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msfreeh
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Coastal Cities, Critical Infrastructure Unprepared to Face the Rising Tides of Climate Change
Civitas — the latin word for city and the root word for civilization. Civilization, in other words, is a collection of component cities. And, by extension, any major threat to a large number of cities is a threat to civilization itself. Such is the case with human-forced climate change.

*****

It’s a sad fact that many of the hundreds of coastal cities around the world are living on borrowed time. Current greenhouse gas levels — topping out near 408 parts per million CO2 (and 490 parts per million CO2e) this year — will need to fall in order to prevent 1-3 C of additional warming and 25 to 60 feet or more of sea level rise over the coming decades and centuries. And even if we somehow dialed atmospheric CO2 and CO2e levels back to 350 ppm, it’s likely that we’d still see seas eventually rise by 10-20 feet over the long term due to already destabilized glaciers in places like Greenland or West Antarctica.

But with fossil fuel burning continuing at near record levels globally, and with many corporations and political bodies around the world dragging feet on greenhouse gas emissions cuts, the level of heat-trapping carbon held aloft in our airs will continue to rise for some time. These vastly irresponsible actions will further heat the atmosphere and ocean — melting a greater share of the world’s land ice and forcing seas to ultimately rise even more. If CO2e exceeds a range of 550 to 650 parts per million — which could easily happen even under so-called moderate rates of fossil fuel burning before the middle of the 21st Century — then all the land ice on Earth will be placed under melt pressure. And that vast sum of ice melt represents about 220 feet of sea level rise long term so long as the greenhouse gas melt and heat pressure remains.



(Seas have been rising in concert with ocean warming and fossil fuel burning since the start of the 20th Century. At first, during the first half of the 20th Century, rates of rise were less than 1 mm per year. By the 1993 through 2016 period, sea level rise averaged 3.39 mm per year. And since 2011, the rate of rise appears to have steepened into the range of 4 to 6 milimeters per year. Image source: AVISO.)

Even more disturbing is the fact that in the geological past, glacial melt has not tended to process in a gradual, orderly fashi

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Climate Change is Pushing Lake Okeechobee’s Water Levels Higher — And that’s Bad News For Algae Blooms, Flood Risk
More powerful storms. Heavier extreme rainfall events. Storms with higher potential energy. These are the result of a human-forced warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. And South Florida finds itself sandwiched between heavier evaporation flows streaming off the Gulf of Mexico, a more volatilely stormy North Atlantic, and large rivers of moisture streaming in from the Southeast Pacific.



(Atmospheric water vapor levels over South Florida during late June of 2016. South Florida sits between numerous heavily laden atmospheric moisture flows. As human forced warming increases evaporation, these moisture flows expand, resulting in heavier rainfall potentials during storms over South Florida. This climate change dynamic is increasing over-topping flood risks for Lake Okeechobee even as the added heat and rainfall run-off enhances the potential for toxic algae blooms like the one now afflicting South Florida. Image source: Earth Nullschool).

And as these moisture-enhanced storms of climate change dump heavier and heavier rains over South Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, the choice appears to be one between flood risk or toxic algae blooms.

*****

Flood Risk Worsens With Climate Change

Lake Okeechobee sits at the heart of South Florida. Covering 730 square miles, the lake is bounded on the north, east, and west by farms. Run-off from these farms streams into the lake, feeding the growth of algae blooms. As the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean warmed due to human greenhouse gas emissions, rainfall events over South Florida have grown more intense. This trend increases run-off from pesticide, phosphorous, and nitrogen rich soils which then swell the lake with these chemicals and compounds — many of which promote the growth of cyanobacteria (or blue-green algae).

The increasingly heavy rains also force lake levels higher. During Winter of 2016, the wettest January in South Florida’s climate record pushed Lake Okeechobee’s water levels to 16.4 feet above sea level by February. November through May is South Florida’s dry season. So abnormally wet conditions during a typically dry period greatly increased flood risk for communities surrounding the lake as South Florida entered its June through October wet season.

