[TheClimate.Vote] December 13, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

December 13, 2018/

[plenty newsworthy]
https://youtu.be/7wIMDei1Q3c
*2018 Fall Meeting Press Conference: Arctic Report Card 2018*
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published on Dec 12, 2018
The 2018 Arctic Report Card brings together the work of more than 80 
scientists from 12 nations to provide the latest information on Arctic 
environmental change, including air and sea surface temperature, sea 
ice, snow cover, the Greenland ice sheet, vegetation and the abundance 
of plankton at the base of the marine food chain. This year's 
peer-reviewed report led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration will also include special reports on the health of 
caribou and reindeer populations, harmful algal blooms, microplastic 
pollution, and connections between Arctic weather patterns and severe 
weather in the more populous mid-latitudes.
Participants:
Howard Epstein, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.;
Karen E. Frey, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.;
RDML Tim Gallaudet, USN Ret., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans 
and Atmosphere and Acting NOAA Administrator, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.;
Emily Osborne, NOAA Arctic Research Program, Silver Spring, Maryland, 
U.S.A.;
Donald Perovich, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.A.
https://youtu.be/7wIMDei1Q3c
- - -
[Other AGU press conferences for Fall 2018]
Geophysical Union (AGU)
https://www.youtube.com/user/AGUvideos/videos


[Go Amy go!  Amy Goodman questions while running]
Trump's Energy Adviser Runs Away When Questioned by Democracy Now! at 
U.N. Climate Talks
Democracy Now!
Published on Dec 12, 2018
https://democracynow.org - The Trump administration is promoting fossil 
fuels at the U.N. climate summit in Katowice, Poland, despite outcry 
from climate activists and world leaders concerned about the devastating 
threat of climate change. Chief among Trump's representatives at the 
climate summit is Wells Griffith, special assistant to the president for 
international energy and environment. He is a longtime Republican 
operative who served as deputy chief of staff to Reince Priebus when 
Priebus was chair of the Republican National Committee. Amy Goodman 
attempted to question Wells Griffith about the Trump administration's 
climate policy at the U.N. summit Tuesday. Griffith refused to answer 
questions and ran from our camera team for about a quarter-mile, 
retreating to the U.S. delegation office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn_7ySOqPtc
- -
Comment by Richard Pauli [humor]

    Go Amy go!! Henceforth, all journalists should get into shape with
    exercises in endurance training.  She has now set a new broadcast
    journalism standard: 8 minutes of thinking, talking, listening and
    running.  Now journalism schools should train students teams to
    compete in the "Goodman Spokesperson Pursuit"- where a reporter plus
    2 camera/sound crew must stay within conversation range of the
    media-attention-seeking speaker for at least 8 minutes.  Rules: The
    speaker/propagandist may walk fast, pivot, turn and reverse course
    for 8 minutes without answering any question, before ducking behind
    a locked door or climbing a tree. Climbing stairs two steps at a
    time is OK, but breaking into a full run is like an ice skater
    falling to the ice - an embarrassing fail.  Points are awarded to
    journalist teams for number and clarity of appropriate questions and
    ability to stay within microphone and video range.  Winners are
    decided by viewers.   Goodman scores across all categories and now
    defines the race.  Discussions may now begin on specific rules and
    design of the trophy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn_7ySOqPtc


[rapid change]
*Satellite spies methane bubbling up from Arctic permafrost 
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07751-w>*
Radar instrument aboard a Japanese probe can spot signs of gas seeping 
from lakes that form as the ground thaws.
Jeff Tollefson - 12 DECEMBER 2018
For the first time, scientists have used a satellite to estimate how 
much methane is seeping into the atmosphere from Arctic lakes. 
Preliminary data presented this week at a meeting of the American 
Geophysical Union in Washington DC help to explain long-standing 
discrepancies between estimates of methane emissions from atmospheric 
measurements and data collected at individual lakes.

As icy permafrost melts to form lakes, microbes break down organic 
matter in the thawing ground beneath the water and release methane, a 
potent greenhouse gas. Researchers have measured the amount of methane 
seeping out of hundreds of lakes, one by one, but estimating emissions 
across the Arctic remains a challenge. Understanding how much methane is 
being released by these lakes is crucial to predicting how much 
permafrost emissions could exacerbate future climate change.

In an effort to solve this problem, a team led by Melanie Engram, a 
remote-sensing scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, turned 
to the synthetic-aperture radar measurements taken by Japan's Advanced 
Land Observing Satellite. This type of radar measures changes in ground 
height.

