THE Sunday Herald can today reveal the true extent of the threat posed to
Scotland by climate change. Major parts of Scotland’s vital infrastructure
are under threat from coastal erosion and flooding, according to the latest
government assessments of the dangers of climate change.
Thousands of homesand businesses and long stretches of roads and railway lines are also at
risk. So are power stations, wind farms, sewers, bridges, and farmland, as
well as many other crucial facilities and even golf courses. Seabirds, fish
and plants are endangered, as well as butterflies, food crops and peat
bogs.
Scotland can expect more rain, more droughts, more storms, more wild
fires, more landslides, more pests and more diseases – and snow is
disappearing from the mountains. As evidence mounts of the multiple risks
climate change poses to people and wildlife, 2017 is predicted to be
another record hot year. And one of Scotland’s leading climate experts is
warning that the world is facing the catastrophe of “runaway” climate
change because of the impact of pollution and the damage it is doing to
nature.
A study for the Scottish Government warned that the rate of coastal
erosion around Scotland has doubled since the 1970s. Researchers identified
30,000 buildings, 1,300 kilometres of roads and 100 kilometres of railway
lines “close to potentially erodible coasts”. The report predicted that
mean summertime temperatures in Scotland would rise by up to 4.5 degrees
centigrade by the 2050s, while winter rain could increase by up to 30 per
cent. The sea level around Edinburgh is expected to rise by between 20 and
40 centimetres by 2090. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15497924.Revealed__climate_change_and_the_terrifying_risk_to_Scotland/
August 31, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, UK |
Leave a comment
Floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal kill 1,200 and leave millions homeless http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-floods-bangladesh-nepal-deaths-millions-homeless-latest-news-updates-a7919006.html
Authorities say monsoon flooding is one of the worst in region in years, Chloe Farand , 30 Aug 17, At least 1,200 people have been killed and millions have been left homeless following devastating floods that have hit India, Bangladesh and Nepal, in one of the worst flooding disasters to have affected the region in years.
International aid agencies said thousands of villages have been cut off by flooding with people being deprived of food and clean water for days.
South Asia suffers from frequent flooding during the monsoon season, which lasts from June to September, but authorities have said this year’s floods have been much worse.
August 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change |
Leave a comment
As Historic Flooding Grips Texas, Groups Demand Nuclear Plant Be Shut Down https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/29/historic-flooding-grips-texas-groups-demand-nuclear-plant-be-shut-down#
“This storm and flood is absolutely without precedent even before adding the possibility of a nuclear accident that could further imperil millions of people who are already battling for their lives.”
byJon Queally, staff writer, 29 Aug 17, As record-breaking rainfall and unprecedented flooding continue to batter the greater Houston area and along the Gulf coast on Tuesday, energy watchdogs groups are warning of “a credible threat of a severe accident” at two nuclear reactors still operating at full capacity in nearby Bay City, Texas.
Three groups—Beyond Nuclear, South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, and the SEED Coalition—are calling for the immediate shutdown of the South Texas Project (STP) which sits behind an embankment they say could be overwhelmed by the raging flood waters and torrential rains caused by Hurricane Harvey.
“Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the STP operator have previously recognized a credible threat of a severe accident initiated by a breach of the embankment wall that surrounds the 7,000-acre reactor cooling water reservoir,” said Paul Gunter, director of the Beyond Nuclear’s Reactor Oversight Project, in a statement by the coalition on Tuesday.
The groups warn that as Harvey—which on Tuesday was declared the most intense rain event in U.S. history—continues to dump water on the area, a breach of the embankment wall surrounding the twin reactors would create “an external flood potentially impacting the electrical supply from the switchyard to the reactor safety systems.” In turn, the water has the potential to “cause high-energy electrical fires and other cascading events initiating a severe accident leading to core damage.” Even worse, they added, “any significant loss of cooling water inventory in the Main Cooling Reservoir would reduce cooling capacity to the still operating reactors that could result in a meltdown.”
With the nearby Colorado River already cresting at extremely high levels and flowing at 70 times the normal rate, Karen Hadden, director of SEED Coalition, warned that the continue rainfall might create flooding that could reach the reactors. “There is plenty of reserve capacity on our electric grid,” she said, “so we don’t have to run the reactors in order to keep the lights on. With anticipated flooding of the Colorado River, the nuclear reactors should be shut down now to ensure safety.”
Last week, the STP operators said that safety for their workers and local residents was their top concern, but that they would keep the plant operating despite the approaching storm.
Susan Dancer, president of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, said that as residents in Bay City—herself included—were being forced to leave their homes under manadatory evacaution orders, it makes no sense to keep the nuclear plant online.
