[TheClimate.Vote] August 7, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Aug 7 08:56:55 EDT 2017
/August 7, 2017/
*(music video) Billy Bragg - King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood (Lyric
Video) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWPZeQzN_Ws>*
Billy Bragg <http://exclaim.ca/artists/billy_bragg> has turned his
attention to climate change with the arrival of a new single today
(August 4)
Bragg opened up about the track in a statement on his website:
<http://www.billybragg.co.uk/king-tide-and-the-sunny-day-flood/>
Sunny day flooding is a costal phenomenon in which strong tides cause
water to gush up from drains and beneath the ground, swamping basements
and inundating roads. Rises in sea level due to melting ice-caps are
making it an increasingly common occurrence in Florida, where some
residential areas are experiencing it on an almost monthly basis. These
communities are canaries in the mine, already living with the stark
realities of climate change that some still deny is happening. On a
planet the surface of which is 70% water, in which the temperature of
oceans drives our weather systems, we will all be affected by global
warming unless we act now to limit the damage done.
King Tide And The Sunny Day Flood'' is the new track from Billy Bragg
available to download or stream here: https://BBragg.lnk.to
/KTATSDFYo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWPZeQzN_Ws
*(video + transcript) Portland Pledges To Defend Ban on Fossil Fuel
Infrastructure Projects
<http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19688>*
(theRealNews.com)
City Council votes to appeal overturn of their historic ban of all new
fossil fuel infrastructure projects. Nick Caleb, Staff Attorney at the
Center for Sustainable Economy says local governments should be able to
protect residents from dangers of fossil fuels
D. LASCARIS: This is Dimitri Lascaris for The Real News. As the
residents of Portland, Oregon endure a searing heat wave, the City of
Portland has voted to defend its anti-fossil fuels policy. Portland's
first of its kind zoning ordinance, which banned new fossil fuel
projects within city limits and prevented existing facilities from
expanding, was overturned by the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals on
July 19th of this year, and that happened under pressure from the
Western States Petroleum Association. But, this week, on August 2nd,
Portland City Council voted unanimously, five to nothing, to appeal the
decision by Oregon's Land Use Board of Appeals. Now, with us here to
discuss what may become a precedent setting case, we are joined by
Nicholas Caleb from Portland, Oregon. Nicholas is an attorney with the
Center for Sustainable Economy, an organization that intervened in the
litigation before the Land Use Board of Appeals. Thank you for joining
us, Nicholas.
NICK CALEB: ... Generally in land use law, it's forward thinking. A
lot of existing ... Well, most of existing developments are
grandfathered in, and so it sort of, in the future, new fossil fuel
infrastructure would be prohibited, but the existing terminals would be
allowed to operate.
...We feel very strongly that it's highly logical that local governments
be able to protect their residents from the dangers of the fossil fuel
industry, which includes spills, explosions, derailments. We've seen a
lot of that out in Oregon. Not to mention the climate impacts, and so
again, we don't agree with the LUBA ruling and we think that we have a
good chance on appeal.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19688
*THIS IS HOW MUCH OF THE WORLD IS CURRENTLY ON FIRE
<http://www.popsci.com/amp/global-wildfire-maps>*
THE 2017 FIRE SEASON IS A GLOBAL PHENOMENON.
By Kendra Pierre-Louis August 04, 2017
You may have missed the memo (we get it, there’s been a lot going on)
but the world is currently on fire as massive blazes burn in the United
States, Canada, and across Europe. To give you a sense of the scale of
the inferno, we’ve included maps of the wildfires, as well as images
from some of the fiery scenes. Here, is the lowdown.
Here in the United States the Forest Service is reporting that 2017 is
shaping up to be a worse than average fire year based on acres of
federal, private and state land burned. So far, 5.6 million acres of
land has burned this year, or 1.8 million acres more than the ten year
average of 3.8 million acres burned by this time. Some states like
Nevada are saying that 2017 is the worst fire season in 15 years, while
Montana has already used up much of its firefighting budget, even as
much of the state remains in drought conditions according to the US
Drought Monitor. The state may have to tap into reserve and federal
funding but that isn’t the only cost. Brent M. Witham, a 29-year-old
firefighter from Mentone, California, was killed cutting down a tree
while working on the Lolo Peak Fire.
