Heat is Online

[msfreeh]

http://joinsummerheat.org/map/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

‘Every Plant And Tree Died’: Huge Alberta Pipeline Spill Raises Safety Questions As Keystone Decision Looms

By Kiley Kroh on Jun 18, 2013

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... mment_link" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... mment_link" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

June 20 News: 2013′s Gulf Of Mexico Dead Zone Could Be Biggest Ever
Jun 20, 2013 at 9:58 am


Heavy rainfall in the Midwest this spring has led to flood conditions, with states like Minnesota and Illinois experiencing some of the wettest spring seasons on record. And all that flooding means a lot more nitrogen-based fertilizer running off into the Gulf. According to an annual estimate from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sponsored modelers at the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University and Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, this year’s dead zone could be as large as 8,561 sq. miles—roughly the size of New Jersey. That would make it the biggest dead zone on record. And even the low end of the estimate would place this year among the top 10 biggest dead zones on record. Barring an unlikely change in the weather, much of the Gulf of Mexico could become an aquatic desert.

Emails reveal that Exxon Mobil misled the public about the extent of contamination in Lake Conway from the recent Pegasus pipeline oil spill in Arkansas. [TreeHugger]

Migratory seabirds are starving to death, a problem biologists are linking to climate change and overfishing. [Washington Post]

Rolling Stone has compiled the ten dumbest things ever said about climate change. [Rolling Stone]

[msfreeh]

Scientist: ‘Miami, As We Know It Today, Is Doomed. It’s Not A Question Of If. It’s A Question Of When.’
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... n-of-when/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


By Joe Romm on Jun 23, 2013 at 12:40 pm

Jeff Goodell has a must-read piece in Rolling Stone, “Goodbye, Miami: By century’s end, rising sea levels will turn the nation’s urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin.”

Goodell has talked to many of the leading experts on Miami including Harold Wanless, chair of University of Miami’s geological sciences, department, source of the headline quote. The reason climate change dooms Miami is a combination of sea level rise, the inevitability of ever more severe storms and storm surges — and its fateful, fatal geology and topology, which puts “more than $416 billion in assets at risk to storm-related flooding and sea-level rise”:

South Florida has two big problems. The first is its remarkably flat topography. Half the area that surrounds Miami is less than five feet above sea level. Its highest natural elevation, a limestone ridge that runs from Palm Beach to just south of the city, averages a scant 12 feet. With just three feet of sea-level rise, more than a third of southern Florida will vanish; at six feet, more than half will be gone; if the seas rise 12 feet, South Florida will be little more than an isolated archipelago surrounded by abandoned buildings and crumbling overpasses. And the waters won’t just come in from the east – because the region is so flat, rising seas will come in nearly as fast from the west too, through the Everglades.

Even worse, South Florida sits above a vast and porous limestone plateau. “Imagine Swiss cheese, and you’ll have a pretty good idea what the rock under southern Florida looks like,” says Glenn Landers, a senior engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This means water moves around easily – it seeps into yards at high tide, bubbles up on golf courses, flows through underground caverns, corrodes building foundations from below. “Conventional sea walls and barriers are not effective here,” says Robert Daoust, an ecologist at ARCADIS, a Dutch firm that specializes in engineering solutions to rising seas.

The latest research “suggests that sea level could rise more than six feet by the end of the century,” as Goodell notes, and “Wanless believes that it could continue rising a foot each decade after that.”

Prudence dictates we plan for the plausible worst case. Coastal studies experts told the NY Times back in 2010, “For coastal management purposes, a [sea level] rise of 7 feet (2 meters) should be utilized for planning major infrastructure.”

Unfortunately, sea level rise is already 60% faster than projected. Goodell reports:

“With six feet of sea-level rise, South Florida is toast,” says Tom Gustafson, a former Florida speaker of the House and a climate-change-policy advocate. Even if we cut carbon pollution overnight, it won’t save us. Ohio State glaciologist Jason Box has said he believes we already have 70 feet of sea-level rise baked into the system.

Certainly without sharp cuts in CO2 starting ASAP, Jason Box is correct (see “Manmade Carbon Pollution Has Already Put Us On Track For 69 Feet Of Sea Level Rise”).

So we need a combination of aggressive mitigation combined with massive spending to develop completely new adaptation solutions for Miami to have any serious chance of surviving this century intact.

Sadly, Florida is one of the last places in the country where such action and planning can be expected:

Those solutions are not likely to be forthcoming from the political realm. The statehouse in Tallahassee is a monument to climate-change denial. “You can’t even say the words ‘climate change’ on the House floor without being run out of the building,” says Gustafson. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, positioning himself for a run at the presidency in 2016, is another denier, still trotting out the tired old argument that “no matter how many job-killing­ laws we pass, our government can’t control the weather.” Gov. Rick Scott, a Tea Party Republican, says he’s “not convinced” that global warming is caused by human beings. Since taking office in 2011, Scott has targeted environmental protections of every sort and slashed the budget of the South Florida Water Management District, the agency in charge of managing water supply in the region, as well as restoration of the Everglades. “There is no serious thinking, no serious planning, about any of this going on at the state level,” says Chuck Watson, a disaster-­impact analyst with longtime experience in Florida. “The view is, ‘Well, if it gets real bad, the federal government will bail us out.’ It is beyond denial; it is flat-out delusional.”

