[TheClimate.Vote] July 27, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sat Jul 27 09:57:28 EDT 2019

/July 27, 2019/

[upcoming activism issue]
*The government-backed European Investment Bank (EIB) - the world's 
largest multilateral lender - just released a draft policy that would 
see the bank stop funding fossils by the end of 2020.*
This comes after the 2017 World Bank Group commitment to end financing 
for upstream oil and gas, and is an even stronger and clearer commitment 
to end handouts to the fossil fuel industry.
...The EU member state governments which own the EIB must still pass 
this policy, which will be taken up at their board meeting on September 
9th/10th...
The Guardian: 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/26/eib-plans-to-cut-all-funding-for-fossil-fuel-projects-by-2020 

Reuters: 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eib-climate-fossilfuels/european-investment-bank-proposes-end-to-fossil-fuel-lending-idUSKCN1UL1PX
AP: https://www.apnews.com/721668732c19443f9f1a2b63a5830d1f
Bloomberg: 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-26/eu-s-lending-arm-plans-to-phase-out-fossil-fuel-funding

[same goes for flat earth]
*'No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts*
Extensive historical data shows recent extreme warming is unprecedented 
in past 2,000 years
The scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming is 
likely to have passed 99%, according to the lead author of the most 
authoritative study on the subject, and could rise further after 
separate research that clears up some of the remaining doubts.

Three studies published in Nature and Nature Geoscience use extensive 
historical data to show there has never been a period in the last 2,000 
years when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in 
recent decades.

It had previously been thought that similarly dramatic peaks and troughs 
might have occurred in the past, including in periods dubbed the Little 
Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Anomaly. But the three studies use 
reconstructions based on 700 proxy records of temperature change, such 
as trees, ice and sediment, from all continents that indicate none of 
these shifts took place in more than half the globe at any one time...
- -
"There is no doubt left - as has been shown extensively in many other 
studies addressing many different aspects of the climate system using 
different methods and data sets," said Stefan Bronnimann, from the 
University of Bern and the Pages 2K consortium of climate scientists.

Commenting on the study, other scientists said it was an important 
breakthrough in the "fingerprinting" task of proving how human 
responsibility has changed the climate in ways not seen in the past.

"This paper should finally stop climate change deniers claiming that the 
recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural climate 
cycle. This paper shows the truly stark difference between regional and 
localised changes in climate of the past and the truly global effect of 
anthropogenic greenhouse emissions," said Mark Maslin, professor of 
climatology at University College London.

Previous studies have shown near unanimity among climate scientists that 
human factors - car exhausts, factory chimneys, forest clearance and 
other sources of greenhouse gases - are responsible for the exceptional 
level of global warming.

A 2013 study in Environmental Research Letters found 97% of climate 
scientists agreed with this link in 12,000 academic papers that 
contained the words "global warming" or "global climate change" from 
1991 to 2011. Last week, that paper hit 1m downloads, making it the most 
accessed paper ever among the 80+ journals published by the Institute of 
Physics, according to the authors....
The pushback has been political rather than scientific. In the US, the 
rightwing thinktank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is 
reportedly putting pressure on NASA to remove a reference to the 97% 
study from its webpage. The CEI has received event funding from the 
American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Charles Koch 
Institute, which have much to lose from a transition to a low-carbon 
economy.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99 

[shouldn't we call it Global Heating?]
*If climate change makes the clouds disappear, we're screwed*
By Greta Moran on Feb 25, 2019
  If we reach the dramatic level of global warming outlined in the 
report, those newly blue skies will bring us a world of trouble. As 
Grist detailed in November, climate change leaves no part of the Earth 
untouched: not the sky, not the ocean, and not your backyard.
*- - -*
*A CloudSpotters' Guide to Climate Change*
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-change-britain-clouds/
- - -
[NASA resource]
*International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project*
CLOUD CLIMATOLOGY
The Role of Clouds in Climate
System of Climate Feedbacks Involving Clouds
Net Effect on Energy and Water Balances
Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change
How Clouds Form and Travel
Computer Climate Models
Simple Early Views of Clouds
How Clouds Might Change with Global Warming
Global Distribution and Character of Clouds
In order to predict the climate several decades into the future, we need 
to understand many aspects of the climate system, one being the role of 
clouds in determining the climate's sensitivity to change. Clouds affect 
the climate but changes in the climate, in turn, affect the clouds. This 
relationship creates a complicated system of climate feedbacks, in which 
clouds modulate Earth's radiation and water balances.

Clouds cool Earth's surface by reflecting incoming sunlight.
Clouds warm Earth's surface by absorbing heat emitted from the surface 
and re-radiating it back down toward the surface.
Clouds warm or cool Earth's atmosphere by absorbing heat emitted from 
the surface and radiating it to space.
Clouds warm and dry Earth's atmosphere and supply water to the surface 
by forming precipitation.
Clouds are themselves created by the motions of the atmosphere that are 
caused by the warming or cooling of radiation and precipitation.
If the climate should change, then clouds would also change, altering 
all of the effects listed above. What is important is the sum of all 
these separate effects, the net radiative cooling or warming effect of 
all clouds on Earth. For example, if Earth's climate should warm due to 
the greenhouse effect, the weather patterns and the associated clouds 
would change; but it is not known whether the resulting cloud changes 
would diminish the warming (a negative feedback) or enhance the warming 
(a positive feedback). Moreover, it is not known whether these cloud 
changes would involve increased or decreased precipitation and water 
supplies in particular regions. Improving our understanding of the role 
of clouds in climate is crucial to understanding the effects of global 
warming...
more at - https://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html
- - -
*Here's why a less cloudy future is a big problem*
Grist - Published on Aug 30, 2016
When it comes to climate change predictions, clouds are a pain in the 
butt. In fact, according to the IPCC, they're the largest pain in the 
butt. They're pretty squirrelly things: small, fast, and variable in 
shape, size and behavior, which makes them really challenging for 
climate scientists to work with. Clouds also have a big impact on the 
climate -- and could potentially make the effects of climate change much 
worse.

That's why Joel Norris, a scientist at the Scripps Institution of 
Oceanography, decided that it's time to get cirrus about understanding 
clouds. His goal: to search through old satellite records to find how 
the skyscape has changed with global warming and what might be in store 
for the future. Watch our video to learn more about these misunderstood 
meteorological formations...
https://youtu.be/1GFdlGurr0I

[are global warming novels any different?]
*7 NOVELS THAT WILL FIRE YOU UP ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE*
https://www.ozy.com/good-sht/7-novels-that-will-fire-you-up-about-climate-change/86076

*This Day in Climate History - July 27, 2004 - from D.R. Tucker*
July 27, 2004: Illinois state senator and US Senate candidate Barack 
Obama delivers a stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention 
in Boston--one that curiously doesn't mention climate change or the 
environment, save for his observation that "[Democratic presidential 
candidate] John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren't held 
hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil 
fields."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19751-2004Jul27.html
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