[✔️] May 18, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 18, 2022*/

/[  thermometer measurements ..] /
*Deep ocean warming as climate changes*
by University of Exeter
MAY 17, 2022

Much of the "excess heat" stored in the subtropical North Atlantic is in 
the deep ocean (below 700m), new research suggests.

Oceans have absorbed about 90% of warming caused by humans. The study 
found that in the subtropical North Atlantic (25°N), 62% of the warming 
from 1850-2018 is held in the deep ocean.

The researchers—from the University of Exeter and the University of 
Brest—estimate that the deep ocean will warm by a further 0.2°C in the 
next 50 years.

Ocean warming can have a range of consequences including sea-level rise, 
changing ecosystems, currents and chemistry, and deoxygenation.

"As our planet warms, it's vital to understand how the excess heat taken 
up by the ocean is redistributed in the ocean interior all the way from 
the surface to the bottom, and it is important to take into account the 
deep ocean to assess the growth of Earth's 'energy imbalance'," said Dr. 
Marie-José Messias, from the University of Exeter.

"As well as finding that the deep ocean is holding much of this excess 
heat, our research shows how ocean currents redistribute heat to 
different regions.

"We found that this redistribution was a key driver of warming in the 
North Atlantic."

The researchers studied the system of currents known as the Atlantic 
Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

AMOC works like a conveyer belt, carrying warm water from the tropics 
north—where colder, dense water sinks into the deep ocean and spreads 
slowly south.

The findings highlight the importance of warming transferring by AMOC 
from one region to another.

Dr. Messias said excess heat from the Southern Hemisphere oceans is 
becoming important in the North Atlantic—now accounting for about a 
quarter of excess heat.

The study used temperature records and chemical "tracers"—compounds 
whose make-up can be used to discover past changes in the ocean.

The paper, published in the Nature journal Communications Earth & 
Environment, is entitled: "The redistribution of anthropogenic excess 
heat is a key driver of warming in the North Atlantic."
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-deep-ocean-climate.html



/[ huge prediction from NOVA ]/
*A major Atlantic current is at a critical transition poin*t
New evidence suggests that the larger system the Gulf Stream is part of 
is approaching a tipping point that could cause dramatic shifts in 
global weather patterns.
BY KARA NORTON --  FEBRUARY 17, 2022...
- -
Climate scientists are still unsure what threshold of carbon dioxide in 
the atmosphere would cause the AMOC to shut down. “The only thing to do 
is keep emissions as low as possible,” Boers told The Guardian. “The 
likelihood of this extremely high-impact event happening increases with 
every gram of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/amoc-shutdown-gulf-stream-climate/

- -

/[ bookmark this useful page to see data]/
*Earth NullSchool is a visualization of global weather conditions*
forecast by supercomputers updated every three hours..
https://earth.nullschool.net/

- -

/[ another important web page for visualizing data]/
*Climate Reanalyzer *is a platform for visualizing climate and weather 
datasets.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/

- -

/[ now considered a rhetorical question from Carbon Brief ]/
*Guest post: Could the Atlantic Overturning Circulation ‘shut down’?*
  11 February 2020
see the map 
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/MOC_cartoon_2.png
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-could-the-atlantic-overturning-circulation-shut-down/

- -

/[ another key study understanding future risk ]/
*Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Atlantic 
Meridional Overturning Circulation*

    Abstract
    The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major
    ocean current system transporting warm surface waters toward the
    northern Atlantic, has been suggested to exhibit two distinct modes
    of operation. A collapse from the currently attained strong to the
    weak mode would have severe impacts on the global climate system and
    further multi-stable Earth system components. Observations and
    recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a
    gradual weakening during the last decades, but estimates of the
    critical transition point remain uncertain. Here, a robust and
    general early-warning indicator for forthcoming critical transitions
    is introduced. Significant early-warning signals are found in eight
    independent AMOC indices, based on observational sea-surface
    temperature and salinity data from across the Atlantic Ocean basin.
    These results reveal spatially consistent empirical evidence that,
    in the course of the last century, the AMOC may have evolved from
    relatively stable conditions to a point close to a critical transition.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01097-4



/[ Clips from a NYTimes opinion  ] /
*Can You Even Call Deadly Heat ‘Extreme’ Anymore?*
David Wallace-Wells
May 17, 2022
It doesn’t take the end of the world to upend the way billions live in 
it. The punishing weather we are uneasily learning to call “normal” is 
doing that already.

