Climate Letter #1622

Some good news—monitors of mangrove deforestation are seeing meaningful improvement (National University of Singapore).  “More than a decade ago, academics warned that mangrove forests were being lost faster than almost any other ecosystem, including coral reefs and tropical rainforests. But things are looking better…..loss rates have reduced by almost an order of magnitude between the late 20th and early 21st century – from what was previously estimated at one to three per cent per year, to about 0.3 to 0.6 per cent per year, thanks in large part to successful mangrove conservation efforts…..Mangrove forests occur along the shorelines of more than 100 countries and are incredibly important as they provide a number of critical benefits to people, including protection from coastal erosion and storm as well as cyclone damage, natural filters for pollution and sediment, carbon sequestration which helps to mitigate climate change, and provide millions of people with products such as fuelwood, construction materials and fisheries resources.”  There are still threats that must be kept under control.

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An analysis of what the potential repercussions of further deforestation in the Amazon will mean for the people of Brazil (Mongabay).  The list of disasters is long, everyone will be affected, and the changes would be rapid, but the Bolsonara government remains oblivious.  The ill effects would also spread far beyond Brazil’s borders, which should stimulate greater outside pressures for reform.
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Burning fossil fuels causes great harm to humans aside from the damages done by climate change (Phys.org).  From the 2019 World Air Quality Report, “Most of the seven million premature deaths attributed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to air pollution are caused by PM2.5 particles, which originate in sandstorms, agriculture, industry, wildfires and especially the burning of fossil fuels.”  China, India and several neighboring countries are by far the most affected.  Of further note, “Climate change has begun to amplify the health risk of PM2.5 pollution, especially through more intense forest fires and sandstorms made worse by spreading desertification, the report found.”
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A beautifully photographed story about the way giant kelp forests are being completely destroyed by warmer ocean waters (The Guardian).  A first-hand witness who grew up in Tasmania and is now a biologist tells exactly how it happens.  (When sea urchins find it warm enough to move in the kelp have no chance of surviving.)
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A device that adds to the efficiency of heat pumps improves on the prospect of heating as well as cooling buildings with clean electricity (Purdue University).  The device can be used as a control agent within an existing heat pump.  It will lower energy bills, but no estimates were given.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1622

Climate Letter #1621

Australia’s fires were far worse than anything that had been predicted (BBC News).  “Climate models – simulations that use all available information about what drives our planet’s climate – are the primary method we have to understand what will happen as Earth warms…..But even if you look at the few models that have fire in them…none of them simulate anything close to the scale of what happened in Australia…..The faster [the planet] warms, the more likely we are to be taken by surprise.”  Similar observations have come to light following many other kinds of extreme weather events, noted here as “a wake-up call to the reality of climate change.”  
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A third of plants and animals risk mass extinction within fifty years (Climate News Network).  The underlying study was covered here before, in CL #1615 on Feb. 15, but needs to be repeated because of its profound importance and depth of investigative clarity.  Also, I want to offer kudos to Tim Radford for his excellent preparation of a thorough review of what the researchers had accomplished.  Their study is a warning of unimaginable scale that may well be right on target, and fully deserves everyone’s utmost attention.
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New research has shown that cleaning up air pollution actually does result in warmer air temperatures (The Guardian).  “Since the 1970s countries across Europe and North America have significantly curbed their air pollution, resulting in more of the sun’s energy reaching Earth’s surface over these locations.”  That alone is certain to have raised temperatures regionally between 1970 and 2005, offset globally by rising pollution in southeastern Asia.  The study also made the interesting revelation “that the reduction in air pollution has altered the strength and location of high altitude winds, shifting the jet stream further to the north during winter. This change has suppressed cold extremes over northern Eurasia. Future pollution reduction over China is expected to exert a similar influence.” 
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American attitudes toward climate change are rapidly changing (The Atlantic).  “It’s not a fluke, an error, or an outlier. In poll after poll, the results are clear: Climate change is one of the most important issues in the 2020 presidential election.”  The entire landscape is totally different from what it was as little as one year ago, but politicians on both sides still talk as if it is only pocketbook issues that are really important to voters once they get into the booth—and they may be right.  The Democrats have the best chance of making it a decisive issue, if they can find a more creative way to frame a convincing course of action.  Inspiring and generating the highest level of international cooperation is an absolute necessity for any kind of success, and would be a good thing to start emphasizing.  Remember the Paris Agreement?
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An amazing pictorial essay about a Chinese coastal region being taken over by rising sea level (The Guardian).  At the climax you get a view of the port city of Tianjin, which is home to over 15 million people, many of whom live in dwellings constructed on reclaimed tideland.
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In today’s Weather Maps I happened to notice something of unusual interest—a giant iceberg that must be at least a hundred miles long, sitting in the middle of the Southern Ocean between Antarctica and Africa.  You can easily spot it on this image at about 7:30 o’clock.  In the second image you can see what a strong impact it is having on surrounding water temperatures.  You can also go right to the live source at https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#sstanom  and note the Anomaly effect, as well as taking a few detours for purposes of exploration in general.
 

Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1621

Climate Letter #1620

A new warning based on the huge declines of insect populations that have been widely observed (The Guardian).  The report was issued by a team of 25 international scientists representing a variety of specialties.  Climate change was one of six major factors of causation described in their comprehensive review of the current state of knowledge.  “The current [insect] extinction crisis is deeply worrisome. Yet, what we know is only the tip of the iceberg.  We know enough to act immediately. Solutions are now available – we must act upon them.  Insect declines lead to the loss of essential, irreplaceable services to humanity.”
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–The full report is available, written in everyday language:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719317823?via%3Dihub#bb0910
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Researchers have found that greenhouse gasses emitted from most thawing peatlands are fully offset by the growth of new greenery (JGR Biogeo sciences).  “Northern peatlands store a third of the world’s soil carbon…..We found no long‐term net impact of permafrost thaw on carbon stores, as losses of previously frozen carbon were offset by carbon that accumulated at the surface following thaw.”  Increased moss growth provided this highly welcomed outcome.
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JP Morgan economists have warned the firm’s clients about the existential threat of climate change (The Guardian).  “The world’s largest financier of fossil fuels has warned clients that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity and that the planet is on an unsustainable trajectory, according to a leaked document…..the paper notes that global heating is on course to hit 3.5C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century…..it is clear that the Earth is on an unsustainable trajectory. Something will have to change at some point if the human race is going to survive.”  The report, which is not public, was issued on January 14th.
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California is showing signs of a return to serious drought conditions (EcoWatch).  “California is headed toward drought conditions as February, typically the state’s wettest month, passes without a drop of rain…..The last time San Francisco did not record a drop of rain in February was in 1864 as the Civil War raged…..Right now, the snowpack is at 53 percent of its normal volume after two warm and dry months to start the year…..persistent high pressure over the North Pacific Ocean is expected to continue, diverting storm systems to the north and south and away from California and parts of the Southwest,”
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Astounding claims made by battery researchers in South Korea (Korea Institute of Science and Technology).  “…announced the development of silicon anode materials that can increase battery capacity four-fold in comparison to graphite anode materials and enable rapid charging to more than 80% capacity in only five minutes. When applied to batteries for electric vehicles, the new materials are expected to more than double their driving range…..We were able to develop carbon-silicon composite materials using common, everyday materials and simple mixing and thermal processes with no reactors…..The simple processes we adopted and the composites with excellent properties that we developed are highly likely to be commercialized and mass-produced. The composites could be applied to lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems.”  The report appeared in a journal published by the American Chemical Society.
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Today’s global temperature anomaly map from the Climate Reanalyzer https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2anom shows several extremes.  The anomalies have a baseline equal to roughly three decades, a period normally characterized by a global average gain of just a bit more than 0.5C.  Today we are getting 0.9C, which is at the very high end of the range for daily reports.  (These dailies will occasionally run as low as 0.2C.)  Almost all of Eurasia is totally out of balance, which is very unusual, along with both polar regions, especially the Arctic.  The ‘NH’ report of 1.7C is another extreme, while the Southern Hemi has been sitting at the low end.  Also note the bright red spot at the top of Siberia, making it a good 20C (or 36F) above average—more than just an ‘ordinary’ extreme.
 

