[TheClimate.Vote] May 18, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri May 18 12:54:24 EDT 2018
/May 18, 2018/
[from now on, setting records all the time]
*Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to
global warming
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/17/global-warming-april-400th-consecutive-warm-month/618484002/>*
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his
second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin
topped the musical charts.
It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.
Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with
above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.
The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it's climate change, caused by
humanity's burning of fossil fuels.
"We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and
consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world
continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. "Speeding by
a '400' sign only underscores that, but it does not prove anything new."
Climate scientists use the 20th-century average as a benchmark for
global temperature measurements. That's because it's fixed in time,
allowing for consistent "goal posts" when reviewing climate data. It's
also a sufficiently long period to include several cycles of climate
variability.
"The thing that really matters is that, by whatever metric, we've spent
every month for several decades on the warm side of any reasonable
baseline," Arndt said.
NOAA's analysis found last month was the 3rd-warmest April on record
globally. The unusual heat was most noteworthy in Europe, which had its
warmest April on record, and Australia, which had its second-warmest.
- - - - video statement
https://www.usatoday.com/videos/weather/2018/05/17/weather-event-hasnt-happened-since-1984/618961002/
For the year-to-date, the Earth is seeing its 5th-warmest start to the
year.
A separate analysis of global temperature data from NASA also found last
month was the third-warmest April on record.
Another milestone was reached in April, also related to the number
"400": Carbon dioxide - the gas scientists say is most responsible for
global warming - reached its highest level in recorded history at 410
parts per million.
This amount is highest in at least the past 800,000 years, according to
the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/17/global-warming-april-400th-consecutive-warm-month/618484002/
[BBC says]
*UN puts brave face as climate talks get stuck
<http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44074352>*
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, Bonn
UN talks have been officially suspended as countries failed to resolve
differences about implementing the Paris climate agreement.
The negotiations will resume in Bangkok in September where an extra
week's meeting has now been scheduled .
Delegates struggled with the complexity of agreeing a rulebook for the
Paris climate pact that will come into force in 2020.
Rows between rich and poor re-emerged over finance and cutting carbon.
Overall progress at this meeting has been very slow, with some countries
such as China looking to re-negotiate aspects of the Paris deal.
UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa was putting a brave face on the talks.
"We face, I would say, a satisfactory outcome for this session but we
have to be very, very clear that we have a lot of work in the months
ahead," she said.
"We have to improve the pace of progress in order to be able to achieve
a good outcome in Katowice in December," she said, referring to the end
of year Conference of the Parties where the rulebook is due to be
completed and agreed.
China and some other countries, perhaps frustrated by the slow pace,
have sought in this Bonn meeting to go back to the position that existed
before the 2015 deal, where only developed countries had to undertake to
reduce their emissions...
more at: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44074352
[video]
*Humans Are Changing the Location of Water Around the World, NASA Says
<https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-05-17-nasa-satellites-human-fingerprint-shifts-global-freshwater>*
The Weather Channel
“The human fingerprint is all over changing freshwater availability. We
see it in large-scale overuse of groundwater. We see it as a driver of
climate change,” said Jay Famiglietti, a co-author of the research who
is the senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California. “The study shows that humans have really
drastically altered the global water landscape in a very profound way.”
Using NASA satellites and data on human activities to map locations
where freshwater is changing around the globe, researchers found that
there are several factors involved in the shifts, including water
management practices, climate change and natural cycles. The study was
published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
[video]
*For 15 Years, GRACE Tracked Freshwater Movements Around the World
<https://youtu.be/MaxBOvQ2a_o>*
Between 2002 and 2016, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
(GRACE) tracked the movement of freshwater around the planet.
https://youtu.be/MaxBOvQ2a_o
They combined this information with satellite precipitation data from
the Global Precipitation Climatology Project, Landsat imagery from the
U.S. Geological Survey and NASA, irrigation maps and published reports
of human activities related to agriculture, mining and reservoir operations.