Goodell’s whole article is worth reading, not just for the sober view of what South Florida faces but also for the beautiful writing:

When it rains in Miami, it’s spooky. Blue sky vanishes and suddenly water is everywhere, pooling in streets, flooding parking lots, turning intersections into submarine crossings. Even for a nonbeliever like me, it feels biblical, as if God were punishing the good citizens of Miami Beach for spending too much time on the dance floor. At Alton Road and 10th Street, we watched a woman in a Toyota stall at a traffic light as water rose up to the doors. A man waded out to help her, water up to his knees. This flooding has gotten worse with each passing year, happening not only after torrential rainstorms but during high tides, too, when rising sea water backs up through the city’s antiquated drainage system. Wanless, 71, who drives an SUV that is littered with research equipment, notebooks and mud, shook his head with pity. “This is what global warming looks like,” he explained. “If you live in South Florida and you’re not building a boat, you’re not facing reality.”

[msfreeh]

Glen Beck supports mountain top removal


http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/love- ... agazine%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

'Dangerous' record-breaking heat forecast for Arizona, Nevada, California
By Tim Gaynor, Reuters
see link for full story
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06 ... ornia?lite" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


PHOENIX -- A potentially deadly heat wave is expected to bear down on some Arizona, Nevada and California desert areas in the next few days, forecasters said on Wednesday.

The mercury is predicted to soar well past 110 degrees Fahrenheit and could top 120 F starting on Friday in the deserts of southeast California and southern Arizona, Weather.com and the National Weather Service said.

[msfreeh]

two stories sent to you courtesy of the FBI and Exxon Mobil
partnering together help thin the herd


see link for full story
June 29 2013

30 sent to hospitals in Las Vegas as record heat parks over West, Southwest

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06 ... hwest?lite" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


NY woman presumed dead after floodwaters carry away mobile home

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06 ... -home?lite" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[pollibird]

Swamp coolers on full blast here in Tuc. Mornings used to be the best part of the day, but not anymore for now when it's 85. The dogs and people in the house slow way down.

[msfreeh]

With ‘Warm Storm’ at Its Heart and Heatwaves Rushing in From The Sides, Arctic Sea Ice Braces for Major Blow

Over the past month, warmth and energy have been building in the Arctic. All around, from Siberia to Scandinavia to Alaska, heatwaves have flared beneath anomalous long-wave patterns in the Jet Stream. Patterns, that in many cases have persisted for months. The Alaskan heat dome sent temperatures there to 98 degrees (Fahrenheit). Temperatures in Siberia flared to the low 90s. And heat built and flared again in Scandinavia and Northeastern Europe, sending Arctic temperatures first into the 80s and then to 92.

http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/20 ... ajor-blow/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

You still don't get it,eh?

This will soon become the commonplace.

two reads


1st read

'Perfect storm' wildfire raging in Arizona claims 19 men in elite unit
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07 ... &GT1=43001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2nd read


http://www.heatisonline.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

2 reads




see links for full story
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2452" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Extreme Jet Stream Bringing U.S. Record Heat, Record Cold, and Flash Flooding
Posted by: Dr. Jeff Masters, 4:11 PM GMT on July 03, 2013 +53
The jet steam is exhibiting unusual behavior over the U.S., a pattern we've seen become increasingly common in summertime over the past decade. There's a sharp trough of low pressure over the Central U.S., and equally sharp ridges of high pressure over the Western U.S. and East Coast. Since the jet acts as the boundary between cool, Canadian air to the north and warm, subtropical air to the south, this means that hot extremes are penetrating unusually far to the north under the ridges of high pressure, and cold extremes are extending unusually far to the south under the trough of low pressure. The ridge over the Western U.S., though slowly weakening, is still exceptionally intense. This ridge, which on Sunday brought Earth its highest temperatures in a century (129°F or 54°C in Death Valley, California), was responsible for more record-breaking heat on Tuesday. July 2. Most notably, Redding, California hit 116°, just 2° short of their all-time record. Death Valley had a low of 104°, the second hottest night on record since 1920 (the hottest was just last summer!) Numerous daily high temperature records were set in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. It was the opposite story in the Central U.S., where the southwards-plunging jet stream allowed record cold air to invade Texas. Waco, Texas, hit 58°F this morning (July 3), the coldest temperature ever measured in July in the city. Numerous airports in Texas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kansas, and Missouri set new daily record low temperatures this morning. And over the Eastern U.S., the northward-pointing branch of the jet stream is creating a potentially dangerous flooding situation, by pulling a moisture-laden flow of tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico over the Florida Panhandle north-northeastward into the Appalachians. Up to five inches of rain is expected over this region over the next few days, and wunderground's severe weather map is showing flash flood warnings for locations in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.



http://www.wunderground.com/news/climat ... t-20130703" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


'Unprecedented' Climate Extremes in Last Decade: WMO

Published: July 4, 2013

The world has warmed faster in the last decade than any other, as the 2001-2010 period brought "unprecedented" climate extremes and high-impact weather events around the world, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization released July 3.

