Climate Letter #1352

A surprising amount of melting on the underside of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier.  A hollowed-out area has been discovered where the melting has gone far beyond all expectations:  “It’s big enough to have contained 14 billion tons of ice, and most of that ice melted over the last three years.”  Thwaites has been getting an exceptional amount of attention because it holds the key barrier to a much larger region of connected glaciers.  “About the size of Florida, Thwaites Glacier is currently responsible for approximately 4 percent of global sea level rise. It holds enough ice to raise the world ocean a little over 2 feet (65 centimeters) and backstops neighboring glaciers that would raise sea levels an additional 8 feet (2.4 meters) if all the ice were lost.”  Some scientists think the process is already unstoppable, which is why there is such an anxious search for proof at this time.  https://phys.org/news/2019-01-huge-cavity-antarctic-glacier-rapid.htm

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–Journalist Jeff Goodell is on his way to Antarctica attached to a scientific expedition that will initiate a new five-year research program that plans to get a better handle on the problem posed by Thwaites and West Antarctica as a whole.  He plans to do a series of articles about it for Rolling Stone magazine, with this being the first.  He believes there is no bigger problem for climate science to be concerned about at this particular time.
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A new video featuring Jennifer Francis offers a quick explanation and images of the “polar vortex” from P(BS Newshour.  There are really two vortexes, one high and one low, and they get confused.  Usually they go their separate ways, but on occasion there is an interaction, causing still another problem for scientists to work on in hopes of gaining a deeper understanding.  The following post, which was written by Dr. Francis for EarthSky Voices, digs into some of the details.
–Here is the written story.  It is still not clear to me how these high-level wind vortex fragments are able to drag bitter cold air from the pole along the surface as they move, somehow pushing the lower jet stream out of the way as they do so.  Oh well—there is more to be learned.
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What life is like in a small city on the northern Minnesota border when the vortex hits (The Guardian).  Not bad at all, for those who are used to it.
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Ethiopia was once covered with lush, natural forests (Nature).  The rise of subsistence agriculture has reduced them to just 5%, in the form of 35,000 small oases that are fertile and full of wildlife, most having a church in the center.  Efforts are being made that favor preservation and in places expansion.  The story’s photography is truly remarkable, allowing one to see visible signs for hope if further effects of climate change can be forestalled.
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From Yale 360. the third in its series about the relentless rise of water shortages in the Colorado River basin, induced by global warming.  There are plenty of helpful recommendations to choose from, most of which involve some kind of deep change in existing agricultural practices.
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Australia broke all sorts of records for solar energy installations in 2018.  That’s in spite of a national government that made no effort to be helpful and often tried to get in the way.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1352

Climate Letter #1351

What scientists are now saying about the risk of explosive methane release (Yale e360).  There was a time, not long ago, when a number of prominent climate scientists had genuine concerns about how rapid climate change might affect the gigantic deposits of stored methane around the globe.  Nobody really knew the answer, which made room for some pretty dramatic and scary theories.  That prompted an abundance of serious studies, which have been coming to the conclusion that there is no sign of a tipping point where today’s slowly rising release of methane might suddenly become very rapid or even explosive.  The current rate is indeed dangerous, but we can still control its future extent.  (The 6-minute video is worth watching.)