"This is the first time that we've used observations from multiple
satellites in a thorough assessment of how freshwater availability is
changing, everywhere on Earth,"
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-05-17-nasa-satellites-human-fingerprint-shifts-global-freshwater
[a very positive paradigm shift]
*Climate change in Quebec equals a much greater diversity of species???
<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516172247.htmhttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516172247.htm>**
*The national and provincial parks may be poised to become biodiversity
refuges of continental importance
Date: May 16, 2018
A team of researchers believe that, paradoxically, climate change may
result in Quebec's national and provincial parks becoming biodiversity
refuges of continental importance as the variety of species present
there increases. They used ecological niche modeling to calculate
potential changes in the presence of 529 species in about 1/3 of the
protected areas in southern Quebec almost all of which were under 50 km2
in size. Their results suggest that fifty -- eighty years from now
(between 2071-2100) close to half of the protected regions of southern
Quebec may see a species turnover of greater than 80%.
The research team, from l'Universite du Quebec a Rimouski, le Ministere
des Forets, de la Faune et des Parcs, and McGill University believe
that, depending on the region, the gain in the number of species of
birds, amphibians, trees, and vascular flowering plants could range from
12 and 530 %. It is the first study to examine in such details the
potential effects of climate change on the biodiversity of a large
network of northern protected areas.
- - - - - -
The researchers believe that the scale and rapidity of the species
turnover will also result in a necessary reexamination of current
conservation paradigms, since it will be impossible to preserve a
snapshot of today's biodiversity in the National Parks. More
specifically, the researchers believe that:
1) Rather than trying to preserve current biodiversity in the
National Parks, a more effective conservation strategy to ensure
future biodiversity may be to preserve site resilience and a
diversity of physical features and conditions.
2) There will potentially be complicated choices ahead for managers
of protected areas as increasing numbers of new immigrant species
colonize protected sites. If historical communities are deeply
modified, the managers may need self-sustaining populations of
non-native species in some protected areas. But newly arriving
species may also have negative impacts on ecosystem structure and
function.
3) Assigning conservation status to rare and recently naturalized
species may prove a thorny issue, given that a significant portion
of northern species are already at risk. But the conservation value
of rare new species should be considered in a long-term continental
perspective rather than short-term national perspective.
4) It will be important to preserve and restore connectivity of
protected areas to allow potential corridors for migration. In this
way, species will avoid being trapped for decades or centuries
between rapid retreat from the territory's southern edge and only a
slow advance on the northern edge.
The researchers caution, however, that potential species gains should
not draw attention away from the potential extinction of local species
that may no longer find suitable conditions in future in the protected
areas where they are at the moment. The geographical pattern of
potential relative species loss suggests that several species could
disappear in both the southernmost protected areas of Quebec, and in the
higher latitudes, where the extinction of only a few local species can
have drastic effects on whole ecological communities.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516172247.htm
[back to distress]
*The Two-Degree Delusion
The Dangers of an Unrealistic Climate Change Target
<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-02-08/two-degree-delusion>*
By Ted Nordhaus
Global carbon emissions rose again in 2017, disappointing hopes that the
previous three years of near zero growth marked an inflection point in
the fight against climate change. Advocates of renewable energy had
attributed flat emissions to the falling cost of solar panels. Energy
efficiency devotees had seen in the pause proof that economic activity
had been decoupled from energy consumption. Advocates of fossil fuel
divestment had posited that the carbon bubble had finally burst.
Analysts who had attributed the pause to slower economic growth in a
number of parts of the world, especially China, were closer to the
truth. The underlying fundamentals of the energy economy, after all,
remained mostly unchanged-there had been no step change in either the
energy efficiency of the global economy or the share of energy
production that clean energy accounted for. And sure enough, as growth
picked up, emissions started to tick back up again as well.
