[TheClimate.Vote] October 18, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Oct 18 11:00:36 EDT 2017
/October 18, 2017/
*Tropical thunderstorms are set to grow stronger as the world warms
<https://phys.org/news/2017-10-tropical-thunderstorms-stronger-worldwarms.html>*
Thunderstorms represent the dramatic release of energy stored in the
atmosphere. One measure of this stored energy is called "convective
available potential energy", or CAPE. The higher the CAPE, the more
energy is available to power updrafts in clouds. Fast updrafts move ice
particles in the cold, upper regions of a thunderstorm rapidly upward
and downward through the storm. This helps to separate negatively and
positively charged particles in the cloud and eventually leads to
lightning strikes.
To create thunderstorms that cause damaging wind or hail ... a second
factor is also required... "vertical wind shear", ...and it helps to
organise thunderstorms so that their updrafts and downdrafts become
physically separated. This prevents the downdraft from cutting off the
energy source of the thunderstorm, allowing the storm to persist for longer.
These simulations predict that this century will bring a marked increase
in the frequency of conditions that favour severe thunderstorms, unless
greenhouse emissions can be significantly reduced.
Previous studies have made similar predictions for severe thunderstorms
in eastern Australia and the United States. But ours is the first to
study the tropics and subtropics as a whole, a region that is
characterised by some of the most powerful thunderstorms on Earth.
As the climate warms, the amount of water vapour required for cloud
formation increases. This is the result of a well-known thermodynamic
relationship called the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. In a warmer climate
this means the difference in the humidity between the clouds and their
surroundings becomes larger. As a result, the mixing mechanism becomes
more efficient in building up the available energy. This, we argue,
accounts for the increase in CAPE seen in our model simulations.
But it is clear that through our continued greenhouse gas emissions, we
are increasing the fuel available to the strongest thunderstorms.
Exactly how much stronger our future thunderstorms will ultimately
become remains to be seen.
https://phys.org/news/2017-10-tropical-thunderstorms-stronger-worldwarms.html
*(video) Tropical thunderstorms are set to grow stronger, here's why
<https://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/news/articles/climate-change-tropical-storm-thunderstorm-bigger-global-warming-study/87813/>*
The models predict that the energy available for thunderstorms will
increase as the Earth warms. But how much more intense will storms
actually become as a result?
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/news/articles/climate-change-tropical-storm-thunderstorm-bigger-global-warming-study/87813/
Scientific American
*Here's What We Know about Wildfires and Climate Change
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-what-we-know-about-wildfires-and-climate-change/>*
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-what-we-know-about-wildfires-and-climate-change/
*EPA Head Seeks to Avoid Settlements with Green Groups
<http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-epa-lawsuits/epa-head-seeks-to-avoid-settlements-with-green-groups-idUSKBN1CL2HK>*
EPA chief Scott Pruitt is trying to end the practice of settling
lawsuits with environmental groups behind closed doors, claiming the
groups have had too much influence on regulation. "The days of
regulation through litigation are over," Pruitt said.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who sued the agency he now runs more
than a dozen times in his former job as attorney general of oil
producing Oklahoma, has long railed against the so-called practice of
"sue and settle." The EPA under former President Barack Obama quietly
settled lawsuits from environmental groups with little input from
regulated entities, such as power plants, and state governments, he argues.
The directive seeks to make EPA more transparent about lawsuits by
reaching out to states and industry that could be affected by
settlements, forbidding the practice of entering into settlements that
exceed the authority of courts, and excluding attorney's fees and
litigation costs when settling with groups.
Most lawsuits by green groups on the agency seek to push the agency to
speed up regulation on issues such as climate and air and water
pollution, studies have shown.
"The days of regulation through litigation are over," Pruitt said. "We
will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and
settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the agency."
Pruitt's order was supported by conservative groups.
Daren Bakst, a research fellow in agricultural policy at the Heritage
Foundation think tank, said sue and settle has led to "egregious antics"
that have "effectively handed over the setting of agency priorities to
environmental pressure groups," and has led to rushed rulemaking by the
agency.
But Pat Parenteau, an environmental law professor at the Vermont Law
School, said Pruitt's directive would be "counterproductive" and costly
because in the end courts could fine the agency if it does not meet
compliance dates for issuing regulations.
