie
MORTERATSCH GLACIER, Switzerland, July 26 (Reuters) - From the way 45-year-old Swiss glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer bounds over icy crevasses, you would never guess he was carrying 10 kg of steel equipment needed to chart the decline of Switzerland's glaciers.
Normally, he heads down this path on the massive Morteratsch Glacier in late September, the end of the summer melt season in the Alps. But exceptionally high ice loss this year has brought him to this 15-square-kilometer (5.8-square-mile) amphitheatre of ice two months early for emergency maintenance work.
The measuring poles he uses to track changes in the depth of the pack are at risk of dislodging entirely as the ice melts away and he needs to drill new holes. (https://tmsnrt.rs/3RXrTb7)
The Alps' glaciers are on track for their highest mass losses in at least 60 years of record keeping, data shared exclusively with Reuters shows. By looking at the difference in how much snow fell in winter, and how much ice melts in the summer, scientists can measure how much a glacier has shrunk in any given year.
Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt
https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-CHANGE/ICE-CORES/zjvqkjkjlvx/#:~:text=Scientists%20are%20racing%20to%20collect,cases,%20it's%20already%20too%20late
The Alps' glaciers are on track for their highest mass losses in at least 60 years of record keeping, data shared exclusively with Reuters shows. By looking at the difference in how much snow fell in winter, and how much ice melts in the summer, scientists can measure how much a glacier has shrunk in any given year.
[...]
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/exclusive-glaciers-vanishing-record-rate-alps-following-heatwaves-2022-07-26/
Glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer and assistant Andrea Millhaeusler drill a hole at a measuring point on the Pers Glacier near the Alpine resort of Pontresina, Switzerland July
People stand at a lookout point near Mount Piz Palue and Piz Bernina, near the Alpine resort of Pontresina, Switzerland July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
Glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer and assistant Andrea Millhaeusler stand on a border moraine of the Pers Glacier near the Alpine resort of Pontresina, Switzerland July 21, 2022.
Host Dario Andenmatten of the Britannia Hut refuge talks during an interview with Reuters near the Alpine resort of Saas-Fee, Switzerland July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Emma Farge ..
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/exclusive-glaciers-vanishing-record-rate-alps-following-heatwaves-2022-07-26/
Protesters in UK decry climate change after record heat wave
By SYLVIA HUI today
1 of 8
Members of environmental groups including Just Stop Oil, the Peace and Justice Project and Insulate Britain take part
in a mass protest in Parliament Square, London. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)
Members of environmental groups including Just Stop Oil, the Peace and Justice Project and Insulate Britain take part in a mass protest in Parliament Square, London. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)
LONDON (AP) — Protesters turned out Saturday on the streets of London and in the Scottish city of Glasgow to demand faster action against climate change following the record-smashing temperatures that scorched the U.K. this week.
Activist groups including Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain led protesters in a sit-in on Parliament Square in London to demand that the Conservative government stop giving new licenses for oil and gas production, tax big polluters and help people install more energy efficient heating in their homes.
“Tuesday’s extreme heatwave was a warning about what we will face as the climate collapses –- thousands of deaths, homes lost to wildfires and emergency services stretched to breaking point,” said Indigo Rumbelow from Just Stop Oil. “We are so unprepared for extreme heat and it’s only going to get worse.”
The U.K.’s Met Office weather agency recorded 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in England on Tuesday, the highest-ever temperature registered in a country ill-prepared for such extreme heat.
British summers are usually quite moderate and few homes, schools or small businesses have air-conditioning.
The heat wave paralyzed major train networks, damaged airport runways and saw 15 fire departments across the country declaring major incidents. The London Fire Brigade said that Tuesday was the busiest day for firefighters since World War II.
In Glasgow, climate activists staged a “die-in” protest to demand urgent action to tackle climate change. Protesters laid on the ground in one of the city’s busiest shopping areas, covered in white sheets with “causes of death” including heat stress, famine and water scarcity.
“We’ve been sounding the alarm about the global climate emergency for years,” said Wolf Saanen, 39. “Now it has arrived on our shores, will those with the power to change things finally listen?”
Some climate groups warned they will stage more disruptive demonstrations in the autumn to bring Westminster — the seat of Parliament — to a standstill.
The groups also want the British government to reduce energy bills amid a soaring cost-of-living crisis that’s expected to squeeze households further in the fall when the weather turns colder.
Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
https://apnews.com/article/london-england-glasgow-c17bae08468767664e6d72edf5b8cc43
Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at
Climate and environment
The latest stories from around the world on climate change, environmental degradation and preservation and energy transition.
https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Protesters in UK decry climate change after record heat wave
By SYLVIA HUI today
1 of 8
Members of environmental groups including Just Stop Oil, the Peace and Justice Project and Insulate Britain take part in a mass protest in Parliament Square, London. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)
Members of environmental groups including Just Stop Oil, the Peace and Justice Project and Insulate Britain take part in a mass protest in Parliament Square, London. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)
LONDON (AP) — Protesters turned out Saturday on the streets of London and in the Scottish city of Glasgow to demand faster action against climate change following the record-smashing temperatures that scorched the U.K. this week.
Activist groups including Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain led protesters in a sit-in on Parliament Square in London to demand that the Conservative government stop giving new licenses for oil and gas production, tax big polluters and help people install more energy efficient heating in their homes.
“Tuesday’s extreme heatwave was a warning about what we will face as the climate collapses –- thousands of deaths, homes lost to wildfires and emergency services stretched to breaking point,” said Indigo Rumbelow from Just Stop Oil. “We are so unprepared for extreme heat and it’s only going to get worse.”
The U.K.’s Met Office weather agency recorded 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in England on Tuesday, the highest-ever temperature registered in a country ill-prepared for such extreme heat. British summers are usually quite moderate and few homes, schools or small businesses have air-conditioning.
