[✔️] July 4, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun Jul 4 08:42:04 EDT 2021

/*July 4 , 2021*/

[Holiday vacation places]
*Climate Change Is Driving Jarring Changes at Yellowstone National Park*
Temperatures are likely the warmest they’ve been in 800,000 years.
- -
Since 1950, the iconic park has experienced a host of changes caused by 
human-driven global warming, including decreased snowpack, shorter 
winters and longer summers, and a growing risk of wildfires. These 
changes, as well as projected changes as the planet continues to warm 
this century, are laid out in a just-released climate assessment that 
was years in the making. The report examines the impacts of climate 
change not only in the park, but also in the Greater Yellowstone 
Ecosystem—an area 10 times the size of the park itself.
- -
The current conditions do have some historical precedent. In the last 
10,000 years, Yellowstone has experienced periods of dryness equal to or 
greater than present, said Whitlock.

Electric Peak in Yellowstone National Park. Snowfall in the Yellowstone 
region has declined as a result of climate change. Neal Herbert/National 
Park Service
“That’s a lens to look at the past,” said Shuman, who once trekked the 
3,000-mile Continental Divide Trail to get a sense of the land. “If you 
add just a few degrees, you fundamentally alter things. When you walk 
across these high mountains, you can see they used to be covered in 
glaciers. It’s like walking in the ruins of Ancient Rome. That Ice Age 
world was only 5- to 7-degrees F colder than the pre-industrial era.”

“The water in those mountains is the water supply of the West and it’s 
drying up,” said Shuman.

In Yellowstone, the threat to human health and livelihoods may be the 
strongest incentive to take steps to soften the blows from climate change.

“Water is the thing everyone is most concerned about, and in general, 
people are receptive,” said Shuman. “Our economic future depends on 
adjusting.”

Just how the residents of the Greater Yellowstone Area will adapt is an 
open question, but researchers say that acknowledging the myriad 
problems that are now daily realities for many, from ranchers to 
anglers, is the first step toward a productive dialogue.

As the West experiences a growth surge, Cam Sholly, Yellowstone National 
Park’s superintendent, writes in the report that “the strength of local 
and regional economies” hangs in the balance if no steps are taken to 
rein in global warming.

Said Whitlock of Montana State, “When you think about the temperature 
curve that looks like a hockey stick, my parents pretty much lived on 
the flat part of the curve, I’m on the base, and my grandkids are going 
to be on the steep part. Our trajectory depends on what we do about 
greenhouse gases now. By 2040, 2050, we can flatten the curve. But the 
business-as-usual trajectory, 10 to 11 degrees of warming in Yellowstone 
and much of the West—what we do in the next decade is critical.”

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/07/warming-climate-change-yellowstone-national-park/
[Read the report at 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/21wcfj85mb4oemm/GYCA%20Report.pdf?dl=0 ]

[briefing and video discussion]
*Robert Hunziker: Post-doom with Michael Dowd*
Dec 14, 2020
thegreatstory
Title: "Abrupt Climate Change: The World Tour" -- Recorded in October 
2020, this conversation with award-winning, prophetic (my word) 
journalist, Robert Hunziker, is a basic primer -- a fundamental 
education -- on the exponential, runaway, out of our control nature of 
Abrupt Climate Change...looking at the latest evidence region-by-region: 
Antarctica, Australia, Amazon rain forest, Oceans, Greenland, and 
Arctic. Warning: this is sobering (perhaps un-sobering :-) stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfzWBNLTf6I
jump in here -- https://youtu.be/CfzWBNLTf6I?t=1255

[history damns the present]
*The scientists hired by big oil who predicted the climate crisis long ago*
Experts’ discoveries lie at the heart of two dozen lawsuits that hope to 
hold the industry accountable for devastating damage
Emma Pattee - Fri 2 Jul 2021

As early as 1958, the oil industry was hiring scientists and engineers 
to research the role that burning fossil fuels plays in global warming. 
The goal at the time was to help the major oil conglomerates understand 
how changes in the earth’s atmosphere may affect the industry – and 
their bottom line. But what top executives gained was an early preview 
of the climate crisis, decades before the issue reached public 
consciousness.

What those scientists discovered – and what the oil companies did with 
that information – is at the heart of two dozen lawsuits attempting to 
hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for their role in climate 
change. Many of those cases hinge on the industry’s own internal 
documents that show how, 40 years ago, researchers predicted the rising 
global temperatures with stunning accuracy. But looking back, many of 
those same scientists say they were hardly whistleblowers out to take 
down big oil.
- -
The Guardian tracked down three of those scientists to see how they view 
their role today.
- -
*Dr Martin Hoffert, 83, physicist and Exxon consultant from 1981 to 1987...*
- -
Back in 1980, there was a guy working for Exxon and he was one of the 
inventors of the lithium battery, which electric cars now use. This guy 
won the Nobel prize in chemistry for his work on lithium batteries. Just 
imagine if Exxon management had taken our prediction seriously! They 
could have easily built huge factories to make lithium batteries to 
facilitate the transition to electric cars. Instead, they fired this 
guy. They shut down all their energy work. And they started funding 
climate deniers.

