[✔️] January 12, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*January 12, 2022*/

/[  Sun always shines ] /
*Solar is forecasted to account for nearly half of new generating 
capacity in the U.S. — in 2022*
21.5GW of utility-scale solar to be deployed in 2022, according to 
Energy Information Administration’s Preliminary Monthly Electric 
Generator Inventory...
- -
EIA also expects utility-scale battery storage capacity to grow by 5.1 
GW, or 84%, in 2022....
https://pvbuzz.com/solar-forecasted-account-half-of-new-generating-capacity-2022/



/[ View data in a map NYTimes - uh oh, I live in the Pacific NW  ]/
*A Vivid View of Extreme Weather: Temperature Records in the U.S. in 2021*
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2021/12/03/extreme-weather/7ab68d09cee8e29cccf37e0855e909aa6c5a7d37/tmax-map-945.png
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/01/11/climate/record-temperatures-map-2021.html


/[  another look at the data  ]/
*US Emissions Surged in 2021: Here’s Why in Six Charts*
The nation’s carbon dioxide emissions headed back to pre-pandemic levels 
after years of small but steady declines, powered by freight and coal.
By Ariel Gans
January 10, 2022
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions boomeranged toward pre-pandemic levels in 
2021, a turnaround from more than a decade of downward trends, and 
freight transportation and coal are major culprits, according to a 
report released Monday by the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm.

America’s greenhouse gas emissions grew 6.2 percent last year as the 
American economy largely recovered from pandemic lockdowns, the Rhodium 
report estimated. In comparison, between 2005 and 2019, U.S. emissions 
fell nearly 1 percent annually, on average, according to the 
Environmental Protection Agency. The uptick occurred largely due to a 17 
percent jump in coal-fired power generation, the first annual increase 
in coal generation since 2014, and a rapid resurgence of road 
transportation. Coal’s comeback was driven largely by a hike in natural 
gas prices, which made coal power more economically attractive...
While last year’s emissions remained 5 percent below 2019 levels, the 
increase marks a reversal of early pandemic reductions.

The findings echo end-of-year emissions numbers from Carbon Monitor and 
the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Carbon Monitor, an academic 
group that tracks emissions, concluded U.S. emissions ramped up 7 
percent through the end of October. A year-end report by the U.S. Energy 
Information Administration forecasted a 7 percent increase in 
energy-related CO2 emissions.
https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022EmissionsChartRhodium01.png
The transportation sector, which experienced the largest decline in 
greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, saw the largest increase in 2021 as 
demand, primarily for freight transport of consumer products and 
secondly for passenger travel, rebounded, the report said. However, even 
with the availability of Covid-19 vaccines, new variants and 
breakthrough cases led to staggered fuel demand. The sector’s 10 percent 
rise from 2020 emissions levels represents a recovery of about 
two-thirds of its drop from 2019 levels.
https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022EmissionsChartRhodium02.png
The electric power sector, which comprises 28 percent of net U.S. 
emissions, experienced the second steepest emissions increase relative 
to 2020, despite a mere 3 percent increase in electric power demand. The 
sector’s 6.6 percent emissions hike was driven largely by a surge in 
natural gas prices, with Henry Hub spot prices averaging $4.93 per 
million Btu in 2021—more than double their 2020 rate.
https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022EmissionsChartRhodium03.png
Oil and gas prices soared as producers reduced production last year in 
response to the Covid oil price collapse and the diminished demand that 
followed, Rhodium said. Higher prices made gas-fired generation less 
economical in 2021, leading to a 3 percent decline in gas generation in 
2021.
https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022EmissionsChartRhodium04.png
Renewable energy generation growth slowed to half of its 2020 rate, but 
accounted for 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation for the first time.