"He can fight it if he wants as long as he wants, and spend as much
money as he wants," Parenteau said. "But in the end if you've missed a
statutory deadline, you are going to be ordered (by a court) to comply
and then you are going to be ordered to pay fees."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-epa-lawsuits/epa-head-seeks-to-avoid-settlements-with-green-groups-idUSKBN1CL2HK
*
****Climate change costing billions in extra road repairs
<https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/climate-change/climate-change-billions-dollars-road-repairs>*
By David Trilling
When engineers build roads, they use weather models to decide what kind
of pavement can withstand the local climate. Currently, many American
engineers use temperature data from 1964 to 1995 to select materials.
But the climate is changing.
...road engineers have selected materials inappropriate for current
temperatures 35 percent of the time over the past two decades.
"At present, engineers assume a stationary climate when selecting
pavement materials, meaning that they may be embedding an inherent
negative performance bias in pavements for decades to come," Underwood
and his colleagues write. Some of their findings:
Failing to adapt to warmer temperatures is adding 3 to 9 percent to the
cost of building and maintaining a road over 30 years.
The authors use two models of predicted warmer temperatures, which
suggest between $13.6 and $35.8 billion in extra or earlier-than-normal
repairs will be required for roads being built under the current models.
In the lower-temperature warming model, this translates to an annual
extra cost of between $0.8 billion and $1.3 billion; in the
higher-temperature warming model, it is an annual extra cost of between
$0.8 billion and $2.1 billion.
A road built to last 20 years will require repairs after 14 to 17 years
under these models.
In some cases, government transportation agencies are paying too much
for materials to withstand cold temperatures that do not currently (and
perhaps no longer) exist.
Because municipal governments in the United States work on tighter
road-maintenance budgets than state and federal transportation
departments, the extra financial strain will largely impact cities and
towns.
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/climate-change/climate-change-billions-dollars-road-repairs
*
Harvard Business Review
The 6 Ways Business Leaders Talk About Sustainability
<https://hbr.org/2017/10/the-6-ways-business-leaders-talk-about-sustainability>
*John Elkington
Capitalists focus on the financial returns from capital invested, and
most business leaders prioritize issues that are financially material.
For anyone with a pension linked to market performance, that is a good
thing. But this single-minded focus can be a major problem when it comes
to tackling slow-building, systemic challenges, like global warming,
that could take down not just supply chains but, over time, entire
economies.
A critical first step is to understand the different mental and
political frames currently in play. My colleagues and I see at least
six main frames at work in the sustainable business space. ..Having a
clearer grasp of these mental models can help business leaders to work
with others, both inside and outside their organizations, to build more
sustainable businesses.
*- The Resource Frame* ...The focus of people using a resources frame
to understand sustainability is often on waste reduction and
technological innovation.
*- The Time Frame *... Successful business leaders must evolve a much
more expansive view of time, no easy task. One way to expand your
thinking is to look to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, whose time
horizon is 2030; think of them as a purchase order from the future.
*- The Value Frame * Firms like [PUMA]... have created tools like
Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L) statements and Social Return on
Investment (SROI) to capture a more complete picture of their
businesses. ..Be wary of pricing everything that moves in the
environment and focusing too much on costs. Expand the focus from
today's business case for action to tomorrow's business models. Help
colleagues see the sustainability challenge as potentially the biggest
opportunity of their lifetimes.
*- The Design Frame * ... modelling 100 climate change solutions,
alongside our own work on Carbon Productivity - exploring how we can
best invest increasingly limited carbon budgets for environmental,
social and economic returns. Another example includes and biomimicry -
using lessons Nature learned over 3.8 billion years of evolution to find
solutions for climate change. Challenges of this frame: Design is
crucial, but market acceptance will depend on economics and politics.
Work to get those right, too.
*- The Abundance Frame * ... world of exponential (breakthrough)
solutions to exponential (breakdown) challenges, with pioneers including
the XPRIZE Foundation, Singularity University, and Google's X facility.
This worldview is powerfully shaped by excitement around the potential
of emerging technologies like machine learning and artificial
intelligence, robotics, the internet of things, autonomous vehicles, and
synthetic biology.
There will almost certainly be unintended consequences to any major
breakthrough, with even exponential entrepreneurs like Elon Musk
expressing growing concern about the societal implications of AI and
robotics.