 

 

I’m also adding an image that gives a good portrayal of how much water vapor is finding its way over the entire Eurasian continent, originally transported by the long spike you can see running from the eastern edge of the Pacific through the middle of the Atlantic and then breaking into remnants that spread out across thousands of miles of far north country. The hot zone off Siberia shows up with 7 kilograms of water, which is about four times its normal average at this time of year, and that is enough to account for the 20C temperature gain in the previous chart. It should not last that way for long.

If you don’t mind looking at one more image, that long spike of high volume water vapor has gotten itself embedded in an equally long sequence of strong jet stream pulses that runs all the way from Mexico to the Siberian Arctic., and has stayed like that for several days now, making for very efficient transportation for those on board.

Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1620

Climate Letter #1619

A new study tells how the Colorado River is losing its volume of flow and why the trend will continue (Inside Climate News).  The study helps resolve a “longstanding disagreement in previous estimates of the river’s sensitivity to rising temperatures,” finding that flows are presently declining at a rate of about 9.3 percent for every 1C increase in global temperature.  Previous estimates had ranged from 2 pct to 15 pct.  The new estimate is backed by a major USGS effort to gather data, the substance of which also provided the exact mechanism behind the effect, which is likely to continue for as long as warming continues.  It’s not just a Colorado problem. “Many water-stressed regions around the world depend on runoff from seasonally snow-covered mountains.”  Premature melting of the snowpack removes a “protective shield” that otherwise limits evaporation.

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In another methane study, researchers say that methane released from deep, ancient carbon reservoirs because of global warming is unlikely to make it all the way to the atmosphere (University of Rochester).  This study is related to the one written up in yesterday’s letter, issued from the same university, but here the emphasis is on deeply buried methane sources of huge size that have raised legitimate fears of disruptive behavior.  Testing procedures derived from ice core samples led to this conclusion:  “In the case of methane hydrates, if the methane is released in the deep ocean, most of it is dissolved and oxidized by ocean microbes before it ever reaches the atmosphere.  If the methane in permafrost forms deep enough in the soil, it may be oxidized by bacteria that eat the methane, or the carbon in the permafrost may never turn into methane and may instead be released as carbon dioxide.”  This may be a relief, but we still need to be wary about human-related sources that are not subject to buffering.
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A frightening appraisal of China’s Belt and Roads Initiative (Yale Climate Connections).  “It’s the sort of elephant in the room…..When we look at any measure of global emissions or any scenario of how we reach the Paris targets, it relies a whole lot on China’s transitioning away from its reliance on coal. So the Belt and Road, to the extent it has really significant impact on climate change and its trajectory – is the extent to which China is using it to export its capacity in the coal sector…..China’s BRI has locked in fossil fuels and their climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions, not for years, but for decades…..Once you’ve invested and you have it and it’s working and people are employed and depending on it, it becomes a commitment.”  The plans are for real, but the execution has not yet happened.
–For much more information about this mammoth infrastructure project, which has largely flown under the radar in the US, visit:  https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/02/key-articles-on-chinas-enormous-belt-and-road-initiative/
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The outlook for more plastic production in the US and what it means for climate change (Earth Institute –  Columbia University).  All the critical information is available in this report.  Just like the situation in the above story, huge new plans for future production are in place and awaiting final approval for construction.  Once built, their future emissions and all the other devastating effects are locked in for decades.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1619

