[✔️] May 7, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Fri May 7 18:05:18 EDT 2021

/*May 7, 2021*/

[must-hear podcast from The Guardian]
*How has our thinking on the climate crisis changed? – podcast*
When the Guardian began reporting on the climate crisis 70 years ago, 
people were worried that warmer temperatures would make it harder to 
complain about the weather. Today it is the biggest challenge humanity 
has ever faced.

In the second special episode marking 200 years of the Guardian, Phoebe 
Weston is joined by Jonathan Watts, Prof Naomi Oreskes and Alice Bell to 
take a look at climate coverage over the years, how our understanding of 
the science has changed and how our attitudes and politics have shifted

How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know - 
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/07/how-to-listen-to-podcasts-everything-you-need-to-know?CMP=podcast-help
https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2021/may/06/how-has-our-thinking-on-the-climate-crisis-changed-podcast
https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2021/may/06/how-has-our-thinking-on-the-climate-crisis-changed-podcast

[Drunken uncertainties]
*Sea level rise uncertainties: Why all eyes are on Antarctica*
Latest models project a bumpy road with big risks.
SCOTT K. JOHNSON - 5/6/2021
- -
*Avoiding the drunks*
Recognizing this Antarctic uncertainty, this study creates an alternate 
set of scenarios using pessimistic assumptions for Antarctica. These 
“risk-averse projections” emphasize the worst-case simulations instead 
of the median. These scenarios shift the Antarctic contribution from 
around four centimeters to around 20 centimeters in 2100—more similar to 
our first study. In that case, the total global land ice contribution to 
sea level rise grows from 13-30 centimeters by 2100 to 30-48 centimeters.

The lower set of numbers is pretty similar to the projections in the 
2013 IPCC report, while the second set of numbers is a bit higher. But 
it's still progress. Whereas that report had to sort of wave its hands 
and say “it could be much worse,” the risk of higher sea level rise—if a 
large portion of Antarctic ice destabilizes, for example—has been better 
explored in the years since.

Still, future sea level rise is fundamentally uncertain. There’s a 
reason Richard Alley (an author on the first study) has described 
Antarctic glaciers as the “drunk drivers” of sea level rise—a 
low-probability but dangerous risk we work to manage on the roadways.

That means thinking about risk has to be at the center of the 
conversation about sea level rise. As the authors of the second study 
write, “Given this large range (between 13 centimetres [sea level rise] 
using the main projections under 1.5 degrees Celsius warming and 42 
centimetres [sea level rise] using risk-averse projections under current 
pledges), adaptation planning for twenty-first-century sea level rise 
must account for a factor-of-three uncertainty in the land ice 
contribution until climate policies and the Antarctic response are 
further constrained.”

Nature, 2020. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03427-0, 
10.1038/s41586-021-03302-y (About DOIs).
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/meeting-paris-agreement-ambition-could-save-a-lot-of-sea-level-rise/
- -

[from the journal nature]
*Projected land ice contributions to twenty-first-century sea level rise*
Tamsin L. Edwards, Sophie Nowicki, […]Thomas Zwinger
Nature volume 593, pages74–82
Published: 05 May 2021
Abstract
The land ice contribution to global mean sea level rise has not yet been 
predicted1 using ice sheet and glacier models for the latest set of 
socio-economic scenarios, nor using coordinated exploration of 
uncertainties arising from the various computer models involved. Two 
recent international projects generated a large suite of projections 
using multiple models, but primarily used previous-generation scenarios9 
and climate models10, and could not fully explore known uncertainties. 
Here we estimate probability distributions for these projections under 
the new scenarios using statistical emulation of the ice sheet and 
glacier models. We find that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees 
Celsius would halve the land ice contribution to twenty-first-century 
sea level rise, relative to current emissions pledges. The median 
decreases from 25 to 13 centimetres sea level equivalent (SLE) by 2100, 
with glaciers responsible for half the sea level contribution. The 
projected Antarctic contribution does not show a clear response to the 
emissions scenario, owing to uncertainties in the competing processes of 
increasing ice loss and snowfall accumulation in a warming climate. 
However, under risk-averse (pessimistic) assumptions, Antarctic ice loss 
could be five times higher, increasing the median land ice contribution 
to 42 centimetres SLE under current policies and pledges, with the 95th 
percentile projection exceeding half a metre even under 1.5 degrees 
Celsius warming. This would severely limit the possibility of mitigating 
future coastal flooding. Given this large range (between 13 centimetres 
SLE using the main projections under 1.5 degrees Celsius warming and 42 
centimetres SLE using risk-averse projections under current pledges), 
adaptation planning for twenty-first-century sea level rise must account 
for a factor-of-three uncertainty in the land ice contribution until 
climate policies and the Antarctic response are further constrained.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03302-y

