[TheClimate.Vote] June 2, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun Jun 2 08:44:49 EDT 2019

/June 2, 2019/

[a brief video about TV and tornadoes - Trever Noah - "Just stop!"]
*A Weatherman's Outrage - The Daily Show*
https://youtu.be/mz06XB_hZ3Y?t=249

[click for images]
*Extreme weather in the US: tornadoes, floods and snow – in pictures *
Severe weather has spawned multiple tornadoes, flooding and even snow 
across America's Midwest and Northeast
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2019/jun/01/extreme-weather-in-the-us-tornadoes-floods-and-snow-in-pictures

[noticed]
*Canadian Wildfires Are Already Turning Sunsets Red in the US*
The calendar hasn't turned to summer yet, but skies in Canada and across 
the U.S. already look like August. Smoke from massive Canadian wildfires 
has made the sun disappear in Edmonton and turned Friday's sunrise blood 
red as far east as Vermont.

More than 900,000 acres of Alberta has gone up in flames, the latest 
symptom of our overheating planet. Wildfire risk continues to be high in 
the province as well as neighboring British Columbia where a heat wave 
has temperatures climbing into the 90s for parts of the province through 
the weekend...
- -
Americans got to enjoy a slightly more diluted dose of wildfire smoke. 
Blood red sun enthusiasts from Iowa to Vermont were treated to an angry 
orb in the sky on Thursday during sunset and again on Friday morning for 
sunrise...
- -
But then what's average anymore really? The world has heated up, 
increasing the risk of large wildfires and lengthening wildfire season. 
Rising temperatures mean that snow melts out earlier. That, in turn, can 
dry out vegetation, priming it for exploding into a major fire once 
sparked. It's a trend playing out across North America and the northern 
boreal forest is particularly susceptible. The curtain of trees that 
covers northern Canada as well as parts of Alaska, Scandinavia, and 
Russia is burning at a rate unseen in at least 10,000 years, largely due 
to rising temperatures. As it burns, it releases stored carbon dioxide 
into the air spurring along climate change.

It's enough to make any sane person think that yeah, maybe we should do 
something about humanity's own carbon emissions before we get locked in 
an even more vicious feedback cycle of big burns and more emissions. But 
because irony is dead, Jason Kenney, Alberta's newly installed 
conservative premiere, canceled the province's carbon tax on Thursday 
just as the air in the capital turned toxic. He had to cancel his 
celebratory event at a gas station to get briefed on the massive fires 
engulfing his province.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/canadian-wildfires-are-already-turning-sunsets-red-in-t-1835147222

[Puffins are the cute ones]
*Mass puffin die-off linked to climate change, researchers say*
Thursday, May 30, 2019 10:18PM EDT
A mass die-off of tufted puffins in the Bering Sea is being linked to 
climate change and dwindling food supply, and researchers say their 
findings could be bad news for seabirds.

Researchers found more than 350 "severely emaciated" tufted puffin 
carcasses during a four-month span between 2016 and 2017. But they 
estimate that up to 8,800 birds died, according to a report published 
Wednesday in the journal Plos One.

Tufted puffins, also known as crested puffins, are one of three puffin 
species. They live in the North Pacific between Alaska and Russia and 
are known for their yellow tufts and bright red bills.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/mass-puffin-die-off-linked-to-climate-change-researchers-say-1.4445198
- - -
[attribution]
*Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the 
eastern Bering Sea*
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0216532

[visualizing complexity for Strategic Intelligence]
*Climate Change*
Global Issue
Co-curated with: Yale University
https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1Gb0000000LHVfEAO?tab=publications

[the rabid denier]
***TRUMP'S LATEST ATTACK ON FEDERAL CLIMATE SCIENCE MAY BACKFIRE*
As planet-warming gases reach levels not previously seen in human 
history, the Trump administration's bid to restrict how federal 
scientists conduct the next National Climate Assessment risks delaying 
urgent action required to curb emissions and climate change.

But the administration effort could also backfire, becoming yet another 
loss for a president whose deregulatory efforts struggle to meet basic 
legal standards while hardening the resolve of career government 
researchers trying to uphold the scientific method...
- - -
The Trump administration could try to illegally tweak the National 
Climate Assessment given the low bar set by the Administrative Procedure 
Act, said Denise Grab, an attorney and regional director at the 
Institute for Policy Integrity.

"It's not a terribly hard standard to meet; any agency that's behaving 
somewhat rationally should be able to make it," Grab said. "Yet even 
following that extremely deferential standard, the Trump administration 
is completely failing."

To some, the legal imbroglio may be an end unto itself.

