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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>January 5, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[Associated Press]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-pollution-3f226aed9c58e36c69e7342b104d48bf">https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-pollution-3f226aed9c58e36c69e7342b104d48bf</a><br>
<b>Study: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals</b><br>
By SETH BORENSTEIN - Jan 4, 2021<br>
The amount of baked-in global warming, from carbon pollution already
in the air, is enough to blow past international agreed upon goals
to limit climate change, a new study finds.<br>
<br>
But it’s not game over because, while that amount of warming may be
inevitable, it can be delayed for centuries if the world quickly
stops emitting extra greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil
and natural gas, the study’s authors say.<br>
<br>
For decades, scientists have talked about so-called “committed
warming” or the increase in future temperature based on past carbon
dioxide emissions that stay in the atmosphere for well over a
century. It’s like the distance a speeding car travels after the
brakes are applied.<br>
<br>
But Monday’s study in the journal Nature Climate Change calculates
that a bit differently and now figures the carbon pollution already
put in the air will push global temperatures to about 2.3 degrees
Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial
times.<br>
<br>
Previous estimates, including those accepted by international
science panels, were about a degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit)
less than that amount of committed warming...<br>
International climate agreements set goals of limiting warming to 2
degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times,
with the more ambitious goal of limiting it to 1.5 degrees Celsius
(2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) added in Paris in 2015. The world has
already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit).<br>
<br>
“You’ve got some ... global warming inertia that’s going to cause
the climate system to keep warming, and that’s essentially what
we’re calculating,” said study co-author Andrew Dessler, a climate
scientist at Texas A&M University. “Think about the climate
system like the Titanic. It’s hard to turn the ship when you see the
icebergs.”<br>
<br>
Dessler and colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab and
Nanjing University in China calculated committed warming to take
into account that the world has warmed at different rates in
different places and that places that haven’t warmed as fast are
destined to catch up.<br>
<br>
Places such as the Southern Ocean, surrounding Antarctica are a bit
cooler, and that difference creates low-lying clouds that reflect
more sun away from earth, keeping these places cooler. But this
situation can’t keep going indefinitely because physics dictates
that cooler locations will warm up more and when they do, the clouds
will dwindle and more heating will occur, Dessler said.<br>
<br>
Previous studies were based on the cooler spots staying that way,
but Dessler and colleagues say that’s not likely.<br>
<br>
Outside experts said the work is based on compelling reasoning, but
want more research to show that it’s true. Breakthrough Institute
climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said the new work fits better with
climate models than observational data.<br>
<br>
Just because the world is bound to get more warming than
international goals, that doesn’t mean all is lost in the fight
against global warming, said Dessler, who cautioned against what he
called “climate doomers.”<br>
<br>
If the world gets to net zero carbon emissions soon, 2 degrees of
global warming could be delayed enough so that it won’t happen for
centuries, giving society time to adapt or even come up with
technological fixes, he said.<br>
<br>
“If we don’t, we’re going to blow through (climate goals) in a few
decades,” Dessler said. “It’s really the rate of warming that makes
climate change so terrible. If we got a few degrees over 100,000
years, that would not be that big a deal. We can deal with that. But
a few degrees over 100 years is really bad.”<br>
___<br>
Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apnews.com/hub/climate">https://apnews.com/hub/climate</a>.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-pollution-3f226aed9c58e36c69e7342b104d48bf">https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-pollution-3f226aed9c58e36c69e7342b104d48bf</a><br>
- - <br>
[Source material]<br>
Published: 04 January 2021<br>
<b>Greater committed warming after accounting for the pattern effect</b><br>
Chen Zhou, Mark D. Zelinka, Andrew E. Dessler & Minghuai Wang <br>
Nature Climate Change (2021)<br>
Abstract<br>
Our planet’s energy balance is sensitive to spatial inhomogeneities
in sea surface temperature and sea ice changes, but this is
typically ignored in climate projections. Here, we show the energy
budget during recent decades can be closed by combining changes in
effective radiative forcing, linear radiative damping and this
pattern effect. The pattern effect is of comparable magnitude but
opposite sign to Earth’s net energy imbalance in the 2000s,
indicating its importance when predicting the future climate on the
