[✔️] January 16, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sun Jan 16 08:40:25 EST 2022

/*January 16, 2022*/

/[ Satellite images of the eruption ] /
*Volcanic Eruption May Be Biggest Ever Seen From Space*
Jan 15, 2022

    You know there have certainly been cases in the past where a large
    volcanic
    eruptions have affected the climate for a few years
    The most recent and therefore most famous and well documented would be
    Mount Tambora which erupted in 1815 and triggered the year without
    summer.
    You know, essentially the amount of dust it threw into the
    atmosphere um combined
    with your cold temperatures and nucleation meant that you just had
    persistent low temperatures for a year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoMRwyNhqJ4

/[ Insurance speaks about the past year -- video ]/
*Munich Re Geoscientist on 2021 Disasters and Losses*
Jan 15, 2022
greenmanbucket
Munich Re is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, 
primary insurance and insurance-related risk solutions.
Ernst Rauch is Chief Climate and Geo-Scientist for Munich Re.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntj703dSNk4

/[  Ooops, another surprise that should not be  ] /
*More than 400 toxic sites in California are at risk of flooding from 
sea level rise*
NOV. 30, 2021
When Lucas Zucker talks about sea level rise in California, his first 
thoughts aren’t about waves crashing onto fancy homes in Orange County, 
nor the state’s most iconic beaches shrinking year after year.

What worries him most are the three power plants looming over the Oxnard 
coast, and the toxic waste site that has languished there for decades. 
There are also two naval bases, unknown military dumps and a 
smog-spewing port. Just one flood could unleash a flow of industrial 
chemicals and overwhelm his working-class, mostly Latino community...
- -
Armenta often starts with a presentation that maps the neighborhoods in 
Oakland that had been redlined in the 1930s. On the next slide, Armenta 
overlays a map showing all the toxic sites in the city. Then a map of 
all the neighborhoods that could be flooded by sea level rise.

“This is the crux of the problem,” Armenta said, noting the stark 
overlaps. “We have allowed certain populations to bear the brunt of the 
pollution of our industry, and because they’ve been vulnerable 
populations, we haven’t done anything about it.”
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2021-11-30/toxic-tides-sea-level-rise
- -
/[  common sense  ]/
*Toxic Tides*
Sea Level Rise, Hazardous Sites,
and Environmental Justice in California

Project Background
Over three feet of sea level rise (SLR) are expected by the end of the 
century if little is done to slow climate change. In California, the 
areas projected to experience flooding events by 2100 are home to 
145,000 residents, as well as at least 400 hazardous facilities 
including power plants, refineries, industrial facilities, and hazardous 
waste sites. SLR poses risks for such facilities experiencing flooding 
events that can potentially expose nearby residents to hazardous pollutants.

Because many of these facilities are disproportionately located in poor 
communities and communities of color, climate resilience strategies must 
address the disproportionate impacts of SLR and associated flooding 
threats faced by environmental justice communities.

Although prior research in California has focused on the risks of SLR to 
property, little work has holistically examined its environmental health 
and social equity implications statewide. With an adequate understanding 
of the intersection of SLR, hazardous facilities, and environmental 
justice, targeted action can prevent the most adverse impacts.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XUYYX_TEsOPK--3oA1LxcL1EFoeMm-a2/view
https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/toxictides

/[  eco-anxiety ]
/*Britt Wray: Post-doom with Michael Dowd*
Dec 23, 2020
thegreatstory
This post-doom conversation (recorded in Oct 2020) is with the broadly 
gifted Britt Wray. I highly recommend her "Gen Dread" newsletter: 
https://gendread.substack.com/
 From her website: "Britt Wray, PhD is a broadcaster and author 
researching the social and ethical entanglements of science and 
technology, with a focus on the planetary health crisis (the 
intersection of the health of the planet and the health of its people) 
and synthetic biology. Britt has a PhD in science communication from the 
University of Copenhagen and is the author of Rise of the Necrofauna: 
The Science, Ethics and Risks of De-Extinction (Greystone Books 2017). 
She has hosted several podcasts, radio & TV programs with the BBC and 
CBC, and is a TED Resident. Currently, Britt is writing a book about the 
mental health impacts of the climate and wider eco-crisis, which will be 
published by Knopf-Random House."
Britt's website: https://www.brittwray.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCq9YmwvWAM

/[    Brit Wray  video]/
*How climate change affects your mental health | Britt Wray*
Sep 20, 2019
TED
"For all that's ever been said about climate change, we haven't heard 
nearly enough about the psychological impacts of living in a warming 
world," says science writer Britt Wray. In this quick talk, she explores 
how climate change is threatening our well-being -- mental, social and 
spiritual -- and offers a starting point for what we can do about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IlDkCEvsYw

/[ As climate scientist Kevin Trenberth explains to reporter ...]/
*Ocean heat is at record levels, with major consequences*
Science Jan 14, 2022
The world witnessed record-breaking climate and weather disasters in 
2021, from destructive flash floods that swept through mountain towns in 
Europe and inundated subway systems in China and the U.S., to heat waves 
and wildfires. Typhoon Rai killed over 400 people in the Philippines; 
Hurricane Ida caused an estimated $74 billion in damage in the U.S.

