[✔️] May , 14 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 14, 2021*/

[warning - four years behind]
Climate and Environment
*U.S. has entered unprecedented climate territory, EPA warns*
The Trump administration delayed the report, which cites urban heat 
waves and permafrost loss as signs of global warming, for three years
By Dino Grandoni - Brady Dennis
May 12, 2021
- -
As it launched an updated webpage to inform the public on how climate 
change is upending communities throughout the country, the Biden 
administration gave the agency’s imprimatur to a growing body of 
evidence that climate effects are happening faster and becoming more 
extreme than when EPA last published its “Climate Indicators” data in 2016.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said he wants to make clear to the 
entire country the dangers of rising temperatures in the United States.
“We want to reach people in every corner of this country because there 
is no small town, big city or rural community that’s unaffected by the 
climate crisis,” Regan told reporters Wednesday. “Americans are seeing 
and feeling the impacts up close with increasing regularity.”
EPA staffers said the data detail how the nation has entered 
unprecedented territory, in which climate effects are more visible, 
changing faster and becoming more extreme. Collectively, the indicators 
present “multiple lines of evidence that climate change is occurring now 
and here in the U.S., affecting public health and the environment,” the 
agency said...
- -
Trump questioned the idea that burning fossil fuels was warming the 
planet and endangering Americans’ lives and livelihoods, and his 
administration delayed an update to the EPA’s peer-reviewed report on 
climate change indicators, first published in 2010. As a result, the 
report offers a snapshot of the extent to which the science around 
climate change grew more detailed and robust during Trump’s term, even 
as his administration at times tried to stifle those findings.

New EPA administrator: ‘Science is back’

In March, the Biden administration relaunched a bare-bones version of 
the EPA’s website on climate change, much of which went dark under 
Trump. The Trump administration did not take down the climate indicators 
page, leaving it up with outdated information. To compile its list of 54 
climate change indicators released Wednesday, the EPA culled data from 
across academia, nonprofit institutions and other government agencies to 
come to its conclusions.
Heat waves are occurring about three times more often than they did in 
the 1960s, the agency found, averaging about six times a year. In turn, 
Americans are blasting air conditioners to stay cool during the hot 
months, which has nearly doubled summer energy use over the past 
half-century and added even more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

At nearly every spot measured in Alaska, permafrost has warmed since 
1978. The biggest temperature increases were found in the northernmost 
reaches of the state, where the thawing of the once permanently frozen 
soil has made it more difficult for Native Alaskans to store wild game 
underground and for drillers to transport oil by pipeline.

The agency also found that coastal flooding is happening more often at 
all 33 spots studied up and down the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts. 
Older cities such as Boston, established decades before the Industrial 
Revolution when seas were lower, are planning to spend millions on 
costly coastal defenses.

Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned 
Scientists, noted that the report draws on data published by the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration.
“This site does a great job of compiling a lot of indicators from a lot 
of different sources,” she said. “So it’s a really important 
clearinghouse of this kind of information.”

Despite Trump’s dismissal of climate science and his aggressive rollback 
of efforts aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, his 
administration was not able to avoid releasing some official government 
findings about the depth of the problem.

In 2017, the Trump administration released a dire scientific report 
calling human activity the dominant driver of global warming, a 
conclusion at odds with White House decisions to withdraw from the Paris 
climate accord, bolster fossil fuels and reverse Obama-era climate policies.

The White House did not try to prevent the release of that report, which 
the government is legally required to produce every four years. But it 
did try to play down the report’s significance. “The climate has changed 
and is always changing,” a White House spokesman said at the time, 
noting that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption had 
declined.
The following year, the Trump administration also allowed the release of 
a long-awaited update, written by experts at more than a dozen federal 
agencies, which found that the effects of climate change were 
intensifying — from deadly wildfires in the West to increasingly 
destructive hurricanes and heat waves. That congressionally mandated 
report stretched to more than 1,000 pages and warned that global warming 
“is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges 
to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural 
systems that support us.”

The White House chose to release those findings on the day after 
Thanksgiving — typically one of the slowest news days of the year.

While the EPA’s report does not make projections into the future, it 
suggests disastrous times ahead if the United States and other 
industrialized nations do not act quickly on global warming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/05/12/us-has-entered-unprecedented-climate-territory-epa-warns/



[classic science event - a showdown debate from 2014]
*Ben Santer: Climate Red Team v Blue Team - 2014*
May 13, 2021
greenmanbucket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deuNTXT01GU



[Center for Climate and Security]
*New Report: Melting Mountains, Mounting Tensions: Climate Change and 
the India-China Rivalry*
By Rachel Fleishman and Sarang Shidore
In many parts of the world, climate change is a trigger for disaster. In 
some, it can also be a catalyst for conflict. On the India-China border, 
it has the potential to be both—exacerbating an already-fraught 
relationship with the potential for escalation to the nuclear plane.

