[✔️] February 15, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Tipping point, 2024 Presidential race, Susan Clayton psychologist, anxiety,

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 15, 2023*/

/[ PBS report: Tipping points are real and very harsh - but not specific 
-- 12 min video ] /
*Is THIS the Climate Tipping Point of No Return?*
PBS Terra
Feb 14, 2023
Arctic air is warming, causing scientists to worry that melting arctic 
ice and snow could also lead to a sudden permafrost thaw and release of 
carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) that forms a climate tipping 
point or feedback loop. Thawing of permafrost has been linked to 
releasing zombie viruses not seen in millennia and the feedback loop 
mentioned in the recent IPCC report and COP27 focused on the release of 
CO2. This is something that US leaders hope the 2022 climate change bill 
(Inflation Reduction Act) could help avoid, but the trigger temperature 
may be coming sooner than expected.

In 2008, Tim Lenton published a groundbreaking paper on tipping points. 
Permafrost was left off the list at the time. But since then, additional 
research has shown that this truly enormous store of carbon is far more 
susceptible to global warming than we just recently believed.

If the permafrost that covers much of the northern hemisphere were to 
reach this tipping point, it would add many gigatons of greenhouse gas 
into our atmosphere, significantly worsening climate change, and 
threatening many of the other climate tipping points.

This episode of Weathered explores the latest research on the 
possibilities of abrupt permafrost thaw as well as the much deeper 
yedoma regions that could be triggered later on.

Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by 
Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what 
causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqZTqIKMxs

- -

/[  a recent, relevant research paper ]/
*Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping 
points*
DAVID I. ARMSTRONG MCKAY
SCIENCE
9 Sep 2022
Vol 377, Issue 6611
DOI: 10.1126/science.abn7950
*Getting tipsy*
Climate tipping points are conditions beyond which changes in a part of 
the climate system become self-perpetuating. These changes may lead to 
abrupt, irreversible, and dangerous impacts with serious implications 
for humanity. Armstrong McKay et al. present an updated assessment of 
the most important climate tipping elements and their potential tipping 
points, including their temperature thresholds, time scales, and 
impacts. Their analysis indicates that even global warming of 1°C, a 
threshold that we already have passed, puts us at risk by triggering 
some tipping points. This finding provides a compelling reason to limit 
additional warming as much as possible. —HJS

*Structured Abstract*
*INTRODUCTION*
Climate tipping points (CTPs) are a source of growing scientific, 
policy, and public concern. They occur when change in large parts of the 
climate system—known as tipping elements—become self-perpetuating beyond 
a warming threshold. Triggering CTPs leads to significant, 
policy-relevant impacts, including substantial sea level rise from 
collapsing ice sheets, dieback of biodiverse biomes such as the Amazon 
rainforest or warm-water corals, and carbon release from thawing 
permafrost. Nine policy-relevant tipping elements and their CTPs were 
originally identified by Lenton et al. (2008). We carry out the first 
comprehensive reassessment of all suggested tipping elements, their 
CTPs, and the timescales and impacts of tipping. We also highlight steps 
to further improve understanding of CTPs, including an expert 
elicitation, a model intercomparison project, and early warning systems 
leveraging deep learning and remotely sensed data.
- -
*RESULTS*
We identify nine global “core” tipping elements which contribute 
substantially to Earth system functioning and seven regional “impact” 
tipping elements which contribute substantially to human welfare or have 
great value as unique features of the Earth system (see figure). Their 
estimated CTP thresholds have significant implications for climate 
policy: Current global warming of ~1.1°C above pre-industrial already 
lies within the lower end of five CTP uncertainty ranges. Six CTPs 
become likely (with a further four possible) within the Paris Agreement 
range of 1.5 to <2°C warming, including collapse of the Greenland and 
West Antarctic ice sheets, die-off of low-latitude coral reefs, and 
widespread abrupt permafrost thaw. An additional CTP becomes likely and 
another three possible at the ~2.6°C of warming expected under current 
policies.
*CONCLUSION*
Our assessment provides strong scientific evidence for urgent action to 
mitigate climate change. We show that even the Paris Agreement goal of 
limiting warming to well below 2°C and preferably 1.5°C is not safe as 
1.5°C and above risks crossing multiple tipping points. Crossing these 
CTPs can generate positive feedbacks that increase the likelihood of 
crossing other CTPs. Currently the world is heading toward ~2 to 3°C of 
global warming; at best, if all net-zero pledges and nationally 
determined contributions are implemented it could reach just below 2°C. 
This would lower tipping point risks somewhat but would still be 
dangerous as it could trigger multiple climate tipping points.
- -
*Abstract*
Climate tipping points occur when change in a part of the climate system 
becomes self-perpetuating beyond a warming threshold, leading to 
substantial Earth system impacts. Synthesizing paleoclimate, 
observational, and model-based studies, we provide a revised shortlist 
of global “core” tipping elements and regional “impact” tipping elements 
and their temperature thresholds. Current global warming of ~1.1°C above 
preindustrial temperatures already lies within the lower end of some 
tipping point uncertainty ranges. Several tipping points may be 
triggered in the Paris Agreement range of 1.5 to <2°C global warming, 
with many more likely at the 2 to 3°C of warming expected on current 
policy trajectories. This strengthens the evidence base for urgent 
action to mitigate climate change and to develop improved tipping point 
risk assessment, early warning capability, and adaptation strategies.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950



