[TheClimate.Vote] February 14, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

[Richard Pauli]

/February 14, 2019/


[Bad weather in California]
*Atmospheric rivers pound California with season's 'biggest storm'*
California is having a very wet and cold winter, and atmospheric rivers 
are one of the reasons.

These storms have caused mudslides in the Southland, snow along the West 
Coast, white-out conditions in the Sierra and rain totals well beyond 
normal.
On Wednesday, a new atmospheric river was moving in -- with fears of 
stream flooding in Northern California and potential mudslides in 
Southern California.

"It's going to give us the biggest storm we've seen so far this season," 
said Jimmy Taeger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in 
San Diego.
*So what are atmospheric rivers?*
Atmospheric rivers are long plumes of water vapor that can transport 
tropical moisture across the Pacific Ocean and disperse it in California.
They get their name because such storms carry so much water, they've 
been likened to a river in the sky.
A strong atmospheric river can carry 7½ to 15 times the average flow of 
liquid water at the mouth of the Mississippi River...
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-atmospheric-river-rain-california-explainer-20190213-story.html


[future]
*Philadelphia will feel like Memphis by 2080, and other insights from 
climate models*
By Zoe SchlangerFebruary 13, 2019
https://qz.com/1549125/philadelphia-will-feel-like-memphis-by-2080-and-other-insights-from-climate-models/


[Beckwith explains a new observation: elevation dependent warming]
*Amplification of Warming at High Elevations*
Paul Beckwith
Published on Feb 13, 2019
In most (but not all) high-elevation regions, like the Third Pole 
(Tibetan Plateau; Himalayan Mountains), Antarctica, Greenland, Rockies, 
Alps, etc. the higher up you go, the greater the rate of warming. This 
is not commonly known, but the rate of temperature rise is about 2x, 3x 
or even greater, at higher altitudes than at lower altitudes, in a 
phenomena called Elevation Dependent Warming (EDW); clearly analogous to 
greater warming at higher latitudes. This is bad, especially for 
Greenland, Antarctica, as well as for the 2 billion people using Third 
Pole runoff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP27MIZJqOo
- - -
[continuing...]
*Feedback Mechanisms Amplifying Warming in Alpine Regions*
Paul Beckwith
Published on Feb 13, 2019
In the previous video I described how most alpine regions are warming 
two to three times faster at high elevations versus low elevations (and 
global average warming rates). Now I chat about feedbacks and processes 
that cause this, and how they vary with seasons and different regions. 
Albedo feedback, similar to that causing polar amplification, is one 
effect; others include upward creep of snow and tree lines, water vapour 
increases, cloud changes, aerosol loading changes, and both short-wave 
and long-wave radiation effects at altitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPwJ7u977-E


[another legal]*
**Shell Faces Lawsuit in the Netherlands, a New Legal Front in the 
Climate Battle*
Seven environmental and human rights organizations in the Netherlands 
announced on Tuesday they are prepared to sue Royal Dutch Shell if the 
oil giant refuses to align its business model with the goals of the 
Paris Climate Agreement.

The groups, led by Friends of the Earth Netherlands/Milieudefensie, 
Greenpeace Netherlands and ActionAid Netherlands have gathered more than 
13,000 signatures from Dutch citizens backing the forthcoming lawsuit. 
If Shell fails to meet their demands, they plan to deliver a court 
summons to the company at its headquarters in The Hague on April 5. This 
would be a new legal approach in battling climate change, the first 
lawsuit to directly challenge the business model and growth strategy of 
an oil company.

"For decades, Shell has chosen to make big profits at the expense of the 
climate. Shell is deliberately obstructing the energy revolution that is 
so badly needed to prevent catastrophic climate change. We need to make 
sure that Shell takes responsibility for its actions and changes its 
destructive business model," said Joris Thijssen, director of Greenpeace 
Netherlands.

Other groups joining Greenpeace and ActionAid include Both ENDS, Wadden 
Sea Forum, Jongeren Milieu Actief (Young Friends of the Earth NL), and 
Fossilvrij NL (Fossil Free NL). Friends of the Earth 
Netherlands/Milieudefensie is spearheading the action, which it began 
last year when the organization sent a letter to Shell warning of legal 
action if the company failed to cut back producing the fossil fuels that 
drive climate change.

