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<font size="+1"><i>May 18, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[from now on, setting records all the time]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/17/global-warming-april-400th-consecutive-warm-month/618484002/">Earth
just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to
global warming</a></b><br>
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY<br>
It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to
his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a
Virgin topped the musical charts.<br>
It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.<br>
Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with
above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. <br>
The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it's climate change,
caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels. <br>
"We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and
consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world
continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt.
"Speeding by a '400' sign only underscores that, but it does not
prove anything new."<br>
Climate scientists use the 20th-century average as a benchmark for
global temperature measurements. That's because it's fixed in time,
allowing for consistent "goal posts" when reviewing climate data.
It's also a sufficiently long period to include several cycles of
climate variability.<br>
"The thing that really matters is that, by whatever metric, we've
spent every month for several decades on the warm side of any
reasonable baseline," Arndt said.<br>
NOAA's analysis found last month was the 3rd-warmest April on record
globally. The unusual heat was most noteworthy in Europe, which had
its warmest April on record, and Australia, which had its
second-warmest.<br>
- - - - video statement
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.usatoday.com/videos/weather/2018/05/17/weather-event-hasnt-happened-since-1984/618961002/">https://www.usatoday.com/videos/weather/2018/05/17/weather-event-hasnt-happened-since-1984/618961002/</a><br>
For the year-to-date, the Earth is seeing its 5th-warmest start to
the year. <br>
A separate analysis of global temperature data from NASA also found
last month was the third-warmest April on record. <br>
Another milestone was reached in April, also related to the number
"400": Carbon dioxide - the gas scientists say is most responsible
for global warming - reached its highest level in recorded history
at 410 parts per million.<br>
This amount is highest in at least the past 800,000 years, according
to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/17/global-warming-april-400th-consecutive-warm-month/618484002/">https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/17/global-warming-april-400th-consecutive-warm-month/618484002/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[BBC says]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44074352">UN
puts brave face as climate talks get stuck</a></b><br>
By Matt McGrath<br>
Environment correspondent, Bonn<br>
UN talks have been officially suspended as countries failed to
resolve differences about implementing the Paris climate agreement.<br>
The negotiations will resume in Bangkok in September where an extra
week's meeting has now been scheduled .<br>
Delegates struggled with the complexity of agreeing a rulebook for
the Paris climate pact that will come into force in 2020.<br>
Rows between rich and poor re-emerged over finance and cutting
carbon.<br>
Overall progress at this meeting has been very slow, with some
countries such as China looking to re-negotiate aspects of the Paris
deal.<br>
UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa was putting a brave face on the
talks.<br>
"We face, I would say, a satisfactory outcome for this session but
we have to be very, very clear that we have a lot of work in the
months ahead," she said.<br>
"We have to improve the pace of progress in order to be able to
achieve a good outcome in Katowice in December," she said, referring
to the end of year Conference of the Parties where the rulebook is
due to be completed and agreed.<br>
China and some other countries, perhaps frustrated by the slow pace,
have sought in this Bonn meeting to go back to the position that
existed before the 2015 deal, where only developed countries had to
undertake to reduce their emissions...<br>
<font size="-1">more at: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44074352">http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44074352</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[video]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-05-17-nasa-satellites-human-fingerprint-shifts-global-freshwater">Humans
Are Changing the Location of Water Around the World, NASA Says</a></b><br>
The Weather Channel<br>
“The human fingerprint is all over changing freshwater availability.
