[TheClimate.Vote] December 26, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Dec 26 10:45:51 EST 2018 

/December 26, 2018/

[Every year will be a record]
*2019 may be the warmest year on record as a result of an El Nino event 
exacerbated by global warming*
By Amanda Schmidt, AccuWeather staff writer
December 24, 2018
- - -
Climate scientists warn that 2019 may be the warmest year on record 
largely as the result of a possible El Nino event exacerbated by 
man-made global warming.
There is a 90 percent chance that El Nino will form and continue through 
the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2018-19 and a 60 percent chance that 
it will continue into the spring of 2019, according to the Climate 
Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
(NOAA).
El Nino is a part of a routine climate pattern that occurs when 
sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean rise to 
above-normal levels for an extended period of time. It can last anywhere 
from 4 to 16 months and it typically has a warming influence on the 
global temperature.
The opposite of El Nino, La Nina, is when sea-surface temperatures in 
the central Pacific drop to lower-than-normal levels.
These warm and cool phases are part of a recurring climate pattern that 
occurs across this section of the Pacific, known as the El Nino-Southern 
Oscillation (ENSO), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA)...
- -
Emerging research suggests that the typical atmospheric responses to La 
Nina and El Nino are changing and that the expected weather in the 
United States may not follow the traditional ENSO pattern...
- - -
As of November 2018, El Nino has not officially begun and questions 
remain about the strength and longevity of this El Nino.
The years 2014, 2015 2016 and 2017 all rank in the top four warmest 
years on record globally, ocean and land combined, with data going back 
to 1880, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
(NASA).
"It's not hard to see that with the potential added boost from another 
El Nino that 2019, or even 2020, is a pretty good bet to take out some 
of those years from the top four list," Anderson said.
Seventeen of the 18 warmest years in the 136-year record all have 
occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998, which was a strong El 
Nino year, according to Anderson.
Research shows that the warming climate will have a profound affect on 
extreme weather events, such as heat waves, wildfires, droughts, 
flooding and violent storms.
The U.S. government released a report in November 2018 that highlights 
these impacts. The report examines the effects that climate change will 
have on health, local communities, the economy and infrastructure.
- -
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/2019-may-be-the-hottest-year-yet-due-to-el-nino-and-global-warming/70006943


[Water seeks its own level]
*How Is the Netherlands Preparing for Sea Level Rise?*
Floodable parks, salty lettuce, and other tools for a soggy planet
BY HEATHER SMITH - DEC 23 2018
As sea levels rise, people with expertise in keeping water at bay are 
going to become very popular. Many of them will likely be Dutch. The 
Netherlands has been constructing flood barriers for centuries and added 
a massive network of dams and levees after a 1953 flood killed 1,835 
people. Twenty-six percent of the country is below sea level. 
Schoolchildren are taught how to swim with their clothes and shoes on to 
prepare them for floods.
Hundreds of years of trial and error, plus a nationwide acknowledgment 
that climate change is a very real thing, have put the Dutch ahead of 
the curve when it comes to planning for encroaching waters. Here are a 
few of their innovations.

*The Water Square*
**Imagine a standard European plaza where people meet to chat, drink 
coffee, read the paper, play chess--all your classic plaza activities. 
Now imagine it nestled snugly in a giant concrete soup bowl. Water 
Square Benthem­plein in Rotterdam was built with floodable amenities 
like stone benches. When rains come, gutters set into the sidewalks 
carry water away from nearby buildings and into the plaza, turning it 
into a temporary reservoir.

*Salt-Tolerant Crops*
Dutch farmland is already experiencing saltwater intrusion--and as seas 
rise, more saltwater will seep into coastal farmland around the world. 
Some farmers are switching to crops like samphire, a now-trendy sea 
vegetable once known as "the poor man's asparagus." On Texel Island, 
scientists and farmers are breeding crops that can grow in salty 
conditions with relatively low loss of yield. Their greatest success so 
far is a potato four times more salt tolerant than standard varieties. 
One customer for this technology is Pakistan, which is planting test 
plots where the rising Arabian Sea is changing the ecology of the Indus 
River Delta.

