[✔️] November 8, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Tue Nov 8 07:51:50 EST 2022
/*November 8 , 2022*/
[ DW news ~6 min video ]
*Last 8 years set to be hottest on record as world leaders meet at COP27
| DW News*
DW News
Nov 6, 2022
The past eight years are on track to be the eight hottest on record.
That's one takeaway from the World Meteorological Organization's annual
report, which has just been published. It's another stark warning for
world leaders as delegates from over 190 countries gather in Egypt for
the COP27 climate talks. Experts say time is rapidly running out to
avoid global catastrophe.
Bavaria's iconic Neuschwanstein Castle is often seen as a symbol of
Germany's rich fairytale tradition; even serving as the inspiration for
Disney's iconic fairytale castle. Now climate activists are using it to
send a message to world leaders as the UN climate conference kicks off.
Protesters unfurled a giant banner in front of the historic attraction,
calling for an end to what they labelled 'climate fairy tales.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2UA-t85mQ4
/[ we know this, and now major news media agrees with public experience ]/
*Why scientists are using the word scary over the climate crisis*
The former BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin has spent his career
talking to scientists. Now they’re telling him they’re scared of what
they’re seeing
Roger Harrabin
Mon 7 Nov 2022
Back in the 1980s, when climate research began to really take off,
scientists were desperate to retain their credibility as they unravelled
the potentially dire consequences of the “new” phenomenon of global
warming. Most journalists tiptoed round this topic because no one wanted
to lose their reputation by scaremongering. But as the science steadily
became overwhelming researchers pushed their conclusions in the face of
policymakers.
More and more scientists are now admitting publicly that they are scared
by the recent climate extremes, such as the floods in Pakistan and west
Africa, the droughts and heatwaves in Europe and east Africa, and the
rampant ice melt at the poles.
That is not because an increase in extremes was not predicted. It was
always high on the list of concerns alongside longer-term issues such as
sea level rise. It is the suddenness and ferocity of recent events that
is alarming researchers, combined with the ill-defined threat of tipping
points, by which aspects of heating would become unstoppable.
Climate computer models have typically projected a fairly consistent but
smooth rise in temperatures. But recently the climate seems to have gone
haywire.
The heat phenomenon in the Canadian town of Lytton, for instance,
produced a “dome” of trapped heat that cranked up the temperature to
49.6C [121F] . Wildfires raged and the town was razed. I broke the news
to one of the Royal Society’s leading members, Prof Sir Brian Hoskins,
but at first he did not believe me. Then he said: “Oh, my god, that’s
really scary.”
The high temperature itself was shocking enough but amazingly it topped
the previous record by five degrees, when records are normally beaten by
just a few tenths of a degree. Hoskins told me later: “Climate models
have generally projected very smooth changes, whereas the real world is
suffering rapid regional changes. The rise in globally averaged
temperature is a useful metric of how far climate change has got, but it
doesn’t bring home the message of the likely local and regional impact.
In July this year the UK had its first 40C day. Two years previously,
researchers said the chances of that happening this decade were 100 to
1. The small print of that day revealed a truly extraordinary high
temperature at Bramham, Yorkshire, breaking the previous record by 6.5C.
Prof Hannah Cloke, from Reading University, said: “This sort of thing is
really scary. It’s just one statistic amongst an avalanche of extreme
weather events that used to be known as ‘natural disasters’.”
But it is the threat of unstoppable long-term change that most worries
Prof Dame Jane Francis, director of the British Antarctic Survey. She
has witnessed temperatures in the Antarctic of 40C above the seasonal
norm, and 30C above in the Arctic.
Francis was most alarmed by a recent report warning that if the 1.5C
threshold were exceeded, seen by most scientists as almost inevitable,
it could trigger multiple climate tipping points – abrupt, irreversible
and with dangerous impacts.
She said: “It’s really scary. It seems some of [these trends] are
already under way.” She said she feared for the permafrost, the
Greenland ice sheet, the Arctic sea ice, and Antarctica’s Thwaites
glacier and western ice sheet.
“These multiple effects will affect the whole planet, as well as the
local inhabitants,” she says. As a geologist rather than a climate
modeller she looks back in time for clues about the Earth as it is at
present, with its inflated CO2 level, which peaked at about 420 parts
per million in May.
“The last time the planet saw 400ppm CO2 was three to four million years
ago during the Pliocene when global sea levels were 10-20 metres higher
and temperatures 2-3C higher. Those changes happened over millions of
years. Now it feels like we are forcing these changes on our planet in
far shorter time spans.”
- -
Before long we will crash through the 1.5C threshold – and unless much
more radical action is taken we are heading for between 2C and 3C
warming. Scientists are urging politicians not to find out what global
warming of 2C above pre-industrial levels feels like.
Scientists are also frustrated by the limitations of their knowledge.
Prof Richard Allan, a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), said: “Climate change is only going to get worse.
A global rise of 1.5C will be much worse than now. But when you get down
to local scales we’re getting extremes than the models can’t capture.
That includes local-scale droughts and floods. It’s these events that
are difficult to picture.”
So the scientists are in a bind. They are sure things will get worse.
