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

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 1, 2021*/

[not so bad in one way]
*The tornado drought of 2020: Plains lacked trademark twisters this past 
year*
Parts of New Jersey, New York and Maine were more active than southeast 
Kansas
The National Weather Service in Wichita ordinarily issues warnings for a 
host of tornadoes each spring. Kansas averages more than 100 twisters 
annually, more than many countries do.

But in 2020, the Weather Service office in Wichita didn’t log a single 
confirmed tornado.
- -
A few days did feature ample moisture to spark severe thunderstorms, but 
none coincided with the presence of a trigger mechanism. That meant that 
the atmosphere never took advantage of any of its pent-up rage...

Another component necessary to spin up rotating supercell thunderstorms 
and tornadoes? Wind shear. That’s a change of wind speed and/or 
direction with height. Over the Great Plains, wind shear is usually 
maximized when surface winds are out of the east-southeast and 
upper-level winds are out of the southwest. Winds from the southwest 
tend to be warm and carry moisture from the Gulf of Mexico...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/31/kansas-wichita-tornado-drought/


[TIME magazine tells us]*
**2020 Was a Year of Climate Extremes. What Can We Expect in 2021?*
https://time.com/5922963/climate-change-2021/


[simplify]*
* *TV Meteorologist Mike Nelson Wants You To Understand Climate Change 
In 10 Minutes With His New Book*
At just under 20 pages of text, Denver7 News chief meteorologist Mike 
Nelson's new book, "The World's Littlest Book On Climate: 10 Facts in 10 
Minutes about CO2," feels more like a pamphlet.

"Most people are not going to spend the time to read a textbook about 
climate change," Nelson said. "Our goal with my two co-authors, Pieter 
Tans from [the NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratories Global 
Monitoring Division] and Michael Banks, who is a local environmental 
writer, was to create something that would be a quick read, but give you 
important facts."

The book is broken down into 10 facts, like No. 3 — "It's Us: The Global 
Flood of Human CO2."

"We know that the increase [in CO2] that we're seeing is not from any 
other source than from the burning of fossil fuels," Nelson said, 
because CO2 has a chemical signature like a fingerprint, and scientists 
can determine where it came from.

Pre-pandemic, Nelson often does school visits to teach kids about 
weather. He now preforms his famous tornado dance virtually...
https://twitter.com/i/status/1341776982799990786
Nelson said he's starting to focus more on teaching climate change 
during his school visits.

"A lot of that has been in the last eight years since the birth of my 
first grandchild," Nelson said. "And realizing the changes that we're 
going to see are obviously going to affect that generation much more 
than my generation."
https://www.cpr.org/2020/12/28/tv-meteorologist-mike-nelson-wants-you-to-understand-climate-change-in-10-minutes-with-his-new-book/


[question from security guru Bruce Schneir]
*Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?*
[2020.12.14]
Persuasion is as old as our species. Both democracy and the market 
economy depend on it. Politicians persuade citizens to vote for them, or 
to support different policy positions. Businesses persuade consumers to 
buy their products or services. We all persuade our friends to accept 
our choice of restaurant, movie, and so on. It’s essential to society; 
we couldn’t get large groups of people to work together without it. But 
as with many things, technology is fundamentally changing the nature of 
persuasion. And society needs to adapt its rules of persuasion or suffer 
the consequences.

Democratic societies, in particular, are in dire need of a frank 
conversation about the role persuasion plays in them and how 
technologies are enabling powerful interests to target audiences. In a 
society where public opinion is a ruling force, there is always a risk 
of it being mobilized for ill purposes -- such as provoking fear to 
encourage one group to hate another in a bid to win office, or targeting 
personal vulnerabilities to push products that might not benefit the 
consumer.

In this regard, the United States, already extremely polarized, sits on 
a precipice.

There have long been rules around persuasion. The US Federal Trade 
Commission enforces laws that claims about products “must be truthful, 
not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence.” 
Political advertisers must identify themselves in television ads. If 
someone abuses a position of power to force another person into a 
contract, undue influence can be argued to nullify that agreement. Yet 
there is more to persuasion than the truth, transparency, or simply 
applying pressure.

Persuasion also involves psychology, and that has been far harder to 
regulate. Using psychology to persuade people is not new. Edward 
Bernays, a pioneer of public relations and nephew to Sigmund Freud, made 
a marketing practice of appealing to the ego. His approach was to tie 
consumption to a person’s sense of self. In his 1928 book Propaganda, 
Bernays advocated engineering events to persuade target audiences as 
desired. In one famous stunt, he hired women to smoke cigarettes while 
taking part in the 1929 New York City Easter Sunday parade, causing a 
scandal while linking smoking with the emancipation of women. The 
tobacco industry would continue to market lifestyle in selling 
cigarettes into the 1960s.

