[TheClimate.Vote] December 7, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/December 7, 2017
/
*Rupert Murdoch's LA home Burning down in Record Wildfire 
<http://climatestate.com/2017/12/06/rupert-murdochs-la-home-burning-down-in-record-wildfire/>*
The home of 21st Century Fox and Fox News Executive Chairman Rupert 
Murdoch, located on a vineyard outside of Los Angeles, is "burning down" 
in Southern California's wildfires, according to an NBC News report on 
Wednesday.
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/363573-report-rupert-murdochs-la-home-burning-down-in-wildfire
Bloomberg News reported earlier Wednesday that the area around Murdoch's 
Moraga vineyard in Bel Air was ordered evacuated as firefighters battled 
wind-whipped fires that continue to spread.
The 86-year-old Australian-born media mogul lives in a 7,500-square-foot 
house on the estate with wife Jerry Hall.
The Hill has reached out to 21st Century Fox for comment.
Murdoch acquired the 13-acre property in 2013 for $28.8 million, 
according to Forbes.
California Increased Wildfire Risk 
http://www.climatesignals.org/climate-signals/california-increased-wildfire-risk
Smoke and Fire in Southern California 
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=91379
Rupert Murdoch doesn't understand climate change basics, and that's a 
problem
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jul/14/rupert-murdoch-doesnt-understand-climate-basics


  [MIT Technology Review]
*Global Warming's Worst-Case Projections Look Increasingly Likely 
<https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609620/global-warmings-worst-case-projections-look-increasingly-likely/>*
A new study <http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature24672> based 
on satellite observations finds that temperatures could rise nearly 5 
degrees C by the end of the century.
Global warming's worst-case projections look increasingly likely, 
according to a new study that tested the predictive power of climate 
models against observations of how the atmosphere is actually behaving. 
The paper, published on Wednesday in Nature, found that global 
temperatures could rise nearly ...
Global warming's worst-case projections look increasingly likely, 
according to a new study that tested the predictive power of climate 
models against observations of how the atmosphere is actually behaving.
The paper, published on Wednesday in Nature, found that global 
temperatures could rise nearly 5 degrees C by the end of the century 
under the the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's steepest  
prediction for greenhouse-gas concentrations. That's 15 percent hotter 
than the previous estimate. The odds that temperatures will increase 
more than 4 degrees by 2100 in this so-called "business as usual" 
scenario increased from 62 percent to 93 percent, according to the new 
analysis.
Climate models are sophisticated software simulations that assess how 
the climate reacts to various influences. For this study, the scientists 
collected more than a decade's worth of satellite observations 
concerning the amount of sunlight reflected back into space by things 
like clouds, snow, and ice; how much infrared radiation is escaping from 
Earth; and the net balance between the amount of energy entering and 
leaving the atmosphere. Then the researchers compared that 
"top-of-atmosphere" data with the results of earlier climate models to 
determine which ones most accurately predicted what the satellites 
actually observed.
The simulations that turned out to most closely match real-world 
observations of how energy flows in and out of the climate system were 
the ones that predicted the most warming this century. In particular, 
the study found, the models projecting that clouds will allow in more 
radiation over time, possibly because of decreased coverage or 
reflectivity, "are the ones that simulate the recent past the best," 
says Patrick Brown, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Carnegie 
Institution and lead author of the study. This cloud feedback phenomenon 
remains one of the greatest areas of uncertainty in climate modeling.
The UN's seminal IPCC report relies on an assortment of models from 
various research institutions to estimate the broad ranges of warming 
likely to occur under four main emissions scenarios. In another key 
finding, the scientists found that the second-lowest scenario would be 
more likely to result in the warming previously predicted under the 
second-highest by 2100. In fact, the world will have to cut another 800 
gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions this century for the earlier 
warming estimates to hold. (By way of comparison, total greenhouse-gas 
emissions stood at about 49 gigatons last year.)
Various politicians, fossil-fuel interest groups, and commentators have 
seized on the uncertainty inherent in climate models as reasons to doubt 
the dangers of climate change, or to argue against strong policy and 
mitigation responses.
"This study undermines that logic," Brown says. "There are problems with 
climate models, but the ones that are most accurate are the ones that 
produce the most warming in the future."

