[TheClimate.Vote] May 3, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Fri May 3 09:20:03 EDT 2019

/May 3, 2019/

[detailed look at Inslee's climate plan - target goals 2030 - 2035]
*"Governor Jay Inslee's 100% Clean Energy for America Plan"*
*CLEAN ELECTRICITY: *Set a national 100% Clean Electricity Standard that 
requires 100% carbon-neutral power - including an end to coal-fired 
power generation - by 2030,  putting America on a path to 100% clean, 
renewable, and zero-emission energy by 2035.
*CLEAN VEHICLES: *Reach 100% zero emissions for all new light- and 
medium-duty vehicles, and all buses by 2030.
*CLEAN BUILDINGS: *Achieve 100% zero-carbon pollution from all new 
commercial and residential buildings, by 2030.

This plan will empower America to make the entire electrical grid and 
every new car and building climate pollution-free, at the speed that 
science and public health demand. "
https://www.jayinslee.com/issues/100clean

[Houston Chronicle]
*New EPA document tells communities to brace for climate change impacts*
Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis, The Washington Post April 27, 2019
The Environmental Protection Agency published a 150-page document this 
past week with a straightforward message for coping with the fallout 
from natural disasters across the country: Start planning for the fact 
that climate change is going to make these catastrophes worse...
- - -
The Environmental Protection Agency published a 150-page document this 
past week with a straightforward message for coping with the fallout 
from natural disasters across the country: Start planning for the fact 
that climate change is going to make these catastrophes worse...
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/science-environment/article/New-EPA-document-tells-communities-to-brace-for-13801870.php
- - -
[The EPA document]
*Guidance about Planning for Natural Disaster Debris*
The 2019 "Planning for Natural Disaster Debris" guidance is an update to 
the version that EPA published in March 2008. It is designed to help all 
communities (including cities, counties, territories, tribes, etc.) 
create disaster debris management plans, which EPA strongly encourages.

The Planning for Natural Disaster Debris guidance assists communities in 
planning for natural disaster debris before a disaster occurs, including 
hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, wildfires and 
winter storms, by providing useful, relevant information that is 
intended to increase community preparedness and resiliency. Information 
is included on the following:
Recommended components of a debris management plan,
Suggested management options for various natural disaster debris streams,
A collection of case studies that highlights how several communities 
prepared for and managed debris generated by recent natural disasters,
Resources to consult in planning for natural disasters, and
EPA's recommended pre-incident planning process to help prepare 
communities for effective disaster debris management.
Note: EPA integrated lessons learned from the 2017 hurricane seasons 
into this 2019 final guidance document.
You may need a PDF reader to view some of the files on this page. See 
EPA's About PDF page to learn more.
Planning for Natural Disaster Debris (PDF)(150 pp, 6 MB, April 2019, 
EPA-F-19-003)
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-05/documents/final_pndd_guidance_0.pdf
Contact Us to ask a question, provide feedback, or report a problem.
https://www.epa.gov/homeland-security-waste/guidance-about-planning-natural-disaster-debris

[Underestimation]
*Permafrost is thawing in the Arctic so fast scientists are losing their 
equipment*
Instead of a few centimetres of thaw a year, several metres of soil can 
destabilize within days
Permafrost in some areas of the Canadian Arctic is thawing so fast that 
it's gulping up the equipment left there to study it.

"The ground thaws and swallows it," said Merritt Turetsky, a University 
of Guelph biologist whose new research warns the rapid thaw could 
dramatically increase the amounts of greenhouse gases released from 
ancient plants and animals frozen within the tundra.

"We've put cameras in the ground, we've put temperature equipment in the 
ground, and it gets flooded. It often happens so fast we can't get out 
there and rescue it.

"We've lost dozens of field sites. We were collecting data on a forest 
and all of a sudden it's a lake."
- - -
Instead of a few centimetres of thaw a year, several metres of soil can 
destabilize within days. Landscapes collapse into sinkholes. Hillsides 
slide away to expose deep permafrost that would otherwise have remained 
insulated.

"Permafrost at [that] depth, even 100 years from now, probably would 
still be protected in the soil," she said. "Except here comes this 
really crazy liquefication where this abrupt thaw really churns up this 
stuff."

Nearly one-fifth of Arctic permafrost is now vulnerable to rapid 
warming, Turetsky's paper suggests. Plenty of it is in Canada, such as 
in the lowlands south of Hudson Bay.

Soil analysis found those quickly thawing areas also contain the most 
carbon. Nearly 80 per cent of them hold at least 70 kilograms of carbon 
per cubic metre.

That suggests permafrost is likely to release up to 50 per cent more 
greenhouse gases than climate scientists have believed. As well, much of 
it will be released as methane, which is about 30 per cent more 
efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide...
- - -
"These are minimum estimates," Turetsky said. "We've been very 
conservative."

Despite the rapid thaw, it'll be decades before the extra carbon release 
starts to influence global climate. "We've got a bit of time."

The abrupt collapsing of permafrost, however, will affect northerners 
long before that.