They don’t know exactly when, and by how much. They know that if they
appear to be campaigning, that could lose credibility. But increasing
numbers of them are so alarmed they are trying to strike different notes
to jolt politicians and the public.
Another former IPCC lead author, Prof Piers Forster, from the University
of Leeds, said: “I have tried to change the way I communicate to make it
more personal and emotional. Extreme impacts are bad now and going to
get a whole lot worse. But then you need to give people hope, and
ourselves, as scientists hope. We can slow the rate of warming
immediately if we act now.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/07/why-scientists-are-using-the-word-scary-over-the-climate-crisis
/[ DW video discussion on COP 27 ]/
*COP27 spotlights impact of climate change on poor nations | DW News*
DW News
4.29M subscribers
Nov 7, 2022
Natural disasters have taken thousands of lives this year and cost
billions of dollars, putting policymakers under increasing pressure. The
past seven years have been the hottest on record.
Tropical storms and hurricanes have battered coastal areas in Southeast
Asia and the United States, at an ever-increasing rate.
Warming temperatures are decimating the Arctic, where melting ice is
destroying ecosystems and raising sea levels worldwide.
The first COP summit was held in Berlin in 1995. Two years later in
Kyoto, major industrialized countries committed to reducing greenhouse
gases, but not the US. The 2015 Paris Deal set targets The US signed,
only to reneg. Last year's Glasgow Pact laid out financial commitments.
That included the issue of payments to developing countries, dealing
with the effects of climate change. But how much major polluting nations
should compensate those with a smaller carbon footprint remains contentious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxBoNtjfVq8
/[ Related to COP 27 - scientists attack disinformation ]/
*‘Drop Fossil Fuels,’ Over 400 Scientists Tell PR Firm Handling UN
Climate Talks*
Hill+Knowlton, a pioneer in disinformation tactics used by tobacco and
oil companies, still represents fossil fuel clients while leading
communications for the upcoming COP27 summit.
ByDana Drugmandon - Nov 4, 2022
Ahead of the COP27 UN climate summit, hundreds of scientists are calling
on the PR firm in charge of the event’s communications, Hill+Knowlton,
to cut ties with its fossil fuel industry clients, which include major
oil companies Aramco, ExxonMobil, and Shell as well as an industry
coalition called the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative.
“These clients have not taken the fundamental steps necessary to address
the climate emergency and sharply rein in fossil fuels,” states an open
letter to Hill+Knowlton signed by over 420 scientists. “Instead, they
have used Hill+Knowlton and other PR agencies to spin, delay, and
mislead, in order to continue expanding fossil fuel production and
thereby increasing heat-trapping emissions.”
- -
“It’s an almost comical conflict of interest that Big Oil’s spin doctors
are also in charge of communications for the UN climate talks,” Dr.
Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard researcher who studies fossil fuel
disinformation and propaganda tactics, told DeSmog by email. “Time and
again, research by me and my colleagues has shown how oil and gas
companies and the PR firms that abet them have deployed climate
disinformation to debilitate climate policy,” he added. “When the
world’s leading climate scientists (IPCC) specifically called out the PR
industry for obstructing climate action earlier this year, Exhibit A
could have been H+K [Hill+Knowlton] — a firm that does the dirty work
for none other than ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and the like.”
“Letting Hill+Knowlton run communications for the climate talks is like
putting the fox’s PR hack in charge of branding the chicken coop,” said
Jamie Henn, co-founder of Clean Creatives, an advocacy group pushing for
advertising and PR professionals to drop fossil fuel clients. “There’s
nothing to stop H+K from spinning the outcomes of the talks to benefit
their fossil fuel clients or sharing key intelligence with industry
partners.”...
- -
One of the oldest PR firms in the country, Hill+Knowlton is known for
its notorious work with the tobacco industry in the 1950s and ‘60s to
counter the scientific evidence linking smoking to lung cancer. In 1953,
John W. Hill, one of the firm’s founders, met in New York with tobacco
company executives, who were worried about the burgeoning evidence of
smoking’s harms. During that meeting, Hill helped the tobacco industry
pioneer a highly effective PR strategy — finding and raising up the
loudest skeptics — in order to cast doubt on the science his clients
were concerned about. Decades later, Hill’s PR firm was even a named
defendant in many of the lawsuits that sprang up against tobacco
companies for their efforts to downplay smoking’s health impacts.
- -
Hill+Knowlton continues to represent fossil fuel clients to this day.
The firm plays a central role in running the Oil & Gas Climate
Initiative, a coalition promoting polluter-friendly climate stances
whose members include oil majors like BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, and Aramco.
The coalition is run out of Hill+Knowlton’s London office, Henn told
DeSmog. “You couldn’t ask for a firm that’s more hand in glove with the
oil companies,” he said...
- -
Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard scientist and historian and co-author of the
book Merchants of Doubt, is one of the scientists sounding the alarm as
a signatory of the open letter. She pointed to Hill+Knowlton’s role in
creating the “tobacco playbook” of disseminating disinformation to
discredit science, which the oil industry also deployed to delay climate
action. “It’s unconscionable to me that COP would hire them to help with
climate change PR,” she said.
