[TheClimate.Vote] July 20, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*July 20, 2020*/

[Notice WXshift]
*related News for U.S. Wildfires *
https://wxshift.com/climate-change/climate-indicators/us-wildfires
https://wxshift.com/news/by-category/us-wildfires
- -
[bookmark this]
*Active Fire Mapping Program*
Large incident map products updated daily while the National 
Preparedness Level (NPL) is Level 2
or higher. Otherwise, when the NPL is Level 1, the map products are 
updated only on Fridays.
https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/



[wildfires explained]
*Explainer: How climate change is affecting wildfires around the world*
This year has seen unprecedented wildfires cause havoc across the world. 
Australia recently battled its largest bushfire on record, while parts 
of the Arctic, the Amazon and central Asia have also experienced 
unusually severe blazes.

It follows on from "the year rainforests burned" in 2019. Last year saw 
the Amazon face its third-largest fire on record, while intense blazes 
also raged in Indonesia, North America and Siberia, among other regions.

A rapid analysis released this year found that climate change made the 
conditions for Australia's unprecedented 2019-20 bushfires at least 30% 
more likely. Further analysis - visualised below in an interactive map - 
has shown that, globally, climate change is driving an increase in the 
weather conditions that can stoke wildfires.

But despite a growing field of evidence suggesting that climate change 
is making the conditions for fire more likely, research finds that the 
total area burned by wildfires each year decreased by up to a quarter in 
the past two decades.

Understanding this paradox requires scientists to assess a vast range of 
influential factors, including climate change, human land-use and 
political and social motivations.

In this explainer, Carbon Brief examines how wildfires around the world 
are changing, the influence of global warming and how risks might 
multiply in the future.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-climate-change-is-affecting-wildfires-around-the-world
- -
[bookmark]
*Forest Monitoring Designed for Action*
Global Forest Watch offers the latest data, technology and tools that 
empower people everywhere to better protect forests.
https://www.globalforestwatch.org/



[Risk.net]
*Q&A: New York Fed's Stiroh on climate change and Covid*
Co-chair of Basel task force discusses possible supervisory approaches 
to climate risk
The coronavirus pandemic had the potential to push climate risk cleanly 
off the global regulatory agenda, much as the financial crisis had done 
more than a decade earlier. Instead, central bankers have doubled down 
on multilateral plans since March, treating the economic wreckage of the 
virus as a warning of the kind of shocks that will occur with alarming 
frequency due to climate change. In May, Luiz Pereira da Silva, deputy 
general manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
https://www.risk.net/regulation/7655541/qa-new-york-feds-stiroh-on-climate-change-and-covid



[South China Morning Post]
*Global warming and illegal land reclamation add to severe floods in China*
Worst flooding in decades has affected more than 37 million people and 
left 141 dead or missing
Climate change and developments that have reduced the size of freshwater 
lakes have contributed, according to experts
Echo Xie - 19 Jul, 2020
This summer, tens of millions of people across China have been affected 
by torrential rains that caused floods and landslides and battered 
cities and villages in dozens of provinces.
It is the worst flooding to hit China in decades. Heavy rains have 
lashed 27 of the country's 31 provinces since June, affecting more than 
37 million people and leaving 141 dead or missing, the Ministry of 
Emergency Management said on Monday. Economic losses have been estimated 
at 86 billion yuan (US$12.3 billion) so far.
By comparison, the Great Flood of 1993 along the Mississippi and 
Missouri rivers and their tributaries - one of the most costly and 
devastating floods seen in the United States - resulted in about 50 
deaths and 54,000 people being evacuated. Economic losses were put at 
US$15 billion to US$20 billion.
China's floods started in the south, in the Guangxi Zhuang region and 
Guizhou province, in June. Heavy rains have since wreaked havoc across 
large swathes of the country, including Jiangxi province in the east, 
Anhui in the southeast and Hubei in the centre, with the emergency 
response for flood control raised to its highest level in some places.
The scale of the disaster is vast, with the water level of 433 rivers 
going above the flood control line since June, and 33 of them at record 
high levels, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.
In some of the hardest-hit areas such as Jiangxi, levees have collapsed 
and houses have been destroyed, reminding stranded locals of the 
devastating floods in 1998 that killed more than 3,000 people and left 
15 million homeless."We're on higher ground so we did not expect the 
floods to be so serious, but the water rushed in and I had to take a car 
to my shop to pack up," said Ping Ping, a porcelain shop owner in 
Jingdezhen, Jiangxi.

