[✔️] Dec 12, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Still talking at COP28, New children's suit. filing, Jason Box - cryologist, William Rees, Atmospheric instability, Future deluge, Extreme precip, AGU weather, 2007 Bush meddles,

[Richard Pauli]

/*December 12*//*, 2023*/

/[ "Still talking" BBC report from COP28 ]
/*OP28: UN climate talks in jeopardy in fossil fuel backlash*
11th December 2023
The UN climate talks in Dubai could be in jeopardy after some nations 
reacted furiously to a draft deal on fossil fuels they call "weak".

The draft removed language included in a previous text suggesting that 
fossil fuels could be "phased out".

All 198 countries at the summit must agree or there is no deal.

A new amended version of the text is expected to be issued on Tuesday so 
that negotiations can continue.

Humans burning fossil fuels is driving global warming, risking millions 
of lives, but governments have never agreed how or when to stop using 
them...
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67679732

/
/

/[ NPR report: more climate-injured children filing suits... ]/
*18 California children are suing the EPA over climate change*
DECEMBER 11, 2023
Jeff Brady
Eighteen California children are suing the Environmental Protection 
Agency, claiming it violated their constitutional rights by failing to 
protect them from the effects of climate change. This is the latest in a 
series of climate-related cases filed on behalf of children.

The federal lawsuit is called Genesis B. v. United States Environmental 
Protection Agency. According to the lawsuit, the lead plaintiff "Genesis 
B." is a 17-year-old Long Beach, California resident whose parents can't 
afford air conditioning.

As the number of extreme heat days increases, the lawsuit says Genesis 
isn't able to stay cool in her home during the day. "On many days, 
Genesis must wait until the evening to do schoolwork when temperatures 
cool down enough for her to be able to focus," according to the lawsuit.
The other plaintiffs range in age from eight to 17 and also are 
identified by their first names and last initials because they are 
minors. For each plaintiff, the lawsuit mentions ways that climate 
change is affecting their lives now, such as wildfires and flooding that 
have damaged landscapes near them and forced them to evacuate their 
homes or cancel activities.

"Time is slipping away, and the impact of the climate crisis is already 
hitting us directly. We are running from wildfires, being displaced by 
floods, panicking in hot classrooms during another heat wave," 
15-year-old plaintiff Noah said in a statement provided by the 
non-profit, public interest law firm Our Children's Trust, which filed 
the suit.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a legal victory in another suit that 
Our Children's Trust filed on behalf of children. This summer, a state 
judge in Montana handed Our Children's Trust an historic win. The judge 
found the state violated 16 young plaintiffs' "right to a clean and 
healthful environment." That case is being appealed.

The California federal case claims the EPA violated the children's 
constitutional rights by allowing carbon dioxide from burning fossil 
fuels to warm the climate. It notes the agency's 2009 finding that 
carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is a public health threat, and 
children are the most vulnerable.
"There is one federal agency explicitly tasked with keeping the air 
clean and controlling pollution to protect the health of every child and 
the welfare of a nation—the EPA," said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel 
for Our Children's Trust in the statement. "The agency has done the 
opposite when it comes to climate pollution, and it's time the EPA is 
held accountable by our courts for violating the U.S. Constitution."

An EPA spokesperson said because of the pending litigation, the agency 
could not comment on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit does not specifically seek financial compensation, other 
than plaintiff costs and attorneys' fees. It asks instead for various 
declarations about the environmental rights of children and the EPA's 
responsibility to protect them.