Even during the pause, it was clear that the world wasn't making much
progress toward avoiding significant future climate change. To
significantly alter the trajectory of sea level changes or most other
climate impacts in this century or the next, emissions would not just
have to peak; they would have to fall precipitously. Yet what progress
the world has made to cut global emissions has been, under even the most
generous assumptions, incremental.
But at the latest climate talks in Bonn last fall, diplomats once again
ratified a long-standing international target of limiting warming to two
degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. This despite being unable to
commit to much beyond what was already agreed at the Paris meeting two
years ago, when negotiators reached a nominal agreement on nonbinding
Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, which would result in
temperatures surpassing three degrees above preindustrial levels before
the end of this century.
Forty years after it was first proposed, the two-degree target continues
to maintain a talismanic hold over global efforts to address climate
change, despite the fact that
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-02-08/two-degree-delusion
$ Register to read one free article a month.
*
*[BBC News NI]*
Bad weather causes record driving test cancellations
<https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44111500>*
By Ali Gordon
This winter's adverse weather conditions resulted in a record number of
driving tests being cancelled in Northern Ireland.
1,267 driving tests were scrapped from November-April - almost 1,000
more than the previous two years combined.
Despite less frost in December than usual, 527 driving tests were
cancelled by Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA).
The Department of Infrastructure spread 117,000 tonnes of salt this
winter, "the most ever used in one season".
They told the BBC they faced difficulties when re-booking cancelled
tests quickly "whilst further snow was falling or being forecast".
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44111500
[May 18th is anniversary of Mt St Helens eruption 2 minute video]
*Bill McGuire: Will climate change cause earthquakes? (2012)
<http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/>*
Climate State - Published on Apr 14, 2017
Bill McGuire, author of 'Waking the Giant: How a changing climate
triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes', discusses the topics
raised in his book.
Modelling suggests with ice cap melt, an increase in volcanic activity
<http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/>
http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/
-
[grain of truth]
*Waking the Climate Giant - Volcano activity and sea level rise
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNWGlzHC2ss>* (video lecture)
Excerpt from the full London Lecture: Waking the Giant December 2016
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ>
Watch the full lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ
The Geological Society December 2016
An astonishing transformation over the last 20,000 years has seen our
planet flip from a frigid wasteland into the temperate world upon which
our civilisation has grown and thrived. This most dynamic episode in
Earth history saw the crust bouncing and bending in response to the
melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of the ocean basins;
triggering earthquakes, spawning tsunamis and provoking a lively
response from the world's volcanoes.
Now there are signs that human-induced climate change is encouraging the
sleeping giant beneath our feet to stir once again. Could it be that we
are on track to bequeath to our children and their children not only a
far hotter world, but also a more geologically fractious one?
- - - -
He wrote a book on the subject, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ
_*Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes,
tsunamis, and volcanoes*_
Author/Editor: By Bill McGuire
Publication Date: 25 April 2013
Published by Oxford University Press. Stocked from August 2016.
Twenty thousand years ago our planet was an icehouse. Temperatures
were down six degrees; ice sheets kilometres thick buried much of
Europe and North America and sea levels were 130m lower. The
following 15 millennia saw an astonishing transformation as our
planet metamorphosed into the temperate world upon which our
civilisation has grown and thrived. One of the most dynamic periods
in Earth history saw rocketing temperatures melt the great ice
sheets like butter on a hot summer's day; feeding torrents of
freshwater into ocean basins that rapidly filled to present levels.
The removal of the enormous weight of ice at high latitudes caused
the crust to bounce back triggering earthquakes in Europe and North
America and provoking an unprecedented volcanic outburst in Iceland.
A giant submarine landslide off the coast of Norway sent a tsunami
crashing onto the Scottish coast while around the margins of the
continents the massive load exerted on the crust by soaring sea
levels encouraged a widespread seismic and volcanic rejoinder.