Engram's team found that the sensor aboard the Japanese satellite was 
sensitive enough to detect how constant streams of rising methane 
bubbles deform the surface of ice that forms on Arctic lakes in autumn 
and winter. "It's really exciting," she says. "We can see roughness in 
the ice -- divots created by methane bubbles."

The team compared the satellite data with field measurements of methane 
at 48 lakes, and then used the correlations they found to analyse 
emissions at more than 5,000 lakes in 5 regions across Alaska. "For the 
first time, we can move up from a handful of lakes and look across the 
landscape," says Katey Walter Anthony, a biogeochemist at the University 
of Alaska Fairbanks, who helped to conduct the research.

Tracing gases
Finding better tools to estimate Arctic methane emissions will help 
scientists to bridge data gaps and improve projections from climate 
models, says Clayton Elder, a biogeochemist at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Elder presented new findings at the meeting from a high-resolution 
airborne sensor that NASA has deployed as part of a decade-long field 
campaign to assess how climate change is affecting the Arctic. The data 
indicate that, across the region, much of the methane emitted by thawing 
permafrost on land comes from hot spots that surround Arctic lakes.

And Engram's results suggest that previous research over-estimated how 
much methane was coming from many large lakes, partly because scientists 
have spent more time studying smaller lakes with relatively high emissions.

In a 2,000-square-kilometre area around the Barrow Peninsula in northern 
Alaska, for instance, the team calculated that lakes release an average 
of 0.6 grams of methane per square metre of water surface each year -- 
which equates to around 141 kilograms of methane per square kilometre. 
That is about 84% lower than some previous estimates based on 
measurements at individual lakes, Engram says, but lines up well with 
estimates based on atmospheric measurements.

Previous modelling research by Walter Anthony and other scientists 
suggests that methane emissions from the formation of Arctic lakes could 
rise significantly as the planet warms during this century. The work, 
which assumes moderate global warming, projects that a spike in the 
amount of methane bubbling up in Arctic lakes would nearly triple the 
total emissions from permafrost -- to the equivalent of nearly 19 
billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, or roughly half a year's worth of 
global CO2 emissions from industry.

Accounting for rapidly forming Arctic lakes in models that project 
future permafrost emissions is difficult, she says, "But this says we 
need to do it."
doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-07751-w
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07751-w


[spring time for...]
*Vegetation in Barents Region disturbed by mid-autumn thaw*
After frost comes spring, but when it happens in mid-November plants get 
confused. That is not good news.
By Thomas Nilsen
November 16, 2018
November on the coast of the Barents Sea has been unseasonably warm. 
Halfway, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute could report 5,9 degrees 
Celsius above normal for Troms and Finnmark region in northern Norway.
What was snow-covered and frozen in late October is again rainy and warm.
The warm weather are confusing plants and trees. Some, like the 
low-growing goat willow tree, believes it is spring. On Friday, catkins, 
the fuzzy soft silver-colored nubs, started to appear, both near 
Kirkenes and in Murmansk, as reported by Severpost.
Both are cities far above the Arctic Circle.
Catkins are actually the trees' flowers just before they fully bloom, 
like you normally can see in late April, early May in the Barents Region...
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2018/11/autumn-spring-arctics-new-season


*The Deathly Insect Dilemma*
by ROBERT HUNZIKER - DECEMBER 7, 2018

Insect abundance is plummeting with wild abandon, worldwide! Species 
evolve and go extinct as part of nature's normal course over thousands 
and millions of years, but the current rate of devastation is off the 
charts and downright scary.

Moreover, there is no quick and easy explanation for this sudden 
emergence of massive loss around the globe. Yet, something is dreadfully 
horribly wrong. Beyond doubt, it is not normal for 50%-to-90% of a 
species to drop dead, but that is happening right now from Germany to 
Australia to Puerto Rico's tropical rainforest.

Scientists are rattled. The world is largely unaware of the implications 
because it is all so new. It goes without saying that the risk of loss 
of insects spells loss of ecosystems necessary for very important stuff, 
like food production.

Farmland birds that depend upon a diet of insects in Europe have 
disappeared by >50% in just three decades. French farmland partridge 
flocks have crashed by 80%. Nightingale abundance is down by almost 80%. 
Turtledoves are down nearly 80%...
- -

Similar to concerns about use of synthetic pesticides, sensitivity of 
insects to global warming has only recently been exposed in new studies 
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 
showing alarming losses of insects in pristine tropical rainforests over 
a multi-decade study that has rocked the science world.