We see it in large-scale overuse of groundwater. We see it as a
driver of climate change,” said Jay Famiglietti, a co-author of the
research who is the senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “The study shows that humans
have really drastically altered the global water landscape in a very
profound way.”<br>
Using NASA satellites and data on human activities to map locations
where freshwater is changing around the globe, researchers found
that there are several factors involved in the shifts, including
water management practices, climate change and natural cycles. The
study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. <br>
<blockquote>[video]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://youtu.be/MaxBOvQ2a_o">For
15 Years, GRACE Tracked Freshwater Movements Around the World</a></b><br>
Between 2002 and 2016, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
(GRACE) tracked the movement of freshwater around the planet. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/MaxBOvQ2a_o">https://youtu.be/MaxBOvQ2a_o</a><br>
</blockquote>
They combined this information with satellite precipitation data
from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project, Landsat imagery
from the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA, irrigation maps and
published reports of human activities related to agriculture, mining
and reservoir operations.<br>
"This is the first time that we've used observations from multiple
satellites in a thorough assessment of how freshwater availability
is changing, everywhere on Earth," <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-05-17-nasa-satellites-human-fingerprint-shifts-global-freshwater">https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-05-17-nasa-satellites-human-fingerprint-shifts-global-freshwater</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[a very positive paradigm shift]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516172247.htmhttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516172247.htm">Climate
change in Quebec equals a much greater diversity of species???</a></b><b><br>
</b>The national and provincial parks may be poised to become
biodiversity refuges of continental importance<br>
Date: May 16, 2018<br>
A team of researchers believe that, paradoxically, climate change
may result in Quebec's national and provincial parks becoming
biodiversity refuges of continental importance as the variety of
species present there increases. They used ecological niche modeling
to calculate potential changes in the presence of 529 species in
about 1/3 of the protected areas in southern Quebec almost all of
which were under 50 km2 in size. Their results suggest that fifty --
eighty years from now (between 2071-2100) close to half of the
protected regions of southern Quebec may see a species turnover of
greater than 80%.<br>
The research team, from l'Universite du Quebec a Rimouski, le
Ministere des Forets, de la Faune et des Parcs, and McGill
University believe that, depending on the region, the gain in the
number of species of birds, amphibians, trees, and vascular
flowering plants could range from 12 and 530 %. It is the first
study to examine in such details the potential effects of climate
change on the biodiversity of a large network of northern protected
areas.<br>
- - - - - -<br>
The researchers believe that the scale and rapidity of the species
turnover will also result in a necessary reexamination of current
conservation paradigms, since it will be impossible to preserve a
snapshot of today's biodiversity in the National Parks. More
specifically, the researchers believe that:<br>
<blockquote>1) Rather than trying to preserve current biodiversity
in the National Parks, a more effective conservation strategy to
ensure future biodiversity may be to preserve site resilience and
a diversity of physical features and conditions.<br>
<br>
2) There will potentially be complicated choices ahead for
managers of protected areas as increasing numbers of new immigrant
species colonize protected sites. If historical communities are
deeply modified, the managers may need self-sustaining populations
of non-native species in some protected areas. But newly arriving
species may also have negative impacts on ecosystem structure and
function.<br>
<br>
3) Assigning conservation status to rare and recently naturalized
species may prove a thorny issue, given that a significant portion
of northern species are already at risk. But the conservation
value of rare new species should be considered in a long-term
continental perspective rather than short-term national
perspective.<br>
<br>
4) It will be important to preserve and restore connectivity of
protected areas to allow potential corridors for migration. In
this way, species will avoid being trapped for decades or
centuries between rapid retreat from the territory's southern edge
and only a slow advance on the northern edge.<br>
</blockquote>
The researchers caution, however, that potential species gains
should not draw attention away from the potential extinction of
local species that may no longer find suitable conditions in future
in the protected areas where they are at the moment. The
geographical pattern of potential relative species loss suggests
that several species could disappear in both the southernmost
protected areas of Quebec, and in the higher latitudes, where the
extinction of only a few local species can have drastic effects on
whole ecological communities.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516172247.htm">https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516172247.htm</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[back to distress]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-02-08/two-degree-delusion">The
Two-Degree Delusion<br>
The Dangers of an Unrealistic Climate Change Target</a></b><br>
By Ted Nordhaus<br>
Global carbon emissions rose again in 2017, disappointing hopes that
the previous three years of near zero growth marked an inflection
point in the fight against climate change. Advocates of renewable
energy had attributed flat emissions to the falling cost of solar
panels. Energy efficiency devotees had seen in the pause proof that
economic activity had been decoupled from energy consumption.
