[TheClimate.Vote] May 15, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 15, 2020*/

[From James Hansen]
*2020 Record Warm Year? Don’t Bet on It.*
This year, 2020, should have record global warmth according to 
widespread media reports in April. The reports were based largely on a 
NOAA conclusion that such a record was likely with 75% confidence. April 
has since come in with record warmth for the month (see map above), 
although practically the same as April 2016.  That should seal the deal, 
right?

Not so fast. Their expectation is based on the fact that the first few 
months of 2020 are almost as warm as the same months in 2016, and the 
fact that global temperature fell rapidly in the last eight months of 
2016, as the super El Nino of 2015-16 faded and was replaced by a La 
Nina in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The graph on the left below shows the Nino temperature index, including 
the NOAA NCEP model projection, which predicts a rapidly developing La 
Nina this year. So, the 2020 global temperature may fall as fast or 
faster than in 2016. A strong La Nina, if it occurs, will affect 2021 as 
well as the rest of this year, in which case we do not expect record 
annual global warmth until 2022, at the earliest.

The game of predicting near-term global temperature records is of little 
import. We just want to insure against public misinterpretation, if, as 
is perhaps probable, 2020 does not achieve the predicted record.

Tropical ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) variability is the largest 
cause of interannual variability of global temperature, but there are 
other factors. The increase of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2 and CH4, 
will give 2020 a warming boost, but that will be partly offset by the 
present deep minimum of solar irradiance. The wild card is caused by a 
reduction of human-made aerosols, due to reduced emissions during the 
ongoing global Covid-19 epidemic. Reduced aerosols will cause a boost in 
warming, but unfortunately global high-quality aerosol measurements are 
not being obtained.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2020/20200514_April2020GlobalTemperatureUpdate.pdf
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/


[looking forward]
*Global heating means a wetter and warmer world*
May 14th, 2020, by Tim Radford
A wetter and even warmer world will result from faster global warming. 
The evidence is in the sands of time.

LONDON, 14 May, 2020 - A warmer world may not be just a wetter one. It 
may get even warmer as well. New studies suggest the heavier rain that 
will accompany ever-higher global average atmospheric temperatures is in 
itself likely to trigger ever more carbon dioxide release from tropical 
soils.

This is what engineers call positive feedback. The very symptoms of a 
warming world become part of the fuel for accelerating global 
temperature change...
- -
The lower the rainfall, the higher the length of stored carbon. But as 
levels of downpour go up, so does the activity of the microbes that turn 
vegetable matter back into carbon dioxide, and the levels of stored soil 
carbon go down..
- -
Methane adds speed

Scientists have repeatedly warned that climate change in the Arctic - 
the fastest-warming zone of all - is likely to be matched by the release 
of soil carbon in the form of the greenhouse gas methane from the 
thawing permafrost, to accelerate yet more warming.

As the once-frozen ground warms up, and vegetation moves further and 
further north, an estimated 600 million tonnes of carbon is released 
into the atmosphere every year.

Now, and for different reasons, the same could be true of the tropics, 
and the evidence is in the sands of time, deposited by one of the 
world’s great river systems. As the Ice Age ended, monsoon rains began 
to increase and in 2,600 years soil respiration - and therefore carbon 
release - doubled. Since then, monsoon rainfall has increased threefold.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/global-heating-means-a-wetter-and-warmer-world/

- -

[Press Release]
*Study shows wetter climate is likely to intensify global warming*
Greater tropical rainfall may increase microbes' release of CO2 from 
soils into air
VIRGINIA INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE
A study in the May 6th issue of Nature indicates the increase in 
rainfall forecast by global climate models is likely to hasten the 
release of carbon dioxide from tropical soils, further intensifying 
global warming by adding to human emissions of this greenhouse gas into 
Earth's atmosphere.

Based on analysis of sediments cored from the submarine delta of the 
Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, the study was conducted by an 
international team led by Dr. Christopher Hein of William & Mary's 
Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Collaborators include Drs. Valier 
Galy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Muhammed Usman of the 
University of Toronto, and Timothy Eglinton and Negar Haghipour of the 
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). Major 
funding was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

"We found that shifts toward a warmer and wetter climate in the drainage 
basin of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers over the last 18,000 years 
enhanced rates of soil respiration and decreased stocks of soil carbon," 
says Hein. "This has direct implications for Earth's future, as climate 
change is likely to increase rainfall in tropical regions, further 
accelerating respiration of soil carbon, and adding even more CO2 to the 
atmosphere than that directly added by humans."