In many ways, this post-glacial world mirrors that projected to
arise as a consequence of unmitigated climate change driven by human
activities. Already there are signs that the effects of climbing
global temperatures are causing the sleeping giant to stir once
again. Could it be that we are on track to bequeath to our children
and their children not only a far hotter world, but also a more
geologically fractious one?
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/MPWTG
- -
[ice cap off, means land mass up]
*Bill McGuire: Modelling suggests with ice cap melt, an increase in
volcanic activity
<http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/>*
Interviewer: In your book Waking The Giant you mentioned (Excerpt) that
prior to the PETM, huge amounts of magma flow onto the lands. Can we
expect a similar response from the Earth crust with current and
projected climate change, especially in light of what has become a
chronic deglaciation event in the northern hemisphere? Is there a
possibility for volcanic traps to emerge under current continental
configuration (Related)?
Bill McGuire: The lava outpourings that occurred prior to the PETM were
linked to large-scale tectonic events; notably the opening of the North
Atlantic, which are not occurring today, so there is no reason to expect
similar magma deluges in relation to contemporary climate change. It
would be reasonable, however, to expect a response from active volcanoes
that are buried beneath ice or that host a thick ice cover. Around
12,000 years ago, when the 1km-thick ice cover across Iceland largely
disappeared, volcanic activity increased by 30 times over the course of
a 1500-year period.
Ice cover on Iceland is now confined to the Vatnajokull Ice Cap, beneath
which are the Grimsvotn, Eyjafjallajokull and Bardarbunga volcanoes,
which have all erupted in the past four years. Modelling suggests that
as the ice cap continues to melt, so there will be a measurable increase
in volcanic activity. It is very unlikely, however, that this will be on
the post-glacial scale, but it could lead to more eruptions than would
happen otherwise, or bigger ones.
Elsewhere in the world, the loss of ice from high altitude volcanoes in
places like Alaska, Kamchatka, the Andes, the Cascade Range could
promote more explosive eruptions or flank collapse. Changing stress
conditions around the ocean margins, as sea levels rise, may also
promote eruptions at coastal and island volcanoes.
- - - -
Bill McGuire: This is the big question and one that is not easy to
answer. How can we say that a particular volcano would not have erupted
anyway or a particular fault would not have ruptured in any case to
trigger an earthquake? If there is a measurable rise in global seismic
or volcanic activity then we could probably make a convincing case for
climate change playing a role.
It is possible, however, that any response will take place on a more
spatially-limited basis; affecting only certain volcanoes or faults, so
there may not be any obvious, overarching, global signal. In such cases,
it should be possible to model the changes in stress and strain driven
by climate change parameters such as ice unloading or sea level rise and
to evaluate their role in triggering an eruption or earthquake.
http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/
[Climate Role-Play Negotiations game]
World Climate
*Climate Change Negotiations Game
<https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/world-climate/>*
The World Climate Simulation is a role playing exercise of the UN
climate change negotiations for groups. It is unique in that it uses an
interactive computer model to rapidly analyze the results of the
mock-negotiations during the event. All the materials and tools for
World Climate are available for free and many are available in multiple
languages. We encourage you to organize a World Climate Simulation yourself.
- - - -Video World Climate Preview https://youtu.be/afO3lDX37tQ
You can use the World Climate Simulation to build climate change
awareness and enable people to experience some of the dynamics that
emerge in the UN climate negotiations. The exercise is framed by current
climate change science, using the interactive C-ROADS computer
simulation which allows participants to find out how their proposed
policies impact the global climate system in real-time.
https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/world-climate/
*This Day in Climate History - May 18, 2009
<http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2009/05/18/6143/10-reasons-to-support-the-waxman-markey-energy-bill/>
- from D.R. Tucker*
May 18, 2009:
The Center for American Progress highlights the economic benefits of the
American Clean Energy and Security Act.
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2009/05/18/6143/10-reasons-to-support-the-waxman-markey-energy-bill/
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