Melting Mountains, Mounting Tensions: Climate Change and the India-China 
Rivalry is the first of a series of case studies integrating security 
analysis of instability and conflict involving nuclear-armed states with 
cutting-edge climate science. The outcome of a novel collaboration 
between the Converging Risks Lab of the Council on Strategic Risks and 
the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the case studies aim to raise 
awareness and flag the urgency of converging climate and nuclear risks 
at a time when the global security landscape is becoming more complex.  
Climate change is the main impetus for new Chinese hydropower projects 
in the Tibetan Plateau and in Pakistani-held Kashmir. The addition of 
clean energy to the Chinese grid will contribute to decarbonizing the 
economy. But Indian populations downstream in the Indus and Brahmaputra 
river basins worry that China will use its dams to manipulate water 
flow, inducing or worsening droughts and floods.

There are real material risks from China’s dam-building – particularly 
in the Brahmaputra basin, where floods are almost an annual phenomenon. 
Risks include seismic instability that can trigger dam collapse and 
catastrophic floods. Drought could also be induced during the 
dam-filling process, which can take months or even years to complete. 
Chinese dams built in collaboration with its ally Pakistan on the Indus 
river also raise tensions with India, as the projected glacier melt will 
be sufficient to keep the hydropower plants going throughout most of the 
century.

However, physical climate projections in the study show that climate 
change alone will worsen Indian floods. Dams enhance real risks 
downstream, but also create major perceptual risks in an existing 
context of extreme distrust. India could well interpret higher 
floodwaters as being due to Chinese manipulation, even if that is not 
the cause.

The outcome of these contestations will ultimately depend on how the 
dams and associated river basins are managed in the context of 
increasing climate threats. Currently, no bilateral treaty or 
data-sharing agreement exists between India and China on their shared 
river basins. Nor does China have a history of transparency on its dam 
projects when it comes to downstream states.

Climate change also has the potential to be a threat multiplier in the 
stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops deployed in their contested 
border region.  A strong warming trend, identified clearly in the study, 
will increase the viability of military patrols, raising risks of 
clashes. Troops will also face risks of avalanches induced by glacier melt.

The report recommends the parties commit to sustained and meaningful 
dialog, with the aim of achieving agreements on:

Regular, granular data exchange on shared water resources, including 
full transparency on current and planned dam projects;
Establishing joint early warning and coordinated response mechanisms for 
natural disasters in the Brahmaputra and Indus River basins; and
Incorporating international best practices on river management on both 
sides of the border.
Deep-seated distrust on both sides of the India-China border threatens 
to give rise to both material risks generated due to dam projects and 
fundamental attribution error – misinterpreting climate-induced floods 
and other natural disasters as originating from Chinese manipulation. 
The first step to avoiding this dynamic, and the instability and 
conflict that could follow, is jointly recognizing the impacts that 
climate change will portend. The second is strengthening communication, 
collaboration and transparency. In the longer run, China and relevant 
South Asian states including India could consider crafting new and 
extended river basin management treaties that take into account 
increasing impacts of climate change, further enhancing prospects for 
stability and peace in this climate-vulnerable part of the world.
https://climateandsecurity.org/2021/05/new-report-melting-mountains-mounting-tensions-climate-change-and-the-india-china-rivalry/


[everything global includes gravitational orbits]
*What if Space Junk and Climate Change Become the Same Problem?*
Changes to the atmosphere caused by carbon dioxide emissions could 
increase the amount of debris that stays in orbit.
By Jonathan O’Callaghan - May 12, 2021
It’s easy to compare the space junk problem to climate change. Human 
activities leave too many dead satellites and fragments of machinery 
discarded in Earth orbit. If left unchecked, space junk could pose 
significant problems for future generations — rendering access to space 
increasingly difficult, or at worst, impossible.

Yet the two may come to be linked. Our planet’s atmosphere naturally 
pulls orbiting debris downward and incinerates it in the thicker lower 
atmosphere, but increasing carbon dioxide levels are lowering the 
density of the upper atmosphere, which may diminish this effect. A study 
presented last month at the European Conference on Space Debris says 
that the problem has been underestimated, and that the amount of space 
junk in orbit could, in a worst-case scenario, increase 50 times by 2100.