Heavy rains have continued through recent months and, in order to mitigate the heightened flood risk, the US Army Corp of Engineers has been pumping large volumes of the run-off enhanced

msfreeh
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News & Blogs
Dr. Jeff Masters' Blog





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Eastern Pacific Hurricane Parade Continues; Record Ocean Heat Energy in the Atlantic
By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson , 3:04 PM GMT on July 18, 2016


The Eastern Pacific's unending parade of tropical cyclones continues. The latest member of the show is Hurricane Estelle, which got its name Friday night. Joining the party Tropical Storm Agatha started on July 2 have been Category 4 Hurricane Blas, Category 2 Hurricane Celia, Category 3 Hurricane Darby, and soon-to-be Category 1 Hurricane Estelle (Estelle was a high-end tropical storm with 70 mph winds at 11 am EDT Monday.) This puts us well ahead of climatology: the Eastern Pacific usually does not see its fifth named storm until July 22, its fourth hurricane until August 12, and its second major hurricane until August 19. An average season has 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes.


Figure 1. VIIRS visible satellite image of ex-Hurricane Celia, Hurricane Darby, and Tropical Storm Estelle taken on Sunday afternoon, July 17, 2016. Image credit: NASA.

Frank and Georgette on the way?
In their 8 am EDT Monday Tropical Weather Outlook, NHC identified two more areas of possible tropical cyclone formation in the Eastern Pacific off the Pacific coast of Mexico. They gave 2-day and 5-day odds of development of 0% and 20% to one area, and 0% and 50% to the other. Both the European and GFS models show the potential for these areas of concern to become Tropical Storm Frank and Tropical Storm Georgette by late this week or early next week--though the models are not as gung-ho about developing these systems as they were for Agatha, Blas, Celia, Darby, and Estelle. The two potential new storms are expected to take a track to the west or west-northwest away from or parallel to the coast Mexico. The July record for named storms forming in the Eastern Pacific is seven, set in 1985, according to NHC hurricane scientist Eric Blake. If we get a Tropical Storm Georgette this year, that would tie the July record.

The Atlantic remains quiet--but beware of this year's ocean heat content!
As is usually the case when the Eastern Pacific is active, the Atlantic is quiet. This inverse correlation in activity occurs because the conditions over the Eastern Pacific driving this July's bounteous activity--surface low pressure and rising air--creates a compensating area of sinking air over the tropical Atlantic. This sinking air creates surface high pressure and dry weather--the antithesis of conditions needed for tropical cyclone formation. There are no tropical cyclone threat areas in the Atlantic to discuss today, and none of the reliable models for tropical cyclone formation is predicting development during the coming five days. Don't expect to see much activity in the Atlantic until the Eastern Pacific's burst of activity slows down. When we finally do get the surface low pressure, rising air, low wind shear, plentiful low to mid-level moisture and an African tropical wave needed to spawn an Atlantic hurricane, watch out. Record to near-record levels of heat energy are in the Atlantic in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and waters surr

msfreeh
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Global Heat Leaves 20th Century Temps ‘Far Behind’ — June Another Hottest Month on Record
We’ve left the 20th century far behind. This is a big deal. — Deke Arndt, head of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information

*****

One of the top three strongest El Ninos on record is now little more than a memory. According to NOAA, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Central Equatorial Pacific hit a range more typical to La Nina conditions last week. This cool-pool formation follows a June in which ocean surfaces in this zone had fallen into temperatures below the normal range.



(El Nino had faded away by June and turned toward La Nina-level temperatures by late June and early July. Despite this Equatorial Pacific cooling, June of 2016 was still the hottest June on record. Image source: NOAA.)

But despite this natural-variability related cooling of the Equatorial Pacific into below-normal ranges, the globe as a whole continued to warm relative to previous June temperatures. According to NASA, last month was the hottest June in the global climate record.

NASA figures show the month was 0.79 degrees Celsius warmer than the 20th century baseline (1951 to 1980) average, edging out June of 2015 (when El Nino was still ramping up) by just 0.01 degree C to take the dubious

msfreeh
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 The Daily Climate
The newest way to clean the atmosphere? Make bleach.
By Eric Roston Bloomberg News Jul 21
Not only can scientists take carbon dioxide out of the air; they can also turn it into a useful chemical. more…

Q&A: A North Dakotan who has Trump’s ear on energy.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski Midwest Energy News Jul 21
North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer, who has emerged as one of Donald Trump’s key advisers, explains what he means by a "level playing field" for energy." more…