    *(video) Most accurate climate models predict greatest warming
    <https://youtu.be/egg1VqKEh5E>*
    The climate change simulations that best capture current planetary
    conditions are also the ones that predict the most dire levels of
    human-driven warming, according to a statistical study released in
    the journal Nature Wednesday.
    https://youtu.be/egg1VqKEh5E

In fact, the new paper is the latest in a growing series that project 
larger impacts than previously predicted or conclude that climate change 
is unfolding faster than once believed.
The goal of the research was to evaluate how well various climate models 
work, in hopes of "narrowing the range of model uncertainty and to 
assess whether the upper or low end of the range is more likely," Brown 
wrote in an accompanying blog post.
Ken Caldeira, a climate researcher at Carnegie and coauthor of the 
paper, says the growing body of real-world evidence for climate change 
is helping to refine climate models while also guiding scientists toward 
those that increasingly appear more reliable for specific applications.
But an emerging challenge is that the climate is changing faster than 
the models are improving, as real-world events occur that the models 
didn't predict. Notably, Arctic sea ice is melting more rapidly than the 
models can explain, suggesting that the simulations aren't fully 
capturing certain processes.
"We're increasingly shifting from a mode of predicting what's going to 
happen to a mode of trying to explain what happened," Caldeira says.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609620/global-warmings-worst-case-projections-look-increasingly-likely/


  [Union of Concerned Scientists (blog)]*
**Supermoons, King Tides, and Global Warming 
<https://blog.ucsusa.org/astrid-caldas/supermoons-king-tides-and-global-warming>*
  Tides are always higher at full and new moons — when the Moon, Earth, 
and Sun are aligned — and it follows that the gravitational pull is 
strongest when the masses are at their closest during a supermoon. 
That's why we saw some unusually high tides, called king tides 
<https://www.epa.gov/cre/king-tides-and-climate-change>, across the 
country (and beyond) at the same time that we experienced the supermoon.
So, while we may not realize it when looking at the supersized moon, it 
is causing a great deal of disruption to people's lives in the form of 
tidal flooding, also called "nuisance flooding. 
<https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/nuisance-flooding.html>" As stated 
in one of my colleague's earlier blogs, this localized tidal flooding 
has been steadily increasing due to sea level rise. And climate change 
is behind the sea level rise rates being observed...
So next time you look up at a supermoon (in January 2018), while still 
marveling at the incredible phenomenon you are witnessing, remember to 
also look down. It may just make you think about the moon in a 
completely different way – and how as a nation, we need to do more to 
reduce emissions and prepare for coastal flooding.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/astrid-caldas/supermoons-king-tides-and-global-warming


[Politics - Austin 350.org - a great speech by Derrick Crowe]
(video) (Rep. Lamar Smith is retiring) Derrick Crowe is running for the 
seat. <https://youtu.be/vm2VWrvZBlM>
https://youtu.be/vm2VWrvZBlM 32 mins *
**Derrick Crowe "State of the Climate"* <https://youtu.be/vm2VWrvZBlM>
"This is the best, purest, most calm and tremendously positive speech 
I've heard."
[partial transcript:]

