[✔️] September 11, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*September 11, 2022*/

/[ disaster anniversary of 9-11 --  a perfect time to notice a highly 
respected scientific paper describing current danger ]/
*Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios*
Luke Kemp https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7447-4335 ltk27 at cam.ac.uk, Chi Xu 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1841-9032, Joanna Depledge, +7 , Kristie L. 
Ebi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4746-8236, Goodwin Gibbins, Timothy A. 
Kohler https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3414-6660, Johan Rockström, Marten 
Scheffer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2100-0312, Hans Joachim 
Schellnhuber https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7453-4935, Will Steffen 
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1163-6736, and Timothy M. Lenton 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6725-7498-7Authors Info & Affiliations
Edited by Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
Cambridge, MA
August 1, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108146119
*Abstract*
Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case 
scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly 
understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide 
societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is 
a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to 
suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe. 
Analyzing the mechanisms for these extreme consequences could help 
galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform policy, including 
emergency responses. We outline current knowledge about the likelihood 
of extreme climate change, discuss why understanding bad-to-worst cases 
is vital, articulate reasons for concern about catastrophic outcomes, 
define key terms, and put forward a research agenda. The proposed agenda 
covers four main questions: *1) *What is the potential for climate 
change to drive mass extinction events? *2)* What are the mechanisms 
that could result in human mass mortality and morbidity?*3)* What are 
human societies' vulnerabilities to climate-triggered risk cascades, 
such as from conflict, political instability, and systemic financial 
risk? *4) *How can these multiple strands of evidence—together with 
other global dangers—be usefully synthesized into an “integrated 
catastrophe assessment”? It is time for the scientific community to 
grapple with the challenge of better understanding catastrophic climate 
change.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119



/[ AQI number for Saturday was 171 -  my home town - worse than 
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,  Chendu, China ]/
*Seattle's air quality is the worst among major cities in the world*
The air quality in the city reached an "unhealthy" rating of 190 as of 
Saturday evening, giving Seattle the worst rating in the world.
September 10, 2022
SEATTLE — Seattle's air quality is the worst among major cities in the 
world Saturday evening, according to IQ Air, which tracks levels across 
the globe.

The air quality in the city reached an "unhealthy" rating of 190 as of 
5:45 p.m. Saturday, giving Seattle the worst rating in the world. 
Lahore, Pakistan has the second worst air quality with a 176 rating. 
"Unhealthy" air quality levels range between 150-200 before reaching 
"very unhealthy" from 201-300, according to IQ Air. An air quality level 
over 300 is considered hazardous...
https://www.king5.com/article/tech/science/environment/seattle-air-quality-worst-major-cities-in-world/281-1c57e55e-5abc-42cf-a745-fb18522b0075
- -
[ See air quality for your city ]
*Air quality and pollution city ranking*
https://www.iqair.com/us/world-air-quality-ranking



/[ Danger of denial ] /
Climate Scientist Peter Kalmus
@ClimateHuman
*Soft deniers are as damaging as hoaxers.* People who think those 
currently in power are doing enough. That COP26 was solid. That people 
doing civil disobedience are doomers... They acknowledge climate change 
while also thinking business as usual can go on with incremental tweaks
https://twitter.com/ClimateHuman/status/1568717119285608448

- -

/[  Where does this soft denial come from? ] /
*Greenwashing is Officially in the Dictionary as 12% of Big Oil 
Investment Goes To Green Tech, While 60% of Ads Greenwash*
ClimateDenierRoundup
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff 
prior to publication.)
September 9, 2022
Merriam Webster now has "greenwashing," defining it as "the act or 
practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more 
environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really 
is."
For a slightly more robust look at the concept, there's a new report 
from InfluenceMap comparing the public messaging, business operations, 
and policy engagement of the big 5 "supermajor" oil companies of BP, 
Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies.

They estimate the companies spend some $750 million a year on 
advertisements and other climate-related communications like social 
media posts. And across some 3,421 pieces of public communications from 
the five companies in 2021, 60% contained a green claim, but only 23% 
talked about oil and gas.

On the business side, we see the opposite: Just 12% of the 5 companies' 
capital expenditure is forecast to go into low-carbon investments. None 
of the companies are on track to meet the IEA's net zero by 2050 
recommendations, and none are in line with the Paris Agreement goals.

Faye Holder, program manager at InfluenceMap, told The Guardian, 
“Essentially, we found that big oil is spending millions of dollars on 
this green PR, and it is a really systematic campaign to portray 
themselves as pro-climate. But at the same time, they are still lobbying 
to lock in fossil fuels and investing in a really unsustainable energy 
future with high levels of oil and gas, and very low spend on low-carbon 
activities.”

The industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars telling the public 
that it's green, while tossing peanuts to their actual green business 
ventures. And while that isn't the official definition of 
"greenwashing", it's certainly a clear example of it!
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/9/2121789/-Greenwashing-Defined-60-of-Big-Oil-Ads-Make-Green-Claims-but-12-of-Investment-Goes-To-Clean-Tech?utm_campaign=recent

- -

/[ heavy spending for opinion manipulation ]/
*Big Oil's Real Agenda on Climate Change 2022*
An InfluenceMap Report
September 2022
Following up on InfluenceMap's 2019 edition of 'Big Oil's Real Agenda', 
this latest report compares and contrasts the public communications, 
business operations, and policy engagement of 5 'supermajor' oil 
companies: BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies.

Extensive analysis finds that the five supermajors are spending hundreds 
of millions of dollars each year on a systematic strategy to portray 
themselves as positive and proactive on the climate change emergency. 
This is found to be inconsistent with the companies' plans for capital 
investment in their business. It is also found to be misaligned from the 
detailed policy engagement activities of the companies and their 
industry associations on climate change.

Across 3,421 items of public communications materials from the five 
companies in 2021, 60% contained at least one green claim, while only 
23% contained claims promoting oil and gas. Claims highlighting the 
companies' support of, or involvement with, efforts to transition the 
energy mix were by far the most popular type of green claim.

None of the companies assessed disclosed the strategies that inform 
their public messaging on climate change, nor the resources dedicated to 
related activities. Using cost estimates based on the number of 
communications and media staff the companies employ, InfluenceMap’s 
analysis suggests that the companies are spending around $750 million 
each year cumulatively on climate-related communication activities
https://influencemap.org/report/Big-Oil-s-Agenda-on-Climate-Change-2022-19585



/[ Today is 9-11 -- research from Penn State posed great questions from 
the 9-11 experience  ]/
*Probing Question: Does commercial jet traffic affect climate?*
DECEMBER 4, 2005
By Katie Greene
It's hard to dispute that car and truck emissions affect our 
environment. Tail pipes cough out a brew of gases that contribute to 
smog, ground-level ozone and global warming. But what about jet pollution?

Hundreds of high-flying jets crisscross the country every day, sometimes 
leaving behind white streaks called contrails. This happens because 
during fuel combustion, jets emit soot and volatile molecules such as 
sulfuric acid. Water vapor present in the atmosphere collects around 
these particles and freezes. Thus, when jets mark up the sky, they're 
actually leaving lines of ice crystals, similar to wispy, high-altitude 
cirrus clouds.

Is this atmospheric graffiti a problem? Research by Penn State geography 
professor Andrew Carleton suggests it could be. Contrails "can extend 
the natural cirrus cover," Carleton explains, and unlike most clouds, 
cirrus tend to warm the surface overall because they trap heat more than 
they reflect the Sun's radiation. "This is a concern to climate 
scientists because it could mean that a lot more contrails would make 
global warming worse."

Although scientists had suspected that contrails affect regional 
temperatures, there was no way to truly test the idea until the tragic 
attacks on September 11, 2001. In the enforced no-fly period following 
the collapse of the World Trade Center, air traffic was completely 
stopped for three days and scientists were able to directly compare 
temperatures logged in the presence of contrails against temperature 
data collected with contrail-free skies.

"I remember walking to and from my office [during that time] and 
thinking how incredibly clear the skies were," recalls Carleton. He 
mentioned this to a colleague and former Ph.D. student of his, David 
Travis of the University of Wisconsin, who had noticed the same thing. 
"Then we started thinking that we should look at the temperature 
conditions" during those days in September and compare them to years 
past, Carleton says.

Looking at daytime highs and nighttime lows, Carleton and Travis found 
the average daily temperature range across the no-fly period to be 
almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit larger than when jets do fly. This implies, 
Carleton explains, that contrails lower daytime maximum temperatures and 
increase nighttime low temperatures—probably in the same way that cirrus 
clouds do, by blocking some solar radiation from reaching earth's 
surface during the day, and insulating against heat loss at night.

Since finding this association, Carleton has used contrails as a sort of 
metric for measuring meteorological and climatic change. Because these 
jet signatures can only form when the upper atmosphere is humid and 
cold, they mostly appear over the Midwest and Northeast. Interestingly, 
notes Carleton, since the 1970s the frequency of contrail formation has 
outpaced the increase of air traffic in these areas. If this trend 
continues, he says, it could further decrease daily temperature ranges 
and even evaporation for those regions, a change that could be 
detrimental to certain trees, plants or insects sensitive to temperature 
and moisture changes.