Globally, it was the sixth hottest year on record for surface 
temperatures, according to data released by NASA and the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their annual global climate 
report on Jan. 13, 2022. But under the surface, ocean temperatures set 
new heat records in 2021.
As climate scientist Kevin Trenberth explains, while the temperature at 
Earth’s surface is what people experience day to day, the temperature in 
the upper part of the ocean is a better indicator of how excess heat is 
accumulating on the planet.

The Conversation spoke with Trenberth, coauthor of a study published on 
Jan. 11, 2022, by 23 researchers at 14 institutes that tracked warming 
in the world’s oceans.
- -
There is a lot more natural variability in surface air temperatures than 
in ocean temperatures because of El Niño/La Niña and weather events. 
That natural variability on top of a warming ocean creates hot spots, 
sometimes called “marine heat waves,” that vary from year to year. Those 
hot spots have profound influences on marine life, from tiny plankton to 
fish, marine mammals and birds. Other hot spots are responsible for more 
activity in the atmosphere, such as hurricanes.

While surface temperatures are both a consequence and a cause, the main 
source of the phenomena causing extremes relates to ocean heat that 
energizes weather systems.
- -
The slow penetration of heat downward means that oceans will continue to 
warm, and sea level will continue to rise even after greenhouse gases 
are stabilized.

The final area to pay attention to is the need to expand scientists’ 
ability to monitor changes in the oceans. One way we do this is through 
the Argo array – currently about 3,900 profiling floats that send back 
data on temperature and salinity from the surface to about 2,000 meters 
in depth, measured as they rise up and then sink back down, in ocean 
basins around the world. These robotic, diving and drifting instruments 
require constant replenishment and their observations are invaluable.
https://theconversation.com/ocean-heat-is-at-record-levels-with-major-consequences-174760
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/ocean-heat-is-at-record-levels-with-major-consequences

- -

/[  heating oceans ]/
Published: 11 January 2022
*Another Record: Ocean Warming Continues through 2021 despite La Niña 
Conditions*
Lijing Cheng, John Abraham, Kevin E. Trenberth, John Fasullo, Tim Boyer, 
Michael E. Mann, Jiang Zhu, Fan Wang, Ricardo Locarnini, Yuanlong Li, 
Bin Zhang, Zhetao Tan, Fujiang Yu, Liying Wan, Xingrong Chen, Xiangzhou 
Song, Yulong Liu, Franco Reseghetti, Simona Simoncelli, Viktor 
Gouretski, Gengxin Chen, Alexey Mishonov & Jim Reagan
Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (2022)

    *Abstract*
    The increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
    from human activities traps heat within the climate system and
    increases ocean heat content (OHC). Here, we provide the first
    analysis of recent OHC changes through 2021 from two international
    groups. The world ocean, in 2021, was the hottest ever recorded by
    humans, and the 2021 annual OHC value is even higher than last
    year’s record value by 14 ± 11 ZJ (1 zetta J = 1021 J) using the
    IAP/CAS dataset and by 16 ± 10 ZJ using NCEI/NOAA dataset. The
    long-term ocean warming is larger in the Atlantic and Southern
    Oceans than in other regions and is mainly attributed, via climate
    model simulations, to an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas
    concentrations. The year-to-year variation of OHC is primarily tied
    to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In the seven maritime
    domains of the Indian, Tropical Atlantic, North Atlantic, Northwest
    Pacific, North Pacific, Southern oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea,
    robust warming is observed but with distinct inter-annual to decadal
    variability. Four out of seven domains showed record-high heat
    content in 2021. The anomalous global and regional ocean warming
    established in this study should be incorporated into climate risk
    assessments, adaptation, and mitigation.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00376-022-1461-3

/
/

/- /[ clips from RollingStone ]/
/*GREENLAND MELTING*
GREENLAND’S ICE SHEETS ARE DISAPPEARING FASTER THAN ANYONE PREDICTED. 
CLIMATOLOGIST JASON BOX HAS A RADICAL THEORY WHY – AND EVEN MORE RADICAL 
IDEAS ABOUT UPENDING THE GLOBAL-WARMING SCIENCE ESTABLISHMENT.
BY JEFF GOODELL/
- -
/It’s hard to get your mind around how fast the Arctic is changing,” 
said Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University. 
According to NASA, Greenland and Antarctica are losing three times as 
much ice each year as they did in the 1990s. Summer sea-ice cover is 
half as big as it was from 1979 to 2000, and many scientists are 
predicting an ice-free Arctic by the end of the decade. Not so long 
ago, the Northwest Passage, the storied northern route from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific oceans, required an icebreaker ship to navigate it. This 
summer, people are attempting the passage in a sea kayak.