*The Sand Engine*
The Dutch were dredging sand off the Delfland coast every five years to 
replenish beaches that were protecting the area from storm surges. Then 
a professor at Delft University of Technology thought, Why not use 
dredged sand to create a giant sandbar in a location that would let wind 
and waves gradually redistribute the sand along the shoreline? The 
coastline could be protected for 20 years, and less-frequent dredging 
might mean less harm to local wildlife. Seven years in, sandbars are in 
the works along the Netherlands coast and in the United Kingdom.

Hundreds of years' worth of flood infrastructure in the Netherlands held 
back the water but also dried out the peatlands near the coast, causing 
them to compress and sink below sea level.

*Letting the Water In*
Hundreds of years' worth of flood infrastructure in the Netherlands held 
back the water but also dried out the peatlands near the coast, causing 
them to compress and sink below sea level. In the 1990s, the government 
began removing and lowering dikes (a process known as "depoldering") and 
relocating farmers to higher ground so that the land around them could 
safely flood again. The Netherlands still has no shortage of high-tech 
flood barriers, but this approach is a reminder that sometimes 
adaptation means retreat.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-1-january-february/innovate/how-netherlands-preparing-for-sea-level-rise


[Collapse is faster than growth]
*Dealing With Collapse: The Seneca Strategy*
Posted by Ugo Bardi
About 2,000 years ago, the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote 
to his friend Licilius noting that "growth is slow, but ruin is rapid". 
It looks obvious, but it was one of those observations that turn out to 
be not obvious at all if you go in some depth into their meaning. Do you 
remember the story of Newton's apple? Everyone knows that apples fall 
from trees, isn't it obvious? Yes, but it was the start of a chain of 
thoughts that led Isaac Newton to devise something that was not at all 
obvious: the law of universal gravitation. It is the same thing for 
Seneca's observation that "ruin is rapid." Everyone knows that it is 
true, think of a house of cards. But why is it like this?

Seneca's observation - which I dubbed "The Seneca Effect" (or the 
"Seneca Cliff" or the "Seneca Collapse") is one of the key elements we 
need to understanding the developments of what we now call the "science 
of complexity." In the space of a few decades, starting since the 1960s, 
the development of digital computing has allowed us to tackle problems 
that, at the time of Newton (not to mention those of Seneca), could not 
be studied except in a very approximate way.

Using system dynamics, network science, agent-based modeling, and more, 
this new science has allowed us to penetrate a world that in a certain 
sense was familiar to us: the world of real things that are born, grow, 
and sometimes collapse in a ruinous way. The basic ideas in the behavior 
of complex systems are always the same, especially when dealing with 
collapses: complex systems are complex because they are dominated by the 
mechanism we call "feedback." Because of feedback effects, a large 
structure may collapse when just one of the elements that compose them 
fails. That may lead to the failure of the elements that surround it. 
These, in turn, cause the failure of other elements of the system, and 
so it goes. The result is what we call an "avalanche" and, as Seneca 
said, "ruin is rapid".

One question I am often asked about system science is, "can we use it to 
predict the future?" Alas, there is a small problem with this question: 
we cannot have exact data on the future because the future doesn't exist 
(yet). But that doesn't mean that we can try to understand the future. 
After all, what is the future if not a fan of possibilities that we 
ourselves may decide to turn into reality? Seneca himself would probably 
have agreed with this concept: he was deeply involved in the Stoic 
philosophy. As a good Stoic, he knew that we must always be prepared for 
the future, knowing full well that ruin can come upon us at any moment. 
This is true for individuals as well as for an entire society. He 
himself experienced a "rapid ruin" when his former pupil, Emperor Nero, 
accused him of treason and ordered him to commit suicide. Seneca had no 
other choice but to comply.

So, we can use mathematical models to describe the Seneca Effect, but 
they are mainly a quantification of ancient wisdom. It is not a question 
of predicting the future, it is a question of understanding it. And we 
can use the models to understand that the ecosystem in which we live is 
not a supermarket from which we can take what we need - and without even 
having to pay. It is a complex system, subject to the Seneca Collapse. 
And since we are also part of the ecosystem, when the ecosystem 
collapses, we collapse, too. Even a stoic like Seneca would have said 
that if we have a chance to avoid the climate collapse, we should try.

