[TheClimate.Vote] February 1, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 1, 2021*/

[NYTimes -- climate destabilization means cold too]
*Forecast: Wild Weather in a Warming World*
The polar vortex is experiencing an unusually long disturbance this year 
because of a “sudden stratospheric warming.” Bundle up...
- -
While the scientific evidence supporting climate change is indisputable, 
the connection between climate change and the disruptions in the 
stratosphere is not so settled. Dr. Cohen was an author of a paper last 
year in the journal Nature Climate Change, which looked at winter data 
from 2008 to 2018. The team found a sharp increase in Northeast winter 
storms over the previous decade. “Severe winter weather is much more 
frequent when the Arctic is warmest,” Dr. Cohen said.
- -
To Dr. Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research 
Center, the influence of climate change on these phenomena is 
inevitable, if still somewhat mysterious. “We’re changing the planet in 
such dramatic and incontrovertible ways,” she said. “The atmosphere is 
different now. The Earth’s surface is different now. The oceans are 
different now. So there must be some connections that are yet to be 
discovered as we do more research on the stratospheric polar vortex.”

What happens in the next few days, however, especially in the Northeast, 
is growing clear, though precisely where the snow will fall, and how 
deep, is difficult to predict ahead of time.

“Cold is coming regardless,” Dr. Cohen said, “and someone’s getting snow.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/climate/polar-vortex-weather-climate-change.html



[From Moscow Times]
*Peat Fires Smolder in Siberia Despite Bone-Chilling Temperatures*
Jan. 27, 2021
Siberian peat fires have continued to burn after a year of 
record-setting wildfires in and around the Arctic Circle despite 
temperatures below minus 50 degrees Celsius, The Siberian Times reported 
Wednesday.

Footage showing smoke rising from the snow in January and November 
offers physical evidence of the “zombie fire” phenomenon, which 
describes summertime blazes that continue smoldering through the winter, 
eventually igniting new fires. European scientists have voiced concerns 
that “zombie” fires could be causing earlier-than-normal wildfires...
See a Zombie fire in Yakutia - video 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbR7IyshWkA&feature=emb_logo ...
The republic of Sakha, Russia’s largest and coldest region, is in the 
midst of one of its coldest winters in years with mercury slipping below 
minus 59 C.

Scientists fear that, in addition to causing an early start to wildfire 
seasons, “zombie” fires could accelerate permafrost melt that triggers 
unpredictable damage and greenhouse gas emissions.

Russia, the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter with an 
economy heavily dependent on oil and gas, is warming more than twice as 
fast as the rest of the world due to its vast Arctic territories.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/01/27/peat-fires-smolder-in-siberia-despite-bone-chilling-temperatures-a72747



[A Climate Change clip from the New Yorker]
*A New Day for the Climate*
It remains to be seen whether Joe Biden’s sweeping climate directives 
can make a meaningful difference, but a critical threshold has been crossed.
By Elizabeth Kolbert
January 31, 2021
- -
[conclusion]
Whether the Biden Administration can make a meaningful difference in the 
climate’s future remains very much to be seen. As the Washington Post 
reported recently, before the ink was dry on the President’s orders “the 
gas, oil and coal industries were already mobilizing on all fronts.” 
With the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the Administration 
will have to be exceedingly careful in crafting new climate rules; 
otherwise, it could watch the Court sweep away the very basis of such 
rules. (The Court could revisit a key 5–4 decision, Massachusetts v. 
Environmental Protection Agency, which requires the agency to regulate 
greenhouse gases; Chief Justice John Roberts dissented in that ruling.) 
There is, unfortunately, no substitute for strong environmental 
legislation, and Congress hasn’t approved a major environmental bill 
since 1990. With the slimmest of possible margins in the Senate, 
Democrats may have trouble getting even a modest climate-change package 
passed. “The paper-thin majority likely puts sweeping global warming 
legislation beyond reach,” a recent analysis by Reuters noted.