*- The Moral Frame* ... growing concern that many leaders have lost
their moral compass. Ever since ... The Theory of Moral Sentiments,
preceding The Wealth of Nations, we have known that unregulated
capitalist values can be destructive. ...At a time when some MBA
courses still treat business ethics as a sort of sheep-dip treatment for
students, an elective, be careful not to sound moralistic or missionary.
And regularly test your moral compass readings with stakeholders likely
to be affected by the outcomes of your decisions.
Ultimately, the psychology and cultural anthropology of change will be
every bit as important as the politics and economics.
https://hbr.org/2017/10/the-6-ways-business-leaders-talk-about-sustainability
*
Climate Skeptics Want More CO2
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-skeptics-want-more-co2/>*
A key argument used to downplay the consequences of climate change is
resurfacing
It's true that an increase in available carbon dioxide can be a boon for
plants, which need it to make the food they turn into energy. In fact,
recent research published in Nature Climate Change has suggested that
rising CO2 levels have contributed to a global "greening" over the last
few decades, or an increase in the leaves on trees and other plants,
particularly in the rapidly warming Arctic.
But the idea that increasing CO2 will be a pure advantage for plants
everywhere ignores the negative side effects that human-induced climate
change may have on vegetation. In fact, research suggests that plants in
some parts of the world - including some staple food crops for people -
may actually come out the worse for it.
Another 2016 paper in Nature Communications, focusing on agriculture in
the United States, suggested that high temperatures may cause severe
reductions in the production of certain major crops, including corn and
soybeans. And the research indicated that higher CO2 concentrations
would not be enough to significantly offset these losses.
Some research has also suggested that rising CO2 concentrations may even
affect the nutritional value of crops, Anderegg pointed out, with
potential health consequences for the humans who rely on them for food.
A 2014 paper in Nature suggested that some beans and grains have lower
concentrations of zinc and iron when they're grown under elevated CO2
concentrations.
But as far as plants are concerned, Anderegg also noted that while the
science is still emerging, "on the whole, I think there's a general
understanding that the impacts of climate change are materializing
sooner and are more severe than they were a decade or two ago."
"The rosy optimistic scenarios where CO2 'wins' do exist, but there are
also plenty of scenarios where drought and temperature and disturbances
combined basically push global plants into accelerating climate change,"
he added.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-skeptics-want-more-co2/
*Preparing for Floods, Droughts and Water Shortages by Working with,
Rather than Against, Nature
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-10-17/preparing-for-floods-droughts-and-water-shortages-by-working-with-rather-than-against-nature/>*
By Sandra Postel on Oct 17, 2017
If disasters related to droughts, floods, and other extreme weather seem
more common globally, it's because they are: according to a United
Nations study, between 2005 and 2014, an average of 335 weather-related
disasters occurred per year, nearly twice the level recorded from 1985
to 1995.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the changes in weather patterns
and water flows that we're beginning to see as the planet warms call
into question the very assumptions that have underpinned our water
projects for decades. In 2008, seven top water scientists argued
persuasively in the journal Science that "stationarity"-the foundational
concept that hydrologic systems vary and fluctuate within a known set of
boundaries-is dead. When it comes to water, in other words, the past is
no longer a reliable guide to the future.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-10-17/preparing-for-floods-droughts-and-water-shortages-by-working-with-rather-than-against-nature/
*Academic Video Playlist: Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences MIT
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGyltbdkxta2IZXiv6EATiUiURplkNXN6&disable_polymer=true>*
Published on Mar 16, 2016/
/"Solving our Climate Challenges: Role of Basic Research"/
comment: MIT hosts this important series of lectures... It's college
level but not rocket surgery, but stay tuned because there are moments
eloquent expression. Generally, if curious or concerned it's really
interesting - academic anxiety at it's most perfect. It's all
understandable./
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGyltbdkxta2IZXiv6EATiUiURplkNXN6&disable_polymer=true
*Comprehensive Climate Risk Insurance Database Launched
<http://sdg.iisd.org/news/comprehensive-climate-risk-insurance-database-launched/>*
The Climate Insurance database aims to contribute to "successful and
sustainable" climate risk insurance projects in climate-vulnerable
countries through sharing best practice, and find innovative solutions.