Over that same 40-year time period, the average high temperature in the 
rainforest increased by 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Which negatively impacts 
insects because after a certain thermal threshold insects will no longer 
lay eggs, and their internal chemistry breaks down.

"Without insects and other land-based arthropods, EO Wilson, the 
renowned Harvard entomologist, and inventor of sociobiology, estimates 
that humanity would last all of a few months," Ibid.

Well then, the number of insects still out there qualifies as one of the 
most puzzling questions of the 21st century.

Postscript: "Our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction 
of plants and animals -- the sixth wave of extinctions in the past 
half-billion years. We're currently experiencing the worst spate of 
species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. 
Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural 
"background" rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists 
estimate we're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the 
background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day." 
(Source: The Extinction Crisis, Center for Biological Diversity, 
biologicaldiversity.org) Whew!
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at 
rlhunziker at gmail.com.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/07/the-deathly-insect-dilemma/


[carbon pricing is a category mistake]
*Putting a price on CO2 is a smokescreen that hides its human cost 
<https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-12-12/trump-the-climates-secret-champion/>*
Slashing the social cost of carbon emissions reveals the economic 
charade delaying real action on climate change, says Kevin Anderson
To an economist, Judas simply underestimated Christ's marginal value – 
he got the price wrong. Rather than settling for thirty pieces of 
silver, he should have held out for sixty, or perhaps even ninety 
pieces. But to a philosopher, and probably most non-economists, putting 
a price on your best friend, your child, husband or mother is a 
'category mistake'. The rich, contextual and heterogeneous world in 
which we live can never be adequately reduced to a single homogeneous 
index, a Dollar, Euro or Yuan. But that is exactly what the 'social cost 
of carbon' claims to do!

Cut away the economic niceties and the social cost of carbon is little 
more than an attempt by a particular hue of economists to put a price on 
the global scale impacts of climate change, from now, throughout this 
century, and on across centuries to come. Such hubris is the preserve of 
a select group of typically wealthy, white and high-emitting men[2] in 
the Northern hemisphere. Sat behind computers in highly industrialised 
countries, they price the impact of their and our carbon-profligacy on 
poor, low-emitting, climate-vulnerable, and geographically distant 
communities. A dollar value is put on the devastation a strengthened 
tornado wreaks on small coastal towns, financially valuing the people 
killed, the destroyed homes and destitute neighbourhoods.

Add to this, a guess of the cost to our children of their climate 
changing too rapidly for them to adapt their physical, social and 
institutional infrastructures; exacerbated floods, droughts, extreme 
weather and human migration. Then price in still further warming later 
in the century, loss of pollinating insects, destruction of virtually 
all coral reefs, major die back of tropical forests, sea level rises and 
acidifying oceans.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032061-300-putting-a-price-on-co2-is-a-smokescreen-that-hides-its-human-cost/
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-12-12/trump-the-climates-secret-champion/


[from The Guardian]
London mayor unveils plan to tackle 'climate emergency'
Sadiq Khan accuses government of dragging its feet and calls for 
investment to avert catastrophe
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/11/london-mayor-sadiq-khan-city-climate-emergency


[reflective cloud]
*First geoengineering experiment to dim the sun on track for 2019 
<https://www.dezeen.com/2018/12/11/first-solar-geoengineering-experiment/amp/>*
Rima Sabina Aouf
Harvard scientists will attempt to replicate the climate-cooling effect 
of volcanic eruptions with a world-first solar geoengineering experiment 
set for early 2019.
The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) will 
inject calcium carbonate particles high above the earth in an attempt to 
reflect some of the sun's rays back into space.
It will likely mark the first time the controversial concept of dimming 
the sun -- more scientifically known as stratospheric aerosol injection 
(SAI) -- will be tested in the real world.
Existing understanding of SAI comes from computer modelling and also 
from observing the natural effects of volcanoes, which create a haze of 
sulphate particles that effectively cool the planet.
The 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines, for instance, 
caused the average global temperature to drop by about 0.6 degrees 
Celsius in the following 15 months.
Harvard team plans to launch experiment in early 2019
The Harvard team, led by scientists Frank Keutsch and David Keith, has 
been working on the SCoPEx project for several years and revealed in a 
recent article in Nature that it would launch the first phase of the 
experiment as early as the first half of 2019...
- - -
This is in contrast to the more tried and tested practice of 
carbon-dioxide removal, such as carbon capture and storage, which it has 
incorporated into almost all of its modelling for safe pathways forward 
where global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
https://www.dezeen.com/2018/12/11/first-solar-geoengineering-experiment/amp/
- - -
[Nature]
*First sun-dimming experiment will test a way to cool Earth 
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07533-4>*
Researchers plan to spray sunlight-reflecting particles into the 
stratosphere, an approach that could ultimately be used to quickly lower 
the planet's temperature...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07533-4