Emotional appeals have likewise long been a facet of political 
campaigns. In the 1860 US presidential election, Southern politicians 
and newspaper editors spread fears of what a “Black Republican” win 
would mean, painting horrific pictures of what the emancipation of 
slaves would do to the country. In the 2020 US presidential election, 
modern-day Republicans used Cuban Americans’ fears of socialism in ads 
on Spanish-language radio and messaging on social media. Because of the 
emotions involved, many voters believed the campaigns enough to let them 
influence their decisions.

The Internet has enabled new technologies of persuasion to go even 
further. Those seeking to influence others can collect and use data 
about targeted audiences to create personalized messaging. Tracking the 
websites a person visits, the searches they make online, and what they 
engage with on social media, persuasion technologies enable those who 
have access to such tools to better understand audiences and deliver 
more tailored messaging where audiences are likely to see it most. This 
information can be combined with data about other activities, such as 
offline shopping habits, the places a person visits, and the insurance 
they buy, to create a profile of them that can be used to develop 
persuasive messaging that is aimed at provoking a specific response.

Our senses of self, meanwhile, are increasingly shaped by our 
interaction with technology. The same digital environment where we read, 
search, and converse with our intimates enables marketers to take that 
data and turn it back on us. A modern day Bernays no longer needs to 
ferret out the social causes that might inspire you or entice you -- 
you’ve likely already shared that by your online behavior.

Some marketers posit that women feel less attractive on Mondays, 
particularly first thing in the morning -- and therefore that’s the best 
time to advertise cosmetics to them. The New York Times once 
experimented by predicting the moods of readers based on article content 
to better target ads, enabling marketers to find audiences when they 
were sad or fearful. Some music streaming platforms encourage users to 
disclose their current moods, which helps advertisers target subscribers 
based on their emotional states.

The phones in our pockets provide marketers with our location in real 
time, helping deliver geographically relevant ads, such as propaganda to 
those attending a political rally. This always-on digital experience 
enables marketers to know what we are doing -- and when, where, and how 
we might be feeling at that moment.

All of this is not intended to be alarmist. It is important not to 
overstate the effectiveness of persuasive technologies. But while many 
of them are more smoke and mirrors than reality, it is likely that they 
will only improve over time. The technology already exists to help 
predict moods of some target audiences, pinpoint their location at any 
given time, and deliver fairly tailored and timely messaging. How far 
does that ability need to go before it erodes the autonomy of those 
targeted to make decisions of their own free will?

Right now, there are few legal or even moral limits on persuasion -- and 
few answers regarding the effectiveness of such technologies. Before it 
is too late, the world needs to consider what is acceptable and what is 
over the line.

For example, it’s been long known that people are more receptive to 
advertisements made with people who look like them: in race, ethnicity, 
age, gender. Ads have long been modified to suit the general demographic 
of the television show or magazine they appear in. But we can take this 
further. The technology exists to take your likeness and morph it with a 
face that is demographically similar to you. The result is a face that 
looks like you, but that you don’t recognize. If that turns out to be 
more persuasive than coarse demographic targeting, is that okay?

Another example: Instead of just advertising to you when they detect 
that you are vulnerable, what if advertisers craft advertisements that 
deliberately manipulate your mood? In some ways, being able to place ads 
alongside content that is likely to provoke a certain emotional response 
enables advertisers to do this already. The only difference is that the 
media outlet claims it isn’t crafting the content to deliberately 
achieve this. But is it acceptable to actively prime a target audience 
and then to deliver persuasive messaging that fits the mood?

Further, emotion-based decision-making is not the rational type of slow 
thinking that ought to inform important civic choices such as voting. In 
fact, emotional thinking threatens to undermine the very legitimacy of 
the system, as voters are essentially provoked to move in whatever 
direction someone with power and money wants. Given the pervasiveness of 
digital technologies, and the often instant, reactive responses people 
have to them, how much emotion ought to be allowed in persuasive 
technologies? Is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed?

Finally, for most people today, exposure to information and technology 
is pervasive. The average US adult spends more than eleven hours a day 
interacting with media. Such levels of engagement lead to huge amounts 
of personal data generated and aggregated about you -- your preferences, 
interests, and state of mind. The more those who control persuasive 
technologies know about us, what we are doing, how we are feeling, when 
we feel it, and where we are, the better they can tailor messaging that 
provokes us into action. The unsuspecting target is grossly 
disadvantaged. Is it acceptable for the same services to both mediate 
our digital experience and to target us? Is there ever such thing as too 
much targeting?

