[TheClimate.Vote] August 17, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sat Aug 17 11:25:31 EDT 2019

/August 17, 2019/

[Duty to warn]
*Watch Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi deliver UN speech on climate change emergency*
At this year's United Nations celebration in recognition of Vesak, the 
Buddha's birthday, the monk-scholar Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi gave an 
address about our need to confront climate change. (Or, as he notes we 
might do better to call it, climate destabilization or climate 
disorientation.) It is, as he puts it, "a critical condition."

Watch the speech - https://youtu.be/3WhvFv_xwT0
and read a full transcription of it here:
https://www.lionsroar.com/watch-ven-bhikkhu-bodhi-deliver-un-speech-on-climate-change-emergency/?mc_cid=25ada9ff7b&mc_eid=0f3d41a2e1 

[Two wise women, coaches for wrestling grief]
*The Good Grief Network 10-Steps to Personal Resilience & Empowerment in 
a Chaotic Climate
*Our unique program helps build personal resilience & empowerment while 
strengthening community ties to combat despair, inaction, and 
eco-anxiety on the collective level.*
*https://www.goodgriefnetwork.org/*
**- - -
*[15 min Video interview with LaUra Schmidt and Aimee Lewis-Reau]
*Connection Is Your Way Out: Interview with LaUra Schmidt and Aimee 
Lewis-Reau 2019*
https://youtu.be/HLbQdh94-rw

[New Study]
*Wildfire impact on environmental thermodynamics and severe convective 
storms*
Geophysical Research Letters
Emissions from wildfires can impact the formation of severe storms, a 
new study says. The study says that "both the heat flux and aerosol 
emissions" from wildfires can "increase low-level temperatures and 
mid-level thermal buoyancy significantly, causing stronger upward motion 
that lifts more supercooled water to higher levels". The rising of 
super-cooled water can lead to bigger hail stones enhanced lightning, 
the research says.
*Plain Language Summary*
The length of wildfire burning season and burned area have been 
increasing globally. Besides being a globally important source of 
aerosol particles that could impact clouds, precipitation, and 
radiation, wildfire activity heats the environment dramatically and can 
significantly perturb the environmental thermodynamics. However, this 
impact on environmental thermodynamics and the subsequent convection 
generated is poorly represented in models. We have developed and 
evaluated a model capability that accounts for the impact of heat flux 
from wildfires and is computationally efficient. We have used the new 
model to explore a pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) event that occurred in 
Texas and Oklahoma on 11-12 May 2018 triggered by the Mallard Fire. The 
simulation accounting for effects of both heat flux and aerosol 
emissions from the wildfire predicts radar reflectivity, precipitation, 
hailstone size, and lightning reasonably well based on comparisons with 
observations. Both the heat flux and aerosol emissions from the wildfire 
increase low-level temperatures and mid-level thermal buoyancy 
significantly, causing stronger upward motion that lifts more 
supercooled water to higher levels. The increase in available 
supercooled water for hail growth and invigorated updrafts leads to 
larger hail size and enhanced lightning. The effect of heat flux on 
storm intensity is considerably more significant than that of aerosol 
emissions...
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL084534

[carry on]
*U.S. Air Combat Command Assesses Climate Change Threats to the Air Force*
According to Air Force Magazine, Gen. Mike "Mobile" Holmes, Commander 
of Air Combat Command (ACC), recently tasked Air Force Weather 
forecasters with assessing the long-term vulnerability of Air Force 
assets to climate change threats.