Advocates of fossil fuel divestment had posited that the carbon
bubble had finally burst.<br>
Analysts who had attributed the pause to slower economic growth in a
number of parts of the world, especially China, were closer to the
truth. The underlying fundamentals of the energy economy, after all,
remained mostly unchanged-there had been no step change in either
the energy efficiency of the global economy or the share of energy
production that clean energy accounted for. And sure enough, as
growth picked up, emissions started to tick back up again as well.<br>
Even during the pause, it was clear that the world wasn't making
much progress toward avoiding significant future climate change. To
significantly alter the trajectory of sea level changes or most
other climate impacts in this century or the next, emissions would
not just have to peak; they would have to fall precipitously. Yet
what progress the world has made to cut global emissions has been,
under even the most generous assumptions, incremental.<br>
But at the latest climate talks in Bonn last fall, diplomats once
again ratified a long-standing international target of limiting
warming to two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. This
despite being unable to commit to much beyond what was already
agreed at the Paris meeting two years ago, when negotiators reached
a nominal agreement on nonbinding Intended Nationally Determined
Contributions, which would result in temperatures surpassing three
degrees above preindustrial levels before the end of this century.<br>
Forty years after it was first proposed, the two-degree target
continues to maintain a talismanic hold over global efforts to
address climate change, despite the fact that<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-02-08/two-degree-delusion">https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-02-08/two-degree-delusion</a><br>
<font size="-1">$ Register to read one free article a month.</font><br>
<br>
<b><br>
</b>[BBC News NI]<b><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44111500">Bad
weather causes record driving test cancellations</a></b><br>
By Ali Gordon<br>
This winter's adverse weather conditions resulted in a record number
of driving tests being cancelled in Northern Ireland.<br>
1,267 driving tests were scrapped from November-April - almost 1,000
more than the previous two years combined.<br>
Despite less frost in December than usual, 527 driving tests were
cancelled by Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA).<br>
The Department of Infrastructure spread 117,000 tonnes of salt this
winter, "the most ever used in one season".<br>
They told the BBC they faced difficulties when re-booking cancelled
tests quickly "whilst further snow was falling or being forecast".<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44111500">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44111500</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[May 18th is anniversary of Mt St Helens eruption 2 minute video]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/">Bill
McGuire: Will climate change cause earthquakes? (2012)</a></b><br>
Climate State - Published on Apr 14, 2017<br>
Bill McGuire, author of 'Waking the Giant: How a changing climate
triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes', discusses the topics
raised in his book.<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/">Modelling
suggests with ice cap melt, an increase in volcanic activity</a><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/">http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/</a></font><br>
- <br>
[grain of truth]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNWGlzHC2ss">Waking the
Climate Giant - Volcano activity and sea level rise</a></b>
(video lecture)<br>
Excerpt from the full <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ">London Lecture:
Waking the Giant December 2016</a><br>
Watch the full lecture: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ</a><br>
The Geological Society December 2016<br>
An astonishing transformation over the last 20,000 years has seen
our planet flip from a frigid wasteland into the temperate world
upon which our civilisation has grown and thrived. This most dynamic
episode in Earth history saw the crust bouncing and bending in
response to the melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of
the ocean basins; triggering earthquakes, spawning tsunamis and
provoking a lively response from the world's volcanoes. <br>
Now there are signs that human-induced climate change is encouraging
the sleeping giant beneath our feet to stir once again. Could it be
that we are on track to bequeath to our children and their children
not only a far hotter world, but also a more geologically fractious
one?<br>
- - - -<br>
He wrote a book on the subject, <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8q4QSutFQ</a><br>
<u><b>Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes,
tsunamis, and volcanoes</b></u><br>
Author/Editor: By Bill McGuire<br>
Publication Date: 25 April 2013<br>
Published by Oxford University Press. Stocked from August 2016.<br>
<blockquote>Twenty thousand years ago our planet was an icehouse.
Temperatures were down six degrees; ice sheets kilometres thick
buried much of Europe and North America and sea levels were 130m
lower. The following 15 millennia saw an astonishing
transformation as our planet metamorphosed into the temperate
world upon which our civilisation has grown and thrived. One of
the most dynamic periods in Earth history saw rocketing
temperatures melt the great ice sheets like butter on a hot
summer's day; feeding torrents of freshwater into ocean basins
that rapidly filled to present levels. The removal of the enormous
weight of ice at high latitudes caused the crust to bounce back
triggering earthquakes in Europe and North America and provoking
an unprecedented volcanic outburst in Iceland. A giant submarine
landslide off the coast of Norway sent a tsunami crashing onto the
Scottish coast while around the margins of the continents the
massive load exerted on the crust by soaring sea levels encouraged
a widespread seismic and volcanic rejoinder. <br>
In many ways, this post-glacial world mirrors that projected to
arise as a consequence of unmitigated climate change driven by
human activities. Already there are signs that the effects of
climbing global temperatures are causing the sleeping giant to
stir once again. Could it be that we are on track to bequeath to
our children and their children not only a far hotter world, but
also a more geologically fractious one?<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/MPWTG">https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/MPWTG</a></font><br>
- -<br>
[ice cap off, means land mass up]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/">Bill
McGuire: Modelling suggests with ice cap melt, an increase in
volcanic activity</a></b><br>
Interviewer: In your book Waking The Giant you mentioned (Excerpt)
that prior to the PETM, huge amounts of magma flow onto the lands.