Supran, who has worked closely with Oreskes including on a seminal
peer-reviewed study examining Exxon’s nearly 40-year history of climate
communications, said Hill+Knowlton must be held accountable.
“If H+K won’t drop their fossil fuel clients, then the UN should drop
H+K,” he told DeSmog. “PR companies can be part of the solution or they
can be part of the problem, but they can’t be both.”
https://www.desmog.com/2022/11/04/drop-fossil-fuels-400-scientists-pr-hill-knowlton-cop27/
/[ NYT alarming headline ]/
*A Warming Siberia, Wracked by Wildfires, Nears a Crucial Threshold*
Nearly 23 million acres burned from 1982 to 2020. But almost half of
that occurred in 2019 and 2020, and the region may be near a threshold
beyond which extreme fires become more common.
- -
Rapid warming of the Arctic has led to the extreme wildfire seasons
experienced in Siberia in recent years, scientists said Thursday, and
such severe fires are likely to continue.
The researchers said that the Siberian Arctic, with its vast expanses of
forest, tundra, peatlands and permafrost, was approaching a threshold
beyond which even small temperature increases could result in sharp
increases in the extent of fires.
“Global warming is changing the fire regime above the Arctic Circle in
Siberia,” said David L.A. Gaveau, one of the researchers. His company,
TheTreeMap, monitors deforestation around the world.
In the Arctic, wildfires can result in the burning of decayed organic
matter in peat and thawed permafrost. That releases carbon dioxide,
adding to warming and making the goal of reining in climate change more
difficult...
- -
Over the past four decades, the Arctic as a whole has been warming about
four times faster than the global average. Recent summers in eastern
Siberia have been marked by particularly extreme temperatures — as much
as 38 degrees Celsius, or 100 degrees Fahrenheit...
- -
The warmth has been accompanied by severe and extensive wildfires.
“Observations indicated that the fire seasons were exceptional,” Dr.
Gaveau said. “But there were no precise quantitative assessments to
justify these claims.”
He and his colleagues analyzed satellite data to map the burned area
each summer from 1982 to 2020. Over that time, a total of nearly 23
million acres burned. The researchers found that together, 2019 and 2020
accounted for nearly half of the total. “The burning was much, much
higher than in the last 40 years,” Dr. Gaveau said. The study was
published in the journal Science...
- -
A separate study published in Science looked at factors that drove the
extreme fire season of 2021, in addition to 2019 and 2020.
Rebecca C. Scholten of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and colleagues found
that earlier snowmelt was an important contributor. Over the past
half-century, spring snowmelt in northeastern Siberia has started an
average of 1.7 days earlier per decade. An earlier snowmelt leads to a
longer period when soil and vegetation dry out, increasing the risk of
burning.
The researchers also found that changes in the polar jet stream that
circles the planet most likely contributed to greater fire activity.
During many weeks when extreme fires occurred, the jet stream was
temporarily split in two, with a northerly branch and a more southerly
one. Referred to as an Arctic front jet, it is marked by a region of
lower-level air that is stationary and allows heat to build up,
increasing fire risk.
This divergent jet stream is the same phenomenon that scientists say
likely contributes to increasing heat waves in Europe.
Dr. Scholten said the research showed that the two factors worked together.
“It’s a compound effect,” she said. “It’s only if we have early
snowmelt, which we have more with climate warming, and then if we have
an Arctic front jet, which we also have more frequently with climate
warming, then we have like really extreme fire risk.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/climate/siberia-fires-climate-change.html
/[ The NYTimes faces a come-uppance from climate scientist Michael Mann
and other readers]
/*Climate scientists Michael Mann's response to Stephens' piece:*
"When @NYTimes hired climate inactivist @BretStephen_NYT, climate
folks said 'that's it, I'm canceling my subscription'. But I pushed
back: 'Hold on. Times has much to offer & maybe he'll improve etc'.
Well I was wrong. Both Stephens & Times have gone off the cliff. And
I'm done. Don't miss @BretStephen_NYT 's followup pieces in next
week's Times, including: 'Yes, the Great Barrier Reef is
disintegrating before our eyes, But...' and 'Yes, unprecedented
extreme weather events are killing people and destroying
communities, But...'. And there's more!"
On Fri, Oct 28, 2022
"Brett Stephens was hired by the NYtimes,...and many people called for
his dismissal."
*Where My Climate Doubts Began to Melt*
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/28/opinion/climate-change-bret-stephens.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/opinion/letters/climate-change-bret-stephens.html
/[ one of many live reports coming out of COP 27 - live video ]/
*Cascading Impacts
International Cryosphere Climate Initiative
*
*How Can We Adapt and Reduce Risk in the Mountains and Downstream?*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-anKUtcME
/[The news archive - looking back a one world leader speaking about
global warming ]/
/*November 8, 1989*/
November 8, 1989: Margaret Thatcher delivers an address to the UN
General Assembly on global warming, noting that societies should have
economic growth "which does not plunder the planet today and leave our
children to deal with the consequences tomorrow."
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAzoDtwCBg&sns=em
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