All these things, and many more, I put them together in the book 
published in 2017 that I titled "The Seneca Effect." Now I am writing 
another book that should be called "The Seneca Strategy" -- it should be 
published by Springer in 2019. This second book is more a "collapse 
manual" that can be used to manage collapses: that is, it explains how 
to avoid being destroyed by collapses, how to minimize damage, and even 
how to profit from collapses (hint: have your enemies collapse first!). 
What I said in my first book remains valid: collapse is not a bug, it is 
a feature of the universe!
https://thesenecatrap.blogspot.com/
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/09/dealing-with-collapse-seneca-strategy.html


[catchy tune too]
*FROSTY THE SNOWMAN – Parody*
posted in: Christmas Songs, Environment, NEWEST, Parody, Social Commentary
This parody of Frosty the Snowman is chock full of symbolism, metaphor, 
innuendo, and hidden meanings, while on the surface it has an easy to 
follow, straight-ahead message. Just saying that so you know you can 
enjoy it on many levels.
https://youtu.be/7g4faweWfUE
LYRICS to FROSTY

    Frosty the Snowman
    doesn’t have the climate blues
    He supports the prez in all he says
    and the rest is just fake news

    Frosty the Snowman
    thinks the liberals are snowflakes
    that they brainwashed all the scientists
    to try and raise the stakes

    Others tried to prove to him
    his species won’t survive
    but he won’t budge from his belief
    til he’s no longer alive.

    Oh, Frosty’s not stupid
    he just doesn’t ever read
    And it’s just Fox news that he ever views
    So he’s never up to speed

    it’s not just him and Trump that say
    that climate change ain’t real
    Most of Congress scoffs at Cortez
    and the Green New Deal.

    This is an issue
    that is neither left nor right
    it’s about survival for us all
    and we all must join the fight

    This is an issue
    that is neither left nor right
    it’s about survival for us all
    and we all must join the fight

ABOUT THE SOURCE MATERIAL
Frosty the Snowman
"Frosty the Snowman" by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins is a popular 
Christmas song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and 
first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and later 
recorded by Jimmy Durante, releasing it as a single.

It was written after the success of Autry's recording of "Rudolph the 
Red-Nosed Reindeer" the previous year; Rollins and Nelson shipped the 
new song to Autry, who recorded "Frosty" in search of another seasonal 
hit. Like "Rudolph", "Frosty" was subsequently adapted to other media 
including a popular television special by Rankin/Bass Productions, 
Frosty the Snowman.

The television special follows a group of school children who build a 
snowman called Frosty and place a magic hat on his head, which makes him 
come to life. But after noticing the high hot temperature and fearing 
that he would melt, Frosty, along with young girl named Karen and a 
rabbit named Hocus Pocus, must go to the North Pole to be safe from melting.

Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass wanted to give the show and its 
characters the look of a Christmas card, so Paul Coker, Jr., a greeting 
card and Mad magazine artist, was hired to do the character and 
background drawings. The animation was produced by Mushi Production in 
Japan, with then-Mushi staffer Osamu Dezaki among the animation staff. 
Durante was one of the first people to record the song when it was 
released in 1950 (at the time the song had slightly different lyrics); 
he re-recorded the song for the special.

Rankin/Bass veteran writer Romeo Muller adapted and expanded the story 
for television as he had done with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
https://youtu.be/7g4faweWfUE
https://parodyproject.com/frosty-the-snowman-parody/


*This Day in Climate History - December 26, 2006 - from D.R. Tucker*
December 26, 2006: Joseph Romm's book "Hell and High Water: Global 
Warming, the Solution and the Politics, and What We Should Do" is 
released. (On January 17, 2007, Romm would appear on Air America's 
"EcoTalk with Betsy Rosenberg" to discuss the book.)
http://www.amazon.com/Hell-High-Water-Warming-Politics/dp/B000WPPY8G
https://archive.org/details/HellAndHighWater
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/ecotalkblog/2007/01/dr_joseph_romm_.html
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