[TheClimate.Vote] March 4, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun Mar 4 09:03:01 EST 2018

/March 4, 2018/

[Weather]
*'Beast from the East' and freakishly warm Arctic temperatures are no 
coincidence 
<https://theconversation.com/beast-from-the-east-and-freakishly-warm-arctic-temperatures-are-no-coincidence-92774>*
March 2, 2018
During the past week,bitterly cold weather 
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/01/beast-from-east-storm-emma-uk-worst-weather-years>has 
engulfed the UK and most of Northern Europe. At the same time, 
temperatures in the high Arctic have been 10 to 20 degrees C/above/ 
normal 
<https://www.livescience.com/61864-arctic-temperatures-record-high.html>- 
although still generally below freezing.
The co-occurence of these two opposite extremes is no random 
coincidence. A quick climate rewind reveals how an unusual disturbance 
in the tropics more than a month ago sent out shock-waves thousands of 
kilometres in all directions, causing extreme weather events - not only 
in Europe and the Arctic, but in the southern hemisphere too.
The outbreak of cold weather across the UK was publicly forecast at 
least two weeks in advance. In early February, meteorologists noticed a 
large-scale weather event developing 30km high in the Arctic 
stratosphere, whose effects on our less lofty weather systems are well 
understood.
The strong westerly winds, known as thePolar Vortex 
<https://weather.com/news/news/2018-02-14-polar-vortex-split-february-2018>, 
that normally circle the Arctic at this altitude had begun to weaken and 
change direction. Extremely cold arctic air - usually entrapped by this 
360 degrees barrier - was able to spill out to lower latitudes, flooding 
across Siberia.
Meteorologists refer to this type of event as aSudden Stratospheric 
Warming 
<https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/how-weather-works/sudden-stratospheric-warming>(SSW) 
because the air in the stratosphere above the North Pole appears to warm 
rapidly. In fact, the cold air isn't itself warming up so much as 
flooding south and being replaced by warmer air from further south...
The near simultaneous occurrence of all of these extreme weather events 
is a perfect meteorological illustration of the butterfly effect. While 
we usually talk about weather in local and regional terms, the 
atmosphere is one continuous fluid expanse. Disturbances in one region 
are bound to have consequences to the weather in other parts of the 
world - and when they are severe the shock-waves can be immense....
https://theconversation.com/beast-from-the-east-and-freakishly-warm-arctic-temperatures-are-no-coincidence-92774

[Journal Nature]
*Why current negative-emissions strategies remain 'magical thinking' 
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02184-x>*
Work on how rocks draw carbon from the air shows the scale of the challenge.
Decarbonization of the world's economy would bring colossal disruption 
of the status quo. It's a desire to avoid that change - political, 
financial and otherwise - that drives many of the climate sceptics. 
Still, as this journal has noted numerous times, it's clear that many 
policymakers who argue that emissions must be curbed, and fast, don't 
seem to appreciate the scale of what's required...
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 
carbon emissions must peak in the next couple of decades and then fall 
steeply for the world to avoid a 2 degrees C rise. A peak in emissions 
seems possible given that the annual rise in carbon pollution stalled 
between 2014 and 2016, but it's the projected decline that gives climate 
scientists nightmares...
The 2015 Paris agreement gave politicians an answer: negative emissions. 
Technology to reduce the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere will 
buy society valuable time. The agreement went as far as arguing that 
incorporating one such technology - bioenergy with carbon capture and 
storage (BECCS) - could even see the global temperature increase kept to 
1.5 degrees C...
What would negative emissions look like? A Perspective this week in 
Nature Plants offers another glimpse, and it's not pretty (D. J. 
Beerling et al. Nature Plants 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0108-y; 2018 
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0108-y>). The review focuses on 
the idea of enhanced weathering, which aims to exploit how many rocks 
react with carbon dioxide and water to form alkaline solutions that, 
over time, find their way into the sea. It's one of a number of proposed 
negative-emissions technologies...
In theory, enhanced weathering could lock up significant amounts of 
atmospheric carbon in the deep ocean. But the effort required is 
astounding. The article estimates that grinding up 10-50 tonnes of 
basalt rock and applying it to each of some 70 million hectares - an 
area about the size of Texas - of US agricultural land every year would 
soak up 13% of the annual global emissions from agriculture. That still 
leaves an awful lot of carbon up there, even after all the quarrying, 
grinding, transporting and spreading...
It's not hard to see why many climate scientists have dismissed the 
near-impossible scale of required negative emissions as "magical 
thinking". Or why the European Academies' Science Advisory Council said 
in a report this month: "Negative emission technologies may have a 
useful role to play but, on the basis of current information, not at the 
levels required to compensate for inadequate mitigation measures."...
The IPCC is now working on a report on strategies to keep warming to 
under 1.5 degrees C, which is due to be published later this year. By 
necessity, those strategies will lean heavily on negative emissions. 
Scientists must continue to spell out to policymakers the harsh reality 
of what this would involve, and in the strongest possible terms.
Nature 554, 404 (2018) doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-02184-x
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02184-x

