[TheClimate.Vote] September 10, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News

Sun Sep 10 09:47:37 EDT 2017

/September 10, 2017/
*
<http://www.weather.gov/>**National Weather Service 
<http://www.weather.gov/>*

  * NHC issuing advisories for the Atlantic onHurricane Irma
    <http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Irma>andHurricane Jose
    <http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Jose>
  * Key Messages regarding Hurricane Irma
    <http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/news/AL112017_key_messages.png?044>
  * Audio Podcasts <http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/audio/>regarding Irma now
    available
  * Local information on Irma:Key West
    <http://www.weather.gov/key>,Miami
    <http://www.weather.gov/mfl>,Tampa
    <http://www.weather.gov/tbw>,Melbourne <http://www.weather.gov/mlb>

*http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Irma

FCC Federal Communications Commission Communications Status Report 
<https://apps.fcc.gov>
*The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB) learns the 
status of each Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) through the filings 
of 911 Service Providers in the Disaster Information Reporting System 
(DIRS), through reporting done to the FCC's Public Safety Support Center 
(PSSC), coordination with state 911 Administrators and, if necessary, 
individual PSAPs.*
*
*Hurricane Irma Communications Status Report for Sept. 9*
Released Date: 09/09/2017
Description: Hurricane Irma Communications Status Report for Sept. 9
*Documents:*
PDF :DOC-346632A1.pdf 
<https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-346632A1.pdf>
Text :DOC-346632A1.txt 
<https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-346632A1.txt>

https://apps.fcc.gov *Search for  "Communications Status Report" *

*
**Why social media apps should be in your disaster kit 
<https://theconversation.com/why-social-media-apps-should-be-in-your-disaster-kit-83743>**
*With floodwaters at four feet and rising, a family in Houston, Texas 
abandoned their possessions and scrambled to their roof during Hurricane 
Harvey to sit with their pets and await rescue. Unable to reach first 
responders through 911 and with no one visible nearby, they used their 
cellphones to send out a call for help through a social media 
application called Nextdoor.
Within an hour a neighbor arrived in an empty canoe large enough to 
carry the family and their pets to safety. Thanks to a collaboration 
with Nextdoor, we learned of this and hundreds of similar rescues across 
Harvey's path.
This story illustrates the power of systems like Nextdoor, an app 
designed to make communication between neighbors easy. Survivors in 
Houston have been using social media platforms such as Facebook, 
Nextdoor and Twitter to connect to rescuers, organize food and medical 
supplies, and find places for people to stay....
https://theconversation.com/why-social-media-apps-should-be-in-your-disaster-kit-83743

*Miami Mayor To Donald Trump: It's Time To Talk About Climate Change 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/miami-mayor-climate-change-hurricane-irma_us_59b417dee4b0b5e5310683ae>
*Miami's Republican mayor says this year's record-breaking hurricanes 
are likely a result of climate change, and is calling on President 
Donald Trump ― who once dismissed global warming as a hoax created "by 
and for the Chinese" ― to acknowledge the connection.
Thousands of Miami residents are among more than 6.3 million Floridians 
who have been ordered to evacuate as Hurricane Irma charges toward the 
state ― potentially the largest evacuation in U.S. history.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/miami-mayor-climate-change-hurricane-irma_us_59b417dee4b0b5e5310683ae*
**

