[✔️] December 26, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*December 26, 2021*/

[ Santa needs better reindeer grazing areas  ]
*In the Arctic, Sami Reindeer Herders Face Climate Disaster*
Europe’s only remaining Indigenous people say the reindeer they depend 
on are struggling to survive in a warmer climate...
- -
The Arctic is warming not twice as quickly as the rest of the world, as 
previously believed, but four times as fast, according to a paper 
published in Science this week. Sápmi, an area that stretches over parts 
of four countries — Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia — and is hemmed 
by three seas, recorded its hottest temperature for more than a century 
in July this year, hitting 92.5 degrees Fahrenheit during a summer heatwave.

Kuhmunen and other reindeer herders, who spend their days and often 
nights tending the herds scattered across vast tundras, are on the 
frontline of the climate crisis. Their reindeer, a semi-domestic species 
that has adapted to the harsh conditions of the polar region, are being 
pushed to the limit by the changes, they say. The animals use their 
shovel-like hooves to dig for lichen, their main winter food supply, as 
well as other plants that grow under the snow. But finding food is 
increasingly difficult...
- -
Aslat Simma, 42, a herder and former chief of the Lainiovuoma tribe, 
said: “This is December. The temperature should be minus all the time. A 
normal winter has temperatures of -20 to -25 C. Now the temperature can 
be zero or positive.”...
- -
Increasing rainfall in the autumn also leaves the lichen full of water, 
making it less nutritious for the deer, he said...
- -
“We must realise we can’t overconsume our planet. This is urgent. We 
need to listen to all the Indigenous people in the world who know how to 
live in harmony with the planet.”
/Karen McVeigh is a senior news reporter for the Guardian./
https://undark.org/2021/12/21/in-the-arctic-sami-reindeer-herders-face-climate-disaster/



/[  behold, a new type of weather system is born -- rather, newly 
defined. A lake in the sky  - presented at AGU ] /
*A42B-04 - Long-lived vapor lakes over the Indian Ocean: closest outdoor 
phenomenon to the self-aggregation paradigm?*
December 17, 2021
Plain-language Summary

    Long-lived "lakes" of water vapor in the atmosphere are observed to
    occur over the western Indian Ocean. Their dynamics resemble those
    of a well-studied theoretical and simulation paradigm for tropical
    disturbances called "self-aggregation". We seek to exploit this
    theory-adjacency in the study of these vapor lakes. In addition,
    they are rain-makers for the semi-arid lands of coastal east Africa.
    While that area's rainfall climatology is well studied at the
    monthly scale (two yearly wet seasons: short rains and long rains),
    these vapor-mediated "storms" may have been missed as traditional
    meteorology tends to focus more on wind-field features and
    'disturbances' as the long-lived entities of weather.

*Abstract*
Over the western equatorial Indian Ocean (WEIO), convecting airmasses 
with column water vapor (CWV) exceeding the steep rain "pickup" or 
"transition" value near 50 mm sometimes pinch off from the vast humid 
airmass over the Indo-Pacific warm pool. These high-CWV features last 
for more than a week several times a year. How do they remain humid 
while raining so much, and remain so coherent spatially? Do they move 
solely by horizontal advection (at what steering level/layer?), or are 
there subtler propagation aspects (e.g. vertical motion-mediated 
meanderings of front vs. back perimeters, for instance upshear vs. 
downshear edges)?
These vapor bodies sometimes drift west over the east African coast, 
bringing rain to that semi-arid area. By contrast to rain-bearing 
"atmospheric rivers" of vapor, which are contiguous from source to 
coastline at an instant, we call these disconnected and drifting water 
bodies "atmospheric lakes". Tracking a closed high-CWV contour as 
time-evolving shapefiles allows us to tally climatologies, select case 
studies, and build composites of gridded fields contained within the 
high-CWV area, as a function of distance from its outer perimeter 
contour and/or internal holes (if present). These composites include key 
budget terms estimated from the MERRA2 reanalysis, and also include 
characterizations of the high-cloud aggregation in finer-mesh IR imagery 
(aggregation indices). Since these seem like Nature's closest phenomenon 
to the remanent islands of high-CWV in long, closed (doubly-periodic) 
simulations of "self-aggregation" in radiative-convective equilibrium 
(RCE), diagnostics from that world can be usefully borrowed and applied 
to these satellite and reanalysis data composites, to address the 
questions above about maintenance and propagation.
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm21/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/910339



/[  ABC news ] /
*Melting Arctic ice will have catastrophic effects on the world, experts 
say. Here's how.*
The Arctic is the "frontline" for climate change, scientists said.
ByJulia Jacobo
December 24, 2021/.../
If there is any doubt about climate change, look no further than the 
coldest regions of the planet for proof that the planet is warming at 
unprecedented rates, experts say.

The Arctic, is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world, 
according to this year's Arctic Report Card, released last week by the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The phenomenon, known 
as Arctic amplification, occurs when the sea ice, which is white, thins 
or disappears, allowing dark ocean or land surfaces to absorb more heat 
from the sun and release that energy back into the atmosphere.
- -
In addition to an increased chance of oil spills from increased 
commercial activity is the possibility of new oil and gas fields opening 
up in Russian territory could further amplify global warming as those 
natural gases are extracted, Moerman said.

"The question is, is can we get those policies and strategies set up now 
before there's this massive sort of gold rush on the Arctic Ocean?" 
Schofield said.

Melting permafrost in the Arctic also poses natural environmental risks, 
Moon said. The majority of the ground in the Arctic is frozen, and as it 
thaws, microbes and other living organisms within the organic carbon in 
the permafrost begin to wake up, releasing carbon dioxide and methane 
into the atmosphere.