basis of observations. After the pattern effect is accounted for,
the best-estimate value of committed global warming at present-day
forcing rises from 1.31 K (0.99–2.33 K, 5th–95th percentile) to over
2 K, and committed warming in 2100 with constant long-lived forcing
increases from 1.32 K (0.94–2.03 K) to over 1.5 K, although the
magnitude is sensitive to sea surface temperature dataset. Further
constraints on the pattern effect are needed to reduce climate
projection uncertainty.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00955-x">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00955-x</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[new visions in climate science]<br>
Michael E. Mann<br>
@MichaelEMann -·Jan 3<br>
<b>"Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively
Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero"</b> by Bob Berwyn (@BBerwyn)
for @InsideClimate<br>
News: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/1345760391121547265">https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/1345760391121547265</a><br>
- -<br>
[news]<br>
<b>Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively
Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero</b><br>
That’s one of several recent conclusions about climate change that
came more sharply into focus in 2020.<br>
By Bob Berwyn<br>
January 3, 2021<br>
Parts of the world economy may have been on pause during 2020,
dampening greenhouse gas emissions for a while. But that didn’t slow
the overall buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which reached its
highest level in millions of years. <br>
<br>
If anything, research during the year showed global warming is
accelerating. Symptoms of the fever include off-the-charts heat
waves on land and in the oceans, and a hyperactive and destructive
Atlantic hurricane season. <br>
<br>
And through November, the last year was on pace to end up as either
the hottest, or second-hottest on record for the planet, almost 1
degree Celsius above pre-industrial times, inching closer to the 1.5
degree limit set by the Paris climate agreement.<br>
<br>
Here are five aspects of climate change that were new and unexpected
in 2020:<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>The La Niña Effect?</b><br>
Some scientists noted that the persistent heating came even with the
tropical Pacific Ocean tilting toward a cyclical cooling phase that
suppresses the global average temperature slightly. November’s
warmth across the planet was “stunning, especially considering the
ongoing La Niña,” Zack Labe posted on Twitter. <br>
<br>
During La Niña, cooler than average sea surface temperatures spread
across a large part of the tropical Pacific. During the warm El Niño
phase every few years, it’s the opposite, and that’s usually when
global temperatures spike to new records, most recently in 2016. <br>
<br>
The global climate signal from the cycle usually is strongest about
three or four months after the ocean cycle peaks, so the full effect
won’t be known until next year, said climate scientist Stefan
Rahmstorf, with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
He said, “2020 may beat 2016 without the extra push from El Niño.” <br>
<br>
This year’s warming is another sign that “heat being trapped by
greenhouse gases” is overwhelming the planet’s natural variability,
said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist with the Woodwell Climate
Research Center in Massachusetts (formerly the Woods Hole Research
Center). <br>
<br>
“I hate to think what the global temperature would have been this
year if we’d been in an El Niño rather than La Niña,” she said.<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>The Polar Breakdown</b><br>
Warming in the Arctic and Antarctic continues to accelerate faster
than the global average, scientists reported this year. <br>
<br>
In September, NASA Earth wrote on Twitter that, “The Arctic region
is warming three times as fast as the rest of the planet, with
effects beyond the ocean.” In recent years, the rate of Arctic
warming was widely reported at twice the global average.<br>
<br>
And in June, a team of scientists tracked a similar rate of warming
in Antarctica. Their research, published in Nature, found that,
since 1989, the average temperature at the South Pole increased
about 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, also three times as fast as
the global average. <br>
<br>
The warming of the polar regions disrupts global climate patterns in
ways that can cause more extreme droughts, floods and heat waves,
and changes in climate-regulating ocean currents. <br>
<br>
In a recent letter to the incoming Biden administration, 193 Arctic
scientists spelled out their growing concerns, including
“acidification of the Arctic Ocean that threatens U.S. fisheries,
and a loss of sea ice that contributes to “persistent heat waves and
cold spells, prolonged stormy periods, and extended droughts that
greatly worsen Western wildfires.”<br>
<br>
The rapid Arctic warming has also triggered permafrost thaw that is
“now releasing carbon at the same scale as many larger nations,” the
scientists wrote. “Rising sea levels from melting glaciers and polar
ice sheets have accelerated clear-day flooding and storm damage,
especially along the U.S. Eastern and Gulf coasts,” they added. <br>
<br>
The letter called on President-elect Joe Biden to appoint a U.S.