Our Children's Trust filed a different federal lawsuit in 2015, Juliana 
v. United States, against the entire government. It was dismissed in 
2020 and revived by an Oregon judge this summer. The group also has 
legal actions pending in Florida, Hawaii, Utah and Virginia.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/11/1218499186/18-california-children-are-suing-the-epa-over-climate-change

- -

/[ Filed 12/10/23 ]/
*UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA*
COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY RELIEF AND FURTHER RELIEF AS WARRANTED
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/655a2d016eb74e41dc292ed5/t/6576829a565cc6227e10b682/1702265500795/Doc+1+Complaint+2023.12.10.pdf



/[ Jason Box is one of our great cryologists ]/
*Arctic climate insights and low fidelity climate models*
Jason Box
Dec 11, 2023
video for COP28 in support of AMAP.no
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbpbm_1Qss



/[ Climate change is symptom, not cause - audio 90 mins ]/
*William Rees | Confronting Overshoot: Changing the Story of Human 
Exceptionalism*
The Overpopulation Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MVmkIYy9aI



/[ study says atmosphere is primed and changes are up ]/
*Atmospheric Instability has Increased Greatly (up to 32%) over last 40 
Years from Global Warming*
Paul Beckwith
Dec 10, 2023
Our Atmosphere is Unstable 8% - 32% More Often Now than it was 40 years 
ago Thanks to Global Warming.

Times when the atmosphere is stable are becoming much rarer.

Not only that, but the energy in the atmosphere is much greater now 
(higher Convective Available Potential Energy or CAPE, making the 
positive buoyancy of the air much greater) and higher Convective 
Inhibition (CIN) or cap means that when the storms are triggered they 
are much more intense.

Press article:
https://www.albany.edu/news-center/news/2023-study-climate-change-has-increased-atmospheric-instability-over-past-40-years

Peer-reviewed open source scientific paper:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL106125

Title: “The Atmosphere Has Become Increasingly Unstable During 1979–2020 
Over the Northern Hemisphere”

This paper looks at newly homogenized data (cleaned up to account for 
different upgrades to radiosondes, etc) from weather instruments 
(radiosondes) on weather balloons that are launched  twice daily around 
the world at 00Z and 012Z (6 am and 6 pm in EST).

The radiosondes send real-time data on temperature, atmospheric pressure 
(hence altitude) and humidity to ground-based computers for the several 
hours that the balloon rises and drifts in the atmosphere, going as high 
as 30 km and as far as several hundred km.

The radiosondes weather balloon collection of atmospheric data has been 
ongoing twice daily from 1979 to present day; the new paper looks at the 
global data from 1979 to 2000.

Basically, periods of time when the atmosphere are unstable has 
increased by between 2% and 8% per decade, for each of the last four 
decades, for a total increase of between 8% and 32% depending on the 
location.

“For example, summer frequency of the unstable conditions increased from 
∼54%, 56%, and 50% (of time) in 1979 to ∼72%, 71%, and 63% in 2020 over 
EA (East Asia), NA (North America), and EU (Europe), respectively. These 
changes represent a percentage increase of 26%–33%. Although we mainly 
show the results in JJA and DJF, the increasing (decreasing) trends for 
the unstable (stable) conditions are consistent among different seasons.”

Not only do we have slowing meandering jet streams becoming much wavier 
leading to much worse extreme weather events, the actual atmosphere 
itself is much more unstable and prone to much more intense, much higher 
frequency, and much longer duration storms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze-ciTnkU90

- -

/[ Related posting POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH ]/
*Future floods: Global warming intensifies heavy rain – even more than 
expected*
11/27/2023 - The intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall increases 
exponentially with global warming, a new study finds. The analysis by 
researchers from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK) 
shows that state-of-the-art climate models significantly underestimate 
how much extreme rainfall increases under global warming – meaning that 
extreme rainfall could increase quicker than climate models suggest.
“Our study confirms that the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall 
extremes are increasing exponentially with every increment of global 
warming,” explains Max Kotz, lead-author of the study published in the 
‘Journal of Climate’. These changes follow the physical theory of the 
classic Clausius-Clapeyron relation of 1834, which established that 
warmer air can hold more water vapor. ”State-of-the-art climate models 
vary on how strongly extreme rainfall scales with global warming and 
that they underestimate it compared to historical observations.”