“Our 911 system is down, no emergency services are available, and yet the nuclear reactors are still running. Where is the concern for employees and their families? Where is the concern for public safety? This is an outrageous and irresponsible decision,” declared Dancer. “This storm and flood is absolutely without precedent even before adding the possibility of a nuclear accident that could further imperil millions of people who are already battling for their lives.”
As Harvey hovers over the coastal region, heavy rains are expected to persist for days even as the storm system creeps toward to Louisiana in the east.
But no matter how remote the possibility, said Gunter, “it’s simply prudent that the operator put this reactor into its safest condition, cold shutdown.”
August 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, safety, USA |
Leave a comment
How climate change could turn US real estate prices upside down
Floridians have long recognised climate’s threat to their homes. Amid the disaster wrought by Harvey, home buyers may look to higher ground, Guardian, Richard Luscombe in Miami, Florida, 30 Aug 17, If Florida gleaned anything from Hurricane Andrew, the intensely powerful storm that tore a deadly trail of destruction across Miami-Dade County almost exactly 25 years to the day that Hurricane Harvey barrelled into the Texas coastline, it was that living in areas exposed to the wrath of Mother Nature can come at a substantial cost.
At the time the most expensive natural disaster ever to hit the US, Andrew caused an estimated $15bn in insured losses in the state and changed the way insurance companies assessed their exposure to risk for weather-related events.
Many of the lessons that Florida has learned since 1992 have parallels in the unfolding disaster in Texas, experts say, and what was already a trend toward factoring in environmental threats and climate change to land and property values looks certain to become the standard nationwide as Houston begins to mop up from the misery of Harvey.
“The question is whether people are going to be basing their real estate decisions on climate change futures,” said Hugh Gladwin, professor of anthropology at Florida International University, who says his research suggests higher-standing areas of Miami are becoming increasingly gentrified as a result of sea level rise.
“In any coastal area there’s extra value in property, [but] climate change, insofar as it increases risks for those properties from any specific set of hazards – like flooding and storm surge – will decrease value.”
Miami Beach in particular has become a poster child for the effects of climate change, with some studies making grim predictions of a 5ft sea level rise by the end of the century and others suggesting that up to $23bn of existing property statewide could be underwater by 2050.
To counter those effects and preserve property values, Miami Beach has embarked on an ambitious and costly defensive programme that includes raising roads and installing powerful new pumps to shift the ever more regular floodwaters.
Even so, there are indications that investors are already looking to higher ground elsewhere in the city, such as the traditionally poor, black neighbourhoods of Little Haiti and Liberty City. “The older urban core was settled on the coastal ridge and anything below that was flooded. The coastal ridge we’re talking about is clearly gentrifying,” Gladwin said.
Or, as the journal Scientific American put it in its own investigation in May: “Real estate investment may no longer be just about the next hot neighbourhood, it may also now be about the next dry neighbourhood.”…….
Albert Slap, president and co-founder of Coastal Risk Consulting: “You have thousands of properties in Norfolk, Annapolis, Atlantic City, Savannah, Charleston and Miami Beach where part of the property goes underwater with seawater for days at a time. When you have fish swimming in your driveway, it’s not an amenity, like a swimming pool. It means you’re driving through saltwater to get your kids to school, get to the supermarket, whatever you’re going to do.
“Will there be a massive decline in the property values of the flooded areas in Houston? Common sense would say yes. And if that’s combined with new legislation that’s going to require full disclosure, then wow.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/29/hurricane-harvey-climate-change-real-estate-florida
August 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
Leave a comment
According to a report by the UNEP, the World Food Programme and the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), the biggest climate hazards to Afghan livelihoods are drought and floods, caused by irregular snowmelt or rainfall.
global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents. “Terrorism is not going to be lingering here for ever,” he says. “But climate change is an ongoing death sentence.”
How climate change is a ‘death sentence’ in Afghanistan’s highlands, Global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents, say those witnessing the savage impact first-hand, Guardian, Sune Engel Rasmussen , 28 Aug 17 ,
The central highlands of Afghanistan are a world away from the congested chaos of the country’s cities. Hills roll across colossal, uninhabited spaces fringed by snow-flecked mountains, set against blistering blue skies.
In this spectacular, harsh landscape, one can pinpoint more or less where human settlement becomes impossible: at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,840ft).
This is where Aziza’s family lives, in the village of Borghason. In a good year, they just about survive by cultivating wheat and potatoes for food and a small income. However, when the rains fail, as they increasingly do, the family is plunged into debt, unable to reimburse merchants for that year’s seeds. “Last year, we had to borrow money from the bazaar,” Aziza says.
Things are about to get tougher. The precariousness of life in Bamiyan, one of Afghanistan’s poorest provinces, leaves villages like Borghason at the mercy of climate change.