**(audio + transcript) How Climate Change Exacerbates Hurricanes 
<http://www.npr.org/2017/09/09/549690224/how-climate-change-exacerbates-hurricanes>*
As Irma approaches the U.S. and Jose spins in the Atlantic, many are 
wondering what hurricanes' connection to climate change might be.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Hurricane Irma's had winds of 185 miles per hour for 37 hours straight 
at one point. That's a record. Right behind Irma, of course, is another 
hurricane, Jose - not as big but still very dangerous, as Texas still 
dries out from its encounter last week with the enormous Hurricane 
Harvey, which makes a lot of people wonder, how unusual is this sequence 
of hurricanes? Is this our future? And is this climate change at work? 
Here to talk about that is NPR science correspondent Christopher Joyce. ..
JOYCE: Very hard to predict. Natural things unrelated to climate change 
cause hurricanes to happen. You know, we saw this with Harvey. There was 
a high pressure system over the United States that made it stall and 
rain more over Houston. That's not related to climate change clearly. 
Some people think it is, but it's difficult to say. But at the same 
time, the heat is the essence here. And climate scientists are pretty 
sure that at least one thing is clear. We're going to ratchet things up 
the hotter it gets. The ocean absorbs that heat, and we'll get 
hurricanes that get ratcheted up a little bit. Some get ratcheted up a 
lot. But the more we heat up the oceans, the more we're going to get 
big, big storms.
SIMON: Same time as we've had these hurricanes, of course, there have 
been some huge wildfires that have been burning in the West. Do 
scientists believe climate change is at work there, too?
JOYCE: That's a tougher link. Again, so many things cause wildfires, not 
least of which is a hundred years of suppressing wildfires. The Forest 
Service, Smokey the Bear - has suppressed it, meaning a lot of fuel has 
grown up, a lot of underbrush. So when it does burn, it burns hotter and 
bigger. That said, again, heat makes a big difference. It's been hotter 
than normal. When you have heat, you suck more moisture out of the land. 
You suck more moisture out of the vegetation. It's drier. Poof. You get 
maybe not more fires, but you get big ones.
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/09/549690224/how-climate-change-exacerbates-hurricanes

*Major news networks are failing to explain that Hurricane Harvey was 
fueled by climate change* 
<https://qz.com/1073580/major-news-networks-are-failing-to-explain-that-hurricane-harvey-was-fueled-by-climate-change/>
Climate change is taking us to uncharted territory, fueling storms that 
were previously unimaginable. Warm water, humid air and rising seas 
conspired to make Harvey an uncommonly destructive storm. Pennsylvania 
State University climate scientist Michael Mann said that climate change 
"worsened the impact of Hurricane Harvey." Kevin Trenberth of the 
National Center for Atmospheric Research told The Atlantic, "The human 
contribution can be up to 30% or so of the total rainfall coming out of 
the storm."
Despite the considerable evidence that human hands made Harvey more 
severe, climate change received limited mention in the news coverage. 
Some outlets - including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, 
The Atlantic, Politico, Vox, and ThinkProgress - noted the human 
fingerprint on Harvey. TV news programs on CNN, MSNBC, and PBS also 
discussed the climate link. But the major broadcast networks paid scant 
attention to the role of climate change in the worst rainstorm in US 
history.
An analysis from Media Matters found that over the last two weeks only 
one of the three major networks discussed climate change. While CBS 
touched on the issue in interviews with experts on CBS This Morning, CBS 
Evening News and CBS Morning News, ABC and NBC made no mention of 
climate science.
When someone gets hit by a bullet, people want to know who fired the gun.
"Imagine that after the 9/11 attacks, the conversation had been limited 
to the tragedy in Lower Manhattan, the heroism of rescuers and the high 
heels of the visiting first lady - without addressing the risks of 
future terrorism," wrote Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times. "That's 
how we have viewed Hurricane Harvey in Houston, as a gripping human 
drama but without adequate discussion of how climate change increases 
risks of such cataclysms.".
https://qz.com/1073580/major-news-networks-are-failing-to-explain-that-hurricane-harvey-was-fueled-by-climate-change/

*Climate change and capitalism: We can't confront one without facing the 
other 
<http://www.salon.com/2017/09/09/climate-change-and-capitalism-we-cant-confront-one-without-facing-the-other/>*
  After Harvey and Irma we also have a moral duty to talk about the 
economic system that has brought us to this point. That is, we can no 
longer talk about climate change without talking about capitalism, which 
has laid waste to our planet and now impedes humanity's effort to deal 
with the climate crisis it engendered.
This was of course the thesis of Naomi Klein's 2014 book, "This Changes 
Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate," in which the author and 
activist posed climate change as a “battle between capitalism and the 
planet." Klein convincingly argues that without radical changes to our 
economic system, we will ultimately fail to confront climate change in 
the radical way that is necessary in order to preserve our planet for 
future generations.  "We have not done the things that are necessary to 
lower emissions," writes Klein, "because those things fundamentally 
conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the 
entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis."
http://www.salon.com/2017/09/09/climate-change-and-capitalism-we-cant-confront-one-without-facing-the-other/

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Library (NOAA)
*Global Warming and Hurricanes  An Overview of Current Research Results 
<https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/>*
In this review, we address these questions in the context of published 
research findings. We will first present the main conclusions and then 
follow with some background discussion of the research that leads to 
these conclusions....
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

