[TheClimate.Vote] August 16, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News

[Richard Pauli]

/August 16, 2017
/
*Trump to Roll Back Obama's Flood Standards for Infrastructure* 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/climate/flooding-infrastructure-climate-change-trump-obama.html>
President Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to roll back 
standards that demanded the federal government account for climate 
change and sea-level rise when building new infrastructure, the White 
House confirmed.
Building trade groups and Republican lawmakers had criticized the 
Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, established by Mr. Obama in an 
executive order in 2015, as costly and overly burdensome.
But environmental activists, floodplain managers and some conservatives 
had urged the Trump administration to preserve the rule, arguing that it 
protected critical infrastructure and taxpayer dollars by ensuring new 
projects in areas prone to flooding were safeguarded.
Representative Ralph Abraham of Louisiana, a Republican who sponsored 
legislation that would have blocked Mr. Obama's flood standard, said he 
was thrilled by Mr. Trump's decision. He acknowledged that Louisiana was 
inundated with catastrophic flooding last year, but called it an 
isolated event. The bigger threat, he said, is from costly regulations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/climate/flooding-infrastructure-climate-change-trump-obama.html


*Climate change projected to significantly increase harmful algal blooms 
in US freshwaters 
<https://phys.org/news/2017-08-climate-significantly-algal-blooms-freshwaters.html>*
Harmful algal blooms known to pose risks to human and environmental 
health in large freshwater reservoirs and lakes are projected to 
increase because of climate change, according to a team of researchers 
led by a Tufts University scientist.
The team developed a modeling framework that predicts that the largest 
increase in cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) would occur 
in the Northeast region of the United States, but the biggest economic 
harm would be felt by recreation areas in the Southeast.
Beyond the human health effects, CyanoHABs have a variety of negative 
consequences for aquatic ecosystems, including the creation of unsightly 
surface scums and a reduction in recreational use and access to 
shorelines. Also, because most cyanobacteria are inedible by zooplankton 
and planktivorous fish, they represent a "dead end" in the aquatic food 
chain - a scenario that ultimately hurts both commercial and 
recreational fishing industries.
Chapra noted that the research indicates that as water temperatures 
increase, more stringent and costly nutrient controls would be necessary 
in order to maintain current water quality.
https://phys.org/news/2017-08-climate-significantly-algal-blooms-freshwaters.html


*Weathering the Violence of Climate Change 
<https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate-change-political-violence-social-unrest-by-gulrez-s--azhar-2017-08>*
Scientists agree that climate change poses a grave danger to the planet. 
But for some reason, politicians and government officials have not 
connected the dots between a changing climate and human conflicts. Among 
the many threats associated with climate change, deteriorating global 
security may be the most frightening of all. It is bad enough to see 
farmers carrying skulls through the streets of India. But if we do not 
get serious about climate-driven security risks, we could see far worse.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate-change-political-violence-social-unrest-by-gulrez-s--azhar-2017-08


*Scott Pruitt is dismantling EPA in secret for the same reason the GOP 
health care bill was secret 
<https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/14/16142150/scott-pruitt-epa-secrecy-republican>*
Today's GOP agenda is unpopular and indefensible.
Updated by David Roberts
...the approach of serving industry under cover of secrecy is not 
idiosyncratic to Pruitt, nor is it distinctively Trumpian. Rather, it is 
the standard approach of today's GOP, as reflected in such recent 
initiatives as the failed health care bill. It is, in fact, the only 
approach possible to advance an agenda that is unpopular and 
intellectually indefensible.
..The picture that emerges from all this is pretty clear: Pruitt is 
avoiding oversight, avoiding environmentalists, avoiding agency staff, 
and avoiding mainstream media. He is taking steps to corrupt agency 
science and science communication and loosen regulatory burdens on 
fossil fuels, in close consultation with industry groups and right-wing 
media, with as little public scrutiny as possible.
What's notable, aside from the grotesque distortion of the agency's 
mission, is how well Pruitt represents the state of today's GOP.
Trump, Pruitt, and today's GOP are the inevitable outcome of that 
process, which has been unfolding right under our noses. It got bad 
under Gingrich, worse under the reign of George W. Bush, and utterly out 
of control under Obama. In health care policy, tax policy, and 
environmental policy, the intellectual foundation has rotted away. What 
remains is will to power, the raw impulse to degrade and destroy 
anything liberals support, and the belief that hesitation or 
circumspection amounts to treachery.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/14/16142150/scott-pruitt-epa-secrecy-republican