Despite urgent conditions, funding for the nation’s six Regional Climate
Centers (RCCs) which provide data that we use to help control and
prevent wildfires is on the chopping block. The President’s proposed
budget would slash the Centers’ budgets by 82%, from $3.65 million to
$650,000.
The Centers were originally developed in the 1980s with bipartisan
support because of the service and expertise they provide as data
collectors, analyzers and subject matter experts. If they’re eliminated,
“We’’ would of a lot of fundamental climate services,” Tim Brown
Research Professor Climatology Director Western Regional Climate Center
told PopSci. “That includes information for decision makers for drought,
fires and floods, and impacts, on transportation and human health, water
supplies, energy and disaster management planning, all of these areas
the regional climate center program supports.”
On a more concrete level this includes banal information, such as
yesterday’s temperature high and low—that’s Regional Climate Center
Data. More critically, if we’re talking fires, this also means the loss
of Western Based US Drought Monitoring Author which adds to the weekly
drought map that government uses to allocate drought relief as well as
an early drought warning system—i.e. the conditions which can precede
wildfires.
Across the border from the United States, fires are also currently
scorching Canada’s British Columbia. This is the province’s second worst
fire season on record and NASA satellites have identified the
conflagration from space. It’s unsurprising that the smoke is billowing
over the border into nearby Seattle in Washington state which is also
under a heat advisory. On Thursday, the city hit a record breaking 94
degrees at the Seattle Tacoma airport. The regular high for the region
at this time of year is 77 degrees. Between the heat and the fact that
the region has been, according to US Drought Monitor is unnaturally dry
that wildfires are knocking on their door is unsurprising.
http://www.popsci.com/amp/global-wildfire-maps
-
*InciWeb Incident Information System <https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/>*
InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident information management
system. The system was developed with two primary missions:
- Provide the public a single source of incident related information
- Provide a standardized reporting tool for the Public Affairs community
A number of supporting systems automate the delivery of incident
information to remote sources. This ensures that the information
regarding active incidents is consistent, and the delivery is timely.
Disclaimer
Information posted on this website is for information purposes only.
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/
-
*Climate Change Blamed As EU's Forest Fires Treble In 2017*
<http://www.euronews.com/2017/07/26/how-europe-s-wildfires-have-more-than-trebled-in-2017>
Exclusive: The number of forest fires in the EU has trebled so far this
year, according to figures obtained by Euronews, affecting an area
nearly the size of Luxembourg.
http://www.euronews.com/2017/07/26/how-europe-s-wildfires-have-more-than-trebled-in-2017
*-
Nasa WORLDVIEW of Fires and Thermal Anomalies
<https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=geographic&l=VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor%28hidden%29,MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor%28hidden%29,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Fires_Terra,Reference_Labels%28hidden%29,Reference_Features%28hidden%29,Coastlines&t=2017-08-04&z=3&v=-150.5749562937063,-67.18875655594405,207.1750437062937,93.68624344405595>*
for August 4th 2017
https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=geographic&l=VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Fires_Terra,Reference_Labels(hidden),Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines&t=2017-08-04&z=3&v=-150.5749562937063,-67.18875655594405,207.1750437062937,93.68624344405595
-
*Let Forest Fires Burn?
What the Black-Backed Woodpecker Knows
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/science/let-forest-fires-burn-what-the-black-backed-woodpecker-knows.html?_r=0>*
A scientific debate is intensifying over whether too much money and too
many lives are lost fighting forest fires.
By JUSTIN GILLIS AUG. 6, 2017
By the 1930s, industrial-scale techniques allowed firefighting agencies,
including the United States Forest Service, to suppress fires across the
landscape.
A handful of scientists began arguing decades ago that this was a
mistake. Over the past decade or so, the research has crystallized into
a new understanding of the role of fire in forests.
Far from being calamities, fires are now seen by many experts as
essential to improving the long-term health of the forests, thinning
them and creating greater variability on the landscape.