Still, a critical threshold has been crossed. For decades, politicians 
in Washington have avoided not just acting on but talking about warming. 
“Years went by in which you could scarcely get a Democratic 
Administration to put the words ‘climate’ and ‘change’ into the same 
paragraph,” Whitehouse observed, before retiring his sign. “We quavered 
about polling showing climate as issue eight, or issue ten, ignoring 
that we had a say on that outcome. When we wouldn’t even use the phrase, 
let alone make the case, no wonder the public didn’t see climate change 
as a priority.” Credit for changing the conversation—for making sure 
that there is a conversation—goes to stalwarts such as Whitehouse, and 
to a new generation of climate activists, and to the voters who watched 
California burn and southwestern Louisiana flood, and then flood again, 
and pushed climate change up the agenda. In a recent Morning 
Consult/Politico survey, “addressing climate change” ranked just behind 
“stimulating economic recovery from covid-19” and “health care reform” 
as a priority.

Talking isn’t going to solve the problem, but it’s a start. “We’ve 
already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis,” Biden said 
last week. “It’s time to act.” ♦
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/08/a-new-day-for-the-climate



[information battles with new confusion troops]
*How wildfires became ripe areas for right-wing conspiracy theories*
By HAILEY BRANSON-POTTS, JOSEPH SERNA, ALEJANDRA REYES-VELARDE
JAN. 30, 2021
- -
The Camp fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed more than 13,900 
homes, is the latest focus of conspiracy theories spread by Rep. 
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who speculated that the blaze might have 
been started by a laser beam in space. Greene made the claim in a 
now-deleted Facebook post that was reported this week by Media Matters 
for America, a liberal watchdog group.

“It’s crazy,” Heart said. “Eighty-five people died in that fire. I lost 
my whole life of collections, artworks, things that I worked for my 
whole life. For someone to make light of it like that — it really hurts.”

In the meandering November 2018 Facebook post, Greene theorized that a 
space-based solar generator, used in a clean-energy experiment with the 
goal of replacing coal and oil, could have beamed the sun’s energy back 
to Earth and started the fire.

“There are all these people,” she wrote, “who have said they saw what 
looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires ... If they 
are beaming the suns [sic] energy back to Earth, I’m sure they wouldn’t 
ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!! ... Could that cause 
a fire? Hmmm, I don’t know.”

California wildfires have been ripe for conspiracy for years, but 
Greene’s comments surface at a time when a sizable segment of the 
American population is treating false conjecture as fact — from armed 
people in Oregon on the lookout for so-called antifa members starting 
blazes to the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol based on former 
President Trump’s baseless claims of a rigged election.

Greene’s post speculated that former Gov. Jerry Brown, Pacific Gas & 
Electric, and Rothschild Inc. — an investment firm that has long been 
the target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories accusing Jewish people of 
controlling global affairs — were involved. It also falsely claims that 
the blaze followed the path of California’s planned high-speed rail line.

Republican leaders have faced increasing pressure over their handling of 
Greene, who was assigned this month to the House Education and Labor 
Committee. A representative for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy 
(R-Bakersfield) did not respond to requests for comment.

In response to a question from The Times about Greene’s theory about the 
Camp fire, a spokesman for Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), who 
represents Paradise, wrote: “Congressman LaMalfa believes that poor 
forest management practices advocated by misguided environmentalists 
have caused dangerous fuel loads and increasingly severe Western 
wildfires. He has led the conversation in Congress for reform and next 
month will introduce a wide-ranging package of bills to prevent future 
wildfires and minimize wildfire risk.”

He did not address Greene’s comments.

Greene put out a statement Friday addressed to “the radical, left-wing 
Democrat mob and the Fake News media trying to take me out.”

“I will never back down,” she wrote. “I will never give up. ... More 
MAGA reinforcements are on the way.”

Greene’s comments have incensed people who lived through tragedies she 
has speculated about.

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was fatally shot along 
with 16 other people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 
Parkland, Fla., in 2018, was scrolling through Twitter on Thursday night 
when he saw the phrase “Jewish space laser” trending. When Guttenberg, 
who is Jewish, realized it was about Greene’s post, he was disgusted.