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A different kind of tipping point is real, and very close, this time favorable.  Deloitte, a major consultancy firm (US$43 billion in revenues) based in London, has published a new report on the prospects for growth of the fully-electric automobile industry.  A tipping point, where cost of ownership will fall below that of gas or diesel powered cars, will be reached in the next three or four years, setting the stage for explosive and unstoppable growth.  This post has all the details, and even describes the models Deloitte favors for best value in many different classes.
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Electric automobiles also have a huge role to play in the future of the electric grid.  The chief technology officer of an Australian fast-charging company describes the way automobiles and their big batteries, using fast-charging stations, can provide all the backup that is needed for solar-powered homes that will at times fall short.  “There is 90kWh in a Tesla battery – that can power an average house for four to five days, including air conditioning…..Should it rain for a week and the battery gets depleted because of insufficient solar, an EV with vehicle-to-grid technology can simply be charged elsewhere, such as a supermarket or other infrastructure, and bring it back home to power the house.”
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A second report from last week links drought to declines in CO2 absorption by greenery.  Oddly, the two reports were produced by groups at the same university, Columbia, and published on the same day but in different journals.  The one received much immediate attention (see CL #1347) while the other has just now been reported, and quietly so.  The message is essentially the same, but this one is more focused on fundamental details and has a more austere style that does not lend itself to publicity.  From the conclusion, “our results highlight the importance of compound drought and aridity events and their impact on continental carbon uptake, and the need to consider these factors in evaluation of future climate change risks.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-extreme-frequent-drought-aridity-21st.html
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A new study examines the effects of climate change on on North America’s ice-covered lakes (Wisconsin Public Radio).  “Already, thanks to climate change, about 15,000 lakes that used to reliably freeze each winter are starting to miss seasons. Even under the best circumstances, in which the global community meets the target set by the Paris climate agreement, the number of lakes with intermittent freezing will likely double by the time the climate warms by 2 degrees Celsius.”
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A critical look at Bolsonaro’s plans for Amazonian development (The Conversation).  Only a few people want this, but who has the ability to stop him?
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1351

Climate Letter #1350

Scientists say we should get used to polar vortex outbreaks.  It is linked to a phenomenon known as “sudden stratospheric warming” (SSW), which has a splitting effect on the vortex and is growing more frequent.  “That warmth splits the polar vortex, leaving the pieces to wander…..Where the polar vortex goes, so goes the cold air…..The unusual cold could stick around another eight weeks…..And it’s happening more frequently in the last couple decades.”

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Jennifer Francis, writing for a popular Australian website, explains the workings of the wandering vortex in considerable detail.  She attributes the event more to changes in the jet stream than to the SSW described above, but leaves room for a relationship.  “Splits in the stratospheric polar vortex do happen naturally, but should we expect to see them more often thanks to climate change and rapid Arctic warming? It is possible that these cold intrusions could become a more regular winter story. This is a hot research topic and is by no means settled, but a handful of studies offer compelling evidence that the stratospheric polar vortex is changing, and that this trend can explain bouts of unusually cold winter weather.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-frigid-polar-vortex-blasts-global.html
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New research quantifies the relationship between warmer ocean surfaces and extreme storm-and-rainfall events.  “They found that extreme storms…formed when the sea surface temperature was higher than about 28 degrees Celsius. They also found that, based on the data, 21 percent more storms form for every 1 degree Celsius that ocean surface temperatures rise.”  Most surface water across the tropics is already at or above 28C, and future increases up to 3C are actively considered within range.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-seas-frequency-extreme-storms.html
–Comment:  Sea surface water temperatures are currently rising at a rate somewhat less than the rate commonly reported for average global air temperatures, which is composed of both land and ocean surface air temperatures.  They will eventually rise more rapidly as deep ocean waters grow warmer, which will still take some time.
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“Food shocks”—sudden disruptions of food production—are becoming more common because of extreme weather and conflicts.  A new study has pinpointed the number of such events, their type, and their location by type over the past half-century, all of which has been charted and mapped for easy reference.  “In recent decades, we have become increasingly familiar with images in the media of disasters such as drought and famine around the world.  Our study confirms that… shocks have become more frequent, posing a growing danger to global food production.”
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A super-high carbon tax, with equally divided dividends, is seen as a plausible approach to achievement of extreme and urgent carbon emission reduction targets (The Hill).  It’s something that the two political parties in the US could agree on if public demand for action grew loud enough.  Wealthy people would end up being taxed much more heavily than those in low-income classes because in fact they consume far more energy, and the dividend feature would bring the highest net benefit to those with the lowest incomes who naturally consume the least.  Thus, when viewed as a means of income redistribution, a goal which is now being considered primarily by Democrats, a stiff carbon tax has many implicit advantages not shared by other methods.  It’s like killing two birds with one stone, and well-rated for effectiveness on both counts.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1350

Climate Letter #1349

Fiery thunderstorms that arise from wildfires are growing in strength and frequency (Yale e360).  Their power can send smoke into the stratosphere, like volcanoes.  “Researchers say they are now documenting an average of 25 single-pyroCb events a year in western North America. The thing to watch out for in the future… is what will happen if we see more of the multiple pyroCbs events, like the ones that occurred in 2017, which were an order of magnitude larger than previous benchmarks for extreme pyroCb activity.”