On a recent visit, the Guardian trekked from freshwater lakes surrounded by jagged massifs at 4,500 metres down to villages at the receiving end of erratic weather, a common result of global warming. Warmer temperatures melt the mountain snow earlier, resulting in an increased flow of water before farmers need it.
These are irregularities that farmers living at the margins of economic sustainability cannot afford. “People are surviving,” says Andrew Scanlon, country director for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “[But] their ability to bounce back is almost zilch.”
Farmers say unanimously that temperatures have risen over the past decades. Rain is scarcer and more unpredictable. “People know about climate change even if they don’t call it that,” says Fatima Akbari, the UNEP’s country assistant. “They know all about change in water and weather.”
Despite 15 years as one of the world’s biggest receivers of international aid, much of it to agriculture, Afghanistan remains woefully underdeveloped and largely defenceless against jolts from nature. Western donors primarily poured money into short-sighted programmes such as heavy engineering and cash-for-work schemes, designed for “quick impact”, Scanlon says.
“Soldiers and engineers were on six-month contracts and needed to quickly win hearts and minds,” he adds. Governments and engineers got accustomed to short time frames. Meanwhile, little was done to build long-term resilience. Winning hearts and minds was meant to win the war, yet climate change endangers that elusive victory.
Although research on the topic in Afghanistan is limited to small-scale anthropological analyses, studies from Iraq and elsewhere link global warming and security. According to the UNEP, about 80% of conflicts in Afghanistan are related to resources like land and water – and to food insecurity, an immediate consequence of global warming.
According to a report by the UNEP, the World Food Programme and the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), the biggest climate hazards to Afghan livelihoods are drought and floods, caused by irregular snowmelt or rainfall.
Bamiyan is the epicentre. The mountains in Shah Foladi, one of four recognised national parks, feed both the Kabul basin and the Helmand river, which runs south for 700 miles (1,126km). In Helmand, water has instigated conflict for decades and been central to foreign intervention since the early cold war, when the US got involved in irrigation projects.
Despite fighting a worsening war against insurgents, the Afghan government seems, to an extent, aware of the need to address the risks of global warming. “In the region, Afghanistan is the most vulnerable country facing the ravages of climate change,” says Prince Mostapha Zaher, grandson of the former king Mohammad Zahir Shah and director general of the NEPA…….
Women are particularly affected by erratic weather. In Borghason, when the rains fail, farmers switch crops from barley to wheat, which is less ideal as livestock feed, says Chaman, an older woman in the village. As a result, women – who are tasked with fetching water and tending livestock – have longer distances to hike.
Villages in Bamiyan exemplify how climate change can hamper the ability of families to sustain themselves. According to Prince Zaher, they show why global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents. “Terrorism is not going to be lingering here for ever,” he says. “But climate change is an ongoing death sentence.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/28/how-climate-change-is-death-sentence-afghanistan-highlands-global-warming
August 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Afghanistan, climate change |
Leave a comment
Cyclones and climate change: connecting the dots,https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/36857982/cyclones-and-climate-change-connecting-the-dots/, by Marlowe HOOD, 27 Aug 17, Paris (AFP) – Scientists freely acknowledge they don’t know everything about how global warming affects hurricanes like the one pummelling southeast Texas.
But what they do know is enough to keep them up at night. The amplifying impact of sea level rise, warming oceans, and hotter air — all incontrovertible consequences of climate change — is basic physics, they say. Likewise accelerated shifts in intensity, such as the sudden strengthening that turned Harvey from a Category 2 to a Category 4 hurricane — on a scale of 5 — just as it made landfall Friday.
What’s missing is a detailed track record of hurricanes past, the kind of decades-long log of measurements that climate scientists need to discern the fingerprint of human influence. Starting in the 1970s, satellite data allowed for a better tally, but even that wasn’t enough.
“It is awfully difficult to see climate change in historical data so far because hurricanes are fairly rare,” Kerry Emmanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT in Boston, told AFP. Experts, in other words, do not disagree on the potential of manmade global warming to magnify the destructive power of the tropical storms known variously around the world as cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons. Rather, they are confounded — for now — by a lack of information.
“Just because the data don’t allow for unambiguous detection yet, doesn’t mean that the changes haven’t been occurring,” noted James Kossin, a scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Weather and Climate in Madison, Wisconsin.
Kossin figured out that cyclones have drifted poleward in their respective hemispheres over the last three decades, a finding hailed by other hurricane gurus as the most unambiguous evidence so far that global warming has already had a direct impact.
– Like a tsunami – When it comes to cyclones and climate change, there are many points of near “universal agreement,” said Emanuel.
