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<font size="+1"><i>July 11, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[Los Angeles heatwave blackout]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.laist.com/2018/07/10/heres_why_the_power_grid_had_an_epic_fail_this_weekend.php">Here's
Why The Power Grid Had An Epic Fail This Weekend</a></b><br>
BY EMILY GUERIN IN NEWS ON JULY 10, 2018<br>
More than 90,000 people lost power in greater Los Angeles during
this weekend's heat wave. And as of Tuesday morning, the LAWDP said
about 700 still didn't have it back. Wondering what happened? Here
you go:<br>
How, exactly, does heat cause a power outage?<br>
First, demand for power rises during a heat wave, as more people
switch on their air conditioners. And when it's hotter, your fridge,
freezer and AC have to work extra hard to cool the air, which
requires even more power.<br>
Sometimes there's not enough electricity being generated to meet all
the extra demand. In other words, it's a problem with supply.<br>
<blockquote><b>Yes. Except that's not what happened this weekend.</b><br>
<b>There was plenty of power available</b><br>
</blockquote>
The problem was the electricity distribution system: the local
network of poles, wires and transformers that are operated by
utilities like LADWP or SoCal Edison.<br>
Typically, power demand surges in the afternoon and evenings when
people come home from work and turn on their air conditioners. It
usually begins to die down around 9:00 p.m. as temperatures drop.<br>
But during heat waves, it's hot at night. So people keep running
their ACs while they sleep, and fridges and freezers keep working
hard after dark. That means transformers don't get a chance to catch
a break, or to cool down.<br>
And that can cause transformers to break, according to SoCal Edison
spokesman Robert Villegas.<br>
"No piece of equipment is designed to run at 100 percent capacity of
the time, forever," he said. "A piece of equipment can fail due to
the continual strain.".....<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://twitter.com/LAist/status/1016702990701473793">https://twitter.com/LAist/status/1016702990701473793</a><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.laist.com/2018/07/10/heres_why_the_power_grid_had_an_epic_fail_this_weekend.php">http://www.laist.com/2018/07/10/heres_why_the_power_grid_had_an_epic_fail_this_weekend.php</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Cornell lecture overview and latest science]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLRDapQ9aRk">Trends in
Hurricane Activity (2018)</a></b><br>
Climate State - Published on Jul 10, 2018<br>
Tropical cyclones, which are called hurricanes in the Atlantic, are
one of the most destructive weather phenomena. This presentation
will explore the links between climate and tropical cyclones, with a
focus on how hurricanes and tropical cyclones have changed in the
past, and what we think they will do in the future. <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/events/ClimateChangeSem.php">http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/events/ClimateChangeSem.php</a><br>
Speaker: Gabriel Vecchi (Princeton University)<br>
Recorded at Cornell University - May 7, 2018<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLRDapQ9aRk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLRDapQ9aRk</a></font><br>
- - - - - -<br>
[more lectures]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/events/ClimateChangeSem.php">Cornell
University Climate Change Seminar</a></b><br>
Perspectives on the Climate Change Challenge<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/events/ClimateChangeSem.php">http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/events/ClimateChangeSem.php</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Trumpet into Trump's ear]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://climateandsecurity.org/2018/07/10/vice-admiral-mcginn-on-cnn-the-president-should-acknowledge-climate-threat-at-nato/">Vice
Admiral McGinn on CNN: The President should acknowledge climate
threat at NATO</a></b><br>
In an article published today by CNN, the Center for Climate and
Security's Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, U.S. Navy (Ret), former
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and
Environment, has an important bit of advice for the U.S. President
and other NATO leaders as they head to Brussels to participate in
the NATO Summit: Take the advice of U.S. Secretary of Defense James
Mattis and acknowledge the security threat of a changing climate.<br>
From the article:<br>
<blockquote>US Defense Secretary James Mattis is one of this
country's greatest military leaders. A former four-star Marine
General, he's well read, thoughtful, pragmatic and highly
intelligent. As our foremost national security strategist, in