[GE Wind power]/(PR materials)/
*World's Largest Offshore Wind Turbine - Haliade-X - GE Renewable Energy 
<https://youtu.be/ybh7NwZv7c8>*
GE Renewable Energy has unveiled the world's largest offshore wind 
turbine, the 12 megawatt Haliade-X which measures in at 260 meters in 
height and boasting a 220-meter rotor, and is capable of generating 
enough clean electricity for 16,000 households per turbine.
video from GE <https://youtu.be/ybh7NwZv7c8> https://youtu.be/ybh7NwZv7c8
"The Haliade-X 12 MW will help our customers in an increasingly 
competitive offshore environment, and through its size and digital 
functionality provide important value across manufacturing, installation 
and operation," added John Lavelle, CEO of Offshore Wind at GE Renewable 
Energy.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/02/ge-announces-worlds-powerful-offshore-wind-turbine-haliade-x/

[video The New Great Game] /(pipeline diplomacy)/
*Politics, power and pipelines - Europe and natural gas 
<https://youtu.be/16Vl2EDceCs>*
DW Documentary https://youtu.be/16Vl2EDceCs
Published on Mar 2, 2018  (DW is a publicly funded German broadcaster)
Russia hopes a new Baltic Sea pipeline will strengthen its gas market 
position in Europe. But the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project is highly 
controversial.
Poland and the US are against its construction, Germany is in favor. 
What will the outcome be? The negotiations are heading into the final 
round. At stake is an energy lifeline for Europe - and the power it 
implies. Over the coming months in Brussels and Berlin, Moscow and 
Washington, the decision will be made on whether or not a European 
consortium led by Russian state natural gas company Gazprom is to lay 
another pipeline on the Baltic seabed. The carbon steel pipes bearing 
the name Nord Stream 2 are projected to cost 10 billion euros and run 
from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany. This route could soon be 
carrying the greater share of Russia's natural gas exports to the 
European Union. The project already carries its share of opposition: 
Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic republics eye a direct German-Russian 
connection with concern - mindful of hundreds of millions of euros in 
transport fees they stand to lose. And Ukraine sees itself at the mercy 
of Russian interests, should the West no longer have need of it as an 
energy corridor. The United States, with liquefied petroleum gas of its 
own to sell, has been threatening more sanctions. The pipeline's 
opponents in the EU are doing what they can to hinder its construction 
and tie it up in the courts with legal maneuvering. Government 
spokespeople in Berlin and Moscow insist the project has only private 
business motives, those being to guarantee the supply of natural gas and 
keep the prices low. Supporters and opponents agree on one thing: Nord 
Stream 2 would alter Europe's energy politics for decades to come, which 
would in turn affect geo-politics.  Energy issues are always questions 
of power. Russia's leadership is well aware of that, as they've 
repeatedly demonstrated in the past.  But in this round of the "Great 
Game", the Americans are joining in. This documentary presents the pros 
and cons of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Former German chancellor Gerhard 
Schroder, now in the employ of Nord Stream, has been drumming up 
support. Opponents, such as the former Polish prime minister and current 
Member of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, explain their positions. 
The documentary was shot on locations in Germany, France, Ukraine, 
Georgia and in Brussels and Moscow.
DW is a publicly funded German broadcaster https://youtu.be/16Vl2EDceCs
-
[The Energy Mix]
*RISK MODELERS SEE POLITICAL INSTABILITY AHEAD FOR SEVERAL KEY 
FOSSIL-PRODUCING STATES 
<http://theenergymix.com/2018/03/01/risk-modelers-see-political-instability-ahead-for-several-key-fossil-producing-states/>*
@RIGZONE
Political instability could have an impact on oil and gas production in 
several key fossil-producing countries—including Russia, Kazakhstan, 
Egypt, Kenya and Uganda—over the next three years, according to a new 
report from global risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft....
Using its Interstate Tensions Forecasting Model, Verisk Maplecroft 
projected that the risk of a show of force between the United States and 
North Korea has increased from 36 to 56% since the beginning of 2017. 
The odds of a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia stand at 26%.
"In the worst-case scenario, war between Saudi Arabia and Iran would hit 
oil supply and cause a spike in prices, while conflict on the Korean 
Peninsula would have serious negative consequences for the global oil 
and liquefied natural gas trade," Verisk said in a statement. "A slide 
into war is not in the interests of any of these countries, but the 
outlook highlights the aggressive posturing from all sides as 
intensifying the chances for tensions to escalate."
http://theenergymix.com/2018/03/01/risk-modelers-see-political-instability-ahead-for-several-key-fossil-producing-states/

