[✔️] January 13, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*January 13, 2022*/

/[ Serious heat and a power outage  ]/
*Buenos Aires hits 106 degrees amid severe South American heat wave*
It’s the second-highest temperature recorded in the Argentine capital in 
115 years, and 700,000 people there have lost power
A multi-day heat wave is gripping parts of central South America, 
bringing record warmth to several large cities. Parts of Argentina are 
about 25 degrees above normal, while Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia are 
experiencing unusual warmth. Excess strain on power grids has caused 
widespread outages, leaving 700,000 people in the Argentine capital 
without electricity. The heat wave doesn’t appear to be letting up until 
this weekend.

The heat has been unusually pronounced for more than two weeks in 
Argentina, where temperatures topped 100 degrees to round out December. 
Areas south of the equator are experiencing summer at present, but 
readings are still wildly off base for what would typically be observed 
this time of year...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/2YM65BAJ5BBKTPVCS25CMRNPMU.png&w=916
Unlike in many North American heat waves, relative humidities across 
central Argentina were very low. That meant the air where the hottest 
conditions were ongoing was bone dry.

In scorching environments characterized by dry conditions, people 
outdoors won’t actively notice sweat accumulating on their bodies — 
instead, the atmosphere will evaporate it before it can collect, 
desiccating an individual before they even notice they’re dry. That 
makes the heat especially dangerous..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/01/12/buenos-aires-hits-106-degrees-amid-severe-south-american-heat-wave/



/[ yes, awareness increasing ]/
*Record number of Americans alarmed about climate crisis, report finds*
Study finds that Americans overall are becoming increasingly worried 
about global heating and more engaged with the issue
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/13/record-number-americans-alarmed-about-climate-crisis



/[ Calling all movie fans for perhaps the best, most authentic 
conversation -- Dave Roberts and Adam McKay -- audio podcast  - smart - 
see the movie first] /
*Volts podcast: "Don't Look Up" director Adam McKay on the challenges of 
making movies about climate change*
David Roberts
Jan 12, 2022
The film Don’t Look Up, available on Netflix as of late last month, has 
become something of a phenomenon. It has drawn wildly varying, often 
quite personal and intense, critical responses. Its critics’ score on 
Rotten Tomatoes is just 55 percent.

But climate scientists loved it. I loved it. And the public loved it. 
Its audience score is 78 percent. In the week of December 27, it broke a 
Netflix record, with more than 152 million hours of streaming. As of 
this week, it the second biggest movie ever on the streaming service 
(just behind Red Notice, just ahead of Bird Box).

Audiences have ignored critics and embraced the film, which is not 
something you’d necessarily predict for a thinly veiled climate change 
allegory about the difficulty of grappling with bad news in today’s 
information environment, especially one with such a (spoiler alert) 
bleak ending.

It’s not the first successful curveball thrown by its writer and 
director, Adam McKay. McKay first made a name for himself as head writer 
on Saturday Night Live. In the early 2000s, he formed a production 
company with partner Will Ferrell and wrote and directed a string of 
beloved comedies, from 2004’s Anchorman through 2010’s The Other Guys.

But in 2015, he took a turn, writing and directing an adaptation of 
Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short, about the 2008 subprime mortgage 
crisis. It, too, was an unexpected hit, scoring McKay an Academy Award 
for adapted screenplay. His 2018 film Vice, about Dick Cheney, scored 
Oscar nominations for picture, director, and original screenplay.

He has demonstrated that, despite what the chattering class often seems 
to believe, audiences are hungry to confront real issues. All along, he 
has wanted to find a way to make a movie about climate change. With 
Don’t Look Up, he finally figured out how.

I’m delighted to get a chance to talk to him, to hear about what he 
makes of the movie’s critical reception, what his other ideas for 
climate movies are, and how he navigates the politics of speaking out on 
serious issues from inside Hollywood....
/[ hear the interview at:  ]/
https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dont-look-up-director?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMzY4NzE5OSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDY4Mjk2NTgsIl8iOiJyNzJObSIsImlhdCI6MTY0MjAzNzAyNCwiZXhwIjoxNjQyMDQwNjI0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTkzMDI0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.NRqnQ_V2YValdLQ3cP8ZFKL0qdl0IJ4VtkgP0-NNUCI&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#play