Can we expect a similar response from the Earth crust with current
and projected climate change, especially in light of what has become
a chronic deglaciation event in the northern hemisphere? Is there a
possibility for volcanic traps to emerge under current continental
configuration (Related)?<br>
Bill McGuire: The lava outpourings that occurred prior to the PETM
were linked to large-scale tectonic events; notably the opening of
the North Atlantic, which are not occurring today, so there is no
reason to expect similar magma deluges in relation to contemporary
climate change. It would be reasonable, however, to expect a
response from active volcanoes that are buried beneath ice or that
host a thick ice cover. Around 12,000 years ago, when the 1km-thick
ice cover across Iceland largely disappeared, volcanic activity
increased by 30 times over the course of a 1500-year period.<br>
Ice cover on Iceland is now confined to the Vatnajokull Ice Cap,
beneath which are the Grimsvotn, Eyjafjallajokull and Bardarbunga
volcanoes, which have all erupted in the past four years. Modelling
suggests that as the ice cap continues to melt, so there will be a
measurable increase in volcanic activity. It is very unlikely,
however, that this will be on the post-glacial scale, but it could
lead to more eruptions than would happen otherwise, or bigger ones.<br>
Elsewhere in the world, the loss of ice from high altitude volcanoes
in places like Alaska, Kamchatka, the Andes, the Cascade Range could
promote more explosive eruptions or flank collapse. Changing stress
conditions around the ocean margins, as sea levels rise, may also
promote eruptions at coastal and island volcanoes.<br>
- - - -<br>
Bill McGuire: This is the big question and one that is not easy to
answer. How can we say that a particular volcano would not have
erupted anyway or a particular fault would not have ruptured in any
case to trigger an earthquake? If there is a measurable rise in
global seismic or volcanic activity then we could probably make a
convincing case for climate change playing a role.<br>
It is possible, however, that any response will take place on a more
spatially-limited basis; affecting only certain volcanoes or faults,
so there may not be any obvious, overarching, global signal. In such
cases, it should be possible to model the changes in stress and
strain driven by climate change parameters such as ice unloading or
sea level rise and to evaluate their role in triggering an eruption
or earthquake.<font size="-1"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/">http://climatestate.com/2014/10/16/methane-hydrate-destabilisation-is-clearly-a-real-worry-particularly-in-the-context-of-warming-ocean-waters-in-the-east-siberian-continental-shelf/</a><br>
</font><br>
<br>
[Climate Role-Play Negotiations game]<br>
World Climate<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/world-climate/">Climate
Change Negotiations Game</a></b><br>
The World Climate Simulation is a role playing exercise of the UN
climate change negotiations for groups. It is unique in that it uses
an interactive computer model to rapidly analyze the results of the
mock-negotiations during the event. All the materials and tools for
World Climate are available for free and many are available in
multiple languages. We encourage you to organize a World Climate
Simulation yourself.<br>
- - - -Video World Climate Preview <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/afO3lDX37tQ">https://youtu.be/afO3lDX37tQ</a><br>
You can use the World Climate Simulation to build climate change
awareness and enable people to experience some of the dynamics that
emerge in the UN climate negotiations. The exercise is framed by
current climate change science, using the interactive C-ROADS
computer simulation which allows participants to find out how their
proposed policies impact the global climate system in real-time.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/world-climate/">https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/world-climate/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2009/05/18/6143/10-reasons-to-support-the-waxman-markey-energy-bill/">This
Day in Climate History - May 18, 2009</a> - from D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
May 18, 2009: <br>
The Center for American Progress highlights the economic benefits of
the American Clean Energy and Security Act.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2009/05/18/6143/10-reasons-to-support-the-waxman-markey-energy-bill/">http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2009/05/18/6143/10-reasons-to-support-the-waxman-markey-energy-bill/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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