[TheClimate.Vote] July 31, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News

Mon Jul 31 08:45:52 EDT 2017

/July 31, 2017/

*(video) Arctic journey shows the glaring effects of climate change 
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/arctic-journey-shows-glaring-effects-climate-change/>*
A Finnish icebreaker has completed the Northwest Sea passage, which 
links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the Arctic. The trip, from 
Vancouver to Greenland’s capital city Nuuk, took 24 days -- a new 
record, in part because climate change has melted sea ice, making the 
journey easier. Frank Jordans, an Associated Press reporter who took the 
trip, joins Hari Sreenivasan from Greenland.       video  3:41 
https://youtu.be/TT-GyHNQDbI
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/arctic-journey-shows-glaring-effects-climate-change/
*Icebreaker sets mark for earliest Northwest Passage transit 
<https://www.apnews.com/caf51d15f87e4542a9cec75ec3159bc0/Icebreaker-sets-mark-for-earliest-Northwest-Passage-transithttps://www.apnews.com/caf51d15f87e4542a9cec75ec3159bc0/Icebreaker-sets-mark-for-earliest-Northwest-Passage-transit>*
NUUK, Greenland (AP) - After 24 days at sea and a journey spanning more 
than 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles), the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica 
has set a new record for the earliest transit of the fabled Northwest 
Passage.
The once-forbidding route through the Arctic, linking the Pacific and 
the Atlantic oceans, has been opening up sooner and for a longer period 
each summer due to climate change. Sea ice that foiled famous explorers 
and blocked the passage to all but the hardiest ships has slowly been 
melting away in one of the most visible effects of man-made global warming.
https://www.apnews.com/caf51d15f87e4542a9cec75ec3159bc0/Icebreaker-sets-mark-for-earliest-Northwest-Passage-transit

*What's Missing from "An Inconvenient Sequel," Al Gore's New 
Climate-Change Documentary 
<http://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/whats-missing-from-an-inconvenient-sequel-al-gores-new-climate-change-documentary>*
Intentionally or unintentionally, "The Uninhabitable Earth" leaves room 
for something "An Inconvenient Sequel" does not: grief. The present and 
possible future ravages of climate change, on our own species and 
others, are enormously, often overwhelmingly sad, and most of us would 
rather not contemplate them. Wallace-Wells, as a journalist, isn’t 
professionally obligated to pivot away from the worst-case scenarios, 
and he makes the unusual decision to leave us staring at them. The 
vantage isn’t pleasant, but its provision feels, oddly, like a gesture 
of respect: for once, we’re given a chance to absorb and reflect, and, 
in time, find our own way to a response.
http://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/whats-missing-from-an-inconvenient-sequel-al-gores-new-climate-change-documentary

*
Where global warming gets real: inside Nasa's mission to the north pole 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/27/watching-ice-melt-inside-nasas-mission-to-the-north-pole>
*For 10 years, Nasa has been flying over the ice caps to chart their 
retreat. This data is an invaluable record of climate change. But does 
anyone care? By Avi Steinberg
Thursday 27 July 2017
 From the window of a Nasa aircraft flying over the Arctic, looking down 
on the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, it’s easy to see why it 
is so hard to describe climate change. The scale of polar ice, so 
dramatic and so clear from a plane flying at 450 metres (1,500ft) - high 
enough to appreciate the scope of the ice and low enough to sense its 
mass - is nearly impossible to fathom when you aren’t sitting at that 
particular vantage point.
But it’s different when you are there, cruising over the ice for hours, 
with Nasa’s monitors all over the cabin streaming data output, 
documenting in real time - dramatising, in a sense - the depth of the 
ice beneath. You get it, because you can see it all there in front of 
you, in three dimensions.
Imagine a thousand centuries of heavy snowfall, piled up and compacted 
into stone-like ice atop the bedrock of Greenland, an Arctic island 
almost a quarter the size of the US. Imagine all of modern human 
history, from the Neolithic revolution 12,000 years ago - when humans 
moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from there, 
eventually, to urban societies - until today. All of the snow that fell 
on the Arctic during that entire history is gathered up in just the top 
layers of the ice sheet.
Imagine the dimensions of that ice: 1.71m sq km (656,000 sq miles), 
three times the size of Texas. At its belly - from the top layer, 
yesterday’s snowfall, to the bottom layer, which is made of snow that 
fell out of the sky 115,000-130,000 years ago - it reaches 3,200 metres 
(10,500ft) thick, nearly four times taller than the world’s highest 
skyscraper.
Imagine the weight of this thing: at the centre of Greenland, the ice is 
so heavy that it warps the land itself, pushing bedrock 359 metres 
(1,180ft) below sea level. Under its own immense weight, the ice comes 
alive, folding and rolling in solid streams, in glaciers that slowly 
push outward. This is a head-spinningly dynamic system that we still 
don’t fully understand - and that we really ought to learn far more 
about, and quickly. In theory, if this massive thing were fully drained, 
and melted into the sea, the water contained in it would make the 
world’s oceans rise by 7 metres (23ft).
When you fly over entire mountain ranges whose tips barely peek out from 
under the ice - and these are just the visible ones - it’s possible to 
imagine what would happen if even a fraction of this quantity of pent-up 
freshwater were unleashed. You can plainly see how this thing would 
flood the coasts of the world, from Brooklyn to Bangladesh.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/27/watching-ice-melt-inside-nasas-mission-to-the-north-pole*
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html

*
*Wildfires in Provence: locals blame climate change and arson 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/29/wildfires-provence-locals-blame-climate-change-arson>*
An academic study published this month for the international Society for 
Risk Analysis by two French experts on biodiversity and forest fire 
management suggests that official policy places too little emphasis on 
prevention in the first place, while bans on fire use for agricultural 
purposes have led to the disappearance of a "fire-wise" culture among 
communities.
The authors Thibaut Fréjaville and Thomas Curt argue that the 
suppression policy itself may even have resulted in the build-up of 
biomass that increases the hazard of massive fires and lengthens the 
wildfire "season".
Strongly questioning the sustainability of the fire policy pursued by 
France and other Mediterranean countries, the authors warn that the 
approach could be the origin of a new generation of wildfires that will 
prove even more intense and difficult to suppress.
Back in Carros, there is optimism that moves to plant new trees and 
repair forest beds can produce tangible results within 10 years.
"It has been one of our green lungs and so has been extremely important 
to us," said the mayor, Scibetta. "We do have other forests but it is 
still sad to see it being destroyed like this."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/29/wildfires-provence-locals-blame-climate-change-arson

*This Day in Climate History July 31, 2006 
<http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/whats-causing-the-heat-wave/> -  from 
D.R. Tucker*
July 31, 2006: "CBS Evening News" connects the climate dots in a story 
about dangerous heat levels.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/whats-causing-the-heat-wave/

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