Local efforts to save coral reefs may be futile.
By John Upton Climate Central Jul 21
Corals in remote and relatively pristine reefs fare little better overall amid global warming than those growing alongside heavily populated coastlines, according to research published Wednesday. more…

Blazing hot first half of 2016 sends climate records tumbling.
By Zahra Hirji InsideClimate News Jul 21
Scientists from NASA and NOAA say the first six months of the year have been the hottest ever. It comes as no surprise in sizzling Alaska. more…

The GOP’s policy on climate change is moving much more slowly than the thermometer.

msfreeh
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Climate change
‘World can’t afford to silence us’: black church leaders address climate change
One of the largest and oldest black churches in the US warns that black people are disproportionally harmed by global warming and fossil fuel pollution


https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... nge-letter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

msfreeh
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Straddling Solutions and Survivalism




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Straddling Solutions and Survivalism
(Talk at Mass. Climate Action Network Conference:  Nov. 19)
         
          Those of you that have heard me talk before will be relieved to know I'm not going to go through a catalogue of new impacts or weather events like the 1-in-200-year rainstorm this spring that left $100 million in damages in three mid-Atlantic states.  Or the startling jump in polar bear mortality the USGS reported the other day.
 
          Instead I'd like to use some of this afternoon's talk to remind you why even the most climate-conscious officials feel frustrated by the lack of public support for significant emissions reductions -- I want you to know what you're up against -- and also what I see as the most promising strategic approach for local activists. 
 
          And, along the way, I'll throw in a pitch for a set of macro-level, global-scale solutions which, if nature would allow us time to implement them, could achieve the 75 percent reduction in carbon emissions and, at the same time, provide the basis for a much wealthier, more stable and more secure world.
 
          But I'd like to start with a couple of anecdotes that illustrate how profoundly out of step with the rest of the world we are.  
 
          Last summer, right after Katrina hit the Gulf coast, I published an op-ed article in the Boston Globe titled, "Katrina's Real Name."  The piece linked global warming to higher sea surface temperatures which, of course, fuel more intense hurricanes.  And it put Katrina in the context of lots of other extreme weather events which constitute a hallmark of early-stage global warming.
 
          The piece proved to be somewhat controversial.  I got a bit of flak for it -- and ended up doing something like 40 radio interviews in the following two weeks.
          About two months later, there came to Boston a group of German news editors -- from high profile publications like Der Spiegel, Stern and German Public Radio.  The editors invited me to meet with them to discuss journalistic issues involved in covering the climate issue.  And before the meeting, the organizer of the tour gave the editors copies of the Katrina op-ed.  About half way through our conversation, two of these editors spontaneously held up copies of the op-ed and one said:  "Mr. Gelbspan, no disrespect intended, but we have no idea why you published this article.  There's absolutely nothing new here.  Why did you waste the newsprint to tell us what we already know?"  It was like, "Welcome to our world."
 
          Similarly, when I was invited to speak at Oxford University in September, I prepared an overview of the climate crisis.  But before I gave the talk, my hosts made it clear most, if not all, of the audience knew at least as much as I do about the situation. What they really wanted to know was why the American public -- and the Bush Administration in particular -- are so blind to the urgency of the climate crisis.  
 
          What shocked both the German and British audiences is the extent to which industry money dominates our national political process and the degree to which it has distorted news coverage -- at least in the climate area. Such a profound contamination of our political process by industry money apparently is not a part of their own civic experience -- at least not when it involves issues of truly monumental consequence.
 
          That is evident from  the fact that Holland, the U.K., Germany and France have vowed to cut their emissions from 50 to 80 percent over the next 45 years -- in keeping with the dictates of the science.
 
          So I think one take-home message here for those of you who are working with local officials is that If significant change is going to happen at all, it's going to have to percolate from up from the grassroots into the national consciousness.
          This puts a difficult -- and an unfair -- burden on your shoulders.  But it also puts those of you working at the local level in a particularly strategic position.
 
          For one thing, most of you will not have operatives from the carbon lobby putting their fingers in your eyes.  While big coal and big oil and have paralyzed action at the national level, they just don't have enough foot soldiers to stifle action in localities around the country.  
 
          Moreover, it's easier to get access to smaller local media outlets.  And if you explain to local reporters the bigger picture about why you're working to make your city or town Kyoto-compliant, that is a great way to link what you're doing locally to what's going on around the world.
 