One is the consequence of rising seas. “The most lethal aspect of hurricanes — wherever they occur in the world — is storm surge,” he said in an interview. “It is physically the same phenomenon as a tsunami, except that it is excited by wind rather than a sea floor shaken by an earthquake.”
If Hurricane Sandy — which caused $50 billion in damage — had happened a century earlier, it probably would not have flooded lower Manhattan because sea level was about 30 centimetres (a foot) lower, he pointed out.
Global warming is likely to add roughly a metre (three feet) to the global watermark by century’s end, according to recently revised estimates. “The surge from these storms will be more devastating — higher and more penetrating,” said James Elsner, an atmospheric scientists and hurricane expert at Florida State University.
A second point of consensus is that hurricanes will hold more water, raising the threat of lethal and destructive flooding. “We calculate that one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming translates into a seven percent increase in humidity in the atmosphere,” said French scientist Valerie Masson-Delmotte, co-chair of the UN?s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The US National Hurricane Center predicts that Harvey could dump more than 40 inches (100 centimetres) by the time skies clear. Hurricane Mitch — the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record — left some 19,000 dead in Central America, “all from fresh-water flooding,” noted Emanuel.
“The irony is that hurricanes are known for wind, yet wind is third on the list of lethal aspects,” after storm surges and flooding caused by rain.
‘Fewer but stronger’ –
Earlier this year, Emanuel published a study pointing to yet another worrying climate “signal” emerging from the noise of raw data.
Scientists have made great progress in anticipating the path a storm will follow, extending their predictive powers from a day or two to about a week.
At the same time they have made scant headway in forecasting hurricane strength.
“The thing that keeps forecasters up at night is the prospect that a storm will rapidly gain strength just before it hits land,” Emanuel said, citing Harvey as an example.
In 2015, Hurricane Patricia in the Pacific Ocean intensified more rapidly — “It just went ‘Boom!’” — than any storm on record.
“Global warming can accentuate that sudden acceleration in intensity,” Emanuel said. A finding oft cited as evidence that the jury is still out on whether climate change will boost cyclones is that scientists don’t know if there will be more or fewer such storms in the future.
But even if there are fewer, which seems likely, that misses the point, the experts interviewed agreed.
Since 1971, tropical cyclones have claimed about 470,000 lives and caused some $700 billion in damages globally, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.
But most of that death and destruction is attributable to a relative handful of storms. Just three, for example, have caused well over half of all storm-related deaths in the US since 1900.
So even if the number of mostly smaller storms diminishes, that’s not what counts.
“The idea of ‘fewer but stronger’ seems to be the fingerprint of climate change on tropical cyclones,” Elsner concluded.
August 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
Leave a comment
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-26/hurricane-harvey-forecast-to-be-on-par-with-katrina/8844584 The menacing Hurricane Harvey is on the verge of reaching Texas, bringing fierce winds and torrential rain to a wide swath of the state’s Gulf Coast and prompting tens of thousands of residents to flee inland in hopes of escaping its wrath.
Key points:
- Hurricane makes landfall as Category four hurricane
- Residents fleeing most powerful storm on US mainland since 2005
- Locals told to take cover from wind, unprecedented flooding
The National Hurricane Centre said the eyewall of the dangerous category four storm has reached the Texas coast, suggesting that the eye of the storm will make landfall in the coming hours.
The system is packing winds of 215 kilometres per hour, and experts fear could be the most destructive since Katrina left 1,800 people dead in 2005.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has warned it could be “a very major disaster”, while US President Donald Trump made an early disaster declaration, unlocking federal funding.
Harvey is expected to generate storm surges along with prodigious amounts of rain. The resulting flooding, one expert said, could be “the depths of which we’ve never seen”.
Weather experts have warned areas of the state could be uninhabitable for weeks or months if Harvey is as bad as predicted.
Fuelled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, Harvey grew from an unnamed storm to a life-threatening behemoth in just 56 hours, an incredibly fast intensification.
It is on track to make landfall at Rockport, a fishing-and-tourist town about 50 kilometres north-east of Corpus Christi. The National Hurricane Centre warned life-threatening storm surges could affect low-lying coastal areas.
“We know that we’ve got millions of people who are going to feel the impact of this storm,” spokesman and meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said.
“We really pray that people are listening to their emergency managers and get out of harm’s way.”
Thousands of people have fled, but many others stayed put, stocking up on food and water, and boarding up windows. Rockport Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Rios had a sombre message to anyone defying the orders to evacuate.
“We’re suggesting if people are going to stay here, mark their arm with a Sharpie pen with their name and Social Security number,” he said.
“We hate to talk about things like that.