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Mark Lynas is preparing an updated edition of his much-acclaimed book, Six Degrees, published in 2007.  Here he talks about the way things are happening so much faster today than he thought possible back then.  “It’s a scary task because many of the impacts that I had previously put in later chapters — equating to three or more degrees of global warming — have had to be moved forwards, because they are happening already.”  All of Mark’s research conclusions at that time were carefully drawn from leading pieces of scientific literature, which themselves clearly fell short.
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A report commissioned by Lancet finds that three major global problems, hunger, obesity and climate change, are closely interwoven and that all three have the same basic cause.  “Underpinning all of these are weak political governance, the unchallenging economic pursuit of GPD growth, and the powerful commercial engineering of overconsumption…..To defeat the intertwined pandemics of obesity, hunger and climate change, governments must curb the political influence of major corporations…..calling for a ‘global treaty’ similar to one for tobacco control.”  For that to happen the authors believe ordinary citizens will need to make far more demands.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-radical-rethink-tackle-obesity-hunger.html
–Felicity Lawrence, an author of several books on nutrition, reviews the report for The Guardian, with some worthwhile additional commentary:
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From Inside Climate News, a new installment in its series of articles about the evils of industrial agriculture, with many details of the way it contributes to climate change, and much more.  “This system has transformed agriculture into a business that resembles the fossil fuel industry as it extracts value out of the ground with relentless efficiency and leaves greenhouse gas pollution in its aftermath.”  Journalism at its best!
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The PG&E bankruptcy “could mark a business milestone: the first major corporate casualty of climate change” (quoted from the Wall Street Journal)—but probably not the last.  This article from Vice describes a number of other situations that could be economically devastating, especially to financial institutions, in the years ahead.  Insurance companies have not been taking these risks seriously.  “Up until that point everything’s going to seem fine…..Then all of a sudden it’s going to be an issue with enormous societal impacts.”
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One major US utility is investing heavily in solar energy, and thriving.  The CEO of NextEra Energy sees the cost of both wind and solar generation, with storage and without subsidies, falling below that of any conventional power source.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1349

Climate Letter #1348

A region in southeastern Iran is becoming uninhabitable because of heat and drought (National Geographic).  In Sistan and Baluchistan, “many horrors are already playing out. As a distant and isolated province with an almost entirely agrarian economy, it’s been poorly placed to adapt. In a possible harbinger of things to come elsewhere, it’s slowly falling apart.  Residents have migrated in droves. Up to a fifth of the province’s 2.5 million people are or soon will be on the move.”

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Also from National Geographic, climate change is creating a new migration crisis in Bangladesh.  “Bangladesh holds 165 million people in an area smaller than Illinois. One-third of them live along the southern coast…..Most of the country’s land area is no higher above sea level than New York City…..Over the last decade, nearly 700,000 Bangladeshis were displaced on average each year by natural disasters…..That number spikes in years with catastrophic cyclones…..But even in relatively calm years, there is a rising drumbeat of displacement as sea-level rise, erosion, salinity intrusion, crop failures, and repeat inundation make life along the coast untenable.”
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In the US, disruption of the flow of the Colorado River is a growing threat (2nd in a series by Yale e360).  “This era of drying is especially serious because so much — some 40 million people and an economy that includes the world’s fifth largest, in California — is riding on the flow of the Colorado. The specter of a region facing an existential crisis because of a warming climate becomes more real every day.”  The sources of this river’s water are disappearing, and alternatives for supply are scarce.
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More commentary on the main story reported in yesterday’s Climate Letter (Scientific American).  The author adds some fresh insights that help to make clear the nature of threat.  The exact operation of carbon sinks and the nature of the underlying reasons for their existence is vital information for any realistic formulation of future climates.
–A new report having unrelated authorship provides a remarkable example of the relationship between soil conditions and the carbon sink, only in this case having immediate application to the current track of annual CO2 cycles.  The author reminds us that the CO2 level in the atmosphere rises at an above-average rate during years that have El Nino events, and explains why soil condition changes related to shifts in regional climate conditions serve as a primary reason.  A weak El Nino predicted for 2019 becomes the basis of his CO2 level forecast for the year.
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An approach to vertical greenhouse farming developed in the Netherlands is showing indications of success.  One interesting feature is that the CO2 level in the air inside the structures is intentionally doubled over the natural outside level, which indeed helps plants thrive when all other required nutrients are present.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1348