The report, titled "The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Climate Extremes," found that every year of the past decade except 2008 was among the 10 warmest years on record, a period when deaths from heat jumped by more than 2,000 percent over the previous decade.

More than 90 percent of the countries in the WMO survey reported their warmest decade in 2001-2010, while sea level rise accelerated to a worldwide average of about 3 millimeters per year, roughly double the average annual rise of 1.6 millimeters in the 20th century.

Both hemispheres saw their warmest land and ocean temperatures, a period that also saw the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice and the accelerating retreat of mountain glaciers and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Noting that a decade is the "minimum possible timeframe for meaningful assessments of climate change," WMO Secretary General Michel Jarraud said the report shows that global warming was "unprecedented" in the periods between 1991-2000 and 2001-2010.

"Rising concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are changing our climate, with far reaching implications for our environment and our oceans, which are absorbing both carbon dioxide and heat," Jarraud added.

"Natural climate variability, caused in part by interactions between our atmosphere and oceans – as evidenced by El Niño and La Niña events – means that some years are cooler than others" Jarraud said. "On an annual basis, the global temperature curve is not a smooth one. On a long-term basis the underlying trend is clearly in an upward direction, more so in recent times."

The report focuses on:

Temperatures: Between 2001 and 2010, above-average temperatures were observed in most parts of the world. About 44 percent of countries in the WMO survey reported their hottest nationwide temperatures on record; between 1991 and 2000, only 24 percent did.

The average global temperature rose by 0.17°C during the decade, more than twice the average increase of 0.062°C per decade for the 130 years between 1880 and 2010.

Floods and precipitation: The year 2010 was the world's wettest since modern weather measurements began, while the full decade was the world's second-wettest since 1901. Most parts of the world experienced above-normal precipitation, while droughts also occurred worldwide, with notably severe droughts in Australia (2002), Africa (2004 and 2005), and South America's Amazon Basin.

Tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms): During the last decade, nearly 170,000 people were killed in 511 tropical cyclone-related weather events, a period that was the most active in the North Atlantic Basin since 1855. An average of 15 named storms formed each year between 2001 and 2010, compared to the long-term average of 12 named storms per year.

Weather impacts: The loss of more than 370,000 people can be attributed to extreme weather and climate events around the world between 2001 and 2010, the report adds, including extreme heat and cold spells, drought, severe storms and flooding events.

The number of deaths is 20 percent higher than the previous decade, largely due to heat waves in Europe and Russia (in 2003 and 2010, respectively), which spiked the number of heat-related deaths from 6,000 worldwide in 1991-2000 to about 136,000 in 2001-2010.

Read the full report here.

[msfreeh]

Two reads for the uneducated and the uneducable

Whoaaaa! You are getting the same look as deer get when they stand frozen in the middle of the highway
caught by the headlights of Exxon Mobil deer jackers.
Charles Darwin just tweeted me and said :
"How are those FBI elected moonbats working out for you in the State Legislature, Congress and City Hall?
never seen anything like this in other species. Frozen by fear and indecision as the world collapses around them."


a liberal is someone who walks out of the room when an argument
turns into a fight
a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged

1st read
see link for full story
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... ronto?lite" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



'A month's worth of rain' in under four hours triggers flash flooding, chaos in Toronto

Rescue crews used boats to pull stranded passengers from a flooded commuter train after flash floods hit Toronto.
By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor

A month’s worth of rain in a matter of hours caused chaos in Toronto on Monday, as flash flooding triggered widespread power outages, subway closures and left almost 1,500 people stranded on a commuter train filled with gushing water.

The deluge of more than 3.5 inches in just three-and-a-half hours forced motorists to abandon cars and left 400,000 homes without electricity late into the night.

Environment Canada officials said they expected the official tally to top 4 inches.

The city’s police Marine Unit was called into action to rescue more than 1,400 people from a 10-car GO transit train that stalled as it tried to reverse away from the rising torrents.


After murky brown water spilled into the bottom floor of the carriages, passengers fled to the upper decks, where they waited for almost seven hours to be rescued.

“There’s a full on river either side of us...” one passenger Jonah Cait, tweeted as the water rose. “We. Are. Stuck. Hard.”

The evacuation of the train was complete by about 1 a.m. ET with only minor injuries to five or six passengers, who were treated on the scene, the CBC reported.

