[TheClimate.Vote] December 12, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*December 12, 2020*/

[AGU on Wildfire Thunderstorm (PyroCb) science 50 min video]
*Fall Meeting 2020 Press Conference: Wildfire-driven thunderstorms and 
their role in climate*
Dec 11, 2020
AGU
In this press conference, researchers discuss the fascinating phenomenon 
of pyrocumulonimbus clouds funneling smoke like a chimney from Earth's 
wildfires to high altitudes where it remains for extended periods. 
Results will include the most detailed information to date on the 
Australian New Year 2020 wildfire-driven thunderstorm activity and 
provide a unique perspective on how the Australian events compare with 
other large wildfire and pyrocumulonimbus events observed worldwide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmyFDea0uAM


[James Hansen's latest chapter]
*Sophie's Planet #31: Chapter 42 (Carbon Emissions)*
11 December 2020
James Hansen
Draft of Chapter 42 of Sophie's Planet is available here for fact 
checking.  Old King Coal lives. Do global leaders understand the 
situation? Do they care? Do they understand policy implications?
https://columbia.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0ebaeb14fdbf5dc65289113c1&id=58b432bd22&e=c4e20a3850
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/SophiePlanet/Planet.Chapter42.pdf



[EOS report]
*Coastal Brazil Is Likely to Face More Heat Waves and Droughts*
In 2014, São Paulo experienced its greatest water crisis ever, caused by 
an intense drought. New research indicates that it is likely to happen 
again and be even more severe.

In early 2014, the Cantareira system, the main reservoir that feeds São 
Paulo, hit less than 10% of its capacity because of intense heat and 
drought, forcing Brazil's most populated region to severely restrict its 
water consumption. Scientists working to understand the phenomenon say 
droughts like this can happen again and are likely to hit the region 
even harder.

Ocean weather might be to blame. Marine heat waves--dry air with high 
temperatures that stays for days over the ocean--are strong contributors 
to droughts. A new study in Scientific Reports sheds light on this 
mechanism.

The study shows that long-lasting high-pressure systems over the sea 
lead to marine heat waves--and in early 2014 the western South Atlantic 
Ocean experienced one. Coauthor Regina Rodrigues, from the Department of 
Oceanography at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, led an 
earlier study that looked closely at the influence of marine heat waves 
on southeast Brazil between 2013 and 2014. The results were published 
last year in Nature Geoscience and will be presented at AGU's Fall 
Meeting on 15 December.

Analyzing sea surface temperature data from NOAA and atmospheric data 
from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Rodrigues's 
team found that air circulating toward the west in the Southern 
Hemisphere blocked the formation of rain and caused the 2013–2014 South 
Atlantic marine heat wave. Cyclones, Rodrigues explained, normally head 
eastward. "That's why heat waves are known as anticyclonic circulation," 
she said.

Rodrigues explained that even in the summer, cyclonic circulation and 
anticyclonic circulation alternate to create periods of rainy and sunny 
weather.

With droughts, the situation is different. "With no clouds, insolation 
increases both on the ocean and land, provoking heat waves. The problem 
is when [the heat waves] stop over the same place for days and don't 
allow for the cyclonic circulation to happen," she said.

Heat Waves and Droughts Go Hand in Hand
Droughts and heat waves are likely to become more frequent. Using data 
from 1982 to 2016, Rodrigues and her team observed that the frequency, 
duration, intensity, and extension of these phenomena have increased.

"João Geirinhas, a researcher at the University of Lisbon, found similar 
results in another study that is currently in press. His team looked at 
the increase in the frequency of droughts and heat wave events between 
1980 and 2018. "Heat waves and droughts go hand in hand since the former 
can cause the latter," he said. Geirinhas will present the work at AGU's 
Fall Meeting on 15 December.
Geirinhas's study finds the concurrence of droughts and heat waves 
spiked after 2010. São Paulo, for example, had a peak in the mid-1980s 
(with a less than 30% chance of a marine heat wave and drought happening 
simultaneously), but that peak was surpassed in the mid-2010s (when 
there was an almost 50% chance of a concurrence).

"Climate change can make these effects stronger and longer lasting," 
Geirinhas said.

Complementary Studies
"What happened in 2014 was a punctual event that can become more 
frequent due to deforestation and climate change."Human activity can 
contribute to conditions influencing marine heat waves and drought. 
Wilson Feltrim, coordinator of the Climatology Laboratory at the Federal 
University of Paraná, warned that deforestation can contribute to the 
phenomena. "The loss of trees decreases rainfall year after year. What 
happened in 2014 was a punctual event that can become more frequent due 
to deforestation and climate change," he added.
To Feltrim, the studies from Rodrigues and Geirinhas are complementary. 
"While Rodrigues looks at the genesis of the phenomenon, Geirinhas looks 
at the intensification in its occurrence," said the researcher, who did 
not take part in either study.