The heat wave paralyzed major train networks, damaged airport runways and saw 15 fire departments across the country declaring major incidents. The London Fire Brigade said that Tuesday was the busiest day for firefighters since World War II.
In Glasgow, climate activists staged a “die-in” protest to demand urgent action to tackle climate change. Protesters laid on the ground in one of the city’s busiest shopping areas, covered in white sheets with “causes of death” including heat stress, famine and water scarcity.
“We’ve been sounding the alarm about the global climate emergency for years,” said Wolf Saanen, 39. “Now it has arrived on our shores, will those with the power to change things finally listen?”
Some climate groups warned they will stage more disruptive demonstrations in the autumn to bring Westminster — the seat of Parliament — to a standstill.
The groups also want the British government to reduce energy bills amid a soaring cost-of-living crisis that’s expected to squeeze households further in the fall when the weather turns colder.
Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
https://apnews.com/article/london-england-glasgow-c17bae08468767664e6d72edf5b8cc43
Photos: The U.K. Reaches Its Highest Temperature Ever
ALAN TAYLOR JULY 19, 2022, 25 PHOTOS IN FOCUS
Britain’s weather service recently issued its first-ever “red warning,” predicting extreme temperatures for early in the week, and today, measurements at Heathrow Airport climbed above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time ever. Residents were urged to stay indoors and not to travel unnecessarily during the hottest times of day.
Several fires have broken out, and the extreme heat has affected travel—buckling rails, and damaging roads and runways. Gathered below are images of some of the effects of this heat wave, and some of the ways people are coping with it.
HINTS: View this page full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/07/photos-uk-heatwave/670566/
A police officer gives water to a British soldier wearing a traditional bearskin hat, on guard duty
outside Buckingham Palace, during hot weather in London, England, on July 18, 2022.
The dried-out bed and reduced water levels in the Thruscross Reservoir
are seen during a heatwave on July 19, 2022, in Harrogate, England.
The World Is Burning Once Again
We can only adapt so much to extreme heat.
The Atlantic
By Jacob Stern
JULY 19, 2022, 8:29 PM ET
In September 2020, the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office published a hypothetical weather forecast ..
A hypothetical weather forecast for 2050 is coming true next week
Analysis by Angela Fritz, CNN Senior Climate Editor
Updated 4:46 PM ET, Fri July 15, 2022
(CNN)Two years ago, forecasters in the UK conducted an interesting thought experiment: What will our forecasts look like in 2050?
The climate crisis is pushing weather to the extreme all over the world, and temperatures in the northern latitudes have been particularly sensitive to these changes. So meteorologists at the UK Met Office -- the official weather forecast agency for the UK -- dove in to the super long-range climate models in the summer of 2020 to see what kind of temperatures they'd be forecasting in about three decades.
"Not actual weather forecast," the Met Office's graphics said. "Examples of plausible weather based on climate projections."
Well, on Monday and Tuesday, the "plausible" becomes reality -- 28 years early.
[. . . ]
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15/weather/2050-uk-forecast-comes-true-in-2022/
Nearly half of Europe is at risk of drought as heat wave scorches continent
Wildfires rage in France and Spain amid heat wave, while the UK faces its hottest day ever
By Joseph Ataman, Jimmy Hutcheon, Xiaofei Xu, Zahid Mahmood and Sana Noor Haq, CNN
Updated 10:17 AM ET, Mon July 18, 2022
Paris (CNN) - Raging wildfires have scorched thousands of hectares of forest in France and Spain, while Britain is set to face its hottest day on record amid a searing heat wave.
The southwestern region of Gironde in France has seen the worst of the blazes so far.
A total 14,300 hectares (35,000 acres) of land have been burned as of Monday, with 24,000 people evacuated from the region, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde prefecture said on Twitter.
The heat wave in Portugal has intensified a pre-existing drought and sparked wildfires in central parts of the country, including in the village of Memoria, in the Leiria municipality.
Authorities have deployed 1,700 firefighters to tackle the fires.
A spokesperson for the Gironde regional fire and rescue service said 12 firefighters have sustained minor injuries since the start of the operation.
In Spain, wildfires engulfed the central region of Castile and Léon and the northern region of Galicia Sunday, Reuters reported. Firefighters steadied the flames in Mijas in the southeastern Málaga province and said evacuated people could return home.
Sweltering temperatures in Portugal have exacerbated a drought that started before the heat wave, according to data from the national meteorological institute. About 96% of the mainland was already suffering severe or extreme drought at the end of June.
'Peak of intensity'
The blistering heat wave in Western Europe is expected to peak early this week.
Monthly minimum temperature records could be broken across France Monday, according to the national weather agency. Météo-France identified nine localities where the monthly minimums look set to be broken, including Rostrenen in Brittany, northwestern France, where the record has stood since 1968.
In addition to Gironde, Météo-France issued a heatwave red alert to a total of 15 departments in western and southwestern regions, as temperatures are expected to reach as high as 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) Monday. A further 51 regions have been placed under orange alert, including Paris, with residents urged to avoid going outside between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time.
"Given the peak of intensity expected for today, the chances are low that the mercury will drop sufficiently before the end of the day" for these records not to be broken, Météo-France added.
Since May, France has seen only eight days when average daily temperatures were below aggregated summer average temperatures. In the remaining 39 days, national daily averages have been above the average temperatures for this time of year observed between 1991 and 2020, according to Météo-France data.
Spain's weather agency also issued extreme heat alerts Sunday, Reuters reported. Temperatures of 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) were forecast for the northern regions of Aragon, Navarra and La Rioja. The agency said the heat wave would end Monday, but it warned that temperatures would remain "abnormally high."
Nearly half of Europe's territory, including the UK, is "at risk" of drought, researchers at the EU Commission said Monday.
The Joint Research Centre highlighted that the drought in much of Europe is "critical" as the "winter-spring precipitation deficit ... was exacerbated by early heatwaves in May and June."
Water supply may be "compromised" in the coming months, according to the report.