*If Trump Admin were Concerned about Racism, they would Drop this USDA 
Nomination 
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/08/15/if-trump-admin-were-concerned-about-racism-they-would-drop-this-usda-nomination/>*
...  in 2013, Clovis rejected the idea that climate change is "settled 
science" and asserted that it is instead a "nonsensical theory" invented 
by liberals to give the impression that they can create "perfect 
weather." At a Farm Foundation Forum last October, he told E&E News that 
"we need more science" before Trump could craft policy. As chief 
scientist, Clovis would oversee the USDA's climate change research.
https://climatecrocks.com/2017/08/15/if-trump-admin-were-concerned-about-racism-they-would-drop-this-usda-nomination/
*

Another climate-change nightmare: 91 new volcanoes beneath Antarctica's 
ice 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/08/15/another-climate-change-nightmare-dozens-of-volcanoes-beneath-antarcticas-thinning-ice/?utm_term=.689516a00bb5>*
University of Edinburgh researchers on Monday announced 
<http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2017/student-s-idea-leads-to-antarctic-volcano-discover> 
the discovery of 91 previously unknown volcanoes under west Antarctica. 
They do not sound nearly as alarmed as, say, Quartz, which called the 
possibilities terrifying.
<https://qz.com/1052938/antarctica-has-the-greatest-concentration-of-volcanoes-in-the-world-according-to-a-new-study/>"By 
themselves the volcanoes wouldn't be likely to cause the entire ice 
sheet to melt," said lead researcher Max Van Wyk de Vries, whose team 
published the study 
<http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/rbingha2/48_2017_Vries.pdf> in the 
Geological Society in late May. But if the glacier is already melting 
because of global warming, he said, "if we start reducing significant 
quantities of ice … you can more or less say that it triggers an 
eruption."...
But looking through decades' worth of data from ice-penetrating radar, 
seismic studies and other modern methods of exploration, the Edinburgh 
team gleaned the shapes of nearly 200 cones.
Some of these they ruled out from their study, because satellite photos 
showed no corresponding deformation on the ice above the cones. Another 
50 or so cones poked above the surface of the ice and exactly matched 
the locations of previously discovered volcanoes. The other 91 cones, 
the team concluded, were true volcanoes that had never seen the light of 
day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/08/15/another-climate-change-nightmare-dozens-of-volcanoes-beneath-antarcticas-thinning-ice/?utm_term=.689516a00bb5
*Bedmap2 - Ice thickness and subglacial topographic model of Antarctica 
<https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/bedmap-2/>*
Improved ice bed, surface and thickness datasets for Antarctica
Bedmap2 is a new suite of gridded products describing surface elevation, 
ice-thickness and the sea floor and subglacial bed elevation of the 
Antarctic south of 60◦ S. We derived these products using data from a 
variety of sources, including many substantial surveys completed since 
the original Bedmap compilation (Bedmap1) in 2001. In particular, the 
Bedmap2 ice thickness grid is made from 25 million measurements, over 
two orders of magnitude more than were used in Bedmap1. In most parts of 
Antarctica the subglacial landscape is visible in much greater detail 
than was previously available and the improved data coverage has in many 
areas revealed the full scale of mountain ranges, valleys, basins and 
troughs, only fragments of which were previously indicated in local 
surveys. The derived statistics for Bedmap2 show that the volume of ice 
contained in the Antarctic ice sheet (27 million km3) and its potential 
contribution to sea-level rise (58 m) are similar to those of Bedmap1, 
but the mean thickness of the ice sheet is 4.6 % greater, the mean depth 
of the bed beneath the grounded ice sheet is 72 m lower and the area of 
ice sheet grounded on bed below sea level is increased by 10 %. The 
Bedmap2 compilation highlights several areas beneath the ice sheet where 
the bed elevation is substantially lower than the deepest bed indicated 
by Bedmap1. These products, along with grids of data coverage and 
uncertainty, provide new opportunities for detailed modelling of the 
past and future evolution of the Antarctic ice sheets.
https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/bedmap-2/


*This Day in Climate History August 16, 2013 
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10284> -  from D.R. Tucker*
August 16, 2013: The climate documentary "The Politics of Power" airs 
for the first, last and only time on MSNBC.
MSNBC's August 16th Chris Hayes hosted documentary on climate change and 
the global warming denial industry, was nowhere to be found online. 
Unlike previous docs from the cable net, this one had not made available 
online after its initial airing.
http://www.msnbc.com/all/watch-politics-power-demand  - sneak preview
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10284
/(cursory search the full version of this legendary documentary is not 
yet found)/


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