[TheClimate.Vote] November 18, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*November 18, 2020*/

[Twice]
*'Extraordinary': Iota becomes second category 4 hurricane to strike 
Central America in past two weeks*
By Jeff Masters, Ph.D. | Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Hurricane Iota moved ashore Nov. 16 just 15 miles south of the location 
where Hurricane Eta made landfall Nov. 3.
Hurricane Iota roared ashore in northern Nicaragua as a high-end 
category 4 storm with 155 mph winds and a central pressure of 920 mb at 
10:40 p.m. EST November 16. Iota is the strongest Atlantic landfalling 
hurricane so late in the year. The previous record was held by the 1932 
Cuba Hurricane, which made landfall on Little Cayman Island with 155 mph 
winds on November 9, 1932.

Iota made landfall 30 miles south of Puerto Cabezas (population 40,000), 
just 15 miles south of where Hurricane Eta made landfall as a category 4 
storm with 140 mph winds on November 3. In records going back to 1851, 
it is unprecedented for two Atlantic category 4 hurricanes to make 
landfall so close together, just two weeks apart. That they did so in 
November, when category 4 hurricanes are rare, is truly extraordinary. 
Only six category 4 or stronger hurricanes have ever been recorded in 
November or December, Eta and Iota in the past two weeks. Here is the 
very short list of these late-season hurricanes, sorted by highest 
lifetime wind speed:

Cuba Hurricane (175 mph; Nov. 6, 1932);
Iota (160 mph; Nov. 16, 2020);
Lenny (155 mph; Nov. 17, 1999);
Eta (150 mph; Nov. 3, 2020);
Paloma (145 mph; Nov. 8, 2008); and
Michelle (140 mph; Nov. 4, 2001)...
- -
Helping out the victims of the hurricanes of 2020
For those wanting to help out with charitable donations the hurricanes 
of 2020, a reporter I've been working with in Honduras, Jeff Ernst, said 
in an email, "I think World Vision is doing a good job of responding to 
the disaster and I know several people in the local administration here 
and think highly of them." I used World Vision's Hurricane Eta donation 
link to help out in Honduras, and have also donated to Hurriup.org, the 
disaster relief charity founded by members of the Weather Underground 
user community. For those living in Miami, Mayor Suarez tweeted out 
locations where donated goods can be left for Honduras relief.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/11/extraordinary-iota-becomes-second-category-4-hurricane-to-strike-central-america-in-past-two-weeks/



[the cause of the differences]
*5 Things We Know About Climate Change and Hurricanes*
Scientists can't say for sure whether global warming is causing more 
hurricanes, but they are confident that it's changing the way storms 
behave. Here's how...
- -
*1. Higher winds*
There's a solid scientific consensus that hurricanes are becoming more 
powerful.

Hurricanes are complex, but one of the key factors that determines how 
strong a given storm ultimately becomes is ocean surface temperature, 
because warmer water provides more of the energy that fuels storms...
- -
  "We predicted it would go up 30 years ago, and the observations show 
it going up."..
- -
*2. More rain*
Warming also increases the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can 
hold. In fact, every degree Celsius of warming allows the air to hold 
about 7 percent more water.

That means we can expect future storms to unleash higher amounts of 
rainfall.

*3. Slower storms*
Researchers do not yet know why storms are moving more slowly, but they 
are. Some say a slowdown in global atmospheric circulation, or global 
winds, could be partly to blame...

...hurricanes over the United States had slowed 17 percent since 1947. 
Combined with the increase in rain rates, storms are causing a 25 
percent increase in local rainfall in the United States, he said.

Slower, wetter storms also worsen flooding. Dr. Kossin likened the 
problem to walking around your back yard while using a hose to spray 
water on the ground. If you walk fast, the water won't have a chance to 
start pooling. But if you walk slowly, he said, "you'll get a lot of 
rain below you."

*4. Wider-ranging storms*
Because warmer water helps fuel hurricanes, climate change is enlarging 
the zone where hurricanes can form.

There's a "migration of tropical cyclones out of the tropics and toward 
subtropics and middle latitudes," Dr. Kossin said. That could mean more 
storms making landfall in higher latitudes, like in the United States or 
Japan.

*5. More volatility*
As the climate warms, researchers also say they expect storms to 
intensify more rapidly. Researchers are still unsure why it's happening, 
but the trend appears to be clear.

