[TheClimate.Vote] August 1, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News

[Richard Pauli]

/August 1, 2017/

*Wildfire Season Is Scorching the West 
<http://www.climatecentral.org/news/western-wildfire-season-off-to-blazing-start-21661>*
By Andrea Thompson
The West is ablaze as the summer wildfire season has gotten off to an 
intense start. More than 37,000 fires have burned more than 5.2 million 
acres nationally since the beginning of the year, with 47 large fires 
burning across nine states as of Friday.
The relatively early activity is quickly becoming the norm, with rising 
temperatures making the fire season longer than it used to be. The 
warming fueled by greenhouse gases is also helping to create more and 
larger fires as it dries out more vegetation that acts as fuel for fires.
This new fire situation means that western states need to be begin to 
rethink how they prepare for and combat fires, as well as how fire-prone 
land is developed.
Five large fires (those of 1,000 acres or more) are currently raging 
across California, the largest of which is the Detwiler fire near 
Yosemite National Park, which has burned more than 80,000 acres since it 
ignited on July 16. That fire is now 75 percent contained, but it 
destroyed dozens of buildings, including 63 homes.
Montana currently has the most large fires of any state, with 14, 
including the massive Lodgepole Complex fire (a series of smaller fires 
that merged into one), which has burned more than 270,000 acres in the 
eastern portion of the state.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/western-wildfire-season-off-to-blazing-start-21661


*(video game) Ice shelves in a warming world: 
<http://www.iceflowsgame.com/>*
A game about ice flow in the Antarctic
Play the game  http://www.iceflowsgame.com/ <http://www.iceflowsgame.com/>
  Check out the blog for more resources: 
http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/iceflowsgame.
  Follow Ice Flows on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iceflowsgame
  Follow Ice Flows on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/iceflowsgame
  See videos on YouTube 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTaAwsFruWTL78aIHz1EYGg
Ice Flows is funded as part of a Natural Environment Research Council 
(NERC) project led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The project 
aims to investigate what may happen in the near-future in the Weddell 
Sea region of Antarctica and the impact changes here could have on 
global sea-level.
Research by Hartmut Hellmer and colleagues in 20121 showed that this 
part of Antarctica might be subject to warmer water coming into contact 
with the Filchner Ice Shelf, which could lead to significant retreat of 
this part of the ice sheet.
The project combines fieldwork and computer modelling to investigate the 
relationships between changes in the atmosphere, the ocean and the ice 
sheet in this region. The field campaign will collect data both to 
improve the way the models work, and also to test their results.
Fieldwork is taking place over three years and includes: 1) hot water 
drilling through the ice shelf to make measurements of ocean properties 
beneath the ice shelf, 2) sediment coring to investigate past changes in 
the ice sheet, 3) radar and seismic measurements taken on the ice and 
from the air to measure ice thickness and basal topography. Field 
parties are supported from the Rothera Research Station, both in the air 
and via tractor-trains.
Marine sediment cores and instrumented buoys, deployed from the RV 
Polarstern (Alfred Wegener Institute), will capture vital information 
from the Antarctic continental shelf and slope.
State-of-the-art numerical models of the climate, ocean and ice sheets 
will then use the data collected to investigate how the ice sheet might 
behave in the future under different climate change scenarios.
For more info go to the project website: 
https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/fiss/ .
Ice Flows was developed by Anne Le Brocq at the University of Exeter in 
collaboration with Inhouse Visuals and Questionable Quality.
http://www.iceflowsgame.com/play.html