          For example: we all know that climate change hits poor countries hardest.  So as you succeed in reducing carbon emissions in Watertown, you are also helping lessen the impacts on people halfway around the world whose crops are destroyed by weather extremes, whose homelands are going under from rising sea levels and whose borders are becoming overrun by environmental refugees.
 
          But I very much want you to understand that whatever kind of reductions you can make in your own town's carbon footprint are less important for emissions avoided than they are for the political awareness they can create. It's not enough to reduce emissions.  You need to let people know -- loudly and clearly -- why you're doing it.
 
          As promised, I won't rehearse all the climate impacts and scientific findings that are surfacing almost on a weekly basis in the literature. But I would like to frame this talk with a couple of large-gauge observations about global climate change.
 
          The first is its speed.  We have all been absolutely blindsided by global warming.  Global warming didn't even surface as an issue in the public arena until 1988.  That was the year the UN first began to put in place the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  That same year, 1988, was the year that NASA Scientist Jim Hansen went before Congress to testify that "global warming is at hand."
 
          Today, a mere 18 years later, scientists are telling us that we are approaching -- or are already at -- a point of no return in terms of staving off climate chaos.  That is an incredibly short period of time -- the blink of an eye historically speaking -- for such enormous changes in these massive planetary systems.  As Harvard's Dr. Paul Epstein said, "We are seeing impacts now that we didn't expect to see until 2085." 
 
          The second point -- which presents one of the most difficult aspects of the challenge -- has to do with lagtimes and feedbacks.  Carbon dioxide stays up the atmosphere for about 100 years.  So many of the impacts we are already seeing are probably the result of emissions we put up in the 1970s and 1980s -- just as China and India were beginning to accelerate their surge of coal-fired industrialization.  This makes it virtually inevitable that we will see many more events of the magnitude of Katrina and the European heat wave of 2003.
 
          The issue is further compounded, as you know, by the existence of feedbacks in which small changes in certain planetary systems trigger much larger changes in other systems.  For example, the tundra in Siberia and Canada for thousands of years has absorbed methane and carbon dioxide, locking them into the frozen terrain. Now, however, those areas are beginning to thaw and release those gases back into the atmosphere -- which could well trigger a new spike of heating.
 
          The final point involves the extreme sensitivity of earth's systems to just a tiny bit of warming.  As you all know, the glaciers are melting, the deep oceans are heating, violent weather is increasing, the timing of the seasons is changing and all over the world plants, birds, insects, fish and animals are migrating toward the poles in search of stable temperatures. And all that has resulted from one degree of warming.  And for context we are looking forward to a century of 4 to 10 degrees more heat. 
 
          What we need is a rapid worldwide switch to non-carbon energy -- wind, solar, tidal and wave power, biofuels and, ultimately, hydrogen fuels.  And we need it yesterday.
 
          That does not mean we will all have to sit in the dark and ride bicycles. Those sources can give us all the energy we need even as they would make the human enterprise far more compatible with the requirements of a stable species home.
 
          The fossil fuel lobby knows this perhaps better than anyone else.  And its response has been to protect the industry at the expense of the rest of us in general -- and, more specifically, at the expense of the lifeblood of any democratic system which is honest information.
 
          For more than a decade, the fossil fuel lobby has mounted an extremely effective campaign of deception and disinformation, almost exclusively in the U.S., to persuade the public and policy-makers that the issue of atmospheric warming is still stuck in the limbo of scientific uncertainty. That campaign for the longest time targeted the science. And in so doing, it marginalized the findings of more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries reporting to the U.N. in what is the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history. It then misrepresented the economics of an energy transition. And most recently, with its champion in the White House, it has attempted to demolish the diplomatic foundations of the climate convention.  And it has been extremely successful in maintaining a relentless drumbeat of doubt in the public mind.
 
          From the perspective of an investigative reporter, the central drama underlying this issue is crystal clear. It pits the ability of this planet to sustain civilization versus the survival of one of the largest commercial enterprises in human history. The oil and coal industries together generate more than a trillion dollars a year in revenues. In this battle, their resources are virtually without limit. 
 
          A few recent examples.
 