The 14th Weather Squadron focused on ACC's main operating bases: 
analyzing the impact of high winds, wildfires, floods, extreme 
temperatures, severe weather, and instrument flight rule conditions on 
the 50-mile radius surrounding each base. Forecasters paid special 
attention to areas where temperature and altitude cause aircraft 
performance issues, an issue I recently covered in a briefer for the 
Center for Climate and Security...
https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/08/16/u-s-air-combat-command-assesses-climate-change-threats-to-the-air-force/
- -
[read the briefer PDF ]
*Climate Change Implications for U.S. Military Aircraft*
- - -
The mechanics explaining why lower air density decreases aircraft 
performance
High, hot and humid are the three worst words a
pilot can hear.
This flight-school phrase refers to the way air density and aircraft 
performance decrease with
higher altitude, air temperature, and humidity.
Hotter air is less dense because the increased energy of warmer air 
molecules causes them to
collide with greater frequency and intensity, ricocheting away from the 
collisions and dispersing
across space.
Though humid air feels heavier, it is actually less dense than dry air.
In humid conditions, water molecules displace nitrogen and oxygen molecules.
This changes the air's composition, making it lighter and less dense 
because water molecules weigh less
than nitrogen and oxygen molecules. Aircraft rely on air to generate 
lift and thrust,
so less dense air means less available power for fixed and rotary wing 
aircraft.
In the same way that it grows harder to hike in higher elevations,
it becomes more difficult for planes to operate in less dense air...
- -
McRae's vulnerability assessment model isolates projections of 
environmental conditions
that decrease aircraft performance, namely high heat and humidity, and 
translates these conditions
into direct impacts on aircraft and airbase
operations.
By translating climate projections into impacts on aircraft and airbase 
operations, McRae's
model helps inform mission planning and aircraft acquisitions processes 
that are more resilient to climate change...
- - -
McRae's vulnerability assessment model isolates projections of 
environmental conditions
that decrease aircraft performance, namely high heat and humidity, and 
translates these conditions
into direct impacts on aircraft and airbase operations.
By translating climate projections into impacts on aircraft and airbase 
operations, McRae's
model helps inform mission planning and aircraft acquisitions processes 
that are more resilient to climate change...
- - -
*Impacts of high DA on military operations*
Higher DA drastically diminishes aircraft performance and decreases the 
viability of current
military operations...
https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/climate-change-implications-for-us-military-aircraft_briefer-44.pdf

[media, truth thyself]
*You can now report a suspicious Instagram post and expect a certified 
U.S. fact-checker to verify it*
August 15, 2019
Starting today, Instagram users can report false content and expect 
certified fact-checkers to analyze its veracity. (Full disclosure: This 
work will be done by a group of verified signatories to the 
International Fact-Checking Network's Code of Principles.)

Facebook announced today it is expanding its Third Party Fact-Checking 
Program (3PFC) to the photo- and video-sharing social network it bought 
seven years ago. The technical rollout starts today in the United States 
and should take two weeks to reach all international users.

To report suspicious content, users will only have to click on the three 
dots in the upper right corner of each Instagram post, choose "it's 
inappropriate" and then "false information." Then the posts will be 
reviewed by IFCN members, who are already working with 3PFC in more than 
30 countries...
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/you-can-now-report-a-suspicious-instagram-post-and-expect-a-certified-fact-checker-to-verify-it/

[Sarcastic cartoon tells us what we are thinking about]
*The Untold Benefits of Climate Change*
by Kendra Wells
https://thenib.com/the-untold-benefits-of-climate-change

*This Day in Climate History - August 17, 2014 - from D.R. Tucker*
August 17, 2014: The Boston Globe reports on the upcoming trial of 
climate activists Ken Ward and Jay O'Hara in Fall River, Massachusetts:

"On May 15, 2013, Ken Ward and Jay O'Hara anchored their lobster
boat in the shipping channel off the Brayton Point Power Station in
Somerset. Flying an American flag and a banner reading
'#coalisstupid,' the two men blocked the delivery of 40,000 tons of
Appalachian mountaintop coal to New England's largest coal-burning
power plant for a day.

"At their trial, scheduled for Sept. 8 in Fall River District Court,
Wood and O'Hara face charges of disturbing the peace, conspiracy,
and motorboat violations. Although conviction could result in nine
months of jail time, they'll admit to everything. They'll argue that
it's really climate chnge and the government's ineffective policies
that should be on trial.

"Then they'll ask the jury to find them not guilty by reason of
'necessity.'

"This trial will mark a pioneering invocation of the necessity
defense, the longstanding legal doctrine that it is acceptable to
commit a crime if you are preventing a greater harm. Traditionally,
this defense is used for situations like a prisoner fleeing from a
burning jail, but Wood and O'Hara's lawyers will make the more
sweeping argument that their illegal interference with a coal
delivery was justified in light of the greater danger of
catastrophic climate change. In past cases, judges have blocked the
attempt to use 'necessity' as a defense by climate protesters. In
this case, the defense has not been challenged. That means that in
Bristol County, for the first time, the climate necessity defense
appears bound for an American court."

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/08/16/the-climate-made/SyBQ7d95ZG0QoiJBHI17KK/story.html 

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

*** Privacy and Security:*This is a text-only mailing that carries no 
images which may originate from remote servers. Text-only messages 
provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.