Late last month, a heat wave swallowed South Asia, bringing temperatures 
to more than a billion people — one-fifth of the entire human population 
— 10 degrees warmer than the one imagined in the opening pages of Kim 
Stanley Robinson’s celebrated climate novel, “The Ministry for the 
Future,” where a similar event on the subcontinent quickly kills 20 
million. It is now weeks later, and the heat wave is still continuing. 
Real relief probably won’t come before the monsoons in June.

Mercifully, according to the young science of “heat death,” air moisture 
is as important as temperature for triggering human mortality, and when 
thermometers hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit in India and 120 in Pakistan in 
April, the humidity was quite low. But even so, in parts of India, 
humidity was still high enough that if the day’s peak moisture had 
coincided with its peak heat, the combination would have produced 
“wet-bulb temperatures” — which integrate measures of both into a single 
figure — already at or past the limit for human survivability. Birds 
fell dead from the sky.

In Pakistan, the heat melted enough of the Shipsher glacier to produce 
what’s called a “glacial lake outburst flood,” destroying two power 
stations and the historic Hassanabad Bridge, on the road to China...
- -
But just as remarkable as the intensity and duration of the South Asian 
heat wave is the fact that it is, already, not much of an anomaly at all.

We want to call events like this “extreme,” but technically we can’t, 
“because they’re not rare anymore,” Friederike Otto told me, from 
London, just as the heat wave reached its April peak...
- -
When sociologists talk about “shifting baseline syndrome,” they mean we 
tend to base expectations for the future on our memory of the recent 
past. But just five years ago, it was exceedingly rare for more than a 
million acres to burn in a California wildfire season; today the record 
is 4.3 million acres, and in four of the past five years more than 1.5 
million acres burned in the state alone. Over the past decade, extreme 
heat events have grown 90 times more common, according to one study, 
compared with a baseline of frequency between 1950 and 1980.

This shift is not just disorienting to lay people. The supercomputer 
math gets tricky, too, when warming moves so fast that any climate 
baseline extends for only a few years...
- -
When anomalies arrive every day, the eye-popping extremes are even more 
so. The one I keep returning to is this chart.
             https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/1508392075737415680
That red dot is a temperature reading at Concordia station in 
Antarctica, taken on March 18, that was 38.5 degrees Celsius — almost 70 
degrees Fahrenheit — above average. It was 20 degrees Celsius above the 
previous March record. On the graph of historical temperatures, it is 
high enough above the band marking all readings ever recorded there that 
it looks less like the sign of a warming planet than proof we’ve already 
landed on another one.

In a certain way, we have: A little more than one degree of global 
warming may not sound like much, but it means that the planet is already 
warmer today than at any point in the history of human civilization — 
warmer than any world any human has ever known. In that kind of world, 
which is ours, global averages often flatten and obscure as much as they 
illuminate. A 70-degree anomaly in New York City would be 122 degrees 
Fahrenheit in March, 134 in April and 142 in May. In Rio de Janeiro, it 
would be above 150; in New Delhi, perhaps 170.

Of course, these comparisons aren’t fair ones. The temperature anomaly 
was not observed in those other places, and no one expects anomalies of 
that scale to be seen on any part of the planet dense with people. The 
Antarctic, which is warming three times as fast as the world as a whole, 
is an extreme place to begin with, with much larger temperature 
variabilities than in the places where anyone actually lives, and even a 
day 70 degrees warmer than normal didn’t bring the thermometer above 
freezing. In fact, I’ve often thought that we tended to hear too much 
about the Arctic and Antarctic — that a rhetorical focus on the poles 
suggested things might be all right, relatively speaking, down in the 
mid-latitudes and tropics — and didn’t give enough weight to warming as 
an all-encompassing metanarrative for the human century to come...
- -
Lately, that future landscape has started to look a little less hot, as 
well. We used to say “business as usual” and mean a future of four or 
even five degrees of warming. Now, thanks to a global political 
awakening and dizzying technological progress with renewables, we say it 
and mean three.

This is good news, of course, so far as it goes. But it also all means 
that we are living in the midst of some profound narrative confusion. 
Apocalypse may no longer seem quite as close at hand, but climate 
disruption is here now, distributed as though it was designed to deepen 
global injustice. At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the global promise 
was to avoid “dangerous” warming. At that, we’ve transparently failed, 
since dangerous climate change isn’t just here already — it is growing 
increasingly commonplace.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/opinion/india-heat-wave-pakistan-climate-change.html



/[  Video   Australian information to it's voters on May 21] /
*How to vote for climate!*
May 16, 2022  Here are some further resources to help 👇
https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/
https://voteearthnow.com/
https://www.climate200.com.au/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxbuX11RZxA



[ Architects are always showing off their dreams ]
*7 Surprising Facts About the World’s First Floating City*
 From recycled waste to revolutionary building materials, sustainability 
is at the center of this Bjarke Ingels Group–assisted model for climate 
resiliency
By Tim Nelson
May 14, 2022

 From California to Copenhagen, cities are taking steps to stay above 
water. But as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group projects that 
rising sea levels of at least half a meter (roughly 1.6 feet) will 
affect 800 million city dwellers by 2050, addressing climate change will 
clearly require some unexpected and unconventional ideas.