[wildfires]
*Giant sequoia found still smoldering after 2020 California wildfire*
6 May 2021
Scientists have discovered a giant sequoia still smoldering in 
California’s Sequoia national forest, months after wildfires tore 
through the region last August.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/06/giant-sequoia-found-still-smoldering-after-2020-california-wildfire

[Fossil fuel industry]
*BP’s Suspicious Support for a Carbon Market in Washington State*
The oil giant owns a carbon sequestration company that could benefit 
from the law, allowing BP to play both sides of the emissions ledger...
https://newrepublic.com/article/162313/bp-carbon-offsets-washington-finite-carbon-carlyle
- -
[learning to greenwash]
*How to spot the difference between a real climate policy and 
greenwashing guff*
Damian Carrington
Unless actions by governments and corporations cut emissions in the here 
and now, a dose of scepticism is in order
Thu 6 May 2021
So how to spot this greenwash? A good rule of thumb is whether the 
proposal actually cuts emissions, by a significant amount, and soon, and 
whether the proposer is in fact making the climate emergency worse 
elsewhere...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/06/difference-real-climate-policy-greenwashing-emissions

[China dominates]
*China’s greenhouse gas emissions exceed those of U.S. and developed 
countries combined, report says*
PUBLISHED THU, MAY 6 2021

    KEY  POINTS
    -- China’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 exceeded those of the
    U.S. and other developed nations combined, according to research
    published Thursday by Rhodium Group.
    -- China is now responsible for more than 27% of total global
    emissions. The U.S., the world’s second-highest emitter, accounts
    for 11% of the global total.
    -- The findings come after a climate summit President Joe Biden
    hosted last month, during which Chinese President Xi Jinping
    reiterated a pledge to make sure the nation’s emissions peak by 2030.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/06/chinas-greenhouse-gas-emissions-exceed-us-developed-world-report.html 

[Global warming science lesson of the day]
*Polar Drift Anomaly Has a Surprising Explanation...Humans*
May 6, 2021 -Anton Petrov
I wrote a foreword for this awesome Sci-Fi book here: 
https://amzn.to/3aGrg0I
Get a Wonderful Person shirt: teespring.com/stores/whatdamath
Alternatively, PayPal donations can be sent here: 
http://paypal.me/whatdamath

Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk 
about the solution to a mystery of the magnetic polar drift.
Study: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL092114
Images: Cavit, CC BY 4.0
NATIONAL CENTERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION , NOAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiF8YQju2g

- -

[source materials]
*Polar Drift in the 1990s Explained by Terrestrial Water Storage Changes*
S. Deng  S. Liu  X. Mo  L. Jiang  P. Bauer‐Gottwein
First published: 22 March 2021 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL092114

    *Abstract*
    Secular polar drift underwent a directional change in the 1990s, but
    the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In this study, polar
    motion observations are compared with geophysical excitations from
    the atmosphere, oceans, solid Earth, and terrestrial water storage
    (TWS) during the period of 1981–2020 to determine major drivers.
    When contributions from the atmosphere, oceans, and solid Earth are
    removed, the residual dominates the change in the 1990s. The
    contribution of TWS to the residual is quantified by comparing the
    hydrological excitations from modeled TWS changes in two different
    scenarios. One scenario assumes that the TWS change is stationary
    over the entire study period, and another scenario corrects the
    stationary result with actual glacier mass change. The accelerated
    ice melting over major glacial areas drives the polar drift toward
    26°E for 3.28 mas/yr after the 1990s. The findings offer a clue for
    studying past climate‐driven polar motion.