That letter followed the public release of a trove of documents by the 
Dutch news organization De Correspondent showing that for decades, Shell 
has been aware of the impact of burning fossil fuels on the climate. 
Like ExxonMobil, Shell had studied the problem and acknowledged the 
danger in internal documents, yet publicly downplayed the risk while 
funding climate denial groups. Shell even predicted as far back as 1998 
that it could be sued along with other fossil fuel producers following a 
devastating storm, made more destructive because of climate change...
- - -
While Shell, like many of its oil industry peers, claims it supports the 
Paris Agreement, it maintains its core business in oil and gas and puts 
forward only modest carbon reduction strategies. For example, in order 
to have a chance to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C, the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that carbon emissions 
need to reach net zero by 2050. But Shell says it plans to reduce the 
net carbon footprint of its products by only 50 percent by 2050, and 
delays any net-zero emissions ambition until 2070.

The Netherlands' organizations say they are determined to hold Shell 
accountable for its role in driving climate-related devastation.

"From severe droughts in Africa to extreme flooding in Asia, millions of 
people we work with are seeing their lives and livelihoods torn apart by 
climate change. Shell's refusal to kick its fossil fuel addiction is 
sentencing them and many more to further devastation," said Maria van 
der Heide, head of policy and campaigns at ActionAid Netherlands. "We're 
joining this case because we want to ensure that Shell finally puts 
humanity's future above its bottom line."
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/02/12/shell-netherlands-lawsuit-climate-change/


[dark scenario]
*Insights From The Wilderness – Human Civilization Will Not Survive 
Climate Intensification*
By Dick Rauscher, originally published by Resilience.org
January 4, 2019
I recognize that the title of this StonyHill Nugget is alarming and that 
I will be accused of holding extremist views on global warming and 
climate intensification. But I am concerned that the media and our 
government are not telling us the truth. Stated simply, the 1% that 
control the media, and the reigns of political power in Washington and 
other nations around the globe, have absolutely no desire or motivation 
to talk about the real threats embedded in global warming.

They know that the global economy is extremely fragile….and talking 
about the deeper truths embedded in global warming and climate 
intensification would quickly kill the golden goose that is laying eggs 
of pure petroleum gold for them.

The realities of global warming embedded in the Governmental Global 
Warming Crisis Report released by governmental scientists on the Friday 
following Thanksgiving were clear. Global warming is not only going to 
change life as we know it by the end of the century, but also the 
impacts of global warming are already changing life as we know it….and 
the rate of change is going to continue to accelerate.

Unfortunately, the report which was mandated by Congress tended to gloss 
over the climate impacts that are coming in the near future or already 
happening. It focused primarily on climate impacts that will not be 
experienced by humanity for fifty to eighty years in the future!

*Here Is What Concerns Me…And Should Concern You*
Global warming has been metaphorically described as a cliff we are about 
to walk off. Unfortunately, it's more like a minefield. The further we 
walk out onto that minefield, the more we are likely to set off 
explosions and tipping points that can't be reversed.

The report gave accurate information on the coming climate crises, but 
it tiptoed very carefully around the sobering reality that virtually 
everything produced and consumed in our modern global economy is 
manufactured using energy provided by petroleum and natural gas. They 
understand that all of the short-term solutions that need to be 
implemented now, such as powering down from petroleum 95% in the next 
few decades, would immediately trigger a massive collapse in the world's 
global economy; a collapse that would very quickly bring human 
civilization as we know it to an end.

In other words, the writers of the government climate report knew a 
rapid powering down from petroleum and carbon energy cannot happen in 
time to effectively reverse the impacts of global warming. They also 
recognized the simple truth that the petroleum industry and the 1% who 
are profiting from the extraction and burning of carbon-based petroleum 
and gas are not about to let that happen. The 1% are not the least bit 
interested in killing the golden goose that is laying the solid 
petroleum gold eggs that are making them incredibly wealthy.

Humans are rarely able to internalize the impacts of a crisis that will 
happen in the distant future. But the 1%, and the CEO's of the petroleum 
industry, know full-well the day humanity does fully accept and embrace 
the severity of global warming, their golden goose will die. So they 
will continue to aggressively support those who deny that global warming 
is human-caused....or that it is an immediate threat.

*And this brings me to my concern and what I believe should concern you.*
When humans are frightened and feel powerless, they can quickly become 
angry. And they will aggressively seek to project that anger onto those 
they believe are responsible for creating their fear.

As a mental health therapist, I'm concerned that when humanity awakens 
to the reality that global warming and global climate intensification 
are a serious survival threat to their future...their fear and anger 
towards those who created this life-threatening situation could very 
quickly turn violent and extreme. This social anger and backlash could 
not only kill the golden petroleum goose; it could collapse the fragile 
financial structures of human civilization itself.

*Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there.*
When a) the actual financial and social impacts of global warming and 
global climate intensification are fully recognized by humanity and then 
combined with b) the growing recognition that powering down from the use 
of petroleum (the only realistic way to reverse global warming in time 
to save the planet) is not possible because it too would create an 
immediate, massive, and devastating collapse of the global economy and 
the economic foundations of human civilization.

As I pointed out above, virtually everything we produce and consume in 
our modern global economy is a) manufactured and created by carbon-based 
petroleum and natural gas energy, b) shipped around the world using that 
same carbon-based energy, and c) this includes most of the food we grow, 
eat, and ship around the world.

Stated simply, the inevitable emotional backlash of fear and anger that 
I'm concerned about when humanity finally digests these frightening 
realities…….will not bode well for the future of human civilization as 
we know it.

But the reality of global warming that most concerns me is not just the 
coming destructive impact of global climate change and storm 
intensification. Those will certainly threaten the future of our planet, 
but they are not the most immediate problem.

I believe the actual impacts of climate change and storm intensification 
will pale in significance compared to the violence and potential for 
social collapse of human civilization that will be created by the fear, 
powerlessness, and anger of a humanity that knows there is no way to 
avoid the suffering they will experience…a suffering that was created by 
greed. A greed that intentionally ignored and suppressed the long 
recognized reality of global warming, and the deeper reality that 
unlimited economic expansion is not physically or economically possible 
using the limited ecological and physical resources available on a 
limited planet.

Stated simply, my concern as a mental health therapist is the high 
probability that the emotional backlash created by social fear and anger 
will create a level of social violence that will threaten the economic 
and social structures of human civilization far sooner than the actual 
destructive impacts of global warming and climate intensification.

*So What Can We Do? How Can We Embrace Hope?*
We know there is currently no social or political will to prepare for 
these rapidly approaching and inevitable realities.
We also know that without preparation there will be no resilience for 
survival.
We know there is no way human civilization can power down from carbon 
energy fast enough to reverse global warming and avoid the social and 
economic collapse that a rapid powering down from petroleum would create.
Stated simply, the future is not what it used to be! Whether we a) do 
nothing and let global warming continue, or b) come off petroleum energy 
and reverse global warming in the next few decades, there is no way we 
can avoid a global collapse of the current global economic economy and 
human civilization as we know it.
We know life as we know it will end. But that does not mean the end of 
the world.
It simply means life as we know it is going to change. How it changes 
will be up to us! If we have the imagination needed to embrace the 
possibilities that change always offers, we could begin working together 
right now to create that new possible future.
It is critically important to remind ourselves that this is not the end 
of the world. It is only the end of life as we have come to know it. We 
created this life, this world, and we can begin creating a new possible 
future…..a new way of life. But we are very rapidly running out of time 
to create a future we would actually want to live in. We have to act now.

*The Path Forward: The Possible Futures We Can Not Allow To Be Re-created*
Here are some realities to think about as we prepare to create a new 
possible future; a future that will have to include the reality of 
further global warming, climate intensification and the looming threat 
of social collapse; the dark future that will be our reality for 
generations.

The possible future we create together cannot be the future that used to 
be. We cannot simply re-create the world we are living in today. 
Self-focused greed, denial of reality, avoidance of reality, and 
ignorant resistance to the inevitability of change in a changing 
universe…….are not options we can embrace as we work together to create 
our new possible future.

If we re-create the dangerous realities listed below in our new possible 
future human civilization……they would only lead to the same rapid 
economic and social collapse  we are about to witness in our present world.

*Possible Futures To Avoid*
1) A possible future that again allows our global debt to reach roughly 
$247 trillion. (To internalize this number consider that a million 
seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 
31,000 years. And 247 trillion seconds is roughly 7,657,000 years).

Debt is prosperity today, but poverty tomorrow when that debt has to be 
paid back…plus interest. We have allowed humanity to accrue a level of 
debt that no city, state, or nation has enough extra money left over 
after operating expenses are covered to pay back that kind of debt. 
Person A's debt is always person B's wealth, so when this massive debt 
begins to default, and it will, it would create a massive social and 
economic collapse.

*Debt cannot be part of the economic system in our possible new future.*
2) A possible future in which 80% of all pensions and social programs 
are again underfunded. Consider the emotional impact and anger that will 
happen when our current retirees fail to get the monthly checks they 
were promised in retirement. Or when social security underfunding enters 
the picture. Or when those retirees have to pay out of pocket for 
medical expenses when Medicare and Medicaid are cut back. Or when we add 
the hopelessness and anger of millions of retires that currently have 
little to no retirement savings, major credit card debt, and home equity 
loans well beyond their ability to afford due to decades in which the 
extreme wealth inequality favored the 1%.