“It’s not something we like to do but it’s the reality. People don’t listen.” Galveston-based storm surge expert Hal Needham of the private firm Marine Weather and Climate said forecasts indicated it was “becoming more and more likely that something really bad is going to happen”.
At least one researcher predicted heavy damage that would linger for months or longer.
It may also spawn tornadoes. Even after weakening, the system might spin out into the Gulf and regain strength before hitting Houston a second time as a tropical storm, forecasters said.
“In terms of economic impact, Harvey will probably be on par with Hurricane Katrina,” University of Miami senior hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said.
“The Houston area and Corpus Christi are going to be a mess for a long time.”
While Mr Trump encouraged “everyone in the path of Hurricane Harvey to heed the advice and orders of their local and state officials”. The heavy rain could turn many communities into “essentially islands” and leave them isolated for days, said Melissa Munguia, deputy emergency management coordinator for Nueces County.
“Essentially there’s absolutely nowhere for the water to go,” she said.
Galveston Bay, where normal rain runs off to, will already be elevated.
The heavy rain is expected to extend into Louisiana, driven by counter-clockwise winds that could carry water from the Gulf of Mexico far inland. The Texas Governor activated about 700 members of the state National Guard ahead of Harvey making landfall.
Harvey would be the first significant hurricane to hit Texas since Ike in September 2008 brought winds of 177 kilometres per hour to the Galveston and Houston areas, inflicting $US22 billion in damage.
It would be the first big storm along the middle Texas coast since Hurricane Claudette in 2003 caused $US180 million in damage.
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
Leave a comment
ALASKA’S PERMAFROST IS THAWING, Alaska’s permafrost, shown here in 2010 [on original] , is no longer permanent. It is starting to thaw. The loss of frozen ground in Arctic regions is a striking result of climate change. And it is also a cause of more warming to come. By 2050, much of this frozen ground, a storehouse of ancient carbon, could be gone. NYT, BY HENRY FOUNTAINAUG. 23, 2017 YUKON DELTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska — The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as other parts of the planet, and even here in sub-Arctic Alaska the rate of warming is high. Sea ice and wildlife habitat are disappearing; higher sea levels threaten coastal native villages.
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
ARCTIC, climate change, USA |
Leave a comment
http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/25/news/arctic-ice-tanker-ship/index.html?sr=twCNN082517arctic-ice-tanker-ship0141PMStory, by Jethro Mullen @CNNMoney, August 25, 2017:
Climate change is helping create new opportunities for shipping companies by melting the ice around the North Pole.
A Russian tanker carrying natural gas has become the first merchant ship to sail across the Arctic without the help of an icebreaker, finishing the journey in record time.
The ship, the Christophe de Margerie, traveled from Norway to South Korea in 19 days, about 30% quicker than the regular route through the Suez Canal, its Russian owner, Sovcomflot, said this week.
Every year, arctic ice naturally shrinks in the spring and summer before growing again during winter. But as global temperatures have risen, the old sea ice that lasts year after year has
shrunk to its smallest level in three decades.
Thinner, younger sea ice — less than a year old — has become the majority across the Arctic. Young ice struggles to reach a thickness of 2 meters (6½ feet) during winter months and then is more likely to melt during the summer.
Related: Watch as old sea ice vanishes
It’s a huge concern. According to NASA, many global climate models predict that the Arctic will be ice-free for at least part of the year before the end of the 21st century. Some models predict an ice-free Arctic by midcentury. That would have a direct impact on weather patterns around the world.
The thinning ice also opens new paths for global trade, saving companies hundreds of thousands of dollars they would spend on longer journeys via more southerly routes.
“This is the paradox of climate change,” said Ben Ayliffe, a campaigner for Greenpeace. “The fossil fuels we’re burning are allowing access into areas that were previously protected by ice.” He expressed concern that increasing sea traffic in the inhospitable environment will bring new risks, such as a fuel spill that would be virtually impossible to clean up.
Shipping tankers making their way across the top of the world typically need to be accompaniedby massive, nuclear-powered Russian icebreakers to plow through patches of six-foot-thick ice.
But the Christophe de Margerie, named for a former CEO of French oil giant Total, is specially designed to sail independently through ice as thick as 2.1 meters (nearly 7 feet), its owner said.
That means it should be able to operate in the harsh Arctic waters year round rather than just the summer months.
Its recent journey ferrying liquified natural gas more than 2,000 nautical miles through ice as thick as 1.2 meters (4 feet) “demonstrates the economic potential of using the Northern Sea Route for large-capacity vessel transits,” Sovcomflot said.