Will such climate change prompt airlines to seek to reduce jet 
emissions, similar to automotive companies?

"Given the financial problems of the larger airlines in recent years, 
contrails are not likely to gain their attention," Carleton says. But 
governments in Europe and Britain "where jets also hash mark the sky" 
are becoming concerned, he says. Some steps that could cut down on 
contrails, he suggests, would be reducing the amount of sulfur in jet 
fuel, and re-routing flight paths either to lower altitudes, where the 
air is warmer, or higher altitudes, where it's often dryer.

Andrew Carleton, Ph.D., is professor of geography. He can be reached at 
carleton at essc.psu.edu.
https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/probing-question-does-commercial-jet-traffic-affect-climate/ 




/[ //news archive - //time to remember 9-11 and what we learned  looking 
back at the 9-11 emptying of skies ]/
/*September 11, 2001*/
*Empty skies after 9/11 set the stage for an unlikely climate change 
experiment*
By Patrick Cain  Global News
Posted September 12, 2016

On the morning of September 11, 2001, officials at the U.S. national air 
control centre couldn’t make out what was happening, at first.

As controllers watched the second plane crash into the World Trade 
Center complex just after 9 a.m., however, it became clear that the 
first one hadn’t been a spectacular accident, but something much more 
sinister. Planes were becoming fuel-filled missiles. How many? Nobody knew.

Officials at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration did the only thing 
they could think of to try to control the situation: ordering every 
aircraft in U.S. airspace, about 4,000 of them, to land somewhere, 
anywhere, immediately.

Canadian officials followed. Airports in Atlantic Canada quickly filled 
with thousands of bewildered people who had been flying west across the 
Atlantic from Europe, but found themselves stranded in Goose Bay, 
Labrador or Stephenville, Nfld.

Within a few hours, the skies across the continent were empty except for 
military aircraft. Here’s what it looked like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo1ZtpKqlYw

Civilian air traffic wouldn’t resume for three days.

Thousands of jet aircraft leave contrails over North America every day, 
especially over the U.S. eastern seaboard and the Midwest. Contrails are 
created when water vapour in hot air blasted out of jet engines freezes 
in the intense cold of high altitudes.

Do all those jet trails change weather patterns? It’s hard to tell, 
normally. But with the once-busy skies silent and empty, the scene was 
set for a giant experiment.

“I remember walking to and from my office (in the days after the 
attacks) and thinking how incredibly clear the skies were,” Andrew 
Carleton, a geographer at Pennsylvania State University, later wrote.

About a year after the attacks, Carleton, David Travis, a geographer at 
the University of Wisconsin, and another colleague argued in a paper 
that thin clouds created by contrails reduce the range of temperatures. 
By contributing to cloud cover during the day, they reflect solar energy 
that would otherwise have reached the earth’s surface. At night, they 
trap warmth that would otherwise have escaped.

The effect during the three days that flights were grounded was 
strongest in populated regions where air traffic was normally densest. 
The increase in range came to about two degrees Celsius.

Other studies have tended to back up the research. In 2011, British 
scientists wrote that an air raid in May 1944 involving over 1,400 
aircraft measurably lowered daytime temperatures in England. In that 
case, the situation was the reverse of 9/11 – large-scale air travel was 
unknown, and dense concentrations of large planes were rare.

In 2004, NASA scientist Patrick Minnis wrote that “increased cirrus 
coverage, attributable to air traffic, could account for nearly all of 
the warming observed over the United States for nearly 20 years starting 
in 1975.”

Minnis also argued that a steady increase in cloud cover over the United 
States, about one per cent a decade, was due to increasing air travel. 
He also found that increases in cloud cover were more pronounced in 
populated areas, and stronger in winter, when contrails are bigger.

The warming effect happened because the high-altitude clouds that 
contrails created tended to trap warm air, Minnis wrote. On balance, 
though contrails can both warm and cool, there is more of a warming effect.

A Penn State study compared regions of the United States where contrails 
tended to form more strongly with areas where they didn’t. The more 
contrail-heavy the area, the less the variation between daytime highs 
and nighttime lows tended to be.

In a 2005 paper, physicist Robert Noland of Imperial College London 
suggested that restricting airliners to 31,000 feet, and 24,000 feet in 
winter, could reduce the formation of contrails. Though lower-flying 
planes would be less fuel-efficient, Noland argued that the increased 
fuel consumption would be more than made up for by less contrail-linked 
clouds as a cause of global warming.

https://globalnews.ca/news/2934513/empty-skies-after-911-set-the-stage-for-an-unlikely-climate-change-experiment/

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