Climate Letter #1347

An important new study foresees vulnerability in a major carbon sink.  The terrestrial biosphere currently absorbs about 25% of the CO2 that human activity adds to the atmosphere each year.  A similar amount is absorbed by the oceans, and scientists have long wondered about the durability of both of these sinks, which are doing us a big favor in terms of holding back the greenhouse effect on climate systems.  This study raises doubts about the ability of land-based processes to keep bearing its share of that burden, in the absence of which the atmospheric CO2 level would start rising at a faster rate than human emissions.  For credibility, the study has seven authors, all of whom are associated with top-level international institutions, and the publisher is a prestigious journal, Nature.

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–Carbon Brief has a somewhat more detailed account of the contents of the study:
–The study itself does not have open access, but I would encourage you to read the Abstract.  Here are the closing two sentences:  “Our results emphasize that the capacity of continents to act as a future carbon sink critically depends on the nonlinear response of carbon fluxes to soil moisture and on land–atmosphere interactions. This suggests that the increasing trend in carbon uptake rate may not be sustained past the middle of the century and could result in accelerated atmospheric CO2 growth.”
–Extra comment:  The size of this effect is still contingent upon the magnitude of efforts that are made to assuage the conditions that are needed to produce it.
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Scientific American has published an article giving eight major reasons for why climate change should be treated as a public health emergency as well as everything else.  The author has done so in a commendably succinct manner, yet quite thorough.
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Scientists see an example of an abrupt climate shift taking place in the Arctic as a tipping point is reached (BBC News).  The Barents Sea, which borders the Arctic Ocean and is part of the same climate system, shows signs of rapid transformation that would make it an extension of the Atlantic.  The effects beyond would be widespread and the changes probably irreversible, with both being subject to many unknowns.
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The UN has made an analysis of environmental protection laws passed since 1972, with disappointing results (Motherboard).  The failure of implementation and enforcement is a major reason behind the deterioration of today’s climate.  “There’s often an instinct to ‘fix the laws,’ and what we really need to do is focus on implementing the laws that we already have.”  One nation, Costa Rica, has handled these things in the correct manner, with significant results that prove the point.
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A day-long blog of weather reports from South Australia, as all kinds of records were broken (The Guardian).  (For simplicity, always remember that 40C=104F.  Then add 1.8 F for each extra degree of C, or 9 for every 5.)
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1347

Climate Letter #1346

Scientists now have data that directly links climate change and human migration.  “IIASA-led research has established a causal link between climate, conflict, and migration for the first time, something which has been widely suggested in the media but for which scientific evidence is scarce…..the researchers chose to use data from asylum applications from 157 countries from 2006-15 to study the patterns.”  Severe drought conditions often exacerbated conflicts, especially in countries having weak governance.