“She denies that my daughter died in Parkland ... and yet, because my 
last name is Guttenberg, because I am Jewish, she thinks I shoot lasers 
at forests and start fires,” Guttenberg told The Times. “You can’t make 
this up.”

Guttenberg said he holds McCarthy and other GOP leaders responsible and 
said they “need to take her at her word and do something before someone 
gets hurt.” He said he found no humor in Greene’s speculation about the 
Camp fire.

“There are a lot of people who are willing to believe these things,” he 
said. “They use a universe of alternative facts to justify engaging in 
violence ... It can’t be allowed to continue.”

The Camp fire was sparked by PG&E electrical equipment, some of which 
was nearly 100 years old. The company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of 
involuntary manslaughter last June.

“If a Jewish laser was able to accurately target the rusted-out, 
100-year-old transmission tower that caused the fire, what a good shot 
they were. It was a hell of a good shot,” Lee Houskeeper, a media 
consultant for a law firm that represented scores of Camp fire victims 
in lawsuits against PG&E, told The Times, sarcastically.

Skepticism toward government messaging isn’t new, and knocking down 
rumors has always been part of the job for crisis communicators. But 
now, in the age of social media, false information spreads like, well, 
wildfire and can be dangerous in real time when officials need to 
quickly share the facts about fast-moving crises.

“The one challenging aspect all fire departments, all government 
entities face is, the information we post is verified and … there are 
times the general public is able to post something online that gets 
traction just based on their perception of what’s happening,” said Nick 
Schuler, a deputy fire chief with the California Department of Forestry 
and Fire Protection.

“If I were down at the beach today and posted ‘Hey, a giant wave took 
out the sea wall,’ you’d have several people re-sharing that 
information, posting it, probably before the city would be able to say 
‘No, that’s not correct.’”

Schuler recalled getting a flurry of media inquiries in 2017 when people 
began to wrongly connect a massive solar flare with wildfires in San Diego.

Last year, firefighting crews in Oregon encountered groups of people who 
were convinced that wildfires burning there were started by antifa. The 
people were stopping residents from moving on local roads and, in at 
least one case, prohibited firefighters from going onto their property 
to help set up a defensive position for oncoming flames.

When fires are extreme or wind-driven, their burn patterns can seem 
completely illogical to the uninitiated, and thus ripe for conspiracy as 
people try to make sense of what happened, said Jack Cohen, a wildfire 
expert and retired U.S. Forest Service firefighter.

The Carr fire that burned in Shasta and Trinity counties in Northern 
California in 2018 seemed to char every inch of forest in some areas, 
but one or two homes would survive. During the Camp fire later that 
year, much of the tree line remained intact, but homes tucked within 
them were destroyed.

Cohen said he first started hearing conspiracy theories about 
space-based directed-energy weapons after high-definition drone images 
showed the Camp fire’s pattern of destruction. People he said, are 
“obscenely obsessed” with what causes wildfires and fill in the blanks 
when they can’t explain them.

While people are impressed by high-intensity big flames, he said, the 
reality is that many homes and structures are destroyed more slowly 
during wildfires by burning embers and low-intensity surface fires that 
linger in vegetation.

Steve Crowder, the mayor of Paradise, said he is more focused on 
rebuilding than on listening to theories about space lasers.

“People are definitely still suffering and there are people who will 
never get over it,” he said. “I don’t think statements like that make a 
whole lot of difference one way or another. I don’t take it too seriously.”

Crowder said the town has already rebuilt 600 buildings and that PG&E is 
installing underground power lines throughout Paradise. Eventually, he 
said, Paradise will be more advanced than many other municipalities in 
terms of fire safety and communications.

“Don’t waste your time on the myths,” he advised.

Anastasia and Daniel Skinner laughed when they heard Greene’s theory.

In early 2019, the couple were living in an RV on their scorched 
property. Money was tight as they paid for water, propane, gas and other 
necessities for their five young children — costs that amounted to more 
than their monthly mortgage for the home the fire destroyed.

Then, the RV was stolen. Another property the couple own in the area was 
being foreclosed. They had hoped settlement money from PG&E would help 
save that home, but they haven’t seen a dime.