Maria Assunção Dias, a senior professor of atmospheric sciences at the 
University of São Paulo who was also not involved in either study, 
agreed with Feltrim. "These studies hand different pieces of a puzzle 
that fit together to help explain an absolutely unprecedented event in 
our lives as researchers." The changes that we are seeing in the climate 
probably have not been witnessed by the human species before, she added.

"It might have happened millennia before, but we didn't have the data to 
understand it and weren't here to see," said Dias.

—Meghie Rodrigues (@meghier), Science Writer
https://eos.org/articles/coastal-brazil-is-likely-to-face-more-heat-waves-and-droughts


[McKibben reports]
*Where We Stand on Climate*
By Bill McKibben - December 11, 2020
- -
Frontline communities and indigenous groups are in the lead, and the 
surge of youthful energy has defined this push: from the Sunrise 
Movement to the Fridays for Future student strikes, it is those whose 
future is fully on the line who have emerged as the most talented 
spokespeople--and the most demanding. (Greta Thunberg greeted Denmark's 
news that it would forgo future North Sea oil wells by pointing out that 
the country is going to keep pumping the ones already in place; many of 
her colleagues issued a manifesto proclaiming, "World leaders have no 
right to speak about net-zero by 2050 targets as if this is the height 
of ambition. Limiting our ambition to net-zero by 2050 is a death 
sentence for many.") This pressure aims, at heart, to do one thing: to 
shift the zeitgeist, so that the sense of what is normal and natural and 
obvious changes and, with it, the decisions of politicians and investors.

There are signs that it is working. This summer, BP said that it would 
cut its production of oil and gas by forty per cent over the next 
decade. That amount won't be enough (and the announcement came with 
endless caveats), but the decision still represents a new outlook for an 
industry that had grown steadily since the first oil well was drilled, 
in the nineteenth century. Last week, Exxon announced that it will write 
down the value of its oil and gas fields by twenty billion dollars, 
essentially conceding that those fields will never be pumped. It also 
said that it would cut spending on fossil-fuel exploration each year 
through 2025: instead of the thirty billion dollars it planned to spend 
in 2021, it will budget sixteen to nineteen billion. As recently as 
2013, Exxon was the largest company in the world; this year, its market 
cap was briefly topped by Next Era Energy, a Florida-based renewables 
company.

There are a thousand other battles under way, of course: from arcane 
fights about carbon-accounting rules to plans for helping farmers 
sequester more carbon in soils; from writing new building codes 
requiring energy efficiency to schemes for assisting coal miners and 
oilfield roustabouts in finding new jobs in renewable power. But the 
central battle, at least for the next few years, is between Big Oil and 
Big Hope and Anger. We'll get a better read on the state of play next 
November, when nations gather in Glasgow. The pledges on the table will 
reflect, with unflinching accuracy, the balance of power between the 
fossil-fuel industry and the movements that challenge it.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/where-we-stand-on-climate



[sarcasm in media from Australia (adult language)]
*Honest Government Ad | Kyoto Carryover Credits*
Dec 11, 2020
thejuicemedia
The Australien Government was not allowed to speak at the latest Climate 
Summit, so it made an ad about its climate policy instead – and it's 
surprisingly honest and informative.
🔹 Produced by Patrons of The Juice Media
🔹 Written by Giordano for The Juice Media
🔹 Performed by Zoë Amanda Wilson x Ellen Burbidge x Lucy Cahill
🔹 Visual effects by Brent Cataldo
🔹 Research assistance by Kylie Harris
🔹 Thanks to Richie Merzian, The Australia Council, for climate 
consulting help

👉 PODCAST: https://www.thejuicemedia.com/podcast
👉 PG VERSIONS: https://www.thejuicemedia.com/teachers
👉 STORE: https://shop.thejuicemedia.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92t8np88fEI



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - December 12, 1985 *

December 11, 1985: The New York Times reports:

"A group of senators and scientists today called for national and 
international action to avert a predicted warming of the earth's climate 
resulting from a buildup of carbon dioxide and other man-made gases in 
the atmosphere.

"They warned at a Senate hearing that such an effect, like that of a 
greenhouse, would produce radical climate changes and a subsequent rise 
in ocean levels that could have catastrophic results in the next century 
unless steps were taken now to deal with the problem.

"Senator Albert Gore Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, said he would introduce 
legislation to expand and focus scientific efforts on this greenhouse 
effect.

"At a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Toxic Substances and 
Environmental Oversight, Mr. Gore said his bill would call for 'an 
international year of scientific study of the greenhouse effect and 
would request that the President take steps to begin this worldwide 
cooperative investigation.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/11/us/action-is-urged-to-avert-global-climate-shift.html 




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