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
ARCTIC, climate change |
Leave a comment
Did climate change make Hurricane Harvey worse? https://qz.com/1062574/hurricane-harvey-and-climate-change-did-rising-temperatures-and-sea-levels-make-harvey-worse/ 25 Aug 17, As climatologist Katharine Hayhoe points out, seasonal hurricanes are a natural part of the weather system in the Gulf coast, and attributing the cause of a single storm entirely to climate change is currently an impossible task. “Once you get down to a small regional level, hurricanes are so rare and random that you would not be able to detect a robust trend even if there was one,” says John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas’ state climatologist.
But did climate change-driven factors make Hurricane Harvey more destructive?
The waters of the Gulf of Mexico have been warmer than average this year, with bathtub-like temperatures breaking heat records all last winter.
Researchers can point to a direct relationship between warmer water temperatures and an increase in tropical cyclone formations, but the link between warm water and hurricanes is less clear, in part because hurricanes require several other ingredients, like specific wind patterns, to form.
Climate change is definitely setting up conditions that are known to make storms more destructive, including heating up the oceans. “The warmer the Gulf water is, the greater the amount of moisture will be available” to fuel rainfall, Nielsen-Gammon says.
Officials at the National Hurricane Center predict Hurricane Harvey will bring torrential rainfall of 15 to 25 inches to Texas—with “isolated maximum amounts of 35 inches over the middle and upper Texas coast,” the Center wrote in its latest warning.
Climate change is also heating South Texas faster than most other regions in the US, and the area has been setting heat records all summer. Warmer air temperatures mean the air has a far greater carrying capacity for moisture—which translates to even more rainfall, and more floods.
“We’ve seen an increase of 30% in very heavy rainfall and intensity across Texas,” Nielsen-Gammon says. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s website notes that rainstorms in Texas are “becoming more intense, and floods are becoming more severe…In the coming decades, storms are likely to become more severe.”
And then there’s sea level rise; global warming is raising sea levels along Texas’ coast by almost two inches per decade, according to the EPA. Sea level rise makes storm surges “that much higher,” Nielsen-Gammon says.
Officials currently warn the storm surge for Harvey is expected to bring “life-threatening” flooding at heights of six to 12 feet above ground level along the coast.
Workers at 39 offshore petroleum production platforms and an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico were evacuated on Thursday in anticipation of Hurricane Harvey, CNN reports. Over the past century, offshore platform heights have risen with sea level and storm intensity, the Atlantic reports; in the 1940s, they were 20 to 40 ft above sea level. In the 1990s, they rose to 70 ft. Now, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, platforms in the Gulf sit 91 ft above the sea surface.
Later, after the storm is over, scientists who work on “event attribution” may try to assess whether Hurricane Harvey would have been less intense in the absence of human-driven climate change, much like researchers did with Hurricane Katrina; for example, one team found that under the climate conditions of 1900, Katrina’s storm surge would have been anywhere between 15% and 60% lower.
But for now, researchers, including experts at NASA, point out that the already-clear effects of a changing climate—warmer air, warmer water, and sea level rise—could make any storm that develops more intense.
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
Leave a comment
Call for climate change risk disclosures, news.com.au AUGUST 25, 2017 Ross Kerber, Reuters Vanguard Group has urged companies to disclose how climate change could affect their business and asset valuations, reflecting how the environment has become a priority for the investment industry.
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, business and costs, climate change |
Leave a comment
Investigative reports in 2015 revealed that Exxon had its own scientists doing its own climate modeling as far back as the 1970s: science and modeling that was not only accurate, but that was being used to plan for the company’s future.
Now, a peer-reviewed study published August 23 has confirmed that what Exxon was saying internally about climate change was quantitatively very different from their public statements. Specifically, researchers Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes found that at least 80 percent of the internal documents and peer-reviewed publications they studied from between 1977 and 2014 were consistent with the state of the science – acknowledging that climate change is real and caused by humans, and identifying “reasonable uncertainties” that any climate scientist would agree with at the time. Yet over 80 percent of Exxon’s editorial-style paid advertisements over the same period specifically focused on uncertainty and doubt, the study found.
The stark contrast between internally discussing cutting-edge climate research while externally conducting a climate disinformation campaign is enough to blow many minds. What was going on at Exxon?
I have a unique perspective – because I was there.
From 1995 to 1997, Exxon provided partial financial support for my master’s thesis, which focused on methane chemistry and emissions. I spent several weeks in 1996 as an intern at their Annandale research lab in New Jersey and years working on the collaborative research that resulted in three of the published studies referenced in Supran and Oreskes’ new analysis.
Climate research at Exxon
A scientist is a scientist no matter where we work, and my Exxon colleagues were no exception. Thoughtful, cautious and in full agreement with the scientific consensus on climate – these are characteristics any scientist would be proud to own.