Elsewhere in Europe, Britain is bracing itself for the "hottest day in UK history," according to a senior weather official. On Friday, the Met Office issued its first ever red warning for "extreme heat" over the soaring temperatures.
The Met Office's CEO, Penelope Endersby, said Monday may well be the "hottest day in UK history," but Tuesday is "expected to be even hotter."
"So it's tomorrow that we're really seeing the higher chance of 40 degrees and temperatures above that," Endersby told BBC Radio on Monday.
"Even possibly above that, 41 is not off the cards. We've even got some 43s in the model but we're hoping it won't be as high as that."
Endersby said while extreme temperatures are not expected beyond Tuesday, the Met Office will be monitoring the possibility of a drought in the coming months.
"We're expecting a big drop in temperature overnight into Wednesday -- down 10 or 12 degrees on what has been the days before," she said, adding: "Our attention is turning, once we're past these two days, to drought and when we might see any rain, and we're not seeing any significant rain coming up."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/18/weather/europe-uk-heatwave-wildfires-france-spain-intl/index.html
AP PHOTOS: Withering drought shows Lake Mead boat graveyard
By JOHN LOCHER
an hour ago
BOULDER CITY, Nev. (AP) — An abandoned old power boat juts upright from the cracked mud like a giant tombstone. Its epitaph might read: Here lay the waters of Lake Mead.
The largest U.S. reservoir has shrunken to a record low amid a punishing drought and the demands of 40 million people in seven states who are sucking the Colorado River dry. The megadrought in the U.S. West has been worsened by climate change. Wildfire season has become longer and blazes more intense, scorching temperatures have broken records and lakes are shriveling.
Receding waters of Lake Mead National Recreation Area have revealed the skeletal remains of two people along with countless desiccated fish and what has become a graveyard of forgotten and stranded watercraft.
Houseboats, sailboats and motorboats have been beached, creating a surreal scene in an otherwise rugged desert landscape. A buoy that once marked a no-boat-zone sits in the dirt, not a drop of water anywhere in view. Even a sunken World War II-era craft that once surveyed the lake has emerged from the ebbing waters.
A sign marks the water line from 2002 near Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Saturday, July 9, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. The largest U.S. reservoir has shrunken to a record low amid a punishing drought and the demands of 40 million people in seven states who are sucking the Colorado River dry. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Craig Miller hauls a hose while trying to free his stranded houseboat at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Thursday, June 23, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. Miller had been living on the stranded boat for over two weeks after engine trouble and falling lake levels left the boat above the water level. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A formerly sunken boat lies in a field of grass far from the water line at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Wednesday, June 22, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A formerly sunken boat sits upright into the air with its stern stuck in the mud along the shoreline of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Wednesday, June 22, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. Lake Mead water has dropped to levels it hasn't been since the lake initially filled over 80 years ago. (AP Photo/John Locher)
https://apnews.com/article/lakes-colorado-river-droughts-trending-news-abab298019a44aef0181ad79aad12ab9
Go long big oil - more plastic orgies..
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-62013030
AP PHOTOS: Nature’s forces on display in Yellowstone flood
today
Some of the forces of nature that helped shape Yellowstone National Park into one of America’s most beloved landscapes unleashed a .. https://apnews.com/article/floods-science-travel-business-709a543605963010b620de1ba981d08f .. frightening flood this week as warm rains combined with a rapidly melting snowpack to overwhelm waterways.
Trees were uprooted and washed away, rivers jumped their banks and tore out huge chunks of highway, bridges were destroyed and homes were swept off their foundations downstream.
More than 80 people were rescued from flooded campgrounds and small towns. Remarkably, no one was hurt.
The park evacuated 10,000 visitors and has closed its gates while it assesses damage to bridges, roads, trails and facilities. Residents of hamlets downstream cleaned up the mess from hundreds of swamped homes, pumping and dumping buckets of chunky brown water outside.
Receding floodwaters flow past sections of North Entrance Road washed away at Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Mont., Thursday, June 16, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
[...]
A road ends where floodwaters washed away a house in Gardiner, Mont., Thursday, June 16, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Highway workers inspect a washed out bridge along the Yellowstone River Wednesday, June 15, 2022, near Gardiner, Mont. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Receding floodwaters flow past sections of North Entrance Road washed away at Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Mont., Thursday, June 16, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Pedestrians walk down a street washed away from Rock Creek floodwaters in Red Lodge, Mont., Wednesday, June 15, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy.
The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/environment
https://apnews.com/article/yellowstone-floods-photo-gallery-b5142bdd554cb9fdd2949bdce3e0c848
The Supreme Court is deciding a key environmental policy case. The court will soon issue a ruling in a case that challenges the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions, which could have broad implications for agency powers and the Biden administration’s climate policy goals. If the court rules against the E.P.A., claims that the S.E.C. is now overreaching may gain traction.
The signatories disagree on policy. But they all reject claims that the agency lacks the power to act on climate, said Satyam Khanna, a Stanford fellow who was the S.E.C.’s senior climate policy adviser. “Democrats and Republicans alike know that the S.E.C.’s recent activity in this space is an evolution, not a revolution,” he said.
How SCOTUS’ upcoming climate ruling could defang Washington
A legal fight over the EPA’s power to restrict greenhouse gases offers conservative justices an opportunity to tie the executive branch's hands on a host of issues — from Covid to net neutrality.
By ALEX GUILLÉN and SARAH OWERMOHLE
06/12/2022 07:00 AM EDT
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling this month hobbling the Biden administration’s efforts to rein in greenhouse gases — but its impact could weaken Washington’s power to oversee wide swaths of American life well beyond climate change.
The upcoming decision on the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate oversight offers the conservative justices an opportunity to undermine federal regulations on a host of issues, from drug pricing and financial regulations to net neutrality. Critics of the EPA have clamored for the high court to do just that, by declaring it unlawful for federal agencies to make “major” decisions without clear authorization from Congress.
