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<i><font size="+1"><b>May 21, 2020</b></font></i><br>
<br>
[water warning]<br>
<b>Aging Dams, Changing Climate: A Dangerous Mix...</b><br>
One of the recurring messages in decades of projections of
human-produced climate change is that precipitation will tend to
decrease in the subtropics and increase at northern midlatitudes.
That's exactly what is happening in central Michigan. What's more,
the intensity of multi-day downpours is rising in many parts of the
world, including the United States, and the most-affected U.S.
regions are the Midwest and Northeast, as noted by Climate Central.<br>
"Storm water management systems and other critical infrastructure in
the Midwest are already experiencing impacts from changing
precipitation patterns and elevated flood risks," said the 2018 U.S.
National Climate Assessment. In a message that rings out, the
assessment added: "Infrastructure currently designed for historical
climate conditions is more vulnerable to future weather extremes and
climate change."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/aging-dams-changing-climate-a-dangerous-mix">https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/aging-dams-changing-climate-a-dangerous-mix</a>
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[heat and drought tipping points]<br>
<b>Increased Threat of Fierce Fires and Accelerated Global Warming
From Water Loss in Northern Peatlands</b><br>
A group of 59 international scientists, led by researchers at
Canada's McMaster University, has uncovered new information about
the distinct effects of climate change on boreal forests and
peatlands, which threaten to worsen wildfires and accelerate global
warming.<br>
<br>
Manuel Helbig and Mike Waddington from McMaster's School of
Geography and Earth Sciences gathered observational data from
collaborators in countries across the boreal biome. Their study of
how ecosystems lose water to the atmosphere appears was recently
published in the journal Nature Climate Change.<br>
<br>
The unprecedented detail of their work has highlighted dramatic
differences in the ways forests and peatlands regulate water loss to
the atmosphere in a warming climate, and how those differences could
in turn accelerate the pace of warming.<br>
<br>
Most current global climate models assume the biome is all forest,
an omission that could seriously compromise their projections,
Helbig says.<br>
<br>
"We need to account for the specific behavior of peatlands if we
want to understand the boreal climate, precipitation, water
availability and the whole carbon cycle," he says.<br>
<br>
"Peatlands are so important for storing carbon, and they are so
vulnerable."<br>
<br>
Until now, Helbig says, it had not been possible to capture such a
comprehensive view of these water-cycle dynamics, but with the
support of the Global Water Futures Initiative and participation
from so many research partners in Canada, Russia, the US, Germany
and Scandinavia, new understanding is emerging.<br>
<br>
As the climate warms, air gets drier and can take up more water. In
response to the drying of the air, forest ecosystems - which make up
most of the world's natural boreal regions - retain more water.
Their trees, shrubs and grasses are vascular plants that typically
take up carbon dioxide and release water and oxygen through
microscopic pores in their leaves. In warmer, dryer weather, though,
those pores close, slowing the exchange to conserve water.<br>
<br>
Together with lakes, the spongy bogs and fens called peatlands make
up the remainder of the boreal landscape. Peatlands store vast
amounts of water and carbon in layers of living and dead moss. They
serve as natural firebreaks between sections of forest, as long as
they remain wet.<br>
<br>
Peatland mosses are not vascular plants, so as warming continues,
they are more prone to drying out. Unlike forests, they have no
active mechanism to protect themselves from losing water to the
atmosphere. Dehydration exposes their dense carbon stores to
accelerated decomposition, and turns them from firebreaks into fire
propagators, as shown in previous research from Waddington's
ecohydrology lab.<br>
<br>
Drier peatlands mean bigger, more intense fires that can release
vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating global
warming, Helbig says.<br>
<br>
"It's crucial to consider the accelerated water loss of peatlands in
a warming climate as we project what will happen to the boreal
landscape in the next 100 to 200 years," he says.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://scitechdaily.com/increased-threat-of-fierce-fires-and-accelerated-global-warming-from-water-loss-in-northern-peatlands/">https://scitechdaily.com/increased-threat-of-fierce-fires-and-accelerated-global-warming-from-water-loss-in-northern-peatlands/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
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[Heavy rains cause flooding]<br>
<b>Dam Failure Threatens a Dow Chemical Complex and Superfund
Cleanup</b><br>
Floodwaters from two breached dams in Michigan on Wednesday flowed
into a sprawling Dow chemical complex and threatened a vast
Superfund toxic-cleanup site downriver, raising concerns of wider
environmental fallout from the dam disaster and historic flooding...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/climate/michigan-dam-dow-chemical-superfund.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/climate/michigan-dam-dow-chemical-superfund.html</a><br>
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<p><br>
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[YouTube view 2 mins of Green Snow]<br>
<b>Green Antarctica</b><br>
Premiered May 21<br>
Cambridge University<br>
Scientists have created the first ever large-scale map of
microscopic algae as they bloomed across the surface of snow along
the Antarctic Peninsula coast. Results indicate that this 'green
snow' is likely to spread as global temperatures increase.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty7Y9srqPB0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty7Y9srqPB0</a><br>
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[predicted]<br>
<b>Global warming now pushing heat into territory humans cannot
tolerate</b><br>
The normal temperature you see reported on weather forecasts is
called the "drybulb" temperature. Once that rises above about 35C,
the body must rely on evaporating water (mainly through sweating) to
dissipate heat. The "wetbulb" temperature is a measure that includes
the chilling effect from evaporation on a thermometer, so it is
normally much lower than the drybulb temperature. It indicates how
efficiently our sweat-based cooling system can work.<br>
<br>
Once the wetbulb temperature crosses about 35C, the air is so hot
and humid that not even sweating can lower your body temperature to
a safe level. With continued exposure above this threshold, death by
overheating can follow.<br>
A 35C limit may sound modest, but it isn't. When the UK sweltered
with a record drybulb temperature of 38.7C in July 2019, the wetbulb
temperature in Cambridge was no more than 24C. Even in Karachi's
killer heatwave of 2015, the wetbulb temperature stayed below 30C.
In fact, outside a steam room, few people have encountered anything
close to 35C. It has mostly been beyond Earth's climate envelope as
human society has developed.<br>
<br>
But our recent research shows that the 35C limit is drawing closer,
leaving an ever-shrinking safety margin for the hottest and most
humid places on Earth...<br>
- -<br>
Our analysis of wetbulb temperatures from 1979-2017 did not disagree
with these warnings about what may be to come. But whereas past
studies had looked at relatively large regions (on the scale of
major metropolitan areas), we also examined thousands of weather
station records worldwide and saw that, at this more local scale,
many sites were closing in much more rapidly on the 35C limit. The
frequency of punishing wetbulb temperatures (above 31C, for example)
has more than doubled worldwide since 1979, and in some of the
hottest and most humid places on Earth, like the coastal United Arab
Emirates, wetbulb temperatures have already flickered past 35C. The
climate envelope is pushing into territory where our physiology
cannot follow.<br>
<br>
The consequences of crossing 35C, however brief, have perhaps been
mainly symbolic so far, as residents of the hottest places are used
to riding out extreme heat by sheltering in air-conditioned spaces.
