[TheClimate.Vote] November 2, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Nov 2 09:28:31 EST 2020
/*November 2, 2020*/
[makes hurricanes bigger]
*'Moderate to strong' La Nina weather event develops in the Pacific*
By Matt McGrath - Environment correspondent
A moderate to strong La Nina weather event has developed in the Pacific
Ocean, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The naturally occurring phenomenon results in the large scale cooling of
ocean surface temperature,
This La Nina, which is set to last through the first quarter of 2021,
will likely have a cooling effect on global temperatures.
But it won't prevent 2020 from being one of the warmest years on record.
La Nina is described as one of the three phases of the weather
occurrence known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
This includes the warm phase called El Nino, the cooler La Nina and a
neutral phase.
- -
One important aspect of La Nina is the effect it could have on the
remainder of the Atlantic hurricane season.
A La Nina event reduces wind shear, which is the change in winds between
the surface and the upper levels of the atmosphere. This allows
hurricanes to grow.
The hurricane season ends on 30 November and so far there have been 27
named storms. This is more than the 25 predicted by the US National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) earlier this year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54725970
[Axios summary]
*The fall of an empire*
Felix Salmon, author of Capital
The decline of ExxonMobil has been remarkable in its magnitude and
unexpectedness.
*Why it matters:* While all major oil companies are facing troubles,
Exxon has fallen the farthest, in large part because it has made the
biggest bets on oil and gas — and the smallest bets on renewable energy.
*- While rival BP* has recently promised to get to zero net emissions by
2050, Exxon has been doubling down on fossil fuels with moves like a
spectacularly ill-timed $41 billion acquisition of XTO energy in 2009
and its major expansion in the Permian Basin in 2017.
*Driving the news:* Exxon reported a loss of $680 million in the third
quarter of this year, bringing its losses for 2020 as a whole up to
$2.37 billion. (In 2008, by contrast, it made a profit of $46 billion.)
*- The company* also announced it would shed up to 15% of its workforce
over the next two years, including roughly 1,900 U.S. layoffs, mostly at
its Houston HQ.
*- By the numbers:* Exxon and Mobil combined had 390,000 employees in
1980. By 2017, that number had shrunk to less than 70,000.
*Losses and layoffs* notwithstanding, Exxon is still spending roughly
$15 billion on sending a $3.48-per-share dividend to shareholders this year.
*- Few if any analysts* believe such a payout is sustainable. "We have
doubts about the sanctity of the dividend longer-term," Edward Jones
analyst Jennifer Rowland told Reuters.
*Flashback: *The oil giant was the largest company in the world,
measured by market value, as recently as 2013.
*- A 700-page corporate biography* by Columbia University journalism
dean Steve Coll was entitled "Private Empire" and compared the company's
power and reach to that of the United States itself.
*- When CEO Rex Tillerson* became U.S. Secretary of State in 2017, it
was not obvious that he was gaining power or influence.
The big picture: Today, ExxonMobil is not even in the top 40 most
valuable companies in America. It's losing money, cutting staff, and
stretching to maintain an unsustainable dividend.
*- The oil giant's market capitalization* of $137 billion makes it
smaller than Zoom ($139 billion), and only about a third of the size of
electricity-powered Tesla ($385 billion).
*- NextEra Energy*, a power company with huge renewables assets, is also
worth more than ExxonMobil.
*- The most valuable company*, Apple, is worth roughly 14 ExxonMobils.
*Exxon has lost 54% of its value* this year alone. That's some $163
billion. By contrast, Chevron is down 42%, or $95 billion, while NextEra
is up 23%, or $26 billion.
*My thought bubble: *A decade ago, ExxonMobil was making strategic
decisions on a timescale of 50 years or more. Today, it has been reduced
to desperate short-term attempts to prop up the share price by paying a
multi-billion-dollar dividend even when it's losing money.
*- Analysts aren't convinced* that tactic is working. "Every time you
pay a dividend you can't afford," said Doug Leggate, Merrill Lynch's
head of U.S. oil and gas, on Friday's earnings call, "your share price
is going down."
*The bottom line:* As King George III so memorably put it in the musical
Hamilton, "Oceans rise, empires fall."
- ExxonMobil might be the first empire to fall as a result of global
climate change. It won't be the last.
https://www.axios.com/the-fall-of-an-empire-56b9a744-aef6-4f33-b6d3-3d774bbd5c86.html
[Up around from Down Under]
*Smoke cloud from Australia's wildfires was three times larger than
anything previously recorded*
Bill Gabbert - November 1, 2020
Smoke from the summer of 2019-2020 blocked sunlight from reaching Earth
to an extent never before recorded from wildfires
graph -
https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/SAOD-perturbation-686x900.jpgResearchers
with the University of
Saskatchewan's Institute of Space and Atmospheric Studies are part of a
global team that has found that the smoke cloud pushed into the
stratosphere by last winter's Australian wildfires was three times
larger than anything previously recorded.
The cloud, which measured 1,000 kilometers across, remained intact for
three months, travelled 66,000 kilometers, and soared to a height of 35
kilometers above Earth. The findings were published in Communications
Earth & Environment, part of the prestigious Nature family of research
journals.
"When I saw the satellite measurement of the smoke plume at 35
kilometers, it was jaw dropping. I never would have expected that," said
Adam Bourassa, professor of physics and engineering physics, who led the
USask group which played a key role in analyzing NASA satellite data...
- -
The measurement technique, proven by Canadian scientists including
Bourassa over a decade ago, measures the sunlight scattered from the
atmosphere back to the satellite, generating a detailed, image of layers
in the atmosphere.
The stratosphere is typically a "pretty pristine, naturally clean,
stable part of atmosphere," Bourassa said. However, when aerosols–such
as smoke from wildfires or sulphuric acid from a volcanic eruption–are
forced up into the stratosphere, they can remain aloft for many months,
blocking sunlight from passing through, which in turns changes the
balance of the climate system.
While researchers have a general understanding of how these smoke clouds
form and why they rise high into the stratosphere, Bourassa said more
work needs to be done to understand the underlying mechanisms.
Researchers will also be comparing their findings from Australian
wildfires with satellite data captured from California wildfires this
past summer and fall.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/11/01/smoke-cloud-from-australias-wildfires-was-three-times-larger-than-anything-previously-recorded/
- -
[Source]
*The 2019/20 Australian wildfires generated a persistent smoke-charged
vortex rising up to 35 km altitude*
Communications Earth & Environment volume 1
*Abstract*
The Australian bushfires around the turn of the year 2020 generated
an unprecedented perturbation of stratospheric composition,
dynamical circulation and radiative balance. Here we show from
satellite observations that the resulting planetary-scale blocking
of solar radiation by the smoke is larger than any previously
documented wildfires and of the same order as the radiative forcing
produced by moderate volcanic eruptions. A striking effect of the
solar heating of an intense smoke patch was the generation of a
self-maintained anticyclonic vortex measuring 1000 km in diameter
and featuring its own ozone hole. The highly stable vortex persisted
in the stratosphere for over 13 weeks, travelled 66,000 km and
lifted a confined bubble of smoke and moisture to 35 km altitude.
Its evolution was tracked by several satellite-based sensors and was
successfully resolved by the European Centre for Medium-Range
Weather Forecasts operational system, primarily based on satellite
data. Because wildfires are expected to increase in frequency and
strength in a changing climate, we suggest that extraordinary events
of this type may contribute significantly to the global
stratospheric composition in the coming decades.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00022-5
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - November 2, 2009 *
Katie Couric interviews Al Gore for her CBSNews.com program "@KatieCouric."
http://youtu.be/rDmY2jXYOag
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