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<font size="+1"><i>August 1, 2017</i></font><br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/western-wildfire-season-off-to-blazing-start-21661">Wildfire
Season Is Scorching the West</a></b><br>
By Andrea Thompson<br>
The West is ablaze as the summer wildfire season has gotten off to
an intense start. More than 37,000 fires have burned more than 5.2
million acres nationally since the beginning of the year, with 47
large fires burning across nine states as of Friday.<br>
The relatively early activity is quickly becoming the norm, with
rising temperatures making the fire season longer than it used to
be. The warming fueled by greenhouse gases is also helping to create
more and larger fires as it dries out more vegetation that acts as
fuel for fires.<br>
This new fire situation means that western states need to be begin
to rethink how they prepare for and combat fires, as well as how
fire-prone land is developed.<br>
Five large fires (those of 1,000 acres or more) are currently raging
across California, the largest of which is the Detwiler fire near
Yosemite National Park, which has burned more than 80,000 acres
since it ignited on July 16. That fire is now 75 percent contained,
but it destroyed dozens of buildings, including 63 homes.<br>
Montana currently has the most large fires of any state, with 14,
including the massive Lodgepole Complex fire (a series of smaller
fires that merged into one), which has burned more than 270,000
acres in the eastern portion of the state. <br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/western-wildfire-season-off-to-blazing-start-21661">http://www.climatecentral.org/news/western-wildfire-season-off-to-blazing-start-21661</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.iceflowsgame.com/">(video game) Ice shelves
in a warming world:</a></b></font><br>
A game about ice flow in the Antarctic<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.iceflowsgame.com/">Play
the game http://www.iceflowsgame.com/</a><br>
Check out the blog for more resources: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/iceflowsgame">http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/iceflowsgame</a>.<br>
Follow Ice Flows on Twitter: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://twitter.com/iceflowsgame">https://twitter.com/iceflowsgame</a><br>
Follow Ice Flows on Facebook: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.facebook.com/iceflowsgame">http://www.facebook.com/iceflowsgame</a><br>
See videos on YouTube <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTaAwsFruWTL78aIHz1EYGg">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTaAwsFruWTL78aIHz1EYGg</a><br>
Ice Flows is funded as part of a Natural Environment Research
Council (NERC) project led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
The project aims to investigate what may happen in the near-future
in the Weddell Sea region of Antarctica and the impact changes here
could have on global sea-level.<br>
Research by Hartmut Hellmer and colleagues in 20121 showed that this
part of Antarctica might be subject to warmer water coming into
contact with the Filchner Ice Shelf, which could lead to significant
retreat of this part of the ice sheet.<br>
The project combines fieldwork and computer modelling to investigate
the relationships between changes in the atmosphere, the ocean and
the ice sheet in this region. The field campaign will collect data
both to improve the way the models work, and also to test their
results.<br>
Fieldwork is taking place over three years and includes: 1) hot
water drilling through the ice shelf to make measurements of ocean
properties beneath the ice shelf, 2) sediment coring to investigate
past changes in the ice sheet, 3) radar and seismic measurements
taken on the ice and from the air to measure ice thickness and basal
topography. Field parties are supported from the Rothera Research
Station, both in the air and via tractor-trains.<br>
Marine sediment cores and instrumented buoys, deployed from the RV
Polarstern (Alfred Wegener Institute), will capture vital
information from the Antarctic continental shelf and slope.<br>
State-of-the-art numerical models of the climate, ocean and ice
sheets will then use the data collected to investigate how the ice
sheet might behave in the future under different climate change
scenarios.<br>
For more info go to the project website: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/fiss/">https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/fiss/</a>
.<br>
Ice Flows was developed by Anne Le Brocq at the University of Exeter
in collaboration with Inhouse Visuals and Questionable Quality.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.iceflowsgame.com/play.html">http://www.iceflowsgame.com/play.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/07/experts-warn-gas-pipes-are-real-danger-exploding-tundra">Experts
warn gas pipes are in real danger from exploding tundra</a></b><br>
Gas pipes supplying Europe run right over swelling Yamal tundra
which is deeply unstable to the release of underground methane.<br>
By Thomas Nilsen<br>
Russia's leading expert on methane explosions on the tundra,
Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, says to the Siberian Times that in
some places swelling tundra jacks up gas pipes.<br>
"In a number of areas pingos - we see both from satellite data and
with own eyes during helicopter inspections - they literally prop up
gas pipes," says Professor Bogoyavlensky.<br>
His analysis show gas pipelines running over the swelling tundra on
the Yamal Peninsula. The region has Russia's largest and most
important natural gas fields and is key to supplying Europe.<br>
The unstable tundra is due to the release of underground methane
that had been frozen in permafrost, but is now thawing. Over the
last three years, several methane explosions in the Yamal region
have created huge craters, some 50 meters deep and tens of meters in
diameter.<br>
The Siberian Times points to one recent explosion where permafrost
soil was thrown around 1 kilometre from the epicentre of the blast.