Inflatable boats were used to ferry passengers to higher ground.


2nd read

see link for full story


Tuesday, July 9 2013
Acidic oceans of the future show extinction
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsro ... dic-oceans" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

July 9, 2013
A glimpse of future ocean chemistry finds that acidification transforms entire ecosystems.

Daily Climate staff report

Ocean acidification may create an impact similar to extinction on marine ecosystems, according to a study published Monday.
Background, low-grade stress caused by ocean acidification can cause a whole shift in the ecosystem.
- Kristy Kroeker,
UC-Davis

The study, exploring naturally acidic waters near volcanic vents in the Mediterranean Ocean off Italy, suggests that ocean acidification as a result of human emissions can degrade entire ecosystems – not just individual species, as past studies have shown.

The result, scientists say, is a homogenized marine community dominated by fewer plants and animals.

Castello-400"The background, low-grade stress caused by ocean acidification can cause a whole shift in the ecosystem so that everything is dominated by the same plants, which tend to be turf algae," said lead author Kristy Kroeker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Bodega Marine Laboratory at the University of California, Davis.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Colorful patches

The oceans have absorbed roughly 30 percent of the carbon humans have pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, buffering the globe from the harm posed by greenhouse gases. But it comes with a price: seawater has become more acidic as it absorbed all that carbon

Today the ocean's pH is lower than anything seen in the historical record in the past 800,000 years, scientists say. As the acidity increases, organisms such as corals, oysters, snails and urchins have trouble pulling minerals from the seawater to create protective shells. The study released Monday buttresses ecologists' fears that such changes could ripple through entire ecosystems – and that ocean acidification could prove as consequential and catastrophic for the globe as any changes in air temperature associated with climate change.

Most ecosystems have numerous, colorful patches of different plants and animals – algae, sponges, anemones, among others, Kroeker said in a statement. "With ocean acidification, you lose that patchiness.... Everything looks the same."
acidity-500T

Kroeker and colleagues studied waters surrounding Castello Aragonese, a 14th century castle off the coast of Italy where volcanic vents naturally release bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. The vents create different levels of acidity on the reef. These gradients gave the scientists a glimpse of what a future marked by increasingly acidic ocean waters could look like – and how the creatures and plants living in those environments may react to a disturbance.

The researchers selected three reef zones: low, high and extremely high acidity, representing world ocean conditions for the present day, 2100 and 2500, respectively. Then they removed animals and vegetation from the rocks there. Every few months for three years, Kroeker dived to the study plots to photograph them and watch how plots in each zone recovered.
Variety through time

Kroeker found that acidic water reduced the number and variety of species. In the non-acidic plots, many different plants and animals, including turf algae, would colonize and grow. Sea urchins, snails and other so-called "calcareous species" would then eat them, allowing for variety through time.

But in both the high and extremely high acidic plots, urchins and other grazers either never reappeared or did not graze, allowing fleshy turf algae to steadily increase and ultimately overtake the zones.

Calcareous grazers play key roles in maintaining the balance within marine ecosystems. They are also considered among the most vulnerable species to ocean acidification, previous studies have found.

"If the role of these grazers changes with ocean acidification, you might expect to see cascading effects of the whole ecosystem," Kroeker said. "If the pattern holds for other calcareous grazers, this has implications for other ecosystems, as well."

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 175747.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Evolution Too Slow to Keep Up With Climate Change

July 9, 2013 — Many vertebrate species would have to evolve about 10,000 times faster than they have in the past to adapt to the rapid climate change expected in the next 100 years, a study led by a University of Arizona ecologist has found.


Scientists analyzed how quickly species adapted to different climates in the past, using data from 540 living species from all major groups of terrestrial vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. They then compared their rates of evolution to rates of climate change projected for the end of this century. This is the first study to compare past rates of adaption to future rates of climate change.

The results, published online in the journal Ecology Letters, show that terrestrial vertebrate species appear to evolve too slowly to be able to adapt to the dramatically warmer climate expected by 2100. The researchers suggested that many species may face extinction if they are unable to move or acclimate.

"Every species has a climatic niche which is the set of temperature and precipitation conditions in the area where it lives and where it can survive," explained John J. Wiens, a professor in UA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Science. "For example, some species are found only in tropical areas, some only in cooler temperate areas, some live high in the mountains, and some live in the deserts."

[msfreeh]

SEE LINK FOR FULL STORY
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/10/coast ... entalists/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Coast Guard brings heavy ice-breaker ship to Arctic amid warnings from environmentalists
07/10/2013


The U.S. Coast Guard has a heavy ice-breaking ship working in the Arctic region for the first time in more than four years.

The ship is capable of breaking through 21 feet of ice, and is being employed amid cries from environmentalists and politicians that Arctic ice is thinning.

Increased interest in developing the Arctic has spurred demand for ice-breakers to be sent up north.