ambassador with a climate mandate to the Arctic Council, as a way of
recognizing the “urgency of the threat from a disintegrating
Arctic.”<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>Swamped by the Seas?</b><br>
As polar ice melts more quickly, sea level rise also accelerates.
But sea level is complicated, because it doesn’t rise at the same
rate everywhere, at the same time. The global average rate recently
increased from about 1.3 inches to about 2 inches per decade. <br>
<br>
In the best-case scenario of reaching the Paris target of capping
global warming at 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, sea level will rise
between 1 and 2 feet by 2100, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change warned in a 2019 global assessment.<br>
<br>
The acceleration could be felt especially strongly along the West
Coast, where sea level is starting to rise much faster than in
recent years, according to NASA. <br>
<br>
In early November, researchers with the agency said a decades-long
lull in sea level rise is ending. Large-scale changes in the Pacific
Ocean are accelerating the inundation of beaches and marshes, as
well the erosion of the coastal bluffs where millions of people have
built homes and businesses.<br>
<br>
“We’ve definitely seen an uptick,” said Bill Sweet, a sea level rise
expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “In
the next 20 to 30 years, by 2050, sea level will be about a foot
higher, compared to 2000. There is going to be more erosion and
we’re going to lose beaches,” he said, identifying San Diego and the
San Francisco Bay Area as potential trouble spots.<br>
<br>
A lot of the Bay Area is built on reclaimed low-lying land that is
permeable and vulnerable to incoming saltwater that can cause
drainage systems to back up and overflow, and interfere with
freshwater supplies. <br>
<br>
“You’re going to see more of what we’re already seeing on the East
Coast. San Diego is a stand-out spot already. There’s more nuisance
flooding these days, and they’re going to see a jump,” he said. At
times, the rising ocean will block roads, start to threaten
low-lying properties and commerce and increase erosion, collapsing
coastal bluffs and overtopping dunes, he added.<br>
<br>
<b>Climate Justice and Science are Connected</b><br>
California, one of the wealthiest parts of the world, may be able to
adapt to sea level rise, but it’s a matter of life and death for
millions of other people in developing countries with small carbon
footprints that contribute little to global warming.<br>
<br>
But new research in 2020 showed that researchers have done
relatively little to study impacts of global warming extremes in
areas where the most people are affected. And this year, climate
impacts were compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. Together, they
affected at least 50 million people worldwide, mostly in developing
countries in Asia and Africa, as well as Central America. <br>
<br>
But the impacts have mostly been measured in the developed world by
scientists in wealthier nations, raising a fundamental issue of
climate justice in science, said University of Oxford climate
scientist Fredi Otto, co-author of a recent study that outlines the
challenges of understanding climate extremes in lower income
countries.<br>
<br>
Soon after starting work on the study, she said, “It became very
obvious that scientists research what’s in their backyard, but not
in Africa, large parts of Asia, or South America.” As climate
extremes intensify, the information gaps become “a lot more
obvious,” she said.<br>
<br>
The reason it’s important is that a lack of accurate information
about extreme climate impacts puts more lives at risk, she said. “We
don’t know what we need to adapt to and build resilience for … or
what should trigger a heat warning,” she added. <br>
<br>
<b>Making it Stop</b><br>