The families of wilderness firefighters who died on the job once tended
to accept their lot resignedly, but some are starting to sue, asking why
the government is defying the latest science in a risky attempt to
extinguish remote fires.
“The lives of young people are not worth saving trees that really need
to burn anyway,” Dr. Ingalsbee said. “Families are no longer going to be
mollified by politicians showing up at the memorial talking about their
fallen heroes.” ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/science/let-forest-fires-burn-what-the-black-backed-woodpecker-knows.html?_r=0
*(video + transcript) How Much Will Methane From Thawing Permafrost
Speed Up Global Warming?
<http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19646:How-Much-Will-Methane-From-Thawing-Permafrost-Speed-Up-Global-Warming%3F>*
TheRealNews.com - Methane "seeps" on the tundra may be more problematic
than previously thought, according to a new report co-authored by
Torsten Sachs, a researcher at the GFZ German Research Centre for
Geosciences in Germany
(video 10:38 )
Because the Arctic is heating up at twice the rate of the rest of the
globe, parts of the Arctic tundra are thawing. This may be allowing long
buried pockets of methane to be released into the atmosphere, new
research suggests. A study published in the journal Scientific Reports
has concluded that, "Strong geologic methane emissions from
discontinuous terrestrial permafrost in the Mackenzie Delta, Canada
suggests that these methane seeps on the Tundra may be more problematic
than previously thought."
TORSTEN SACHS: The most significant finding is probably that we were
able to pick up these geologic methane seeps with our aircraft
measurements. We could actually see looking at such a large area that
even though they occur on only a small fraction of the area, they could
contribute up to 17% of the annual emissions. That's a rough estimate,
but still we saw that they play quite a significant role. They haven't
been looked at much before, maybe on an individual basis, but not on
such a large scale
TORSTEN SACHS: Well, what's allowing us to be a bit more accurate is
that we can actually cover a large area and not just an individual,
small study site on the ground. The uncertainty that most of the
previous studies carry with them is that the Arctic is huge. It's
difficult to access. We have very few data so we have to extrapolate
from very small study sites to a very large area, and that causes
errors. We can look at 10,000 square kilometers at once now and avoid
certain location biases, so we can get a bit better overview over the
entire large area. There are pros and cons to both scales, of course,
but this is what we can contribute. We can look at the big picture...
D. LASCARIS: Right. Now I understand that methane is released not
only from the thawing permafrost but also in the microbiological process
of the thawing tundra. Can you explain the distinction and which of
these two is likely to be a greater source of methane leakage into the
atmosphere?
TORSTEN SACHS: The greater source is definitely the microbial methane
production on the surface because permafrost very often is essentially a
wetland. So like in any wetland, even in temperate latitudes, as long as
there is oxygen present and microbes can chew on organic material, that
will produce methane, and that's what's happening in large expanses of
the permafrost world. The thought is now there's a lot of organic carbon
contained in the permafrost and, if that thaws, the microbes have more
to chew on and they're going to produce more methane. On top of it, it
gets warmer, which makes them happier. They can produce even more
methane, so that's what most of the studies focus on.
But in addition to that, there are large natural gas reservoirs in the
Arctic, and most of them are probably deep enough but some of them are
also kept in place because there is a lid of permafrost on top of them.
If you take that lid away or punch holes into it, that could potentially
allow methane to migrate to the surface along fjords or any kind of
geologic structure and be released to atmosphere.
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19646:How-Much-Will-Methane-From-Thawing-Permafrost-Speed-Up-Global-Warming%3F
*Acute Food Insecurity: Near Term (June - September 2017)
<https://www.fews.net/>*
*Emergency Food Assistance Needs Rise to 81 Million*
https://www.fews.net/
*This Day in Climate History August 7, 2003
<http://www.c-span.org/video/?177732-1/former-vice-president-speech> -
from D.R. Tucker*
August 7, 2003: In a speech at New York University, Al Gore condemns the
Bush administration's dishonesty on climate policy and foreign policy.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?177732-1/former-vice-president-speech
/
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