          In the mid-1990s, the coal industry launched a disinformation offensive using a few greenhouse skeptics -- three of whom received about a million dollars in industry money under the table in a three-year period which was never publicly disclosed until we published it.  The campaign featured a $250,000 video designed to persuade us that global warming is good for us.  That was in the mid-1990s.
 
          What you need to understand  is that these people are extremely persistent. 
 
          We obtained a new memo this July from a group of coal companies about the launch of yet another covert disinformation campaign -- producing a major movie to counter Al Gore's film, increasing the carbon industry's support for Sen. James Inhofe, from Oklahoma, who calls global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and raising hundreds of thousands more dollars to buy more air time for more skeptics.
 
          This manufactured denial is by far the biggest obstacle facing all of us at work on this issue.  Launched a decade ago by the coal industry, it has been carried forward more recently by the oil industry which spent more than $15 million since 1998 to bankroll these skeptics and their institutions.
 
          ExxonMobil has been an especially active player in this game. In 2001, the head of the ICCC, Dr. Robert Watson, suggested the US was doing less than it might to address global warming.  In response, ExxonMobil sent a memo to President Bush telling him to get rid of Watson. In short order, Watson was out of a job.
 
          Just days after the Bush Administration took office in 2001, Lee Raymond, then CEO of ExxonMobil, had a private meeting with Vice President Cheney to discuss the composition of his energy task force. The group ultimately included representatives of every major coal and oil company -- and not one member of the environmental community.
 
          ExxonMobil also made clear in a series of ads on the op-ed pages of the New York Times, that it was vehemently opposed to any US involvement with the Kyoto Protocol. 
 
          Behind the scenes, the company engineered the appointment of an oil-friendly operative, Harlan Watson, to be the Administration's chief climate negotiator. Whereupon Watson promptly announced that the US would not join the Kyoto process for at least a decade -- if at all.  
 
          And when President Bush formally did withdraw the US from Kyoto, the White House sent several notes thanking ExxonMobil for its "active involvement" in helping determine the administration's climate policies.
 
          The oil industry's influence on the Administration's climate and energy policies surfaced again last year. Early in his administration, President Bush appointed Phil Cooney, an official of the American Petroleum Institute, to head up the White House climate office.  Last year, Cooney was found to have personally altered a major scientific report on coming climate impacts in the U.S., deleting and softening references to the dangers of climate change.  When his hand-altered document was provided to the press, a public outcry forced Cooney to resign from the White House.  A few days later, he was hired by ExxonMobil.
 
          As recently as four months ago, the company took another step to further distort public policy.  At the beginning of the year, a group of 86 Evangelical ministers had urged strong action on global warming to help preserve God's creation -- and to protect the world's poorest and most vulnerable residents from the ravages of climate change.
 
          That was followed, in July, by a statement by a different group of evangelical organizations proclaiming climate change is God's will and downplaying its severity.  It turns out the fundamentalist groups that formed the core of this new coalition received $2.5 million in funding from ExxonMobil.
 
          And last month, Exxon's recently-retired CEO Lee Raymond was appointed by President Bush to head up a new panel to determine America's energy future.
 
          In short, the White House has become the East Coast branch office of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal -- and climate change has become the preeminent case study of the contamination of our political process with money.
 
          This fusion of corporate interests with government power has proved an almost insurmountable obstacle to the climate movement's ability to get its larger message across.
 
          So I think the really critical focus for climate activists should be on the press. I know from my own experience that, were the press to cover this issue thoroughly and consistently, that would mobilize the public in six months. 
 
          Unfortunately the industry public relations specialists have  been so successful in promoting equivocal and confusing climate coverage that the American public is at least 10 years behind the rest of the world in understanding the magnitude and urgency of the issue.
 
          There are a number of reasons for this none of them, given the magnitude of the story, justifiable.            
 
          One reason, I think, involves the fact that the career path to the top at news outlets normally lies in following the track of political reporting.  Top editors tend to see all issues through a political lens.  
 
          Let me mention just one -- out of scores -- of recent examples:
 
          Prior to his withdrawal from Kyoto, President Bush declared he would not accept the findings of the IPCC because they represented foreign science (even though about half of the 2,000 scientists who contribute to the IPCC are American.)  Instead, Bush called on the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to provide American science.
 
