[TheClimate.Vote] December 11, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Dec 11 09:34:38 EST 2017
/December 11, 2017/
[Special Broadcast: Juliana v. U.S. Oral Argument 12/11/17]
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbMusuRVQqw&feature=share*
Juliana v. U.S. Oral Argument
Youth are pursuing a climate lawsuit against the U.S. asserting that,
through the government's affirmative actions that cause climate change,
it has violated the youngest generation's constitutional rights to life,
liberty, and property, and failed to protect essential public trust
resources. The Justice Department seeks the dismissal of the case at an
oral argument hearing which will be streamed live on Climate Monitor and
at ClimateMonitor.tv on Monday, December 11, 2017 at 10 am Pacific/1 pm
Eastern. After the event, the program will be available on-demand. For
more information, visit OurChildrensTrust.org...
The youth plaintiffs are inspiring and courageous voices in speaking out
for the rights of their generation, and this is a big moment to show
solidarity...
There's a solidarity rally outside the courthouse - if you are in SF or
can invite others:
https://www.facebook.com/events/401656076918607/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoBr3dwKlBfs7ojhUVd7L_w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbMusuRVQqw&feature=share
*New evacuations ordered in Santa Barbara County as Thomas fire grows to
more than 200000 acres
<http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-thomas-fire-santa-barbara-fire-20171210-story.html>*
Santa Barbara County was under siege from the Thomas fire Sunday as fire
crews fought to keep the destructive blaze from the region's picturesque
beach communities.
Authorities said the out-of-control blaze had scorched more than 200,000
acres by Sunday afternoon, growing by more than 25,000 acres during the
day and triggering new evacuation orders for residents east of Mission
Canyon and north of Highway 192...
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-thomas-fire-santa-barbara-fire-20171210-story.html
-
*Chart: Rising Cost of Fighting Wildfires in California*
<http://www.climatesignals.org/resources/chart-rising-cost-fighting-wildfires-california>
http://www.climatesignals.org/resources/chart-rising-cost-fighting-wildfires-california
-
*Smoke from Thomas Fire affects air quality in California
<http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/12/10/smoke-from-thomas-fire-affects-air-quality-in-california/>*
The Thomas Fire is having a significant effect on the air quality in
California. Some areas downwind of the fire to the northwest had
"unhealthy" conditions at 2 p.m. Sunday, including Santa Barbara and
Goleta.
http://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ThomasFire_Sat_smoke_12-10.jpg
http://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/AirQuality_2pmPST_12-10.jpg
Forecasts show that smoke and ash will continue to affect the southern
part of Santa Barbara County for the next several days.
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/12/10/smoke-from-thomas-fire-affects-air-quality-in-california/
[SNOPES truth check=TRUE]
*The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 calls for eliminating or severely
curtailing the personal casualty deduction for losses from wildfires and
other natural disasters.
<https://www.snopes.com/tax-bill-deduction-losses-wildfires/>*
Provisions in the 2017 tax reform bill that would eliminate or restrict
tax deductions for uninsured personal losses in natural disasters came
under criticism in early December as devastating wildfires raged out of
control in southern California.
One popular social media post made its point by quoting a 7 November
article in the Los Angeles Times:
WHILE CALIFORNIA BURNS: Los Angeles Times
"The House Republican tax bill would eliminate the deduction for
personal losses from wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters."
The larger point remained true...that going forward victims of natural
disasters would no longer have this tool - or at best would only have
limited use of it - to help recoup casualty losses.
https://www.snopes.com/tax-bill-deduction-losses-wildfires/
[video 0:59]
*Footage of starving polar bear exposes climate change impact
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2017/dec/09/footage-of-starving-polar-bear-exposes-climate-change-impact-video>*
Video filmed in the Canadian Arctic provides graphic evidence of the
impact of climate change on polar bears in the region, showing an
emaciated animal scrounging for food on ice-free land. The footage was
recorded by the conservation group Sea Legacy during a late summer
expedition in Baffin Island. 'My entire Sea Legacy team was pushing
through their tears and emotions while documenting this dying polar
bear,' the photographer Paul Nicklen wrote on social media.
