[✔️] Feb 14 2024 Global Warming News | Fifth National Climate Assessment, The Report, A Poem, About the Report, Cryosphere Permafrost thaw,
Richard Pauli
Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Wed Feb 14 08:14:00 EST 2024
/*February*//*14, 2024*/
[ a quick read-through of the report - video ]
*Fifth National Climate Assessment: Let’s Hope there is a Sixth…*
Paul Beckwith
Feb 13, 2024
I chat about the Fifth National Climate Assessment Report for the USA,
since there is a wealth of information within. Basically, this is a
hard-hitting report on how the US is being hammered by accelerating
climate change mayhem.
Unfortunately, depending on the outcome of the US election, it is very
possible that there will not be a Sixth, or Seventh, or Eight…
assessment, since one of the leading candidate’s is of the opinion that
climate change is a Chinese hoax.
It seems that we really are in a horrifying episode of The Twilight
Zone, or in a Dr. Strangelove movie, or perhaps in a Monty Python skit.
Google these things if you are too young to know what I am talking
about; you will be in for a pleasant surprise!
“The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government’s preeminent
report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a
congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the scientific
foundation to support informed decision-making across the United
States.”: https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/
“As the world’s climate has shifted toward warmer conditions, the
frequency and intensity of extreme cold events have declined over much
of the US, while the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme heat
have increased. Across all regions of the US, people are experiencing
warming temperatures and longer-lasting heatwaves. Over much of the
country, nighttime temperatures and winter temperatures have warmed more
rapidly than daytime and summer temperatures. Many other extremes,
including heavy precipitation, drought, flooding, wildfire, and
hurricanes, are becoming more frequent and/or severe, with a cascade of
effects in every part of the country.”
“The US now experiences, on average, a billion-dollar weather or climate
disaster every three weeks.”
“Billion-dollar weather and climate disasters are events where
damages/costs reach or exceed $1 billion, including adjustments for
inflation. Between 2018 and 2022, 89 such events affected the US,
including 4 droughts, 6 floods, 52 severe storms, 18 tropical cyclones,
5 wildfires, and 4 winter storm events. During this period, Florida had
the highest total damages ($140 billion) and experienced the highest
damages from a single event—Hurricane Ian ($113 billion). Over the
1980–2022 period, Texas had the highest total damages ($375 billion).
While similar data are not available for the US-Affiliated Pacific
Islands, Super Typhoon Yutu caused $500 million in property damage alone
in Saipan and the northern Marianas in 2018. Increasing costs over time
are driven by changes in the assets at risk and the increase in
frequency or intensity of extreme events caused by climate change.”
“The risk of two or more extreme events occurring simultaneously or in
quick succession in the same region—known as compound events—is
increasing. Climate change is also increasing the risk of multiple
extremes occurring simultaneously in different locations that are
connected by complex human and natural systems. For instance,
simultaneous megafires across multiple western states and record
back-to-back Atlantic hurricanes in 2020 caused unprecedented demand on
federal emergency response resources.”
“As the climate changes, increased instabilities in US and global food
production and distribution systems are projected to make food less
available and more expensive. These price increases and disruptions are
expected to disproportionately affect the nutrition and health of women,
children, older adults, and low-wealth communities.”
“Homes, property, and critical infrastructure are increasingly exposed
to more frequent and intense extreme events, increasing the cost of
maintaining a safe and healthy place to live. Development in fire-prone
areas and increases in area burned by wildfires have heightened risks of
loss of life and property damage in many areas across the US. Coastal
communities across the country—home to 123 million people (40% of the
total US population)—are exposed to sea level rise, with millions of
people at risk of being displaced from their homes by the end of the
century.”
“Climate change is already harming human health across the US, and
impacts are expected to worsen with continued warming. Climate change
harms individuals and communities by exposing them to a range of
compounding health hazards, including the following:
— More severe and frequent extreme events
— Wider distribution of infectious and vector-borne pathogens
— Air quality worsened by smog, wildfire smoke, dust, and increased pollen
— Threats to food and water security
— Mental and spiritual health stressors”
Above, in quotes, is just a small sampling of choice tidbits on what the
US is facing.
You may not be interested in climate change, but climate change is
interested in you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiy9YVJG1VY
- -
/[ Here is the report ]/
*The Fifth National Climate Assessment*
The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government’s preeminent
report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a
congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the scientific
foundation to support informed decision-making across the United States.
https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/
- -
/[ a poem for the assessment delivery ]/
*STARTLEMENT*
by Ada Limón, 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry at the Library of
Congress
It is a forgotten pleasure, the pleasure
of the unexpected blue-bellied lizard
skittering off his sun spot rock, the flicker
of an unknown bird by the bus stop.