To hear a politician from another state spreading rumors about the fire 
that upended their lives is “silly” and “annoying,” Anastasia said.

“There’s no way to prove lasers from space would have caused the fire,” 
Daniel said. “But she’s getting a lot of attention.”

Meanwhile, he said, victims and people who actually do help families 
like his don’t get enough of it.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-30/a-space-laser-did-it-gop-congressman-had-out-there-theory-on-deadly-california-wildfire



[change is now much easier]
*New study: A zero-emissions US is now pretty cheap*
In 2050, benefits to the US offset costs, but there are some unexpected 
outcomes.
JOHN TIMMER - 1/31/2021
In many areas of the United States, installing a wind or solar farm is 
now cheaper than simply buying fuel for an existing fossil fuel-based 
generator. And that's dramatically changing the electricity market in 
the US and requiring a lot of people to update prior predictions. That 
has motivated a group of researchers to take a new look at the costs and 
challenges of getting the entire US to carbon neutrality.By building a 
model of the energy market for the entire US, the researchers explored 
what it will take to get the country to the point where its energy use 
has no net emissions in 2050—and they even looked at a scenario where 
emissions are negative. They found that, as you'd expect, the costs drop 
dramatically—to less than 1 percent of the GDP, even before counting the 
costs avoided by preventing the worst impacts of climate change. And, as 
an added bonus, we would pay less for our power...
- -
*Model all the things*
Decent models of the future energy economy are complex. They typically 
involve breaking the grid down by region and simulating typical demand 
by using historic data, often scaled to represent increased demand. 
They'll then try to meet that demand using different energy sources, 
subject to a set of applied constraints. So, in this case, one of the 
constraints would obviously be limiting carbon emissions. The model then 
iterates over possible ways of meeting both the demand and constraints 
in the most economical way possible, identifying an optimal solution...
- -
One of the things that's immediately apparent from running the 
business-as-usual model is how much already changes thanks to the price 
drops in wind and solar. In this scenario, carbon emissions will drop by 
22 percent, largely due to the displacement of coal use. It's worthwhile 
knowing this, as any proposals for a target in that area can be 
dismissed as irrelevant. Another thing that is clear is that 
decarbonizing the energy system doesn't mean the US will eliminate 
greenhouse gas emissions. The non-carbon greenhouse gases will still 
provide the equivalent of 500 metric megatons of carbon dioxide.

*Efficiency and beyond*
One of the things the research has made clear is that efficiency will be 
absolutely necessary for reaching emissions targets. By 2050, rising 
population and GDP should boost energy demand in the absence of 
efficiency. But, to get to carbon neutrality, we'll have to keep energy 
use roughly equal to our present levels. Some efficiency will occur 
simply because electrical vehicles and heating systems are inherently 
more efficient. But it's clear that we'll need quite a bit beyond that, 
since the research team estimates that per-capita energy use has to 
decline by about 40 percent in the next 30 years to reach carbon 
neutrality...
- -
Part of the reason it is so cheap is because reaching the goal doesn't 
require replacing viable hardware. All of the things that need to be 
taken out of service, from coal-fired generators to gas hot-water 
heaters, have finite lifetimes. The researchers calculate that simply 
replacing everything with renewables or high-efficiency electric 
versions will manage the transition in sufficient time.

*Not what you might expect*
Many takes on a carbon-neutral grid assume that periods of low solar and 
wind production will be smoothed over with gas generators using carbon 
capture and storage. But this analysis suggests that any remaining gas 
plants simply won't run often enough to provide an economic 
justification for the carbon-capture hardware. Similar things are true 
with batteries; the periods when demand outstrips capacity are expected 
to be so rare that it doesn't make economic sense to build that many 
batteries to cover them.

Instead, gas plants will simply dump their carbon emissions into the 
sky. This ends up being carbon neutral because we'll still need some 
liquid fuels for things like air travel, and we'll make these with 
carbon pulled back out of the atmosphere, combined with hydrogen 
produced from water during periods of excess renewable supply. The 
researchers estimate that we would require 3,500 terawatts just to make 
enough hydrogen—roughly the same amount of electricity we make currently...
- -
Going entirely renewable actually forces much higher levels of carbon 
capture to ensure that fuel needs could be met without any fossil fuels. 
And going net negative involves a variety of carbon capture and 
biofuels, with substantial land use as a result of the latter.