    The issue that we're facing with here is that we are headed towards
    a scenario that
    society cannot adapt to.
    When we say that you know we're gonna deal with climate change
    through mitigation and preparation and not through prevention. We
    are setting ourselves up for a planet in which we can't survive as a
    society...
    ...the milder scenario which has been sketched out in a recent study
    just for our area shows that if we just have the middle-of-the-road
    projections for the middle-of-the-road sea level rise and we get the
    two-degree target - Austin Round Rock will have to absorb more than
    800,000 people who are fleeing from the coasts who will have to move
    because their communities are no longer viable.
    But the little footnote to that study is that only the people who
    can stay and survive are the people that make over a hundred
    thousand dollars a year. But the worry in this report is that the
    poorer people won't be able to evacuate.
    Now I want you to think about what that means..
    We saw Hurricane Katrina already, we saw people packed into a
    Superdome.  That's what it looks like when poor people can't
    evacuate from a climate disaster and they're talking about that on
    every coast by mid-century.
    So the the real drawback that we're looking at here is that we have
    a Congress and a president who don't care that they are engaged in
    calling everything they don't like to hear fake news.
    And the problem with the concept of fake news is that it destroys
    our ability to agree on objective fact.
    And the reason that the current political system wants to destroy
    that agreement on a basic objective fact is that the truth has
    claims on your actions. If what the scientists telling us now is
    true, it demands urgent action and that urgent action will damage
    some people's economic interests.
    But that is the game here when you call climate science a Chinese hoax.
    They're trying to destroy the fact that we can even know about the
    future.  Well you know science is the closest thing we can have for
    seeing the future.  And the future that I see for my son goes one of
    two ways, we either stay on the current course and by the time he
    gets into kindergarten we blow the carbon budget.
    Possibly the kicker to this presentation is that when you take these
    assumptions out that are in the IPCC projections that we talked
    about  - which essentially are either magic or time-travel - we have
    between three and thirteen years before we blow the carbon budget
    for 1.5 degrees Celsius.  Which is almost no time at all which is
    was true from the beginning of this year - meaning the end of the
    Trump presidency to begin to bend that curve down. So the political
    action that's implied in that - and excuse me for being a tiny bit
    political - is people who believe in climate science have to take
    Congress this cycle...
    I want you to leave here tonight with the strong sense that there's
    no time left and that there's nobody else to do it but the people in
    this room,  the people you know, the people that are younger than us
    essentially in this room...came along too late and the folks that
    came before us didn't get it done in time.
    We have to own the moment here because there's no one else that's
    gonna be capable of owning the moment ever again.
    If the runaway effects take hold - and the time is extraordinarily
    short - in fact you know Henry here needs us to take action in three
    to thirteen years - by the time he graduates high school. We're
    gonna put the period on the end of the sentence that describes how
    we reacted to this moment.
    As a dad I'm asking you to take your participation in this group as
    seriously, as if you were here to save the world,  because you are
    here to save the world.
    And the good news is if you look at those charts and you project
    them out over a ten thousand year time frame once we get past twenty
    one hundred and twenty two hundred those lines go flat and they stay
    where they are essentially forever
    So the risk is - what we lose, we lose forever,  but the hope is
    that what you save you will save forever.
    The world gets to be your monument for every generation that comes
    after.
    So that's my set up for saying when they pass the coffee can in a
    minute,  contribute.. ...now politicians need to hear from you
    Your elected officials who are already in office,  need to hear from
    you and your neighbors need to hear from you.
    Because the worst thing that happens when a fire alarm goes off is
    everybody looks around to see if anybody else is getting up.  All of
    us have probably been in a scenario where somebody pulled the fire
    alarm and nobody moved.  Well somebody's got to move and you're
    moving now and I appreciate you doing that and I thank you for your
    attention tonight..... "

https://youtu.be/vm2VWrvZBlM


*https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/05/sliver-of-light-in-a-dark-time/*
Rep. Lamar Smith, one of congress' leading climate deniers, and Chair of 
the purported "Science" committee in the US House, has announced he is 
retiring.
In the meantime, Derrick Crowe is running for the seat. He's well versed 
on climate science, and how climate deniers have sought to destroy our 
ability to perceive truth.
He's warning us that our hopes of preserving what's left of a livable 
planet hinge very much on what kind of Congress we elect in 2018.   If 
you're pressed for time, try catch the last 4 minutes or so.
https://youtu.be/vm2VWrvZBlM


*Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (H.R. 3671) - GovTrack.us 
<https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr3671>*
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr3671
The FIX NICS Act, a bill that might have prevented the Texas mass 
shooting. ... What Congress has already done in response to sexual 
assault allegations, and what they could still…. ... To justly 
transition away from fossil fuel sources of energy to 100 percent clean 
energy by 2035, and ...
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr3671