[Climate & Migration Coalition]
*Climate change and migration 101 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xq7QEdV1B0>*
Climate & Migration Coalition
Published on Dec 4, 2018
This session provides a grounding in how climate change will alter 
patterns of migration. It explores the key elements of the field and the 
research evidence behind them. This session is for anyone who needs to 
get to grips with what changes to our climate will mean for human 
movement. As well as looking at how these changes take place, it will 
also explore how we can respond – examining key political and legal 
implications.
Speaker: Alex Randall
The relationship between climate change and migration is complex. 
Climate change impacts could force people to move, but also trap people 
in dangerous places. Floods, droughts and rising seas could force people 
flee across borders, but people are most likely to move within their own 
country when they can. Some people will have no choice about how or when 
they move. But when disasters unfold more slowly some people may decide 
to migrate and find alternative work. Some people may decide to move as 
a way of adapting to climate change impacts – with or without the help 
of their government.
The rights of people who are forced to move by climate change are 
unclear. Many people should be protected by existing laws governing 
human rights. However these are not always adhered to. Other people fall 
outside the protection of existing laws, and find themselves in a legal 
limbo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xq7QEdV1B0


[ick]
Earth's cold storage is melting. Here's what's oozing out.
Viruses, bacteria, methane, and more.
By Amelia Urry  - Dec 11, 2018
Permafrost isn't just chilled dirt: It's cold storage for everything 
from mammoths to the microbes inside them. Though any soil that stays 
frozen for at least two years is technically permafrost, the frigid 
layers can be tens of thousands of years old and as thick as 5,000 feet. 
But climate change is warming the Arctic twice as quickly as any other 
place on Earth, causing some strange threats to emerge. While many of 
these ­artifacts might not do any damage in the modern, melting world, 
some could be bad news.
*1. Exhumed fumes*
The scariest entity to emerge from the melt so far is methane, a 
greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than CO2. Released when formerly 
frozen matter decomposes in thawed tundra, the gas boosts atmospheric 
temperatures, defrosting more acreage--a spine-chilling feedback loop.
*2. Tiny but tenacious*
Bacteria that form protected spores, such as tetanus and botulism, are 
the most likely to pose a threat once defrosted. No one knows how long 
microbes can survive a hard freeze, but in 2007, scientists reported 
signs of cellular life in 8-​­million-​year-​old Antarctic ice.
*3. Ye olde maladies*
In 1918, a virulent flu killed tens of millions. Scientists have found 
fragments of the virus in thawed graves of its Arctic victims. And in 
2004, traces of smallpox--­officially eradicated in 1980--showed up on 
18th-century Siberian corpses.
*4. Oh, deer*
In the early 1900s, Bacillus anthracis infections killed 1.5 million 
reindeer in northern Russia. In 2016, rising temperatures released the 
bac­terium's spores to cause anthrax poisoning in thousands of deer (and 
a few dozen humans).
*5. Unknown diseases*
In 2017, a teacher contracted a bacterial infection while excavating 
seal remains from an 800-year-old Alaskan dwelling. Old diseases, 
including those that plagued our humanoid ancestors, could lurk 
anywhere--and our modern immune defenses might not work against them.
*6. Big-shot microbes*
In 2014, virologists discovered a pathogen 10 times bigger than the flu 
in 30,000-​year-​old permafrost. Once warmed, it started preying upon 
amoebas. It doesn't seem to infect humans, but ­reports of 
antibiotic-​­resistant bacteria from the same era could be a cause for 
worry.
https://www.popsci.com/whats-inside-earths-permafrost


[second section in series]
*First Do No Harm*
BY STEPHANIE KAZA| OCTOBER 10, 2018
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on 
Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in 
new window)More
Environmentalist Stephanie Kaza invites us to consider how Buddhist 
principles can help us nurse the planet back to health...
- -
*Cultivating Systems Mind*
Solving environmental problems almost always requires some understanding 
of ecological principles, or what I call "systems thinking." The 
Buddhist principle of dependent co-arising provides an excellent 
foundation for systems thinking. According to this perspective, all 
events and beings are interdependent and mutually co-create each other. 
Thus the universe is seen as dynamic in all dimensions and scales of 
activity, with every action affecting and generating others in turn.

