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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>December 12, 2020</b></font></i> <br>
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[AGU on Wildfire Thunderstorm (PyroCb) science 50 min video]<br>
<b>Fall Meeting 2020 Press Conference: Wildfire-driven thunderstorms
and their role in climate</b><br>
Dec 11, 2020<br>
AGU<br>
In this press conference, researchers discuss the fascinating
phenomenon of pyrocumulonimbus clouds funneling smoke like a chimney
from Earth's wildfires to high altitudes where it remains for
extended periods. Results will include the most detailed information
to date on the Australian New Year 2020 wildfire-driven thunderstorm
activity and provide a unique perspective on how the Australian
events compare with other large wildfire and pyrocumulonimbus events
observed worldwide.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmyFDea0uAM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmyFDea0uAM</a><br>
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[James Hansen's latest chapter]<br>
<b>Sophie's Planet #31: Chapter 42 (Carbon Emissions)</b><br>
11 December 2020<br>
James Hansen<br>
Draft of Chapter 42 of Sophie's Planet is available here for fact
checking. Old King Coal lives. Do global leaders understand the
situation? Do they care? Do they understand policy implications?<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://columbia.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0ebaeb14fdbf5dc65289113c1&id=58b432bd22&e=c4e20a3850">https://columbia.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0ebaeb14fdbf5dc65289113c1&id=58b432bd22&e=c4e20a3850</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/SophiePlanet/Planet.Chapter42.pdf">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/SophiePlanet/Planet.Chapter42.pdf</a><br>
<br>
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<br>
[EOS report]<br>
<b>Coastal Brazil Is Likely to Face More Heat Waves and Droughts</b><br>
In 2014, São Paulo experienced its greatest water crisis ever,
caused by an intense drought. New research indicates that it is
likely to happen again and be even more severe.<br>
<br>
In early 2014, the Cantareira system, the main reservoir that feeds
São Paulo, hit less than 10% of its capacity because of intense heat
and drought, forcing Brazil's most populated region to severely
restrict its water consumption. Scientists working to understand the
phenomenon say droughts like this can happen again and are likely to
hit the region even harder.<br>
<br>
Ocean weather might be to blame. Marine heat waves--dry air with
high temperatures that stays for days over the ocean--are strong
contributors to droughts. A new study in Scientific Reports sheds
light on this mechanism.<br>
<br>
The study shows that long-lasting high-pressure systems over the sea
lead to marine heat waves--and in early 2014 the western South
Atlantic Ocean experienced one. Coauthor Regina Rodrigues, from the
Department of Oceanography at the Federal University of Santa
Catarina, Brazil, led an earlier study that looked closely at the
influence of marine heat waves on southeast Brazil between 2013 and
2014. The results were published last year in Nature Geoscience and
will be presented at AGU's Fall Meeting on 15 December.<br>
<br>
Analyzing sea surface temperature data from NOAA and atmospheric
data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts,
Rodrigues's team found that air circulating toward the west in the
Southern Hemisphere blocked the formation of rain and caused the
2013–2014 South Atlantic marine heat wave. Cyclones, Rodrigues
explained, normally head eastward. "That's why heat waves are known
as anticyclonic circulation," she said.<br>
<br>
Rodrigues explained that even in the summer, cyclonic circulation
and anticyclonic circulation alternate to create periods of rainy
and sunny weather.<br>
<br>
With droughts, the situation is different. "With no clouds,
insolation increases both on the ocean and land, provoking heat
waves. The problem is when [the heat waves] stop over the same place
for days and don't allow for the cyclonic circulation to happen,"
she said.<br>
<br>
Heat Waves and Droughts Go Hand in Hand<br>
Droughts and heat waves are likely to become more frequent. Using
data from 1982 to 2016, Rodrigues and her team observed that the
frequency, duration, intensity, and extension of these phenomena
have increased.<br>
<br>
"João Geirinhas, a researcher at the University of Lisbon, found
similar results in another study that is currently in press. His
team looked at the increase in the frequency of droughts and heat
wave events between 1980 and 2018. "Heat waves and droughts go hand
in hand since the former can cause the latter," he said. Geirinhas
will present the work at AGU's Fall Meeting on 15 December.<br>
Geirinhas's study finds the concurrence of droughts and heat waves
spiked after 2010. São Paulo, for example, had a peak in the
mid-1980s (with a less than 30% chance of a marine heat wave and
drought happening simultaneously), but that peak was surpassed in
the mid-2010s (when there was an almost 50% chance of a
concurrence).<br>
<br>
"Climate change can make these effects stronger and longer lasting,"
Geirinhas said.<br>
<br>
Complementary Studies<br>
"What happened in 2014 was a punctual event that can become more
frequent due to deforestation and climate change."Human activity can
contribute to conditions influencing marine heat waves and drought.
