November, 2016

Much of my news comes from The Daily Climate, whose wonderful subscription service clues me in to what's going on each day. Another great source of stories (and commentaries) comes from my friend Jim Poyser, at Apocadocs.

2016

November, 2016

11/28/2016

• Svalbard above freezing? 'Shocking' temps have huge consequences: Once-frozen Svalbard may soon see liquid water where ice sheets reigned, as the average annual temperature for 2016 could be above 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Sea ice essentially acts as an air conditioner for the world, moderating global temperatures and creating a place for the heat brought in at the tropics to escape to so that the Earth does not simply grow exponentially hotter, Dr. [Brenda] Ekwurzel tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. [ael: arg — "exponentially hotter"]
• Opinion: First thoughts on Trump-era science: Stanford researchers Paul and Anne Ehrlich offer suggestions on coping in a world where science suddenly feels devalued.
  • Scientists must, to paraphrase Garret Hardin, make clear that a "life-boat" philosophy among the rich, besides being unethical, is also suicidal. Having poked a hole in the bottom of the lifeboat of civilization, it is not prudent to announce to the poor "your end of the boat is sinking." Remember, there likely will be no post-collapse scientific community.

11/27/2016

• Perils of Climate Change Could Swamp Coastal Real Estate: Homeowners are slowly growing wary of buying property in the areas most at risk, setting up a potential economic time bomb in an industry that is struggling to adapt.
• Huge glacier retreat triggered in 1940s: The melting Antarctic glacier that now contributes more to sea-level rise than any other ice stream on the planet began its big decline in the 1940s.
  • This is when warm ocean water likely first got under Pine Island Glacier (PIG) to loosen the secure footing it had enjoyed up until that point.
  • "This glacier used to be pinned to a ridge and once it moved away from that ridge, it started to retreat rapidly; and without other pinning points it could continue to retreat rapidly inland, contributing significantly to global sea level," Dr James Smith from the British Antarctic Survey told BBC News.
• Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level: Scientists warn increasingly rapid melting could trigger polar "tipping points" with catastrophic consequences felt as far away as the Indian Ocean
  • Temperatures in the Arctic are currently about 20C above what would be expected for the time of year, which scientists describe as "off the charts". Sea ice is at the lowest extent ever recorded for the time of year. "The warning signals are getting louder," said Marcus Carson of the Stockholm Environment Institute and one of the lead authors of the report. "[These developments] also make the potential for triggering [tipping points] and feedback loops much larger."
  • The research, compiled by 11 organisations including the Arctic Council and six universities, comes at a critical time, not only because of the current Arctic temperature rises but in political terms. Aides to the US president-elect, Donald Trump, this week unveiled plans to remove the budget for climate change science currently used by Nasa and other US federal agencies for projects such as examining Arctic changes, and to spend it instead on space exploration.
  • "That would be a huge mistake," said Carson, noting that much more research needs to be done on polar tipping points before we can understand the true dangers, let alone hope to tackle them. "It would be like ripping out the aeroplane's cockpit instruments while you are in mid-flight."

11/20/2016

• Zika Is No Longer a Global Emergency, W.H.O. Says: An agency advisory committee said it ended the emergency — formally known as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern — because Zika is now shown to be a dangerous mosquito-borne disease, like malaria or yellow fever, and should be viewed as an ongoing threat met as other diseases are, sometimes with W.H.O. help.

11/18/2016

• The North Pole is an insane 36 degrees warmer than normal as winter descends:
  
  • The whole situation is pretty extreme, several experts agreed. “Both the persistence and magnitude of these temperature anomalies are quite unusual,” Labe added by email. “Large variability in temperatures is common in the Arctic (especially during the cold season), but the duration of this warm Arctic — cold Siberia pattern is unusual and quite an impressive crysophere/sea ice feedback.” (The “cryosphere” refers to that part of the Earth’s system that is made up of ice.) Abnormally warm air has flooded the Arctic since October. Richard James, a meteorologist who pens a blog on Alaska weather, analyzed 19 weather stations surrounding the Arctic Ocean and found that the average temperature was about 4 degrees (2 Celsius) above the record set in 1998.
  • See my RClimate ice graphic….
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11/17/2016