Opinions
*UPS and Pfizer's dirty little secret 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ups-and-pfizers-dirty-little-secret/2017/12/05/54d7856a-d9e4-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?utm_term=.653c2f64fbaa>*
By Sheldon Whitehouse and Elizabeth Warren December 5 at 2:26 PM
The blandly named American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is one of 
the most powerful groups you may have never heard of...
...Now, with a White House occupant who has said climate change is a 
hoax, ALEC's anti-climate campaign is in overdrive. And complicit in 
that push are corporate supporters — such as Pfizer and UPS — who have 
not woken up to how inconsistent ALEC is with their values...
ALEC receives a large share of its funding from the fossil fuel 
industry, notably the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil. The group has pushed 
a number of bills to undermine efforts to cut carbon emissions and 
combat the effects of climate change. Way back in 1998, ALEC drafted a 
model resolution 
<https://www.sourcewatch.org/images/e/e8/3C4-State_Responses_to_Kyoto_Climate_Change_Protocol_Exposed.pdf> 
that would have forbidden states from regulating greenhouse gases in any 
way. In 2004, ALEC again urged 
<http://web.archive.org/web/20060602025124/http:/www.alec.org/news/press-releases/press-releases-2004/january/sons-of-kyoto-legislation-states-react-to-the-myth-of-global-warming.html> 
states to reject efforts to limit carbon pollution, arguing that global 
warming was a "myth" and that the carbon dioxide generated by burning 
fossil fuels was actually "beneficial." During the Obama administration, 
ALEC repeatedly opposed <https://www.prwatch.org/NODE/10914> the 
Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to limit carbon emissions...
While ALEC's 20-year anti-climate crusade perfectly corresponds to the 
priorities of its fossil-fuel funders, it has driven off several of its 
corporate supporters. Google left ALEC in 2014 because of ALEC's 
position on climate change. Shell left in 2015 for the same reason. They 
joined major American brands ranging from Coca-Cola to Ford to CVS that 
have left ALEC in recent years because of its extreme positions. 
Unfortunately, not all companies have recognized this reality...
...Pfizer and UPS fund a group engaged in a decades-long anti-climate 
campaign..
When corporate America backs an anti-climate agenda contrary to the 
express policies of the corporations, consumers and investors — and the 
world — will be watching.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ups-and-pfizers-dirty-little-secret/2017/12/05/54d7856a-d9e4-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?utm_term=.653c2f64fbaa


[LA Times]
*Climate scientists see alarming new threat to California 
<http://beta.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-climate-california-20171205-htmlstory.html>*
California could be hit with significantly more dangerous and more 
frequent droughts in the near future as changes in weather patterns 
triggered by global warming block rainfall from reaching the state, 
according to new research led by scientists at Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory...
The study, <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01907-4> 
published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, provides 
compelling evidence that it would. The model the scientists used homed 
in on the link between the disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic and 
the buildup of high ridges of atmospheric pressure over the Pacific 
Ocean. Those ridges push winter storms away from the state, causing drought.
http://beta.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-climate-california-20171205-htmlstory.html
-
[Nature Communications]
*Future loss of Arctic sea-ice cover could drive a substantial decrease 
in California's rainfall 
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01907-4>*
We have confirmed that the short-term (decadal-scale) response to Arctic 
sea-ice loss described in our study is consistent with the response 
found in previous AOGCM studies that allow for ocean dynamics and 
deep-ocean changes. The long-term centennial climate response to sea-ice 
changes may, however, differ from the fast response described here. 
While investigations with other climate models are necessary to further 
confirm these findings, our results strongly suggest that what happens 
in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic and provide a physically 
plausible pathway by which high-latitude sea-ice forcing may mediate 
tropical climate, and thereby influence California's rainfall.
As a final remark, we note that the pronounced Arctic sea-ice loss over 
the satellite era is likely human-induced, arising from anthropogenic 
warming caused by greenhouse gas increases68. Our study thus identifies 
yet another pathway by which human activities could affect the 
occurrence of future droughts over California—through human-induced 
Arctic sea-ice decline.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01907-4


[BRIEFER  The Center for Climate and Security]
*Sea Level Rise, Deterritorialized States and Migration: The Need for a 
New Framework 
<https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/sea-level-rise-_deterritorialized-states-and-migration_the-need-for-a-new-framework_briefer-39.pdf>*
Excerpt: The definition of a state in modern international law has four 
requirements: a permanent population, a government, the ability to 
interact with other states, and most important for this context, a 
defined territory. The prospect of rising seas making low-lying island 
states uninhabitable, or completely submerged, puts the territorial 
requirement in jeopardy. However, there are historical examples of 
flexibility in state control of territory.
https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/sea-level-rise-_deterritorialized-states-and-migration_the-need-for-a-new-framework_briefer-39.pdf