'Soul-crushing' video of starving polar bear exposes climate crisis,
experts say
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2017/dec/09/footage-of-starving-polar-bear-exposes-climate-change-impact-video
[Denialism]
*Conspiracy Theorists, Climate Change Deniers, & The Rejection of
Science
<https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/10/conspiracy-theorists-climate-change-deniers-rejection-science/>*
December 10th, 2017 by Michael Barnard
Research and publications about conspiracy ideation from 2012 and 2013
are newly relevant in today's political climate. The US is led by a
Denier in Chief who rose to power in part based on his strident
trumpeting of conspiracy theories about Obama's birth. He's appeared on
Alex Jones's Infowars, conspiracy theory central in 2017. His followers
believe things which boggle the imagination, including that some of the
most respected news agencies in the world are leftist providers of fake
news.
The focus of CleanTechnica, of course, is on the climate change angle.
Cleantech is a major part of the solution to the problem, and climate
change denial is a major reason why we haven't made more progress on
this critical issue...
The research shows a strong overlap between climate change deniers and
conspiracy theorists, and many of them are happy about it. Not all
climate change "skeptics" are conspiracy theorists, but belief in one or
more conspiracy theories is a very strong predictor of denial of climate
science, and denial of climate science is a decent predictor of belief
in conspiracy theories.
The pre-eminent researcher on this topic is Professor Stephan
Lewandowsky, PhD, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan_Lewandowsky>
chair of cognitive psychology at the University of Bristol in the UK.
Professor Lewandowsky has published over 20 studies
<https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-research-papers-or-books-on-climate-change-denial/answer/Michael-Barnard-14>
on the phenomenon of climate change denial. It's directly in his area of
expertise as a cognitive scientist,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science> someone who studies
how the mind processes information and assesses data...
...Reality can be ignored for only so long.
These attacks are part and parcel of the increasing anger of climate
change deniers
<https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/02/climate-change-deniers-getting-angrier-heres/>
as they are forced off position after position, with their tissue-thin
intellectual pretensions becoming apparent even to them. It's part and
parcel of the increasing violence
<https://www.quora.com/What-instances-of-attempted-murder-or-significant-violence-have-occurred-against-wind-industry-personnel/answer/Michael-Barnard-14>
seen among anti-wind protestors.
The USA especially is in a challenging place right now. A significant
portion of the populace, although not a majority, believes a variety of
things which are provably false and appear immune to reason and fact.
They are supported by a president who has ridden their willful ignorance
to a powerful position, and in turn he continues to feed their warped
world view. The USA was built as much on engineering and science as on
capitalism. Rejecting it will only hurt a great country, and by
extension, the world.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/10/conspiracy-theorists-climate-change-deniers-rejection-science/
*Climate Change Intensifies Winter Extremes
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/10/climate-change-intensifies-winter-extremes/>*
by greenman3610
*Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA 2017)
<https://youtu.be/H9G7UnTCjPg>*
The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme's Snow, Water, Ice
and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) assessment focuses on changes
to the Arctic cryosphere (the portion of the Arctic land and water
that is seasonally or perennially frozen), and the implications of
those changes. The second SWIPA assessment, which covers the period
2011–2015, with some updates to include observations from 2016 and
early 2017, was published in 2017. Fact sheet report on 2017's
findings related to recent observed changes in the Arctic
https://www.amap.no/documents/doc/swipa-2017-press-material/1544
https://youtu.be/H9G7UnTCjPg
First four minutes of above video is relevant to current weather
extremes across the US. I'm in New Orleans and they were canceling
flights due to snow friday December 8. Still quite cold tonight.
Meanwhile watching fire footage from hot, dry, west. Washington Post:
The explosive brush fires
(Washington Post)The overarching weather pattern responsible for the
contrasting extremes between the coasts is known as the North
American Winter Dipole. It is fancy term to describe abnormally warm
conditions in the West and cold conditions in the East. Under such a
pattern, the jet stream, the super highway for storms that divides
cold and warm air, surges north in the western half of the nation,
and crashes south in the eastern half.