“Every year we have more Coast Guard assets going up north,” said Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Allyson Conroy. “We realized we really needed to have these heavy ice breakers up there and it would be beneficial to retrofit one.”

With two of the U.S.’s three heavy ice-breakers out of commission, the Polar Star was refurbished at an estimated cost of $55 million to help keep Arctic waterways clear of ice and to be used as a science platform.

The Alaska Dispatch reports that the 399 foot Polar Star “supports a crew of 134, and can conduct scientific operations with a staff of 32” and “[unlike] the Coast Guard’s medium-class icebreaker, the Healy — a 420-foot vessel — the Polar Star is equipped to smash through up to 6 feet of ice at 3 knots and 21 feet if backing and ramming.”

The Coast Guard’s smaller ice-breaker, the Healy, can only break through 4.5 feet of ice at 3 knots and break through 8 feet of ice while backing and ramming.

The call for more ice-breakers comes while environmentalists are warning that Arctic sea ice is melting at an alarming rate.

“For over 800,000 years, ice has been a permanent feature of the Arctic ocean,” says the group Save the Arctic. “It’s melting because of our use of dirty fossil fuel energy, and in the near future it could be ice-free for the first time since humans walked the Earth.”

Even Obama administration senior science adviser John Holdren warned of the dire consequences of losing Arctic sea ice cover.

“[If] you lose the summer sea ice, there are phenomena that could lead you not so very long thereafter to lose the winter sea ice as well,” he said in 2009. “And if you lose that sea ice year round, it’s going to mean drastic climatic change all over the hemisphere.”

The Arctic’s vast mineral wealth has caught the eye of countries, like China and Russia, which are now looking to explore the region, especially as new waterways open up and make exploration easier.

[msfreeh]

You still can't make the connection between Climate Change and taxpayer funded FBI agents?
Yes FBI agents are committing voter fraud in every state. They got caught in Cincinnati.
see top of page when link opens http://www.thelandesreport.com/votingsecurity.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes FBI agents make sure people who are elected support Exxon Mobil's agenda.

Yes FBI agents control the courts by selecting who gets appointed to local state county and federal courts.
see http://beck.library.emory.edu/southernc ... sc15-1_012" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Investigative reporter Danny Casolero's last words before FBI agents used your tax dime to murder him were " the FBI is a octopus"
see http://www.american-buddha.com/dead.right.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Charles Darwin just got a tweet from Pee Wee Herman who said maybe you should take the afternoon off
and spend it in an air conditioned adult movie theater, eh?


2 reads
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/risi ... ires-16222" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Rising Temps, Shrinking Snowpack Fuel Western Wildfires

Published: July 11th, 2013


Wildfire trends in the West are clear: there are more large fires burning now than at any time in the past 40 years and the total area burned each year has also increased. To explore these trends, Climate Central has developed this interactive tool to illustrate how warming temperatures and changing spring snowpack influences fires each year.





see link for full story
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sci ... 6454.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Steep drop in coastal fish found in California power plant records



By Tony Barboza

July 10, 2013, 7:15 a.m.

Fish populations in Southern California have dropped 78% over the last 40 years, according to a new study.

[msfreeh]

a new feature of HEAT IS ONLINE. every day we stick a rectal thermometer
into the brain of a politician and give you the current reading.
What's that? Perspiration? Here let me help wipe your brow, eh?
TODAYS TEMPERATURE


1st read
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... s/2508789/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Climate change will disrupt energy supplies, DOE warns
Wendy Koch, USA TODAY 8:42 a.m. EDT July 12, 2013
How does climate change affect energy supplies? A new government report says rising temperatures make it more difficult for some power plants to operate and sea level rise threatens others.
Hoover



DOE says climate change is likely to disrupt U.S. energy supplies
Its report says rising temperatures can reduce production at power plants


U.S. energy supplies will likely face more severe disruptions because of climate change and extreme weather, which have already caused blackouts and lowered production at power plants, a government report warned Thursday.

What's driving these vulnerabilities? Rising temperatures, up 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century, and the resulting sea level rise, which are accompanied by drought, heat waves, storms and wildfires, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

"It (climate change) is a very serious problem and it will get worse," says Jonathan Pershing, who oversaw the report's development. While impacts will vary by region, "no part of the country is immune," he says. He adds that climate change is exacerbating extreme events.

"Sea level rise made Sandy worse," Pershing says, noting that it intensified flooding. When the superstorm slammed the East Coast last year, it took down power lines, damaged power plants and left millions of people in the dark.

The report comes one week after President Obama, describing climate change as a threat to future generations, called for action to address the problem "before it's too late." He said he aims to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants.

Echoing other research, the DOE report makes the case for why such reductions are needed. It says coastal power plants are at risk from sea level rise and power lines operate less efficiently in higher temperatures.

