[TheClimate.Vote] August 28, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News

[Richard Pauli]

/August 28, 2017/
*
3000 guard troops called up as 'catastrophic' Harvey causes deadly 
floods in Texas 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/harvey-delivers-heavy-damage-as-it-batters-texas-coast/2017/08/27/c35ab7c0-8ae6-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html>*
HOUSTON - More than 3,000 national and state guard troops are being 
deployed to assist with relief and recovery efforts as the nation's 
fourth-largest city and surrounding areas try to cope with the aftermath 
of Hurricane Harvey, which has transformed into a disaster of historic 
proportions. President Trump plans to travel to Texas on Tuesday.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in a news conference that the perpetual rain 
and dire flash flooding has produced the strongest storm the state has 
seen in at least 50 years. He could not confirm death totals nor the 
number of evacuations, but the National Weather Service has said there 
have been reports of as many as five deaths. The service issued a 
statement that the storm was "catastrophic" and "beyond anything 
experienced."
More than 82,000 homes were without electricity, and local news stations 
reported that Ben Taub Hospital, one of two trauma centers in the city, 
would soon have to evacuate.
Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a news conference...that it would have 
been a "nightmare" to empty out the population of his city and the 
county all at once.
"You literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road," Turner said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/harvey-delivers-heavy-damage-as-it-batters-texas-coast/2017/08/27/c35ab7c0-8ae6-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html

*From ClimateNexus:* <http://climatenexus.org/climate-change-news/>
*"Unprecedented," Historic Storm Dumps Trillions of Tons of Water on 
Texas:* Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast this weekend, 
growing from a regenerated tropical depression into a Category 4 
hurricane over less than 60 hours. The now-tropical storm has stalled 
inland over Texas, and the entire Houston metropolitan region is now 
flooding. With interstates under feet of water, and most of the streams 
and rivers near the city in flood stage, local authorities have asked 
boat owners to join rescue efforts. At least five people have died, and 
the city is prepping for thousands of evacuees this week. Officials 
predict 50 more inches of rain could be dumped on the area this week. 
“It may have been a strong storm, and it may have caused a lot of 
problems anyway - but [human-caused climate change] amplifies the damage 
considerably,” Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric 
Research told The Atlantic. (Climate change and Harvey: The Atlantic 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=fbbb65d58b&e=95b355344d>, 
New York Times 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=682359ad34&e=95b355344d> 
$, Washington Post 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=bc8f2fa235&e=95b355344d> 
$, Time 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=8ccae161c8&e=95b355344d>, 
ThinkProgress 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=104141018d&e=95b355344d>. 
Damage, flooding, rain: New York Times 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=c426ce1618&e=95b355344d> 
$, AP 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=f631c89245&e=95b355344d>, 
CNN 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=5a9675eaa3&e=95b355344d>, 
Washington Post 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=74269d387f&e=95b355344d> 
$, Bloomberg 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=69eb967fbd&e=95b355344d>, 
Vox 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=2e5918d580&e=95b355344d>, 
Mashable 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7b64e906af&e=95b355344d>, 
Grist 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=c56f419ea0&e=95b355344d>, 
ThinkProgress 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=31593baf16&e=95b355344d>, 
Newsy 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=f1f5143f56&e=95b355344d>. 
Commentary: New York Times, Mimi Swartz column 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=998e55e641&e=95b355344d> $, 
USA Today, James Lee Witt op-ed 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=22a8fd0239&e=95b355344d>, 
NPR, Dr. Neil Frank interview 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=c4bf2f69fa&e=95b355344d>, 
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony Messenger column 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=dee65017c3&e=95b355344d>. 
Background: Climate Signals 
<http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=8a5418ab9b&e=95b355344d>)
*

Did Climate Change Intensify Hurricane Harvey? 
<https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/did-climate-change-intensify-hurricane-harvey/538158/>*
"The human contribution can be up to 30 percent or so up to the total 
rainfall coming out of the storm."
Storms like Harvey are helped by one of the consequences of climate 
change: As the air warms, some of that heat is absorbed by the ocean, 
which in turn raises the temperature of the sea's upper layers.
Harvey benefitted from unusually toasty waters in the Gulf of Mexico. As 
the storm roared toward Houston last week, sea-surface waters near Texas 
rose to between 2.7 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit above average. These 
waters were some of the hottest spots of ocean surface in the world. The 
tropical storm, feeding off this unusual warmth, was able to progress 
from a tropical depression to a category-four hurricane in roughly 48 hours.
Yet even compared to recent storms, Harvey is unprecedented-just the 
kind of weird weather that scientists expect to see more of as the 
planet warms. Harvey has already dumped more water on Harris County than 
Tropical Storm Allison, the area's previous worst-ever flooding disaster 
in 2001, though it has only lasted half the time of that earlier storm.
And it will keep raining. As of Sunday afternoon, Buffalo Bayou, a major 
river near downtown Houston, is one foot above flood stage. It is 
projected to rise as much as another 12 feet today alone.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/did-climate-change-intensify-hurricane-harvey/538158/