The Supreme Court and several Republican-appointed judges have invoked the same principle repeatedly during the past year to strike down a series of Biden administration responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Liberal legal scholars worry that the EPA case could yield an aggressive version of that thinking — unraveling much of the regulatory state as it has existed since the New Deal.
Pharmaceuticals are seen in North Andover, Mass.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Rules at risk
BY ALEX GUILLÉN AND SARAH OWERMOHLE
That has implications for other major rules that President Joe Biden’s agencies are writing or defending in court, including wetlands protections, limits on car and truck pollution, insurance coverage for birth control under Obamacare, and even the Trump administration’s attempts to lower drug prices.
“A narrow reading of what the federal agencies can do is going to literally handcuff the federal government from taking action to protect Americans’ health safety and the environment,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University.
Climate change and ‘major questions’
The immediate stakes in the EPA case are big enough on their own: Two coal companies and a phalanx of Republican-led states want the court to limit the agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, a major driver of global warming that threatens to worsen flooding, droughts, disease and other calamities in the coming decades.
The case’s origins are messy and complicated, involving a sweeping Obama-era power plant climate rule and the Trump administration’s efforts to replace it with a much narrower regulation. The original rule had sought to push the electric power industry away from fossil fuels and toward greener sources such as wind and solar, wielding the EPA’s powers under a seldom-used section of the 1970 Clean Air Act. Under Biden, the EPA has embarked on writing its own version of the rule.
“A narrow reading of what the federal agencies can do is going to literally handcuff the federal government from taking action to protect Americans’ health safety and the environment.”
Lawrence Gostin, Georgetown University law professor
Legal experts on both sides of the issue widely expect the court to side with conservatives by saying the Obama-era EPA had gone too far. But the big mystery is whether the court’s majority is prepared to go big — and open the door to a judicial crackdown on the executive branch.
The crux of the debate concerns something called the “major questions” doctrine — the idea, debated by judges over the past two decades, that executive branch actions with “vast economic or political significance” should face an extra-high hurdle to winning the courts’ approval. In those cases, the agencies would need explicit authority from Congress for the actions they’re taking.
Some conservative justices have embraced an even more aggressive doctrine, known as “nondelegation,” that would prohibit Congress from handing off big decisions to agencies at all. That could throw a huge legal cloud over landmark laws enacted in past decades, including the Clean Air Act.
It’s unclear whether the court is prepared to go quite that far in the EPA case — it could simply knock down the agency’s climate authority on narrower grounds, deferring the larger regulatory fight until later.
But some groups siding with the red states want the justices to use this case to stake a clear boundary for both regulators and Congress.
“Congress did not — and, under our Constitution, cannot — grant unelected administrative officials at EPA legislative power to creatively reimagine energy policy for the entire country,” the anti-regulation Americans for Prosperity Foundation wrote in a legal brief filed in the EPA case.
The courts have never precisely defined where the line between legislative and executive power lies. But they have repeatedly cited the “major questions” principle to knock down executive branch actions that they think went too far.
“Congress did not — and, under our Constitution, cannot — grant unelected administrative officials at EPA legislative power to creatively reimagine energy policy for the entire country.”
Legal brief by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation
In one early high-profile case, the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Food and Drug Administration lacked the authority to regulate most tobacco products. (Congress overrode that ruling in 2009 by passing a law giving FDA clear authority over tobacco, but such bipartisan agreement is unlikely in the current political climate.)
The issue also arose in the court’s 2015 ruling that upheld Obamacare’s exchange markets — although the Obama administration won that case.
Biden’s Covid actions — and beyond?
Judges’ use of the major questions doctrine has surged during the past year, especially as the Biden administration leaned on long-established laws to respond to threats like Covid-19.
In August, the Supreme Court sided with real estate agents who challenged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic-inspired moratorium on evictions, reasoning that Congress had not given the public health agency regulatory power over housing policy.
Trump takes down his first impeachment victim: 5 takeaways from a big primary night
Latino Democrats vent their fury after foreboding special election loss in Texas
Loudermilk tour group taking basement photos ‘raises concerns’ for Jan. 6 panel
In January, the court blocked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from requiring Covid vaccination or testing for workers at companies with 100 or more employers, a mandate that would have covered about 84 million people. That decision didn’t explicitly cite the major questions doctrine, although Justice Neil Gorsuch did in a concurrence joined by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
A federal judge in Florida last year cited the major questions doctrine in striking down the CDC’s Covid-related restrictions on Florida cruises, which he called a “breathtaking” expansion of authority. More recently, a judge’s ruling in April cited the doctrine to strike down a federal travel mask mandate. The Biden administration is appealing that ruling.
On the other hand, a federal judge in December said the doctrine was “inapplicable” in a challenge to a Covid vaccine mandate for the military, in part because service members already must get a litany of other vaccines.
Opponents of federal regulations have raised the major questions doctrine to attack other rules, including an EPA air pollution rule that oil and biofuels groups call an attempt to promote electric cars. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also expected to face legal challenges to its recent proposal to require companies to disclose their climate-related risks to investors — a mandate that critics say the SEC doesn’t have congressional authority to impose.
Agencies need flexibility to react to new threats, Georgetown’s Gostin argued. That’s why many laws contain open-ended provisions that give agencies some level of authority to act when Congress hasn’t specifically required it.
“When Congress gave powers to the Food and Drug Administration, or to EPA, or the CDC, it did so many, many decades ago — and it couldn’t possibly foresee all of the hazards that the American public would face,” he said.
Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown University law professor and Obama-era EPA official, noted that the major questions doctrine is becoming more popular among judges at a time when Congress is in full gridlock. That means it would be difficult if not impossible to pass new laws to address emerging threats.
“They’re introducing these new principles at precisely the moment when they’re the most damaging, which is when we are relying on long-existing statutes to do a lot of the work of addressing our problems,” Heinzerling said.