The power dynamics of persuasive technologies are changing. Access to 
tools and technologies of persuasion is not egalitarian. Many require 
large amounts of both personal data and computation power, turning 
modern persuasion into an arms race where the better resourced will be 
better placed to influence audiences.

At the same time, the average person has very little information about 
how these persuasion technologies work, and is thus unlikely to 
understand how their beliefs and opinions might be manipulated by them. 
What’s more, there are few rules in place to protect people from abuse 
of persuasion technologies, much less even a clear articulation of what 
constitutes a level of manipulation so great it effectively takes agency 
away from those targeted. This creates a positive feedback loop that is 
dangerous for society.

In the 1970s, there was widespread fear about so-called subliminal 
messaging, which claimed that images of sex and death were hidden in the 
details of print advertisements, as in the curls of smoke in cigarette 
ads and the ice cubes of liquor ads. It was pretty much all a hoax, but 
that didn’t stop the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal 
Communications Commission from declaring it an illegal persuasive 
technology. That’s how worried people were about being manipulated 
without their knowledge and consent.

It is time to have a serious conversation about limiting the 
technologies of persuasion. This must begin by articulating what is 
permitted and what is not. If we don’t, the powerful persuaders will 
become even more powerful.
This essay was written with Alicia Wanless, and previously appeared in 
Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/11/big-tech-data-personal-information-persuasion/
https://securityboulevard.com/2020/12/should-there-be-limits-on-persuasive-technologies/



[Paul Beckwith videos]
*Stratospheric-Tropospheric Feedbacks Driving Extreme Weather Events and 
Climate Disruption:* 3 of 3
Paul Beckwith - Dec 30, 2020
People are well aware of weather and climate driven events in the lower 
atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface (troposphere) where we all 
live, but are blissfully unaware of the importance of the atmospheric 
level above that (stratosphere) in driving and modulating extreme 
weather events at the Earth’s surface.

In this series of videos I first explain the three large scale features 
of stratospheric circulation; namely:
1) Stratospheric Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC) or 
Brewer-Dobson circulation that transports air from the tropical to 
extra-tropical stratosphere.
2) Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) of periodicity 28 months, causing 
descending easterly or westerly equatorial jets of air driven by 
tropical Kelvin and Rossby-gravity waves.
3) Stratospheric Polar Vortex; circumpolar westerly jets that form in 
Autumn, peak in strength in winter, and decay in Spring; can be 
disrupted by Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) events.

With abrupt climate system change, the troposphere is warming rapidly, 
and the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) is cooling, thus modifying 
stratospheric-tropospheric interactions in complex ways.

What we do know, is that SSW is likely to occur in the next month or so, 
and if it does then the Stratospheric Polar Jet will split, similar to 3 
years ago, and that would drive Greenland and the Canadian Arctic much 
hotter, and cause cold outbreaks in Northern Asia and in Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyL1_p7CQ1A 1 of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q0XuU_V-KA 2 of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osqpGNHR4Ck 3 of 3



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - January 1, 1990 *
In his World Day of Peace message, Pope John Paul II declares:

    "The gradual depletion of the ozone layer and the related 'greenhouse
    effect' has now reached crisis proportions as a consequence of
    industrial growth, massive urban concentrations and vastly increased
    energy needs. Industrial waste, the burning of fossil fuels,
    unrestricted deforestation, the use of certain types of herbicides,
    coolants and propellants: all of these are known to harm the
    atmosphere and environment. The resulting meteorological and
    atmospheric changes range from damage to health to the possible future
    submersion of low-lying lands.

    "While in some cases the damage already done may well be irreversible,
    in many other cases it can still be halted. It is necessary, however,
    that the entire human community - individuals, States and
    international bodies - take seriously the responsibility that is
    theirs.

    "The most profound and serious indication of the moral implications
    underlying the ecological problem is the lack of respect for life
    evident in many of the patterns of environmental pollution. Often, the
    interests of production prevail over concern for the dignity of
    workers, while economic interests take priority over the good of
    individuals and even entire peoples. In these cases, pollution or
    environmental destruction is the result of an unnatural and
    reductionist vision which at times leads to a genuine contempt for
    man.

    "On another level, delicate ecological balances are upset by the
    uncontrolled destruction of animal and plant life or by a reckless
    exploitation of natural resources. It should be pointed out that all
    of this, even if carried out in the name of progress and well-being,
    is ultimately to mankind's disadvantage."

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace_en.html

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