*Will Irma Finally Change the Way We Talk About Climate? 
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/will-irma-finally-change-the-way-we-talk-about-climate.html>*
By  David Wallace-Wells
This month of extreme weather demolishes the old economic-cost 
paradigm-or should, if we could let ourselves really see climate change 
for what it is and what it does. Last week, Hurricane Harvey - an 
"unprecedented" storm, it was said, a "thousand year flood" - became the 
most expensive hurricane in American history, with damage running as 
high as $200 billion. A week later, we are looking at an even more 
unprecedentedly destructive storm, with Hurricane Irma now predicted to 
move up the Florida peninsula, potentially laying waste to Tampa and 
other cities along the state's west coast, as well as Orlando and much 
of central Florida. Early estimates of potential damage run as far north 
as Atlanta and as high as $1 trillion.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/will-irma-finally-change-the-way-we-talk-about-climate.html

*Trump stacks administration with climate change skeptics 
<http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/349877-climate-skeptics-on-the-rise-in-trumps-epa>*
President Trump has stacked his administration with officials who doubt 
the scientific consensus behind man-made climate change, underscoring a 
growing divide within the Republican party.
Even as leading scientists, environmentalists and most Democrats accept 
research that shows climate change accelerating - and as some see it 
contributing to the two mammoth hurricanes that have threatened the 
United States this year - some in Trump's administration have openly 
raised doubts.
Under George W. Bush, Schaeffer said, "you had that pressure from [Vice 
President Dick] Cheney, which EPA had to buckle to." But, "the agency 
was continuing to run the science, and try to invest in voluntary 
programs - energy efficiency - even under Bush, and I don't see that 
from this guy."
Trump  's approach to climate change research has emboldened those who 
have waged years-long campaigns against the scientific consensus.
"People who were fighting it for a long time, they saw in Trump, for the 
first time in a long time, a real ally," said Sterling Burnett, a 
researcher at the Heartland Institute, a think tank that questions 
climate science.
The group was an early backer of the "red team, blue team" exercise 
Pruitt has pitched for climate science. Burnett said he hopes such a 
review leads Trump to target other climate-related activities, including 
the U.S.'s involvement in international climate treaties and the federal 
finding that greenhouse gases harm public health and need to be regulated.
Trump, he said, focuses on "what he called 'Make America Great Again:' 
building jobs, energy dominance ... and he recognizes you can't do that 
if you're doing what Obama did on climate change."
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/349877-climate-skeptics-on-the-rise-in-trumps-epa

