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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>November 30, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[start with humorous video - thanks CW]<br>
<b>Brief video show dangers of wind power</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1332804401648562176">https://twitter.com/i/status/1332804401648562176</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[misunderstanding by shifting baselines]<br>
<b>Climate change is often hidden in the way we are shown
temperature data</b><br>
Shifting climate baselines conceal warming that occurred in the
past; our new ‘normals’ differ strongly from normals decades ago...<br>
- -<br>
Pauly coined the term "shifting baseline syndrome" to explain how
young fishery biologists entering the profession in the 1920s
expected bluefin tuna to be around, but their children, and
especially their grandchildren, never saw bluefin tuna in their
waters, and thus they entered the profession with a new baseline,
one that had gradually shifted. Pauly contrasted the fishery
situation with that of climate statistics, where good, detailed
climate information is available for more than 100 years for many
places throughout the world and for much longer in some places.<br>
<br>
Here is a personal example of the shifting baseline syndrome.<br>
<br>
When I first lived in Washington nearly 40 years ago, I ice-skated
outdoors quite often, including on pools on the Mall and on the
C&O Canal. I’m too old and out of practice to ice-skate anymore,
but even if I wanted to, the opportunities are fewer than they were.<br>
- -<br>
One "normal" could be based say on the period 1951-1980, which
covers some cold and warm periods but also is recent enough that
many current weather stations existed in their present locations
then. It also is mostly before the effects of human-caused climate
warming were clear. That could be used as a reference baseline, one
that does not shift, so that people could clearly see how the
current weather they experience has -- or has not -- changed.<br>
<br>
The second would be the current 30-year "normals" that are updated
regularly. They would both be presented, thus providing a clear
picture of how one of the baselines is shifting. Doing this would
heighten people’s awareness of climate change, would allow people to
see whether and how urban sites are changing differently from rural
sites, and would provide useful and accessible information for
policymakers.<br>
<br>
David Policansky is a retired scientist who worked in the Division
on Earth and Life Studies at the National Academy of Sciences.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/29/climate-normals-hide-global-warming/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/29/climate-normals-hide-global-warming/</a><br>
- -<br>
<b>Anecdotes and the shifting baseline</b><b> </b><b>syndrome of
fisheries</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.737.5584&rep=rep1&type=pdf">https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.737.5584&rep=rep1&type=pdf</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[5 min video - Antarctic ice loss ]<br>
<b>Scientists: With Climate Action, Antarctic Melt Could Slow</b><br>
Nov 29, 2020<br>
greenman3610<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpfMdAAF7fU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpfMdAAF7fU</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[videos ask - where is the ice in the Arctic]<br>
<b>Why has NO New Record-Minimum Arctic Sea-Ice Extent occurred
since September, 2012?? - Part 1, 3 </b><br>
Nov 28, 2020<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
The globe’s seven warmest years have all occurred since 2012, and
Arctic Temperature Amplification has warmed the north at least 3
times faster than the global average. So WHY is Arctic sea ice still
hanging on, and why hasn’t it set any new record September minimum
since 2012? Since 2000, new record minimums were set in 2003, 2005,
2007, and then 2012; but nothing since then. Clearly, there simply
must be some negative feedbacks going on, but what are they, and
what mechanisms are in play? I have suggested that the wavy jet
streams have brought ridges (warm, humid air) from lower latitudes
as far north as the North Pole, even during the completely dark four
month winter periods; meanwhile jet stream troughs have carried cool
dry polar air as far as the equator, and that the jets have even
crossed the equator to join with Southern Hemisphere jet streams.
Both these ridges and troughs result in transferring heat from the
pole to the equator. I have also made the argument that there is
Atlantification (and Pacificication) of the Arctic Oceans, namely
marine heat waves in the northern Atlantic and Pacific result in
warmer waters entering the Arctic below the surface; since density
of sea water depends on both temperature and salinity, warmer but
saltier water is more dense than colder fresher surface water and
can shoal and melt sea ice from below, and also delay it refreshing
in the fall after the minimum extent has been reached.<br>
<br>
In the new peer reviewed scientific paper on this topic by Jennifer
Francis and Abington Wu, they argue that since 2012 the ice melt
rates have been extremely high in the Spring and early Summer from
high Sea Level Pressure (SLP), leaving both Arctic scientists and
the public with bated breath, thinking that a new record breaking
melt year and minimum September sea ice extent was sure to occur.
