[✔️] February 8, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Solar, Global Thermostat, Insurance, Grid vs Gunfire,

Wed Feb 8 09:12:50 EST 2023

/*February 8, 2023*/

/[ new conditions from Severe Weather Europe - where they have better 
computers ]/
*A Sudden Stratospheric Warming is coming, collapsing the Polar Vortex 
and potentially impacting the weather in late-month and early Spring*
By Andrej Flis
7/02/2023
A new and stronger warming event is developing in the Stratosphere, 
which will collapse the polar circulation. As a result, a so-called 
Sudden Stratospheric Warming event is now forecast to displace the Polar 
Vortex and potentially shake the weather patterns in the coming weeks.

Weather and the stratospheric Polar Vortex are strongly connected, 
especially in the cold weather season. So high-energy events such as 
stratospheric warmings can always have a high-impact result.

You will see what is currently going on in the Stratosphere and how the 
warming events are brewing around the Polar Vortex. But perhaps more 
importantly, we will look closely at the latest trends, which are 
starting to show the typically expected weather impacts from these 
high-power stratospheric events.

https://www.severe-weather.eu/wp-content/gallery/andrej-news/polar-vortex-circulation-stratospheric-warming-collapse-weather-forecast-united-states-north-hemisphere-pressure-3D-structure-cold-snowfall-event-february-march.png

The Polar Vortex extends high up into the atmosphere. You can see the 
atmospheric layers in the image below. The lowest level of the 
atmosphere is called the troposphere, where all the weather events are. 
But above that, we have the Stratosphere, a deeper and drier layer and 
the home of the ozone layer.

For this reason, we tend to separate the entire Polar Vortex into an 
upper (stratospheric) and a lower (tropospheric) part. They both play 
their role differently, which is why we monitor them separately. But it 
is also very important if they are properly connected—image by NOAA-Climate.

So to recap, the Polar Vortex behaves like a very large cyclone, 
covering the whole north pole down to the mid-latitudes. It is connected 
through all atmospheric levels, from the ground up, but can have 
different shapes at different altitudes.

We monitor any Polar Vortex activity because it can have weather 
implications across the entire Northern Hemisphere. And that is 
regardless if it is weak or strong.

A strong Polar Vortex usually means strong polar circulation. This locks 
the colder air into the Arctic circle, creating milder conditions for 
most of the United States and Europe.

In contrast, a weak Polar Vortex creates a weak jet stream pattern. As a 
result, it has a harder time containing the cold air, which can now 
escape from the polar regions into the United States and Europe. Image 
by NOAA.

https://www.severe-weather.eu/wp-content/gallery/andrej-news/polar-vortex-weather-forecast-north-hemisphere-what-is-polar-vortex-strong-weak-circulation-winter-pattern-jet-stream-anomaly-stratospheric-breakdown.png

This is why a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event (SSW) can be such a 
game-changer, as it can shift the mode from a strong to a weak Polar 
Vortex in a short time.

*Conclusion*
Hurricane Marie will soon become a Category 3 hurricane – the third 
major hurricane of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season. So far, there 
have been 18 tropical depressions forming in the region, quite a low 
number for this part of the tropics so far.

There were only 13 named storms, where 3 of those were hurricanes and 2 
major hurricanes forming (Douglas, Genevieve) this season. Normally, 
there are 15.4 named storm and7.6 hurricanes.

We are monitoring the further development of hurricane Marie – stay 
tuned for additional updates as major hurricane strength emerges on 
Friday...
- -
For tropical cyclone warning purposes, the northern Pacific is divided 
into three regions:

    – the Eastern Pacific (North America to 140° West)
    – the Central Pacific (140° West to 180°)
    – the Western Pacific (180° to 100° East)

Hurricane season of the Eastern Pacific runs between May 15th and 
November 30th each year. This area is, on average, the second-most 
active tropical basin in the world.

There is an average of 16 tropical storms each, where 9 of them become 
hurricanes, and 4 of them become major hurricanes.

Most of the east Pacific storms or hurricanes originate from a tropical 
wave that drifting westward across the intertropical convergence zone 
(ITCZ), and across northern parts of South America. Once the wave 
reaches the Pacific, a surface low begins to develop.

If the wind shear is low, a tropical cyclone can undergo rapid 
intensification as a result of very warm oceans, becoming a major hurricane.

Tropical cyclones weaken once they reach unfavorable areas for a 
tropical cyclone formation further west in the Central Pacific. However, 
hurricanes or their remnants sometimes reach the Hawaii archipelago.

There are a few types of Pacific hurricane tracks: one is a westerly 
track, another moves north-westward along Baja California and another 
moves north.

Sometimes storms can move north-east either across Central America or 
mainland Mexico and possibly enter the Caribbean Sea becoming a North 
Atlantic basin tropical cyclone, but these are quite rare.