To think, perhaps, we are not distinguishable
and therefore no loneliness can exist here.
Species to species in the same blue air, smoke—
wing flutter buzzing, a car horn coming.
So many unknown languages, to think we have
only honored this strange human tongue.
If you sit by the riverside, you see a culmination
of all things upstream. We know now,
we were never at the circle’s center, instead
all around us something is living or trying to live.
The world says, What we are becoming, we are
becoming together.
The world says, One type of dream has ended
and another has just begun.
The world says, Once we were separate,
and now we must move in unison.
A poem written for the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
© 2023 Ada Limón. All Rights Reserved.
https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/front-matter/
- -
/[ a few words about the report ]/
*About This Report*
The Global Change Research Act of 19901 mandates that the US Global
Change Research Program (USGCRP) deliver a report to Congress and the
President not less frequently than every four years that “integrates,
evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the
scientific uncertainties associated with such findings; analyzes the
effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy
production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human
health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and
analyzes current trends in global change, both human-induced and
natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.”
The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) fulfills that mandate by
delivery of this Assessment and provides the scientific foundation to
support informed decision-making across the United States. By design,
much of the development of NCA5 built upon the approaches and processes
used to create the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4),2 with a
goal of continuously advancing an inclusive, diverse, and sustained
process for assessing and communicating scientific knowledge on the
impacts, risks, and vulnerabilities associated with a changing global
climate (App. 1).
The findings in this report are based on a comprehensive review and
assessment of information sources determined to meet the standards and
documentation required under the Information Quality Act and the
Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (App. 2),
including peer-reviewed literature, other literature, Indigenous
Knowledge, other expert and local knowledge, and climate data processed
and prepared for authors by NOAA’s Technical Support Unit (TSU; see
Guide to the Report section below and App. 3).
NCA5 was thoroughly reviewed by Federal Government experts, external
experts, and the public multiple times throughout the report development
process. An expert external review was performed by an ad hoc committee
of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.3
Additional information on the development of this Assessment can be
found in Appendix
https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/art-climate/
/[Permafrost lectures -- Northern Hemisphere ]/
*What Everyone Should Know About Permafrost Thaw*
Cryosphere Pavilion
Dec 3, 2023
Hear directly from Arctic scientists about why permafrost matters and
its relevance to climate negotiations. You’ll learn about what
permafrost is and where is it found; carbon emissions from permafrost
thaw; tipping points; the state of monitoring, measuring, and accounting
for these emissions; land degradation and displacement of Arctic
communities; loss and damage in the circumarctic and the impacts on
Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities; and the need for co-produced
resilience strategies.
Contacts: Woodwell Climate Research Center, Bolin Centre for Climate
Research, Alfred Wegener Institute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTTqwVFAJKg
/[Likely I read this Walter Sullivan article when first published ]/
/*February 14, 1979 */
February 14, 1979: The New York Times reports:
*Climatolo**gists Are Warned North Pole Might Melt*
By Walter Sullivan Special to The New York Times
Feb. 14, 1979
GENEVA, Feb. 13 — There is a real possibility that some people now
in their infancy will live to a time when the ice at the North Pole
will have melted, a change that would cause swift and perhaps
catastrophic changes in climate.
Although many uncertainties affect the possibility, the change could
come about because of rapid increases in fuel‐burning and a
consequent rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide allows sunlight to enter the atmosphere and heat the
earth, but it inhibits the escape of heat radiation into space.
This so‐called “greenhouse effect” was discussed today by several
specialists reporting to the World Climate Conference here, and the
conferees were urged to assign top priority to assessing the carbon
dioxide threat in the 20‐year world climate program now in preparation.
In a study being presented to the conference by the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, it is projected
that global energy use may increase from three to five times by the
middle of the next century.
The increase would derive chiefly from industrialization of the
developing countries. If, as many experts expect, most of the energy
comes from burning coal, oil and gas, the amount of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere may almost double by early in the next century and
redouble by mid‐century.
This projection was by Dr. W. Lawrence Gates, climatologist at
Oregon State University in Corvallis. The resulting global warming
“may amount to an environmental catastrophe,” he said.
In another report, Dr. R. Edward Munn of the University of Toronto
and Dr. Les ter Mechta of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Washington also discussed the threat.