Industry emissions experienced the most modest drop in 2020 at 6.2 
percent, but ticked up 3.6 percent in 2021—making up just over half the 
difference from 2019 levels. The buildings sector experienced the 
smallest rise in greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, growing only 1.9 
percent from 2020, giving up a quarter of the drop in emissions from 2020.
https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022EmissionsChartRhodium05.png
The trajectory of emissions this year remains uncertain. The Energy 
Information Administration estimates natural gas prices will plummet, 
but remain above pre-pandemic levels, causing coal generation to 
backslide to 22 percent of U.S. power production—1 percent lower than in 
2021.
https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022EmissionsChartRhodium06.png
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012022/us-emissions-surged-in-2021-heres-why-in-six-charts/
This year’s emissions increase sets the U.S. even further from its Paris 
Agreement goal of slashing emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels 
by 2030. In 2021, U.S. emissions rose to 17.4 percent below 2005 levels, 
despite hitting 22.2 percent below 2005 in 2020.

Without the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill, a $2.2 trillion spending 
and tax package that contains billions of dollars in renewable energy 
incentives, the U.S. is only on course for emissions reductions of 
roughly 30 percent by 2030. According to a Rhodium Group report, joint 
action by leading states, Congress and the executive branch can put the 
2030 target within reach, but they must act quickly.

There are limited options for cutting carbon emissions in the 
short-term. Technological solutions such as carbon capture that reduce 
emissions by industry—responsible for nearly a quarter of CO2 
released—are often expensive or unavailable, Scientific American 
reported. Renewable energy must compete in markets still dominated by 
fossil fuels, and American consumers typically wait years to replace 
high-emitting items like refrigerators or water heaters.
Within the transportation sector, which accounts for 31 percent of U.S. 
emissions, electric vehicle purchases grew to 435,000 in the first three 
quarters of 2021, compared with 320,000 EVs sold in the entirety of 
2020, said Corey Cantor, an analyst who tracks the industry at Bloomberg 
New Energy Finance. However, EVs at this time cannot offset rising 
emissions from increased travel rates and non-electric passenger 
vehicles sales, according to an International Energy Agency report. The 
U.S. is on track to buy 8.6 million new SUVs in 2021, the report said.

Cantor predicted EVs could begin to make a dent in U.S. transportation 
emissions around 2025, when they are estimated to achieve cost parity 
with cars using internal combustion engines.

That leaves much of the short-term carbon-cutting to the power sector, 
which has done the bulk of greening America’s economy in recent decades. 
After retiring less than 5 gigawatts of coal capacity in 2021, some 12 
gigawatts of coal capacity are slated to be retired this year, according 
to Energy Information Administration figures.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012022/us-emissions-surged-in-2021-heres-why-in-six-charts/



/[ Clips from a long read on bugs, bug-out, ]/
*How the speed of climate change is unbalancing the insect world *
The pace of global heating is forcing insect populations to move and 
adapt – and some aggressive species are thriving
by Oliver Milman
Tue 11 Jan 2022 01.00 EST

The climate crisis is set to profoundly alter the world around us. 
Humans will not be the only species to suffer from the calamity. Huge 
waves of die-offs will be triggered across the animal kingdom as coral 
reefs turn ghostly white and tropical rainforests collapse. For a 
period, some researchers suspected that insects may be less affected, or 
at least more adaptable, than mammals, birds and other groups of 
creatures. With their large, elastic populations and their defiance of 
previous mass extinction events, surely insects will do better than most 
in the teeth of the climate emergency?

Sadly not. At 3.2C of warming, which many scientists still fear the 
world will get close to by the end of this century (although a flurry of 
promises at Cop26 have brought the expected temperature increase down to 
2.4C), half of all insect species will lose more than half of their 
current habitable range. This is about double the proportion of 
vertebrates and higher even than for plants, which lack wings or legs to 
quickly relocate themselves. This huge contraction in livable space is 
being heaped on to the existing woes faced by insects from habitat loss 
and pesticide use. “The insects that are still hanging in there are 
going to get hit by climate change as well,” says Rachel Warren, a 
biologist at the University of East Anglia, who in 2018 published 
research into what combinations of temperature, rainfall and other 
climatic conditions each species can tolerate.