"The report accurately outlines the risks to the energy sector in the United States" and should serve as a "wake-up call," says Jennifer Morgan, deputy director of climate and energy at the World Resources Institute, a non-profit that advocates for sustainability.

The report cites prior climate-related energy disruptions. Last year in Connecticut, the Millstone Nuclear Power Station shut down one reactor because the temperature of water needed to cool the facility — taken from the Long Island Sound — was too high. A similar problem caused power reductions in 2010 at the Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey and the Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania.

Reduced snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains last year cut California's hydroelectric power generation 8%, while drought caused the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop the transport of oil and coal along the Mississippi River, where water levels were too low, according to the report. Also, in September 2010, water levels in Nevada's Lake Mead fell to a 54-year low, prompting a 23% loss in the Hoover Dam's generation.


2nd read
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/deep-oce ... 6C10606562" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Deep oceans warming at an alarming rate
Larry O'Hanlon Discovery News
July 12, 2013
British Antarctic Survey
A new re-analysis of data from the ocean depths suggests dramatic warming of the deep sea is under way because of anthropogenic climate change, scientists say.

Despite mixed signals from warming ocean surface waters, a new re-analysis of data from the depths suggests dramatic warming of the deep sea is under way because of anthropogenic climate change. The scientists report that the deep seas are taking in more heat than expected, which is taking some of the warming off the Earth’s surface, but it will not do so forever.

"Some of the heat (from human-caused global warming) is going into melting sea ice and heating the surface, but the bulk is going into the oceans,” said climate researcher Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a coauthor on a new research paper reporting on the deep ocean warming in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

How Global Warming Will Change Your Life

The study involved the bringing together of a diverse suite of data, ranging from satellite measurements of the surface waters to ship observations at all depths, instruments mounted on elephant seals, ARGO profilers (a large collection of small, drifting-robotic probes deployed worldwide), and data-gathering instruments moored in place. The data include temperature, salinity, depth, and altimetry of the ocean surface, going back decades.

Piecing together different kinds of data from different times and sometimes from sparse data sets was the key challenge, Trenberth explains, but that is the specialty of his coauthors at the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts in the U.K

“They have one of the most sophisticated data assimilation systems,” Trenberth said. That has allowed for a new view of not only how the deep sea is heating up, but how winds and El Niño events play into it all.

Winds blowing on the oceans can drive water into the deep ocean as well as cause upwelling of deep waters, which can release massive amounts of heat. The 1998 El Niño year, for instance, was the hottest on record because the oceans were releasing a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, Trenberth explained to DNews.

Think the Planet Isn't Warming? Check the Ocean: Analysis

The new re-analysis of ocean data is not the last word on what's happening in the deep seas, but the best estimate of what is happening.

“It's more than speculation and suggestion,” agrees climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, “and it's probably right to a reasonable degree. The fact of the matter is we'll never be able to get data from below 400 meters in the middle of the Pacific Ocean” because there is not enough money invested in ocean sensors to cover such places. “So we have to use physics to fill in the gaps.”

The bottom line, says Trenberth, is that the heat of global warming is going to different places. “So global warming is continuing even though it’s not always manifested as a strong surface temperature increase. It’s just manifesting itself in different ways.”

[msfreeh]

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... =8&t=26525" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resourc ... ing-spikes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tuesday, 16 July 2013
The Arctic Methane Monster Stirs: NASA’s CARVE Finds Plumes as Large as 150 Kilometers Across Amidst Year of Troubling Spikes




“In late June and early July, Barrow Alaska showed two methane readings in excess of 1975 parts per billion. Sadly, this most recent methane spike is likely not to be an outlier.

The Barrow spike came in conjunction with a number of other anomalously high methane readings in the Arctic region during 2013. Most notably, the Kara, Barents and Norwegian Seas all showed atmospheric methane levels spiking to as high as 1935 parts per billion during the first half of 2013.

Averages in this and other regions around the Arctic are at new record highs even as atmospheric methane levels continue inexorably upward. For reference, Mauna Loa shows average global atmospheric methane levels are now at around 1830 parts per billion. These levels were around 700 parts per billion at the start of the industrial revolution before they rocketed upward, roughly alongside increasing CO2 concentrations, as fossil fuel based industry saw its dramatic expansion over the past couple of centuries.

Now, human global warming is beginning to unlock a monstrous store of methane in the Arctic. A source that, in the worst case, could be many times the volume of the initial human emission. To this point, areas around the Arctic are now showing local methane levels above 1950 parts per billion with an ever-increasing frequency. The issue is of great concern to scientists, a number of which from NASA are now involved in an investigative study to unearth how large and damaging this methane beast is likely to become. (You can keep account of these methane spike regions in real time using the Methane Tracker Google app linked here. )”

-

If this doesn’t scare the hell out of you, you haven’t been paying attention. Artic methane releases are completely uncontrollable, uncontainable and unstoppable after the atmosphere has passed the runaway global warming tipping point (which it already likely has after passing 400 PPM of carbon dioxide).