But relying on artificial cooling to cope with the growing heat
would supercharge energy demand and leave many people dangerously
exposed to power failures. It would also abandon the most vulnerable
members of society and doesn't help those who have to venture
outside.<br>
The only way to avoid being carried further and more frequently into
uncharted heat territory is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to
net zero. The economic slowdown during the coronavirus pandemic is
expected to slash emissions by 4-7% in 2020, bringing them close to
where global emissions were in 2010. But concentrations of
greenhouse gases are still rising rapidly in the atmosphere. We must
also adapt where possible, by encouraging simple behavioural changes
(like avoiding outdoor daytime activity) and by ramping up emergency
response plans when heat extremes are imminent. Such steps will help
to buy time against the inexorable forward march of the Earth's
climate envelope.<br>
<br>
We hope that our research illuminates some of the challenges that
may await us as global temperatures rise. The emergence of
unprecedented heat and humidity - beyond what our physiology can
tolerate - is just a portion of what could be in store. An even
warmer and wetter world risks generating climate extremes beyond any
human experience, including the potential for a whole host of
"unknown unknowns".<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theconversation.com/global-warming-now-pushing-heat-into-territory-humans-cannot-tolerate-138343">https://theconversation.com/global-warming-now-pushing-heat-into-territory-humans-cannot-tolerate-138343</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[classic talk about Climate Models]<br>
<b>No COVID-19 Models Are Perfect, But Some Are Useful</b><br>
BY PETER H. GLEICK<br>
MAY 19, 2020 <br>
Peter H. Gleick is an environmental scientist, a MacArthur Fellow,
and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.<br>
<br>
The global coronavirus pandemic has brought renewed interest and
focus on scientific models as we try to get a handle on what the
future will bring, how many people will fall sick and die, what the
economic impacts will be, and what actions politicians should take.
But confusion abounds about what these "models" say and how to
reconcile their often seemingly conflicting visions of the future.
Recent political attacks on these models reflect a lack of
understanding about what models are, how they work, and their
usefulness and limitations. Conservative Fox News commentator Laura
Ingraham attacked models on her show. Senator John Cornyn, a
Republican from Texas tweeted "After #COVID-19 crisis passes, could
we have a good faith discussion about the uses and abuses of
'modeling' to predict the future?"<br>
<br>
Models are all around us. Without knowing it, we all use models all
the time to try to understand outcomes of complex situations. The
decisions you make on how to spend your monthly paycheck or save for
retirement are financial models. The car you drive and the toaster
in your kitchen were both designed with engineering models.
Advertisers make models of consumer behavior, preference, and
consumption of media when they design and buy ads. These models
depend on science, but also on human behavior and actions that are
far less predictable.<br>
<br>
Even a recipe for bran muffins is a model--and a good example of the
kind of models we use every day without thinking about it. Cooks
combine centuries of knowledge about the chemical behavior of
different ingredients with their personal experiences to create a
model--a recipe--for what they hope is a delicious bran muffin. But
whether the "bran muffin model" actually produces a good muffin or a
burned hockey puck depends not just on the recipe but on factors
completely out of the control of the recipe designer. When you set
your oven for 400F, does it heat to only 350? Will you mistake a
teaspoon of salt for a tablespoon of baking soda? Will you fall
asleep and burn the muffins? Will the recipe maker's tastes match
your own?<br>
<br>
Because of these uncertainties and unknowns, scientists who work
with models try not to call the outcomes "predictions"--rather we
call them "projections" or "scenarios." A prediction implies more
accuracy and certainty than many models provide. For all these
reasons, scientists often repeat the classic aphorism "All models
are wrong, but some are useful," by which we mean models are only as
good as our understanding of the scientific knowledge that goes into
them. But useful models help us understand how science and human
choices interact, providing valuable insight for policymakers.<br>
<br>
Think about human-caused climate change: projections of climate
change are based on some of the most complex models run on some of
the fastest computers in the world. The climate is the most
complicated biogeophysical system on the planet, affected by factors
as varied as the output of the sun and tilt of the earth; the
composition of the atmosphere; the behavior of winds, clouds, and
ocean currents; interactions between the oceans, land, and
atmosphere; and the behavior of plants and animals. Despite this
complexity, global climate models are remarkably accurate, able to
reproduce in tremendous detail the behavior of past and present
climates. But their ability to produce accurate projections depends
on not just getting the science right, but on assumptions about the
future behavior of politicians and individuals; the role new
