[✔️] August 25, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Wed Aug 25 11:16:28 EDT 2021

/*August 25, 2021*/

[Wildfires hauling ass]
*Why are fires in the West growing larger this year?*
Bill Gabbert -- August 25, 2021
Drought — fuel moisture — energy release component
There are a number of ways to analyze the behavior of wildland fires 
using data that is easily available. The amount of moisture in the live 
and dead vegetation is a critical factor in determining how readily it 
will burn, because it has to be cooked off before the grass, brush, or 
woody vegetation will vigorously combust.

The amount of precipitation over days, weeks, months, and years affects 
how wildfires burn. The map above depicts precipitation during the 
30-day period ending August 23, 2021.
https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Observed-precip-CONUS-lat-30-days-August-23-2021.jpg
The Drought Monitor is one way of using an index to express how the 
precipitation compares to normal for an area. As you can see below most 
of California is in either Exceptional Drought (the highest level of 
drought) or Extreme Drought. The only areas in California that are not, 
are a tiny sliver in the extreme northwest corner, and the five 
southernmost counties. Both drought categories can also be found in 
areas of Oregon and Idaho which I will get to later...
https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Drought-Monitor-August-17-2021.jpg
Here is an excerpt from the recent Fuel Model Summary for the Caldor Fire:

    There is a heavy dead and down component with drought-stressed
    fuels. Live fuels are cured to levels normally seen in late
    September, and fuels are extremely receptive to spotting. Fuel
    moistures are historically low. Northern California remains under a
    Fuels and Fire Behavior Advisory. ERC’s are above the 97th
    percentile. 100 hr and 1000hr fuels are below the 3rd percentile.

These fires are primarily fuel-driven. They are burning very well with 
gentle breezes. When the wind increases above 10 mph, they are hauling 
ass...
https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/08/25/why-are-fires-in-the-west-growing-larger-this-year/

[it raineth on the just and on the unjust:
*Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: ‘Walls 
of water’*
‘Climate change has come barging through the front doors of America.’...
- -
“There is no place in the United States where you shouldn’t be resetting 
your expectations about Mother Nature disrupting your life,” said Roy 
Wright, president of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home 
Safety and former head of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program. 
“Climate change has come barging through the front doors of America.”

For years, scientists have warned that humanity’s greenhouse gas 
emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, would raise the risk of 
flooding around the country. Along coastlines, sea level rise has 
boosted high tides and increased the occurrence of sunny-day flooding. 
The hotter oceans give more energy to hurricanes, accounting for the 
growing number of storms that rapidly intensify to Category 4 and 5 
events...
- -
A physical phenomenon known as the Clausius-Clapeyron equation shows 
that for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, the 
atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture. Because the relationship 
between temperature and moisture isn’t linear, even small amounts of 
warming can create exponentially wetter storms.

The complex array of factors that contribute to a flood can complicate 
efforts to quantify climate change’s role. But research shows that 
warming makes events significantly more extreme.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/23/tennessee-floods-show-pressing-climate-danger-across-america-wall-water/ 

[Afghanistan]
*Seeking World Recognition, Taliban Vows to Help Fight Terror and 
Climate Change*
https://www.newsweek.com/seeking-world-recognition-taliban-vows-help-fight-terror-climate-change-1622239

- -

[from Foreign Policy]
*Becoming Literally Uninhabitable*
AUGUST 24, 2021
One of the regions hardest hit by climate change is also one least 
equipped to deal with it.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/24/the-middle-east-is-becoming-literally-uninhabitable/ 

[California too]
*Climate change demands reorganizing California policies and institutions*
BY GUEST COMMENTARY - AUGUST 23, 2021
IN SUMMARY
Our state’s system of policies, laws and institutions is designed to 
keep bad things from happening and is much less adept at expediting 
programs and projects that must happen quickly and at a scale to address 
a warming climate. This must change...
- -
IN CONCLUSION
Today, it takes us far too long to develop and implement projects and 
programs to adapt to the rapidly changing reality. We are falling 
behind. And we aren’t falling behind because people don’t know what to 
do, but because they are trying to manage a climate-impacted natural 
resource system with policies and institutions designed to manage a 
system that no longer exists.

Let’s stop pretending our natural world will return to normal. That 
option is long gone.

We need to stop waiting for the drought to be over and the fire season 
to end. We need to start demanding the administrative and legal changes 
necessary to get out in front of the ever-increasing effects of climate 
change. And we need to do that now.

        "For this to happen, the Legislature needs to modernize statutes
        to allow for coordinated and expedited permitting of
        climate-adaptation projects. "

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/08/climate-change-demands-reorganizing-california-policies-and-institutions/

[opinion]
*The Banality of Apocalypse*
The climate crisis and social media are putting apocalypse at our 
fingertips. Everything depends on what happens next.
Brian Kahn -- Aug 24, 2021
We are living through a time unprecedented in human history. The world 
is at once more connected than ever and also falling apart in ways 
almost beyond comprehension.