Katy O’Donnell and John Hendel contributed to this report.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/12/how-scotus-upcoming-climate-ruling-could-defang-washington-00038595?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20220616&instance_id=64190&nl=dealbook®i_id=1477058&segment_id=95286&te=1&user_id=3b6708353eb4d86d1549f97d1e8d7b46
Yellowstone flooding prompts 10,000 to flee national park
By AMY BETH HANSON and MATTHEW BROWN 29 minutes ago
1 of 22 - Floodwaters are seen along the Clarks Fork Yellowstone River near Bridger, Mont., on Monday, June 13, 2022. The flooding across parts of southern Montana and northern Wyoming forced the indefinite closure of Yellowstone National Park just as a summer tourist season that draws millions of visitors annually was ramping up. (AP Photo/Emma H. Tobin)
01:35
Apparently a lot of Canes fans left at the beginning of 3rd down 4-0
Now 4-1
After such an amazing season.
Not like the old daze,
The #LetsGoCanes fans still at the game chanting “let’s go canes” to the horn 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/O6iQl3FEjy
— Keith Napolitano (@IslesNapolitano) May 31, 2022
Anyone in the market for a good bird feeder:
The West's megadrought will persist and may get worse in coming months.
Water availability is a high concern
By Rachel Ramirez, CNN
Updated 2:22 PM ET, Thu March 17, 2022
Lake Powell's Wahweap Bay and Marina on February 1 when the reservoir was at 26% of capacity.
(CNN) -- The West's intense multi-year drought is expected to at least continue — if not worsen — in the coming months, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday in its spring outlook.
For the second year in a row, NOAA forecasters are predicting "prolonged, persistent drought in the West where below-average precipitation is most likely," the agency wrote.
Nearly 60% of the Lower 48 was experiencing moderate to exceptional dry conditions this week, the largest area in a decade. In California, which did not get enough much-needed precipitation this winter, extreme drought expanded from 12% of the state to 35% in the past week, according to Thursday's Drought Monitor report.
And there's little to no relief in sight.
Given the combined forecast of low precipitation and high temperatures, "it's very likely, or makes sense, that areas will certainly some of the drought areas will become worse," Jon Gottschalck, a chief at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said at a news conference.
"[The forecasts] are not favorable" for the drought, Justin Mankin, assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College and co-lead of NOAA's Drought Task Force, told CNN. "I think you're going to see a rapid re-establishment of conditions analogous to last fall quite quickly across a number of states."
A recent study found the period from 2000 to 2021 was the driest in 1,200 years for the West. Last year's drought severity was "exceptional," those researchers said.
Water availability is a high concern in the West, where the need for precipitation is dire.
"The Southwest’s most important river is drying up"
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/08/us/colorado-river-water-shortage/
Years of low rainfall and more intense heat waves have fed directly to multi-year, unrelenting drought conditions and water shortages. These water concerns are likely to persist this year given NOAA's spring outlook, which calls for below-average precipitation in the West and Southern Plains.
The intense drought has pushed reservoirs in the West to alarmingly low water depths.
"In general, these water shortages are stressing systems. They're stressing communities," Ed Clark, the director of NOAA's National Water Center, told reporters. "In particular, the Colorado River Basin, we are seeing the Bureau of Reclamation begin their calls for for additional actions that will provide or curtail some water allocations."
On the Colorado River, Lake Powell plunged below a critical threshold this week — 3,525 feet above sea level — sparking additional concerns about water supply and a critical source of hydropower generation that millions of people in the Western states rely on for electricity.
According to the US Bureau of Reclamation's drought contingency plans, the 3,525-foot mark is a significant "target elevation" for Lake Powell, under which the situation becomes dire. The 3,525-foot target is crucial because it allows a 35-foot buffer for emergency response to prevent Lake Powell from dropping below the minimum pool elevation of 3,490 feet above sea level, the lowest at which Glen Canyon Dam is able to generate hydropower for millions of people.
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US, also dipped below a critical level last fall which triggered unprecedented water cuts for states in the Southwest.
"This year the Colorado River Basin has experienced extremely variable conditions with a record high snowpack one month, followed by weeks without snow," Reclamation Acting Commissioner David Palumbo said in a statement last week, in anticipation of the reservoir dropping. "This variable hydrology and a warmer, drier west have drastically impacted our operations and we are faced with the urgent need to manage in the moment."
Brad Pugh, the operational drought lead for NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, also said drought in the West will exacerbate wildfire risk.
"As we go into the summer months, [the drought] will set the stage for elevated risk of wildfire activity," Pugh told reporters. "So as far as preparations go, I just urge the public to stay abreast, stay aware of the public forecasts from the National Weather Service offices as we get closer to the summer wildfire season there in California."
Beyond the West, drought conditions in the South, particularly Texas, have worsened in recent months, with over 90% of the state now in drought, according to the latest US Drought Monitor.
NOAA's report suggests this trend will continue through the spring.
"So while the spring outlook for this year from NOAA look quite similar to last year, there is a key difference about this spring, which is that the drought has expanded eastward, pushing 70% of Texas -— which was less impacted over the last two years — into severe drought," Mankin said.
Texas's drought is in part fueling an extreme fire threat on Thursday, according to the Storm Prediction Center, creating what officials say is "a highly volatile fire environment."
Scientists say the recent drought is just a preview of what's to come, not just for the US but for the rest of the world.
Globally, UN scientists found droughts that may have occurred only once every 10 years or so now happen 70% more frequently due to climate change. Unless the world cuts its reliance on fossil fuels and stabilizes the planet's temperature rise, reservoirs will continue to drain and and wildfires will become more dangerous.
This story has been updated with additional information.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/17/us/noaa-drought-spring-outlook-climate/index.html
Going to a baseball game at 1PM.
Thanks Bull, will add to a few others that can discuss ideas with balance
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168932590&txt2find=Skeptics
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168931419
Have a great day! (must still be hot there cuz it's Sunday and you are neither in church or golfing unless you text from those places ;)
Olear is a good read.