*How farmers convinced scientists to take climate change seriously 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/27/how-farmers-convinced-scientists-to-take-climate-change-seriously/>*
/Justin McBrien is a PhD candidate in history at the University of 
Virginia./
Rural Americans once led the fight to link extreme weather like 
Hurricane Harvey and human activity. What changed?
Scientists have long struggled to understand the complex relationship 
between extreme weather, climate change and human activity. But in the 
1950s, rural communities across the country demanded they do just that.
Their concern, however, was not the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. 
It was the effects of atmospheric testing of atomic weapons. Over the 
course of the 1950s, thousands of letters deluged government offices 
accusing them of ignoring the possibility of "atom weather." Worried 
citizens feared the explosions were triggering torrential rains and 
hailstorms, intensifying hurricanes and tornados, prolonging one of the 
worst droughts in American history, even altering the earth's radiation 
balance and changing the global climate.
What effects the bomb may have had on the weather remained a mystery. 
When atmospheric nuclear weapons testing ended in 1963, so too did 
public fixation on anthropogenic extreme weather.
Just when the public forgot about the issue, the very scientists who had 
previously denied its possibility became obsessed with it. By the end of 
the decade, these scientists were writing articles about "inadvertent 
weather and climate modification" by industrial pollutants like 
greenhouse gases, CFCs and aerosols.
In the late 1970s, a scientific consensus emerged that Americans were on 
the "brink of a pronounced global warming" due to their use of fossil 
fuels. These conclusions could not have come at a worse time for those 
who hoped to address the problem. The country was reeling from 
stagflation, oil shocks, rapid de-industrialization and several deep 
recessions. An economy of scarcity allowed politicians to argue that the 
choice between jobs and the environment was a zero-sum game.
The farce of climate denial is also its tragedy. It is particularly 
tragic that people who had once warned the world of the potential 
catastrophic effects of human influence on the atmosphere are now the 
ones helping to ensure the actual catastrophic results of this influence 
continue unabated.
While no individual weather event, including Harvey, can be directly 
attributed to climate change, models are now capable of showing how 
climate change can exacerbate storm surges.  Instead of picking apart 
every individual event, we should remember how the science of 
anthropogenic climate change been refined over a half-century of 
research and debate, and that, if anything, scientists have long been 
far too conservative in their predictions and timelines.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/27/how-farmers-convinced-scientists-to-take-climate-change-seriously/


*(video) Sandy-Level Hurricanes May Occur Every Five Years Due to 
Climate Change 
<http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19867>*
The Real News Network
D. Lascaris: This is Dimitri Lascaris for The Real News. ... With us to 
discuss this disturbing trend in global temperatures is Dr. ... And 
during El Niño years, the Pacific Ocean warms up and that amplifies the 
global warming effect, to do ...
B. Horton:    Well, I think the most important conclusion of that is 
that two independent measurements of global atmosphere and ocean 
temperatures come out with the same conclusion: that the July 
temperatures in 2017 were anomalous. They were well above the long-term 
average of the twentieth century. So slight discrepancies between them 
being the warmest, or tied second warmest are irrelevant, really. I 
think the important thing for your listeners is that we've got two 
independent measurements, and they use similar data sets, but they use 
different statistical analysis. And they come out of the same 
conclusion, that July 2017 was approximately around 1.5°F greater than 
the twentieth century average, with the warmest July occurring in 2016.
And it's part of a trend. Nine of the ten warmest July's occurred in the 
20 first century. The only exception is a very, very warm year in 1998. 
And then you can start to think even more, and these numbers are 
astounding, in July 2017 marked the 41st consecutive July temperature 
that was larger than the global average, and the 391st month with global 
temperatures above the twentieth century average. So we're just building 
a body of data that's irrefutable that our climate is changing.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19867