/[  Climate Wire says the 2024 presidential race now begins  ]/
*Haley to enter presidential race with mixed climate record*
By Scott Waldman
2/14/2023
Nikki Haley on Wednesday is set to officially become the second 
Republican to enter the 2024 presidential race.
- -
Haley’s two terms as governor included a brush with climate controversy. 
In 2012, a climate change report from South Carolina’s Department of 
Natural Resources was quashed, The State newspaper reported at the time. 
Though Haley emphasized climate mitigation, her administration focused 
on cutting regulations.

Over her public career, Haley did not deny climate science herself, but 
she repeatedly downplayed the urgency of addressing global warming. 
During her confirmation hearings in 2017, she acknowledged that climate 
change presented national security risks but said it was not a priority 
to address.

“I think it is one of the threats, yes,” she said. “I do not think it is 
the most important, but I do think it is on the table.”

Trump’s growing record of losses among candidates he has supported 
suggests that climate denial is no longer a winning strategy for 
Republicans, said Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman from South 
Carolina who is now executive director of the Energy and Enterprise 
Initiative at George Mason University. He said Haley represents a future 
where the party could realize a climate policy that actually addresses 
the problem.

“She’s one of the candidates that would help us turn the page as 
Republicans and get away from a chapter that lost the House, the Senate 
and the White House,” Inglis said. “The new chapter could be about 
writing a future of actually caring about climate change and being 
responsive to the need at hand and particularly paying attention to the 
next generation of voters.”

One possible reason for Haley’s early entrance into the race is because 
she’s trying to head off Sen. Tim Scott, a fellow Republican with South 
Carolina roots who reportedly is considering a run as well, said Kirk 
Randazzo, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina.

Haley has a history of being a more moderate conservative, and she could 
benefit from an all-out brawl between Trump and DeSantis, he said. She 
also has a history of running a strong ground game, and Haley won her 
first governor’s race in South Carolina as a relative unknown, Randazzo 
said.

He said it’s likely that Haley would stick to the same energy 
independence rhetoric as other Republicans and call for more oil and gas 
production during the campaign.

But if she survives into the general election, that’s where she could 
tout her work around climate resilience. As an example, she helped South 
Carolina coastal communities after storms in 2015 dropped 25 inches of 
rain in some areas.

Climate policy could be one area Haley can use to her advantage — at 
least when it comes to her tenure as governor, he said. Haley worked 
extensively with coastal communities who had been devastated by extreme 
weather.