So the “Ice-free Northern Passage” is supposed to be some sort of consolation prize to certain business and shipping interests, right? Try sailing a ship over a methane release and see what happens…(hint – they sink).

Short of nuclear war, it is hard to conceive of any other events having such a huge and lasting global impact on the human species. Artic methane releases due to global warming may seal our planet’s fate regardless of what humans do going forward. And to our collective shame, damn few people even notice that anything is wrong. - Wes



See also:

Each Degree Celsius of Warming May Raise Seas 2 Meters

“Sea levels may rise by more than 2 meters (6.6 feet) for each degree Celsius of global warming the planet experiences over the next 2,000 years, according to a study by researchers in five nations…

…The findings signal that melting of ice in the Antarctic will take over from thermal expansion, where warmer water occupies more space, as the main cause of rising seas. In the worst-case scenario examined, a temperature gain of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit) would result in seas rising by about 9 meters since industrialization began in the 18th century.

“Continuous sea-level rise is something we cannot avoid unless global temperatures go down,” Anders Levermann, the lead author of the study, said by e-mail from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, where he is based. “We need to adapt. Sea-level rise might be slow on time scales on which we elect governments, but it is inevitable and therefore highly relevant for almost everything we build along our coastlines, for many generations to come.”

Temperatures already have climbed about 0.8 degree and seas have risen about 17 centimeters since the industrial revolution, according to the United Nations. When temperature gains reach 1 degree, the world will be committed to sea levels about 2.3 meters higher over two millennia, according to the study in the journal of the Washington-based National Academy of Sciences.”

[msfreeh]

Yea yea, I know it is hot and muggy.
How about reaching over and turn on the air conditioner.
What's that you say they had to shut down the Nuke because
they could not cool the reactor?

How is this politician thing working out for you?
Yea the same ones that just approved
the guy who likes to torture to head up the FBI.

see link for full story
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/lo ... im_cooling" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Seawater temps too high for Pilgrim cooling
Thursday, July 18, 2013


PLYMOUTH — The ongoing heat wave could force Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to shut down, as soaring temperatures continue to warm the Cape Cod Bay waters that the plant relies on to cool key safety systems.

Pilgrim's license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires the water being drawn from the bay to be no warmer than 75 degrees. On Tuesday night, the temperature in the saltwater system reached 75.3 degrees and remained above the 75-degree limit for about 90 minutes.
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/lo ... l8Hmj.dpuf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Lance Tapley is a friend who cross country skied across the state of Vermont and wrote
a book about it. He started the campaign to stop development at Mount Bigelow during the 1970's
and was successful. A former book publisher he now is a investigative reporter.
He emailed his new story to me today. see link for full story
http://portland.thephoenix.com/news/154 ... e-respond/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


The price of extreme energy: How shall we respond?
Fearless Summer
By LANCE TAPLEY | July 18, 2013


To feed civilization’s insatiable need for energy, oil and natural gas are being extracted from the earth and transported around it in new ways and in a new frenzy.

Environmentalists are beginning to call this phenomenon “extreme energy.” They see an extreme price being paid in vast pollution, including the dramatic warming of the planet.

So they ask: How shall we respond to extreme energy? How shall we, you, and I take responsibility for what is happening? At its root, the word responsibility means “to respond.” That means action.

And environmentalists believe there’s a lot to act on. Maine people recently got a close-up, nightmarish view of one price of extreme energy. In the early morning of June 6, explosions and a firestorm killed 50 people and destroyed much of the picturesque downtown of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, a quiet community only 20 miles from the Maine border.

The cause was the derailment of a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train composed of tank cars of crude oil about to cross Maine from west to east to the Irving Oil refinery in St. John, New Brunswick. (See “Death and Life in Lac-Mégantic.”)

The oil it carried had been “fracked” from North Dakota shale deposits. This process uses high-pressure water, sand, and chemicals to fracture rock deep below ground to release its oil. Fracking depletes and pollutes ground water and contaminates the air, including making a sizable contribution to global warming.

In a recent development, millions of gallons a year of this oil are being hauled on two railroads in Maine. Lac-Mégantic is the last Quebec town on the west-east Montreal, Maine & Atlantic line before it enters Maine. The south-central line, operated by Pan Am Railways, takes the oil to the Irving refinery through our most populated area.

There is speculation that, in reaction to the shutdown of the west-east track because of the Lac-Mégantic disaster, Irving may try to boost shipments on the Pan Am tracks. Meanwhile, Pan Am has come under state scrutiny because for several months it hasn’t reported how much oil it is hauling. (See sidebar, “Pan Am Railways Also in the Spotlight.”)

Oil trains are not the only extreme-energy threat to Maine. The Portland Pipeline Corporation is considering reversing the flow of the Portland-to-Montreal pipeline to allow oil originating in Alberta’s tar sands to supply ships in Portland Harbor. (See “Pre-emptive Petitioning,” by Deirdre Fulton, June 14.)