[TheGuardian]
*Arctic spring is starting 16 days earlier than a decade ago, study 
shows 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/arctic-spring-is-starting-16-days-earlier-than-a-decade-ago-study-shows>*
Climate change is causing the season to start comparatively earlier the 
further north you go, say scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/arctic-spring-is-starting-16-days-earlier-than-a-decade-ago-study-shows

[Antarctic audio]
*This Antarctic Ice Core Bore Hole made them Laugh 
<https://youtu.be/W0HBNEXords>*
They went to drill for ice cores, but then they discovered a sound which 
made them laugh.
https://youtu.be/W0HBNEXords

[NPR]
*From Almonds To Rice, Climate Change Could Slash California Crop Yields 
By 2050 
<https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/02/590056872/from-almonds-to-rice-climate-change-could-slash-california-crop-yields-by-2050>*
Climate change could decrease the yield of some crops in California by 
up to 40 percent by 2050. That's a big deal for farmers in the state, 
which provides about two-thirds of the nation's produce.
California farmers grow more than 400 commodity crops. Tapan Pathak, a 
University of California Cooperative Extension specialist based in 
California's Central Valley, and his research team analyzed 89 studies 
on climate change and discovered that warming temperatures may alter 
where crops grow across the state. Their findings were published in the 
journal Agronomy...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/02/590056872/from-almonds-to-rice-climate-change-could-slash-california-crop-yields-by-2050
-
[Journal Agronomy]
*Climate Change Trends and Impacts on California Agriculture: A Detailed 
Review <http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/8/3/25/htm>*
Tapan B. Pathak
Abstract: California is a global leader in the agricultural sector and 
produces more than 400 types of commodities. The state produces over a 
third of the country's vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts. 
Despite being highly productive, current and future climate change poses 
many challenges to the agricultural sector. This paper provides a 
summary of the current state of knowledge on historical and future 
trends in climate and their impacts on California agriculture. We 
present a synthesis of climate change impacts on California agriculture 
in the context of: (1) historic trends and projected changes in 
temperature, precipitation, snowpack, heat waves, drought, and flood 
events; and (2) consequent impacts on crop yields, chill hours, pests 
and diseases, and agricultural vulnerability to climate risks. Finally, 
we highlight important findings and directions for future research and 
implementation. The detailed review presented in this paper provides 
sufficient evidence that the climate in California has changed 
significantly and is expected to continue changing in the future, and 
justifies the urgency and importance of enhancing the adaptive capacity 
of agriculture and reducing vulnerability to climate change. Since 
agriculture in California is very diverse and each crop responds to 
climate differently, climate adaptation research should be locally 
focused along with effective stakeholder engagement and systematic 
outreach efforts for effective adoption and implementation. The expected 
readership of this paper includes local stakeholders, researchers, state 
and national agencies, and international communities interested in 
learning about climate change and California's agriculture.
http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/8/3/25/htm