In a 2017 paper based on climate and hurricane models, Dr. Emanuel found 
that storms that intensify rapidly -- the ones that increase their wind 
speed by 70 miles per hour or more in the 24 hours before landfall -- 
were rare in the period from 1976 through 2005. On average, he 
estimated, their likelihood in those years was equal to about once per 
century.

By the end of the 21st century, he found, those storms might form once 
every five or 10 years.

"It's a forecaster's nightmare," Dr. Emanuel said. If a tropical storm 
or Category 1 hurricane develops into a Category 4 hurricane overnight, 
he said, "there's no time to evacuate people."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/climate/climate-change-hurricanes.html



[Oops]

*Joe Biden Just Appointed His Climate Movement Liaison. It's a 
Fossil-Fuel Industry Ally.*
BY DAVID SIROTA JULIA ROCK ANDREW PEREZ
Joe Biden says confronting climate change is one of his top priorities. 
But today, he appointed as his liaison to the climate movement a 
congressman who has raked in big money from the fossil fuel industry 
while voting to help oil and gas companies.

Following a campaign promising bold climate action, president-elect Joe 
Biden's transition team named one of the Democratic Party's top 
recipients of fossil fuel industry money to a high-profile White House 
position focusing in part on climate issues.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that Biden is appointing US Rep. Cedric 
Richmond (D-LA) to lead the White House Office of Public Engagement, 
where he is "expected to serve as a liaison with the business community 
and climate change activists."

During his ten years in Congress, Richmond has received roughly $341,000 
from donors in the oil and gas industry -- the fifth-highest total among 
House Democrats, according to previous reporting by Sludge. That 
includes corporate political action committee donations of $50,000 from 
Entergy, an electric and natural gas utility; $40,000 from ExxonMobil; 
and $10,000 apiece from oil companies Chevron, Phillips 66, and Valero 
Energy.

Richmond has raked in that money while representing a congressional 
district that is home to seven of the ten most air-polluted census 
tracts in the country.

Richmond has repeatedly broken with his party on major climate and 
environmental votes. During the climate crisis that has battered his 
home state of Louisiana, Richmond has joined with Republicans to vote to 
increase fossil fuel exports and promote pipeline development. He also 
voted against Democratic legislation to place pollution limits on 
fracking -- and he voted for GOP legislation to limit the Obama 
administration's authority to more stringently regulate the practice.

Overall, Richmond has received a lifetime rating of 76 percent from the 
League of Conservation Voters, and he scored 46 percent in 2018 -- one 
of the lowest ratings of any Democrat in Congress.

Richmond, who served as a co-chair of the Biden campaign, has not 
committed to supporting a Green New Deal. In a postelection interview 
with CBS Face the Nation, Richmond said: "When we govern, we will govern 
with our values but when we can't pass legislation, we shouldn't be out 
there talking about it."

"Cedric Richmond has taken big money from the fossil fuel industry, 
cozied up w/oil and gas, & stayed silent while polluters poisoned his 
own community," the Sunrise Movement, a grassroots group pushing for a 
Green New Deal, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. "How will young people & 
frontline communities trust our voices will be heard louder than Big Oil 
in a @JoeBiden administration?"

Varshini Prakash, the Sunrise Movement's executive director who served 
on Biden's policy task force, said in a statement: "Today feels like a 
betrayal, because one of President-Elect Biden's very first hires for 
his new administration has taken more donations from the fossil fuel 
industry during his Congressional career than nearly any other Democrat."

Prakash called Richmond's selection "an affront to young people who made 
President-Elect Biden's victory possible."

Biden has promised a $1.7 trillion plan to combat climate change, and 
has said the cause is one of his top priorities. During the Democratic 
primary, his campaign was criticized for working with an energy adviser 
linked to the fossil fuel industry while promoting a "middle ground" 
climate policy and opposing a ban on fracking. He was also criticized 
for attending a major fundraiser by a fossil fuel investor, even as he 
pledged to reject campaign money from fossil fuel industry sources.