PREVAIL is a regular column about politics, history, national security, foreign affairs, organized crime, dirty money, global corruption, the fight for democracy—and, on Sundays, poetry and literature.
https://gregolear.substack.com/
His prevail columns are free.
Thanks Bull, appreciate a good translation. And, these relationships are tough
Whether personal or planetary.
In the end (the dire one as well as daily)
You pay your money and you take your chances
notes:
Sunday Pages: "To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough"
A poem by Robert Burns
Greg Olear
May 22
Dear Reader,
I don’t know if it’s residue from the lunar eclipse that Neil deGrasse Tyson said was lame, a particularly virulent Mercury Retrograde, or, to paraphrase Sullivan, the agency of an ill-natured fairy, but every single plan I made this past week was either canceled, postponed, or rescheduled.
Some of these plans were thwarted by friends and family catching covid (which seems to once again be on the rise, despite our collective denial). Others were driven off by lighting and thunder and possible tornado in the forecast. Since last Saturday, it’s been like this with all my best-laid plans.
And now that I think of it, “the best-laid plans of mice and men” is one of those lines that my mother used to quote just the first part of. When I was a kid, she would frequently say, “‘I see,’ said the blind man,” and definitively end the sentence right there, and I would sort of play along as if this made sense. I think I was a senior in high school when she finally supplied the punchline: “…as he took out his hammer and saw.”
Another expression where you only ever get the first part is this: “You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out.” This is supposed to be a profound nugget of baseball wisdom, but all the beginning of Satchel Paige’s famous aphorism does is list the three possible outcomes. It’s the oft-ignored second part that gives meaning to the first: “…but you have to dress for all of them.”
Why do some expressions get truncated like this? In the case of the “mice and men” line, it’s because the second part is written in the Scots dialect: “The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley.” Aft means often, and gang agley means go wrong. I suggest translating it thus:
The best-laid plans of mice and men,
Get all fucked up again and again.
“To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough” was written in November, 1785—three and a half years before George Washington’s first inauguration. Robert Burns is the national poet of Scotland, and his fusion of the Scots dialect with standard English makes his work accessible to non-Scots speakers. “To a Mouse” is an example of this—although it did require me to look up a few words. As the poem is difficult, I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing each verse:
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murdering pattle!
Chill, sleek little rodent! I’m not going to chase you.
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
An’ fellow-mortal!
It sucks the plough destroyed your house. As a fellow mammal and mortal, I sympathize.
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’ requet;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!
All you took is one ear (icker) of corn in this whole pile (thrave). That’s cool with me, little dude. Not a lot to ask for.
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s win’s ensuing,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Shit, your house is toast, and December is coming, and it’s cold! Major bummer.
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
You were nice and warm until the coulter came and chopped up your lodging. (A coulter is a round cutting blade, but the horror aspects of the poem are enhanced if you imagine Ann.)
That wee bit heap o’ leaves and stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turned out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
There’s so much bad weather on the way, including cranreuch, which means hoarfrost. (I don’t know what hoarfrost is, either, but it sounds unpleasant.)
And now, the famous part:
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Mouse, my friend, you can’t blame yourself for having terrible foresight. You’re a mouse! You have a small brain! We humans have big brains, and the ability to plan ahead, and we still fuck shit up all the time! We hope things will turn out great, and they usually don’t! We are no better than you! If anything, we are worse!
Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I cannot see,
I guess an’ fear!
Consider yourself fortunate, mouse, that you can’t look back with rue and regret, or look ahead to fear and dread! You live completely in the moment, you lucky rodent!
These are fearsome times, Dear Reader, and we are all of us terrified mice scurrying off to safety, with dreadful panic in our breast. But unlike the wee beastie, we can see the coulter coming.
May this week bring us all better health, fewer thwarted plans, and more order to things—and let us finish what we start!
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/sunday-pages-to-a-mouse-on-turning?
Sea Level to Rise up to a Foot by 2050, Interagency Report Finds
NEWS | February 15, 2022
By Jane Lee,
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Coastal cities like Miami, shown, already experience high-tide flooding. But a new federal interagency report projects an uptick in the frequency and intensity of such events in the coming decades because of rising seas. Credit: B137 (CC-BY)
In Brief:NASA, NOAA, USGS, and other U.S. government agencies project that the rise in ocean height in the next 30 years could equal the total rise seen over the past 100 years.
Coastal flooding will increase significantly over the next 30 years because of sea level rise, according to a new report by an interagency sea level rise task force that includes NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other federal agencies. Titled Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States, the Feb. 15 report concludes that sea level along U.S. coastlines will rise between 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 centimeters) on average above today’s levels by 2050.
The report – an update to a 2017 report – forecasts sea level to the year 2150 and, for the first time, offers near-term projections for the next 30 years. Agencies at the federal, state, and local levels use these reports to inform their plans on anticipating and coping with the effects of sea level rise.
“This report supports previous studies and confirms what we have long known: Sea levels are continuing to rise at an alarming rate, endangering communities around the world. Science is indisputable and urgent action is required to mitigate a climate crisis that is well underway,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA is steadfast in our commitment to protecting our home planet by expanding our monitoring capabilities and continuing to ensure our climate data is not only accessible but understandable.”
The task force developed their near-term sea level rise projections by drawing on an improved understanding of how the processes that contribute to rising seas – such as melting glaciers and ice sheets as well as complex interactions between ocean, land, and ice – will affect ocean height. “That understanding has really advanced since the 2017 report, which gave us more certainty over how much sea level rise we’ll get in the coming decades,” said Ben Hamlington, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and one of the update’s lead authors.
NASA’s Sea Level Change Team, led by Hamlington, has also developed an online mapping .. https://sealevel.nasa.gov/task-force-scenario-tool .. tool to visualize the report’s state-of-the-art sea level rise projections on a localized level across the U.S. “The hope is that the online tool will help make the information as widely accessible as possible,” Hamlington said.