*Global Warming Evolution: Wildlife Shrinkage on the Rise 
<http://earthtalk.org/global-warming-evolution-wildlife-shrinkage-rise/>*
Roddy Scheer 08/25/2017
/Dear EarthTalk: Could global warming really already be a factor in the 
evolution of wildlife species? - Vince Dominick, Camden, N.J./
No doubt the quickly changing climate is already triggering various 
evolutionary shifts in a wide range of species.  And while we can't be 
sure just how different wildlife species will adapt (or not), scientists 
are already noticing some surprising changes as a result of rising 
surface and ocean temperatures thanks to human-induced global warming.
...scientists from the University of British Columbia, found that the 
body size of larger fish species decreases 20 to 30 percent for every 
one-degree Celsius increase in water temperature, given their gills' 
inability to keep up in our warmer and increasingly oxygen-deprived 
seas. (The top 2,000 feet of the ocean water column has warmed 0.3 
degrees Fahrenheit since 1969, and the speed of the warming is faster 
than ever.) The researchers add that smaller fish are likely to have an 
advantage given that their body sizes are less likely to outgrow their 
respiratory systems. The result could be a profound shift in marine food 
webs with untold consequences for the health of the ocean, not to 
mention the state of our dinner plates (nearly a billion people around 
the world rely on fish as a primary source of protein).
And there's proof that global warming is shrinking wildlife species on 
land, too. An October 2014 study by scientists at Durham University in 
Britain found that chamois mountain goats in the Italian Alps weigh 25 
percent less than their same age counterparts did 30 years ago. 
University of Maryland researchers found that six out of seven species 
of U.S. salamanders studied have shrunk an average of eight percent 
overall since the 1950s, with each successive generation shrinking in 
average body size by one percent. Another example comes from a National 
University of Singapore study that found that ectotherms (toads, 
turtles, snakes) are also shrinking around the world in response to 
hotter climatic conditions.
...we may actually be underestimating how much climate change is 
affecting wildlife populations. The analysis of 130 studies on the 
ecological consequences of climate change revealed that 47 percent of 
land mammals and 23 percent of birds - more than 700 wildlife species 
overall - have already been affected by global warming.
CONTACTS: Fish study: 
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13831/abstract; goats: 
www.dur.ac.uk/biosciences/about/news/?itemno=22559; salamanders: 
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12550/abstract; broad footprint: 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13831/abstract 
http://earthtalk.org/global-warming-evolution-wildlife-shrinkage-rise/
*Sound physiological knowledge and principles in modeling shrinking of 
fishes under climate change 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13831/abstract>*
Pauly & Cheung
Abstract
One of the main expected responses of marine fishes to ocean warming is 
decrease in body size, as supported by evidence from empirical data and 
theoretical modeling. The theoretical underpinning for fish shrinking is 
that the oxygen supply to large fish size cannot be met by their gills, 
whose surface area cannot keep up with the oxygen demand by their 
three-dimensional bodies. However, Lefevre et al. (Global Change 
Biology, 2017, 23, 3449-3459) argue against such theory. Here, we 
re-assert, with the Gill-Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT), that gills, 
which must retain the properties of open surfaces because their growth, 
even while hyperallometric, cannot keep up with the demand of growing 
three-dimensional bodies. Also, we show that a wide range of biological 
features of fish and other water-breathing organisms can be understood 
when gill area limitation is used as an explanation. We also note that 
an alternative to GOLT, offering a more parsimonious explanation for 
these features of water-breathers has not been proposed. Available 
empirical evidence corroborates predictions of decrease in body sizes 
under ocean warming based on GOLT, with the magnitude of the predicted 
change increases when using more species-specific parameter values of 
metabolic scaling.
"Lizards will be fine, birds will be fine," Huber said, noting that life 
has thrived in hotter climates than even the most catastrophic 
projections for anthropogenic global warming. This is one reason to 
suspect that the collapse of civilisation might come long before we 
reach a proper biological mass extinction. Life has endured conditions 
that would be unthinkable for a highly networked global society 
partitioned by political borders. Of course we're understandably 
concerned about the fate of civilisation and Huber says that, mass 
extinction or not, it's our tenuous reliance on an ageing and inadequate 
infrastructure, perhaps, most ominously, on power grids, coupled with 
the limits of human physiology that may well bring down our world.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13831/abstract.

*(book mention)  This is how your world could end 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/09/this-is-how-your-world-could-end-climate-change-global-warming>*
...the book Ends of the World, Peter Brannen 
<https://www.amazon.com/Ends-World-Apocalypses-Understand-Extinctions/dp/0062364804/ref=sr_1_1> 
examines mass extinction events and the catastrophic outcome of rising 
temperatures for all the world's population
... here's where it gets really scary.
If humanity burns through all its fossil fuel reserves, there is the 
potential to warm the planet by as much as 18C and raise sea levels by 
hundreds of feet. This is a warming spike of an even greater magnitude 
than that so far measured for the end-Permian mass extinction. If the 
worst-case scenarios come to pass, today's modestly menacing 
ocean-climate system will seem quaint. Even warming to one-fourth of 
that amount would create a planet that would have nothing to do with the 
one on which humans evolved or on which civilisation has been built. The 
last time it was 4C warmer there was no ice at either pole and sea level 
was 80 metres higher than it is today.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/09/this-is-how-your-world-could-end-climate-change-global-warming
*

Bill Maher: It's An 'Inconvenient Truth' That Climate Change Deniers' 
Homes Are In Irma's Path 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-maher-hurricane-irma-donald-trump-climate-change-deniers_us_59b387abe4b0dfaafcf81e69>*
"I'm not gloating." https://youtu.be/_Z_mkjzRcAs
"Real Time" host Bill Maher has noted how Hurricane Irma looks likely to 
destroy the vacation homes of several high-profile climate change deniers.
"The deniers all have beach houses in the way of the storm," Maher said 
during the opening monologue of Friday night's show. "[President Donald] 
Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, the Koch brothers all have houses 
that are gonna be wiped out, probably."
"I'm not gloating. It's just an inconvenient truth," he added, 
referencing former Vice President Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on 
global warming.
With Irma barreling toward the state, Maher also urged people in Florida 
who were watching his show to "stop" and "get the fuck out right now."
"I'm seeing colors on the hurricane maps I've never seen before," Maher 
said, before interpreting them in his own way. "If you see yellow like 
Trump's hair, take extra care. If you see orange like his face, shelter 
in place. Red like his ties to Russia, just evacuate now."
Check out the full monologue YouTube https://youtu.be/_Z_mkjzRcAs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-maher-hurricane-irma-donald-trump-climate-change-deniers_us_59b387abe4b0dfaafcf81e69