    *Plain Language Summary*
    The Earth's pole, the point where the Earth's rotational axis
    intersects its crust in the Northern Hemisphere, drifted in a new
    eastward direction in the 1990s, as observed by space geodetic
    observations. Generally, polar motion is caused by changes in the
    hydrosphere, atmosphere, oceans, or solid Earth. However, short‐term
    observational records of key information in the hydrosphere (i.e.,
    changes in terrestrial water storage) limit a better understanding
    of new polar drift in the 1990s. This study introduces a novel
    approach to quantify the contribution from changes in terrestrial
    water storage by comparing its drift path under two different
    scenarios. One scenario assumes that the terrestrial water storage
    change throughout the entire study period (1981–2020) is similar to
    that observed recently (2002–2020). The second scenario assumes that
    it changed from observed glacier ice melting. Only the latter
    scenario, along with the atmosphere, oceans, and solid Earth, agrees
    with the polar motion during the period of 1981–2020. The
    accelerated terrestrial water storage decline resulting from glacial
    ice melting is thus the main driver of the rapid polar drift toward
    the east after the 1990s. This new finding indicates that a close
    relationship existed between polar motion and climate change in the
    past.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL092114

[Do the right thing]
*Emissions Cuts Could Drop the Impact of Melting Ice on Oceans by Half*
A new study said that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could 
reduce sea level rise from melting ice sheets from about 10 inches to 
about five by 2100...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/climate/climate-change-sea-level-rise.html

[Headline of the week]
*Study Predicts “Rapid and Unstoppable” Sea Level Rise Unless Paris 
Climate Goals Are Met*
A new study finds the world faces “rapid and unstoppable” sea level rise 
in the coming decades, unless nations meet their pledges to cut 
emissions under the Paris Climate Agreement. The study in the journal 
Nature warns that failure to meet the Paris goals could mean a global 
temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, enough 
to cross a tipping point that would lead to the irreversible melting of 
Antarctica’s vast ice sheets. The resulting sea level rise would flood 
coastal communities around the globe, with a “catastrophic” 33 feet of 
sea level rise by 2300.
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/5/6/headlines/study_predicts_rapid_and_unstoppable_sea_level_rise_unless_paris_climate_goals_are_met

[Telling us the truth before we were listening]
*‘Decades ahead of his time’: history catches up with visionary Jimmy 
Carter*

Megan Mayhew Bergman - 4 May 2021 1

A new film rejects the popular narrative and recasts the former 
president, 96, as hugely prescient thinker, particularly on climate change

When I reach Jimmy Carter’s grandson by Zoom, he answers wearing a 
Raphael Warnock campaign T-shirt. Jason Carter is a lawyer and 
politician himself, mid-40s, animated and well-read, with blue eyes 
reminiscent of his grandfather’s. He’s just got off the phone with his 
93-year-old grandmother, Rosalynn. It’s a special day; Joe Biden is on 
his way to the Carter house in Plains, Georgia.

“My grandfather has met nearly everyone in the world he might want to,” 
Jason Carter says. “Right now, he’s meeting with the president of the 
United States. But the person he’d say he learned the most from was 
Rachel Clark, an illiterate sharecropper who lived on his family’s farm.

“He didn’t pity her,” Carter says. “He saw her power. My grandfather 
believes in the power of a single human and a small community. Protect 
people’s freedoms, he says, and they can do great things. It all comes 
back to an enormous respect for human beings.”

Recent biographer Jonathan Alter calls Carter “perhaps the most 
misunderstood president in American history”.

Carter, who lost his bid for re-election in a so-called landslide to 
Reagan in 1980, is often painted as a “failed president” – a hapless 
peanut farmer who did not understand how to get things done in 
Washington, and whose administration was marked by inflation, an energy 
crisis and the Iran hostage disaster.

Subsequent presidents, especially fellow southern Democrat Bill Clinton, 
kept a distance – assumably not wanting to be seen as part of a 
political narrative that emphasized piety over getting things done. Even 
Obama was apparently wary of being associated with the sort of 
soft-hearted ineffectuality ascribed to Carter.
- -
In his 2020 biography of Carter, Alter speaks to a more nuanced 
interpretation of Carter, calling him “a surprisingly consequential 
president – a political and stylistic failure, but a substantive and 
far-sighted success”. It is, perhaps, the far-sighted nature of Carter’s 
ambitions, particularly around energy, that allows us to appreciate him 
more four decades after his term concluded.

Born in 1924, Carter is now 96. Americans must process his mortality and 
the onset of climate change, which Carter explicitly warned the nation 
about 40 years ago.

Carterland, a just released documentary, offers a particularly sharp 
focus on Carter’s extensive work on conservation, climate and justice.