*
*


/ [ clips from Yale Climate Connections ]/*
**The top 10 global weather and climate change events of 2021*
The most extreme heat wave in modern history, a record four $20 
billion-plus weather disasters, and the hottest month on record globally 
highlighted a remarkable year in weather and climate.
by JEFF MASTERS -- JAN 11, 2022
The year 2021 made an indelible mark in the annals of weather history. 
Not only did it feature the most extreme heat wave in history – the late 
June heat wave over western North America that smashed all-time records 
by unprecedented margins – it was also the first year to record four 
weather mega-disasters costing over $20 billion each, as seen in Figure 
1 and Figure 2.
https://i0.wp.com/yaleclimateconnections.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/0122_megadisasters-1980-2021.jpg?w=1108&ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/yaleclimateconnections.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/0122_billion-dollar-disaster-list-1980-2021b.jpg?w=974&ssl=1
A total of eight extreme weather events were ranked in the top ten; in 
addition, there were two concerning climate change discoveries that may 
presage serious future challenges. Below is a list of the top-10 weather 
and climate change events of 2021, as rated by the impacts on humans 
and/or meteorological significance.

*1. The most extreme heat wave in world history*
Never in the century-plus history of world weather observation have so 
many all-time heat records fallen by such a large margin than in the 
historic late-June 2021 heat wave in western North America. The intense 
heat wave was the second-deadliest weather disaster of the year, with 
1,037 deaths: 808 in western Canada and 229 in the northwestern U.S. The 
only deadlier weather disaster of 2021 was summer monsoon flooding in 
India that claimed 1,292 lives, according to insurance broker Aon.

*Two examples of the insane extremity of the heat wave:*
*-- Canada *broke its all-time national temperature record on three 
consecutive days at Lytton, British Columbia, which topped out at a 
stunning 49.6°C (121°F) on June 29 – a day before the town burned down 
in a ferocious wildfire fed by the extreme heat. The old Canadian heat 
record was 8°F cooler, 45.0°C (113°F) on July 5, 1937.

*--  Quillayute, Washington, *broke its all-time high by a truly 
astonishing 11°F, after hitting 110°F on June 29 (old record: 99°F on 
August 9, 1981). Quillayute is located near the lush Hoh Rain Forest on 
the Olympic Peninsula, just three miles from the Pacific Ocean, and 
receives an average of 100 inches of precipitation per year...
- -
“This was the most anomalous regional extreme heat event to occur 
anywhere on Earth since temperature records began. Nothing can compare,” 
said weather historian Christopher Burt, author of the book Extreme 
Weather, in an email. Pointing to Lytton, Canada, he added, “There has 
never been a national heat record in a country with an extensive period 
of record and a multitude of observation sites that was beaten by 7°F to 
8°F.” International weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera 
(@extremetemps) agreed. “What we are seeing now is totally unprecedented 
worldwide,” said Herrera, who tweeted on June 30, “It’s an endless 
waterfall of records being smashed.”

According to Herrera, more all-time heat records were broken by at least 
five degrees Celsius (9°F) in during the heatwave than in the previous 
85-plus years of world weather recordkeeping, going back to July 1936, 
when the hottest summer in U.S. history brought the previous most 
extreme heatwave in world history. It’s worth noting that the record 
North American heat of the 1930s, including 1936, was largely connected 
to the Dust Bowl, in which the effects of a multiyear drought were 
amplified by over-plowed, denuded soil across the Great Plains – an 
example of human-induced climate change itself, albeit temporary.

A rapid-response study from the World Weather Attribution program found 
that the daily high temperatures observed in a study area encompassing 
much of western Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia during June 
2021 would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate 
change.” The study estimated it was roughly a 1-in-1000-year event in 
today’s climate, but in a world with 2 degrees Celsius of global warming 
(0.8 degree Celsius warmer than today, which, at current emission 
levels, would be reached as early as the 2040s), an event like this 
could occur roughly every five to 10 years.
*
**2. Hurricane Ida: fifth-costliest weather disaster in world history 
($65 billion)*
Hurricane Ida made landfall at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on August 29 as 
a category 4 storm with 150 mph winds. Ida moved up the U.S. East Coast 
and unleashed a devastating flood event over much of the mid-Atlantic 
and Northeast. Aon estimated Ida’s damages at $65 billion, making it the 
fifth-most expensive weather disaster in world history. NOAA’s estimate 
was $75 billion...
*
**3. European summer floods: costliest weather disaster in European 
history ($43 billion)*
Europe’s deadliest flood since 1985 struck western Germany and eastern 
Belgium July 12-18, when a stalled low-pressure system dumped torrential 
rains that killed 240 people and caused $43 billion in damage, according 
to Aon (note that EM-DAT had lower damages: $22 billion). The flood 
ranks as the costliest weather disaster in European history.

