[TheClimate.Vote] October 2, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*October 2, 2020*/

[Bigger than biggest]
*Firefighters fear a mega-inferno is on the way*
Ashley Shaffer
USA TODAY
California fires could merge into a 1M-acre mega-inferno
Crews grappling with two fierce blazes in Northern California kept a 
wary eye Thursday on potentially turbulent winds that could whip up the 
two wildfires. Officials fear the Zogg Fire, which has burned through 
55,303 acres near Redding and left four people dead, could merge with a 
third blaze, the August Complex, into a mega-inferno of more than 1 
million acres. "It's likely the Zogg Fire may make its way into the 
August Complex, (which) remains the largest wildfire in terms of total 
acreage burned in California's history," Gov. Gavin Newsom warned. The 
August Complex has incinerated 949,672 acres.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/10/01/wildfires-chrissy-teigen-coronavirus-aid-california-covid-19-thursdays-news/5881234002/
- -
[Other West]
*Coloradans forced to evacuate as wildfire in Wyoming grows*
https://www.outtherecolorado.com/news/coloradans-forced-to-evacuate-as-wildfire-in-wyoming-grows/article_506b08e4-0411-11eb-9c30-c7384070a6db.html
- -
*Glass Fire: Napa Valley crews brace for possible weather-fueled surge
*Firefighters are "extremely concerned" the Glass Fire will spread to 
more homes and wineries.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/01/glass-fire-napa-valley-crews-brace-for-possible-weather-fueled-surge/



[Faster changes]
*New Study Shows a Vicious Circle of Climate Change Building on 
Thickening Layers of Warm Ocean Water*
Global warming is deepening blankets of warmer water that alter ocean 
currents, hinder absorption of carbon, intensify storms and disrupt 
biological cycles.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28092020/ocean-stratification-climate-change



[Ocean cause and effect]*
* *British Columbia's Seamounts Are Becoming Uninhabitable*
The deep ocean, where changes usually manifest over millennia, is losing 
oxygen at an unprecedented rate.
by Judith Lavoie - October 1, 2020
In the northeast Pacific, the upper 3,000 meters of water has lost 15 
percent of its oxygen over the past 60 years, and the top 500 meters is 
simultaneously becoming more acidic at an unprecedented rate, a study by 
Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientists has found.

The changes, which the scientists say are a consequence of climate 
change, threaten the survival of the black coral, brittle stars, 
rockfish, and other species that live around the towering seamounts that 
lie off the British Columbia coast. The scientists say the seamount 
ecosystem--regarded as an oasis of life in the deep ocean--will be 
irreversibly changed, and there will likely be local extinctions.

The research shows the previously studied large oxygen minimum zone 
between 480 and 1,700 meters has some of the lowest oxygen levels in the 
global ocean, and it is expanding. The 15 percent loss of oxygen puts 
the northeast Pacific way above the two percent loss seen in oceans 
globally over the past 70 years.

The result is that the deep-sea ecosystem in the northeast Pacific is 
facing a double whammy: from the decrease in oxygen as the warming 
surface water absorbs less oxygen; and from ocean acidification, which 
affects the ability of marine organisms to maintain shells and skeletons.

Biogeochemical oceanographer Debby Ianson, one of the study's three 
authors, says that because carbon dioxide concentrations in the 
atmosphere are already high from burning fossil fuels, absorption of 
carbon dioxide by the ocean will continue for at least a decade even if 
carbon emissions are somehow stopped. "The train has left the station," 
she says.

Many species around the seamounts, such as cold-water corals and 
rougheye rockfish, can live for centuries. But life for many of these 
creatures is already changing. For example, the changes in water 
chemistry mean that the depth at which the water becomes acidic enough 
to dissolve calcium carbonate skeletons is rising by two meters a year.

The discovery stems from data collected by the Line P oceanographic 
monitoring program, which has been testing the water from the southern 
tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, far offshore into the Alaska 
Gyre since 1956. Line P is one of the longest-running deep-sea time 
series in the world, allowing scientists to see trends in ocean chemistry.

Ianson says she and her colleagues found it shocking that there were 
clear indications of climate change at such depths.

"We're talking about deep water--between 500 meters and three 
kilometers. It is old water that has not been at the surface for a long 
time and, way down there, we weren't expecting it to experience any 
climate change," Ianson says.

Study coauthor and physical oceanographer Tetjana Ross also says she 
didn't expect to see such pronounced chemical changes in the deep water 
because much of the water around the seamounts was last at the surface 
1,000 years ago, before humans started releasing large amounts of carbon 
dioxide into the atmosphere. This is also the last time the water was 
able to exchange oxygen with the atmosphere.

But now that organisms such as corals are being affected, says study 
coauthor and marine biologist Cherisse Du Preez, side effects are 
inevitable.

"The corals can be meters tall, complex with beautiful branches that 
create homes for shrimp, octopus, nudibranchs," she says. "Without those 
corals, those animals no longer have a home. They no longer have 
shelters, or nurseries, or places where feeding is easier. Their entire 
lifestyles are just going to fall apart," she says.

The study predicts that within 40 years the environment will no longer 
be hospitable, and within 100 years many animals will undergo local 
extinction.

"While there might be winners and losers in the short run, if it keeps 
going at this rate, I think the ultimate ending is going to be losses 
for all the life down there," Du Preez says.