Wilson Feltrim, coordinator of the Climatology Laboratory at the
Federal University of Paraná, warned that deforestation can
contribute to the phenomena. "The loss of trees decreases rainfall
year after year. What happened in 2014 was a punctual event that can
become more frequent due to deforestation and climate change," he
added.<br>
To Feltrim, the studies from Rodrigues and Geirinhas are
complementary. "While Rodrigues looks at the genesis of the
phenomenon, Geirinhas looks at the intensification in its
occurrence," said the researcher, who did not take part in either
study.<br>
<br>
Maria Assunção Dias, a senior professor of atmospheric sciences at
the University of São Paulo who was also not involved in either
study, agreed with Feltrim. "These studies hand different pieces of
a puzzle that fit together to help explain an absolutely
unprecedented event in our lives as researchers." The changes that
we are seeing in the climate probably have not been witnessed by the
human species before, she added.<br>
<br>
"It might have happened millennia before, but we didn't have the
data to understand it and weren't here to see," said Dias.<br>
<br>
—Meghie Rodrigues (@meghier), Science Writer<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://eos.org/articles/coastal-brazil-is-likely-to-face-more-heat-waves-and-droughts">https://eos.org/articles/coastal-brazil-is-likely-to-face-more-heat-waves-and-droughts</a><br>
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<p><br>
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[McKibben reports]<br>
<b>Where We Stand on Climate</b><br>
By Bill McKibben - December 11, 2020<br>
- -<br>
Frontline communities and indigenous groups are in the lead, and the
surge of youthful energy has defined this push: from the Sunrise
Movement to the Fridays for Future student strikes, it is those
whose future is fully on the line who have emerged as the most
talented spokespeople--and the most demanding. (Greta Thunberg
greeted Denmark's news that it would forgo future North Sea oil
wells by pointing out that the country is going to keep pumping the
ones already in place; many of her colleagues issued a manifesto
proclaiming, "World leaders have no right to speak about net-zero by
2050 targets as if this is the height of ambition. Limiting our
ambition to net-zero by 2050 is a death sentence for many.") This
pressure aims, at heart, to do one thing: to shift the zeitgeist, so
that the sense of what is normal and natural and obvious changes
and, with it, the decisions of politicians and investors.<br>
<br>
There are signs that it is working. This summer, BP said that it
would cut its production of oil and gas by forty per cent over the
next decade. That amount won't be enough (and the announcement came
with endless caveats), but the decision still represents a new
outlook for an industry that had grown steadily since the first oil
well was drilled, in the nineteenth century. Last week, Exxon
announced that it will write down the value of its oil and gas
fields by twenty billion dollars, essentially conceding that those
fields will never be pumped. It also said that it would cut spending
on fossil-fuel exploration each year through 2025: instead of the
thirty billion dollars it planned to spend in 2021, it will budget
sixteen to nineteen billion. As recently as 2013, Exxon was the
largest company in the world; this year, its market cap was briefly
topped by Next Era Energy, a Florida-based renewables company.<br>
<br>
There are a thousand other battles under way, of course: from arcane
fights about carbon-accounting rules to plans for helping farmers
sequester more carbon in soils; from writing new building codes
requiring energy efficiency to schemes for assisting coal miners and
oilfield roustabouts in finding new jobs in renewable power. But the
central battle, at least for the next few years, is between Big Oil
and Big Hope and Anger. We'll get a better read on the state of play
next November, when nations gather in Glasgow. The pledges on the
table will reflect, with unflinching accuracy, the balance of power
between the fossil-fuel industry and the movements that challenge
it.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/where-we-stand-on-climate">https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/where-we-stand-on-climate</a><br>
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[sarcasm in media from Australia (adult language)]<br>
<b>Honest Government Ad | Kyoto Carryover Credits</b><br>
Dec 11, 2020<br>
thejuicemedia<br>
The Australien Government was not allowed to speak at the latest
Climate Summit, so it made an ad about its climate policy instead –
and it's surprisingly honest and informative.<br>
🔹 Produced by Patrons of The Juice Media<br>
🔹 Written by Giordano for The Juice Media <br>
🔹 Performed by Zoë Amanda Wilson x Ellen Burbidge x Lucy Cahill<br>
🔹 Visual effects by Brent Cataldo<br>
🔹 Research assistance by Kylie Harris<br>
🔹 Thanks to Richie Merzian, The Australia Council, for climate
consulting help<br>
<br>
👉 PODCAST: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.thejuicemedia.com/podcast">https://www.thejuicemedia.com/podcast</a><br>
👉 PG VERSIONS: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.thejuicemedia.com/teachers">https://www.thejuicemedia.com/teachers</a><br>
👉 STORE: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://shop.thejuicemedia.com">https://shop.thejuicemedia.com</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92t8np88fEI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92t8np88fEI</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 -
December 12, 1985 </b></font><br>
<p>December 11, 1985: The New York Times reports:<br>
<br>
"A group of senators and scientists today called for national and
international action to avert a predicted warming of the earth's
climate resulting from a buildup of carbon dioxide and other
man-made gases in the atmosphere.<br>
<br>
"They warned at a Senate hearing that such an effect, like that of
a greenhouse, would produce radical climate changes and a
subsequent rise in ocean levels that could have catastrophic
results in the next century unless steps were taken now to deal
with the problem.<br>
<br>
"Senator Albert Gore Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, said he would
introduce legislation to expand and focus scientific efforts on
this greenhouse effect.<br>
<br>
"At a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Toxic Substances and
Environmental Oversight, Mr. Gore said his bill would call for 'an
international year of scientific study of the greenhouse effect
and would request that the President take steps to begin this
worldwide cooperative investigation.'"<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/11/us/action-is-urged-to-avert-global-climate-shift.html">http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/11/us/action-is-urged-to-avert-global-climate-shift.html</a>
<br>
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