"I had only ever seen floods on the news. That night, the floodwater 
came up to my knees at first, then there was a swell of water again," 
she said.
"The Jingdezhen government must think about this problem. We hear that 
there are floods every year, so shopkeepers with experience usually know 
when to prepare," she said, questioning why they were so unprepared this 
summer.
*Why are this year's floods so severe ?*
China has perennial flooding in summer but a combination of climate 
reasons and human behaviour have contributed to a longer-than-usual 
duration and incessant rainfall in some regions.
"The subtropical high pressure system over the western North Pacific was 
strong this year," said Song Lianchun, a meteorologist with the National 
Climate Centre. "Its intersection with cold air has led to continuous 
heavy rainfall in the Yangtze River basin."
Another reason was global warming, he said.
"We cannot say a single extreme weather event is directly caused by 
climate change, but seeing it over the long term, global warming has led 
to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather 
events," Song said.

 From 1961 to 2018, there has been an increase in "extremely heavy 
rainfall" events in China, according to the China Climate Change Blue 
Book (2019). And since the mid-1990s, the frequency of extreme rainfall 
has increased dramatically.
Over the past 60 years, the number of days of heavy rain has gone up by 
3.9 per cent a decade, according to Song.
Aside from the rainfall, human behaviour has also contributed to the 
severity of the floods in China.
Fan Xiao, a geologist with the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said 
decades of land reclamation and dam-building on nearby rivers had 
reduced the area and volume of Poyang Lake, the country's largest 
freshwater lake which is located in Jiangxi.
Some 1,300km (808 miles) of land was reclaimed there from 1954 to 1998, 
which caused the surface area of the lake to shrink from 5,160km (3,206 
miles) to 3,860km (2,398 miles), according to a study by University of 
Alabama geographer David Shankman.
Environmental volunteer Zhang Wenbin said he had investigated illegal 
land reclamation activities at Tuolin, another lake in the province. He 
said some of the projects around the lake were still under way last 
year, even though they had been ordered to stop by environmental 
inspectors from Beijing.
"There are many similar cases," Zhang said, adding that Tuolin Lake had 
also shrunk in size, reducing its storage capacity for floodwaters.
*How does it compare to other years?*
China's worst known floods were in 1931, when more than 2 million people 
were killed. The flooding inundated an area the size of England and half 
of Scotland combined, affecting about 25 million people - or a tenth of 
the population at the time, Chris Courtney, an assistant professor at 
Durham University, wrote in The Nature of Disaster in China.
Since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, there have 
been two catastrophic floods. The first was in the summer of 1954 along 
the Yangtze River, resulting in over 30,000 deaths and affecting 18 
million people.
The second was in 1998, again along the Yangtze but also in the south 
and north of the country. It was the worst flooding in recent years, 
with more than 3,000 people killed, 15 million left homeless, and US$24 
billion in economic losses.
But Song Lianchun, head of the National Climate Centre, told reporters 
on Wednesday that this year's downpours had not affected such a broad 
area of the Yangtze River basin as in 1998.
"The floods in 1998 had an impact on the whole Yangtze region, but this 
year torrential rains have mainly affected the middle and lower reaches 
of the river, so the affected area is smaller," Song said.
*What about flood defences?*
After the disaster in 1998, Beijing increased its spending on flood 
defences.
"China's investment in water resource [infrastructure] in the five years 
after 1998 was more than the total from 1949 to 1999," according to 
Cheng Xiaotao, who sits on an expert panel of the National Disaster 
Reduction Committee.
Cheng said reservoirs built on China's major rivers after 1998, 
including the huge Three Gorges Dam, had a key role in relieving flood 
pressure in the lower reaches of the Yangtze.
However, experts have questioned whether massive dams can effectively 
control flooding downstream, and the controversial Three Gorges Dam - 
built in 2006 to help tame the Yangtze - is again under scrutiny.
Fan, the geologist from Sichuan, said the dam could partially intercept 
flooding upstream, but it had a limited effect on controlling 
floodwaters in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze.
According to Peter Gleick, a hydroclimatologist and member of the US 
National Academy of Sciences, one of the lessons from the Three Gorges 
was that no dam - no matter how large it was - could prevent the worst 
floods from occurring.
But Gleick added that it was not known whether China's floods would have 
been better or worse without the dam.
"What is known is that the growing risks of human-caused climate change 
is worsening the risks of extreme rainfall events and floods, which 
makes it even more likely that dams like the Three Gorges will be unable 
to prevent the worst flooding from occurring in the future," he said.
Liu Junyan, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia, 
said the growing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events meant 
climate risks should be a consideration for China's urban planners.
"Planning and construction should be able to deal with [climate] risks 
in the future," she said.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3093713/global-warming-and-illegal-land-reclamation-add-severe-floods