Scientists in Canada have discovered 62 seamounts off the British 
Columbia coast, most of which were discovered in just the last three 
years. They host some of the most bizarre creatures on the planet. 
Cherisse Du Preez, with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, takes us on a deep 
dive of these incredible oases of life in the vast ocean blue. Video by 
Katrina Pyne...
- -
Scientists have only recently started paying attention to the unique 
ecosystems of the seamounts off British Columbia, and the study suggests 
we are witnessing the demise of that ecosystem, she says.

"One of the key points of that paper is, yes, we have to do something 
about the emissions. But, we have to live with what we have got, so we 
have to think about proactive management methods that diminish the other 
threats," Tunnicliffe says.

In their paper, the scientists emphasize the need to mitigate human 
impacts such as fishing and undersea mining on the seamount ecosystem by 
designating the area as a marine protected area. More than 133,000 
square kilometers of the region has already been identified by the 
Canadian government as an area of interest for a potential protected area.
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/british-columbias-seamounts-are-becoming-uninhabitable/


[Yale Program on Climate Change Communication]
*Reading Environmental Literature Can Persuade on Climate*
We are pleased to announce the publication of a new research article 
*"Environmental Literature as Persuasion: An Experimental Test of the 
Effects of Reading Climate Fiction" *in the journal Environmental 
Communication.

In this study, we tested the persuasive effects of reading short stories 
of climate fiction. Climate fiction ("cli-fi") is a growing literary 
trend. These works range from dramatic tales set in imagined apocalyptic 
futures to realistic portrayals of characters responding to climate 
change in the present day.

Much empirical social science in the field of "narrative persuasion" has 
demonstrated that storytelling is an effective way to shift beliefs and 
attitudes regarding science and environmental issues. In part, this is 
because narratives promote a sense of identification with the story 
characters and immersion into the world of the story.

Despite the rising popularity of climate fiction and prior research on 
narrative persuasion, research had not yet tested the persuasive effects 
of climate fiction. Our study provides the first experimental 
investigation of these effects -- merging the fields of literary 
Ecocriticism with empirical social science.

In this study, participants in the Concerned and Cautious audience 
segments of Global Warming's Six Americas were randomly assigned to read 
one of three short stories: "The Tamarisk Hunter" (a dystopian tale by 
Paolo Bacigalupi of climate catastrophe, set in a drought-ridden 
American Southwest), "In-Flight Entertainment" (a realist tale by Helen 
Simpson of climate denial in a conversation between airplane 
passengers). Participants in the control condition read "Good People" (a 
short story by David Foster Wallace, unrelated to climate change).

We found that reading "The Tamarisk Hunter" or "In-Flight Entertainment" 
had significant positive effects on readers' climate change beliefs and 
attitudes, including that global warming will cause more natural 
disasters and poverty, as well as levels of worry, perceived importance, 
and the perceptions that global warming will harm readers personally, as 
well as future generations. Consistent with prior research on narrative 
persuasion, we found that many of these effects are mediated by feelings 
of transportation by the story and identification with the characters.

After one month, we recontacted the study participants in order to 
assess whether these persuasive effects remained over time. We found 
that the effect of reading these stories was no longer statistically 
significant, suggesting that the persuasive effects faded over time.

Together, these findings highlight the importance of storytelling about 
climate change in general and of climate fiction in particular. However, 
we also underscore the importance of repeated exposure to multiple 
messages from different sources, because the persuasive effects of any 
one message can be transient.

The full article is available here to those with a subscription to 
Environmental Communication. If you would like to request a copy, please 
send an email to climatechange at yale.edu with the subject line: Climate 
Fiction Persuasion paper.

We hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. And as always, 
thank you for your interest and support.

On behalf of my co-authors at Yale University and Yale-NUS College: 
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Abel Gustafson, Matthew Goldberg, Seth 
Rosenthal, and Matthew Ballew.

We hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. And as always, 
thank you for your interest and suppor
Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D.
https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/reading-environmental-literature-can-persuade-on-climate/ 


- -

[Fiction as influencer]
*Environmental Literature as Persuasion: An Experimental Test of the 
Effects of Reading Climate Fiction*
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson ,Abel Gustafson, Anthony Leiserowitz,...
*ABSTRACT*

    Literary works of fiction about climate change are becoming more
    common and more popular among critics and readers. While much
    research has indicated the persuasive effectiveness of narrative
    storytelling in general, empirical research has not yet tested the
    effects of reading climate fiction. This paper reports results from
    the first experimental study to test the immediate and delayed
    impacts of climate fiction on readers' beliefs and attitudes about
    climate change. We found that reading climate fiction had small but
    significant positive effects on several important beliefs and
    attitudes about global warming – observed immediately after
    participants read the stories. However, these effects diminished to
    statistical nonsignificance after a one-month interval. In this
    paper, we review the relevant literature, present the design and
    results of this experiment, and discuss implications for future
    research and practice.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17524032.2020.1814377



[video produced 7 years ago - prediction]
*8 ways the world could suddenly end: Stephen Petranek at TEDxMidwest*
TEDx Talks - Mar 11, 2014
Unintentional "Dark Futurist", Stephen Petranek, re-visits the subject 
matter of his original eleven year old TED Talk and offers the audience 
an extraordinarily sobering look at the eight critical issues that 
threaten human life on Earth.

    [one of many solutions: *Watch closer, regulate more*]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEfpxiUIZPs
- -
[Updated 2019]
*Stephen Petranek 10 ways the world could end*
Nov 22, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFB41ur5yp0



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - October 2, 2008 *
Vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin spar over climate 
and energy issues in their lone debate, moderated by Gwen Ifill.
http://youtu.be/5qhox5P_jCg
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