“Climate impacts on society have been calculated using climate models. 
Now our findings suggest that these impacts could be much worse than we 
thought. Extreme rainfall will be heavier and more frequent. Society 
needs to be prepared for this,” says PIK department head and author of 
the study Anders Levermann. Changes in the frequency and intensity of 
daily rainfall extremes over land can impact social welfare, the economy 
and social stability, given their link to flooding but also ground-water 
availability, which can cause considerable loss of life and financial 
losses.

The researchers at PIK analysed the intensity and frequency of daily 
precipitation extremes over land in 21 state-of-the-art climate 
simulations (CMIP-6) and compared the changes projected by CMIP-6 models 
to those observed historically. The method they applied draws on 
pattern-filtering techniques, allowing them to separate which changes in 
the climate system are forced by human emissions, and which are not.

While most land-areas exhibit increases in both the intensity and 
frequency of extremes, stronger increases are typically found across 
tropical regions, according to the study. Significant changes most often 
occur across the tropics and high-latitudes, like in Southeast Asia or 
Northern Canada. The fact that these changes follow the 
Clausius-Clapeyron relation underpins the fact that thermodynamics, i.e. 
temperature and not dynamics, i.e. winds, dominate the global change of 
extreme rainfall events. “The good news is that this makes it easier to 
predict the future of extreme rainfall. The bad news is: It will get 
worse, if we keep pushing up global temperatures by emitting greenhouse 
gases,” Anders Levermann adds
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/future-floods-global-warming-intensifies-heavy-rain-2013-even-more-than-expected 


- -

/[ Article - ]/
*Constraining the Pattern and Magnitude of Projected Extreme 
Precipitation Change in a Multimodel Ensemble*
Maximilian Kotz , Stefan Lange, Leonie Wenz, and Anders Levermann
online Publication: 11 Dec 2023
Print Publication: 01 Jan 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0492.1

    Abstract
    Projections of precipitation extremes over land are crucial for
    socioeconomic risk assessments, yet model discrepancies limit their
    application. Here we use a pattern-filtering technique to identify
    low-frequency changes in individual members of a multimodel ensemble
    to assess discrepancies across models in the projected pattern and
    magnitude of change. Specifically, we apply low-frequency component
    analysis (LFCA) to the intensity and frequency of daily
    precipitation extremes over land in 21 CMIP-6 models. LFCA brings
    modest but statistically significant improvements in the agreement
    between models in the spatial pattern of projected change,
    particularly in scenarios with weak greenhouse forcing. Moreover, we
    show that LFCA facilitates a robust identification of the rates at
    which increasing precipitation extremes scale with global
    temperature change within individual ensemble members. While these
    rates approximately match expectations from the Clausius-Clapeyron
    relation on average across models, individual models exhibit
    considerable and significant differences. Monte Carlo simulations
    indicate that these differences contribute to uncertainty in the
    magnitude of projected change at least as much as differences in the
    climate sensitivity. Last, we compare these scaling rates with those
    identified from observational products, demonstrating that virtually
    all climate models significantly underestimate the rates at which
    increases in precipitation extremes have scaled with global
    temperatures historically. Constraining projections with
    observations therefore amplifies the projected intensification of
    precipitation extremes as well as reducing the relative error of
    their distribution.
    © 2023 American Meteorological Society...consult the AMS Copyright
    Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses).

(pdf version) 
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/~anders/publications/kotz_lange23.pdf
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0492.1



/[ Related paper about major new understandings ]/
*The Atmosphere Has Become Increasingly Unstable During 1979–2020 Over 
the Northern Hemisphere*
Jiao Chen, Aiguo Dai
First published: 21 October 2023 https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL106125

