Replies to post #237328 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

In Alaska, Obama warns leaders: 'We're not acting fast enough' on global warming


Image: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

By Andrew Freedman
20 hours ago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — President Obama used a speech to a State Department-sponsored Arctic climate change conference in Alaska on Monday to deliver one of his most urgent and dire warnings to date on the need to address manmade global warming.

The speech, which comes at the beginning of a historic three-day visit to the Alaskan Arctic, was clearly aimed at trying to build momentum toward pivotal global climate talks in Paris in early December.

A new climate treaty covering the post-2020 period is supposed to be negotiated at that meeting, and it is viewed as the last feasible chance to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, a threshold world leaders agreed to in 2009. The emissions reduction commitments outlined ahead of that conference so far — including action by the U.S. — would not be sufficient to meet that target.

See also: 14 photos that show how drastically global warming is changing Alaska
http://mashable.com/2015/09/01/alaska-climate-change-photos/

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“The fact is that climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it,"
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“The fact is that climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it," Obama said. "That, ladies and gentleman, must change. We are not acting fast enough.”

Noting that the U.S. is the world's second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China, Obama said, “the US recognizes our role in creating this problem, and we embrace our responsibility to help solve it.”

In the speech to foreign ministers and delegates from Arctic nations such as Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark and Russia, and leaders from non-Arctic states as far away as Singapore, China and South Korea, Obama said the world is simply not acting fast enough to curb global warming.

“None of the countries represented here are moving fast enough,” he said.

Obama ran through a litany of climate change problems already evident around the Arctic, including in Alaska. These include melting sea and land ice, villages being slowly swallowed by the sea, thawing permafrost and wildfires that are burning more of the Arctic with each passing year.


People gather outside the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015, before Obama spoke at an Arctic climate conference in Anchorage, Alaska.

Obama is slated to view some of these impacts firsthand during visits to glaciers near Seward, Alaska, on Tuesday, and the villages of Dillingham and Kotzebue on Wednesday, both of which are coastal communities struggling with erosion.

“This year in Paris has to be the year that the world finally reaches an agreement to protect the one planet we’ve got while we still can,” Obama said. "On this issue of all issues there is such a thing as being too late — that moment is almost upon us," he continued.

.. Obama, "Let's go to Alaska!" tweet ..

"Let's go to Alaska!"
Go behind the scenes with @POTUS as he previews his trip to the frontlines of climate change. http://t.co/WJw0WUcocl

— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) September 1, 2015

.. with video ..

Obama sharply took on climate deniers in the U.S. and other countries who argue that manmade climate change does not warrant action, or does not exist in the first place, as many Republican presidential candidates have said.

"Those who want to ignore the science are on their own — they're on their own shrinking island," he said, to applause from the crowd of diplomats and scientists specializing in Arctic warming.

Obama challenged leaders to come forward with more ambitious plans than what is already on the table for Paris, since multiple assessments have shown that emissions reduction commitments to date will not achieve the 2 degree Celsius goal.

“It’s not enough just to have conferences. It’s not enough just to talk the talk. We’ve got to walk the walk," Obama said.

The speech was unusually strident and urgent as Paris draws near, yet Obama announced no new policy measures of any kind.

Environmentalists were hoping he would close off the Arctic to drilling for oil and gas, and some outside the conference venue rallied against Shell's exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea.

Alaskans such as Governor Bill Walker were hoping to hear plans for more development of Alaska's oil and gas resources, recognizing that the era of fossil fuels is dwindling, as Obama's science advisor, John Holdren, put it earlier in the day.

Both sides of the Arctic drilling debate walked away empty handed.

.. Obama. "The science is stark, it is sharpening, and it proves
that this once-distant threat is now very much in the present." .. tweet ..

"The science is stark, it is sharpening, and it proves that this once-distant threat is now very much in the present." —@POTUS #ActOnClimate

— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) September 1, 2015

..

The speech may also ruffle a few feathers internationally, by shaming some countries that have not submitted ambitious plans to the U.N.

However, Norway's foreign minister, Børge Brende, was not offended by the remark. His country, which is a major global oil and gas producer, is divesting its sovereign wealth fund from fossil fuels and reducing its emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. It's goal is to become carbon neutral by 2050.

"He said no one is doing enough and pointed not least at his own country, the U.S., which is the second biggest emitter behind China," Brende told the Norwegian News Agency (NTB). "When you look at emissions per person, the U.S. is number one," Brende said.

"I feel that when you look at Norway, we have said we will reduce by 40% by 2030, which is an ambitious target. He told us, completely unsolicited, that if every country was like Norway, if we could redouble Norway, we would have been much better off."

http://mashable.com/2015/08/31/obama-glacier-climate-alaska/

[F6]

fuagf -- yep; after last year's misfire, this year, now, it is here, having really come fully together within just the last couple of weeks (as currently displayed in the following animations):

Global Tropical Sea Surface Temperature Animation

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/gsstanim.shtml [will update/remain current]

Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Animation


http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/sstanim.shtml [will update/remain current]

here's hoping it turns out not too bad for all of you over there ("Meteorologists say the current El Nino has already served to quiet the South Asian monsoon season.") (. . .) -- as you've just entered your spring and enter your peak heat in three months, in phase with it

and that in return we, in particular California, actually do get at least some real good part of what we do actually need (after the rather long mostly La Nina pattern which of course so helped set that up in the first place) -- within not many more weeks now, should, would expect/hope to, see at least some initial pattern-consistent jet flow set-ups, bringing at least some initial corresponding intrusions of moisture into California




[two back at/see (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=99814640 and precedig and following]


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Current El Nino climate event 'among the strongest'

Three category four storms seen together in the [central and eastern ( http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/three-category-4-hurricanes-pacific-kilo-ignacio-jimena )] Pacific for the first time
The current El Nino weather phenomenon could be one of the strongest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
1 September 2015
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34120583


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El Nino in Pacific Seen as Strongest Since Record 1997-98 Event



September 1, 2015 03:10 PM

The El Nino that’s changing weather across the globe is now the strongest since the record event almost two decades ago.

Sea temperature anomalies in the central Pacific Ocean are now at their highest since 1997–98, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said in a fortnightly update on its website. The values are still below the peak observed in the period, it said.

Forecasters in the U.S. predict the El Nino may be the strongest in records going back to 1950. It has already brought torrential rains to parts of South America and dryness to Southeast Asia. The Philippines plans to boost rice imports to prepare for potential shortages, while Rabobank International warned that the weather event is a key risk to Australian wheat crops.

“Most of the eight international climate models surveyed by the bureau indicate there is likely to be some further warming of central Pacific Ocean during the coming months,” the Australian forecaster said. “About half the models indicate the event may begin to plateau during spring to early summer.”

In Australia, spring starts in September and summer begins in December.

The 1997-98 El Nino was the strongest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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