[video commentary]
*Global Green Recovery. Really?*
Jul 19, 2020
Just Have a Think
Global Green Recovery seems to be the buzz phrase exciting journalists 
and Social Media types in many parts of the world right now. But there's 
also a large contingent of battle-weary climate campaigners, as well as 
a number of multi-billionaire corporate overlords, who suspect it's all 
just fine words in the press to give us average folks a little something 
to be hopeful about, and that in reality the world will sprint back to 
business as usual at the earliest possible opportunity like a free diver 
taking their first breath after resurfacing. So is there any chance of 
our society adopting any of the sustainability proposals that are being 
put forward by just about every global organisation involved in modern 
energy, food, transport and industry?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjD9pDsGdVo



[Omaha World-Herald]
*Nebraska legislators, scientists make 11th hour bid for climate change 
study*
Nancy Gaarder - July 19, 2020

Nebraskans know well the destructive power of weather.

Take the catastrophic flood in 2019 that caused $3.4 billion in damage, 
or the 2012 flash drought that sucked $4 billion out of the state. Or 
the 2.5-mile-wide tornado that smashed into Hallam in 2004.

But that's not what keeps Nebraska's climate scientists up at night. 
Instead, it's the knowledge that as bad as things have been, Nebraska's 
weather will become more extreme because of global warming. And the 
state needs to prepare.

For that reason, they, Nebraska youths and others have joined with a 
group of state senators to make an 11th hour push for the Legislature to 
pass a climate action plan this session, which resumes Monday. And 
they're seeking the public's help, asking that people contact their 
senators to support Legislative Bill 283, which would fund a study that 
has stalled for a number of years.

"The implications of this are just incredible for our state -- our 
economy, our social fabric, the health and well-being of Nebraskans," 
said Don Wilhite, a retired University of Nebraska-Lincoln climate 
scientist who founded UNL's Drought Mitigation Center.

"We are going to see more and more extreme events," he said. Devastating 
summers like 2012 will become routine in the lifetime of today's 
children, he said. Extreme rains, which generate flooding, are already 
on the increase, research and experience has shown, as the atmosphere 
becomes soggier as a result of global warming.

To pass, the proposal needs the votes of 25 of the 49 state senators, 
and it would need 33 votes to overcome a filibuster.

"We need people to support this. We've seen what extreme events can do 
to Nebraska," said Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, the original sponsor of 
the bill.

Young people have been doing just that, said Kat Woerner, a 20-year-old 
UNL junior from Bellevue. Letters, cards, phone calls, personal visits, 
even a so-called climate strike, have been used over the past year to 
promote LB 283. Elementary school children have also contacted 
legislators, she said.

"LB 283 is so important," she said. "Not only is it putting us with the 
30-plus states that already have one, but it gives young people in 
Nebraska more hope for the future. This is something we actively think 
about, we actively worry about."

The planet's climate systems have entered uncharted territory in the 
human record, Wilhite said. The Earth's atmosphere has more 
heat-trapping carbon dioxide in it than it has in at least 3 million 
years, and those gases have to fully convert to heat. (Research 
buttressing those findings has been aided by UNL.)

The study would be conducted by UNL at an estimated $250,000 cost. It 
might look at a range of things: Should bridges and levees be built 
higher and wider? What can be done about the increasing risk of fatal 
heat stress to cattle? How nimbly could agriculture switch to alternate 
crops if corn is no longer viable? And what happens to the Ogallala 
Aquifer if Nebraska becomes as hot as southern Texas over the next 80 years?

And then there is the potential of growing the state's economy, jobs and 
property tax revenue by cultivating Nebraska wind and solar energy, 
rather than importing coal from Wyoming.

Nothing in the study would be binding, Pansing Brooks said.

The study is meant to help people plan, said Alan Moeller, a retired 
assistant vice chancellor of UNL's Institute of Agriculture and Natural 
Resources, who is on the team pushing for the plan.