The database claims to be the first independent, comprehensive source of
information on the numerous types of climate risk insurance available,
compiling information from several international organizations.
The database includes factsheets, videos and reports, compiled in a
searchable online catalogue that users can filter by type, topic,
country, region or organization.
http://sdg.iisd.org/news/comprehensive-climate-risk-insurance-database-launched/
*Conspiracy Theorists Have a Fundamental Cognitive Problem, Say
Scientists
<https://www.inverse.com/article/37463-conspiracy-beliefs-illusory-pattern-perception>*
And it can affect all of us.
By Sarah Sloat on October 17, 2017
The world's a scary, unpredictable place, and that makes your brain mad.
As a predictive organ, the brain is on the constant lookout for patterns
that both explain the world and help you thrive in it. That ability
helps humans make sense of the world: For example, you probably
understand by now that if you see red, that means that you should be on
the lookout for danger.
But as scientists report in a new paper published in the European
Journal of Social Psychology, sometimes people sense danger even when
there is no pattern to recognize - and so their brains create their own.
This phenomenon, called illusory pattern perception, they write, is what
drives people who believe in conspiracy theories, like climate change
deniers, 9/11 truthers, and "Pizzagate" believers.
The study is especially timely: Recent polls suggest that nearly 50
percent of ordinary, nonpathological Americans believe in at least one
conspiracy theory.
Illusory pattern perception - the act of seeking patterns that aren't
there - has been linked to belief in conspiracy theories before, but
that assumption has never really been supported with empirical evidence.
The British and Dutch scientists behind the new study are some of the
first to show that this explanation is in fact correct...
The researchers came to this conclusions after conducting five studies
on 264 Americans that focused on the relationship between irrational
beliefs and illusory pattern perception. Initial studies revealed that
the compulsion to find patterns in an observable situation was in fact
correlated with irrational beliefs: People who saw patterns in random
coin tosses and chaotic, abstract paintings were more likely to believe
in conspiratorial and supernatural theories.
Fortunately, other scientists have found a way to block the
pervasiveness of illusory pattern perception: critical thinking. In a
previous interview, North Carolina State University psychology professor
Anne McLaughlin told Inverse that critical thinking is something that
can be taught, and if people are trained in the right way, pseudoscience
and false conspiracies can be combated with logic and reasoning. The
brain may try to make false connections, but that doesn't mean you have
to believe it.
https://www.inverse.com/article/37463-conspiracy-beliefs-illusory-pattern-perception
*This Day in Climate History October 18, 1983
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/06/21/1101930/-A-Greenhouse-Effect-Warning-from-1983>
- from D.R. Tucker*
October 18, 1983: In what would be one of her last "News Digest"
broadcasts, NBC anchor Jessica Savitch mentions a recently released
EPA report on the consequences of carbon pollution.
https://youtu.be/2w4pFNCzhTg?t=43s
-
*A Greenhouse Effect Warning from 1983
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/06/21/1101930/-A-Greenhouse-Effect-Warning-from-1983>*
By soarbird
While cleaning out my office the other day, I found a yellowed newspaper
clipping with the headline, "Greenhouse effect viewed with alarm."
The article was dated Oct. 18, 1983:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A potentially catastrophic warming of the Earth
will start in the 1990s, disrupting food production and raising
coastal waters as the polar icecaps melt, the federal government
said in a report released today.
The study by the Environmental Protection Agency said the climatic
changes from the so-called "greenhouse effect" are unavoidable and
warned that the United States and other countries must begin
searching now for ways to mitigate the impact.
The report, titled "Can We Delay a Greenhouse Warming?" concluded
that even as drastic and unlikely a step as a total ban on coal
burning would delay by only 15 years a 3.6 degree increase in
average worldwide temperatures.
While other government studies have warned that the greenhouse
effect was a potential problem, the EPA report is the first to state
with certainty that the warming will occur no matter what.
The EPA study is based on earlier projections by the National
Academy of Sciences that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the air -
which could occur by the middle of the next century - would raise
present world temperatures within a range of 2.7 degrees to 8.1
degrees Fahrenheit.
This result is known as the greenhouse effect because carbon dioxide
acts like the glass in a greenhouse allowing the sun’s warming rays
to reach earth but not allowing the heat to escape.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/06/21/1101930/-A-Greenhouse-Effect-Warning-from-1983
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