Ice is melting for a simple reason: “The Arctic is warming faster than 
any place on Earth,” says Konrad Steffen, a research scientist at the 
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. As the ice vanishes, the region’s 
albedo, or reflectivity, changes. “Snow is the most reflective substance 
known in nature,” says Painter. Clean, fresh snow reflects away about 90 
percent of the sunlight that hits it. But as the ice softens, its 
structure changes, lowering the reflectivity and absorbing more heat. As 
it melts away, more water and land are exposed, both of which are 
darker, and both of which absorb still more heat. This in turn melts 
more ice, creating a feedback loop that can accelerate quickly.

Of course, scientists have understood the basic physics of reflectivity 
for a long time. But the behavior of ice sheets, which are notoriously 
hard to capture with conventional climate models, can come very close to 
chaos theory – where small changes in the path of the jet stream or the 
amount of cloud cover can lead to enormous effects. The Great Melt of 
2012 was an example of this. “When it happened,” says Michael Mann, 
director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Penn State, “you had to 
wonder – what is missing from our models? Is there some basic physics 
that we don’t understand – or is there a human factor that we are not 
calculating, like the effects of soot on the snow?”

In Box’s view, glaciologists have spent too much time thinking about the 
physics of how glaciers move but not enough time thinking about how they 
melt, and how meltwater – those beautiful turquoise pools in Greenland 
glaciers – seeps down into crevasses and flows along the base, carrying 
heat with it, and accelerating the disintegration of the glacier. 
“Traditional glaciologists tend to be hard-ice guys,” says Box. “They’re 
not used to thinking about the connection between the atmosphere and 
ice, and how small changes in temperature and reflectivity can amplify 
over time.”..
- -
The idea that soot can have a powerful effect on the melt rate of snow 
and ice is not new. The godfather of global-warming science, James 
Hansen, explored the idea in a paper published in 2003, arguing that if 
soot reduced the reflectivity of Arctic ice by just two percent, it had 
the same effect on the melt rate of the glacier as a doubling of CO2 
concentrations in the atmosphere. What is new is Box’s attempt to link 
last summer’s Colorado and Canadian wildfires directly with the 2012 
meltdown in Greenland – to make a direct connection between a particular 
fire and a particular melting event.

But Box needed to get to Greenland immediately and measure the 
reflectivity of the glacier’s surface, as well as collect samples that 
may contain soot. Box reached out to the National Science Foundation, 
hoping to get enough funds – about $100,000 from federal research 
agencies – for a trip to Greenland to test his hypothesis. “It was too 
late,” says Painter. “All the research funds for the year were gone.”

For Box, it was just another example of the slowness and ineffectiveness 
of establishment science. “For most scientists, publishing a paper is a 
masturbatory act,” Box tells me. “A few people read it, you feel good, 
and then it’s over. It has no influence on policymakers; it does 
nothing to increase public understanding of what is happening to the 
climate system.”
That’s when he hatched the idea for Dark Snow, threw up a website and 
asked for donations to help him fund the research that would allow him 
to answer a simple question: “How much does wildfire and industrial soot 
darken snow, increasing melt?” By spring 2013, Box raised the money he 
needed (Jeremy Grantham, the British investor who has long warned that 
our fossil-fuel economy is unsustainable, kicked in $25,000). “It’s a 
sad commentary on the state of science funding in America when 
legitimate projects from respected scientists like Jason Box can’t get 
funded through the normal channels,” says Penn State’s Mann. “But I 
wouldn’t be surprised if we see a lot more privately funded climate 
research like this in the future.”.../
/

https://www.rollingstone.com/interactive/feature-greenland-melting/

- -

/[ OK the sun and planets affect the tides ]/
*Gravity From Sun and Moon Affects Behavior of Life on Earth, New Study*
Jan 15, 2022
Anton Petrov
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHHEJXoJPEU

/
/

// /[The news archive - looking back]/
*On this day in the history of global warming January  16, 2006*

January 16, 2006: At a speech in Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C., 
former Vice President Al Gore declares:

"[T]he American people, who have a right to believe that its elected 
representatives will learn the truth and act on the basis of knowledge 
and utilize the rule of reason, have been let down.

To take another example, scientific warnings about the catastrophic 
consequences of unchecked global warming were censored by a political 
appointee in the White House with no scientific training whatsoever.

"Today one of the most distinguished scientific experts in the world on 
global warming, who works in NASA, has been ordered not to talk to 
members of the press; ordered to keep a careful log of everyone he meets 
with so that the executive branch can monitor and control what he shares 
of his knowledge about global warming.

"This is a planetary crisis. We owe ourselves a truthful and reasoned 
discussion."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/16/AR2006011600779.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD_2e1dIl2s

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

   Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only.  It does not carry 
images or attachments which may originate from remote servers.  A 
text-only message can provide greater privacy to the receiver and 
sender. This is a hobby production curated by Richard Pauli
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain cannot be used for commercial 
purposes. Messages have no tracking software.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.