*Carterland: preview of the documentary on former president Jimmy Carter 
– video *https://youtu.be/MFt8sZR4ljw

“Here’s what people get wrong about Carter,” Will Pattiz, one of the 
film’s directors tells me. “He was not in over his head or ineffective, 
weak or indecisive – he was a visionary leader, decades ahead of his 
time trying to pull the country toward renewable energy, climate 
solutions, social justice for women and minorities, equitable treatment 
for all nations of the world. He faced nearly impossible economic 
problems – and at the end of the day came so very close to changing the 
trajectory of this nation.”

Will’s brother, Jim, agrees. “A question folks should be asking 
themselves is: what catastrophes would have befallen this country had 
anyone other than Jimmy Carter been at the helm during that critical 
time in the late 1970s?”

Those late 1970s were defined by inflation, the cold war, long lines at 
gas pumps, and a shift in cultural mores. Carter himself showed a 
willingness to grow. Although Carter served in the navy himself, he 
pardoned Vietnam draft-dodgers. Though from a segregated and racist 
background in Georgia, Carter pushed for affirmative action and 
prioritized diversity among judicial nominees, including the appointment 
of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Amalya Lyle Kearse. He employed Mary Prince, 
a Black woman wrongly accused of murder, as his daughter Amy’s nanny, a 
move criticized by some contemporary thinkers as perpetuating domestic 
servitude.

What was radical in the 1970s can appear backwards decades later; the 
public narrative works in both directions. Carter is, in some respects, 
difficult to narrativize because he could be both startlingly 
conservative – financially, or in his appeal to the deep south’s 
evangelicals – and progressive, particularly on human rights and 
climate. He seemed to act from his personal compass, rather than a 
political one.

He startled the globe by personally brokering the critical Middle East 
peace treaty between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin at Camp David. He 
ceded access to the Panama canal, angering conservatives who thought he 
was giving away an American asset. Through the Alaska National Interest 
Lands Conservation Act, he doubled the national park system and 
conserved over 100m acres of land – the most sweeping expansion of 
conserved land in American history.

He was not afraid to make unpopular moves, or ask for personal 
sacrifice. He was old-fashioned and a futurist, and nowhere did his 
futurism matter more, or seem more prescient, than on climate and 
conservation. He risked speaking directly to the American public, and 
asking them to do a difficult thing – focus on renewable energy and 
reduce reliance on oil.

He paid the price for this frank ask, and so did we.

In advance of his trip to Plains, Georgia, Biden participated in a video 
tribute to Carter, joining an all-star cast of Georgia politicians, the 
familiar faces of Senator Jon Ossoff, Senator Raphael Warnock and Stacey 
Abrams serving as an affirming nod to Georgia’s return to political 
importance.

The messages address the substance of the film, but also serve as a 
heartfelt thank you to a former president who has only recently begun to 
look prescient on climate, and singular in his moral bearing.

“He has always lived his values,” Abrams says in the video.

“Our world cries out for moral and ethical leadership,” Warnock offers. 
“Few have embodied it as clearly and consistently as Carter.”

“He showed us what it means to be a public servant, with an emphasis on 
servant,” Biden says.
https://youtu.be/y7WVi_RFzTw

Many Americans can’t help but spot a link between Carter and Biden – who 
became the first elected official outside of Georgia to support Carter’s 
bid for the presidency in 1976. Biden’s colleagues decried him as an 
“exuberant” idealist at the time.

There’s also an increasingly stark comparison between the Carter and the 
Trump administration.

James Gustave Speth served as the chairman of Carter’s Council on 
Environmental Quality. As Carter’s chief adviser on environmental 
matters, Speth helped brief Carter on climate change and direct policy. 
He finds the contrast between Carter and Trump “striking”.

“People see now that Carter was at a pole,” Speth tells me. “Carter was 
the opposite of Trump – and everything that people despised about him. 
Carter had integrity, honesty, candor and a commitment to the public 
good of all else. Carter was a different man, totally.”

Carter’s vice-president, Walter Mondale, died a month ago at 93, perhaps 
putting an exclamation mark on the need to expedite overdue praise and 
understanding. Speth agrees that it would be best to speed up our 
recognition of Carter. “So many fine things are said over the bodies of 
the dead,” Speth said. “I’d love to have the recognition occur now.”

Speth is also working on his own book on the Carter administration, that 
covers the Carter and subsequent administrations on climate and energy 
and highlights the failure to build on the foundation that Carter laid. 
His project, soon to be published with MIT, carries a damning title: 
They Knew.