Enter Oceanix Busan, a recently unveiled design for what would function 
as a sustainable floating neighborhood just off the coast of the major 
South Korean port city. The modular project will utilize a wide array of 
sustainable materials and methods in an effort to foster a 
self-sustaining human habitat capable of coping with any rise in sea 
level. Here’s a closer look at some of what makes this offshore project 
so groundbreaking.

*Three platforms, three purposes*

Oceanix Busan’s initial design calls for three interconnected platforms, 
connected to land via bridges, each with a distinct function. There’s a 
Lodging Platform, which offers guest rooms with sweeping harbor views, 
shopping, dining, and other communal spaces. A Research Platform 
features a temperature-controlled garden space, including hydroponic 
towers that will grow the floating city’s food. Finally the Living 
Platform is where full-time inhabitants reside and gather.

*There’s room to expand*

The initial Oceanix blueprint calls for 15.5 acres of platform space 
with room for 12,000 people. But just as it’s designed to rise with sea 
levels, its rather modular footprint can grow to accommodate 100,000 
people across a total of 20 platforms.

*It’s built using material that grows*

A key material in the Oceanix Busan platforms—which will be anchored to 
the seabed—is Biorock. Often used to help repair damage to coral reefs 
and reinvigorate aquatic ecosystems, Biorock essentially absorbs 
minerals from seawater to naturally form a limestone coating that’s not 
only multiple times stronger than typical concrete, but is also 
self-sustaining and self-repairing over time. Add in the fact that 
Biorock actually absorbs a bit of carbon dioxide, and it’s easy to see 
why this sustainable material plays an essential role in the project.
Sustainability meets circularity

Oceanix Busan is designed to let nothing go to waste. The project will 
employ closed-loop systems that (re)harvest, filter, and reuse water. 
Other waste will be harnessed for use as agricultural feedstock and 
eco-friendly forms of energy. On-site solar and wind power will also 
allow for self-reliance with regards to electricity, though the 
platforms are connected to the local power grid as a backup.

*New city, new mobility*

Although connection to solid ground grants access to an on-land subway 
station, traditional cars and trains aren’t how residents will navigate 
the platforms themselves. In addition to movement on foot or biking, 
Oceanix promises “shared and multimodal mobility,” which could include 
something akin to aquatic buses, if renderings on the project’s website 
are any indication.
It takes a village to float a city

Though Oceanix gets top billing for this Busan project, the project is 
quite the collaborative effort. In addition to working with the city of 
Busan itself, help came from the UN Human Settlements Programme (a.k.a. 
UN-Habitat, which has been looking into floating cities since 2019), 
Bjarke Ingels Group, the Samsung subsidiary Samoo Architects and 
Engineers, and Arup. That’s not to mention input from aquatic experts at 
the Korea Maritime and Ocean University, the MIT Center for Ocean 
Engineering, and the Global Coral Reef Alliance.

*It’s not the only floating project in the works**
*
Although Oceanix Busan is eye-catching and innovative, it’s but one 
facet of a global effort to future-proof cities and countries as sea 
levels rise. In Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Powerhouse Company recently 
completed a floating office. In the Maldives, where rising sea levels 
pose a truly existential threat to the island nation, construction on a 
floating city project will start this year.

Currently, Oceanix Busan is in the permitting stage. Once that’s 
handled, construction on the $627-million project is expected to begin 
in 2023, with a goal of finishing before the end of 2025.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/surprising-facts-worlds-first-floating-city


[ disinformation analysis -- a video ]
*Think Tanks: How Fake Experts Shape the News*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n3Hq7XSBjA



/[The news archive - looking back at important events ]/
/*May 18, 2013*/
Brad Plumer of the Washington Post points to the cultural factors that 
fuel climate-change denial:

"[P]eople tend to arrive at these debates with their own pre-existing 
cultural values. If you're not already inclined to accept the values 
that typically accompany belief in climate change -- and if you're not 
predisposed to agree with all the people who like to talk about climate 
change -- then you're probably not going to change your mind just 
because the media says there's an expert consensus."