*Experts warn gas pipes are in real danger from exploding tundra 
<https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/07/experts-warn-gas-pipes-are-real-danger-exploding-tundra>*
Gas pipes supplying Europe run right over swelling Yamal tundra which is 
deeply unstable to the release of underground methane.
By Thomas Nilsen
Russia's leading expert on methane explosions on the tundra, Professor 
Vasily Bogoyavlensky, says to the Siberian Times that in some places 
swelling tundra jacks up gas pipes.
"In a number of areas pingos - we see both from satellite data and with 
own eyes during helicopter inspections - they literally prop up gas 
pipes," says Professor Bogoyavlensky.
His analysis show gas pipelines running over the swelling tundra on the 
Yamal Peninsula. The region has Russia's largest and most important 
natural gas fields and is key to supplying Europe.
The unstable tundra is due to the release of underground methane that 
had been frozen in permafrost, but is now thawing. Over the last three 
years, several methane explosions in the Yamal region have created huge 
craters, some 50 meters deep and tens of meters in diameter.
The Siberian Times points to one recent explosion where permafrost soil 
was thrown around 1 kilometre from the epicentre of the blast. Flames 
shot into the sky, and a 50 metre-deep crater was formed from the 
eruption, the newspaper reports.
It is a sharp warming of Arctic climate that causes the permafrost to melt.
Experts evaluating the recent findings say the risk of more explosions 
under gas supply pipelines "is clearly acute."
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/07/experts-warn-gas-pipes-are-real-danger-exploding-tundra
*Gas pipelines supplying Europe 'in real danger from exploding tundra' - 
top scientist 
<http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/gas-pipelines-supplying-europe-in-real-danger-from-exploding-tundra-top-scientist/>*
/http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/gas-pipelines-supplying-europe-in-real-danger-from-exploding-tundra-top-scientist//


*Planet has just 5% chance of reaching Paris climate goal, study says 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/paris-climate-deal-2c-warming-study>*
Researchers find that economic, emissions and population trends point to 
very small chance Earth will avoid warming more than 2C by century's end
There is only a 5% chance that the Earth will avoid warming by at least 
2C come the end of the century, according to new research that paints a 
sobering picture of the international effort to stem dangerous climate 
change.
Global trends in the economy, emissions and population growth make it 
extremely unlikely that the planet will remain below the 2C threshold 
set out in the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the study states.
The Paris accord, signed by 195 countries, commits to holding the 
average global temperature to "well below 2C" above pre-industrial 
levels and sets a more aspirational goal to limit warming to 1.5C. This 
latter target is barely plausible, the new research finds, with just a 
1% chance that temperatures will rise by less than 1.5C.
"We're closer to the margin than we think," said Adrian Raftery, a 
University of Washington academic who led the research, published in 
Nature Climate Change. "If we want to avoid 2C, we have very little time 
left. The public should be very concerned."
John Sterman, an academic at the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, 
said the research was an "urgent call to action". MIT research has shown 
that emissions cuts in the Paris agreement would stave off around 1C of 
temperature increase by 2100 - findings misrepresented by Trump when he 
announced the US departure from the pact.
Sterman said the US must "dramatically speed the deployment of renewable 
energy and especially energy efficiency. Fortunately, renewables, 
storage and other technologies are already cheaper than fossil energy in 
many places and costs are falling fast.
"More aggressive policies are urgently needed, but this study should not 
be taken as evidence that nothing can be done."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/paris-climate-deal-2c-warming-study


*As a river dies: India could be facing its 'greatest human catastrophe' 
ever 
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070>*
As crops and farmers die, experts blame a man-made "drought of common 
sense" for the drying up of Southern India's Cauvery River, once a 
lifeline to millions. Insight investigates.
INDIA: Much of the once bountiful and lush-green rice fields was reduced 
to a dry, yellow-brown landscape, after successive years of scanty 
rainfall and severe drought.
YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6wjqHfrzmg Published on 
Jul 24, 2017
The Cauvery River is dying - and with it, the crops, hopes and lives of 
millions of farmers. It could be India's greatest natural catastrophe 
ever. Is an ambitious plan to link all rivers to the cities to blame?
#Insight investigates southern India's worst drought in 140 
years:https://cna.asia/2uRLy57
For farmer Mr Vijayakumar, 52, the rice crop was his family's sole 
source of income. Hit by the double whammy of crop failure and mounting 
debts, he took a lonely walk to the edge of his two-acre rice field in 
Tamil Nadu in January this year.
There the tough, rugged man, used to the hard toil of a farmer for 
decades, hanged himself from a nearby tree.
"He was constantly worrying about the debts," said his wife 
Vijayakumari, who is now struggling to cope with the loss of her husband 
and their escalating debts. "His mind was never at peace. He kept saying 
that there were so many debts to repay and he was worried about how his 
only son was going to manage all that."
Mr Vijayakumar had borrowed from moneylenders to pay for his daughter's 
wedding and for fertilisers for his crops which didn't grow, she told 
the Channel NewsAsia programme Insight.
Read more at 
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070


*Suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers linked to climate change, 
study claims 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/suicides-of-nearly-60000-indian-farmers-linked-to-climate-change-study-claims>*
Rising temperatures and the resultant stress on India's agricultural 
sector may have contributed to increase in suicides over the past 30 
years, research shows
Climate change may have contributed to the suicides of nearly 60,000 
Indian farmers and farm workers over the past three decades, according 
to new research that examines the toll rising temperatures are already 
taking on vulnerable societies.
Illustrating the extreme sensitivity of the Indian agricultural industry 
to spikes in temperature, the study from the University of California, 
Berkeley, found an increase of just 1C on an average day during the 
growing season was associated with 67 more suicides.
An increase of 5C on any one day was associated with an additional 335 
deaths, the study published in the journal PNAS on Monday found. In 
total, it estimates that 59,300 agricultural sector suicides over the 
past 30 years could be attributed to warming.
Also supporting the theory was that rainfall increases of as little as 
1cm each year were associated with an average 7% drop in the suicide 
rate. So beneficial was the strong rainfall that suicide rates were 
lower for the two years that followed, researcher Tamma Carleton found.
The true suicide rate was probably higher, she added, because deaths are 
generally underreported in India and, until 2014, suicide was considered 
a criminal offence, discouraging honest reports.
"The tragedy is unfolding today," she said. "This is not a problem for 
future generations. This is our problem, right now."
- In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the 
National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the 
crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Helplines in other 
countries can be found here
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/suicides-of-nearly-60000-indian-farmers-linked-to-climate-change-study-claims


*(CBS video) Air pollution deaths expected to rise because of climate 
change 
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-pollution-deaths-expected-to-rise-because-of-climate-change/>*
New research predicts that air pollution worsened by climate change will 
cost tens of thousands of lives if changes are not made.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, estimates 
that if current trends continue, climate change will be responsible for 
another 60,000 air pollution-related deaths globally in the year 2030. 
By 2100, that number could jump to 260,000.
Previous research has found that some 5.5 million people worldwide 
already die prematurely due to air pollution.
The authors say this is the most comprehensive study to date on how 
climate change will affect health as a result of exacerbating air 
pollution. The research incorporates results from several of the world's 
top climate change modeling groups in the United States, United Kingdom, 
France, Japan and New Zealand.
Hotter temperatures "can speed up the reaction rate of air pollutants 
that form in the atmosphere," lead study author Jason West, an associate 
professor of environmental sciences and engineering in the University of 
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told CBS News. "Places that by and large 
get drier from climate change would be expected to increase air 
pollution concentrations."...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-pollution-deaths-expected-to-rise-because-of-climate-change/


*This Day in Climate History August 1, 1988 
<http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/wolcott200705>**  
from D.R. Tucker*
August 1, 1988: Sacramento, California-based right-wing talk radio host 
Rush Limbaugh begins his nationally syndicated program; over the next 29 
years, Limbaugh would try to popularize the notion that climate science 
is a "hoax."
Attacking environmentalists as hippie-dip "wackos" who care more about 
spotted owls than people and use polar bears for propaganda, Rush 
Limbaugh has blinded millions of Americans to the climate crisis.
Limbaugh will go down in history as a grand obstruction, a massive 
blockage endowed with the gift of gab. His March 12 Global Warming 
Update Stack included the news that "Gallup has a poll that says that 
most Americans are sort of ho-hum about global warming, and are not in 
any big hurry to do anything about it." Perhaps that plucky comment 
could be placed inside Limbaugh’s future diorama near the stuffed body 
of a polar bear to give visitors a little jot of irony as they shuffle 
across the grounds.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/wolcott200705

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