Such a pattern is developing over the United States right now.
It is the same pattern that was responsible for California's
historic drought from 2013 to 2016. UCLA climate scientist Daniel
Swain coined the term "ridiculously resilient ridge" to describe the
bulging jet stream along the West Coast. It blocked rain-bearing
storms from penetrating inland and was associated with a pool of
warm water known as the "blob" - which drew north a host of sea
creatures seldom or previously never seen along parts of the Pacific
Coast.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/06/17/red-crabs-swarm-southern-california-linked-to-warm-blob-in-pacific/?utm_term=.ac6903d576ef>
On the downhill side of this relentless ridge, where the jet
stream plunged in the eastern U.S., the polar vortex was unleashed,
particularly in the winters of 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. Brutal
blasts of frigid air punished cities from Minneapolis to New York.
This dipole pattern has shown a tendency to happen more frequently
in recent decades as the climate has warmed. Swain, author of the
popular California Weather Blog, wrote,
<http://weatherwest.com/archives/5982> "There has indeed been an
increase in the number of days each winter characterized by
simultaneously very warm temperatures across the American West and
very cold temperatures across the East."
"Using climate model simulations, we further found that an
increase in extreme temperature dipole days like those we've
observed in recent years is considerably more likely in a climate
with rising greenhouse gas concentrations than in a hypothetical
climate without human influence," Swain wrote, citing a study he
contributed to last year
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JD025116/full>.
https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/10/climate-change-intensifies-winter-extremes/
[California Weather Blog]
*New insights into the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge & North American
Winter Dipole <http://weatherwest.com/archives/5982>*
*A timely example: Persistent Western ridge, Eastern trough next 2+ weeks*
In the coming days, a remarkably persistent weather pattern will begin
to develop across North America and adjacent ocean regions.
Characterized by strong high pressure near the West Coast and low
pressure over the Eastern Seaboard, this "quasi-stationary,"
high-amplitude atmospheric wave pattern will essentially become locked
in place for at least the next 2 weeks. Patterns like this have a
tendency to become self-reinforcing, lasting for much longer than more
typical transient weather patterns and leading to prolonged stretches of
unusual weather. This particular event will be no exception: California
(and much of the West Coast) will almost certainly experience an
extended, multi-week warm and dry spell, while much of the East Coast
shivers through repeated blasts of cold, Arctic air.
*Recap: Origins of the "Triple R" and California's severe drought*
In 2013, a curious feature began to emerge on the weather maps: a region
of unusually high atmospheric pressure (known as a "ridge" in
meteorological circles) was consistently pushing the Pacific jet stream
to the north of California, resulting in very dry conditions. At the
time, I (somewhat jokingly) termed this anomalous high pressure zone the
"Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" due to its implausible longevity,
assuming that it would most likely recede by the subsequent blog post.
Instead, the "Triple R" held strong straight through the entire
winter-and then recurred, in slightly modified form, throughout the
winters of 2014-2015 and 2015-2016...
Average position of the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" over the course
of the 2012-2015 portion of the California drought. (Adapted from Swain
2015)
The multi-year persistence of this anomalous atmospheric ridge was
nothing short of extraordinary. The co-occurrence of record low
precipitation and record high temperatures associated with the Triple R
ultimately yielded California's most severe multi-year drought on record...
Two key points ...
1) Atmospheric pressure patterns similar to the Triple R are now
occurring more frequently than they did in previous decades.
2) The unprecedented magnitude and persistence of recent West Coast
ridging can be traced (at least in part) to regionally-accentuated
warming of the lower atmosphere....
Ultimately, we confirm that unusual ocean temperatures are linked to
seasonally-persistent West Coast winter ridging similar to the Triple R.