"If we don't have a plan, then it's business as usual, and things will 
continue to get worse," he said. "People will not have the information 
and tools they need to adapt... We're not going to eliminate ... damage. 
But if we can significantly reduce it, we save dollars, we save lives, 
we protect the environment."

LB 283 has made it out of committee and is Sen. John McCollister's 
priority bill, which means that it's guaranteed an airing over the 
remaining 17 days of the session.

"This is analogous to the COVID-19 issue, but unlike COVID-19, there's 
no vaccine," he said. "Climate change truly is an existential threat. 
It's something we need to deal with ... sooner rather than later because 
it only gets more difficult the longer you wait."
https://omaha.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska-legislators-scientists-make-11th-hour-bid-for-climate-change-study/article_30a1074c-0f14-5f5e-a77a-947e355898eb.html



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - July 20, 2006 *
NPR reports on the GOP's show trials, er, hearings regarding climate 
research in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

    RICHARD HARRIS reporting:

    The focus of this argument is a graph that's shaped like a hockey
    stick and which suggests that the planet has warmed abruptly in
    recent decades. Last year, Texas Republican Joe Barton attacked that
    conclusion and went after the scientists who published the paper by
    demanding they turn over their data and their computer programs.

    Representative JOE BARTON (Republican, Texas): A number of people
    basically use that report to come to the conclusion that global
    warming was a fact and that the 1990s was the hottest decade on
    record. And that one year, 1998, was the hottest year in the
    millennium. Now, a millennium is a thousand years. That's a pretty
    bold statement.

    HARRIS: Too bold a statement to make on the basis of that study.
    Last month, the National Academy of Sciences said the study's claims
    were overreaching but largely beside the point in the big picture of
    global warming. But Chairman Barton had handpicked his own reviewers
    as well, and yesterday he called a hearing to discuss their results.
    Democrats wondered why the Energy and Commerce Committee up till now
    has all but ignored global warming.

    Jay Inslee is a Democrat from Washington State.

    Representative JAY INSLEE (Democrat, Washington): Instead of really
    engaging Congressional talent and figuring out how to deal with this
    problem, we try to poke little pinholes in one particular
    statistical conclusion of one particular study where the
    overwhelming evidence is that we have to act to deal with this
    global challenge.

    HARRIS: Inslee pointed out that National Academies of Sciences from
    around the world, including that of the United States, have come to
    the conclusion from many lines of evidence that global warming is
    real and that humans are largely responsible. When the time came, he
    turned to the Republicans' key witness, statistician Ed Wegman.

    Rep. INSLEE: Now, I guess the question to you is do you have any
    reason to believe all of those academies should change their
    conclusion because of your criticism of one report?

    Professor EDWARD J. WEGMAN (Professor Information Technology and
    Applied Statistics, George Mason University): Of course not.

    HARRIS: And the limits of Wegman's expertise became painfully clear
    when he tried to answer a question from Illinois Democrat Jan
    Schakowsky about the well known mechanism by which carbon dioxide
    traps infrared radiation - heat - in our atmosphere.

    Prof. WEGMAN: Carbon dioxide is heavier than air. Where it sits in
    the atmospheric profile, I don't know. I'm not an atmospheric
    scientist to know that. But presumably, if the atmospheric - if the
    carbon dioxide is close to the surface of the earth, it's not
    reflecting a lot of infrared back.

    Representative JAN SCHAKOWSKY (Democrat, Illinois): But you're not
    clearly qualified to...

    Prof. WEGMAN: No, of course not.

    Rep. SCHAKOWSKY: ...comment on that.

    HARRIS: Republicans on that committee were unmoved by the
    discussion. Michael Burgess is a Republican from Texas.

    Representative MICHAEL BURGESS (Republican, Texas): It's false to
    presume that a consensus today - exists today where the human
    activity has been proven to cause global warming, and that's the
    crux of this hearing. I would point out that simply turning off the
    electrical generation plants that provide the air conditioning back
    in my district would not be a viable option.

    HARRIS: Chairman Barton finally allowed that climate change is a
    serious matter and that eminent scientists are deeply concerned
    about it.

    Rep. BARTON: My problem is that everybody seems to think that it's
    automatically a given and that we shouldn't even debate the
    possibility of it and we probably shouldn't debate the causes of it.
    And I think that's wrong.

    HARRIS: But if anyone showed up at this hearing room to hear a true
    scientific debate on global warming they ended up instead with just
    a political debate often far afield from the facts.

    Richard Harris, NPR News.

    (Soundbite of music)

    MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5569901

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