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Two countries in Africa’s Sahel region, Mali and Niger, provide present-day examples of a breakdown in living conditions as described in the story above (reliefweb).  “The violence and challenges facing the region are not only due to the conflict, but are also tied to diminishing usable land and unpredictable water resources…..Temperatures in the Sahel are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average. Rainfall is erratic and wet seasons are shrinking. The U.N. estimates that roughly 80% of the Sahel’s farmland is degraded even as roughly 50 million people in the Sahel who depend on livestock compete for land.”
–BBC News also has a report from Mali, one that features human interest stories and illustrations:
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From the World Resources Institute, a kind of scoreboard showing humanity’s progress toward fulfillment of climate goals.  This is a very clear presentation, with a breakdown of the main components within six major sectors of interest, with many charts.  “Insufficient progress” tends to be the rule.
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One sign of progress—a record number of Americans currently feel threatened by climate change (Axios).  Nearly half now say they have personally experienced harmful effects, attributed to the unusual number of weather disasters that are on record.  The post has a link to the main poll report, published each year by Yale and George Mason universities, with many more details.
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How fossil fuels are subsidized by the EU (The Guardian).  Progress in phasing out those subsidies has been painfully slow, contrary to pledges that have been made and to the spirit of the Paris accord.  The UK and four others still give more subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewable energy.  There is some debate over definitions, as described in this story.
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A video explanation of how melting ice sheets will affect sea level rise in different parts of the world.  Professor Jerry Mitrovica, who is the foremost expert in this study, and a fine lecturer, tells the story from Harvard in just four minutes.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1346

Climate Letter #1345

New findings about Greenland’s loss of ice mass enable predictions of a faster rate of sea level rise.  Researchers have analyzed the reasons for the unexpectedly high rate of surface melting in recent years and have concluded that the trend is irreversible.  “We’re going to see faster and faster sea level rise for the foreseeable future…..Once you hit that tipping point, the only question is: How severe does it get?”  The implications are especially serious for cities along the US east coast.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-greenland-ice-faster.html

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A newly-discovered climate change feedback may be applicable to today’s rapid warming trend.  Researchers made the discovery while searching for the basis of the extreme warming of the PETM 56 million years ago.  Real evidence shows that an additional source of CO2 was mobilized under the influence of the increased heat, with calculations indicating quantities of sufficient size to greatly prolong the trend.  “The researchers said the findings offer a warning about modern climate change. If warming reaches certain tipping points, feedbacks can be triggered that have the potential to cause even more temperature change.”  The authors of this report include some well-known scientists who have had years of experience doing PETM studies.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-ancient-climate-triggered-thousands-years.html
–Here is a link to the Abstract of the report.  It includes numbers that describe the extraordinary increase in carbon emissions.  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0277-3#Abs1
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There is growing confidence in the accuracy of climate predictions.  A new international study has surveyed the way they are made and how they have turned out.  Progress is being compared with that which has already been established by those who make ordinary weather forecasts.  This reflects the constant improvement in climate models, which are increasingly integrated with those used in weather predictions, for the benefit of each.  “Climate predictions at decadal time scales are produced routinely now to international standards, allowing this nascent field to develop further and to adapt to society’s needs.”
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An extract from a new book with concerns about the reshaping of India’s monsoon season (The Atlantic).  The author, Sunil Amrith, is a professor of South Asian Studies at Harvard who often writes about environmental issues and human migration.  He has seen how climate models fail to work in the case of India’s monsoon, overridden by the complexity of topographical details.  He writes, “We are left with the most bitter of ironies. Many of the measures taken to secure India against the vagaries of the monsoon in the second half of the 20th century—intensive irrigation, the planting of new crops—have, through a cascade of unintended consequences, destabilized the monsoon itself.”  There is very much at stake in the outcome.
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Everything you might want to know about the impact of climate change on the recharging of groundwater losses (Carbon Brief).  A new study shows how climate change can affect the rate of recharge, and how the effect can be delayed in different ways.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1345

Climate Letter #1344

New research finds evidence that the cooling effect of pollution-based aerosols in certain types of clouds is twice as great as current models are estimating.  The finding is important because it “shows that the heating effect of greenhouse gases is higher than has been thought because it has been mitigated by the impact of aerosols in clouds.”  Since these aerosols are derived from the burning of fossil fuels there is an implication that any cessation would have a warming effect on the atmosphere.  No numbers were given that might quantify the effect in a global way, which would likely require a broadening of the study to cover more regions and types of clouds.