technologies could play in altering greenhouse gas emissions; and
the implications of investment, energy policies, and land-use
decisions. We know that humans are already influencing and altering
the climate, but the wide range of future climate projections
largely depends on social and political uncertainties, not
scientific ones.<br>
<br>
Scientists are now building models to try to understand and project
the path of the pandemic. How many people will get sick or die? What
will be the consequences for society and the economy? How will
different public policies, medical choices, and personal decisions
influence the outcomes?<br>
<br>
The models will continue to improve based on our developing
scientific understanding of the infectiousness of the virus, the
survival rate of the virus in different environments, the reaction
of individuals to infection, the role of pre-existing conditions,
the effectiveness of medical interventions, and much more. Less
predictable inputs are those that attempt to understand the behavior
of individuals: questions like will we stay home or go out; will we
wear masks and maintain social distancing if we do go out;, or will
we ignore medical advice and accelerate the "reopening" of the
economy.<br>
<br>
The takeaway here is that we shouldn't dismiss one model just
because it offers a widely different picture of the future than
another. Don't look at the divergent projections from these models
and conclude the models are bad. These models are critical to help
us explore the most effective actions to take to minimize what we
care about: deaths, illnesses, and a damaged economy. The ultimate
outcomes of the pandemic will depend on how we take the projections
from the models and change our own behavior to avoid the bad futures
we can see but desperately hope to avoid.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://time.com/5838335/covid-19-prediction-models/">https://time.com/5838335/covid-19-prediction-models/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
May 21, 2010 </b></font><br>
In the New Republic, Al Gore notes:<br>
<blockquote>"During the last 22 years, the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change has produced four massive studies warning the
world of the looming catastrophe that is being caused by the
massive dumping of global-warming pollution into the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, this process has been vulnerable to disruption and
paralysis by a cynical and lavishly funded disinformation
campaign. A number of large carbon polluters, whose business plans
rely on their continued ability to freely dump their gaseous waste
products into the global atmospheric commons--as if it is an open
sewer--have chosen to pursue a determined and highly organized
campaign aimed at undermining public confidence in the accuracy
and integrity of the global scientific community. They have
attacked the scientific community by financing pseudo-studies
aimed at creating public doubt about peer-reviewed science. They
have also manipulated the political and regulatory process with
outsized campaign contributions and legions of lobbyists (there
are now four anti-climate lobbyists for every single member of the
House and Senate).<br>
<br>
"This epic public contest between the broad public interest and a
small but powerful special interest has taken place during a time
when American democracy has grown sclerotic. The role of money in
our politics has exploded to a dangerous level. Our democratic
conversation is now dominated by expensive 30-second television
commercials, which consume two-thirds of the campaign budgets of
candidates in both political parties. The only reliable source of
such large sums of campaign cash is business lobbies. Most members
of the House and Senate facing competitive election contests are
forced to spend several hours each day asking special interests
for money to finance their campaigns. Instead of participating in
committee hearings, floor debates, and Burkean reflection on the
impact of the questions being considered, they spend their time as
supplicants. Though many struggle to resist the influence their
donors intend to have on their decision-making process, all too
frequently human nature takes its course.<br>
<br>
"Their constituents now spend an average of five hours per day
watching television--which is, of course, why campaigns in both
political parties spend most of their money on TV advertising.
Viewers also absorb political messages from the same special
interests that are wining and dining and contributing to their
elected officials. The largest carbon polluters have, for the last
17 years, sought to manipulate public opinion with a massive and
continuing propaganda campaign, using TV advertisements and all
other forms of mass persuasion. It is a game plan spelled out in
one of their internal documents, which was leaked to an
enterprising reporter, that stated: 'reposition global warming as
theory rather than fact.' In other words, they have mimicked the
strategy pioneered by the tobacco industry, which undermined the
scientific consensus linking the smoking of cigarettes with
diseases of the lung and heart--successfully delaying appropriate
health measures for almost 40 years after the landmark surgeon
general's report of 1964."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/the-crisis-comes-ashore">http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/the-crisis-comes-ashore</a>
<br>
<br>
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