The Interagency Sea Level Rise Task Force projects an uptick in the frequency and intensity of high-tide coastal flooding, otherwise known as nuisance flooding, because of higher sea level. It also notes that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, global temperatures will become even greater, leading to a greater likelihood that sea level rise by the end of the century will exceed the projections in the 2022 update.
“It takes a village to make climate predictions. When you combine NASA’s scenarios of global sea level rise with NOAA’s estimates of extreme water levels and the U.S. Geological Survey’s impact studies, you get a robust national estimate of the projected future that awaits American coastal communities and our economic infrastructure in 20, 30, or 100 years from now,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, who directs the NASA Sea Level Change Team at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
“This is a global wake-up call and gives Americans the information needed to act now to best position ourselves for the future,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “As we build a Climate Ready Nation, these updated data can inform coastal communities and others about current and future vulnerabilities in the face of climate change and help them make smart decisions to keep people and property safe over the long run.”
Building on a Research Legacy
The Global and Regional Sea Level Rise report incorporates sea level projections from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment, released by the United Nations in August 2021. The IPCC reports, issued every five to seven years, provide global evaluations of Earth’s climate and use analyses based on computer simulations, among other data.
A separate forthcoming report known as the Fifth National Climate Assessment, produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is the latest in a series summarizing the impacts of climate change on the U.S., and it will in turn use the results from the Global and Regional Sea Level Rise report in its analysis. The Climate Assessment is slated to publish in 2023.
NASA sea level researchers have years of experience studying how Earth’s changing climate will affect the ocean.
Their work includes research forecasting how much coastal flooding U.S. communities will experience in 10 years, .. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3093/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s/ .. helping to visualize IPCC data on global sea level rise using an online visualization tool, .. https://sealevel.nasa.gov/ipcc-ar6-sea-level-projection-tool .. and launching satellites that contribute data to a decades-long record of global sea surface height.
Learn more about sea level and climate change here:
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3146/sea-level-to-rise-up-to-a-foot-by-2050-interagency-report-finds/
Vegas water intake now visible at drought-stricken Lake Mead
today (4/30/2022)
This photo taken Monday, April 25, 2022, by the Southern Nevada Water Authority shows the top of Lake Mead drinking water Intake No. 1 above the surface level of the Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam. The intake is the uppermost of three in the deep, drought-stricken lake that provides Las Vegas with 90% of its drinking water supply. (Southern Nevada Water Authority via AP)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A massive drought-starved reservoir on the Colorado River has become so depleted that Las Vegas now is pumping water from deeper within Lake Mead where other states downstream don’t have access.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority announced this week that its Low Lake Level Pumping Station is operational, and released photos of the uppermost intake visible at 1,050 feet (320 meters) above sea level at the lake behind Hoover Dam.
“While this emphasizes the seriousness of the drought conditions, we have been preparing for this for more than a decade,” said Bronson Mack, water authority spokesman. The low-level intake allows Las Vegas “to maintain access to its primary water supply in Lake Mead, even if water levels continue to decline due to ongoing drought and climate change conditions,” he said.
The move to begin using what had been seen as an in-case-we-need-it hedge against taps running dry comes as water managers in several states that rely on the Colorado River take new steps to conserve water amid what has become perpetual drought.
“We don’t have enough water supplies right now to meet normal demand. The water is not there,” Metropolitan Water District of Southern California spokesperson Rebecca Kimitch said this week.
The agency told some 6 million people in sprawling Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties to cut their outdoor watering to one day a week, effective June 1, or face stiff fines.
The surface level of another massive Colorado River reservoir, Lake Powell, dipped below a critical threshold in March — raising concerns about whether Glen Canyon Dam can continue generating power for some 5 million customers across the U.S. West.
Lake Mead and Lake Powell upstream are the largest human-made reservoirs in the U.S., part of a system that provides water to more than 40 million people, tribes, agriculture and industry in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and across the southern border in Mexico.
At Lake Mead, the new pumps are fed by an intake drilled nearer to the bottom of the lake and completed in 2020 to ensure the ability to continue to draw water for Las Vegas, its casinos, suburbs and 2.4 million residents and 40 million tourists per year.
The “third straw” draws drinking water at 895 feet (272.8 meters) above sea level — below a point at which water would not be released downstream from Hoover Dam.
https://apnews.com/article/8a36b5b3e35a44969ceae706d759227c
Together, the pipeline and pump projects cost more than $1.3 billion. Drilling began in 2014, amid projections that the lake level would continue to fall due to drought. Increasingly dry conditions in the region are now attributed to long-term climate change.
Lake Mead, between Nevada and Arizona, reached its high-water mark in July 1983, at 1,225 feet (373.4 meters) above sea level. On Friday, the level was 1,055 feet (321.6 meters) — about 30% full. Some of the steepest cliffs bordering the lake show 170 feet (51.8 meters) of white mineral “bathtub ring.”
“Without the third intake, Southern Nevada would be shutting its doors,” said Pat Mulroy, former longtime chief of the Las Vegas-based water authority, who is now a consultant. “That’s pretty obvious, since the first straw is out of the water.”
A mid-level pipeline also can draw water from 1,000 feet (304.8 meters).