[Conclusion]
*Columnist Marty Nathan: Signs point to runaway global warming 
<http://www.gazettenet.com/Columnist-Marty-Nathan-describes-disturbing-signs-pointing-to-runaway-global-warming-15882526>*
However, if we go about business as usual, increasing the burning of 
fossil fuels until 2050, sea level will ultimately rise 4 feet above the 
present. That does not take into account ocean storm surges or flooding 
from megastorms and hurricanes.
But glacial and sea melts are not perhaps the most threatening. Yale 
Climate Connections published a chilling must-read about the state of 
the tundra entitled "The Permafrost Time Bomb Is Ticking: We Must Act 
Now to Defuse It. 
<https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/02/the-permafrost-bomb-is-ticking/>"
For quite some time scientists have been discussing the melting of the 
upper layers of the soil that covers one-fifth of the earth's surface in 
Siberia, Northern Europe, Canada and Alaska - soil that has been mostly 
frozen for the last half-million years.
That process has begun. If allowed to increase by business-as-usual 
emissions causing further warming, the permafrost will release more and 
more methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide, 
that will independently reinforce climate change.
Further, the melting will create a "compost bomb" phenomenon we 
gardeners have all witnessed in our back yard, when "decomposition of 
(melted) organic matter, once initiated,.. become(s) a source of heat 
itself, causing an explosive increase in soil temperatures, additional 
decomposition, and methane release." If you have ever stuck your hand in 
your compost heap in spring, you get the idea...
This provides a picture of a more complex and explosive feedback loop, 
self-reinforcing and unresponsive to human intervention, that could be 
the tipping point to runaway global warming...
To reach greenhouse gas peak emissions, we must stop the burning of 
fossil fuels, not increase it. That means no more new fossil fuel 
infrastructure, meaning no Columbia Gas pipeline expansion to Holyoke. 
Instead we must deal with peak loads by other less expensive means....
Dr. Marty Nathan lives in Northampton and is a physician at 
BaystateBrightwood Health Center in Springfield. She is on the steering 
committee of Climate Action NOW and drinks coffee with 
2degreesatgreenneighbors.earth. She may be reached at martygjf at comcast.net.
http://www.gazettenet.com/Columnist-Marty-Nathan-describes-disturbing-signs-pointing-to-runaway-global-warming-15882526

[legal solutions]
*Fossil Fuel Risk Bonds - Center for Sustainable Economy 
<https://sustainable-economy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Fossil-Fuel-Risk-Bonds-May-25.pdf>*
Safeguarding public finances from product life cycle risks of oil, gas, 
and coal
https://sustainable-economy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Fossil-Fuel-Risk-Bonds-May-25.pdf
by J Talberth - ‎2016 - ‎Cited by 1 - ‎Related articles
Fossil fuel risk bond programs offer a solution.  Fossil fuel risk bond 
programs are systematic efforts by state and local governments to 
evaluate and respond to the financial risks they face at each stage of 
the fossil fuel product ... The second approach includes surcharge-based 
trust funds that can be tapped to cover.
https://sustainable-economy.org
-*
*[legal struggles]*
"a good summary of our work on fossil fuel infrastructure and risk 
bonds" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giMlyiDt8Z8>
*https://sustainable-economy.org/
(draft version video https://youtu.be/giMlyiDt8Z8 )
Mar 8, 2017 - The majority of our work has taken place in Portland, 
where Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly have expressed an 
interest in pursuing risk bonds to shift costs of dangerous 
infrastructure from the public onto polluters. They are also interested 
in exploring a fossil fuel risk trust fund ...
*Walker Foundation - Fossil Fuel Risk Bonds 
<http://walker-foundation.org/net/org/project.aspx?projectid=107425>*
http://walker-foundation.org/net/org/project.aspx?projectid=107425