• CEOs, leaders urge Trump to stand by climate pact: Nations, businesses and Washington's top diplomat urged president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday not to withdraw the US from the climate-rescue Paris Agreement and its commitments to preserve Earth for future generations.
• Morocco plants millions of trees along roads to fight climate change: “We build the cost of the trees into the cost of the highway projects,” he said. “I don’t have an exact number, but we’ve spent many millions planting trees. Twenty-five percent comes from Moroccan taxes; 75 percent comes from debt. Because it’s a part of our ambition and values, we pay the costs.”
• The cost of climate change: World's economy will lose $12tn unless greenhouse gases are tackled: Damage caused by rising seas, increased storms and other climate-related problems pose 'a very serious challenge to poverty eradication efforts in the developing world'
• Stephen Hawking just gave humanity a due date for finding another planet: During his hour-long speech, Hawking told the audience that Earth's cataclysmic end may be hastened by humankind, which will continue to devour the planet’s resources at unsustainable rates, the Express reported.
  • “Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years. By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race.”

11/11/2016

• Donald Trump presidency a 'disaster for the planet', warn climate scientists: Leading scientists say the climate denier’s victory could mean ‘game over for the climate’ and any hope of warding off dangerous global warming
  • “A Trump presidency might be game over for the climate,” said Michael Mann, a prominent climate researcher. “It might make it impossible to stabilize planetary warming below dangerous levels.” Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, added: “This is an unmitigated disaster for the planet.”
  • “Millions of Americans voted for a coal-loving climate denier willing to condemn people around the globe to poverty, famine and death from climate change,” said Benjamin Schreiber, climate director at Friends of the Earth US. “It seems undeniable that the United States will become a rogue state on climate change.”
  • Environmentalists are already aghast at Trump’s presidential preparations. He has appointed Myron Ebell, director at a conservative thinktank, to oversee transition plans for the Environmental Protection Agency, which Trump has casually earmarked for abolition. Ebell has said global warming is “nothing to worry about” and that the Clean Power Plan is “illegal”.
  • US greenhouse gas emissions have started to taper off in recent years but a Trump presidency would see a resurgence, with an analysis by Lux Research finding that carbon dioxide output would be 16% higher than the current trajectory should the real estate magnate complete a second term. This would give the world a hefty shove towards climate disaster and fatally wound the US’s reputation as a global leader.
  • Trumpian interference can only do so much to slow this trend, although plodding progress isn’t enough to stave off climate catastrophe. The UN has warned that global emissions must peak by 2020 and then be sharply reduced in order to avoid the worst. This shrinking window risks being clouded entirely if the US is to choke itself, and the rest of the world, on its fumes.
  • Whether or not Trump becomes a belated convert to the reality of climate change, the physics of global warming remain unchanged. 2016 will be the warmest year on record, beating a mark set only last year. These extremes, where India experiences a temperature of 51C (123F) and the Arctic is robbed of almost all of its winter snowfall, are set to become the norm within a decade. American citizens, from Alaska to Louisiana, are already being uprooted due to the rising seas, a situation that will become commonplace.
• Climate change is changing nature so much it may need ‘human-assisted evolution’, scientists say: Life on Earth has already been fundamentally altered by global warming, affecting the genes of plants and animals and altering every ecosystem on the planet, according to a major review of the scientific literature.
  • The researchers found that 82 per cent of the natural ecological processes that support healthy ecosystems on land and sea had been affected in a way that had not been expected “for decades”.
  • Many species are shifting towards the poles as the world has warms, while others are seeking higher ground. Marine species have expanded into areas that were usually too cold at a rate of 72km per decade, while land species have done so at 6km per decade, the paper said.
  • Other creatures are changing shape, with many getting smaller as a higher surface-area-to-body-mass ratio makes it easier to stay cool. For example, six species of woodland salamander in the Appalachian Mountains have undergone an average eight per cent reduction in body size over the past 50 years. Slightly smaller lizards might not sound like something to overly concern humans, but there is evidence this response is also affecting important sources of food. “Some fish species appear to be shrinking, but attributing this solely to ocean warming is difficult because size-dependent responses can be triggered by commercial fishing as well as long-term climate change,” the researchers wrote. “However, long-term trend analyses show convincingly that eight commercial fish species in the North Sea underwent simultaneous reductions in body size over a 40-year period because of ocean warming, resulting in 23 per cent lower yields.”
  • In Alaska, the researchers said “wholesale biome shifts” had been observed with the “tundra … transitioning to boreal conditions”. “These are clear signs of large-scale ecosystem change and disruption, in which disequilibrium rapidly pushes the system into a new state,” they wrote. And such ecological regime shifts can have dire results. “For example, some reefs are transitioning from coral- to algal-dominated states as a consequence of mass coral mortality, whereas kelp forests are turning into rocky barrens in temperate seas,” the researchers said. “In lakes, climate change has increased the risk of regime shifts from clear-water to turbid states and increased the occurrence of cyanobacteria blooms.” All this turmoil is likely to be too much for some forms of life. For example, some trees do not reproduce fast enough to shift their range uphill to escape the warming climate.
  • And humans should take note, as mosquitoes that carry diseases like malaria, Zika and dengue are also on the move. One of the researchers, Professor James Watson, of Queensland University, said: “Some people didn't expect this level of change for decades. “The impacts of climate change are being felt everywhere, with no ecosystem on Earth being spared. It is no longer sensible to consider climate change as a concern only for the future. “Emissions targets must be actively achieved and time is running out for a synchronised global response to climate change that safeguards biodiversity and ecosystem services."