A rapid-response study from the World Weather Attribution program found 
that the likelihood of such an extreme one-day rainfall event has 
increased by a factor between 1.2 and 9 because of human-caused global 
warming.
*
**4. Flooding in China: third-costliest weather disaster in Asian 
history ($30 billion)*
An extreme rainfall event of nearly unimaginable intensity hit 
Zhengzhou, China, on July 20, which recorded an astonishing 644.6 mm 
(25.38 inches) of rain in 24 hours. This is literally more than a year’s 
worth of rain: Its average annual precipitation (1981-2010 climatology) 
is only 640.9 mm (25.23 inches).

Flooding in China during the June-through-September rainy season killed 
347 people, damaged or destroyed 1.4 million homes and businesses, and 
did $30 billion in damage, according to Aon and EM-DAT. EM-DAT ranks 
that total as the third-most expensive non-U.S. weather disaster since 
accurate records began in 1990 (adjusted for inflation), behind 1998 
flooding in China ($48 billion) and 2011 flooding in Thailand ($47 billion).

In a September 2020 study published in the Bulletin of the American 
Meteorological Society, “Each 0.5°C of Warming Increases Annual Flood 
Losses in China by More than US$60 Billion,” researchers found that 
annual average flood losses in China during the period 1984-2018 were 
$19.2 billion (2015 dollars), which was 0.5% of China’s GDP. Annual 
flood losses increased to $25.3 billion annually during the period 
2006-2018. The study authors predicted that each additional 0.5 degree 
Celsius of global warming will increase China flood losses by $60 
billion per year.

*5. February cold wave in central U.S.: second-costliest winter weather 
disaster in world history ($23 billion)*
A disastrous winter weather onslaught over the central U.S. brought 
heavy snow, freezing rain, and severe cold to Texas and surrounding 
states February 12-20, killing 246 people and causing $23 billion in 
damage. One result: the most expensive winter weather disaster in U.S. 
history (previous record: $10.1 billion in 2021 dollars from the 1993 
“Storm of the Century” in the eastern U.S.) Globally, the only costlier 
winter weather disaster was a $26 billion event in 2008 in China.

Extreme cold has become less common as a result of global warming, so 
it’s reasonable to expect that disasters of this nature are growing less 
likely. As documented by meteorologist Guy Walton, record high maximum 
temperatures outpaced record low minimum temperatures by a ratio of 
nearly three to one in the U.S. in 2021.

Climate scientist Judah Cohen led a 2021 study demonstrating that the 
2021 Texas freeze was a result of a stratospheric polar vortex 
disruption where it stretched like a rubber band or taffy. For the 
months of October through February, these stretched polar vortex events 
have roughly doubled since 1980. The increase has been attributed to 
reduced Arctic sea ice and increased snowfall across Siberia during the 
fall months – largely from human-caused climate change.
*
**6. July 2021: Earth’s warmest month in recorded history*
July 2021 was Earth’s hottest July since global record-keeping began in 
1880, 0.93 degrees Celsius (1.67°F) above the 20th-century average, 
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information reported. Since 
July is also the hottest month of the seasonal cycle, that meant that 
July 2021 was “more likely than not the warmest month on record for the 
globe since 1880,” NOAA said. July 2021 was just 0.01 degree Celsius 
hotter than July of 2016, 2019, and 2020, so these months can be 
considered to be in a statistical tie for Earth’s hottest month on record.

The record July warmth was particularly remarkable since there was a 
moderate La Niña event in the Eastern Pacific that ended in May 2021. La 
Niña events typically cause global cooling of about 0.1 degree Celsius; 
the peak cooling occurs five months after the La Niña peak, on average. 
July 2021 temperatures would have been even warmer had a La Niña event 
not occurred earlier in the year.

During the month, Death Valley National Park’s Furnace Creek Visitor 
Center in California (U.S.) hit an astonishing 130.0 degrees Fahrenheit 
(54.4°C) on July 9, beating the previous all-time world record for 
hottest reliably measured temperature of 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit 
(54.4°C), set at the same location on August 16, 2020. As explained in 
our post on the record, the official world record remains 134 degrees 
Fahrenheit at Furnace Creek in 1913, but this record has been strongly 
disputed as invalid.