Living at the nexus of these two existential challenges is often 
disorienting. Scroll through your Twitter feed and you can see images 
that feel like a Michael Bay movie: the ocean on fire, a boat full of 
evacuees swerving away from a wall of flames, foundations of houses 
where a community once stood. The difference is they are video and 
photos of real-life, transmitted from the frontlines of the climate 
crisis by the very people suffering the impacts, into the palm of your 
hand while you wait for your latte or kill time between classes....
- -
This summer has, unfortunately, yielded no shortage of viral images as 
floods, heat, and fires hit seemingly every corner of the planet. In 
doing so, it has also revealed a paradox of the climate-connected era we 
live in: The horrors of the climate crisis are becoming routine, 
background noise to the daily grind of life. Something that is happening 
somewhere else—until it is happening to you.

The climate crisis has its own version of Moore’s Law, where disasters 
continue to grow in scale, scope, and intensity. Because the climate 
system operates on a lag, it also means that the impacts we’re seeing 
today are, in part, from fossil fuels sold and burned decades ago. As 
the global average temperature of the entire planet rises, the risk of 
acute heat increases. In places such as the American West, Australia, 
the Mediterranean, and elsewhere, this ups the odds of explosive fires. 
Elsewhere, it increases the intensity of droughts and the likelihood of 
heavy downpours. As the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change report noted, “Climate change is already affecting every 
inhabited region across the globe.” Where supercharged weather 
intersects with society, disaster follows.
- -
Meanwhile, almost every phone is now a camera, and in some cases, a 
camera good enough to shoot near-professional quality photos and videos. 
Pew Research data shows that 85% of American adults own a smartphone, 
and there are billions more in use around the world. Meanwhile, there 
are 1.9 billion daily Facebook users, nearly 200 million daily Twitter 
users, and TikTok just overtook Facebook as the most downloaded app on 
Earth. That does not even get to Instagram, WhatsApp, and other apps 
that help users disseminate photos or turn their phones into broadcast 
studios with a few taps. When disaster hits, it is inevitably documented 
and posted...
- -
There is an upside to this (at least as much as there can be an upside 
to outrunning a wildfire) in that the reality of the climate crisis is 
inescapable. Smooth-brained climate denialists can try to foment doubt 
and point to dusty old newspapers clippings, but their arguments have 
become increasingly farcical in the face of overwhelming, ubiquitous 
catastrophe.

The democratization of documentation also means that communities no 
longer have to wait for Jim Cantore to show up to get attention. Floods 
in Ethiopia or Bangladesh would normally be news in the respective 
countries or regions and nowhere else; now, they are broadcast to the 
world. Social media is imperfect as a means of getting tangible relief 
for those affected, but it is a step beyond neglect.

The increasing drumbeat of disaster on main also poses a risk to how we 
understand and act on the climate crisis. A 2019 study, which looked at 
social media posts about extreme weather, found that people posted about 
the weather more on freakishly hot days or abnormally cold days. But the 
findings show that after five years of abnormally hot weather, people 
stopped tweeting about the heat. It just became a part of daily life.

Consuming fiery video after fiery video could have a similar impact. 
Compartmentalizing crisis is part of how we cope as humans. In a piece 
for the Outline that has stuck with me for years, author Hayes Brown put 
it this way:

    “Still, it’s amazing how much the human mind can compartmentalize
    when faced with something as vast as extinction. The headlines and
    news alerts and marches and panels get filed in the mental Pocket
    folder marked ‘for later’ that you have absolutely [no] intention of
    ever going back to but gives you the satisfaction of having been
    interested in the article in the first place. We do our best to go
    about our days, filling them with a constant stream of distractions.”

In that light, our connected world risks disconnecting from the risks 
climate change poses. It risks baking in a sense of doom where the 
actions we need to take seem futile. Or where we forget we even need to 
take them because climate change just “is what it is,” another 
distraction sandwiched between shitposts and ads for 300 thread count 
cotton sheets.
The increasing familiarity of disaster is no excuse for complacency or 
rubbernecking, though. Instead, it’s a reminder that no place is safe as 
long as the economy keeps running on fossil fuels.
https://gizmodo.com/the-banality-of-apocalypse-1847528867
[comments]
Vintage-rBrian Kahn
8/24/21
According to some theories, humans need to stop consuming by 95%, 
compared to how much they consume now. We’re not talking here just to 
recycle your soda can, or to buy an electric car. Instead, we’re talking 
about bringing consumption almost to a halt (except food). The paucity 
in consumption will naturally bring down factories and other means of 
mass pollution. That is the only thing that can keep us below the 
dreaded 2 C of change (according to the theory). But now think: WHICH 
human that you personally know would be willing to live as people used 
to live in the 1920s? Obviously, the answer is none, to maybe one. Which 
is far below the 7.8 billion people required to do that en mass. We’re 
doomed. There’s no way back, because humans want their cake, and eat it 
too. And I wish people stop pointing stupid fingers to “the government” 
and “the corporations”. These entities are here to serve or create 
products FOR you. If you stop buying, they will naturally fall, you 
won’t even need to protest or lobby. But nooooo.... it’s “the 
government”. As if the government has a magic wand to make climate 
change go away. Or “the evil corporations” — who make products FOR YOU. 
BTW, I do belong to the Left. But unlike most leftists (probably because 
I’m of the European Left type), I see where the culprit is: the hedonism 
of our society. And now that people have tasted this hedonism, they 
don’t ever want to go back. Instead, they will ask and protest to the 
government for superficial fixes AS LONG as they don’t interfere with 
their consumption. This is the end of the road, folks.
- -
If only a team of knowledgeable people would investigate this climate 
change thing and show humanity whats happing and what to do about it. 
Maybe they could even make a living out of it. Perhaps giving them a 
specific name like finders of knowledge or something.