One of the most profound– even painful – parts of watching documentaries 
like Carterland is bearing witness to the fact that Carter was right on 
asking us to drive less, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, to 
focus on conservation and renewable energy. Not only was Carter’s vision 
a path not taken, it was a path mocked. Reagan removed the solar panels 
from the White House, politicized the environmental movement and painted 
it as a fringe endeavor.

“Carter was our only president who had a visceral environmental and 
ecological attachment. That was part of his being,” Speth says. “We had 
an opportunity in 1980 – but we’ve lost 40 years in the pursuit of a 
climate-safe path. We can no longer avoid serious and destructive 
changes, period. That didn’t have to happen.”...

I ask Speth why getting Carter’s legacy right matters. First, Speth 
says, it’s important to recognize the example Carter set for looking 
ahead, in a culture that prizes soundbites and short-term gains. “Carter 
was a trained engineer who believed in science,” Speth points out. “He 
understood things on a global scale, and believed in forecasting. 
Preparing for the long run is rare in politics.”

Carter’s biographer Alter agrees. “If there is a gene for duty, 
responsibility and the will to tackle messy problems with little or no 
potential for political gain,” he writes, “Jimmy Carter was born with it.”

While none of these recent documentaries or biographies seeks to portray 
Carter as a saint or even politically savvy, they do insist that his 
presidency was more successful than history has acknowledged, 
particularly on the energy, conservation and human rights fronts. Still, 
there are aspects of his single term that will probably remain embedded 
in his narrative, such as his tenuous relationship with Congress, early 
catering to segregationists to win votes, and Iran’s hostage crisis.

What can we learn from the shifting narrative around Carter’s presidency?

“You can talk about how Carter was an underrated president,” film-maker 
Jim Pattiz says. “But can you ask yourself: what qualities do you 
actually want in a leader? Do you want someone who will challenge you to 
be better, or speak in catchphrases and not ask much of you?

“This film is a cautionary tale,” Pattiz says. “We can elect another 
Carter. Let’s reward leaders willing to do the right thing.”

Jason Carter has lived with the nuances and inconsistencies in the 
narrative surrounding his grandfather’s presidency his entire life. 
“Stories are always summaries,” he says. “They leave out so much so that 
we can understand them in simple terms. Public narrative, these days, is 
so often about politics. It should really be about the great, public 
problems we’re solving. There’s a difference.

“I don’t want history to be kind to my grandfather,” Jason Carter tells 
me. “I just want history to be honest.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/03/jimmy-carter-climate-change-carterland-film-biography

[Sarcastic humor from The Onion]
*The Worst Tornadoes In U.S. History*
Spring is tornado season, putting millions of people across the country 
on high alert for the sometimes devastating storms. The Onion looks back 
at the worst tornadoes in U.S. history.

    *1896: *The St. Louis Tornado kills 255 and injures 1,000, most of
    whom were storm chasers attempting to get up close and capture its
    beauty on canvas.
    *1899: *The New Richmond Tornado, originally known as the Big Swirly
    Uh-Oh, is given a more formal name after it becomes clear that 117
    lives were lost.
    *1925: *The Tri-State Tornado travels 300 miles through Missouri,
    Illinois and Indiana, killing hundreds before being brought down by
    a sharpshooter.
    *1936: *The Gainesville Tornado earns MVP of the ’36 Jefferson High
    School football season after destroying the rival town.
    *1951: *An absolutely terrible tornado touches down just outside
    Sioux City, IA—uneven funnel, droopy anvil, just a flat-out pathetic
    showing as far as tornados go.
    *1994: *Despite the extreme predictions for the Las Vegas Automotive
    Trade Show Cash Tornado, not a single one of those total fucking
    losers managed to grab more than 11 bucks.
    *2011: *The Joplin Tornado kills 115 people, prompting the Missouri
    legislature to ban all future tornados.
    *2023: *Oh, just you wait.

https://www.theonion.com/the-worst-tornadoes-in-u-s-history-1846828174

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  May 7, 2001 *

May 7, 2001: In a response to a question about whether President
George W. Bush would encourage energy conservation, White House press
secretary Ari Fleischer states: "That's a big no.  The President
believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the
goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life.  The
American way of life is a blessed one.  And we have a bounty of
resources in this country.  What we need to do is make certain that
we're able to get those resources in an efficient way, in a way that
also emphasizes protecting the environment and conservation, into the
hands of consumers so they can make the choices that they want to make
as they live their lives day to day."
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/briefings/20010507.html

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