2017, he described climate change as a threat facing the US.<br>
“The effects of a changing climate - such as increased maritime
access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among
others - impact our security situation,” he wrote.<br>
Since then, 15 other senior US defense leaders have reaffirmed
that view.<br>
</blockquote>
Read the full article at the CNN website:<br>
- - - - -<br>
[CNN says ]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/10/opinions/trump-nato-climate-change-opinion-intl/index.html">The
threat Trump has to acknowledge at NATO</a></b><br>
By Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn<br>
The President's narrow focus on the near term billions that NATO
needs misses a key point: climate change is an oncoming reality that
could cost us trillions.<br>
Lloyds of London's 2017 annual report said the "cost of major claims
to the Lloyd's market in 2017 is the third highest since 2003." The
largest hits in the US were Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey and
wildfires across California. Direct costs were more than $140
billion.<br>
"Global risks are changing and the potential consequences are
severe," Lloyds said. "Increased frequency and severity of major
weather events mean that climate change has increased the risks and
costs of insurance."<br>
Further, the banking giant Schroders warns that global supply chains
worth billions of dollars are at material risk from extreme weather.<br>
"Without public policy looking to change private sector behavior,
economies run the risk of continuing to pollute to a point where it
is too late and the economic costs are catastrophic."<br>
The Pentagon also has done extensive analysis and produced multiple
reports explicitly spelling out the dangers the US faces from a
warming climate, including under the Trump administration.<br>
"DoD looks at climate through the lens of its mission. From that
perspective, changes in climate affect national security in several
ways. Changes in climate can potentially shape the environment in
which we operate and the missions we are required to do," the
Pentagon said in a report released just this past January.<br>
In 2015, the Pentagon also noted -- and this is important:
"Department of Defense sees climate change as a present security
threat, not strictly a long-term risk."<br>
Seawalls may help stop some storm surges and coastal erosion, but
building walls is not always the answer, especially when our
economic security rests on the foundation of reliable allies for
trade.<br>
In Brussels, the President is not likely to change course and
honestly admit that, as a strategic leader, he's concerned about
climate change. But he should. And leaders in the US and NATO must
continue to press their case...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/10/opinions/trump-nato-climate-change-opinion-intl/index.html">https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/10/opinions/trump-nato-climate-change-opinion-intl/index.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Spots of intense cold]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://phys.org/news/2018-07-pulse-polar-vortex.html#jCp">Finding
the pulse of the polar vortex</a></b><br>
July 10, 2018 by Josie Garthwaite, Stanford University<br>
If you can predict the path of the jet stream, the upper
atmosphere's undulating river of wind, then you can predict weather
- not just for a week or two, but for an entire season. A new
Stanford study moves toward that level of foresight by revealing a
physical link between the speed and location of the jet stream and
the strength of the polar vortex, a swirl of air that usually hovers
over the Arctic.<br>
"The jet stream sets everything," said Aditi Sheshadri, lead author
and assistant professor of Earth System Science in the School of
Earth, Energy, & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).
"Storms ride along it. They interact with it. If the jet stream
shifts, the place where the storms are strongest will also shift."<br>
The research, published in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences,
identifies two distinct modes in how air flows within the jet stream
and the layers of atmosphere that sandwich it.<br>
<b>The atmosphere's deep system</b><br>
In one mode, changes in wind speed and direction start close to the
equator in the troposphere, the wet, stormy layer of atmosphere
below the jet stream and closest to Earth's surface. Shifts of wind
in this mode quickly propagate up through the jet stream and into
the polar vortex in the dry, upper layer of atmosphere known as the
stratosphere.<br>
In the other mode, the strength of the stratosphere's polar vortex
influences the path and strength of the jet stream - and how it
interacts with storms in the troposphere. In this mode, the polar
vortex sends a signal all the way down to the surface like a pulse.