*Poverty, hunger, and wealth inequality cannot be part of our possible 
new future.*
3) A possible future in which a denial of the social costs of global 
warming, floods, forest fires, dislocation, droughts, hunger, and storm 
refugees who have lost everything again begins to bankrupt insurance 
companies, states, and federal governments. When the global financial 
systems are no longer able to cover the overwhelming costs of food, 
medicines, and housing that will be urgently needed by the suffering 
victims of global warming, their suffering will quickly turn into an 
anger and violence that will threaten the very social structures and 
fabric of human civilization.

*Compassion, empathy, and quality of life for all persons must be part 
of our possible new future.*
4) A possible future in which there is again no social or political will 
to embrace the irreversible and uncontrollable global warming 
consequences which are already baked into our environment and global 
economy for generations to come. The same lack of social and political 
will that was needed to urgently embrace the actions that could have 
helped us avoid the no-win situation the world is in today. Ignoring 
global warming or powering down from carbon energy to reverse global 
warming…… would both quickly lead again to the collapse of our global 
economy and the foundations of human civilization.

*Ignoring reality is not an option in our possible new future.*
5) A possible  future in which the global wealth inequality is again 
allowed to get massively out of control. A future in which the globe's 
richest 1% currently owned half the world's wealth. Consider the reality 
that no empire in human history has ever survived at this level of 
wealth inequality.

*Our possible new future will require a just and equitable distribution 
of wealth and an economic system that includes all members equally.*
6) A possible future in which everyone is again encouraged to become 
rigidly hyper-partisan, angry at anyone considered to be "other", 
racist, ideologically inflexible, and hyper-nationally tribal. A human 
culture that again embraces rigid, black-and-white, zero-sum thinking.

Our possible new future will require a significant awakening and 
evolution of our collective human consciousness.

I could add more examples to this list, but I would like to close on a 
more positive note.

*Final Thoughts*
If we could find the courage, wisdom, and will to aggressively and 
decisively take action now,  it might not mean the end of human 
civilization. It might only mean the end of human civilization as we 
know it.
*
**The courage, wisdom, and will to take aggressive and decisive action 
now would require:*
a willingness to embrace voluntary simplicity,
a willingness to recognize that unlimited economic expansion on a 
limited planet is one of humanities most dangerous myths,
re-learning the self-reliant survival skills of our grandparents and 
previous generations,
learning to work together cooperatively,
the courage to become more self-aware, more evolved, to intentionally 
awaken our collective human consciousness by intentionally taming our 
collective childhood primitive ego……including our childhood egos need to 
be "right", its illusion of separateness from the rest of reality, and 
it's what-in-it-for-me self-focused greed.
learning to live in right relationship with nature and reality,
a radical and voluntary reduction in the "things" we currently extract 
and consume,
joining or creating self-reliant small local communities often referred 
to as sustainable eco-communities,
growing, preserving, and stockpiling our own food,
hand pumped wells for local water, and relearning the skills required to 
survive without electricity, gasoline, imported food and energy, how to 
stay warm in winter, weaving, knitting, hunting, fire starting without 
matches (which could eventually run out)……and most importantly,
starting this preparation and learning process now! The time to create a 
new viable possible future is far more time-limited than we ever imagined!
*Conclusion*
The lives of you, your family, and the billions of other individuals, 
families, and children all over the world…….will live in whatever 
possible new future we create together. Survival in this possible new 
future will require the skills of a self-reliant, sustainability-focused 
local community; a local community with the ability to work 
cooperatively together.

Going it alone will not be an option in this possible new future……if 
your goal is survival.
I don't claim to be omniscient and unerringly "right", but I do follow 
the facts and the scientific data of people who are a lot smarter than 
me. What if the vast majority of the world's scientists and economists 
are right? How long do we want to continue ignoring them? Perhaps a 
better way to think about that question is how long can we continue to 
ignore them……and still survive as a species?
My guess is…..not very long.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-01-04/insights-from-the-wilderness-human-civilization-will-not-survive-climate-intensification/