*7. Danger signs: a key Atlantic Ocean current system is near collapse*
The climate over the past few thousand years has been unusually stable, 
helping bring about the rise of modern civilization. However, ice core 
studies reveal that the “normal” climate for Earth is one of frequent 
extreme jumps – like a light switch flicking on and off. So it is 
incorrect to think that global warming will lead to a slow and steady 
increase in temperature that humans can readily adapt to. Global warming 
could push the climate system past a threshold where a sudden, 
irreversible climate shift would occur.

That outcome would most likely happen if the increased precipitation and 
glacial meltwater from global warming flood the North Atlantic with 
enough fresh water to slow down or even halt the Atlantic Meridional 
Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which transports warm, salty water from 
the tropics to the North Atlantic and sends cold water to the south 
along the ocean floor. The mighty Gulf Stream current forms the portion 
of the AMOC that runs along the U.S. East Coast. If the AMOC were to 
shut down, the Gulf Stream would no longer pump warm, tropical water to 
the North Atlantic. Average temperatures would cool in Europe and North 
America by three degrees Celsius (5°F) or more in just a few years – not 
enough to trigger a full-fledged ice age, but enough cooling to bring 
snows in June and killing frosts in July and August to New England and 
northern Europe, such as occurred in the famed 1816 “year without a 
summer.” In addition, shifts in the jet stream pattern would bring about 
severe droughts and damaging floods in regions unaccustomed to such 
events, greatly straining global food and water supplies.

A study published in August 2021 looked at eight independent measures of 
the AMOC, and found that all eight showed early warning signs that the 
ocean current system may be nearing collapse. “The AMOC may have evolved 
from relatively stable conditions to a point close to a critical 
transition,” the authors wrote.

*8. A wild 2021 Atlantic hurricane season*
The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season generated an extraordinary 21 named 
storms (third highest on record), seven hurricanes, four major 
hurricanes, and an accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) of 145. Those 
numbers compare with the 1991-2020 averages for an entire season of 14.4 
named storms, 7.2 hurricanes, 3.2 major hurricanes, and an ACE index of 
123. As documented by Brian McNoldy, Senior Research Associate at 
University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric 
Science, 2021 marked the sixth consecutive year with an ACE index above 
129: “this has never happened before, not during the satellite era, not 
since records began in 1851. This sustained level of tropical cyclone 
activity in the Atlantic is unprecedented even for four years, let alone 
six!”

Eight named storms made landfall in the contiguous U.S. in 2021, ranking 
as the third highest on record, behind 2020 (11) and 1916 (nine). The 
two-year period 2020-2021 had a truly astonishing 19 landfalls in the 
contiguous U.S., six times the average for a two-year period, and 
beating the previous two-year landfall record of 15, set in 2004-2005. 
 From 1950 through 2020, the U.S. averaged just three landfalling 
tropical storms (with one a hurricane) per year.

*9. Two unprecedented December U.S. tornado and severe weather outbreaks*
A week of stunning record warmth in the U.S. Midwest in mid-December led 
to two unprecedented severe weather outbreaks. The first outbreak, on 
December 10, was the nation’s deadliest and most damaging on record for 
any December, with at least 90 fatalities and a record 69 confirmed 
tornadoes, chiefly across western and central Kentucky. Preliminary 
insured damage estimates are $3-$5 billion, and total economic damages 
will be much higher.

Then, on December 15, the record set just five days previously was 
smashed, as a massive cyclone whipped across the central U.S., spawning 
EF2 tornadoes as far north as Minnesota and Wisconsin – an outbreak 
unprecedented for December in its northward extent and in the total 
number of twisters confirmed (a total of 100, one of the largest one-day 
outbreaks on record for any time of year).

*10. Bad news from a key glacier in Antarctica*
Scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration in 
December announced their discovery of cracks and fissures in the 
floating ice shelf buttressing West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier. They 
predicted that the ice shelf could fracture in as little as five years, 
allowing for accelerated melting of the Thwaites Glacier, which 
currently contributes four percent of annual global sea level rise.