The authority maintains that the Las Vegas water supply is not immediately threatened. It points to water conservation efforts that it says since 2002 have cut regional consumption of Colorado River water by 26% while the area population has increased 49%.
https://apnews.com/article/climate-business-las-vegas-lakes-colorado-river-1c5396dc9c43bdb5d14835f4c8dcdb44
Frederick Law Olmsted’s Enduring Gift
The man behind many of the nation’s beloved public spaces was born 200 years ago on April 26. His creations are more essential to American life than ever.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/22/us/frederick-law-olmsted-american-parks.html
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http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/national-aeronautics-space-administration
http://lcluc.umd.edu/
NOAA Climate Prediction Center
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
http://www.noaa.gov/climate
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
https://www.climate.gov/
http://cires.colorado.edu/
Global Change / Government
http://www.globalchange.gov/
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/department-defense
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/department-commerce
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/department-energy
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/department-health-human-services
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/department-interior
https://www.doi.gov/climate
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/department-state
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/department-transportation
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/environmental-protection-agency
https://www.epa.gov/
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/national-science-foundation
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/smithsonian-institution
http://www.globalchange.gov/agency/agency-international-development
https://www.boem.gov/Environmental-Stewardship/Environmental-Assessment/NEPA/procedure/climate/index.aspx
http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/climatescience.htm
https://twitter.com/ClimateNPS
https://www.fws.gov/home/climatechange/index.html
https://www.usgs.gov/science/science-explorer/Climate+Change
http://www.usace.army.mil/
https://twitter.com/USACEHQ
https://www.usda.gov/topics/climate-solutions
https://twitter.com/usda/
https://www.usaid.gov/
US Drought Portal
https://www.drought.gov/drought/
https://www.fema.gov/
https://www.usda.gov/topics/disaster/drought
PES Network Inc. > Daily Free/Renewable Energy Technology News and Directory
http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Tidal/index.html
Newscientist.com
http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns
An open community site for golbal warming news and activism
http://www.hotglobe.org/
live Science
http://www.livescience.com/
Earthquakes
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/
Science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory
Kyoto Protocol - Core Issues
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/kyoto/index.asp
Pure Energy Systems
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Latest
USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report
http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/index.cfm?content=worldmap
Global Warming - Early Warning Signs
http://www.climatehotmap.org/index.html
Extreme Instability - Storm Chasers
http://www.extremeinstability.com/index.htm
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Inside Climate News
https://insideclimatenews.org/
Environmental Defense
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/home.cfm
The Envirolink Network
http://www.envirolink.org/
The methodic demise of natural earth, by Dr. Michael Castle.
http://www.chemtrails.ch/dokumentationen/THE-METHODIC-DEMISE.htm
Ips News - Environment
http://ipsnews.net/environment.asp
Cool Earth
http://www.coolearth.org/
Save The High Seas
http://www.savethehighseas.org/
Climate Connections
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9657621
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/climateconnections/?fs=www7.nationalgeographic.com
National Snow and Ice Data Center
http://nsidc.org/index.html http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
National Geographic - Environment
http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/index.html
American Rivers
http://www.americanrivers.org/
CNN World
http://www.cnn.com/world
Green Energy - San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/environment-science/
Conservation News and Environmental Science News
http://news.mongabay.com/
Guardian / Environment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment
INside Climate News
http://insideclimatenews.org/
The Ecologist
http://www.theecologist.org/
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
https://www.rt.com/trends/fukushima-nuclear-disaster/
Global Climate Change Vital Signs Of The Planet
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
Climate News from Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/climate
Climate Change news and analysis from The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/subject/climate-change/
Climate Central
http://www.climatecentral.org/
The Guardian / Environment
https://www.theguardian.com/us/environment
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/this-land-is-your-land
Mother Jones Environment
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/
https://twitter.com/motherjones
Global Land Program
https://glp.earth/
Eco Internet News
http://ecointernet.org/
Global Forest Watch
http://www.globalforestwatch.org/
Environmental Defense Fund
https://www.edf.org/
https://twitter.com/EnvDefenseFund
Natural Resources Defense Council
https://www.nrdc.org/
https://twitter.com/NRDC
National Wildlife Federation
http://www.nwf.org/
https://twitter.com/NWF
Green Peace
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/getinvolved/
https://twitter.com/Greenpeace
Sea Shephard Conservation Society
http://www.seashepherd.org/
https://twitter.com/SeaShepherdSSCS
https://twitter.com/seashepherd
https://twitter.com/CaptPaulWatson
Global Giving
https://www.globalgiving.org/ ----- #msg-134648450
Charity Navigator
https://www.charitynavigator.org/
Disaster Assistance
https://www.disasterassistance.gov/
Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Waste Dump
http://www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com/
http://www.sosgreatlakes.org/news-1/2016/6/21/its-time-to-speak-up-let-your-voice-be-heard
http://www.sosgreatlakes.org/
https://twitter.com/sosgreatlakes
https://twitter.com/stopthenukedump
https://www.facebook.com/Stop-The-Great-Lakes-Nuclear-Dump-488484027858649/
Earth Focus
https://www.linktv.org/shows/earth-focus
Environment Integrity
http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/
Alternet Environment
http://www.alternet.org/environment
Seeker Earth / Climate
https://www.seeker.com/earth/climate
Ecowatch
https://www.ecowatch.com/
NY Times - Climate & Environment
https://www.nytimes.com/section/climate?action=click&contentCollection=Climate®ion=TopBar&module=HomePage-Title&pgtype=Multimedia
UCS - Uniion of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org/?_ga=2.259145421.693311558.1506879949-1069869955.1506879949#.WdEp5rpFzmI
Harvard - School of Public Health
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/
The Climate Report
https://www.sapiens.org/columns/the-climate-report/
Climate Desk
http://www.climatedesk.org/
https://twitter.com/ClimateDesk
https://www.facebook.com/theclimatedesk/
BBC Science and Environment
http://www.bbc.com/news/science_and_environment
British Antarctic Survey
https://www.bas.ac.uk/
Scientific Committee on Antarctic research
https://www.scar.org/
Climate Research AWI
https://www.awi.de/en.html
Global Carbon Project
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/
Center for International Climate Research
https://www.cicero.uio.no/en
River of Souls
https://riveroflostsouls.com/
The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/us/environment
Zero Hour
http://thisiszerohour.org/
SECURING THE LEGAL RIGHT TO A SAFE CLIMATE
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/
Mother Earth Project™A Global Environment-Saving Initiative Creating and Activating Sustainable Communities
https://motherearthproject.org/
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