Then, during each August/September an abrupt atmospheric shift has
occurred, bringing low SLP, extreme cloudiness, and unfavourable
winds for ice reduction, dashing all hopes of a new record minimum
or even a Blue Ocean Event (BOE) with near 100% ice loss. <br>
Francis and Wu argue that the mechanism for this late melt season
slowdown is associated with jet stream splitting from diminished
spring snow cover on northern hemisphere continents, which acts as a
negative feedback that stalls late summer Arctic sea ice loss. I
chat about the data and analysis that is behind their ideas.<br>
1. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suojcDpmbss">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suojcDpmbss</a><br>
3. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFs0-X4TRsA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFs0-X4TRsA</a><br>
- -<br>
[from Yale in October]<br>
<b>Warmer climate and Arctic sea ice in a veritable suicide pact</b><br>
Their 'death spiral' is a vicious melting-warming feedback, leading
to more melting of snow and ice and still more warming, an ongoing
cycle.<br>
By Dana Nuccitelli - Wednesday, October 28, 2020<br>
Think of it as a suicide pact on ice - global warming and Arctic sea
ice in a mutually destructive relationship.<br>
<br>
Earth’s rising temperatures melt Arctic snow and ice, which, as the
reflective surface cover disappears, reveals the dark land and ocean
surface beneath. That darkening surface causes the Arctic to absorb
more sunlight and therefore to warm faster … which in turn leads to
more melting of snow and ice, ergo resulting in more warming.<br>
<br>
Scientists refer to Earth’s surface reflectivity as its "albedo,"
and to the vicious Arctic melting-warming cycle as a "feedback." One
action precipitates and reinforces another, in this case with Arctic
warming and ice loss each accelerating the other. As a result, the
Arctic is warming three times faster than the global average and its
sea ice is quickly melting away. In summers between 1979 and 2012,
Arctic sea ice had lost half its surface area and three-quarters of
its volume. Some climate scientists described this rapid decline as
the "Arctic sea ice death spiral."<br>
<br>
But then came the unexpected - the ice death spiral froze.<br>
<br>
The years 2014 through 2020 have been the seven hottest ever
recorded on Earth, with the resulting heat fueling monster
hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and record wildfires in the western
U.S. and Australia. "Ever since the record-smashing summer of 2012,
Arctic scientists have watched melt seasons unfold with bated
breath: Will this year break the record again? Will this year bring
the long-anticipated sea-ice-free summer?" said climate scientist
Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. "And
almost every August, the rate of ice loss came to a screeching halt,
averting a new record minimum. But why?"<br>
<br>
Defying both the heat and scientists’ expectations, the record
minimum set in September 2012 still stands, as illustrated in
graphic artist Andy Lee Robinson’s video, below.<br>
<b>What froze the death spiral?</b><br>
Francis and her co-author Bingyi Wu of Fudan University in Shanghai
have a theory that the rapid warming in the Arctic prompted a change
in the polar jet stream, the narrow band of strong wind circling the
region; they theorize that this change helped preserve some sea ice.