*Everything has changed*
To an extent, the researchers themselves seem somewhat surprised by how 
much has changed in the last few years. "The net cost of deep 
decarbonization, even to meet a 1°C/350 ppm trajectory," they write, "is 
substantially lower than estimates for less ambitious 80 percent by 2050 
scenarios a few years ago." It also provides clarity to what has been an 
uncertain future. "Until recently, it was unclear whether variable 
renewable energy, nuclear, or fossil fuel with carbon capture and 
storage would become the main form of generation in a decarbonized 
electricity system," they note. "The cost decline of variable renewable 
energy over the last few years, however, has definitively changed the 
situation."

Now, even if we go for deep decarbonization, we'll be investing in the 
future. It will cost money to get there, but we'll have lower future 
energy costs if we pay the price upfront—as well as improved health and 
a more stable climate.

There are, however, significant hurdles to getting there beyond simple 
economics. The emission-free future will involve us installing roughly 
160GW of wind and solar per year in less than two decades; 2021 will see 
us installing only 15GW. And the switch to electric vehicles and 
appliances has to start now—anything that breaks should be replaced with 
an electric version, which does not seem to be happening.

But if this analysis holds up, there are good reasons to think it's 
worth getting started.
AGU Advances, 2021. DOI: 10.1029/2020AV000284  (About DOIs).
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/new-study-a-zero-emissions-us-is-now-pretty-cheap/
- -
[source material in AGU Advances]
*Carbon‐Neutral Pathways for the United States*
First published: 14 January 2021 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020AV000284
*Abstract*

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report
    on Global Warming of 1.5°C points to the need for carbon neutrality
    by mid‐century. Achieving this in the United States in only 30 years
    will be challenging, and practical pathways detailing the
    technologies, infrastructure, costs, and tradeoffs involved are
    needed. Modeling the entire U.S. energy and industrial system with
    new analysis tools that capture synergies not represented in
    sector‐specific or integrated assessment models, we created multiple
    pathways to net zero and net negative CO2 emissions by 2050. They
    met all forecast U.S. energy needs at a net cost of 0.2–1.2% of GDP
    in 2050, using only commercial or near‐commercial technologies, and
    requiring no early retirement of existing infrastructure. Pathways
    with constraints on consumer behavior, land use, biomass use, and
    technology choices (e.g., no nuclear) met the target but at higher
    cost. All pathways employed four basic strategies: energy
    efficiency, decarbonized electricity, electrification, and carbon
    capture. Least‐cost pathways were based on >80% wind and solar
    electricity plus thermal generation for reliability. A 100%
    renewable primary energy system was feasible but had higher cost and
    land use. We found multiple feasible options for supplying
    low‐carbon fuels for non‐electrifiable end uses in industry,
    freight, and aviation, which were not required in bulk until after
    2035. In the next decade, the actions required in all pathways were
    similar: expand renewable capacity 3.5 fold, retire coal, maintain
    existing gas generating capacity, and increase electric vehicle and
    heat pump sales to >50% of market share. This study provides a
    playbook for carbon neutrality policy with concrete near‐term
    priorities.

*Plain Language Summary*

    We created multiple blueprints for the United States to reach zero
    or negative CO2 emissions from the energy system by 2050 to avoid
    the most damaging impacts of climate change. By methodically
    increasing energy efficiency, switching to electric technologies,
    utilizing clean electricity (especially wind and solar power), and
    deploying a small amount of carbon capture technology, the United
    States can reach zero emissions without requiring changes to
    behavior. Cost is about $1 per person per day, not counting climate
    benefits; this is significantly less than estimates from a few years
    ago because of recent technology progress. Models with more detail
    than used in the past revealed unexpected synergies,
    counterintuitive results, and tradeoffs. The lowest‐cost electricity
    systems get >80% of energy from wind and solar power but need other
    resources to provide reliable service. Eliminating fossil fuel use
    altogether is possible but higher cost. Restricting biomass use and
    land for renewables is possible but could require nuclear power to
    compensate. All blueprints for the United States agree on the key
    tasks for the 2020s: increasing the capacity of wind and solar power
    by 3.5 times, retiring coal plants, and increasing electric vehicle
    and electric heat pump sales to >50% of market share.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020AV000284