“Her ability to take the ideological air out of that issue was pretty 
remarkable while she was governor,” Randazzo said. “And if she wanted to 
emphasize that during the presidential race, she has some serious 
credentials she can rely upon.”
https://www.eenews.net/articles/haley-to-enter-presidential-race-with-mixed-climate-record/


/[ to the well-informed, there comes a more negative mood  --  76 min 
video and text transcript  ]/
*Communicating About Climate Change: Interview With Susan Clayton, PhD*
transcript: 
https://www.psichi.org/page/podcast-communicating-about-climate-change#.Y-vwf3bMK3Y 

PSI CHI
Sep 6, 2022  PsychEverywhere Podcast
Psychologists play an important role in helping people navigate the 
climate crisis—find out how! Renowned guest speaker Dr. Susan Clayton 
discusses effective (and ineffective) ways to communicate about our 
warming world. Learn who climate change advocates and deniers tend to 
be, and what strategies have been effective in the past to increase 
acceptance of global, human-caused climate change. Brought to you by Psi 
Chi.

  Resources/Suggested Reading
“Can Psychology Help Save the World” article by Dr. Clayton: 
https://humansandnature.org/can-psychology-help-save-the-world/
Read full transcript for this episode: 
https://www.psichi.org/page/podcast-communicating-about-climate-change#.Y-vwf3bMK3Y 


  Listen or follow PsychEverywhere: https://www.psichi.org/page/podcast 
Tell a friend or colleague about the show. Follow PsychEverywhere on 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PsiChiPodcast Leave a review on Apple 
Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBCZFsG0X6M

- -

/[  more discussions with students --  climate changes violent trauma, 
gradual changes as temps go us, moods get worse, significant long term 
stress  ]/
*Dr, Susan Clayton on Environmental Identities.*
jan van eyck academie
live on Jun 16, 2020  MAASTRICHT
Environmental Identities is a programme of public conversations, 
screenings and other online and offline events, in pursuit of a 
multi-layered understanding of the relation between self- and social 
identity and the natural environment. The sequence of events will incite 
a dialogue between cultural practitioners and researchers from the 
natural and the social sciences, around ways of construing and 
questioning our self- and social identities in a world increasingly 
marked by unsustainable and out-dated notions of humanity, and by the 
processes of ecosystemic devastation instigated by these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBCZFsG0X6M

- -

/[ A year in Paris,  with students - "Get informed, get cognitive 
control, get active influencing and helping others, find meaning"]/
*Climate Anxiety with Dr. Susan Clayton*
Fashion Institute of Technology
259 views  Oct 5, 2021
Five current FIT students and recent graduates will join Daniel 
Benkendorf and climate anxiety scholar, Dr. Susan Clayton.

In this session, Daniel Benkendorf (Psychology) will discuss the issue 
of climate anxiety with Dr. Susan Clayton, a psychologist who is both an 
internationally-recognized scholar on this topic and who is also a lead 
author on the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change. A panel of current FIT students and recent graduates 
will join Benkendorf and Clayton as they define and explore the features 
and peculiarities of climate anxiety and consider ways to ameliorate it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-kXmZC_jPg



/[ Sports needs to change with the climate changes -- skiing ]/
*Mikaela Shiffrin leads push for winter sports sustainability amid 
climate crisis*
American skier wants to make her sport climate neutral
Letter signed by Shiffrin and scores of others sent to FIS
Agence France-Presse
Sun 12 Feb 2023
US star Mikaela Shiffrin has led calls for ski chiefs to change their 
approach to sustainability in a bid to make winter sports justifiable to 
a public ever more aware of climate change.

Entitled “Our sport is endangered”, a letter to International Ski 
Federation (FIS) president Johan Eliasch signed by Shiffrin and scores 
of others claimed the body’s current sustainability efforts were 
“insufficient”.