Flames shot into the sky, and a 50 metre-deep crater was formed from
the eruption, the newspaper reports.<br>
It is a sharp warming of Arctic climate that causes the permafrost
to melt.<br>
Experts evaluating the recent findings say the risk of more
explosions under gas supply pipelines "is clearly acute."<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/07/experts-warn-gas-pipes-are-real-danger-exploding-tundra">https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/07/experts-warn-gas-pipes-are-real-danger-exploding-tundra</a></font><br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/gas-pipelines-supplying-europe-in-real-danger-from-exploding-tundra-top-scientist/">Gas
pipelines supplying Europe 'in real danger from exploding
tundra' - top scientist</a></b><br>
<font color="#666666"><i><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/gas-pipelines-supplying-europe-in-real-danger-from-exploding-tundra-top-scientist/">http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/gas-pipelines-supplying-europe-in-real-danger-from-exploding-tundra-top-scientist/</a></i></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/paris-climate-deal-2c-warming-study">Planet
has just 5% chance of reaching Paris climate goal, study says</a></b><br>
Researchers find that economic, emissions and population trends
point to very small chance Earth will avoid warming more than 2C by
century's end<br>
There is only a 5% chance that the Earth will avoid warming by at
least 2C come the end of the century, according to new research that
paints a sobering picture of the international effort to stem
dangerous climate change.<br>
Global trends in the economy, emissions and population growth make
it extremely unlikely that the planet will remain below the 2C
threshold set out in the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the study
states.<br>
The Paris accord, signed by 195 countries, commits to holding the
average global temperature to "well below 2C" above pre-industrial
levels and sets a more aspirational goal to limit warming to 1.5C.
This latter target is barely plausible, the new research finds, with
just a 1% chance that temperatures will rise by less than 1.5C.<br>
"We're closer to the margin than we think," said Adrian Raftery, a
University of Washington academic who led the research, published in
Nature Climate Change. "If we want to avoid 2C, we have very little
time left. The public should be very concerned."<br>
John Sterman, an academic at the MIT Sloan Sustainability
Initiative, said the research was an "urgent call to action". MIT
research has shown that emissions cuts in the Paris agreement would
stave off around 1C of temperature increase by 2100 - findings
misrepresented by Trump when he announced the US departure from the
pact.<br>
Sterman said the US must "dramatically speed the deployment of
renewable energy and especially energy efficiency. Fortunately,
renewables, storage and other technologies are already cheaper than
fossil energy in many places and costs are falling fast.<br>
"More aggressive policies are urgently needed, but this study should
not be taken as evidence that nothing can be done."<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/paris-climate-deal-2c-warming-study">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/paris-climate-deal-2c-warming-study</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070">As
a river dies: India could be facing its 'greatest human
catastrophe' ever</a></b><br>
As crops and farmers die, experts blame a man-made "drought of
common sense" for the drying up of Southern India's Cauvery River,
once a lifeline to millions. Insight investigates.<br>
INDIA: Much of the once bountiful and lush-green rice fields was
reduced to a dry, yellow-brown landscape, after successive years of
scanty rainfall and severe drought.<br>
YouTube video <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6wjqHfrzmg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6wjqHfrzmg</a>
Published on Jul 24, 2017<br>
The Cauvery River is dying - and with it, the crops, hopes and lives
of millions of farmers. It could be India's greatest natural
catastrophe ever. Is an ambitious plan to link all rivers to the
cities to blame?<br>
#Insight investigates southern India's worst drought in 140 years:<a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://cna.asia/2uRLy57">https://cna.asia/2uRLy57</a><br>
For farmer Mr Vijayakumar, 52, the rice crop was his family's sole
source of income. Hit by the double whammy of crop failure and
mounting debts, he took a lonely walk to the edge of his two-acre
rice field in Tamil Nadu in January this year.<br>
There the tough, rugged man, used to the hard toil of a farmer for
decades, hanged himself from a nearby tree.<br>
"He was constantly worrying about the debts," said his wife
Vijayakumari, who is now struggling to cope with the loss of her
husband and their escalating debts. "His mind was never at peace. He
kept saying that there were so many debts to repay and he was
worried about how his only son was going to manage all that."<br>
Mr Vijayakumar had borrowed from moneylenders to pay for his
daughter's wedding and for fertilisers for his crops which didn't
grow, she told the Channel NewsAsia programme Insight.<br>