"The landscape is going to be affected more and more every year by 
permafrost degradation," Turetsky said.
"We've got a lot of people living on top of permafrost and building 
infrastructure on top of permafrost. It's enough to sink northern budgets."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/permafrost-melting-1.5119767

[with logic]
*How Students Convinced Beto O'Rourke to Stop Taking Fossil Fuel Money*
The transformation of Beto O'Rourke into a legit climate change 
candidate took another turn on Wednesday night when he announced he was 
pledging to turn away donations from fossil fuel executives...
- -
The group eventually persuaded O'Rourke to sign the pledge, making him 
the twelfth presidential candidate to sign on in addition to dozens of 
local, state, and federal candidates running for other offices. Ferster 
said the group plans to continue ratcheting up pressure on presidential 
candidates who haven't signed on yet, particularly Cory Booker, Kamala 
Harris, and Joe Biden...
- - -
"Our generation is going to be the first to really have to deal with a 
catastrophic climate change," Ferster said. "I think it's really 
important right now for young people to stand up across the country and 
know that their voices are powerful in shaping climate change policy and 
the political arena in general."...
https://earther.gizmodo.com/how-students-convinced-beto-orourke-to-stop-taking-foss-1834481854

[Well known, further studied]
*Global Warming Was Already Fueling Droughts in Early 1900s, Study Shows*
Scientists say the surprising findings provide the clearest signal yet 
of how greenhouse gas emissions have led to changing soil conditions 
around the world.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01052019/drought-climate-change-fingerprints-global-warming-20th-century-tree-rings-marvel-cook
- - -
[The journal Nature]
*Twentieth-century hydroclimate changes consistent with human influence*
Article | Published: 01 May 2019
Kate Marvel, Benjamin I. Cook, Celine J. W. Bonfils, Paul J. Durack, 
Jason E. Smerdon & A. Park Williams
*Abstract*

    Although anthropogenic climate change is expected to have caused
    large shifts in temperature and rainfall, the detection of human
    influence on global drought has been complicated by large internal
    variability and the brevity of observational records. Here we
    address these challenges using reconstructions of the Palmer drought
    severity index obtained with data from tree rings that span the past
    millennium. We show that three distinct periods are identifiable in
    climate models, observations and reconstructions during the
    twentieth century. In recent decades (1981 to present), the signal
    of greenhouse gas forcing is present but not yet detectable at high
    confidence. Observations and reconstructions differ significantly
    from an expected pattern of greenhouse gas forcing around
    mid-century (1950-1975), coinciding with a global increase in
    aerosol forcing. In the first half of the century (1900-1949),
    however, a signal of greenhouse-gas-forced change is robustly
    detectable. Multiple observational datasets and reconstructions
    using data from tree rings confirm that human activities were
    probably affecting the worldwide risk of droughts as early as the
    beginning of the twentieth century.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1149-8
- - -
[Another report from Nature]
*Cleaning up the air we breathe might actually be making droughts worse*
Air pollution could be masking the role of greenhouse gases on droughts, 
a new study suggests.
by James Temple - May 1
Climate change is clearly making some regions wetter and others drier. 
But it's been difficult for scientists to detect a clear, consistent 
human role in increasing the frequency and severity of global droughts 
given natural climate variability, regional differences, and limited data.

A new report in Nature adds evidence to the suspicion that air pollution 
could be complicating the science, masking the role of greenhouse gases 
on droughts...
Research has already found that air pollution has likely moderated the 
level of global warming (see "We're about to kill a massive, accidental 
experiment in reducing global warming"). The newest findings suggest 
this could have played a role in reducing droughts as well, likely by 
decreasing the level of soil-moisture drying that would have otherwise 
occurred.

If so, as the world continues to clean up air pollution, the impact of 
climate change on droughts will get even more severe.

In the new study, researchers at NASA, Columbia University, and Lawrence 
Livermore National Laboratory analyzed tree ring records to document 
shifting soil-moisture conditions over time. They found three distinct 
trends: a clearly detectable human fingerprint on drought levels in the 
first half of the last century, a diverging trend between 1950 and 1975, 
and then a return to a positive, though not particularly strong, signal 
in the years since.

The researchers note that this middle period coincides with an increase 
in atmospheric aerosols, the tiny particles spewed from planes, cars, 
coal plants, farms, and even natural events like forest fires and 
volcanoes. Depending on the particles, they can alter cloud formation, 
change rainfall patterns, trap heat, or reflect sunlight away from the 
planet.

Notably, global air pollution levels began to come down sharply in the 
mid- to late 1970s, with the passage of the US Clear Air Act in 1970 and 
similar regulations in Europe. That at least correlates with the climate 
signal pattern noted in the study.

The authors are quick to stress that the findings suggest only a 
"possible role" for aerosols in moderating drought, and that any 
connection requires further research.

Jian Lu, a scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who 
studies how climate change affects the hydrological cycle, says it's 
hard to say whether aerosols are the key factor here, noting that 
decades-long natural temperature swings originating in the oceans could 
play a significant role as well.

But if air pollution is a major force on droughts, it could, like so 
much else in climate change, seriously complicate the problems and 
solutions.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613458/air-pollution-may-have-muted-climate-changes-impact-on-droughts/

*This Day in Climate History - May 3, 2014- from D.R. Tucker*
May 3, 2014: In a New York Times op-ed, MIT professor Alan Lightman 
observes:

    "The recent report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
    Climate Change documents the damage now being done by human-created
    greenhouse gases and global warming. In reacting to the report, we
    should not be concerned about protecting our planet. Nature can
    survive far more than what we can do to it and is totally oblivious
    to whether homo sapiens lives or dies in the next hundred years. Our
    concern should be about protecting ourselves -- because we have only
    ourselves to protect us."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/03/opinion/our-lonely-home-in-nature.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
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