Citing race cancellations due to lack of snow, fewer pre-season training 
options “because glaciers are shrinking at a frightening pace” and the 
inability to produce artificial snow because of rising temperatures, 
“the public opinion about skiing is shifting towards unjustifiability”, 
the letter reads.

“That’s why we as a winter sports community have to take the lead in the 
fight against climate change and make our sport climate neutral as soon 
as possible. To do so we need progressive organisational action.

“This is our most important race, let’s win it together,” they said.

The letter signees called for the FIS to commit to reaching net-zero for 
all operations and events by 2035 or before, achieve the 50% emissions 
reduction by 2030, to install a sustainability department and guarantee 
full transparency.

Among their suggestions, the 142 athletes in the Protect Our Winters 
(POW) association that signed the letter called for the World Cup season 
to be moved to end-November to later in April, unlike the current alpine 
skiing season which starts in Solden in October.

They also demanded that an effort be made to cut carbon emissions by 
creating “a geographically reasonable race calendar” so the North 
American swing is done in one go, something they argue would “reduce 
approximately 1,500 tons of CO2”.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/feb/13/mikaela-shiffrin-leads-push-for-winter-sports-sustainability-amid-climate-crisis



/[ Of course, why not? ]/
*Climate ‘teleconnections’ may link droughts and fires across continents*
New research could help countries forecast and collaborate to deal with 
dry spells and fires
By Nikk Ogasa
Feb. 13, 2023
Large-scale climate patterns that can impact weather across thousands of 
kilometers may have a hand in synchronizing multicontinental droughts 
and stoking wildfires around the world, two new studies find.

These profound patterns, known as climate teleconnections, typically 
occur as recurring phases that can last from weeks to years. “They are a 
kind of complex butterfly effect, in that things that are occurring in 
one place have many derivatives very far away,” says Sergio de Miguel, 
an ecosystem scientist at Spain’s University of Lleida and the Joint 
Research Unit CTFC-Agrotecnio in Solsona, Spain.

Major droughts arise around the same time at drought hot spots around 
the world, and the world’s major climate teleconnections may be behind 
the synchronization, researchers report in one study. What’s more, these 
profound patterns may also regulate the scorching of more than half of 
the area burned on Earth each year, de Miguel and colleagues report in 
the other study.

The research could help countries around the world forecast and 
collaborate to deal with widespread drought and fires, researchers say.

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is perhaps the most 
well-known climate teleconnection (SN: 8/21/19). ENSO entails phases 
during which weakened trade winds cause warm surface waters to amass in 
the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, known as El Niño, and opposite 
phases of cooler tropical waters called La Niña.

These phases influence wind, temperature and precipitation patterns 
around the world, says climate scientist Samantha Stevenson of the 
University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved in either 
study. “If you change the temperature of the ocean in the tropical 
Pacific or the Atlantic … that energy has to go someplace,” she 
explains. For instance, a 1982 El Niño caused severe droughts in 
Indonesia and Australia and deluges and floods in parts of the United 
States.

Past research has predicted that human-caused climate change will 
provoke more intense droughts and worsen wildfire seasons in many 
regions (SN: 3/4/20). But few studies have investigated how 
shorter-lived climate variations — teleconnections — influence these 
events on a global scale. Such work could help countries improve 
forecasting efforts and share resources, says climate scientist Ashok 
Mishra of Clemson University in South Carolina.

In one of the new studies, Mishra and his colleagues tapped data on 
drought conditions from 1901 to 2018. They used a computer to simulate 
the world’s drought history as a network of drought events, drawing 
connections between events that occurred within three months of each other.

The researchers identified major drought hot spots across the globe — 
places in which droughts tended to appear simultaneously or within just 
a few months. These hot spots included the western and midwestern United 
States, the Amazon, the eastern slope of the Andes, South Africa, the 
Arabian deserts, southern Europe and Scandinavia.