*CLIMATE CHANGE FOR ALIENS 
<https://www.astrobio.net/alien-life/climate-change-aliens/>*     Sep 9, 
2017
To answer these questions, a team of researchers led by Adam Frank, a 
professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, 
devised a new classification scheme for the evolution of civilizations 
based on the idea that it's not just how much energy you use, but how 
you use it that matters.
With this new scale, the researchers determined that in order to survive 
long-term, a civilization must learn to "think like a planet"–or risk 
the civilization's demise.
"The Kardashev scale is concerned with extracting energy," Frank says. 
"But what we've recognized with our classification scheme is that you 
can't use energy without causing different kinds of waste. That waste 
feedbacks on the state of planet."
In a paper in the journal Anthropocene, the researchers discuss this new 
classification system as a way of thinking about sustainability on a 
planetary scale.
"The discovery of seven new exoplanets orbiting the relatively close 
star TRAPPIST-1 forces us to rethink life on Earth," says Marina Alberti 
of the University of Washington, a co-author on the paper. "It opens the 
possibility to broaden our understanding of planetary system dynamics 
and lays the foundations to explore a path to long-term sustainability."
Earth's biosphere–the global layer where life exists–is unique in that 
the presence of life has altered the planet's surrounding atmosphere 
above and lithosphere below. The researchers note that rapid 
urbanization–including deforestation, air pollution, and increasing 
energy demand–has had damaging effects on the planet. Currently most of 
the energy on Earth comes from fossil fuels, a limited resource that 
puts pressure on the earth's ecosystems.
*Class III: *Planets with a "thin" biosphere that might sustain some 
biological activity, but this does not affect the planet as a whole. 
There are no current examples of Class III planets. However, Earth 2.5 
billion years ago, before life created the oxygen atmosphere, would have 
been a Class III world. If early Mars hosted life when it had liquid 
water on its surface then it too might have been a Class III world. Once 
life appears, new forms of change, evolution, and innovation become 
possible.
*Class IV:* Planets with a thick biosphere strongly affecting the flow 
of energy and work through the rest of the planetary systems. Planets 
co-evolve with their biospheres as life dominates many of the processes 
happening between the surface and the upper atmosphere. (Earth today)
And what might a *Class V *planet look like?
Frank lists several ways humans on Earth might form a technological 
cooperative between biosphere and civilization, including "greening" 
large desert land masses such as the Sahara by finding ways to plant 
trees that will absorb carbon and release oxygen; or creating 
genetically modified trees with photovoltaic leaves that covert the 
sun's energy into electricity.
"Civilization arose as part of a biosphere," Frank says. "A Type 2 
civilization on the Kardashev scale that is super space-baring could 
live without a biosphere. But a young civilization, like ours, has to 
see itself as a part of the biosphere. We're not separate from it, we're 
just the latest experiment the earth is running in the evolution of 
life. If we're not careful, it will just move on without us."
https://www.astrobio.net/alien-life/climate-change-aliens/

*This Day in Climate History September 10, 2015 
<September%2010,%202015:,,The%20New%20York%20Times%20reports%20on%20severe%20wildfires%20in%20California.,,http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/us/fires-in-west-leave-residents-gasping-on-the-soot-left-behind.html>  
-  from D.R. Tucker*
September 10, 2015:
The New York Times reports on severe wildfires in California.
Fires in West Have Residents Gasping on the Soot Left Behind
The dreadful conditions here - with temperatures soaring over 100 
degrees, dry brush everywhere and a miasma of bad air - seem likely to 
become more common throughout the Western States, where the fire season 
is shaping up as a record one. This summer, residents of Denver grappled 
with air pollution that had wafted down from wildfires in Canada; 
throughout the West, a big blaze in one place can be felt many miles away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/us/fires-in-west-leave-residents-gasping-on-the-soot-left-behind.html 

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