Biden is reportedly considering former Obama energy secretary Ernest 
Moniz for a cabinet spot or for a new international climate envoy post, 
according to the New York Times. Climate groups have called on Biden to 
reject Moniz for any position because he joined the board of directors 
at the electric utility Southern Company after his time in the Obama 
administration. Moniz has also been a fracking advocate.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/joe-biden-climate-fossil-fuel-industry-cedric-richmond



[Climate over Covid]
NOVEMBER 17, 2020
*Climate change bigger threat than COVID: Red Cross*
The world should react with the same urgency to climate change as to the 
coronavirus crisis, the Red Cross said Tuesday, warning that global 
warming poses a greater threat than COVID-19.
Even as the pandemic rages, climate change is not taking a break from 
wreaking havoc, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red 
Crescent societies (IFRC) said in a new report.

In the report, on global catastrophes since the 1960s, the Geneva-based 
organisation pointed out that the world had been hit by more than 100 
disasters--many of them climate related--since the World Health 
Organization declared the pandemic in March.

More than 50 million people had been affected, it said.

"Of course, the COVID is there, it's in front of us, it is affecting our 
families, our friends, our relatives," IFRC Secretary-General Jagan 
Chapagain told a virtual press conference.

"It's a very, very serious crisis the world is facing currently," he 
said of the pandemic, which has already claimed more than 1.3 million lives.

But he warned that the IFRC expects "climate change will have a more 
significant medium and long term impact on the human life and on Earth."

And while it looked increasingly likely that one or several vaccines 
would soon become available against COVID-19, Chapagain stressed that 
"unfortunately there is no vaccine for climate change".

*'No vaccine for climate change'*

When it comes to global warming, he warned, "it will require a much more 
sustained action and investment to really protect the human life on this 
Earth."

The frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate-related 
events had already increased considerably in recent decades, said the IFRC.

In 2019 alone, the world was hit by 308 natural disasters--77 percent of 
them climate or weather-related--killing some 24,400 people.

The number of climate and weather-related disasters has been steadily 
climbing since the 1960s, and has surged by nearly 35 percent since the 
1990s, IFRC said.

This is a deadly development.

Weather and climate-related disasters have killed more than 410,000 
people over the past decade, most of them in poorer countries, with 
heatwaves and storms proving the most deadly, the report said.

Faced with this threat, which "literally threatens our long-term 
survival", IFRC called on the international community to act with the 
urgency required.

*'Protect most vulnerable communities'*

It estimated that around $50 billion would be needed annually over the 
next decade to help the 50 developing countries to adapt to the changing 
climate.

IFRC stressed that that amount was "dwarfed by the global response to 
the economic impact of COVID-19," which has already passed $10 trillion.

It also lamented that much of the money invested so far in climate 
change prevention and mitigation was not going to the developing 
countries most at risk.
"Our first responsibility is to protect communities that are most 
exposed and vulnerable to climate risks," Chapagain said, warning though 
that "our research demonstrates that the world is collectively failing 
to do this."

"There is a clear disconnection between where the climate risk is 
greatest and where climate adaptation funding goes," he said.

"This disconnection could very well cost lives."
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-climate-bigger-threat-covid-red.html



[video become an information activist -- editing Wikipedia - Internet's 
encyclopedia]
*Thriving Online - How to Be a Climate Wikipedian*
Andrew Revkin - 11-16-2020
Wikipedia stands out online as a beacon of up-to-date and largely 
accurate information in what often seems like a raging extreme storm of 
noise and assertions. Entries may never be quite perfect, but nonstop 
maintenance and monitoring make this community-managed resource a vital 
first stop for billions of users each month.

On heated issues like climate change and COVID-19, legions of volunteers 
devote countless unpaid hours to updating and tending entries.

In this week's Thriving Online episode, join the Earth Institute's Andy 
Revkin in a live chat with members of the largely unsung Wikipedian 
community focused on climate change. The session was inspired by a 
fascinating Mashable story profiling this team, written by Mark Kaufman, 
who'll join the conversation. Here's Kaufman's story: 
http://j.mp/mashablewikiclimate

Also on hand will be Alex Stinson, a senior program strategist at 
Wikimedia Foundation, along with a representative or two from the 
Climate & Development Knowledge Network, which is co-hosting an 
"editathon" of climate content with Future Climate for Africa.

That #Wki4Climate editing  session runs from November 24 to December 1. 
Learn more here: http://j.mp/wiki4climate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lziiFlU220



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - November 18, 2008 *

President-elect Obama addresses the Global Climate Summit in Los 
Angeles, California via a pre-taped speech, declaring that his 
administration will be committed to reducing carbon pollution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvG2XptIEJk


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