A weaker vortex produces a weak jet stream that slips toward the
equator; a stronger vortex intensifies the jet stream while drawing
it poleward.<br>
"These deep vertical structures haven't been shown before,"
Sheshadri said. "It's something fundamental about the system
itself." Her analysis could help explain the surface weather impacts
of an event that occurred in early 2018, when the vortex weakened so
much that it ripped in two - a phenomenon that scientists know can
blast up to two months of extreme weather into western Europe. Until
now, understanding of these interactions has been based on
observations and statistical modeling rather than knowledge of their
physical foundation.<br>
These modes could be key to predicting the long-term effects of
certain environmental changes on Earth's surface. While air is
thought to flow relatively independently within the troposphere and
stratosphere in normal winters, depleted ozone, high levels of
greenhouse gases, ocean warming, reduced snow cover, and other
disturbances can rattle this independence, affecting both the vortex
and jet stream in complex ways. Greenhouse gas emissions, for
example, can strengthen the vortex while simultaneously boosting
waves that propagate up from the troposphere and weaken the vortex
as they break...<br>
- - - -- <br>
By revealing the physical processes that underpin some of these
dynamic variables, the method developed in this study could also
help weed out flaws in climate models.<br>
"The way that we currently do this is that you take a model and you
run it forward," checking the model's predictions against observed
data, Sheshadri explained. But many models built upon the same
historic data produce different predictions for the future, in part
because they make different assumptions about how the troposphere
and stratosphere interact and how the jet stream fluctuates. Until
now there has not been a way to check those assumptions against the
atmosphere's actual variability.<br>
"We need to be sure the models are right, and for the right
reasons," Sheshadri said. The new work provides a way to resolve
that uncertainty - and to anticipate storms months into the future.<br>
<font size="-1">Read more at: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://phys.org/news/2018-07-pulse-polar-vortex.html#jCp">https://phys.org/news/2018-07-pulse-polar-vortex.html#jCp</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Paleo-alarmism]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-07/uons-sww070918.php">Stronger
west winds blow ill wind for climate change</a></b><br>
Strengthening west winds close to Antarctica previously led to
massive outgassing of carbon<br>
UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES<br>
Stronger westerly winds in the Southern Ocean could be the cause of
a sudden rise in atmospheric CO2 and temperatures in a period of
less than 100 years about 16,000 years ago, according to a study
published in Nature Communications.<br>
The westerly winds during that event strengthened as they contracted
closer to Antarctica, leading to a domino effect that caused an
outgassing of carbon dioxide from the Southern Ocean into the
atmosphere.<br>
This contraction and strengthening of the winds is very similar to
what we are already seeing today as a result of human caused climate
change.<br>
"During this earlier period, known as Heinrich stadial 1,
atmospheric CO2 increased by a total of ~40ppm, Antarctic surface
atmospheric temperatures increased by around 5°C and Southern Ocean
temperatures increased by 3°C," said lead author Dr Laurie Menviel,
a Scientia Fellow with the University of New South Wales (Sydney).<br>
"With this in mind, the contraction and strengthening of westerly
winds today could have significant implications for atmospheric CO2
concentrations and our future climate."<br>
Scientists know changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide have profound
impacts on our climate system. This is why researchers are so
interested in Heinrich events, where rapid increases in atmospheric
carbon dioxide occur over a very short period of time.<br>
Heinrich event 1, which occurred about 16,000 years ago, is a
favorite to study because alterations in ocean currents,
temperature, ice and sea levels are clearly captured in an array of
geological measures. This allows theories to be tested against these
changes.<br>
Until now, many of the propositions put forward for the carbon
dioxide spike struggled to explain its timing, rapidity and
magnitude.<br>
But when the researchers used climate models to replicate an
increase in the strength of westerly winds as they contracted
towards the Antarctic, the elements began to align. The stronger
winds caused a domino effect that not only reproduced the increase
in atmospheric carbon dioxide but also other changes seen during
Heinrich 1.<br>
The stronger winds had a direct impact on the ocean circulation,
increasing the formation of bottom water along the Antarctic coast
and enhancing the transport of carbon rich waters from the deep
Pacific Ocean to the surface of the Southern Ocean. As a result,
about 100Gt of carbon dioxide was emitted into the atmosphere by the
Southern Ocean.<br>
Today, observations suggest westerly winds are again contracting
southwards and getting stronger in response to the warming of our
planet.<br>
"The carbon exchange in particular between the Southern Ocean and
the atmosphere matter deeply for our climate. It is estimated the
Southern Ocean absorbs around 25% of our atmospheric carbon
emissions and that ~43% of that carbon is taken up by the Ocean
south of 30S," said Dr Menviel.<br>
"With westerly winds already contracting towards Antarctica, it's
important to know if this event is an analogue for what we may see
in our own future.<br>
"For this reason, it is vital to bring more observational networks
into the Southern Ocean to monitor these changes. We need a clear
warning if we are approaching a point in our climate system where we
may see a spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the rapid
temperature rise that inevitably follows."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-07/uons-sww070918.php">https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-07/uons-sww070918.php</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[precision]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://singularityhub.com/2018/07/09/big-tech-should-take-the-lead-on-climate-change-heres-why/#sm.000085yh3g9z1covzi41quxjccq50">Big
Tech Should Take the Lead on Climate Change-Here's Why</a></b><br>
By Owen Gaffney - Jul 09, 20180<br>
At Collision, which calls itself “North America's fastest-growing
tech conference,” former United Nations climate chief Christiana
Figueres threw down a challenge to tech titans: move the world from
incremental to exponential action on climate change.<br>
The digital tech sector is the wild card in fossil-fuel escape
plans. Disruption of the global economy is on the way through AI,
Internet of Things, big data, biotech, and more. But it is far from
clear whether this will drive greenhouse gas emissions up or slash
them in half. The climate conversation with tech entrepreneurs and
leaders needs to change for three reasons.<br>
First, the technology sector gets it. Tech titans are already on
course to carbon neutrality. Apple has committed to adopting a 100
percent circular economy throughout its supply chain. Alphabet
claims it is now the world's largest corporate purchaser of
renewable energy. And Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are investing a
billion dollars in clean energy solutions.<br>
Second, the technology sector gets how to harness the power of
exponentials better than any other economic sector on Earth. And we
need this expertise right now. More later.<br>
Third, and most significantly, the biggest influence the tech sector
can have is not on its own emissions or even those of its
suppliers-it is, after all, just 2-2.5 percent of global emissions.