Climate Letter #1618

Estimates of the sources of growth in atmospheric methane since 1750 have been radically revised (University of Rochester).  “Methane emissions to the atmosphere have increased by approximately 150 percent over the past three centuries, but it has been difficult for researchers to determine exactly where these emissions originate; heat-trapping gases like methane can be emitted naturally, as well as from human activity…..scientists have been vastly underestimating the amount of methane humans are emitting into the atmosphere via fossil fuels.”  A new study has made a convincing case, which also demonstrates that emissions from natural seepage are much less than estimated.  The information has a good side:  “The data has important implications for climate research: if anthropogenic methane emissions make up a larger part of the total, reducing emissions from human activities like fossil fuel extraction and use will have a greater impact on curbing future global warming than scientists previously thought.”

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–The basic study has a paywall, but thanks to Carbon Brief there is a clearly written review explaining the underlying arguments supporting these new claims and the importance of this investigation.
–Extra comment:  As observed, atmospheric methane content has increased a full 150% since 1750 while CO2 content has grown a tiny bit less than 50%.  Since they are both important greenhouse gases, one might ask, how much has each of them added to the global temperature increase over the last 270 years, which now stands at 1.2C degrees?  The available answers tend to be confusing, but maybe a different approach  would be helpful.  Here is an idea.  We know from scientific studies that any doubling of airborne CO2 has the radiative forcing power to add about 1C or a bit more to surface air temperatures all by itself alone, before taking any feedbacks, oceanic inertia or other forcing elements into account.  Every double is thought to have that same power, establishing a logarithm which implies a significant steady weakening of forcing power per molecule of CO2 in the air as its content rises.  I can see why that same reasoning should also be applicable to all the other greenhouse gases, including methane, but no such resulting temperature information is available.  I would assume that the various climate-warming feedbacks attributed to the warming effect of CO2 would at the same time be enabled in the same way by the net warming effect of all the other forcings, not all of which are gases.  (Water vapor and cloud cover are both treated as two of the principal feedbacks, even though water vapor certainly has a forcing effect similar to that of the greenhouse gases.)  Every one of the greenhouse gases has its own peculiar set of photons of energy to intercept and in part remit back to the surface, which further separates their powers.  So each gas has powers depending both on degree of concentration and on relative positioning of photon interception in the radiation band, and both of these will have a real effect on how much warming they can generate from a greenhouse standpoint.
Based on limited information that is available, I have been able to figure out that none of the well-mixed gases (which excludes water vapor) are stronger than CO2 apart from the “advantage” they acquire from being relatively scarce.  On balance, no one of them is strong enough to add as much as 1C to the power of global warming upon doubling in concentration, like CO2 does.  In the case of methane I think the power of doubling on the global temperature is probably around half that of CO2, thus about 0.5C or maybe 0.6.  This is a very rough estimate, but it does give some idea of the relative importance of the activity of the methane increase since 1750, three times as great as the 50% increase in CO2, both being established by well-accepted measurements.  Methane could have done more of the warming during much of that period.
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One more new story about methane, through its connection to the fracking industry, is worthy of consideration (Medium).  The author is an analyst with expertise in the systematic gathering and application of geographic mapping information.  He provides strong refutation aimed at those who claim that natural gas is clean and should be promoted as a proper bridge toward the future of alternative energy.
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Alarm bells are ringing again for coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef (The Guardian).  “The Great Barrier Reef could be heading for a third major coral bleaching outbreak in the space of five years if high ocean temperatures in the region do not drop in the next two weeks…..Sea surface temperatures (SST) are already more than 1.5C above average across large areas of the reef, with a month remaining until temperatures usually peak…..So with about a month to go, the pattern so far is following in the footsteps of 2016-17 and it’s already hotter than it was in the interim years.  If it happens or not will depend on the vagaries of the weather for the next two weeks.”
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1618