Their new study in Environmental Research Letters notes that the
winter and spring sea ice extent reached record low levels nearly
every year since 2012 … but then the trajectory took a sharp turn
late into the summer season, with the loss curbing early and
therefore avoiding setting a new record low annual minimum in
September.<br>
<br>
Francis and Wu identified a common pattern in atmospheric air
circulations during many of the summers since 2012: Low-pressure
systems would develop in the Arctic, forming clouds that kept
temperatures cool by blocking sunlight and generating winds that
spread out the remaining ice. These weather systems lingered because
a split in the jet stream trapped them in light winds that failed to
move them along. When the jet stream air current slows down, much
like a slow water current in a river, it develops a meandering wavy
pattern rather than a strong straight path.<br>
<br>
A witch's brew may be leading to temporary decline in the inevitable
Arctic snow and ice melting caused by global warming.<br>
The authors suggest that the decline in northern latitude snow cover
and Arctic sea ice resulting from global warming may be contributing
to more frequent wavy jet stream events. The temperature difference
between the cold Arctic and warmer lower latitudes creates a force
that propels the atmospheric air currents. The rapid warming of the
Arctic, due largely to its increased absorption of sunlight
resulting from the melting of reflective snow and ice, is decreasing
the temperature difference between that region and lower latitudes.
This in turn has weakened the force on the jet stream, leading to
more slow meandering air currents. The melting Arctic may be slowing
its own decline by allowing more low-pressure cloudy weather systems
to linger in the summer.<br>
<br>
But it may only have delayed, not stopped the spiral …<br>
The study finds that these recent atmospheric patterns resemble
those identified in a 2018 study led by Michael Mann of Penn State
University.<br>
<br>
"This is a fascinating article, drawing a new linkage between
seemingly disparate climate change impacts," Mann, not personally
involved in the Francis/Wu work, wrote via email. "Jennifer Francis
has been doing very innovative work for years now looking at the
relationship between amplified Arctic warming and the behavior of
the Northern Hemisphere jet stream," he wrote.<br>
<br>
‘A little bit of good news,’ though only temporary, in ‘otherwise
bleak’ outlook for Arctic snow and ice.<br>
<br>
"In this new article, Francis and Wu demonstrate that a climate
change impact my co-authors and I have investigated previously,
known as ‘planetary wave resonance,’ which is responsible for many
of the extreme summer weather events we’ve seen in recent years, may
also explain why the rate of decline in Arctic sea ice has decreased
a bit in recent years. A little bit of good news, perhaps, given the
otherwise bleak outlook for the Arctic as we continue to warm the
planet."<br>
<br>
As Mann hinted, this jet stream effect can only delay the inevitable
Arctic sea ice death spiral because the melting effect of
ever-rising temperatures can be held in check only for so long. In
fact, Francis and Wu noted that the wind pattern that causes abrupt
Arctic cooling didn’t occur in the summers of 2019 and 2020, and the
sea ice minimum record was nearly broken in both years.<br>
<br>
Another new study published in Nature Climate Change used the latest
generation of climate models to simulate Arctic sea ice during the
warm period 120,000 years ago before the last ice age. The
simulations showed that during that era, the Arctic was very likely
ice-free in the summer. The team also ran model simulations for the
future and found that summer Arctic sea ice likely will be gone
between about 2030 and 2050.<br>
<br>
<b>And what happens in the Arctic doesn’t just stay there</b><br>
Hungry polar bears facing a shrinking hunting range are not the only
ones affected by the rapid melting of ice and snow in the Arctic. A
growing body of scientific research suggests that while changes in
the jet stream may have temporarily slowed the death spiral, they
also have contributed to extreme heat, fires, drought, and floods in
regions across the northern hemisphere.<br>
<br>
The summer cloudy low-pressure Arctic systems, for instance, aren’t
the only types of weather events made more frequent by the
increasingly wavy jet stream. Francis and Wu found that conversely,
high pressure systems have tended to develop at the same time in
Canada, east Asia, Scandinavia, and the north Pacific Ocean, leading
to frequent summer heatwaves in those regions.<br>
<br>
In addition, a 2017 study in Nature Communications, lead authors
Ivana Cvijanovic and Benjamin Santer, then with Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, found that the Arctic sea ice decline will lead
to more high-pressure ridges loitering off the coast of California.
This type of persistent high-pressure system developed in the
winters of 2012-2015, diverting rain systems to the north of the
state, causing dry conditions that contributed to California’s most
intense drought in over a millennium.<br>
<br>
The 2018 study by Mann and colleagues noted also that other recent
extreme weather events influenced by the wavy jet stream include the
deadly 2003 European heat wave, 2010 wildfires in Russia and floods
in Pakistan, and a 2011 heat wave and drought in Oklahoma and Texas.