“The numbers took us by surprise,” said Hugh Lewis, a space debris 
expert from the University of Southampton in England and a co-author on 
the paper, which will be submitted for peer review in the coming months. 
“There is genuine cause for alarm.”

Our atmosphere is a useful ally in clearing up space junk. Collisions 
with its molecules cause drag, pulling objects back into the atmosphere. 
Below 300 miles above the surface, most objects will naturally decay 
into the thicker lower atmosphere and burn up in less than 10 years.

In the lower atmosphere, carbon dioxide molecules can rerelease infrared 
radiation after absorbing it from the sun, which is then trapped by the 
thick atmosphere as heat. But above 60 miles where the atmosphere is 
thinner, the opposite is true. “There’s nothing to recapture that 
energy,” said Matthew Brown, also from the University of Southampton and 
the paper’s lead author. “So it gets lost into space.”

The escape of heat causes the volume of the atmosphere, and thus its 
density, to decrease. Since 2000, Mr. Brown and his team say the 
atmosphere at 250 miles has lost 21 percent of its density because of 
rising carbon dioxide levels. By 2100, if carbon dioxide levels double 
their current levels — in line with the worst-case scenario assessment 
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — that number could 
rise to 80 percent.

For space junk, the implications are stark. More than 2,500 objects 
larger than four inches in size currently orbit at or below an altitude 
of 250 miles. In the worst-case scenario, increased orbital lifetimes of 
up to 40 years would mean fewer items are dragged into the lower 
atmosphere. Objects at this altitude would proliferate by 50 times to 
about 125,000.

Even in a best-case scenario, where carbon dioxide levels stabilize or 
even reverse, the amount of space junk would still be expected to 
double. Mr. Brown thinks a more probable outcome is somewhere in 
between, perhaps a 10 or 20 times increase...
- -
Just last month, for example, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission 
approved a request from SpaceX to decrease the orbits of nearly 3,000 
satellites in its Starlink constellation, reasoning that atmospheric 
drag would naturally sweep up dead satellites and debris in a reasonable 
amount of time.

Research by Mr. Brown and his team suggests that assumption may be flawed.

An F.C.C. spokesman said that most of its applicants currently used 
NASA’s Debris Assessment Software to predict lifetimes of satellites in 
low Earth orbit. “We do not know at this time if there are any plans to 
change that program to address the changes in atmospheric composition 
predicted in the paper,” he said. “The F.C.C. periodically reviews its 
rules and regulations and updates them consistent with developments in 
the marketplace and in scientific knowledge.”

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

Dr. Lewis said that he suspected that some of the modeling, however, 
relies on outdated data, and that more needed to be done to actively 
remove satellites and debris from orbit rather than relying on the 
passive atmospheric effect. “Operators have to make this aspect of the 
mission a priority,” he said.

Even a moderate increase in lifetimes for large constellations could 
pose significant problems. “If SpaceX’s spacecraft re-enter passively in 
10 or 15 years, would you argue that’s good enough?” Dr. Lewis said. 
“Given the fact that it’s a large constellation, lots of people would 
say probably not.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/12/science/space-junk-climate-change.html



[no control of whether, only control of when]
from RealClimate
*Why is future sea level rise still so uncertain?*
Filed under: Arctic and Antarctic Climate Science Sea level rise — gavin 
@ 12 May 2021
Three new papers in the last couple of weeks have each made separate 
claims about whether sea level rise from the loss of ice in West 
Antarctica is more or less than you might have thought last month and 
with more or less certainty. Each of these papers make good points, but 
anyone looking for coherent picture to emerge from all this work will be 
disappointed. To understand why, you need to know why sea level rise is 
such a hard problem in the first place, and appreciate how far we’ve 
come, but also how far we need to go.
Here’s a list of factors that will influence future regional sea level 
(in rough order of importance):

    -- ice mass loss from West Antarctica
    -- ice mass loss from Greenland
    -- ocean thermal expansion
    -- mountain glacier melt
    -- gravitational, rotational and deformational (GRD) effects
    -- changes in ocean circulation
    -- steric (freshwater/salinity) effects
    -- groundwater extraction
    -- reservoir construction and filling
    -- changes in atmospheric pressure and winds

And on top of that, the risks of coastal flooding also depend on:

    - tectonic/isostatic land motion
    - local subsidence
    - local hydrology
    - storm surges
    - tides