[ScienceDaily]
*The Patterns of climate change 
<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204150732.htm>*
Summary:
Researchers have developed a technique to monitor and predict how plant 
species will respond to climate change. The experiment was conducted in 
an area the size of two football pitches within the Garraf National park 
south west of Barcelona. The landscape is mostly a Mediterranean 
scrubland, featuring thickets of low rise shrubs and herbs such as 
rosemary and thyme, and home to many protected species.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204150732.htm


[Harvard Crimson]
*Climate Change Panel Talks 'Hope and Despair' 
<http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/11/30/climate-change-panel-debates/>*
Climate change researchers, professors, and journalists debated how best 
to present the severity of climate change to the public Wednesday 
evening at an event hosted by the Harvard University Center for the 
Environment.
The discussion, titled "Hope and Despair: Communicating an Uncertain 
Future," was held in the Geological Lecture Hall. Elizabeth M. 
Wolkovich, an assistant professor in the Department of Organismic and 
Evolutionary Biology, moderated a discussion about how to best motivate 
the public to take action on climate change.
David Wallace-Wells, who is the deputy editor of the New York Magazine 
and wrote the article "The Uninhabitable Earth" this year, advocated the 
use of fear about the planet's future as a way to inspire more people to 
become "climate agents."
"I think that there is real value in scaring people," Wallace-Wells 
said. "When I talk to colleagues it just seems so obvious to me that 
when you think about the relatively well-off Western world, that 
complacency about climate is just a much bigger problem than fatalism 
about climate."
Nancy Knowlton, chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian Institution, 
said she thinks it is more effective to be optimistic about humanity's 
ability to stave off disaster.
"I've had many, many students come up to me after talks about optimism 
or the Earth Optimism Summit that we ran in Washington saying 'you know, 
this was incredibly empowering, I now really want to go out and work on 
solving this problem. I almost left the field of conservation because I 
thought there was nothing I could do,'" Knowlton said. "I do feel that 
it is absolutely essential to talk about what's working, why it's 
working, in addition to providing this very scary context."
"It's not the number one political issue and until it becomes the number 
one political issue, we're not in the position I think we need to be if 
we want to change the scenarios," she said.
Henry G. Scott '18, who attended the event and is writing a thesis on 
how humans have historically impacted the environment, said that he 
enjoyed the panel but was bothered by how few undergraduates attended 
the event.
"When I first sat down, I was kind of looking around and noticing how 
few undergrads were present, which kind of built into my preconceived 
idea that this isn't something that we're aware of or we're concerned 
enough about as a student body," he said.
Wolkovitch remained optimistic about Harvard's potential to make an 
impact. "There's lots we can do, and Harvard is such an amazingly large 
voice in the world still to this day that it has a lot of 
opportunities," she said.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/11/30/climate-change-panel-debates/


*The Patterns of climate change 
<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204150732.htm>*
Date:    December 4, 2017
Source:    Universitaet Tübingen
Summary:
     Researchers have developed a technique to monitor and predict how 
plant species will respond to climate change. The experiment was 
conducted in an area the size of two football pitches within the Garraf 
National park south west of Barcelona. The landscape is mostly a 
Mediterranean scrubland, featuring thickets of low rise shrubs and herbs 
such as rosemary and thyme, and home to many protected species...
In this particular experiment, the overall species diversity and 
vegetative biomass did initially respond negatively, but from 8 to 16 
years the overall amount of vegetation was increasing again. Here the 
researchers showed that the initial decrease was due to a disappearance 
of the wet adapted species, followed by a delayed increase in the dry 
loving species. In addition, the novel ranking technique showed, that 
the species that declined under decreased rainfall, were different to 
those disappearing under increased temperatures....
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204150732.htm


*This Day in Climate History December 7, 2009 
<The%20EPA%20formally%20declares%20that%20greenhouse%20gases%20threaten%20public%20health.,http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/08d11a451131bca585257685005bf252%21OpenDocument> 
-  from D.R. Tucker*
December 7, 2009:
The EPA formally declares that greenhouse gases threaten public health.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/08d11a451131bca585257685005bf252!OpenDocument
http://youtu.be/KJeJOm1nQDg

On MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," Melanie Sloan of Citizens for 
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington discusses the ties between the 
Bush administration and the fossil fuel industry, and the right-wing 
effort to sabotage the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, 
Denmark.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/34320497
/
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