In 2018, prominent jet stream waves coincided with high-pressure
systems causing intense heat in Scandinavia, central Europe, and
California (contributing to the state’s then-record wildfire
season), and also with flooding in the eastern U.S. And in a 2018
paper in Nature, James Kossin of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration found that hurricanes have slowed by 10%
since 1950. That’s important because slower hurricanes wreak more
flooding and destruction on the regions they strike. This hurricane
slowing may also be a result of the increasingly wavy jet stream, an
issue still a subject of ongoing scientific research.<br>
<br>
As for the "surprise" of the recent lull in the death spiral,
Francis in her formal statement about her and Wu’s study commented,
"Accumulating greenhouse gases affect the Earth’s climate in
sometimes unforeseen, counter-intuitive ways."<br>
<br>
Melting ice opens doors for wider spread of contaminants, diseases<br>
"We must do everything in our power to reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases, accelerate efforts to remove carbon from the
atmosphere, and prepare for more surprises ahead," Francis said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/10/warmer-climate-and-arctic-sea-ice-in-a-veritable-suicide-pact/">https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/10/warmer-climate-and-arctic-sea-ice-in-a-veritable-suicide-pact/</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[Francis, Wu paper]<br>
<b>Why has no new record-minimum Arctic sea-ice extent occurred
since September 2012?</b><br>
Jennifer A Francis and Bingyi Wu<br>
Published 23 November 2020 <br>
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 15, Number 11<br>
<b>Abstract</b><br>
One of the clearest indicators of human-caused climate change is the
rapid decline in Arctic sea ice. The summer minimum coverage is now
approximately half of its extent only 40 yr ago. Four records in the
minimum extent were broken since 2000, the most recent occurring in
September 2012. No new records have been set since then, however,
owing to an abrupt atmospheric shift during each
August/early-September that brought low sea-level pressure,
cloudiness, and unfavorable wind conditions for ice reduction. While
random variability could be the cause, we identify a recently
increased prevalence of a characteristic large-scale atmospheric
pattern over the northern hemisphere. This pattern is associated not
only with anomalously low pressure over the Arctic during summer,
but also with frequent heatwaves over East Asia, Scandinavia, and
northern North America, as well as the tendency for a split jet
stream over the continents. This jet-stream configuration has been
identified as favoring extreme summer weather events in northern
mid-latitudes. We propose a mechanism linking these features with
diminishing spring snow cover on northern-hemisphere continents that
acts as a negative feedback on the loss of Arctic sea ice during
summer.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc047">https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc047</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[opinion manipulation battleground] <br>
<b>How the oil industry made us doubt climate change</b><br>
By Phoebe Keane<br>
BBC News - 19 September. 2020<br>
As climate change becomes a focus of the US election, energy
companies stand accused of trying to downplay their contribution to
global warming. In June, Minnesota's Attorney General sued
ExxonMobil, among others, for launching a "campaign of deception"
which deliberately tried to undermine the science supporting global
warming. So what's behind these claims? And what links them to how
the tobacco industry tried to dismiss the harms of smoking decades
earlier?<br>
<br>
To understand what's happening today, we need to go back nearly 40
years.<br>
<br>
Marty Hoffert leaned closer to his computer screen. He couldn't
quite believe what he was seeing. It was 1981, and he was working in
an area of science considered niche.<br>
<br>
"We were just a group of geeks with some great computers," he says
now, recalling that moment.<br>
<br>
But his findings were alarming.<br>
<br>
"I created a model that showed the Earth would be warming very
significantly. And the warming would introduce climatic changes that
would be unprecedented in human history. That blew my mind."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53640382">https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53640382</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
November 30, 1999 </b></font><br>
<br>
Exxon and Mobil complete their merger.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://money.cnn.com/1999/11/30/deals/exxonmobil/">http://money.cnn.com/1999/11/30/deals/exxonmobil/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
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