Some scientists punctuate their alarming warmings with hopeful
messages because they know that the worst possible outcome is
avoidable. <br>
<br>
Recent research shows that stopping greenhouse gas emissions will
break the vicious cycle of warming temperatures, melting ice,
wildfires and rising sea levels faster than expected just a few
years ago.<br>
<br>
There is less warming in the pipeline than we thought, said Imperial
College (London) climate scientist Joeri Rogelj, a lead author of
the next major climate assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change. <br>
<br>
“It is our best understanding that, if we bring down CO2 to net
zero, the warming will level off. The climate will stabilize within
a decade or two,” he said. “There will be very little to no
additional warming. Our best estimate is zero.”<br>
<br>
The widespread idea that decades, or even centuries, of additional
warming are already baked into the system, as suggested by previous
IPCC reports, were based on an “unfortunate misunderstanding of
experiments done with climate models that never assumed zero
emissions.” <br>
<br>
Those models assumed that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere would remain constant, that it would take centuries
before they decline, said Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann,
who discussed the shifting consensus last October during a segment
of 60 Minutes on CBS.<br>
<br>
The idea that global warming could stop relatively quickly after
emissions go to zero was described as a “game-changing new
scientific understanding” by Covering Climate Now, a collaboration
of news organizations covering climate.<br>
<br>
“This really is true,” he said. “It’s a dramatic change in the
paradigm that has been lost on many who cover this issue, perhaps
because it hasn’t been well explained by the scientific community.
It’s an important development that is still under appreciated.”“It’s
definitely the scientific consensus now that warming stabilizes
quickly, within 10 years, of emissions going to zero,” he said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03012021/five-aspects-climate-change-2020/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03012021/five-aspects-climate-change-2020/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Mass innovates but has received no agreement from the climate]<br>
<b>Negotiators Reach Deal On Major Climate Bill</b><br>
January 04, 2021<br>
Michael P. Norton, State House News Service<br>
After six months of private talks, legislative negotiators on Sunday
afternoon reached an agreement on a major bill to accelerate the
state's pace toward addressing the global problem of climate change.<br>
<br>
The bill would establish in state law a "net zero" greenhouse gas
emissions limit for 2050 and establish statewide emissions limits
every five years over the next three decades. Within that plan, the
bill creates mandatory emissions sublimits for six sectors of the
economy: electric power, transportation, commercial and industrial
heating and cooling, residential heating and cooling, industrial
processes, and natural gas distribution and service.<br>
<br>
And within the 2050 "net zero" target, the bill says gross emissions
by 2050 must fall at least 85% below 1990 levels. The statewide
emissions limit for 2030 shall be at least 50% below the 1990 level,
according to the bill, and the limit for 2040 must be at least 75%
below the 1990 level.<br>
<br>
The six-member conference committee's report will be put before the
House and Senate for up-or-down votes during the final two days of
sessions for the current sitting of the General Court. All six
conferees — four Democrats and two Republicans — signed off on the
deal, which arrives just days before a new Legislature will be sworn
in and all bills start from scratch.<br>
<br>
The bill's chief negotiators — Rep. Thomas Golden of Lowell and Sen.