[for those who went West]
*Climate Change Ravaged the West With Heat and Drought Last Year; Many 
Fear 2021 Will Be Worse*
“We've got a pretty deep hole that 2020 has dug for us,” said one 
climatologist. “Even a good year is not going to break us out of that.”
By Judy Fahys
January 31, 2021
If there were any doubts that the climate is changing in the Colorado 
River Basin, 2020 went a long way toward dispelling them, thanks to yet 
another year of extreme weather.

Unprecedented wildfires, deadly heat waves, withering drought—the many 
indicators of the climate mayhem that scientists have been warning about 
for years—ravaged the landscape, claiming dozens of lives and causing 
billions of dollars in damage.
https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/WesternStatesDroughtChart.png

Colorado endured an unprecedented wildfire season. And so did 
California, in some cases burning where the wounds were still fresh from 
the epic fires of 2018. Utah experienced its driest year ever, and 
persistent high temperatures killed more people in Arizona than ever 
before. Monsoon rains that typically bring relief throughout the region 
were a no-show for the second summer in a row and now are being called 
the “non-soon.”
And, although the final climate data for 2020 just arrived and the new 
year is just weeks old, forecasters are already filled with apprehension 
about what lies ahead for the West this year.

“We’ve got a pretty deep hole that 2020 has dug for us,” said Jon Meyer, 
research climatologist for the Utah Climate Center who points to low 
soil moisture, high temperatures and other measures of  a hotter, drier 
climate. “Even a good year is not going to break us out of that.”

 From the California coast to the eastern borders of Colorado and New 
Mexico, 2021 is beginning with virtually all of the Colorado River Basin 
in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought, conditions that haven’t been 
eased by this winter’s snowfall. Forecasters talk about a “snow drought” 
because the snowpack is so poor and snow cover across the West is lower 
than at any time over the past two decades. This year Lake Powell, the 
nation’s second largest reservoir, is expected to receive just half as 
much runoff as usual.
*
**Little Rain, but a ‘Lot of Hot Air’ in Arizona*
Arizona started drying out  rapidly last spring and, since October, the 
entire state has been in some form of drought. Now, all but 6 percent of 
the state is in dire “extreme” or “exceptional” drought that leaves 
wildlife and plants stressed.

“Whatever [snow] we do get, when it comes time to melt in the spring, 
it’s just going to soak right into the ground,” said Nancy Selover, 
Arizona’s state climatologist. “The ground is so dry, it’s just gonna 
suck it up. We’re not going to get a lot of good runoff, and we’re not 
going to get a lot of good streamflow, reservoir infill or any of that 
kind of stuff, so we’re concerned.”

She pointed out that instead of monsoon rains that raise humidity and 
lower temperatures through the summer, high-pressure and high 
temperatures were relentless for the second year in a row.

“We didn’t have storms—we just had a lot of hot air,” said Selover, 
pointing to withering 110- and 115-degree days that led to a record 
number of 29 nights when the low never got below 90 degrees. “The 
previous record was 15 days.”

Those high temperatures posed a major heat risk, especially to people 
without air conditioning and those who work outdoors. She also pointed 
out that, not only is it tough to sleep when the temperature is 90 
degrees or warmer” but also “the body doesn’t recover, and so we have a 
lot of heat deaths this year, more than we would normally have.”

When final data for last year rolled in, the National Oceanographic and 
Atmospheric Administration showed that Arizona had endured its second 
hottest year on record, with an average temperature of 62.6 degrees 
Fahrenheit. That’s a stunning 2.9 degrees higher than the average over 
more than a century and less than half a degree shy of the record annual 
average set in 2017.