If that wasn’t bad enough, it doesn’t even get into why some of the 
bigger terms here are so difficult to constrain – ...
- -
Yes, but what about West Antarctica?
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the elephant seal in the 
aquarium. Ever since the 1970s it’s been suspected that it was prone to 
rapid collapse because the bedrock on which it sits is below sea level 
(and in some places, thousands of meters below sea level). More recent 
research constraining Eemian sea level (~125,000 yrs ago) has confirmed 
that WAIS collapsed at that time, adding 3 or more meters of sea level 
rise to the contribution from a much reduced Greenland Ice Sheet. 
Moreover, present day observations from gravity sensors (GRACE/GRACE-FO) 
show large ice mass losses from WAIS – dominated by the rapid retreats 
of the Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites glacier, and concomittent 
decreases in ice sheet elevation (from IceSat2)...
- -
Additionally, it looks like the anomalous meltwater from WAIS is causing 
the local ocean to freshen, stratify and cool (see Rye et al. (2020) or 
Sadai et al. (2020). Both of these effects make a straightforward 
connection between global mean warming and WAIS mass loss tricky.

But there is more. For instance, the bedrock topography under the ice 
sheet is still being refined. The last major revision (BedMap2) was in 
2013 (Fretwell et al., 2013), but many areas remain without good data 
and important revisions are still being made (Morlighem et al., 2020). 
Also, the topography of the ocean bottom under the ice shelves is still 
being discovered using autonomous underwater vehicles, for instance, 
under the Thwaites last year. Meanwhile Bedmap3 is underway...
- -
Recent advances...
- -
Remember that the biggest uncertainty is still the emission scenario, 
and the higher the scenario in terms of global warming, the more 
uncertain the ice sheet contribution is. Another key point made by 
DeConto et al. is that the world doesn’t stop at 2100. The consequences 
of even stable temperatures post-2100, has very large long term 
implications for sea level. For instance, even a 2ºC eventual warming is 
associated with around 1 meter of SLR just from WAIS by 2300.

Work to be done
These two papers illustrate the fundamental ingredients that will 
(eventually) get us to a more reliable estimate of SLR. The structural 
uncertainty explored by Edwards et al is broad, still incomplete, but 
essential. The calibration against past change in DeConto et al is also 
essential, even if the structural uncertainty they explore is narrower. 
A combined approach would be enlightening – using the DeConto et al 
model for the current ISMIP6 protocol, and extending that project to 
include the Eemian as an out-of-sample test might help.

Ice sheet science and the consequent sea level rise, like many 
cutting-edge topics, generally has a widening of uncertainty when the 
tools and theory start to really kick off. It is only later that this 
uncertainty is constrained as more observational data is brought to 
bear. Then, and not before, will projections start to narrow.

*Until then, the most productive way to reduce uncertainties might just 
be to reduce emissions.*
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/05/why-is-future-sea-level-rise-still-so-uncertain/



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  May 14, 1989 *
In a Washington Post op-ed, Sen. Al Gore (D-TN) notes:

    "As a nation and a government, we must see that America's future is
    inextricably tied to the fate of the globe. In effect, the
    environment is becoming a matter of national security -- an issue
    that directly and imminently menaces the interests of the state or
    the welfare of the people.

    "To date, the national-security agenda has been dominated by issues
    of military security, embedded in the context of global struggle
    between the United States and the Soviet Union -- a struggle often
    waged through distant surrogates, but which has always harbored the
    risk of direct confrontation and nuclear war. Given the recent
    changes in Soviet behavior, there is growing optimism that this
    long, dark period may be passing. This may in turn open the
    international agenda for other urgent matters and for the release of
    enormous resources, now committed to war, toward other objectives.
    Many of us hope that the global environment will be the new dominant
    concern...

    "When nations perceive that they are threatened at the strategic
    level, they may be induced to think of drastic responses, involving
    sharp discontinuities from everyday approaches to policy. In
    military terms, this is the point when the United States begins to
    think of invoking nuclear weapons. The global environment crisis may
    demand responses that are comparatively radical.

    "At present, despite some progress made toward limiting some sources
    of the problem, such as CFCs, we have barely scratched the surface.
    Even if all other elements of the problem are solved, a major threat
    is still posed by emissions of carbon dioxide, the exhaling breath
    of the industrial culture upon which our civilization rests. The
    implications of the latest and best studies on this matter are
    staggering. Essentially, they tell us that with our current pattern
    of technology and production, we face a choice between economic
    growth in the near term and massive environmental disorder as the
    subsequent penalty."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101200827_pf.html

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