Did Exxon have an agenda for our research? Of course – it’s not a charity. Their research and development was targeted, and in my case, it was targeted at something that would raise no red flags in climate policy circles: quantifying the benefits of methane reduction…….
Did I know what else they were up to at the time? I couldn’t even imagine it.
Fresh out of Canada, I was unaware that there were people who didn’t accept climate science – so unaware, in fact, that it was nearly half a year before I realized I’d married one – let alone that Exxon was funding a disinformation campaign at the very same time it was supporting my research on the most expedient ways to reduce the impact of humans on climate.
Yet Exxon’s choices have contributed directly to the situation we are in today, a situation that in many ways seems unreal: one where many elected representatives oppose climate action, while China leads the U.S. in wind energy, solar power, economic investment in clean energy and even the existence of a national cap and trade policy similar to the ill-fated Waxman-Markey bill of 2009.
Personal decisions
This latest study underscores why many are calling on Exxon to be held responsible for knowingly misleading the public on such a critical issue. For scientists and academics, though, it may fuel another, different, yet similarly moral debate.
Are we willing to accept financial support that is offered as a sop to the public conscience?
The concept of tendering literal payment for sin is nothing new. From the indulgences of the Middle Ages to the criticisms some have leveled at carbon offsets today, we humans have always sought to stave off the consequences of our actions and ease our conscience with good deeds, particularly of the financial kind. Today, many industry groups follow this familiar path: supporting science denial with the left hand, while giving to cutting-edge research and science with the right.
The Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University conducts fundamental research on efficient and clean energy technologies – with Exxon as a founding sponsor. Philanthropist and political donor David Koch gave an unprecedented US$35 million to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in 2015, after which three dozen scientists called on the museum to cut ties with him for funding lobbying groups that “misrepresent” climate science. Shell underwrote the London Science Museum’s “Atmosphere” program and then used its leverage to muddy the waters on what scientists know about climate…….
After two decades in the trenches of climate science, I’m no longer the ingenue I was. I’m all too aware, now, of those who dismiss climate science as a “liberal hoax.” Every day, they attack me on Facebook, vilify me on Twitter and even send the occasional hand-typed letter – which begs appreciation of the artistry, if not the contents. So now, if Exxon came calling, what would I do?……
Despite the fact that there’s no easy answer, it’s a question that’s being posed to more and more of us every day, and we cannot straddle the fence any longer. As academics and scientists, we have some tough choices to make; and only by recognizing the broader implications of these choices are we able to make these decisions with our eyes wide open, rather than half shut. https://theconversation.com/i-was-an-exxon-funded-climate-scientist-49855
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, Religion and ethics, USA |
Leave a comment
The Trump Administration Censors Climate Change Research as Hurricane Harvey Barrels Down on Texas http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a57202/climate-change-censor-scientist/ This is nothing new, but it’s still a disgrace. BY JACK HOLMES, AUG 25, 2017
Free speech for me but not for thee” seems to be a core principle of the Trump administration.
The president defended a group of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and the “very fine people” who march with them earlier this month, partly on the grounds that they had secured a permit and thus had a First Amendment right to assemble. But when it comes to scientists publishing their findings on issues that Republicans and the fossil fuel interests that pay their campaign bills find inconvenient, this administration suddenly takes a very dim view of free expression. The latest example comes via a scientist at Northeastern University, who received an intriguing email from a federal bureaucrat Thursday afternoon:[on original]
As another scientist who shared Bowen’s post on Twitter put it, this is a textbook case of censorship. Political operatives in the administration are attempting to police the work of nonpartisan academics to remove any references to “climate change” or “global warming.” Because if you never say the words, the things they describe will never appear. Like Beetlejuice.
These aren’t exactly uncharted waters for the Trump administration. Earlier this month, it emerged that staffers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture were instructed to censor the terms “climate change,” “reduce greenhouse gasses,” “sequester carbon,” and “climate change adaptation” in their work. In March, Politico reported the Department of Energy’s international climate office had instructed staff not to use “climate change,” “emissions reduction,” or “Paris Agreement” in “memos, briefings, or other written communication.”
And of course, the contemptible Scott Pruitt—the man tasked with destroying the Environmental Protection Agency from the inside—has enacted a policy of secrecy at that agency that wouldn’t be out of place at the CIA. The problem is so bad that scientists from 13 federal agencies preemptively leaked a terrifying report on the realities of man-made climate change, explicitly stating that they were concerned it would be censored by the administration.
This all fits the mold for Republicans in general. After all, Vice President Dick Cheney and his operatives did plenty of meddling in climate research during the Bush administration. And the administration of Governor Rick Scott in Florida—a state in which the biggest city is already flooding at high tide—has long banned the use of certain terms, including “climate change.” Because again, if you don’t say the words, the problem doesn’t exist. It’s like playing hide and seek with a toddler. Just put your palms over your eyes and stand there while the water rises around your ankles.