Tucson, Arizona, had its hottest year, which was nearly 3 degrees 
Fahrenheit higher than the average since 1981, 72.7. And Phoenix had its 
second warmest year, 77.3 degrees, a surprising 2.2 degrees higher than 
the annual average over the past four decades.

*Record Numbers of Billion-Dollar Disasters and Deaths*
Heat turned out to be the biggest factor in weather and climate related 
deaths in a dozen western and central states last year, according to the 
latest national billion-dollar disasters tally. The drought and heat 
wave caused 45 deaths—most of them heat-related—said Adam Smith, who 
collects the data for NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

Smith’s analysis is fast becoming a key metric in measuring the impacts 
of climate change. It compiles the costs in property damage and human 
lives associated with growing populations, more assets in harm’s way and 
the increased frequency of extreme weather, much of it driven by global 
warming. Last year the tally detailed $95 billion in costs tied to 22 
events, the largest number of billion-dollar disasters recorded since 
NOAA began the list in 1980.

https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/AgCountiesUSDrought.png

Smith said the estimate includes a broad range of quantifiable costs, 
such as damage to commercial and residential properties, crop losses, 
increased feeding costs for livestock and spending on fighting wildfires.

“It’s a conservative but solid estimate,” he said.

The firestorms in California, Oregon and Washington racked up an 
estimated $16.5 billion in costs and claimed 46 lives. Excessive heat 
across the West included a record temperature of 121 degrees in Los 
Angeles County and 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley (the highest 
recorded globally in decades). That heat, along with drought, came with 
a separate $4.5 billion price tag that included $1 billion to $2 billion 
associated with Colorado’s three largest blazes in state history.

And those numbers can’t account for the full range of costs, since some 
impacts won’t be clear for months or years.

“As striking as that $95 billion figure is, I think it’s really 
important that we remember that the human toll of climate and weather 
disasters is profound,” said Vijay Limaye, an epidemiologist who studies 
the health consequences of climate change for the Natural Resources 
Defense Council. “It’s staggering, and it’s widespread.”

He said extreme heat poses acute risks to human health not just through 
premature mortality from heatstroke, but also through a number of other 
health problems that aren’t fully measured by the billion-dollar 
disaster statistics. The health care-related costs of the wildfire smoke 
that shrouded skies across the West last summer and fall are not 
included, even though the smoke triggers heart and lung problems and is 
sometimes blamed for premature death. Nor are the little-understood 
mental health consequences of drought counted, he said.

*A Thirstier Atmosphere Dries Out Farms and Drives Fires*
Mistie Christiansen, who oversees USDA Farm Service Agency programs in 
central Utah’s Emery and Carbon counties, said the climate trends are 
disrupting life on the land and the people who depend on it.

“Ponds are dry; streams are dry; springs that would normally have 
supplied livestock and rangeland are dry; rivers are historically low,” 
she said. “It’s the compound factor of multiple years of this issue 
that’s really hard. People are really struggling.”

Area ranches and farms that depended on irrigation from Muddy Creek ran 
out of water by the end of last June. Her family cut just one crop of 
hay instead of the usual three and had to spend $45,000 to buy more to 
feed its livestock. This year, they’re expecting to spend at least 
$30,000 to make up for what the desiccated land cannot provide. 
Meanwhile, the cows are weaker and pregnancy rates are down, she said.

Based on the string of rough years and how things are looking now, 
Christiansen said she wouldn’t be surprised to see another bad year for 
livestock growers. “And if things don’t change, you’ll see a major sell 
off,” she said.
https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MountainStatesDroughtMap.png

*Drought Deepens as New Year Begins*
Despite the pain that global warming brings to rural communities like 
hers, Christiansen believes a higher power is changing the climate, not 
humans. Still, she shares one view with many climate scientists.

“There’s no longer normal,” Christiansen said. “I would love to see what 
is normal anymore, because we just swing from extremes.”