Very often people will ask me: “How much time do we have left before we 
can prevent this problem?” We don’t have any time left. It’s already 
happening...
*Ken Croasdale, 82, researcher and engineer at Imperial Oil from 1968 to 
1992*

Climate research wasn’t a big deal for the company, at that time. There 
was a lot of uncertainty, so people would shrug their shoulders a little 
bit. You’d say, “you need to look at this,” and they’d say “maybe we do, 
maybe we don’t.” It wasn’t looming big as an issue at that time...
- -
*Steve Lonergan, 71, Exxon consultant from 1989 to 1990*

At that time, the models were very general, but they did give you a 
sense that the farther north you go, the greater the warming is going to 
be. And the main reason for that is that the ice will melt ice. The 
question was, “What does it mean in terms of permafrost? What does it 
mean for ice breakup?”...

But if you get extremes with above-freezing temperatures in January, 
that poses a problem for food supply. We did some modeling and our 
conclusion was that if CO2 levels doubled, the probability was 50% that 
on any given day in January, a place that was normally -32 degrees would 
actually get above freezing.

Six or seven years later, every day for two weeks was above freezing, 
and all the reindeer meat thawed out. I didn’t expect it would happen 
that quickly. That was the biggest shock...
more at - 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/02/scientists-climate-crisis-big-oil-climate-crimes

[No spark 4th]
*Exceptional drought and extreme heat: The fire risk in the West has 
never been seen before*
BY JIM WHITTINGTON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 07/03/21...
Wildland fires are all about ignitions. Without ignitions, there are no 
fires regardless of how severe the conditions are. Unfortunately, the 
number of human ignitions across the United States doubles every July 4 
and in some regions of the West, that number is three to four times the 
average. Fireworks-caused starts are the main reason for the increased 
numbers. We also know that there are usually two or three dry lightning 
storms across Northern California and parts of the Pacific Northwest 
each summer. We should not still be fighting preventable fires started 
by fireworks when the lightning comes.
This Independence Day, conditions across the West are extreme and set up 
for rapid large fire growth. We are currently in the middle of a 
record-shattering heatwave across the Northwest and Canada. In the West, 
90 percent of the region is in drought with over half the region in 
extreme to exceptional drought. According to the National Interagency 
Fire Center’s monthly Fire Potential Outlook, this is “the most 
expansive and intense drought for the West this century.” There is no 
relief in sight until the winter weather finally takes hold and that 
will provide only a brief respite before we head into Fire Year 2022.

Wildland firefighting is hard work and fatigue is cumulative, as is the 
stress that comes from being the only hope between a community and a 
fire. Hiking steep slopes with heavy packs and tools like a chainsaw or 
a Pulaski demands tremendous physical exertion — and that is just to get 
to where the work starts. Fourteen straight days of fireline 
construction while sleeping in a bag on the ground takes a toll. Do it 
for five months or more and it may take even the most well-conditioned 
firefighter several weeks just to recover physically and cough the smoke 
out of their airways. Lightning will start more than enough fires to 
exhaust firefighters this year.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/561458-exceptional-drought-and-extreme-heat-the-fire-risk-in-the-west-has

[climate explained -- heatwaves, summer flooding and persistent weather 
patterns ]
*Climate Podcast: Jennifer Francis | Abrupt cooling in the Arctic?*
Dec 8, 2020
Nick Breeze
Download: Why has no new record-minimum Arctic sea-ice extent occurred 
since September 2012? 
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc047

Podcast info: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast

In this episode of Shaping The Future, we discuss the abrupt cooling of 
the Arctic in the late summer months that is preventing the widely 
anticipated further collapse of summer sea ice, whilst intensifying 
heatwaves at lower latitudes.

This new hypothesis was recently published by Professor Jennifer Francis 
from the Woodwell Climate Research Centre in Falmouth, Massachusetts and 
Dr Wu from Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and Institute 
of Atmospheric Sciences, Fudan University, in Shanghai.

It is not often anyone ever mentions negative feedback mechanisms when 
it comes to sea ice but this is exactly what is being suggested.

Jennifer Francis has also been involved in research that links sea ice 
loss to changes in jet stream patterns that impact our weather in the 
northern hemisphere, and this work further unpicks the complexity of how 
the Arctic climate system interacts with the rest of the world.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. In the next episode, I will be 
speaking with Dr Saima Wazed, who is the thematic ambassador of the 
Climate Vulnerable Forum representing Bangladesh.

Dr Wazed discusses how extreme climate events can render people 
immediately vulnerable from a mental health perspective as they struggle 
to come to terms with the losses that these incur from livelihoods to 
suffering the loss of loved ones or both.

A link to Dr’s Wu and Francis scientific paper is provided in the notes 
below.

Download: Why has no new record-minimum Arctic sea-ice extent occurred 
since September 2012?
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...