*ClimateNexus: Texas future impacts summary 
<http://climatenexus.org/climate-change-us/state-impacts/#texas>
*Texas is vulnerable to increasing heat, sea level rise, and severe 
storms which threaten agricultural and economic productivity and human 
health *...
*...In the past century, most of the state has warmed between one-half 
and one degree Fahrenheit. In the eastern two-thirds of the state, 
average annual rainfall is increasing, yet the soil is becoming drier. 
Rainstorms are becoming more intense, and floods are becoming more 
severe. Along much of the coast, the sea is rising almost two inches per 
decade. In the coming decades, storms are likely to become more severe, 
deserts may expand, and summers are likely to become increasingly hot 
and dry, creating problems for agriculture and possibly human health.*...
*http://climatenexus.org/climate-change-us/state-impacts/#texas*
*

*Lyme disease and climate change: Research roundup 
<https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/climate-change/lyme-disease-climate-change-research>*
Lyme disease is spreading as the warming climate helps bloodthirsty 
ticks and their rodent hosts thrive.
...the tiny ticks that carry the debilitating illness have spread 
rapidly in recent years, establishing themselves in twice as many 
American counties and pushing 46 kilometers deeper into Canada every year.
..The reason, a 2016 U.S. government report affirmed with "high 
confidence," is climate change.
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/climate-change/lyme-disease-climate-change-research


*$ Alaska's Permafrost Is Thawing 
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/climate/alaska-permafrost-thawing.html>*
Alaska's permafrost, shown here in 2010, is no longer permanent. It is 
starting to thaw.
By 2050, much of this frozen ground, a storehouse of ancient carbon, 
could be gone.
$ 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/climate/alaska-permafrost-thawing.html 
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/climate/alaska-permafrost-thawing.html>


*As climate change warms the Northeast, some snowshoe hares stay brown 
all year 
<http://www.salon.com/2017/08/27/as-climate-change-warms-the-northeast-some-snowshoe-hares-stay-brown-all-year/>**
*Snowshoe hares have adapted to warmer winters - but it's unclear if 
they can change as fast the climate
he quintessential image of a snowshoe hare (/Lepus americanus/) is a 
pure white bunny - although it is a hare, not a rabbit– nestled in 
powdery snow, gazing out from under the overhanging branches of a balsam 
fir. I can almost see my breath and hear sleigh bells just thinking 
about it.
But in Pennsylvania, powdery snow has a short life expectancy during our 
winters' freeze-thaw cycles. In southern Pennsylvania, it's not unusual 
for snowstorms to turn completely to rain, and it can happen almost 
anywhere in the state. As a result, in much of Pennsylvania it's rare to 
sustain complete snow cover throughout winter, and will become rarer as 
climate change results in warmer temperatures across the state.
In northern climates, hares select habitats that provide both hiding 
cover from predators and protection from cold temperatures. However, in 
Pennsylvania we found that snowshoe hares' resting spots were not any 
warmer than locations we chose at random. It appears that for our hares, 
winter temperatures aren't much of a concern.
Reinforcing that fact, we also found that Pennsylvania snowshoe hares 
produce relatively light-duty fur coats. The downy hairs of their 
underfur were 58 percent less dense than those of their northern 
counterparts, while their guard hairs (long hairs that protect the 
insulating underfur) were 32 percent less dense and 20 percent shorter. 
Our temperature sensors indicated that Pennsylvania hares produced less 
body heat than hares from the Yukon, which suggests that they have 
slower metabolisms.
http://www.salon.com/2017/08/27/as-climate-change-warms-the-northeast-some-snowshoe-hares-stay-brown-all-year/


*(video) Exxon Mobil Knew and Hid Oil's Link to Catastrophic Climate 
Change* <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG7Y0FCQjLM>
Leading expert on the climate denier playbook, Naomi Oreskes, discusses 
her groundbreaking new study and larger story of disinformation and 
doubt about climate change that has been promoted in U.S. for almost 
three decades
Visit http://therealnews.com for more stories and help support our work 
by donating at http://therealnews.com/donate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG7Y0FCQjLM


*This Day in Climate History August 28, 2008 
<http://youtu.be/dYdV1wszqhM%20%28Gore%29><http://youtu.be/dYdV1wszqhM%20%28Gore%29>-  
from D.R. Tucker*
August 28, 2008: Al Gore and Barack Obama address the Democratic 
National Convention, with Gore denouncing the Bush administration for 
denying the climate crisis and Obama promising to make clean energy a 
priority in his administration.
http://youtu.be/dYdV1wszqhM (Gore)
http://youtu.be/nmEI9Doctqs (Obama)

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