Michael Barrett of Lexington — called the proposal "the strongest
effort of its kind in the country" and the first major update to the
2008 Global Warming Solutions Act.<br>
<br>
"This bill is a climate toolkit, assembled over the course of
months, to protect our residents, and the beautiful place we call
home, from the worsening of an existential crisis," they said. "Its
particulars owe much to the advocacy of thousands of citizen
activists in Massachusetts. To these activists, we say thank you. We
heard you."<br>
<br>
The bill calls for utilities to purchase an additional 2,400
megawatts of offshore wind generation, raising the total state
authorization to 5,600 megawatts. The state this year expects to
hear from the new Biden administration about the prospects of two
offshore projects already in the works.<br>
<br>
The Department of Public Utilities would also need to alter its
approach to regulating the electric and natural gas utilities under
the bill, which orders the DPU to balance the following priorities:
system safety, system security, reliability, affordability, equity
and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.<br>
<br>
The legislation is also designed to ensure that at least 40% of the
state's electric power will be renewable by 2030, by making
incremental changes in the state's Renewable Energy Portfolio
Standard each year from 2025 through 2029.<br>
<br>
The bill, dubbed An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for
Massachusetts Climate Policy, addresses a range of other areas, from
environmental justice to hydrogen power, natural gas safety, energy
efficiency in appliances, and the creation of a greenhouse gas
emissions standard for municipal lighting plants.<br>
<br>
Massachusetts lost ground in its latest report on reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. The state faces a 2020 requirement of a
25% reduction from 1990 emissions levels. The Baker administration
in October released its latest update to the Massachusetts
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory which showed emissions in 2018
were 22.2% below emissions in 1990, compared to 2017 emissions that
were 22.7% below 1990 levels.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/01/04/massachusetts-climate-change-bill-conference">https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/01/04/massachusetts-climate-change-bill-conference</a><br>
<p>- - <br>
</p>
[Press Release from 4/2020]<br>
<b>Baker-Polito Administration Issues Letter Establishing Net Zero
Emissions Target</b><br>
The Baker-Polito Administration today issued its formal
determination letter establishing net zero greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions as the Commonwealth’s new legal emissions limit for 2050.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.mass.gov/news/baker-polito-administration-issues-letter-establishing-net-zero-emissions-target">https://www.mass.gov/news/baker-polito-administration-issues-letter-establishing-net-zero-emissions-target</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[legacy of climate science and activism]<br>
<b>Mary Nichols: A Climate Champion’s Legacy</b><br>
Nov 17, 2020<br>
Climate One<br>
Throughout a 45-year career as an environmental regulator, Mary
Nichols has been called everything from “Trump's nemesis” to “the
most influential environmental regulator of all time”. A powerful
climate champion for advancing climate action and limiting
emissions, Nichols has taken on automakers and collaborated with
them. Environmentalists have cheered her moves to cut greenhouse gas
emissions, occasionally criticizing her for letting polluters off
easy and not doing enough for disadvantaged communities of color.<br>
<br>
Where does California’s climate leadership go from here, and what’s
ahead for a new national climate agenda in 2021? Join us for a
conversation on the storied career of Mary Nichols, chair of the
California Air Resources Board, and a look at California’s ambitious
and controversial climate leadership from Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger to Governor Gavin Newsom. <br>
This program is generously underwritten by the ClimateWorks
Foundation.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlnRysjH71c">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlnRysjH71c</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Classic lecture in the fundamentals]<br>
<b>The Math of Climate Change</b><br>
Nov 22, 2018<br>
Gresham College<br>
Climate change is controversial and the subject of huge debate.
Complex climate models based on math helps us understand. How do
these models work?<br>
A lecture by Chris Budd OBE, Gresham Professor of Geometry 13
November 2018<br>
<br>
Climate change is important, controversial, and the subject of huge
debate. Much of our understanding of the future climate comes from
the use of complex climate models based on mathematical and physical
ideas.<br>
In this talk, Professor Budd will describe how these models work and
the assumptions that go into them. He will discuss how reliable our
predictions of climate change are, and show how mathematicians can
give us insights into both past and future.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4O4jK-lZrI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4O4jK-lZrI</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 -
January 5, 2000 </b></font><br>
<p>January 5, 2000: During a Democratic Presidential debate with
former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, Vice President Al Gore
notes that as a Congressman, "...I decided to take on the issue of
global warming and make it a national issue, when everybody was
saying 'You know, you're going to run a lot of risk there. People
are going to think that that's kind of off the edge there.' Well,
now more and more people say, 'Yes, it is real,' and the next
president has to be willing to take it on."<br>
<br>
(29:28-29-50)<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://c-spanvideo.org/program/DemocraticCandidatesDebate10">http://c-spanvideo.org/program/DemocraticCandidatesDebate10</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
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