Climate Letter #1617

A new study has found evidence of puzzling behavior of the tropical rainfall belt known as the ICTZ (Northumbria University – England).  The behavior is puzzling because in many ways it is counter-intuitive:  “The researchers showed that the ITCZ expands in a cooler climate and contracts or shrinks as temperatures increase…..Our results are consistent with models suggesting ITCZ expansion and weakening during global periods of cold climate, and contraction and intensifying during periods of global warmth.”  One result is that drier conditions develop in certain well-populated regions bordering the zone, most notably Central America and quite possibly the African Sahel as well. “What we found was that during past warm intervals, southern Belize was very dry, similar to modern central Mexico. In contrast, cooler intervals, when it should have been dry by the standard old model, were the wettest intervals over the last 2,000 years…..the research suggests that future warming will increase the likelihood and frequency of future droughts…..What seems a logical next step is to test how this expansion-contraction mechanism is linked to other major climate systems, like the Asian-Australian monsoon. There are lots of questions to be answered.”  (I believe total rainfall associated with the ICTZ is still likely to increase as the zonal output intensifies, for abnormally high distribution in other regions.  Could the southeastern US be one of them?)

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–The full study is available at this link:  https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/7/eaax3644
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All across the US, winters are warming up faster than summers (NPR).  “The colder times of day are warming faster than warmer times of day. And the colder places are warming faster than the warmer places…..that means winters in both Maine and Alaska are around 5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter on average since the early 1900s.”  The post has excellent graphics and many interesting details
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Climate change research should put more emphasis on the global food system (Earth Institute – Columbia University).  “A paper released today by the journal Nature Food presents a new global food system approach to climate-change research that brings together agricultural production, supply chains and consumption. When these activities are considered together, they represent 21 to 37 percent of total human-caused greenhouse gas emissions…. Food system responses thus could play a major role in both adapting to and mitigating climate change.”  The study has many practical recommendations for creating a new system that makes perfectly good sense from every viewpoint.
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The latest appraisal of researchers who study the world’s coral reefs (American Geophysical Union).  The researchers were particularly interested in “what areas of the ocean would be suitable for coral restoration efforts over the coming decades…..found most of parts of the ocean where coral reefs exist today won’t be suitable habitats for corals by 2045, and the situation worsened as the simulation extended to 2100…..Honestly, most sites are out…..The few sites that are viable by 2100 included only small portions of Baja California and the Red Sea, which are not ideal locations for coral reefs because of their proximity to rivers…..Rising temperatures and ocean acidification are mostly to blame.”  (No mention here of the usual varying climate ‘scenarios.’)
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Good news from Poland:  Construction of it’s last new coal plant is not being funded (Ecologist).  “Environmental lawyers have hailed “the end for new coal” in Europe as two Polish utilities announce that they will suspend funding to the country’s last planned new coal plant…..due to changing market circumstances triggered by climate policy, and the continued flight of global capital away from coal…..Regulation and market forces have rarely changed so fast.”
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Meanwhile, the situation in Japan is exactly the opposite, regardless of outside pressures (Vox).  “Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is leaning into coal power, a striking move at a time when the climate crisis is accelerating and most of its economic peers are cutting back on the high-polluting energy source…..is still on track to add a total of 22 coal-fired power plants at 17 sites in the next five years. Some 15 of these plants are already under construction…..the move shows that despite this government’s purported concern about the climate, there are more powerful political and economic forces — and players — driving Japan’s energy policy, often against the will of many Japanese citizens.”  It’s highly questionable whether there is any kind of real need.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1617

Climate Letter #1616

A new study finds that earlier spring leaf-out amplifies temperature warming in northern areas (Nature Climate Change).  The early leaf-out is a regular response to the warming caused by greenhouse gases.  This study found feedbacks that added as much as 0.7C to those increases, which helps to explain why the northern warming rate is so high.  The research was handled in a thorough manner that gives it good marks for credibility.