The Western North Pacific has tropical systems which are called 
typhoons. This separation between the two basins has a practical 
convenience, however, as tropical cyclones rarely form in the central 
North Pacific due to high vertical wind shear, and few cross the dateline.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/sudden-stratospheric-warming-polar-vortex-collapse-effect-forecast-february-march-united-states-europe-fa/ 

- -

/[  time to recall the classic weather display for global conditions ]/
*Earth Null School*
https://earth.nullschool.net/

/[ Insurance losses cover natural disasters text and audio ]/
*The Role of Insurance in Climate Adaptation*
JENESSA DUNCOMBE

2/07/23
--[ listen to the story 
https://whowhatwhy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/amazon_polly_74170.mp3?version=1675798450 
]

Tropical storms and hurricanes bring immediate and direct economic 
damage to communities and may also reduce a country’s economic growth 
for more than a decade. Models that determine climate policy in the 
United States have been criticized for ignoring the impacts of such 
extreme weather events over time.

A new study highlights a way to stave off economic effects by promoting 
a widespread public insurance plan for Americans. The research supports 
the growing movement to use insurance — a key tool for managing 
society’s risk — as a form of climate adaptation.

“Insurance can be a major building block of future climate change 
adaptation strategies, at least in developed countries,” wrote a team of 
German economists behind the work. Climate adaptation seeks to change 
and prepare society for the effects of climate change today and in the 
future.

“Insurance can be a major building block of future climate change 
adaptation strategies.”

Climate Coverage
Global leaders and scientists gather at the Conference of the Parties 
(COP) each year to discuss the challenges of climate change. At the 2022 
COP, “climate risk insurance was discussed as a main measure to adapt to 
climate change,” said lead author and economist Christian Otto from the 
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Still, researchers are debating how much insurance can help. Generally, 
insured economies grow slower than uninsured economies, Otto said. “It 
takes time to file an insurance claim. It takes time for the insurance 
payout to arise to reconstruct things. It was an open question for us if 
insurance can indeed be an effective means,” he explained.

To find out, the researchers created a growth model for a simplified US 
economy. The model tracked losses to the stock of physical assets 
(buildings, roads, machinery, and other tangible things) as increasingly 
destructive storms made landfall. The model accounts for accumulated 
losses from storms over time, capturing the fact that communities can 
still be recovering from one storm when another hits.

The hypothetical insurance scheme used in the model is a mandatory 
nonprofit government-offered policy that is available everywhere at a 
flat fee. The scheme uses the average rate of insured losses from US 
hurricanes over the past several decades (50 percent) tallied by the 
natural disaster database NatCatSERVICE from the German-based insurance 
company Munich Re.

The United States doesn’t have an insurance policy like this currently, 
although a close analog is the National Flood Insurance Program from the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But the program isn’t 
compulsory and isn’t available to everyone.

An Economic Cushion
In the simplified US economy, past annual economic growth losses would 
have been cut in half with a compulsory insurance policy in effect. The 
results also show that despite climate change supercharging storms, 
insurance could dampen future economic growth losses for the United States.

In a simplified US economy, annual economic growth losses are cut in 
half when half the U.S. population is insured.

The model computes the percent annual average growth of the economy 
after a storm compared with the growth of an economy without a storm. By 
turning off and on different types of insurance caps and coverage and 
storm frequencies and intensities, the researchers sussed out the 
effectiveness of insurance as a climate adaptation tool.

In a 2 degrees Celsius warmer world, the percentage of direct asset 
losses covered by insurance would need to be raised to compensate for 
the losses from climate change-fueled storms. Depending on how tropical 
storms evolve with a shifting climate, insurance policies would need to 
cover 58 percent to 84 percent of direct asset losses — not 50 percent, 
the historical average. These numbers “seem within reach,” said Otto.

But insurance has its limits, said Otto. Current policies are pushing us 
toward a 2.7 degrees Celsius warmer world, according to the Climate 
Action Tracker. In the worst-case scenario projections for hurricanes, 
100 percent of direct asset losses would have to be covered to account 
for increased losses from climate change. That’s unrealistic, said Otto.

Although the study suggests that better insurance coverage helps 
compensate for tropical storm-related economic growth losses in the 
United States, Otto stressed that their study couldn’t consider 
everything. Instead, they write, their work presents “an optimistic 
upper limit” of insurance in mitigating disaster.

The authors will continue to test the effectiveness of insurance in 
other countries. They published the work in Science Advances in January.

No One-Size-Fits-All Solution
Insurance wouldn’t be as effective for all countries, however. The 
researchers repeated the analysis using the economy of Haiti, a 
hurricane-prone island with a much less developed insurance market than 
the United States.