- -

[The research paper]
*Why has no new record-minimum Arctic sea-ice extent occurred since 
September 2012?*
Jennifer A Francis and Bingyi Wu
Abstract

    One of the clearest indicators of human-caused climate change is the
    rapid decline in Arctic sea ice. The summer minimum coverage is now
    approximately half of its extent only 40 yr ago. Four records in the
    minimum extent were broken since 2000, the most recent occurring in
    September 2012. No new records have been set since then, however,
    owing to an abrupt atmospheric shift during each
    August/early-September that brought low sea-level pressure,
    cloudiness, and unfavorable wind conditions for ice reduction. While
    random variability could be the cause, we identify a recently
    increased prevalence of a characteristic large-scale atmospheric
    pattern over the northern hemisphere. This pattern is associated not
    only with anomalously low pressure over the Arctic during summer,
    but also with frequent heatwaves over East Asia, Scandinavia, and
    northern North America, as well as the tendency for a split jet
    stream over the continents. This jet-stream configuration has been
    identified as favoring extreme summer weather events in northern
    mid-latitudes. We propose a mechanism linking these features with
    diminishing spring snow cover on northern-hemisphere continents that
    acts as a negative feedback on the loss of Arctic sea ice during summer.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc047

[you may read it in Russian, if you like]
*Putin fears melting permafrost, but expresses doubt it is caused by humans*
The Russian president underlines that melting ground in the Arctic could 
have devastating effects on his country. But he remains hesitant about 
the fact that it is provoked by human activity.
ByAtle Staalesen - July 01, 2021
It was another marathon press conference. In a well-staged show Putin 
got telephone calls and questions from across the country about the 
state of the nation, ranging from housing affairs in the countryside, 
local jobs, and to relations with the abroad.

On a question about ongoing environmental changes in the country, Putin 
left no doubt that global warming could have detrimental consequences. 
And he expressed special concern about the melting of the permafrost.

“Parts of our country, about 70 percent, are located in the north […] 
and we have settlements, infrastructure in the area, and if it was all 
to melt it would have serious, very serious, social and economic 
consequences,” the President underlined.

“We have to get prepared for it,” he said.

He also explained that parts of the country’s traditional agricultural 
areas are experiencing draught and gradually could be turned into desert 
land...
But Putin appeared not ready to fully accept that climate change is 
human-made. In the press conference, he made clear that not everybody 
believes humans are behind global warming and that there are natural 
periodical changes in climate across the planet.

According to the President, “some people believe […] that an 
irreversible process could set in which would turn our planet to a 
condition similar to Venus where, as we know, the surface temperature is 
about 500 °C.”

The climate skepticism notwithstanding, Putin today increasingly appears 
to acknowledge the serious challenges coming from climate change and 
take climate action.

In the press conference, he made clear that the federal government is 
working on an action plan for handling of climate change, and that 
Russia will take part in international efforts on  capture of CO2.

The growing climate engagement was expressed also in Putin’s speech in 
the recent international Climate Summit. In the presence of world 
leaders, the Russian president underlined that “the fate of our planet, 
the development perspectives of each country, the prosperity and life 
quality of people, depends on the success of our efforts.”...
- -
Speaking in the Arctic Forum in 2017, he underlined that climate change 
is positive for Russian developments in the Arctic.

“With climate change comes more favourable condition for exploitation of 
this region for economical purposes,” he said and pointed at the huge 
increase in shipping along the Northern Sea Route.

There is nothing to do about global warming, Putin argued.

“I fully agree with the ones who consider that the question is not about 
how to prevent it, because that is simply impossible, it could be linked 
with some kind of global cycles on Earth or the planetary system.”

“The question now is all about adaptation,” Putin underlined.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2021/07/putin-fears-melting-permafrost-expresses-doubt-it-caused-humans 

- -

[Siberian fires]
*Kolyma highway in Yakutia, also known as the Road of Bones, is on fire 
and temporarily shut*
By Svetlana Skarbo - 30 June 2021
Elsewhere in Russia’s coldest region desperate authorities spike clouds 
to induce rain and tame wildfires.
https://siberiantimes.com/upload/information_system_52/7/9/8/item_7988/information_items_7988.jpg
More than 2,000 people are deployed in extinguishing wildfires raging 
around Russia’s coldest inhabited territory, Yakutia, now in the third 
year of extremely intense season of wildfires.

The first of them ignited as early as the beginning of May right outside 
the world-famous Pole of Cold, the village of Oymyakon in northeastern 
Yakutia known for its record low temperatures.

Wildfires continued through May and June, with extra fire extinguishing 
forces needing to be sent from other regions to help republic’s own teams.

Today Kolyma highway, the major road connecting republic’s capital 
Yakutsk and the port town of Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk, had to be 
shut because the fire got too close to the road and was much too fierce 
for safe driving.
https://youtu.be/noFCcz_6H0c
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/kolyma-highway-in-yakutia-also-known-as-the-road-of-bones-is-on-fire-and-temporarily-shut/

[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 4, 2011
*
The Fox News Channel celebrates its independence from reality by 
bringing on infamous climate-change denier Joe Bastardi to attack those 
concerned about carbon pollution.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/07/06/fox-celebrates-july-4-by-trying-to-debunk-globa/180569

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