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
civil liberties, climate change, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA |
Leave a comment
Why is climate change’s 2 degrees Celsius of warming limit so important? The Conversation, David Titley, Professor of Practice in Meteorology, Professor of International Affairs & Director Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, Pennsylvania State University, August 23, 2017
If you read or listen to almost any article about climate change, it’s likely the story refers in some way to the “2 degrees Celsius limit.” The story often mentions greatly increased risks if the climate exceeds 2°C and even “catastrophic” impacts to our world if we warm more than the target.
Recently a series of scientific papers have come out and stated that we have a 5 percent chance of limiting warming to 2°C, and only one chance in a hundred of keeping man-made global warming to 1.5°C, the aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference. Additionally, recent research shows that we may have already locked in 1.5°C of warming even if we magically reduced our carbon footprint to zero today………
This short history makes it clear that the goal evolved from the qualitative but reasonable desire to keep changes to the climate within certain bounds: namely, within what the world had experienced in the relatively recent geological past to avoid catastrophically disrupting both human civilization and natural ecosystems.
Climate scientists subsequently began supporting the idea of a limit of 1°C or 2°C starting over three decades ago. They showed the likely risks increase with temperatures over 1°C, and those risks grow substantially with additional warming.
And if we miss the target?
Perhaps the most powerful aspect about the 2°C threshold is not its scientific veracity, but its simplicity as an organizing principle.
The climate system is vast and has more dynamics, parameters and variations in space and time than is possible to quickly and simply convey. What the 2°C threshold lacks in nuance and depth, it more than makes up as a goal that is understandable, measurable and may still be achievable, although our actions will need to change quickly. Goals and goal-setting are very powerful instruments in effecting change.
While the 2°C threshold is a blunt instrument that has many faults, similar to attempting to judge a quarterback’s value to his team solely by his rating, its ability to rally 195 countries to sign an agreement should not be discounted
Ultimately, what should we do if we cannot make the 1.5°C or 2°C limit? The most current IPCC report shows the risks, parsed by continent, of a 2°C world, and how they are part of a continuum of risk extending from today’s climate to a 4°C.
Most of these risks are assessed by the IPCC to increase in steady fashion. That is, for most aspects of climate impacts we do not “fall off a cliff” at 2°C, although considerable damage to coral reefs and even agriculture may increase significantly around this threshold.
Like any goal, the 2°C limit should be ambitious but achievable. However, if it is not met, we should do everything we can to meet a 2¼°C or 2.5°C goal.
These goals can be compared to the speed limits for trucks we see on a mountain descent. The speed limit (say 30 mph) will allow trucks of any type to descend with a safety margin to spare. We know that coming down the hill at 70 mph likely results in a crash at the bottom.
In between those two numbers? The risk increases – and that’s where we are with climate change. If we can’t come down the hill at 30 mph, let’s try for 35 or 40 mph. Because we know that at 70 mph – or business as usual – we will have a very bad outcome, and nobody wants that. https://theconversation.com/why-is-climate-changes-2-degrees-celsius-of-warming-limit-so-important-82058
August 25, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, climate change |
Leave a comment
Educated women are the key to reversing climate change https://thenextweb.com/science/2017/08/24/educated-women-are-the-key-to-reversing-climate-change/#.tnw_mQzgoobNby RACHEL KASER — One author and activist thinks he’s found the answer to reversing climate change: the education and empowerment of women.
In a talk at Singularity University’s Global Summit last week, author Paul Hawken presented an extensive plan for how to reduce climate change. Specifically, he says family planning, and the ensuing population decline would result in 119.2 gigatons of CO2 saved by 2050, the largest estimated reduction in the presentation.
Educated women, he argues, have fewer children, lower mortality rates, and healthier families. Smaller families with healthier children would result in 59.6 gigatons of emissions reduced.
In order to get more girls in school, Hawken proposes making schools more affordable and more girl-friendly, and also reducing the time it takes for girls to get to school. The last might seem like a curious addition, but according to children’s rights organization Plan International, school in developing countries can be a four- or five-hour walk for some kids. Parents are more likely to keep young women at home to protect them from potential attacks on the long trip.
If women were to receive more education, it’s possible we might see an uptick in girls who go into STEM fields. This might also help improve climate change, if only because it increases the number of different viewpoints on the issue. As National Geographic points out, having more female researchers can help expand our knowledge base — and with it, our ability to improve on existing climate change solutions.
August 25, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, climate change, Education, women |
Leave a comment
nuclear-news 