*Another Projection*
They concluded, however, that “few, if any, scientists believe the
carbon dioxide problem in itself justifies a curb, today, in the
usage of fossil fuels or deforestation.” Since forests absorb that
gas. incorporating Its carbon into wood and leaves, the clearing of
land for agriculture is adding to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Nevertheless, they said, within 5 or 10 years “governments could
come to crossroad” in determining their energy and land‐use
policies. The uncertainties include the extent to which oceans and
vegetation will absorb the added carbon dioxide.
As the oceans become warmer, they may release some of the carbon
dioxide already stored there. It, on the other hand, the ice adrift
on the Arctic Ocean melts, the resulting water would then take up
some of it.
Dr. Herman Flohn, Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at the
University of Bonn in West Germany, said that “the most fascinating,
and also the most controversial problem” facing climatologists was
the possibility that the Arctic ice (apart from Greenland) would
vanish. The Arctic Ocean has not been free of ice in almost 2.5
million years.
*Earlier Soviet Idea*
The ice's removal by design was discussed in 1962 by a Soviet
scientist, M. I. Bodyko, who later suggested that heating by
atmospheric carbon dioxide could do the job. From sampling of sea
floor sediments, Dr. Flohn pointed out, it has recently been
possible to reconstruct the history of glaciation at both poles,
showing that for 10 million years world climate was grossly lopsided.
The reason was that, beginning more than 12 million years ago the
Antarctic continent became ice covered, reaching, from five million
to six million years ago, an accumulation 50 percent more voluminous
than today. Yet until less than 2.5 million years ago the North Pole
region was open ocean.
The effect was to shift climate zones of the Northern Hemisphere
some 400 miles north. If the Arctic ice melts, Dr. Flohn predicted,
winter rains will become meager in the Mediterranean, Near East and
American Southwest, and summer droughts would become frequent
between north latitudes 45 and 50 degrees.
Dr. B. John Mason, head of the British weather services, told of
computer simulation of the effects of an ice‐free Arctic Ocean. A
“rather unexpected result,” he said, was the indication that
mid‐latitudes in the United States, Eastern Siberia and Western
Europe would be cooled by as much as 16 degrees Fahrenheit.
The energy study by the International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis examined three potential sources for the greatly increased
demand projected for the year 2030: solar energy, fossil fuels or
nuclear energy. In part because of the time required to develop the
technology, it was concluded that solar energy could contribute no
more than a quarter of the needs.
The choice, therefore, is primarily between nuclear and fossil fuel,
the former raising formidable problem of radioactive waste disposal
and the latter a threat to world climate.
The world is faced with a “Faustian bargain,” Dr. Roger Revelle,
chairman of tomorrow morning's session, told a press conference
today, adding, “Whatever you do is bad.” Dr. Revelle, who formerly
headed the population center at Harvard University, noted that
population growth had already tapered off in Europe, including
European Russia and Japan.
There is “real hope,” he said, that in the next century world
population may level off at eight billion — roughly double the
present level. But to raise the living standards of such a
population to advanced levels will place formidable demands on
energy production.
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60716FD3A5D12728DDDAD0994DA405B898BF1D3
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/14/archives/climatologists-are-warned-north-pole-might-melt-another-projection.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VU0.9Jtp.KzfFE7qQcTtp&smid=url-share
/[ discussions from the late, great Michael Dowd - 23 mins ]/
*"Beyond Hope and Fear: Staying (mostly) positive in abruptly disturbing
times" - Michael Dowd, 2021*
thegreatstory
Feb 13, 2024
Michael Dowd delivered this online sermon August 2021 for Community
Unitarian Universalists of Brighton, Michigan. Following Michael's death
in October 2023, the service leader of that sermon (Terry Sharik) and I
(Michael's widow, Connie Barlow) decided in 2024 to edit and post this
sermon as a legacy piece.
As video editor, I extracted the sermon from the full church service
video — and lo and behold discovered that I myself told a Story for All
Ages during the service. So that is included too. The story was titled
"Helping Forests Walk", and I moved it from near the beginning of the
service to the end of this video. So it is Michael's sermon that begins
right away.
For a well-organized and linked list of all of Michael Dowd's videos
during the last half of the 18 years he and I lived on the road, visit
the archival webpage I created for exactly that purpose. Its title:
"Michael Dowd: Postdoom Pastor":
https://thegreatstory.org/michaeldowd-postdoom.html
And absolutely do visit the Postdoom.com website that Michael founded in
2019. The new leadership since Michael's death have been greatly
improving the website graphics, accessibility, and resources for serving
the community for which it was designed. Bravo!
*https://postdoom.com/*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzWfcjuXPQU
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