According to the study, even with insurance that covers 100 percent of 
asset losses, economic growth losses are too significant for the Haitian 
government to handle. Insurance coverage must be partnered with other 
measures such as better housing standards, resilient infrastructure, and 
community-led relocation.

“The case of Haiti stresses the importance of international climate 
finance,” Otto said. Aid for loss and damages, a term that describes the 
consequences of climate change that surpass what humans can adapt to, is 
one example.

“The case of Haiti stresses the importance of international climate 
finance.”

“The authors show that reducing the share of uninsured assets is a 
simple and effective means to mitigate the adverse effects on growth 
that they estimate,” said economist Francesco Lamperti at the Sant’Anna 
School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy, and the European Institute on 
Economics and the Environment in Milan, Italy. Lamperti was not involved 
with the research.

“Otto and his coauthors develop a simple, transparent, and elegant 
model,” Lamperti said. He particularly applauded the model’s ability to 
consider the cumulative effect of multiple storms in sequence.

Derek Lemoine, an environmental economist at the University of Arizona 
who was also not involved in the work, concurred but urged the 
researchers to go further. He said two areas of focus are accounting for 
the possibility that surviving infrastructure would be less exposed 
after a storm and allowing for new infrastructure to be less vulnerable 
when rebuilt.

“For stakeholders and policymakers, I would stress that insurance can be 
an effective means,” Otto said. “Every one-tenth degree of warming we 
can avoid really matters for the damages.”

This story by Jenessa Duncombe was originally published by Eos Magazine 
and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration 
strengthening coverage of the climate story.
https://eos.org/special-reports
https://whowhatwhy.org/economy/the-role-of-insurance-in-climate-adaption/

/[  Got Sunshine?   Make solar power - one man living near Denver rants 
-  YouTube video  6:40 mins ] /
*Peter Zeihan - The Solar Power Problem(s)*
https://youtu.be/tJvpn98XsHQ
Zeihan on Geopolitics
165,521 views  Feb 6, 2023  #solar #greentech #energy
For solar power to make sense, there's one non-negotiable 
component...and yes, it's that bright, shiny thing in the sky - the sun. 
But just because your planet has a sun doesn't mean you should use solar 
power...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJvpn98XsHQ

/[ a modest question -- video 33 min - CO2 is about 421 ppm ]/
*The Global Thermostat - A Crazy Megaproject That Just Might Work*
Joe Scott
1.56M subscribers
184,055 views  Feb 6, 2023
Our climate is constantly changing. And right now, we're what's changing 
it. What if we could find a way to stabilize it to ensure our survival 
long-term? What if we could create a thermostat for planet Earth? Here's 
what that might look like.
TIMESTAMPS

    0:00 - Intro
    1:35 - CO2 Levels
    2:54 - Mining The Sky
    9:22 - Climeworks
    10:23 - Carbon Engineering
    11:17 - Global Thermostat
    12:25 - Additional Startups
    14:19 - Carbon Market
    18:00 - How Much Carbon Do We Need?
    23:17 - This Is How We Do It
    26:13 - The Caveats

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

/[  Gunfire and big grid equipment - engineering lecture video 12 mins ]/
*What Really Happened with the Substation Attack in North Carolina?**
*Practical Engineering
1,324,432 views  Jan 17, 2023  Electrical Grid
An overview of the substation attack in Moore County, North Carolina in 
December 2022.
This event highlights the need for making critical substations more 
secure and also making the grid more robust so that someone can’t rob 
tens of thousands of people of their lights, heat, comfort, and 
livelihood for four days with just a few well-placed bullets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwY-FTqWxM

/[ State of the Union mentions Global Warming in the Inflation Reduction 
Act - video ]/
*Biden discusses climate change during State of the Union address*
"[The] Inflation Reduction Act is also the most significant investment 
ever in climate change," President Joe Biden said.
February 7, 2023
https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/biden-discusses-climate-change-state-union-address-96966615

/[The news archive - looking back when a carbon tax was seriously 
considered ]/
/*February 8, 2017*/
February 8, 2017:

The Washington Post reports:

“A coalition of veteran GOP officials — including five who have either 
served as treasury secretary or as chairs of the Council of Economic 
Advisers — will meet Wednesday with top White House officials to discuss 
the prospect of imposing a national carbon tax, rather than using 
federal regulations, to address climate change.

“The newly formed Climate Leadership Council — which includes James A. 
Baker, Henry Paulson, George P. Shultz, Marty Feldstein and Greg Mankiw 
— is proposing elimination of nearly all of the Obama administration’s 
climate policies in exchange for a rising carbon tax that starts at $40 
per ton and is returned in the form of a quarterly check from the Social 
Security Administration to every American.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/07/senior-republican-leaders-propose-replacing-obamas-climate-plans-with-a-carbon-tax/?utm_term=.47ee3068d3e2 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/opinion/a-conservative-case-for-climate-action.html?ref=opinion 

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