Some insects, such as dragonflies, are nimble enough to cope with the 
creeping change. Unfortunately, most are not. Butterflies and moths are 
also often quite mobile, but in different stages of their life cycle 
they rely on certain terrestrial conditions and particular plant foods, 
and so many are still vulnerable. Pollinators such as bees and flies can 
generally move only short distances, exacerbating an emerging food 
security crisis where farmers will struggle to grow certain foods not 
just due to a lack of pollination but because, beyond an increase of 3C 
or so, vast swaths of land simply becomes unsuitable for many crops. The 
area available to grow abundant coffee and chocolate, for example, is 
expected to shrivel as tropical regions surge to temperatures unseen in 
human history...
- -
The climate crisis interlocks with so many other maladies – poverty, 
racism, social unrest, inequality, the crushing of wildlife – that it 
can be easy to overlook how it has viciously ensnared insects. The 
problem also feels more intractable. “Climate change is tricky because 
it’s hard to combat,” says Matt Forister, a professor of biology at the 
University of Nevada. “Pesticides are relatively straightforward by 
comparison but climate change can alter the water table, affect the 
predators, affect the plants. It’s multifaceted.”

Insects are under fire from the poles to the tropics. The Arctic 
bumblebee, Bombus polaris, is found in the northern extremities of 
Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. It is able to survive 
near-freezing temperatures due to dense hair that traps heat and its 
ability to use conical flowers, like the Arctic poppy, to magnify the 
sun’s rays to warm itself up. Rocketing temperatures in the Arctic, 
however, mean the bee is likely to become extinct by 2050. Species of 
alpine butterflies, dependent on just one or two high-altitude plants, 
are also facing severe declines as their environment transforms around them.

Further south, in the UK, glowworm numbers have collapsed by 
three-quarters since 2001, research has found, with the climate crisis 
considered the primary culprit. The larvae of the insects feed on snails 
that thrive in damp conditions, but a string of hot and dry summers has 
left the glowworms critically short of prey...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jan/11/climate-change-insect-world-global-heating-species



[ we know all this - Rolling$tone ]
*Manchin's Coal Corruption Is So Much Worse Than You Knew*
The senator from West Virginia is bought and paid for by Big Coal. With 
his help the dying industry is pulling one final heist — and the entire 
planet may pay the price
.By JEFF GOODELL
JANUARY 10, 2022
One of the hardest things to grasp about the climate crisis is the 
connectedness of all things. One recent drizzly afternoon, I drove from 
Charleston, West Virginia, to the John Amos coal-fired power plant on 
the banks of the Kanawha River, near the town of Nitro. In the rain, the 
plant looked like one of the dark satanic mills that poet William Blake 
wrote about, with three enormous cooling towers that steamed like giant 
witches’ cauldrons. Across the river from the plant, mobile homes 
cluttered the bank of the Kanawha, streaked black with pollution that 
rained down on them 24/7...
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/joe-manchin-big-coal-west-virginia-1280922/



/[ 1.5 inches spread world wide ] /
*How much water is in Earth's atmosphere?*
By Joe Phelan - Jan 10, 2022
Our atmosphere holds a lot of water.

According to the USGS, the volume of all water on Earth is estimated to 
be almost 332.5 million cubic miles (1.4 billion cubic kilometers). To 
put that into context, 1 cubic mile of water would contain approximately 
1.1 trillion gallons — enough to fill 1.66 million Olympic-size swimming 
pools.

As a result of the hydrologic cycle, Earth's water is never in one place 
for too long. It evaporates, turns to vapor, condenses to create clouds 
and falls back to the surface as precipitation. The cycle then begins 
again.

Evaporated water remains in the atmosphere for around 10 days, according 
to Britannica. This means the atmosphere is literally awash in water vapor.

"On average, there is about the equivalent of 30 mm [1.2 inches] of rain 
in the form of vapor available to fall over any point of Earth's 
surface," Frédéric Fabry, the director of the J. Stewart Marshall Radar 
Observatory and an associate professor of the environment and the 
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University in 
Canada, told Live Science in an email.