**[A book that Bill Gates likes]
*Pessimism is sometimes an enlightened outlook 
<https://www.ft.com/content/b2bee79e-17b1-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640>**
*Bill Gates endorses book a bit hyperbolic about environment
Steven Pinker rejects view that carbon-powered industrial society could 
destroy itself
Pilita Clark
Everyone knows about Bill Gates but what of the Bill Gates bump?
That is the jump in book sales that the billionaire philanthropist can 
trigger when he tells the world about an author he admires. A 
five-year-old doorstopper more than 800 pages long rocketed up Amazon's 
rankings last year after Gates tweeted it was "the most inspiring book 
I've ever read".
The author was Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker who claimed in 
his book, _The Better Angels of our Nature,_ that so many types of 
violence had plunged that we may have entered the most peaceful time in 
human history, despite what's on the news.
Gates has just doubled down to declare Prof Pinker's new work, 
Enlightenment Now, his "new favourite book of all time". "It's like 
Better Angels on steroids," he gushed in his blog, explaining how Pinker 
had moved on from violence to 15 other measures of progress to show how 
the world was getting better.
On the grounds that it never hurts to know what a man worth $91 billion 
thinks, I did my bit for a new Bill Gates bump and downloaded 
Enlightenment Now. As promised, it bulges with data showing how much 
healthier, safer, freer and richer we are than our forebears. 
Catastrophic famine has vanished from most of the world. War between 
countries is obsolescent. Most of us live in democracies. We're even 
getting smarter, as global average IQ scores rise by about three points 
every decade...
What is the use of humans getting better in every way if they end up in 
a world that becomes unlivable as global temperatures rise?
Pinker makes a serious effort to fit these woes into his theme of 
progress but the result is strained and at times oddly hyperbolic. His 
chapter on the environment starts with an attack on "greenism" - a 
"quasi-religious ideology" he detects in the work of everyone from Al 
Gore to Pope Francis, that is suspicious of Enlightenment commitment to 
science and reason. The "apocalyptic" creed is "laced with misanthropy" 
in his view and prone to "Nazi-like comparisons of human beings to 
vermin, pathogens, and cancer". For evidence of the latter, he cites a 
quote about "the human virus" from Paul Watson, neglecting to add that 
Watson is an anti-whaling activist so contentious even Greenpeace has 
criticised him...
But climate change poses a larger problem. Pinker is eager to disparage 
the "tragic" view of modernity - that a carbon-powered industrial 
society could destroy itself. He concedes we cannot be complacent about 
global warming and agrees "humanity has never faced a problem like it". 
The answer, he says, is to ditch "eco-pessimism" and embrace a more 
enlightened "ecomodernism", because environmental problems are 
ultimately "solvable, given the right knowledge".
Prof Pinker knows this. He thinks carbon pricing, nuclear power, 
geoengineering or other yet-to-be-invented technologies could eventually 
be the answer. I hope he is right. But to question how long this will 
take seems not so much pessimistic as perfectly reasonable and perhaps 
even positively enlightened.
https://www.ft.com/content/b2bee79e-17b1-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640

<http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/04/environment.climate/>*This 
Day in Climate History - March 4,  2001 
<http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/04/environment.climate/>  
-  from D.R. Tucker*
March 4, 2001: At an international climate summit in Italy, EPA 
Administrator Christine Todd Whitman insists that the Bush 
administration will take aggressive action to reduce carbon pollution. 
(By the end of the month, the Bush administration would officially 
disavow the Kyoto Protocol.)
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/04/environment.climate/
/
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