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A new study offers a special reason for why the Arctic is warming so much faster than other regions.  There have been many theories about why this is so but to date no firm conclusions.  These authors basically suggest that the greenhouse effect is magnified in this region, compared with lower latitudes, because its atmosphere has much more stability with respect to vertical air movement.  “This condition enhances the CO2-induced warming in the Arctic near the surface. Due to the unstable atmosphere in the tropics, CO2 mostly warms the upper atmosphere and energy is easily lost to space. This is opposite to what happens in the Arctic: Less outgoing infrared radiation escapes the atmosphere, which further amplifies the surface-trapped warming.”

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-reveals-local-drivers-amplified-arctic.html?

Heatwaves, specifically defined in a way that describes them as relatively rare events, have experienced a two to three-fold increase in activity in the UK since the late 19th century.  The region under study has ” the longest available instrumental records of temperature in the world…..Their results show that although heatwaves have occurred in the past, their frequency, duration, and severity have increased…..as hotter days become more frequent, heatwaves will on average become more likely and longer lasting and if we have the data, this is something we can quantify.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-two-three-heatwave-occurrence-severity.html?
–The current heatwave in Australia has been breaking records in a number of urban areas, one as high as 49C (120F):
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A group of scientists has proposed a blueprint for achieving climate goals without relying on costly and unproven technologies for carbon removal.  “This model is the first to achieve the required negative emissions through natural climate solutions, including the restoration of degraded forests and other lands, along with a transition to 100% renewable energy by mid-century…..As this climate model shows, in order to keep the global temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C, we have to keep our natural carbon sinks intact, scale up restoration efforts and shift to regenerative agriculture.”  The costs involved in making the transition could easily be met by nations ending subsidies to the fossil fuel industries.  This highly commendable approach is backed by a two-year study project funded by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-state-of-the-art-climate-crisis.html
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The latest model of wind turbine produced by Siemens has blades almost 300 feet long.  Once in operation, about three years from now, it “could boost electricity generation by up to 30 per cent compared to its predecessors.”  Competition in this field is lively.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1344

Climate Letter #1343

The interaction between the US health care industry and climate change (Vox).  This fine article contains a range of observations, covering such things as the effects on patients, the industry as a major source of emissions and toxic waste and the many opportunities for physicians, nurses and administrators to be of help by getting more deeply involved.  (Maybe patients, too, by giving them a push.)

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Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham sets an example with his blunt speech and active environmental philanthropy (Bloomberg Businessweek).  This man has an unusually deep and comprehensive understanding of the current reality.  Give him your ear.
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What happens when nature takes back control of abandoned pastureland?  Nature can apparently do a fabulous job all by itself with not one bit of human interference (Country diary).
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Zeke Hausfather, who writes for Carbon Brief, analyzes the main components of global warming in 2018.  He begins in a proper manner with how the deep oceans have warmed, because that is where nearly all the excess heat has been stored.  He also gives us a rare look at warming in the lower troposphere, some three miles up.  Ocean surface temperatures cooled off a bit, because it was a La Nina year in the Pacific, and that had a normal effect of cooling off a large region of surface air.  The ocean water below the surface can actually retain a bit of extra heat in this situation, a reason for why total ocean heat content generally has a more stable rate of annual growth than surface air.  This year a mild El Nino should bring more heat to the surface.
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More information about advances in the measurement of ocean heat content.  The new work helps to clarify any misunderstanding about the role of ocean heat uptake in the global warming process.  This link includes a picture of the cover of the March 2019 journal that will carry the study, offering a perfect image of what is happening, and the caption correctly identifies this process as the principal source of Earth’s energy imbalance.  The energy that sinks into the ocean is energy that does not show up as a part of the emissions of heat that escape each day from the outer edges of the atmosphere into space, normally balancing the incoming radiation absorbed from sunlight.  The amount of annual imbalance is always changing, even becoming negative in some years, but the historical total is still climbing because the oceans have plenty of capacity remaining to store more heat.  Once they lose that capacity the air above the oceans will get warmer, just the way it regularly does over land.  When that happens the global average air temperature will rise, probably by more than one-half degree, maybe almost one, and there is not much we can do to stop that from happening except through the actual removal of greenhouse gas, to free up the faster movement of energy through the atmosphere.
Carl

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