[Study: Chinese Academy of Sciences]
*Record-breaking ocean temperatures point to trends of global warming*
January 16, 2019
An international team released 2018 ocean heat content observations in 
Advances in Atmospheric Sciences on January 16, 2019. The newly 
available observations show that the year 2018 is the hottest year ever 
recorded for the global ocean, as evident in its highest ocean heat 
content since 1950s in the upper 2000m. Compared to the average value 
measured from 1981 to 2010, the 2018 ocean heat anomaly is approximately 
19.67 x 1022 Joules, a unit measure for heat. This heat increase in 2018 
relative to 2017 is ~388 times more than the total electricity generated 
by China in 2017, and ~100 million times more than the Hiroshima bomb. 
The years 2017, 2015, 2016 and 2014 came in just after 2018 in order of 
decreasing ocean heat content. The values are based on an ocean 
temperature analysis product conducted by the Institute of Atmospheric 
Physics (IAP) at Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The new study sheds light on how much oceanic water temperatures have 
been changing over the years. The change in ocean heat content is 
considered to be one of the best--if not the best--way to measure 
climate change driven by greenhouse gases emitted by human activities. 
This is because the global warming is driven by the Earth's energy 
imbalance due to more greenhouse gases in the air. The vast majority 
(more than 90 percent) of global warming heat is deposited in the 
world's oceans. Also, ocean temperature is less impacted by natural 
fluctuations, and is a robust indicator of climate change. Therefore, 
this record-breaking ocean heat record serves as direct evidence for 
global warming and represents a basis for adaptation to and mitigation 
of climate change.
- - -
The researchers also highlight that the increases in ocean water heat, 
which they predict will continue to rise, are causes for additional 
concern to both the scientific community as well as the public at large. 
This is because the higher temperatures result in an increase of sea 
level that comes with its own set of consequences. Examples of these 
include salt water contaminating fresh water wells, which impacts the 
quality of drinking water compromised coastal infrastructure increased 
likelihoods of storms.
Along those lines, increases in ocean heat also have severe consequences 
for the global weather system because they result in much more intense 
storms and heavy rains. Other consequences of increasing ocean water 
temperatures include bleaching and death of corals, melting sea ice, 
increasing marine heat waves, or long periods of extreme war mesa 
surface temperatures, as well as impacts on natural variability. Ocean 
heating has also been connected to increased drought intensity, heat 
waves as well as risk to wildlife.

The researcher will next focus on a deeper understanding of the effects 
of warmer ocean waters. As such, the IAP and collaborators will continue 
to monitor trends as well as focus on understanding the climate system 
as well as the ocean's role in it. By better understanding the potential 
dangers that increased ocean heat brings with it, the researchers hope 
to be a valuable economic resource to the fishing and tourism 
industries, for example. "These scientific activities will eventually 
serve the general public and government by enabling them to make 
informed decisions and thus create a better and more sustainable future 
for all," Cheng adds.
More information: Lijing Cheng et al, 2018 Continues Record Global Ocean 
Warming, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (2019). DOI: 
10.1007/s00376-019-8276-x
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-record-breaking-ocean-temperatures-trends-global.html



[feels like somewhere else]
*Contemporary climatic analogues for 540 North American urban areas in 
the late 21st century*
Nature Communications
New research maps "climate analogues" for urban areas in North America 
under different levels of warming. A climate analogue is a location that 
has the same climate now as a particular place is projected to have in 
the future. The study identifies and maps analogues for 540 urban areas, 
based on temperature and rainfall for the 2080s under scenarios RCP4.5 
and RCP8.5. Accompanying the paper is an interactive website where users 
can search and view the analogues for their area of interest. The 
package provides "an intuitive means of raising public awareness of the 
implications of climate change for 250 million urban residents", the 
authors conclude.


[real sounds]
*Ep. 35: Listening to Glaciers*
https://undark.org/article/podcast-35-glaciers-addiction-national-marine-monument/


*This Day in Climate History - February 14, 1979 - from D.R. Tucker*
February 14, 1979: The New York Times reports:
"There is a real possibility that some people now in their infancy will 
live to a time when the ice at the North Pole will have melted, a change 
that would cause swift and perhaps catastrophic changes in climate."...
- -
The choice, therefore, is primarily between nuclear and fossil fuel, the 
former raising formidable problem of radioactive waste disposal and the 
latter a threat to world climate.

The world is faced with a "Faustian bargain," Dr. Roger Revelle, 
chairman of tomorrow morning's session, told a press conference today, 
adding, “Whatever you do is bad.” Dr. Revelle, who formerly headed the 
population center at Harvard University, noted that population growth 
had already tapered off in Europe, including European Russia and Japan.

There is "real hope," he said, that in the next century world population 
may level off at eight billion -- roughly double the present level. But 
to raise the living standards of such a population to advanced levels 
will place formidable demands on energy production.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60716FD3A5D12728DDDAD0994DA405B898BF1D3
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