Tech titans are the interface with global consumers and citizens. On
a daily basis, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft
influence the behavior of billions of people-the world's middle
classes and the world's businesses...<br>
- - - - -<br>
The next decade is critical for the planet. The global economy will
transform. We have the perfect opportunity to kickstart global
cooperation for exponential change at the Global Climate Action
Summit in San Francisco this summer. As they say, the best way to
predict the future is to create it.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://singularityhub.com/2018/07/09/big-tech-should-take-the-lead-on-climate-change-heres-why/#sm.000085yh3g9z1covzi41quxjccq50">https://singularityhub.com/2018/07/09/big-tech-should-take-the-lead-on-climate-change-heres-why/#sm.000085yh3g9z1covzi41quxjccq50</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Humor - First things first]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2018/07/wednesdays-global-warming-meeting.html">Wednesday's
Global Warming meeting postponed</a></b><br>
Kensal & Kilburn Better 2018 have postponed the meeting on 'Why
aren't we talking/worrying/panicking more about global warning?'
that was to be held on Wednesday July 11th because of the clash with
England's Word Cup football game.<br>
The organisers said:<br>
As you will likely know, our event scheduled for 7pm on Wednesday 11
July is now a direct clash with England's first World Cup semi-final
since 1990. Although this is a relatively trivial matter compared
with global warming and the future of human life on the planet, we
have taken the difficult decision to postpone the event. We want to
be fair to our speakers (including Natalie Bennett who would be
travelling down from Sheffield) and so we don't want to ask them to
come along to address a much-diminished audience. <br>
Tuesday, 10 July 2018<br>
We are looking for a new date and will be in touch as soon as
possible.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2018/07/wednesdays-global-warming-meeting.html">https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2018/07/wednesdays-global-warming-meeting.html</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-11/news/mn-224_1_global-warming-issue">This
Day in Climate History - July 11, 1990</a> - from D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
July 11, 1990: The Los Angeles Times observes that President George
H. W. Bush seems to have dissociative identity disorder when it
comes to climate:<br>
<blockquote>"The tension is often explained as a dispute between
Bush's strong-willed chief of staff, John H. Sununu, who is deeply
suspicious of environmentalists, and his Environmental Protection
Agency chief, William K. Reilly.<br>
<br>
"That explanation, however, is an inaccurate characterization,
Administration officials say. Although Reilly has advocated a
stronger environmental policy, he has neither the clout nor the
access to Bush to challenge Sununu, the officials say. In fact,
Reilly has been conspicuous by his absence from the economic
summit, virtually the only senior Administration official with an
interest in the summit issues whom Bush left in Washington.<br>
<br>
"Instead, the disputes within the Administration reflect Bush's
own ambivalence about the issues. Throughout his Administration,
he has been pulled in opposite directions on the environment,
tugged between his desire to placate environmentally-conscious
voters on the one side and his instinct to protect business people
from government regulation on the other."<br>
</blockquote>
The Times also notes:<br>
"Bush's top aides are unanimous in believing that the scientific
evidence is shaky on all aspects of global warming--the problem's
dimensions, its potential effects and its causes."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-11/news/mn-224_1_global-warming-issue">http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-11/news/mn-224_1_global-warming-issue</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
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