Tropical warmth (in the West Pacific) and coolness (in the East Pacific)
are both linked to different patterns of North Pacific winter ridging,
and may offer an early warning of seasons with an elevated risk of dry
conditions in California. Interestingly, tropical Pacific Ocean
temperatures during autumn 2017 were warm in the west and cool in the
east amidst a modest (and ongoing) La Nina event-a combination that
suggests a substantially elevated likelihood of West Coast ridging this
winter. To date, Southern California has experienced one of its driest
starts to the Water Year on record, and strikingly persistent West Coast
ridging is now expected to last at least two weeks. It will certainly be
interesting to see how this winter plays out in the context of these new
research findings.
http://weatherwest.com/archives/5982
*THE MOST NORTHERLY TOWN IN THE WORLD IS AT RISK OF DISAPPEARING...
<http://www.joboneforhumanity.org/the_most_northerly_town_in_the_world_is_at_risk_of_disappearing>*
LONGYEARBYEN, Norway - It's freezing, snowing and so far north that the
sun won't rise again until March, but the 2,000 residents of the world's
most northerly town wish it were much colder...
That's because the weather here on Norway's Arctic Circle island of
Svalbard is tame in comparison to what it should be, despite the icy
breeze that flows in from the sea.
Residents and experts fear this tight-knit community - where polar bears
outnumber people - is at risk of disappearing because temperatures are
rising at an accelerated pace compared to the rest of the world.
"Every single consecutive month has been above average," said Kim
Holmen, international director of the Norwegian Polar Institute. "We
have tremendous increase in the wintertime temperatures, almost 10
degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) increase over the past 30 years
or so."
"Wherever I look there is change, very obvious change. The snow melts
earlier in the spring, the glaciers are diminishing by a foot, 2 feet
per year in thickness," Holmen said from the Svalbard Science Center in
Longyearbyen. "It influences life, it influences the landscape, and it
influences the people, of course."
Melting permafrost and higher temperatures have caused havoc here in
recent years, triggering sometimes deadly avalanches on the steep
mountains that flank the town. Houses have been destroyed, while roads
and some areas have been closed or declared unsafe to live because of
the risk.
Within the past two years, hundreds of residents have been affected,
some having to evacuate from their homes.
...It's a community of misfits from around the world, as one resident
described the town, yet the concern is people may not want to stay as
more parts of town become unsafe and life invariably gets tougher.
There's also a clear pride in living in such an isolated and unique part
of world, which helps foster the town's remarkable spirit that
transforms the dark, winter months into a period of cozy community
gatherings and communal projects.
While people in other far north communities struggle with seasonal
affective disorder - a winter depression from little sunlight - the
illness is barely seen in Longyearbyen.
Yet with the annual average temperature of Longyearbyen expected to
reach above freezing in the next year or two - a phenomenon never seen
in the town's recorded history - there's frustration and anger.
"Man has changed the atmosphere," Holmen lamented. "There are many
people I hear now who are discussing moving down (to mainland Norway).
But (Longyearbyen) is still a place that many newcomers find extremely
attractive, and many fall in love with it. It is resilient."
http://www.joboneforhumanity.org/the_most_northerly_town_in_the_world_is_at_risk_of_disappearing
<http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/11/us/action-is-urged-to-avert-global-climate-shift.html>*This
Day in Climate History December 11, 1985
<http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/11/us/action-is-urged-to-avert-global-climate-shift.html>
- from D.R. Tucker*
December 11, 1985: The New York Times reports:
"A group of senators and scientists today called for national and
international action to avert a predicted warming of the earth's
climate resulting from a buildup of carbon dioxide and other man-made
gases in the atmosphere.
"They warned at a Senate hearing that such an effect, like that of a
greenhouse, would produce radical climate changes and a subsequent
rise in ocean levels that could have catastrophic results in the next
century unless steps were taken now to deal with the problem.
"Senator Albert Gore Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, said he would
introduce legislation to expand and focus scientific efforts on this
greenhouse effect.
"At a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Toxic Substances and
Environmental Oversight, Mr. Gore said his bill would call for 'an
international year of scientific study of the greenhouse effect and
would request that the President take steps to begin this worldwide
cooperative investigation.'"
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/11/us/action-is-urged-to-avert-global-climate-shift.html
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