    *Abstract*
    Atmospheric instability affects the formation of convective storms,
    but how it has changed during recent decades is unknown. Here we
    analyze the occurrence frequency of stable and unstable atmospheric
    conditions over land using homogenized radiosonde data from 1979 to
    2020. We show that atmospheric stable (unstable) conditions have
    decreased (increased) significantly by ∼8%–32% (of time) from 1979
    to 2020 over most land areas. In boreal summer, the mean positive
    buoyancy (i.e., convective available potential energy [CAPE]) also
    increases over East Asia while mean negative buoyancy (i.e.,
    convective inhibition [CIN]) strengthens over Europe and North
    America from midnight-dawn for unstable cases. The increased
    unstable cases and mean CAPE result from increased low-level
    specific humidity and air temperature, which increase the buoyancy
    of a lifted parcel. The stronger CIN results from decreased
    near-surface relatively humidity and decreased lapse rate in the
    lower troposphere. Our results suggest that the atmosphere has
    become increasingly unstable, which could lead to more convective
    storms.

*Key Points*

    Newly homogenized radiosonde humidity and temperature data allow
    quantitative assessment of historical changes in atmospheric instability

    There are increasingly more unstable conditions with positive
    buoyancy in all seasons over most land areas from 1979 to 2020

    The increased unstable conditions mainly result from increased
    low-level moisture content and warmer air temperature

*Plain Language Summary*
Severe weather events such as tornados and intense thunderstorms often 
cause significant loss of life and property. Their formation requires 
instability or unstable conditions in the atmosphere. Climate models 
project increased unstable conditions under greenhouse gas-induced 
global warming, but how atmospheric instability has changed during 
recent decades is unclear. Through analysis of newly homogenized 
radiosonde data, here we show that the atmosphere has become 
increasingly unstable over most land areas over the Northern Hemisphere 
from 1979 to 2020, with an increasing number of unstable conditions 
(i.e., with positive buoyancy) but a decreasing number of stable 
conditions (i.e., with zero or negative buoyancy). These changes result 
mainly from increased low-level moisture content and warmer air 
temperature. Such instability changes favor increased occurrence of 
convective storms.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL106125



/[The news archive - report release on scientific meddling by the Bush 
Administration - it would be a different world today if that had not 
happened, or maybe not. ]/
/*December 12, 2007*/
December 12, 2007:
• The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform releases the 
report
"Political Interference with Climate Change Science under the Bush 
Administration."
*EXECUTIVE SUMMARY*
For the past 16 months, the House Oversight and Government Reform 
Committee has
been investigating allegations of political interference with government 
climate change
science under the Bush Administration. During the course of this 
investigation, the
Committee obtained over 27,000 pages of documents from the White House 
Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department, held two 
investigative
hearings, and deposed or interviewed key officials. Much of the 
information made
available to the Committee has never been publicly disclosed.

This report presents the findings of the Committee’s investigation. The 
evidence before
the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush 
Administration has
engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and 
mislead
policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.

In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute developed an internal 
“Communications
Action Plan” that stated: “Victory will be achieved when … average citizens
‘understand’ uncertainties in climate science … [and] recognition of 
uncertainties
becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.’” The Bush Administration has 
acted as if
the oil industry’s communications plan were its mission statement. White 
House officials
and political appointees in the agencies censored congressional 
testimony on the causes
and impacts of global warming, controlled media access to government 
climate scientists,
and edited federal scientific reports to inject unwarranted uncertainty 
into discussions of
climate change and to minimize the threat to the environment and the 
economy.

*The White House Censored Climate Change Scientists*
The White House exerted unusual control over the public statements of 
federal scientists
on climate change issues. It was standard practice for media requests to 
speak with
federal scientists on climate change matters to be sent to CEQ for White 
House approval.
By controlling which government scientists could respond to media 
inquiries, the White
House suppressed dissemination of scientific views that could conflict with
Administration policies. The White House also edited congressional 
testimony regarding
the science of climate change.

*Former CEQ Chief of Staff Philip Cooney told the Committee: *“Our 
communications
people would render a view as to whether someone should give an 
interview or not and
who it should be.” According to Kent Laborde, a career public affairs 
officer at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, media requests related 
to climate
change issues were handled differently from other requests because “I 
would have to
route media inquires through CEQ.” This practice was particularly 
evident after
Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Laborde was asked, “Did the White House and the 
Department
of Commerce not want scientists who believed that climate change was 
increasing
hurricane activity talking with the press?” He responded: “There was a 
consistent
approach that might have indicated that.”