Temperatures need to be below 0 degrees Celsius to grow and maintain 
ice, Schofield said. But we will likely never regain that ice, as it 
took thousands of years of snow layers accumulating on top of each other 
to create the massive ice sheet, which is several miles thick.

"At some point, we're likely to cross the line where, you know, there'll 
be almost no winter to speak up," Schofield said. "And we see these 
kinds of effects in these polar regions, like the Arctic and the Antarctic."
https://abcnews.go.com/International/melting-arctic-ice-catastrophic-effects-world-experts/story?id=81588333



/[   The China propaganda machine has something to say.  Audio ] /
*Global warming threatens China’s food security and could result in crop 
pests and diseases doubling, study warns*
By HOLLY CHIK
CHINA
Sunday, 26 Dec 2021
China, which has a population of 1.4 billion people, is the world’s 
largest producer of the main cereal crops (rice, wheat and maize), all 
of which are the main hosts of pests and diseases such as fungus, 
according to the researchers.

An analysis by the team of scientists from Britain, China, France, 
Germany, Sweden and the United States showed that CPD occurrence 
nationwide has increased fourfold on average between 1970 and 2016, 
affecting every province in China.

The researchers said the problem is especially severe in two of the main 
crop-producing areas, the North China Plains and the middle-lower 
Yangtze Plains in the east....
- -
https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2021/12/26/global-warming-threatens-chinas-food-security-and-could-result-in-crop-pests-and-diseases-doubling-study-warns

- -

[ Audio recoreding from South China Morning Post ]
*China after COP26: how does the world's largest emitter of carbon move 
on from coal?*
Nov 17, 2021
South China Morning Post
#COP26 #China #coal #renewables
SCMP China desk reporter Holly Chik presents the second part of our 
series looking at the technological and economic changes under way in 
order for China to meet its 2030 and 2050 carbon emissions targets. Hear 
from energy, resources and transition expert Prakash Sharma and research 
analyst and battery storage specialist  Xu Le on how China is moving to 
a post-coal society in which everything is electric, and giant batteries 
change the way homes and factories get their power.
https://youtu.be/LhGe4Y7y2CQ


/
/

/[ Interview something that is full agreement  ] /
*“Climate change obstacles are all political, not technological”*
“It's no longer about denying the science because they can't deny it. 
People can see it, people understand it's happening. So this is one of 
the troubling new forms of denialism - denial that we have agency,” says 
Professor Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climatologists....
- -
*That raises the question - aren’t the summit commitments just not 
sustainable as countries are able to withdraw from their agreements 
depending on the people they elect?*
  “Well, this could be said about any matter of geopolitics (e.g. 
nuclear arms treaties, etc). We have to accomplish what we can within 
the flawed global negotiations framework that exists, while also levying 
pressure, as individual nations, against state actors that go back on 
their commitments (e.g. through political and economic pressure that can 
include border adjustments and tariffs, etc). But in the end, we get the 
politicians we vote for, and the single most important thing we can do 
is vote for climate-friendly policymakers and vote out fossil fuel 
apologists.”
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3925682,00.html



/[ Hear what Medeliein Brand has to say in a 10 min audio ]/
*If Build Back Better dies, what happens to climate legislation?*
Dec. 21, 2021
President Biden’s $2 trillion “Build Back Better” plan appears to be 
dying. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin announced on Sunday that he 
wouldn’t vote for it, despite months of back-and-forth negotiations with 
the White House.

Part of that plan includes major reforms to address climate change, like 
shutting down coal plants and moving towards electric cars. 
Environmental advocates say the policies in this bill were crucial for 
staving off the worst predictions of global warming.

But there are other routes the Biden administration — and even its 
biggest thorn, Joe Manchin — can take to advance progressive climate 
policies. What can be done now?...
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/covid-afghanistan-film-beverages/build-back-better-climate-ca


[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming December 26, 2015*
December 26, 2015: The New York Times reports:
"Oil money no longer pays the bills [in Alaska].

      "The governor, facing a profound fiscal crisis, has proposed the
    imposition of a personal income tax for the first time in 35 years.
    State lawmakers, who recently moved into a palatial new office
    building here, where they work when not toiling in the far-off
    Capitol in Juneau, are now seeking less costly digs.

    "And a state budget that was a point of Alaskan pride — and envy
    from around the nation — lies in tatters as revenue that flowed from
    selling crude oil from Prudhoe Bay over the past four decades has
    been swept away.

    "With oil prices down along with oil production, the state is facing
    an Alaska-size shortfall: Two-thirds of the revenue needed to cover
    this year’s $5.2 billion state budget cannot be collected.

    "Many Alaskans are not old enough to recall times this bad. This is
    the nation’s least-taxed state, where oil royalties and energy taxes
    once paid for 90 percent of state functions. Oil money was so
    plentiful that residents received annual dividend checks from a
    state savings fund that could total more than $8,000 for a family of
    four — arriving each autumn, as predictable as the first snowfall.

    "Kevin Meyer, president of the Alaska Senate, spoke to members of
    the Resource Development Council about the budget. Mr. Meyer, a
    Republican who is also an employee of the oil giant ConocoPhillips,
    said he thought deeper cuts were still necessary.

    "Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, is proposing to scale back those
    dividends as he seeks to get Alaska back on a stable financial
    footing with less dependence on oil. 'It will move us back to where
    we were before,' he said in an interview. 'We can do it.'

    "Every resource-dependent corner of the globe is in stress these
    days as commodity prices from copper to soybeans have collapsed to
    multiyear lows. States like Texas and Louisiana are also grappling
    with the oil downturn, but Alaska’s situation is unique."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/26/us/as-oil-money-melts-alaska-mulls-first-income-tax-in-35-years.html

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