11/4/2016

• How to store electricity underwater: Pumped storage gets a makeover
• Climate change is scarier than vampires — just ask Ian Somerhalder: It was this concern for climate change that led Somerhalder to a gig as a correspondent on Years of Living Dangerously, a documentary series now in its second season on the National Geographic Channel. It also features Jack Black, Don Cheadle, David Letterman, and Gisele Bündchen, among others.
• Fossil fuels will be heavily represented at this year’s U.N. climate talks.:
  
• The ambitious Clinton climate plan nobody is talking about: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a detailed 10-year energy, environment and climate plan. But you likely know nothing about it.

11/1/2016

• Butterflies could be about to be wiped out by extreme weather: The effect is probably already happening
  • Extreme weather could threaten the existence of Britain’s butterflies, according to a new study. Heat waves, cold snaps and heavy rain have probably already contributed to crashing populations of butterflies, the scientists behind the study say. And that same effect is likely to continue. While scientists have long known that climate change can cause lasting and intense damage to ecosystems, scientists know a lot less about the way that shorter spells of extreme weather can affect them.
• Nepal drains risky glacial lake near Everest: Nepal has successfully drained part of a giant glacial lake near Mount Everest, averting risk of a disastrous flood that could have threatened thousands of lives, officials said on Monday. Scientists say climate change is causing Himalayan glaciers to melt at an alarming rate, creating huge glacial lakes which could burst their banks and devastate mountain communities.
• Polar vortex shifting due to climate change, extending winter, study finds: Global warming could be making winters in eastern North America even longer, according to a new study. The study finds that, because of sea ice loss in the Arctic, the polar vortex is shifting and temperatures are turning colder during March.
• Climate Change Is Already Forcing Americans to Move: Storms and flooding are damaging or destroying a growing share of the nation's 1.1 million public housing units. Those homes are getting replaced slowly or not at all, forcing the people who lived in them to leave their neighborhoods and often their cities.
• Geoengineering to Alter Climate Moves Closer to Reality
  • The University of East Anglia released a study in February that concluded geoengineering ideas were hazardous, costly or unrealistic. The Convention on Biodiversity has approached geoengineering with caution, seeking to constrain the development unless there is effective global governance, Williamson said. “Risks of having local imbalances of climate are quite high, we’re not quite sure how it would turn out,” Williamson said. “If you have a climate catastrophe, a flood or storm, the accusation will be that it resulted from your action in the atmosphere.”

What went on in October, 2016?

What went on in September, 2016?

What went on in August, 2016?

What went on in July, 2016?

What went on in June, 2016?

What went on in May, 2016?

What went on in April, 2016?

What went on in March, 2016?

What went on in February, 2016?

What went on in January, 2016?

What went on: 2015

What went on: 2014

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