*White House officials and agency political appointees also altered 
congressional
testimony regarding the science of climate change. *The changes to the 
recent climate
change testimony of Dr. Julie Gerberding, the Director of the Centers 
for Disease Control
and Prevention, have received considerable attention. A year earlier, 
when Dr. Thomas
Karl, the Director of National Climatic Data Center, appeared before the 
House Oversight
Committee, his testimony was also heavily edited by both White House 
officials and
political appointees at the Commerce Department. He was not allowed to 
say in his
written testimony that “modern climate change is dominated by human 
influences,” that
“we are venturing into the unknown territory with changes in climate,” 
or that “it is very
likely (>95 percent probability) that humans are largely responsible for 
many of the
observed changes in climate.” His assertion that global warming “is 
playing” a role in
increased hurricane intensity became “may play.”

*The White House Extensively Edited Climate Change Reports*
There was a systematic White House effort to minimize the significance 
of climate
change by editing climate change reports. CEQ Chief of Staff Phil Cooney 
and other
CEQ officials made at least 294 edits to the Administration’s Strategic 
Plan of the
Climate Change Science Program to exaggerate or emphasize scientific 
uncertainties or
to deemphasize or diminish the importance of the human role in global 
warming.

The White House insisted on edits to EPA’s draft Report on the 
Environment that were so
extreme that the EPA Administrator opted to eliminate the climate change 
section of the
report. One such edit was the inclusion of a reference to a discredited, 
industry-funded
paper. In a memo to the Vice President’s office, Mr. Cooney explained: 
“We plan to
begin to refer to this study in Administration communications on the 
science of global
climate change” because it “contradicts a dogmatic view held by many in 
the climate
science community that the past century was the warmest in the past 
millennium and
signals of human induced ‘global warming.’”

In the case of EPA’s Air Trends Report, CEQ went beyond editing and 
simply vetoed the
entire climate change section of the report.

*Other White House Actions*
The White House played a major role in crafting the August 2003 EPA 
legal opinion
disavowing authority to regulate greenhouse gases. CEQ Chairman James 
Connaughton
personally edited the draft legal opinion. When an EPA draft quoted the 
National
Academy of Science conclusion that “the changes observed over the last 
several decades
are likely mostly due to human activities,” CEQ objected because “the 
above quotes are
unnecessary and extremely harmful to the legal case being made.” The 
first line of
another internal CEQ document transmitting comments on the draft EPA 
legal opinion
reads: “Vulnerability: science.” The final opinion incorporating the 
White House edits
was rejected by the Supreme Court in April 2007 in Massachusetts v. EPA.

The White House also edited a 2002 op-ed by EPA Administrator Christine Todd
Whitman to ensure that it followed the White House line on climate 
change. Despite
objections from EPA, CEQ insisted on repeating an unsupported assertion 
that millions
of American jobs would be lost if the Kyoto Protocol were ratified.

https://www.google.com/search?q=UNITED+STATES+HOUSE+OF+REPRESENTATIVES+COMMITTEE+ON+OVERSIGHT+AND+GOVERNMENT+REFORM+DECEMBER+2007+POLITICAL+INTERFERENCE+WITH+CLIMATE+CHANGE+SCIENCE+UNDER+THE+BUSH+ADMINISTRATION&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS792US792&oq=UNITED+STATES+HOUSE+OF+REPRESENTATIVES+COMMITTEE+ON+OVERSIGHT+AND+GOVERNMENT+REFORM+DECEMBER+2007+POLITICAL+INTERFERENCE+WITH+CLIMATE+CHANGE+SCIENCE+UNDER+THE+BUSH+ADMINISTRATION&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBBzk3NGowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg34913/html/CHRG-110hhrg34913.htm
http://mark-bowen.com/images/downloads/house_oversight_committee-rept_1207.pdf 




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