In a worst-case scenario, fracturing of the ice shelf would allow part 
of Thwaites Glacier to triple in speed, increasing the glacier’s 
contribution to global sea level rise to 5% in the short term. In the 
long term, loss of the ice shelf buttressing the Thwaites Glacier could 
lead to its rapid disintegration over a period of decades or centuries, 
resulting in the loss of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and an 
increase in global sea levels of about 10 feet. However, the speed with 
which that disintegration might occur is highly uncertain.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/01/the-top-10-global-weather-and-climate-change-events-of-2021/

/
/

/[ headlines say it all -- in Foreign Policy  ]/
*What if Democracy and Climate Mitigation Are Incompatible?*
Elected officials work through compromise, but a warming planet waits 
for no one.
By Cameron Abadi
JANUARY 7, 2022 ...
- -
The tensions between existing methods of democracy and the problem posed 
by climate change are perfectly legible in domestic politics but most 
evident in international politics.
- -
As government fails to meet the task of stopping climate change, other 
players, beyond the typical boundaries of politics, are naturally 
stepping into their place. Precisely to the extent that democratic 
politics poses barriers to solving climate change, it has increased the 
appeal of radical politics as an alternative. If special interests have 
captured the democratic process, radicals propose to break the impasse 
in two ways: by giving the broader public greater incentive to 
themselves steer policymaking and by curtailing that process altogether 
in a way that keeps it in the hands of technocratic elites, including 
central bankers and constitutional judges...
- -
That the world’s democracies are witnessing a growing spectrum of 
climate radicalism, both from the bottom up and the top down, is not to 
suggest that authoritarian systems would do any better in solving the 
relevant political and economic issues involved in moving beyond the 
carbon economy. But it is a sign that democracy, in its current form, is 
not necessarily the path to a solution. It might, instead, be part of 
the problem.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/07/climate-change-democracy/



/[  WaPo reports ] /
*Warming permafrost puts key Arctic pipelines, roads at ‘high risk,’ 
study says*
Nearly 70 percent of the infrastructure in the Northern Hemisphere’s 
permafrost regions are located in areas that could have near-surface 
thaw by 2050, researchers project
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/11/permafrost-melting-arctic/



/[  time to learn about Hyperobjects - audio podcast ]/
*DON’T LOOK UP, Hyperobjects, and How to Make People Look Up*
Jan 8, 2022
THIS IS THE END Podcast
Source: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fbate-1173811

Since the very day of its release, Don’t Look Up has been spurring 
intense discussion and debate about its symbolic depiction of climate 
change as an existential threat, and the struggle of climate activists 
to get governments and people to mobilize and take action against it. In 
this episode, I explain why it is so difficult for people to understand 
the urgency of the threat, and what we must do to rectify this before 
it’s too late.

LINKS:
Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate 
Change, by George Marshall
https://amzn.to/3GaZqbJ

“At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down.”
https://www.wired.com/story/timothy-morton-hyperobjects-all-the-way-down/ $

Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, by 
Timothy Morton
https://amzn.to/3teUyPf

Being Ecological, by Timothy Morton
https://amzn.to/3r1p38w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKeQjFn-DI


/[How does the Oort Cloud apply to climate science?  Totally by the 
movie  "Don't Look Up" ]/
*The Oort Cloud | The Solar System's Shell*
Oct 16, 2020
SEA
What lies at the very furthest recesses of the Solar System? Far beyond 
the orbit of Neptune and the Kuiper Belt, deep into interstellar space, 
lies a vast, thick shell of icy space debris. We have never seen it 
directly, but we know it exists- because it is the source of the most 
distant comets that we see entering the Solar System. Why is it there? 
Today we'll find out; in a new episode of #OOTW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4mc-alL92U




/[ View data in a map NYTimes ]/
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


/[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming January  13, 2012*

January 13, 2012: Brad Plumer of the Washington Post notes:

  "When it comes to climate change, fossil fuels nab most of the 
headlines. But a new study suggests the world should also pay closer 
attention to smaller steps to curb soot and methane. In fact, those 
measures could make all the difference in whether the world makes or 
misses its climate targets...Now, in terms of warming the planet, carbon 
dioxide — the byproduct of burning coal, oil, and natural gas — is still 
the most important man-made driver. But methane and black carbon (soot) 
also play a large, if less-appreciated role. Soot particles, for 
instance, absorb radiation from the sun and can hasten the melting of 
snow and ice cover when they fall to the ground. Some scientists think 
that soot is accelerating ice melt in the Arctic. What’s more, because 
methane and soot cycle out of the air fairly rapidly (soot can wash out 
in a matter of days), clamping down on these pollutants would have an 
immediate impact."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/buying-some-time-on-climate-change-with-methane-and-soot/2012/01/13/gIQAQoDrwP_blog.html?utm_term=.5e2a44f15555 




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