    *Scientists agree on climate change. So why doesn’t everyone else?*
    Analysis by Brad Plumer
    May 18, 2013
    Here's a finding that shouldn't be all that surprising: Since 1991,
    roughly 97 percent of all published scientific papers that take a
    position on the question agree that humans are warming the planet.

    That stat comes from this extensive new survey led by John Cook and
    Dana Nuccitelli, who run the Skeptical Science website. And it
    builds on earlier studies finding the exact same thing.

    The authors sifted through 11,944 climate-related abstracts over the
    past two decades and found that 66.4 percent of papers took no
    explicit stance on whether humans are warming the planet (i.e., that
    wasn't the main focus of these papers). Another 32.6 percent stated
    that humans are indeed warming the planet, while just 0.7 percent
    rejected that view. Cook and Nuccitelli combined those last two
    numbers to say that 97 percent of papers that took an actual stand
    on whether humans are warming the planet answered "yes."

    Fair enough. But it's worth asking: What's the point of this
    exercise? After all, it's not news that climate scientists agree
    that fossil-fuel emissions and land-use changes are causing global
    temperatures to rise. The last big report from the Intergovernmental
    Panel on Climate Change said as much. And these surveys can't answer
    the hard questions that do provoke real disagreement, like how much
    warming we can expect, or what to do about it.

    One possible answer is that it's simply worth reminding everyone
    that there's broad scientific agreement on very basic climate change
    questions — and that global-warming denial is a fringe view. In an
    e-mail, Nuccitelli put it this way:

    The reason our paper is particularly important is because research
    has shown there's a strong correlation between public awareness of
    the consensus and support for climate mitigation.  However, the
    public is very misinformed on the issue, with the average American
    believing that scientists are split 50/50 on the cause of global
    warming.  So it's critical that we close this consensus gap.
    On the bolded part, Nuccitelli has a point. A recent Pew poll asked
    Americans whether "scientists agree the earth is getting warmer
    because of human activity." Only 45 percent said yes, while 43
    percent said no:

    That said, other experts are doubtful that emphasizing the consensus
    on climate change will actually sway public opinion here. Dan Kahan
    of Yale Law School points out that we've seen plenty of these
    "consensus" surveys over the years — to little effect. In fact, he
    notes, there's some evidence that hammering away at the science
    doesn't always get everyone to agree. If anything, it can make
    people even more polarized.

    Why is that? Because, as Kahan has argued at length, people tend to
    arrive at these debates with their own pre-existing cultural values.
    If you're not already inclined to accept the values that typically
    accompany belief in climate change — and if you're not predisposed
    to agree with all the people who like to talk about climate change —
    then you're probably not going to change your mind just because the
    media says there's an expert consensus. (Here are some other
    experiments along these lines.)

    Keith Kloor has some related thoughts on the matter, arguing that
    there are lots of other reasons why many Americans aren't especially
    concerned with climate change — it doesn't all boil down to
    ignorance about what scientists believe. In particular, as this Yale
    report found, the threat of climate change is far-off and quite
    abstract to many people:

    Over many years of research, we have consistently found that, on
    average, Americans view climate change as a threat distant in space
    and time–a risk that will affect far away places, other species, or
    future generations more than people here and now.
    "That. Is. The. Stumbling. Block," says Kloor.

    So where does that leave things? In recent years, science
    communicators have tried to dream up all sorts of novel ways to talk
    about climate change. Kloor, for his part, suggests a "frank debate
    about future uncertainties, risks, and scenarios, and the
    reconciliation of competing values." Grist's David Roberts has
    suggested elsewhere discussing the topic in terms of values rather
    than endless lectures on scientific facts.


    Either way, there does seem to be a fair bit of skepticism among
    science communicators that yet another study reiterating the expert
    consensus on climate change will change many minds.

    --Questions about public opinion aside, there are a couple of very
    interesting aspects to Cook and Nuccitelli's new work. They allow
    people to inspect and rate all the abstracts they examined here,
    essentially letting anyone redo their research. It's worth a browse.

    --Here's Dan Kahan's 2010 paper, asking, "Why do members of the
    public disagree — sharply and persistently — about facts on which
    expert scientists largely agree?" Note that this phenomenon isn't
    just confined to climate change.
    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1549444

    --My colleague Jason Samenow adds some smart comments on the survey.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/05/17/97-percent-of-scientific-studies-agree-on-manmade-global-warming-so-what-now/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/18/scientists-agree-on-climate-change-so-why-doesnt-everyone-else/


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