Environmentalists consider tar-sands oil — toxic crude with lots bitumen, a/k/a asphalt — to be a menace both in its extraction — from ore dug in open-pit mines — and in its transport. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline to take the oil from Canada deep into the US is a major environmental controversy.

To block the flow of extreme energy, activists this summer — internationally — are turning to nonviolent civil disobedience and other forms of direct action in a campaign called Fearless Summer.

On June 27, members of the climate-change-activist group 350 Maine and the venerable environmental radicals of Earth First! kicked off the state’s Fearless Summer by briefly blocking a Pan Am oil train in Fairfield. (See sidebar, “The First Fearless Summer Skirmish.”)

Maine activists are also responding to extreme energy with educational activities and environmentalist community-building (see box, “Activism Without Getting Arrested”).

[msfreeh]

see link for full story


two reads
http://www.heatisonline.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


1st read




2nd read

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/18/scien ... e-weather/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scientist tells senators: Global warming not causing extreme weather
07/18/2013


In a Senate hearing Thursday, environmental scientist Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado said it’s “incorrect” to claim that global warming is spurring more extreme weather disasters.

“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” Pielke said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”

“Hurricanes have not increased in the U.S. in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900,” Pielke added. “The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970.”

Senate Democrats pointed to the increase in extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes as evidence of global warming. California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said that “climate change is real” and human activities were the cause, adding that people can “look out the window” to see evidence of it.

“Heat waves, droughts, wildfires and floods — all are now more frequent and intense,” said President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address.

Pielke, however, notes that U.S. floods have not increased in “frequency or intensity” since 1950 and economic losses from floods have dropped by 75 percent as a percentage of GDP since 1940. Tornado frequency, intensity, and normalized damages have also not increased since 1950, and Pielke even notes that there is some evidence that this has declined.

Pielke noted in his testimony that droughts have been shorter, less frequent, and have covered a smaller portion of the U.S over the last century. Globally, there has been very little change in the last 60 years, he said.

“The absolute costs of disasters will increase significantly in coming years due to greater wealth and populations in locations exposed to extremes,” Pielke added. “Consequent, disasters will continue to be an important focus of policy, irrespective of the exact future course of climate change.”

Senators sparred over predictions and claims made about man-made global warming. Democrats argued that the effects of global warming can be felt today and Republicans argued that evidence of human-induced warming is thin.

“I would note that it has not been titled ‘Global Warming: It’s Happening Now,’” said Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter. “Maybe that would have been too ironic given the Earth’s stagnant temperature for the past 15 years, a fact that is currently confounding climate scientists and modeling experts who predicted otherwise.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, a longtime critic of global warming claims, pointed to a set of Obama administration talking points on the “do’s and don’ts” when talking about global warming.

The talking points suggested not leading with economic arguments, not talking about scientific consensus surrounding global warming, and instead focusing on extreme weather.

Prior to the hearing, Republicans on the committee released a report that called into question many past global warming claims made by Democrats, as well as Obama administration policy proposals. (RELATED: Senate GOP criticizes past global warming claims ahead of hearing)

This didn’t deter Senate Democrats who continued to argue that global warming could be seen today. Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, both pushed for taxing carbon emissions.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and- ... 4320.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Storm rips through Las Vegas, causing floods, power outages



Flash Flooding Hits The Vegas Strip
By James Rainey

July 20, 2013, 12:06 a.m.

A powerful thunderstorm blasted through Las Vegas and nearby communities Friday evening, flooding streets, toppling trees and trapping tourists inside casinos.

Torrential rains and 70-mph winds also knocked out power in more than a dozen locations, including Primm, the town that sits on Interstate 15 at the California-Nevada border.

About 50 people had to evacuate from one condominium complex because of fallen trees, gas leaks and a loss of electricity. They took shelter at Desert Pines High School, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

[msfreeh]

19 Nuclear reactors dumped in the arctic.

http://prn.fm/2013/07/21/lifeboat-hour-072113/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Welcome to Project Climate change 2013
http://www.climatechange2013.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Climate change 2013 project
During 2008 eight Remote Viewers from three separate Remote Viewing schools participated in a joint public project to study climate and planetary change between the years 2008 and 2013.

Nine geographic earth locations were chosen for two time periods: 2008 (a baseline) and the later date of 2013 to see if the remote viewing data could discern any changes in climate.

The predictive Remote viewing data seems to indicate serious global climate changes across all nine target locations chosen for the project.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sci ... 5805.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Climate change could mean extinction for Iberian lynx in 50 years



July 22, 2013

The world’s most endangered feline species may become extinct in the wild within 50 years, researchers say, a victim of climate change.

A new report projects that Iberian lynx could become the first cat species in at least 2,000 years to become extinct, researchers found, largely because of the decline of the European rabbit, which makes up 80% of the cat’s diet.