“When you get a drought in one, you get a drought in others,” says 
climate scientist Ben Kravitz of Indiana University Bloomington, who was 
not involved in the study. “If that’s happening all at once, it can 
affect things like global trade, [distribution of humanitarian] aid, 
pollution and numerous other factors.”

A subsequent analysis of sea surface temperatures and precipitation 
patterns suggested that major climate teleconnections were behind the 
synchronization of droughts on separate continents, the researchers 
report January 10 in Nature Communications. El Niño appeared to be the 
main driver of simultaneous droughts spanning parts of South America, 
Africa and Australia. ENSO is known to exert a widespread influence on 
precipitation patterns (SN: 4/16/20). So that finding is “a good 
validation of the method,” Kravitz says. “We would expect that to 
appear.”...

https://www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/020323_no_climate-teleconnections_inline_desktop_REV.jpg

In the second study, published January 27 in Nature Communications, de 
Miguel and his colleagues investigated how climate teleconnections 
influence the amount of land burned around the world. Researchers knew 
that the climate patterns can influence the frequency and intensity of 
wildfires. In the new study, the researchers compared satellite data on 
global burned area from 1982 to 2018 with data on the strength and phase 
of the globe’s major climate teleconnections.

Variations in the yearly pattern of burned area strongly aligned with 
the phases and range of climate teleconnections. In all, these climate 
patterns regulate about 53 percent of the land burned worldwide each 
year, the team found. According to de Miguel, teleconnections directly 
influence the growth of vegetation and other conditions such as aridity, 
soil moisture and temperature that prime landscapes for fires.

The Tropical North Atlantic teleconnection, a pattern of shifting sea 
surface temperatures just north of the equator in the Atlantic Ocean, 
was associated with about one-quarter of the global burned area — making 
it the most powerful driver of global burning, especially in the 
Northern Hemisphere.

These researchers are showing that wildfire scars around the world are 
connected to these climate teleconnections, and that’s very useful, 
Stevenson says. “Studies like this can help us prepare how we might go 
about constructing larger scale international plans to deal with events 
that affect multiple places at once.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-teleconnections-droughts-fires


/[The news archive - looking back at some text and audio from NPR ]/
/*February 15, 2010*/
February 15, 2010:
NPR's Christopher Joyce reports:
*Get This: Warming Planet Can Mean More Snow*

"Most [climate scientists] don't see a contradiction between a warming 
world and lots of snow. That includes Kevin Trenberth, a prominent 
climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 
Colorado.

"'The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years 
ago means there's about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking 
around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s,' he says.

"Warmer water means more water vapor rises up into the air, and what 
goes up must come down.

"'So one of the consequences of a warming ocean near a coastline like 
the East Coast and Washington, D.C., for instance, is that you can get 
dumped on with more snow partly as a consequence of global warming,' he 
says.

"And Trenberth notes that you don't need very cold temperatures to get 
big snow. In fact, when the mercury drops too low, it may be too cold to 
snow."

There's something else fiddling with the weather this year — a strong El 
Nino. That's the weather pattern that, every few years, raises itself up 
out of the western Pacific Ocean and blows east to the Americas. It 
brings heavy rains and storms to California and the south and southeast. 
It also pushes high-altitude jet streams farther south, which bring 
colder air with them.

Trenberth also says El Nino can "lock in" weather patterns like a 
meteorological highway, so that storms keep coming down the same track.

True, those storms have been record breakers. But meteorologist Jeff 
Masters, with the Web site Weather Underground, says it's average 
temperatures — not snowfall — that really measure climate change.

"Because if it's cold enough to snow, you will get snow," Masters says. 
"We still have winter even if temperatures have warmed on average, oh, 
about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years."

Masters say that 1 degree average warming is not enough to eliminate 
winter. Or storms.

A storm is part of what scientists classify as weather. Weather is 
largely influenced by local conditions and changes week to week. It's 
fickle — fraught with wild ups and downs.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123671588&sc=emaf


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