Soil respiration refers to release of carbon dioxide by microbes as they 
decompose and metabolize leaf litter and other organic materials on and 
just below the ground surface. It's equivalent to the process in which 
larger multicellular animals--from snails to humans--exhale CO2 as a 
byproduct of metabolizing their food. Roots also contribute to soil 
respiration at night, when photosynthesis shuts down and plants burn 
some of the carbohydrates they produced during daylight.

Sediment cores reveal link between precipitation, soil age

The team's study is based on detailed analysis of three sediment cores 
collected from the ocean floor seaward of the mouth of the Ganges and 
Brahmaputra rivers in Bangladesh. Here, the world's largest delta and 
submarine fan were built by the prodigious volume of sediments eroded 
from the Himalayas. The two rivers carry more than a billion tons of 
sediment to the Bay of Bengal each year, more than five times that of 
the Mississippi River.

The cores record the environmental history of the Ganges-Brahmaputra 
drainage basin during the 18,000 years since the last Ice Age began to 
wane. By comparing radiocarbon dates of bulk sediment samples from these 
cores with samples from organic molecules known to be derived directly 
from land plants, the researchers were able to gauge changes though time 
in the age of the sediments' parent soils.

Their results showed a strong correlation between runoff rates and soil 
age--wetter epochs were associated with younger, rapidly respiring 
soils; while drier, cooler epochs were linked to older soils capable of 
storing carbon for longer periods.

The wetter periods themselves correlate with the strength of the Indian 
summer monsoon, the primary source of precipitation across India, the 
Himalayas, and south-central Asia. The researchers confirmed changes in 
monsoon strength using several independent lines of paleoclimatic 
evidence, including analysis of oxygen-isotope ratios from Chinese cave 
deposits and the skeletons of open-ocean phytoplankton.

Small changes, big effects

The magnitude of the correlation discovered by Hein and colleagues 
corresponds to a near doubling in the rate of soil respiration and 
carbon turnover in the 2,600 years following the end of the last Ice 
Age, as India's summer monsoon strengthened. "We found that a small 
increase in precipitation values corresponds to a much larger decrease 
in soil age," says Hein.

An earlier paper by Hein, Galy, and colleagues reported a threefold 
increase in annual rainfall in the Ganges-Brahmaputra river basin since 
the last Ice Age. This new study shows that upturn in precipitation led 
to a halving of soil age due to more rapid soil turnover.

Hein says "small changes in the amount of carbon stored in soils can 
moreover play an outsized role in modulating atmospheric CO2 
concentrations and, therefore, global climate, as soils are a primary 
global reservoir of this element."

The current concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere--416 
parts per million--equates to about 750 billion tons of carbon. Earth's 
soils hold around 3,500 billion tons--more than four times as much.

Previous research has highlighted the threat that global warming poses 
to the permafrost soils of the Arctic, whose widespread thawing is 
thought to be releasing up to 0.6 billion tons of carbon to the 
atmosphere each year.

"We've now found a similar climate feedback in the tropics," says Hein, 
"and are concerned that enhanced soil respiration due to greater 
precipitation--itself a response to climate change--will further 
increase concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere."
###
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/viom-ssw050520.php



[related to the plague of locusts]
*Kenya bears the brunt as floods devastate east Africa*
Nearly 200 people dead and 40,000 displaced after heavy rain causes 
mudslides and rivers to overflow
East Africa has suffered devastating floods after heavy rain in recent 
weeks, with Kenya particularly badly affected.

Since March, almost 200 people have lost their lives to overflowing 
rivers and mudslides, while 40,000 have been displaced from their homes. 
The water levels in Lake Victoria have risen sufficiently over the past 
week to impact settlements along its banks. Further torrential rain 
across the border in Uganda has caused flash flooding on numerous rivers 
over the past few days, forcing people to flee to higher ground...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/may/13/kenya-bears-the-brunt-as-floods-devastate-central-africa?CMP=share_btn_link



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - May 15, 2001 *
May 15, 2001: The New York Times reports:

    "Despite the Bush administration's decision to back away from
    regulating emissions of global- warming gases, many multinational
    companies plan to continue reducing such emissions because they face
    strong pressure to do so in Europe and Japan, fear rising energy
    costs or want to promote their products as being friendly to the
    environment.

    "Some of the executives with plans to reduce emissions say they are
    trying to be good corporate citizens. But companies also cite a wide
    range of business reasons that have little to do either with the
    environment or with what happens in Washington.

    "And even as they move ahead on their own, some top officials at
    these companies say that while voluntary action is the right
    approach in the short run, at some point they expect the United
    States and others to adopt binding restrictions on the gases."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/15/business/pre-emptive-strike-global-warming-many-companies-cut-gas-emissions-head-off.html?pagewanted=print

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