"What is pretty clear is the tactic and strategy here," said Rachel 
Cleetus, climate and energy policy director at the nonprofit Union of 
Concerned Scientists. "They're trying to delay and obfuscate, and it's 
all to serve the purposes of the fossil fuel industry."
https://www.wired.com/story/trumps-latest-attack-on-federal-climate-science-may-backfire/

[Policy]
*Measuring whether municipal climate networks make a difference: the 
case of utility-scale solar PV investment in large global cities*
Bjarne Steffen, Tobias S. Schmidt & Paul Tautorat
With cities being responsible for up to 70% of energy-related carbon 
emissions, municipal governments worldwide are becoming increasingly 
aware of their responsibility to act. Many large cities have committed 
to mitigation by becoming member of a municipal climate network, such as 
the C40 or the Compact of Mayors. However, there is no consistent 
assessment of whether membership of such networks translates into 
measurable outcomes. To fill this gap, we propose the use of novel 
outcome variables, combining financial data with geospatial information. 
As a starting point, this paper compares utility-scale investment in 
photovoltaics (PV) within the administrative boundaries of large global 
cities, combining the Bloomberg New Energy Finance database with 
information from Google Maps. We analyse 512 global cities with a 
population of above 1 million, and consider the impact of 5 networks and 
2 reporting platforms. The results suggest that membership of the C40 
network has a positive effect on utility-scale solar PV investment, 
while no such evidence is found for any of the other networks or 
reporting platforms under study. Based on our findings, we recommend 
that municipal climate networks increase their efforts to trigger city 
regulation that is conducive to solar PV investment. More generally, 
measuring early indicators, such as low-carbon investment, can help 
municipal climate networks in their role as 'commitment brokers' for 
climate action on the ever-more important city level.

    * Key policy insights*
    - Cities have considerable policy space to foster utility-scale
    solar PV investment within their administrative boundaries.
    - While some large global cities exhibited significant growth in
    utility-scale solar PV, many others with good solar potential did
    not have a single project by the end of 2016.
    - Outside of China (where city boundaries often include rural
    areas), Tokyo tops the list with utility-scale solar PV projects by
    far, followed by San Diego and Rome.
    - Membership of the C40 network appears to make a positive
    difference to PV investment, unlike other networks or reporting
    platforms.
    - Outcome measures like low-carbon investment can be used more
    generally to assess the climate action performance of cities...

http://www.climatecodered.org/2019/05/can-we-think-in-new-ways-about.html

[getting the spin on tornadoes]
*Is Climate Change Fueling Tornadoes?*
Studies suggest an increase in tornado swarms and possible shifts in 
storm tracks, but what about global warming connections? Here's what 
scientists had to say.
BY BOB BERWYN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS..
There is growing evidence that "a warming atmosphere, with more moisture 
and turbulent energy, favors increasingly large outbreaks of tornadoes, 
like the outbreak we've witnessed in the last few days," said Penn State 
University climate researcher Michael Mann.

"There is also some evidence that we might be seeing an eastward shift 
in the regions of tornado genesis--again, consistent with what we are 
seeing," he added...
- - -
The trend toward more tornado clusters could also test the limits of 
emergency responders, and the economic impacts of tornado damage can 
spread beyond the area immediately affected, he said.

The damage caused by tornadoes and severe storms is already increasing, 
according to Munich Re, one of the world's top reinsurance companies. 
According to the company, loss trends show that the cost of the damage 
has been increasing steadily for 40 years, from an average of less than 
$2 billion in the 1980s to $22 billion in 2016.

Senior Munich Re research meteorologist Mark Bove warned in a 2017 
insurance industry newsletter that "an increase of atmospheric heat and 
moisture due to our warming climate will likely increase the number of 
days per year that are favorable for thunderstorms and their associated 
hazards, including tornadoes."

Regardless of the effects of global warming, the central U.S. will 
continue to be a hotbed of severe storms that spawn tornadoes, Lupo 
said. And there is enough information about possible changes in tornado 
and severe storm activity to take meaningful action that protects lives 
and property.

"What will the future bring? It could be argued that a warmer world, 
regardless of the cause, will shift where severe weather occurs. More 
tornadoes and severe weather further north or east. But, it could also 
be argued that since a warmer world may experience a reduction in the 
equator to pole temperature contrast, the number of tornadoes and severe 
weather events would decrease," he said.

"We know where the most active severe weather areas are. We know that in 
the long term, this will likely not change since North America's 
geography won't change substantially," he said. "We can recommend better 
building codes, building severe storm shelters, and educating the 
populace as to how we warn people of severe weather. These things are 
being done, but we could do better."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30052019/tornado-climate-change-connection-science-research-data

*This Day in Climate History - June 2, 2008 - from D.R. Tucker*
June 2, 2008: The New York Times reports:

    "Some of the most powerful corporate leaders in America have been
    meeting regularly with leading environmental groups in a conference
    room in downtown Washington for over two years to work on proposals
    for a national policy to limit carbon emissions.

    "The discussions have often been tense. Pinned on a wall, a large
    handmade poster with Rolling Stones lyrics reminds everyone, 'You
    can't always get what you want.'

    "What unites these two groups -- business executives from Duke
    Energy, the Ford Motor Company and ConocoPhillips, as well as heads
    of environmental organizations like the Natural Resources Defense
    Council -- is a desire to deal with climate change. They have broken
    with much of corporate America to declare that it is time for the
    federal government to act and set mandatory limits on emissions."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/business/02trade.html?pagewanted=all
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/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.