Jeff Lukas, an independent climate consultant in Colorado, said the 
world’s rapid warming is making the atmosphere thirstier “and that is so 
apparent in the second half of 2020.” Dry years can happen in the 
absence of climate change, he said. But the atmosphere’s capacity to 
hold more water, which leads it to suck moisture from the soil, trees 
and snowpack, has increased significantly in response to what might seem 
like an insignificant amount of warming—about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

“What [last year] will be mostly remembered for, from a weather and 
climate perspective, is how things dried out so much in the summer and 
fall as a result of both low precipitation and very high temperatures,” 
said Lukas, who tracked climate and weather events at the Western Water 
Assessment for more than a decade. The dryness “led to the kind of fuel 
conditions and fire weather, that led to those incredible wildfires in 
August and September.”

For Lukas, one day-long period of extreme fire behavior last year stands 
out: when Colorado’s East Troublesome Fire ran 20 miles, expanding from 
18,000 acres to 180,000 acres, eventually jumping over the Continental 
Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park last October. He noted that the 
heat, aridity and winds that set the stage for tshe blaze are not 
completely unheard of in autumn. But for such a fire to ignite and grow 
into the second largest blaze in state history in October, a month that 
is normally cool and moist, is unprecedented.

“To see it in real time, and to know that thousands of your fellow 
citizens are urgently trying to get themselves and their animals out of 
the path of this incredibly fast moving, incredibly dangerous fire, it 
is just stomach churning to watch it happen.”
*
**2021 Set Up For More Heat and Drought*
No one’s started using the word “scary” yet, but all reports seem to 
suggest 2021 could bring more of the same.
-- The snowpack for the Colorado River’s four Upper Basin states—Utah, 
Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico—is 67 percent of average. That puts 
this year on par so far with 2018, which went on to be a terrible year 
for wildfire, drought and heat.
-- With reservoirs already low, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation recently 
nudged those states to prepare for implementing the Upper Basin Drought 
Contingency Plan so Lake Powell can continue next year to meet the 
demands of the 40 million people who rely on Colorado River water.
-- The water that’s flowed into Lake Powell since October is 44 percent 
of the normally expected flow.
-- Drought is expected to persist into spring, and odds are that 
Colorado River Basin states will remain warmer and drier than normal, too.
“There really isn’t any good news for water resources in the Colorado 
River Basin right now, which is raising a lot of red flags coming into 
the upcoming year,” said Jon Meyer of Utah’s Climate Center.

“We’re not totally sunk yet,” he said, noting that there are still a few 
months for snow to start falling and snowpack to build before warmer 
weather begins. But, if what we’ve seen play out over the last two to 
three months continues through the spring, he added, then the pain 
farmers and ranchers felt last year will expand across the region, and 
western cities will be suffering too.

Judy Fahys. Reporter, Mountain West, National Environmental Reporting 
Network... Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington 
Post, High Country News and Outside magazine and aired on NPR. She 
serves on the board of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
https://inideclimatenews.org/news/31012021/climate-change-west-droughts-wildfire/


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - February 1, 2009 *
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann takes it to House Minority Leader John Boehner 
(R-OH):

    "But our winner, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio.  We
    assume that when it comes to politicians and math there is going to
    be some lying.  But lying to the tune of 140 times the truth? 
    Boehner‘s criticism of the Obama‘s proposals on cap and trade,
    making energy in this country as green as possible, includes this
    statement: 'anyone who has the audacity to flip on a light switch
    will be forced to pay higher energy bills thanks to this new tax
    increase, which will cost every American family up to $3,100 per
    year in higher energy prices.'

    "That is true if your family is a large one, say 101 people. Boehner
    has taken a research study done two years ago at MIT on the affect
    of cap and trade on energy prices and he has lied about it.  The
    number in the study was not up to $3,100 per family.  It was up to
    $31 per person.  And even that would not kick in until 2015.

    "So the average additional cost per family six years from now would
    be 79 bucks, minus however much foreign gas prices would drop based
    on decreased demand, and minus the lowered health care, because of
    the cleaner atmosphere.  Thirty one bucks, 3,100 bucks, it‘s all the
    same to Congressman John "The Mathlete" Boehner, today‘s worst
    person in the world.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30012135/#.Uoq1MSeHPs0


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