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An old hypothesis explaining the behavior of the CO2 level during the ice ages has gained support (Nature – News & Views).  “Thirty years ago this month, John Martin proposed a solution to one of the biggest mysteries of Earth’s climate system: how was nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (about 200 gigatonnes of carbon) drawn into the ocean as the planet entered the most recent ice age, then stored for tens of thousands of years, and released again as the ice sheets melted?”  The answer in part has to do with enhanced iron fertilization of microorganisms, and evidence has been found that accounts for about half of the CO2 changes.  (This reads like any good story that teaches as it flows.)
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A separate study just published adds another layer of explanation to the same basic phenomenon encountered in the story above (Institute for Basic Science).  “They found that under glacial conditions sea ice not only inhibits outgassing of carbon dioxide from the surface ocean to the atmosphere, but it also increases storage of carbon  in the deep ocean. These processes lock away extra carbon in the ocean that would otherwise escape to the atmosphere as CO2, warm the planet, and reduce glacial amplitudes.”  The effect is enhanced by steady expansion of Antarctic sea ice as a positive feedback to the initial cooling process, all of which is later reversed when things are warming up again.
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An exciting new concept for energy storage has proven to be effective (University College London).  “While at the proof-of-concept stage, it shows enormous potential as a portable power supply in several practical applications including electric vehicles, phones and wearable technology…..Our new supercapacitor is extremely promising for next-generation energy storage technology…..We designed materials which would give our supercapacitor a high power density – that is how fast it can charge or discharge – and a high energy density – which will determine how long it can run for. Normally, you can only have one of these characteristics but our supercapacitor provides both, which is a critical breakthrough…..after 5,000 cycles, it retained 97.8% of its capacity.”  The research was published in a highly rated journal, Nature Energy.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1616

Climate Letter #1615

A new “Climate Reality Check” from the author of Climate Code Red.  Australian activist David Spratt can always be relied upon for views that are well-backed by climate science, which he has been avidly studying for decades.  There is nothing here that I would quibble with except maybe the idea that the global average temperature is locked in to reach plus-1.5C by 2030—only one decade from now—under practically every scenario.  I would add another four or five years to that date simply because for the past forty years the growth rate has held steady at 0.18C per decade, under a variety of natural developments, and there is no obvious reason for the rate to change.  We have just barely reached 1.2C, and that’s only by virtue of using a front-loaded 5-year average and an unusual absence of any strong La Nina years recently—which would have pulled temperature growth down a good bit.  The chart in the post that is full of little colored dots is worth taking time to study because it provides a clear picture of why it is so important for getting political action into high gear without any further delay.
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A message from the New Zealand actor Russell Crowe (The Guardian).  It’s very well spoken, and the video is only one minute long.  His point about how the need to act as a whole society is what counts, no matter what we do as individuals, is noteworthy, and not at all easy to imagine, especially on the scale of global society as a whole.
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A government research report produced in Finland foresees an oil industry meltdown (MotherboardVice).  This is an extraordinary work of analysis, based on the inescapable observation that maintaining rapid growth of the world economy in recent years has been based on the shaky combination of a booming US shale industry and a similar boom in excessive credit formation by many governments.  “Currently, the bulk of continued expansion in global supply is dependent on the United States. With the US shale sector on the verge of breakdown, the report warns that the window of oil market viability is closing, which suggests the resumption of the 2008 correction will be soon…..In short, this means we need an extremely rapid shift to renewables, along with a total reorganization of how our societies function for the coming post-fossil fuels world.”
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Economics researchers argue that companies in the energy business are exposed to physical climate risks that are not correctly priced in today’s financial markets (University of California – Davis).  The focus of this report is not so much on energy producers as on utilities, processors and service companies where company properties and customers are both badly affected by extreme weather events.  (California may have more than an ordinary share of these risks.)
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A new report predicts the future extinction rate of plants and animals from climate change based on close observation of actual factors that cause their declines (University of Arizona).  “Accurately predicting biodiversity loss from climate change requires a detailed understanding of what aspects of climate change cause extinctions, and what mechanisms may allow species to survive…..Román-Palacios and Wiens analyzed data from 538 species and 581 sites around the world. They focused on plant and animal species that were surveyed at the same sites over time, at least 10 years apart. They generated climate data from the time of the earliest survey of each site and the more recent survey. They found that 44% of the 538 species had already gone extinct at one or more sites…..We also estimated how quickly populations can move to try and escape rising temperatures. When we put all of these pieces of information together for each species, we can come up with detailed estimates of global extinction rates for hundreds of plant and animal species…..They found that about 50% of the species had local extinctions if maximum temperatures increased by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius, and 95% if temperatures increase by more than 2.9 degrees Celsius…..we could lose more than a third or even half of all animal and plant species, based on our results.”  (Considering that we are heading toward a 3C global increase in this century their conclusion is quite sobering.)
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1615