"That's around 55 pounds [25 kilograms] of water over every square yard, 
most of which is in the form of vapor," he said.

Given that the surface area of Earth is about 197 million square miles 
(510 million square kilometers), there's around 37.5 million-billion 
gallons of water in the atmosphere, Fabry said. If all of this mass were 
to fall at once, it would raise the global ocean level by about 1.5 
inches (3.8 centimeters), he added.

Though all of this vapor falling at once is incredibly unlikely, such a 
dramatic rise in sea level would likely have dire consequences. 
According to the Climate Change Post, if global sea levels rise by just 
2 inches (5 cm), low-lying cities, such as Mumbai and Kochi, India; 
Abidjan, Ivory Coast; and Jakarta, Indonesia — which have a combined 
population of over 28 million and are already vulnerable to coastal 
flooding — would be "significantly affected."

Additionally, according to a 2017 study published in the journal 
Scientific Reports, if sea levels rise between 2 and 4 inches (5 and 10 
cm), it will double the flooding frequency in a host of regions, 
"particularly in the tropics."...
- -
If all the water in the atmosphere were to somehow spontaneously cascade 
down, it wouldn't fall evenly around the world. That's because some 
areas of Earth are wetter than others.

"The amount of water in the atmosphere is controlled by the balance 
between the flow going into the atmosphere and the flow going out of 
it," Fabry said. "The flow going in the atmosphere is controlled by 
evaporation from the surface, and that depends on whether there is water 
at the surface, as well as on temperature. Evaporating water requires a 
lot of energy, and that energy comes from the warmth of the surface. 
Warm oceans are where evaporation is the greatest, and Arctic land areas 
are where it is the smallest."

The average amount of water in the atmosphere varies with season and 
location, but broadly speaking, "tropical oceans and wet tropical areas 
have the most water vapor over them, and these move with seasons; Arctic 
land areas or high-mountain areas have the least," because warm air is 
far better for carrying water, Fabry said...
- -
https://www.livescience.com/how-much-water-earth-atmosphere


/[ AGU press conference on the Arctic - video  mid December  this is 
what reporters hear ]/
*#AGU21 Press conference: NOAA Arctic Report Card 20*21
Dec 14, 2021
AGU
Now in its 16th year, NOAA’s 2021 Arctic Report Card catalogs the 
numerous ways that climate change continues to transform and disrupt the 
polar region, with impacts on weather, climate, fisheries, indigenous 
communities and national security. Arctic environmental change does not 
stay in the Arctic: it impacts weather, climate and ocean resources far 
beyond the region. The rapid changes in the Arctic, many of which are 
occurring faster than anticipated, heighten the importance of improved 
observations to inform decisions and forecast future change.

Panelists
Rick Spinrad, Administrator, NOAA
Twila Moon, National Snow and Ice Data Center
Lawrence Mudryk, Environment & Climate Canada
Gabriel Wolken, International Arctic Research Center (IARC)
Kaare Sikuaq Erickson, Ikaaġun Engagement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQBKoQ5vZqg

- -

/[ Thwaits high drama - video ]/
*#AGU21 Press Conference: The Threat from Thwaites: The retreat of 
Antarctica’s riskiest glacier*
Dec 13, 2021
AGU
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier is the largest fast-changing glacier in 
the world. It is thinning rapidly, has already retreated over eight 
miles, and has doubled in speed, in the last five decades. The 
vulnerable glacier is the size of Florida, and if it melts, global sea 
levels could rise by nearly 10 feet—putting millions of people living in 
coastal cities in danger zones for extreme flooding. Join experts from 
the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration as they explore 
questions such as: Why is the glacier weakening? How soon before it 
begins its rapid collapse and accelerates sea level rise? And what can 
be done to slow its collapse?