You may be familiar with the Chinese Buddhist metaphor known as the 
Jewel Net of Indra, which expresses this dynamic of interdependence. 
Imagine a fishnet-like set of linked lines extending ad infinitum across 
horizontal and vertical dimensions of space. Then add more nets 
criss-crossing on the diagonals. Imagine an endless number of these nets 
criss-crossing every plane of space. At each node in every net, there is 
a multifaceted jewel that reflects every other jewel in the net. There 
is nothing outside the net and nothing that does not reverberate its 
presence throughout the net.

 From an ecological perspective, this metaphor makes obvious sense: 
ecological systems are exactly such complex sets of relations shaping 
and being shaped over time by the members of the system. You do not have 
to study ecological science to understand this; you can easily observe 
cause and effect in whatever system is close at hand--your family, your 
workplace, your backyard. You develop systems-thinking through looking 
at patterns in time and space, such as seasonal cycles or animal paths. 
For an ecologist, this way of looking is an essential tool. For a 
mindful citizen, pattern- or systems-thinking can help you raise useful 
questions in addressing environmental concerns. You can ask about the 
history of the conflict, the pattern of policy decisions, the economic 
and social needs of those involved, and the ecological relations at stake.

Astute observers of systems can decipher the patterns of feedback that 
reflect the dominant shaping forces. Too much heat, the cat seeks shade. 
Too much cold, the cat finds a warm car hood to sleep on. Systems are 
shaped by self-regulating mechanisms, such as those that keep your body 
temperature constant, and by self-organizing patterns that allow the 
system to adapt when new opportunities arise. Self-regulating (which 
maintains the stability of the system) and self-organizing (which allows 
the system to evolve or "learn") are both happening all the time at all 
levels of activity. You can practice observing this in your own 
body/mind to see how such feedback works. How do you respond to rainy 
days? To sunny days? To being hungry? To eating too much? To getting 
enough sleep? To not getting enough sleep? You can reflect on which 
places nourish you and why. This is all good practice for developing a 
systems mind.

So far I'm talking about fairly straightforward bio-geophysical reality. 
But the law of interdependence also includes the role of human thought 
and mental conditioning. In Buddhist philosophy, intention and mental 
attitudes count; what people think about the environment has a major 
effect on what they choose to do. The Buddhist systems-thinker involved 
in environmental controversy would ask as much about the human actors 
and their attitudes as about the affected trees and wildlife.

This leads to a key aspect of systems thinking, agency, or who is 
actually doing what? This means determining who is responsible for 
decisions or actions that impact the planet and the human community. It 
means tracing the chain of cause and effect back to those who have 
generated the environmental damage and are in a position to change their 
course of action. The real world of Indra's Net is not made up of equal 
players. Some agents definitely carry more weight than others, as is 
painfully obvious with the current U.S. administration. Identifying key 
actors and policy decisions is vital to choosing strategies that can 
re-orient the system to healthy goals.

Liberty Hyde Bailey, an American naturalist at the turn of the century, 
said, "The happiest life has the greatest number of points of contact 
with the world, and it has the deepest feeling and sympathy with 
everything that is." He was describing the experience of a soulful 
systems-thinker, one who brings awareness to everyday relations with all 
beings. A Buddhist might sense this as a deep understanding of the law 
of interdependence. My point is that such awareness is available to all 
and is foundational to doing effective environmental work. If you learn 
the shape of local rivers and mountains, if you meet the people who grow 
your food, if you help the world become a more livable place, you can 
begin to see yourself not only as one who is shaped by but also as one 
who shapes Indra's Net...
More at - 
https://www.lionsroar.com/first-do-no-harm/?mc_cid=651927711b&mc_eid=0f3d41a2e1


****This Day in Climate History - December 13, - from D.R. Tucker**
December 13, 2000: Having lost the Presidential election by only five 
votes, Vice President Al Gore delivers a gracious concession speech, 
noting: "As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe as my father 
once said, that no matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well 
as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out."
http://youtu.be/U4BZcH8bqRk*
*
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