Climate Letter #1614

Sorry about the accident that spoiled yesterday’s letter for purposes of later reading. Those first two images, that so dramatically showed two weather extremes side by side, simply cannot be recovered. I want to do more postings with explanations based on similar Weather Maps—properly presented—and will be looking for another good opportunity of the same type. Today we’ll just go back to more regular stories.

A new study warns that great care must be taken before opening up large new tracts of land for agriculture (Inside Climate News).  “As the climate warms in the decades ahead, billions of acres, most of them in the northern hemisphere, will become suitable for agriculture and could, if plowed, emit a massive, planet-altering amount of greenhouse gases…..could unleash more carbon dioxide than the U.S. will emit in nearly 120 years at current rates…..This is the time to get good policy in place that excludes the most carbon-rich soils or we really risk runaway climate change.” https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12022020/agricultural-frontiers-russia-canada-climate-warming

More than two billion people live on drylands that are subject to abrupt ecosystem changes in the current century (University of Alicante – Spain).  From a new study, “…aridity is increasing worldwide as a result of climate change…..as aridity increases, dryland ecosystems on the planet undergo a series of abrupt changes…..when certain aridity thresholds are crossed, the ecosystem undergoes disproportionate changes and becomes even more arid…..Three phases of change were identified by the researchers.”  The third phase ends with a complete conversion to desert.  There are practical ways to minimize the negative consequences, as recommended by the authors.  https://phys.org/news/2020-02-climate-abrupt-shifts-dryland-ecosystems.html

Climate change has been linked to significantly increased losses of groundwater in the US (University of Arizona).  This first-of-a-kind study looked at the horizontal movement of shallow groundwater over large areas of territory having great complexity.  “The calculations revealed a direct response of shallow groundwater storage to warming that demonstrates the strong and early effect that even low to moderate warming may have on groundwater storage and evapotranspiration…..the eastern U.S. will be much more sensitive to a lowering of the water table…..may reach a tipping point sooner rather than later, when vegetation starts to lose access to shallow groundwater as storage is depleted with warming.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-groundwater-depletes-arid-american-west.html

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Last month was the hottest January on record (Phys.org).  “The global average land and ocean surface temperature in January was 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit (1.14 degrees Celsius) above the average January temperatures for the 20th century…..In parts of Russia, Scandinavia and eastern Canada, temperatures exceeded the old averages by 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 C).”  (Note that these numbers were compared with a modernized average, not the lower pre-industrial baseline that is always used for the well-known targets. The latter way, according to James Hansen, would bring the global average increase for January up to an estimated 1.5C.)  https://phys.org/news/2020-02-month-hottest-january-scientists.html

What are the prospects for a world without growth? (The New Yorker).  This is a good discussion because it presents a number of different viewpoints and a number of ways to approach the subject.  It is all based on the realization that, for civilization to survive, we have no choice other than to abandon current practices of consumption of limited natural resources.  Quite a few things will then need to be rearranged, hopefully in a fair and peaceful way.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/10/can-we-have-prosperity-without-growth

Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1614

Climate Letter #1613

Note (02/14/20): Unfortunately, the top two images you see here do not correspond well with the text, because they are being updated daily by the publishing system and changes are rapid. I have no way of restoring the originals. My apologies for that, and I hope there will be a way to avoid such mistakes in the future. The bottom image, which remains properly dated, also happens to have a subject that shows practically no change at all from day to day! CC

This would be a good day to show what a difference the amount of total overhead water vapor makes in setting the surface air temperature of a given region of land. On the following Anomaly chart just focus on the center of North America, which is simultaneously experiencing both a massive heatwave and an even larger cold wave, almost side by side with not much in between. (Anything in blue will always be below average, and ruddy above.) Note that today the cold block has temperatures as much as 20C (36F) below normal while just a few hundred miles away to the east there is a large area where temperatures are hovering at up to 15-20 C above. How is that possible? The followup image, designated as Precipitable Water, shows the way to an answer. Precipitable water (PW) is a term regularly employed by weather forecasters who use it as their principal guide to expected precipitation, but not to temperature. It is measured in terms of the weight of all H2O molecules—per square meter—from the planetary surface to the top of the atmosphere. A major portion of that weight is comprised of just plain vapor, such that we can use the same numbers as a practical index for airborne amounts of the vapor by itself.

Forecast Image

With that in mind, we’re ready to take a look at the difference in the relative amount of water vapor over the same two regions that gained our attention above. The numbers today are ranging from just 2-3kg in the west to 30 or even 35 or 40kg in the ‘blue zone’ to the east. These are not anomalies; they are the real thing. (I dearly wish there were charts available showing the range of global anomalies for PW using the same base period as for temperatures, but they don’t exist. Maybe some day.) Anyway, I suspect that ‘normal’ or average water vapor today, or for the base period as well, would turn out to be right around 10 kg for the entire region we are observing, but with modestly higher numbers appearing as you move from north to south, and especially toward the coastlines in the southeast. When you get all the way up to the polar region normal water vapor in the winter can easily hang around 1-2kg, or less, but just 2-3kg is not at all normal for places like Nebraska. So what are the implications for today?

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Forecast Image

In previous letters I have advanced the idea that whenever the overhead water vapor of an on-land region is doubled, from any starting point, the additional greenhouse effect will add around 8C (up to a maximum of 10C) to the surface air temperature below. That number will always be lower with respect to ocean surface air, and will also be reduced by any significant amount of cloud cover or precipitation. The situation we see above, with vapor doubling twice from normal on one hand and halving twice on the other, causing paired temperature anomalies that reach totals of more than 30C, is fully consistent with this general idea. I actually think the same relationship exists everywhere, all of the time, although usually not so easily demonstrated.

Moving on, can we also explain what causes such an extreme difference in the way water vapor is distributed in the atmosphere? The best answer I can give starts with the idea that about 80% of all atmospheric water vapor originates from the evaporation of tropical ocean surface waters that have reached a temperature of around 27C or more, otherwise known collectively as the ‘warm pool.’ For good measure let’s throw in another map that shows just where those waters are presently located:

Forecast Image

The rate of evaporation from the warm pool is indeed great, and it is generally true that the produced vapor in large part is lifted into quite high levels of the atmosphere by strong updrafts of wind. At such levels there is likely to be a considerable amount of of rain-out, along with further, more advanced distribution of the remainder. How that distribution progresses all depends on prevailing upper-level wind currents, which are usually fairly gentle to begin with but eventually some or even much of the vapor may get picked up and carried away to all sorts of far off places by much stronger jet stream currents. Upper level winds of varying strength or direction can cause batches of vapor to become concentrated, or to spread out, or in some cases to be almost completely obstructed from entrance into areas that can be large in size. This kind of information can be determined visually through close study of the daily weather maps, like the ones above, published by the University of Maine at https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2anom

Carl

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