O, well I’m on my way to make a video of people drowning in an 
riverflood. Good day to you all!
https://gizmodo.com/the-banality-of-apocalypse-1847528867

[News media]
*When Dire Climate News Came, Canada’s Front Pages Crumpled*
The day the ‘code red’ IPCC report dropped, top US papers made a 
measurably bigger deal of it.
Even in this digital age, the front page of a newspaper is still one of 
the clearest windows we have into the priorities of those who produce 
it. Last week, that window showed Canadians many of their biggest 
newspapers seem to care less about global warming than their 
counterparts in the United States, on the eve of an election that will 
determine the country’s future action on climate change.

At issue is how those newspapers handled the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change’s most recent report, which United Nations 
Secretary-General António Guterres described as a “code red for humanity.”

The report was released on Aug. 9 at 10 a.m. in Geneva, Switzerland, 
when most of North America was asleep. But some reporters were learning 
about its findings the day prior. As a result, their newspapers had two 
days during which they could put that news on their front pages, 
demonstrating its importance to readers.

At the 10 largest circulation newspapers in the United States, as 
determined by the Alliance for Audited Media, eight took this 
opportunity on one or both of those days. They devoted between four and 
30 per cent of their front pages to the IPCC report.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/08/19/Dire-Climate-News-Canada-Front-Pages-Crumbled/

[here's news for Canada and the World]
Jul 7, 2021
*Study Projects a Surge in Coastal Flooding, Starting in 2030s*
In the mid-2030s, every U.S. coast will experience rapidly increasing 
high-tide floods, when a lunar cycle will amplify rising sea levels 
caused by climate change.

High-tide floods – also called nuisance floods or sunny day floods – are 
already a familiar problem in many cities on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf 
coasts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 
reported a total of more than 600 such floods in 2019. Starting in the 
mid-2030s, however, the alignment of rising sea levels with a lunar 
cycle will cause coastal cities all around the U.S. to begin a decade of 
dramatic increases in flood numbers, according to the first study that 
takes into account all known oceanic and astronomical causes for floods.

Led by the members of the NASA Sea Level Change Science Team from the 
University of Hawaii, the new study shows that high tides will exceed 
known flooding thresholds around the country more often. What’s more, 
the floods will sometimes occur in clusters lasting a month or longer, 
depending on the positions of the Moon, Earth, and the Sun. When the 
Moon and Earth line up in specific ways with each other and the Sun, the 
resulting gravitational pull and the ocean’s corresponding response may 
leave city dwellers coping with floods every day or two.

“Low-lying areas near sea level are increasingly at risk and suffering 
due to the increased flooding, and it will only get worse,” said NASA 
Administrator Bill Nelson. “The combination of the Moon’s gravitational 
pull, rising sea levels, and climate change will continue to exacerbate 
coastal flooding on our coastlines and across the world. NASA’s Sea 
Level Change Team is providing crucial information so that we can plan, 
protect, and prevent damage to the environment and people’s livelihoods 
affected by flooding.”..
- -
“From a planning perspective, it’s important to know when we’ll see an 
increase,” Hamlington said. “Understanding that all your events are 
clustered in a particular month, or you might have more severe flooding 
in the second half of a year than the first – that’s useful 
information.” A high-tide flood tool developed by Thompson already 
exists on the NASA team’s sea level portal, a resource for 
decision-makers and the general public. The flood tool will be updated 
in the near future with the findings from this study.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s

[video prognostications from a climate scientist]
*Johan Rockström on a +2 and +3 degrees world*
Jul 18, 2021
wim vermeulen
Dear politicians,
We need to talk about our social contract. You know, the democratic 
agreement we make where ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuQIMnJejHc

The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming August 25 , 2011*

August 25, 2011: In an article for the Daily Beast, Bill McKibben writes:

"[Hurricane] Irene's got a middle name, and it's global warming."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/25/hurricane-irene-can-be-tied-to-global-warming-says-bill-mckibben.html 

http://youtu.be/8ZgL-wBXk1Y

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