Panelists:
Ted Scambos, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental 
Sciences (CIRES)
Erin Pettit, Oregon State University
Peter Washam, Cornell University
Peter Davis, British Antarctic Survey
Lizzy Clyne, Lewis and Clark College
Anna Crawford, University of St Andrews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBbgWsR4-aw



/[ Elizabeth Kolbert philosophizes ]/
*Point/Counterpoint : Elizabeth Kolbert*
Feb 7, 2020
Amherst College
Elizabeth Kolbert traveled from Alaska to Greenland, and visited top 
scientists, to get to the heart of the debate over global warming. 
Growing out of a groundbreaking three-part series in The New Yorker 
(which won the 2005 National Magazine Award in the category Public 
Interest), Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate 
Change brings the environment into the consciousness of the American 
people and asks what, if anything, can be done, and how we can save our 
planet. She explains the science and the studies, draws frightening 
parallels to lost ancient civilizations, unpacks the politics, and 
presents the personal tales of those who are being affected most—the 
people who make their homes near the poles and, in an eerie 
foreshadowing, are watching their worlds disappear. Field Notes from a 
Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change was chosen as one of the 
100 Notable Books of the Year (2006) by The New York Times Book Review.  
Her book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, a book about mass 
extinctions that weaves intellectual and natural history with reporting 
in the field, was a New York Times 2014 Top Ten Best Book of the Year 
and is number one on the Guardian’s list of the 100 Best Nonfiction 
Books of all time.  The Sixth Extinction also won the 2015 Pulitzer 
Prize in the General Nonfiction category, and was a finalist for the 
National Book Critics Circle awards for the best books of 2014. As with 
Field Notes from a Catastrophe, The Sixth Extinction began as an article 
in The New Yorker.

Elizabeth Kolbert has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1999. 
She has written dozens of pieces for the magazine, including profiles of 
Senator Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Mayor 
Rudolph Giuliani. Her series on global warming, “The Climate of Man,” 
appeared in The New Yorker in the spring of 2005 and won the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science’s magazine award. Also in 
2006, she received the National Academy of Sciences Communication Award 
in the newspaper/magazine category and was awarded a Lannan Writing 
Fellowship. In September 2010, Kolbert received the prestigious Heinz 
Award which recognizes individuals who are addressing global change 
caused by the impact of human activities and natural processes on the 
environment. She has also been awarded a National Magazine Award in the 
Reviews and Criticism category for her work in the New Yorker, the 
Sierra Club's David R. Brower Award, and the Walter Sullivan Award for 
Excellence in Science Journalism from the American Geophysical Union. In 
2016 she was named the 12th Janet Weis Fellow in Contemporary Letters at 
Bucknell University. She is also the recipient of the 2016 Sam Rose ’58 
and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental 
Activism. In 2017 she received the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American 
Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2019 she was the recipient of the Pell 
Center Prize for Story in the Public Square.

Elizabeth Kolbert’s stories have also appeared in The New York Times 
Magazine, Vogue, and Mother Jones, and have been anthologized in The 
Best American Science and Nature Writing and The Best American Political 
Writing. She edited The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009.  
A collection of her work, The Prophet of Love and Other Tales of Power 
and Deceit, was published in 2004. Prior to joining the staff of The New 
Yorker, Kolbert was a political reporter for The New York Times.
https://youtu.be/NVmHnncVd0U



[ known and important from the UN ]
*5 things you should know about the greenhouse gases warming the planet*
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109322



/[ Naomi Oreskes in 2019  video ]/
*Is Climate Change the End? And if so, the End of What?*
Mar 28, 2019
Case Western Reserve University
Naomi Oreskes
Presented by: The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities


[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming January 12, 2000*

January 12, 2000: The National Academy of Sciences issues a report 
indicating that "strong evidence exists to show that the warming of the 
Earth's surface is 'undoubtedly real,' and that surface temperatures in 
the past two decades have risen at a rate substantially greater than 
average for the past 100 years."

http://web.archive.org/web/20010726224601/http://clinton5.nara.gov/Initiatives/Climate/sciences.html 




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