Read more at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070">http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070</a><br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070">http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/suicides-of-nearly-60000-indian-farmers-linked-to-climate-change-study-claims">Suicides
of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers linked to climate change, study
claims</a></b><br>
Rising temperatures and the resultant stress on India's agricultural
sector may have contributed to increase in suicides over the past 30
years, research shows<br>
Climate change may have contributed to the suicides of nearly 60,000
Indian farmers and farm workers over the past three decades,
according to new research that examines the toll rising temperatures
are already taking on vulnerable societies.<br>
Illustrating the extreme sensitivity of the Indian agricultural
industry to spikes in temperature, the study from the University of
California, Berkeley, found an increase of just 1C on an average day
during the growing season was associated with 67 more suicides.<br>
An increase of 5C on any one day was associated with an additional
335 deaths, the study published in the journal PNAS on Monday found.
In total, it estimates that 59,300 agricultural sector suicides over
the past 30 years could be attributed to warming.<br>
Also supporting the theory was that rainfall increases of as little
as 1cm each year were associated with an average 7% drop in the
suicide rate. So beneficial was the strong rainfall that suicide
rates were lower for the two years that followed, researcher Tamma
Carleton found.<br>
The true suicide rate was probably higher, she added, because deaths
are generally underreported in India and, until 2014, suicide was
considered a criminal offence, discouraging honest reports.<br>
"The tragedy is unfolding today," she said. "This is not a problem
for future generations. This is our problem, right now."<br>
- In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US,
the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In
Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.
Helplines in other countries can be found here<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/suicides-of-nearly-60000-indian-farmers-linked-to-climate-change-study-claims">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/suicides-of-nearly-60000-indian-farmers-linked-to-climate-change-study-claims</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-pollution-deaths-expected-to-rise-because-of-climate-change/">(CBS
video) Air pollution deaths expected to rise because of climate
change</a></b><br>
New research predicts that air pollution worsened by climate change
will cost tens of thousands of lives if changes are not made.<br>
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, estimates
that if current trends continue, climate change will be responsible
for another 60,000 air pollution-related deaths globally in the year
2030. By 2100, that number could jump to 260,000. <br>
Previous research has found that some 5.5 million people worldwide
already die prematurely due to air pollution.<br>
The authors say this is the most comprehensive study to date on how
climate change will affect health as a result of exacerbating air
pollution. The research incorporates results from several of the
world's top climate change modeling groups in the United States,
United Kingdom, France, Japan and New Zealand.<br>
Hotter temperatures "can speed up the reaction rate of air
pollutants that form in the atmosphere," lead study author Jason
West, an associate professor of environmental sciences and
engineering in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told
CBS News. "Places that by and large get drier from climate change
would be expected to increase air pollution concentrations."...<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-pollution-deaths-expected-to-rise-because-of-climate-change/">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-pollution-deaths-expected-to-rise-because-of-climate-change/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/wolcott200705">This
Day in Climate History August 1, 1988 </a></b><b> from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
August 1, 1988: Sacramento, California-based right-wing talk radio
host Rush Limbaugh begins his nationally syndicated program; over
the next 29 years, Limbaugh would try to popularize the notion that
climate science is a "hoax."<br>
Attacking environmentalists as hippie-dip "wackos" who care more
about spotted owls than people and use polar bears for propaganda,
Rush Limbaugh has blinded millions of Americans to the climate
crisis.<br>
Limbaugh will go down in history as a grand obstruction, a massive
blockage endowed with the gift of gab. His March 12 Global Warming
Update Stack included the news that "Gallup has a poll that says
that most Americans are sort of ho-hum about global warming, and are
not in any big hurry to do anything about it." Perhaps that plucky
comment could be placed inside Limbaugh’s future diorama near the
stuffed body of a polar bear to give visitors a little jot of irony
as they shuffle across the grounds.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/wolcott200705">http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/wolcott200705</a>
<br>
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