          What I found astounding was this.  Even as the Washington press corps reported this story, not one reporter bothered to check the position of the NAS.  Had they done so, they would have found that as early as 1992, three years before the IPCC determined that humans are changing the climate, the NAS was pushing for strong measures to minimize the impacts of human-induced global warming.
 
          So thats just a quick nod to the culture of journalism which is, basically, a political culture which is not particularly hospitable in fact, I think it's institutionally arrogant -- toward non-political areas of coverage.
 
          The next reason has to do with this campaign of disinformation launched by the coal industry and most recently carried forward by ExxonMobil.  As I mentioned, the fossil fuel lobby paid a tiny handful of scientists virtually all of whom had no standing in the mainstream scientific community to dismiss the reality of climate change. That campaign has had a profoundly corrosive effect on journalists by insisting the issue of climate change be cast as a debate -- when, in fact, there is no debate in the community of mainstream climate scientists. 
 
For the longest time, the press accorded the same weight to he "skeptics" as it did to mainstream scientists. This was done in the name of journalistic balance.  In fact, it represented journalistic laziness. 
         
          The ethic of journalistic balance comes into play when there is a story involving opinion:  Should society sanction gay marriage? Should abortion be legal?  Should we withdraw our troops from Iraq? When a story involves opinion, a journalist is ethically obligated to give each major competing view its most articulate presentation and roughly equal space.
 
          But when its a question of fact, its up to a reporter to get off her or his butt and find out what the facts are.  The issue of balance is not relevant when the focus of a story is factual.
 
          Granted there have been a few credentialed scientists although only Dick Lindzen comes to mind -- who have published in the peer-reviewed literature and who minimize climate change as relatively inconsequential. 
 
In that case, if a journalist wants her or his coverage to be balanced, the story should reflect the weight of opinion in the scientific community -- and that means that the mainstream climate scientists would get 90 percent of the story and the dissenters would get a couple of paragraphs at the end. 
 
Today, that is finally beginning to happen -- although very belatedly. 
 
As one co-chair of the IPCC told me:  "There is no debate among any statured scientists working on this issue about the larger trends of what is happening to the climate." That is something you would never know from US press coverage.  
 
But it is something you should point out to every editor and reporter you encounter as you work to get your message out. Stop approaching reporters like beggars, asking for a handout.  Let them know how angry you are at them for allowing themselves to be conned into betraying their public trust.
         
          One researcher, who surveyed more than 900 peer-reviewed research articles two years ago

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Ellicott City Flood — 1,000 Year Event Looks a Lot Like One of the Rain Bombs of Climate Change
We live in a strange new world, one in which the familiar is all mixed up with the radically altered. Such was the case this weekend when a weather pattern that was pretty normal for summer spawned a single thunderstorm that produced a once-in-a-thousand-years flood event in Ellicott City.

Normal Weekend, Typical Weather Pattern, Abnormal Conditions

On Saturday, my wife and I readied to trek out to Shenandoah National Park for a happily-anticipated summer camping trip. As we headed out the door, the weather pattern looked mostly normal for summer, if a little stormy. A high-pressure system out over the ocean was pulling in moisture off its waters and drawing warm air up from the south. A low over western Pennsylvania and a warm frontal boundary over Maryland created instability in a big zone of convection from Northern Virginia on through to Connecticut. Overall, it was a pretty typical pattern that would probably have produced some moderate-to-strong late-afternoon thunderstorms back in the 20th century. Back then, it was far less likely that a similar pattern would have produced a 1,000 year flood event.



(Extremely warm sea surface temperatures on the weekend of July 30-31 helped to fuel the record rainfall event over Elicott City, Maryland. Sea surface temperature anomaly map provided by: Earth Nullschool.)

However, conditions were not normal, not the same as they were back during a time when human fossil-fuel emissions hadn’t forced the world to warm by 1.2 degrees Celsius above 1880s levels. In the new world in 2016, the ocean high-pressure system was circulating over record warm sea surfaces that were 3-5 C hotter than late 20th-century averages. And because of this, the ocean was bleeding off a whole hell of a lot more moisture than it typically would. Any storms that fired in that very wet air mass would, as a result, tend to pump out a lot more rain than is typical.

A Wet Atmosphere Crackling with Unusual Energy

As my wife and I made our way toward the Blue Ridge Mountains and down Interstate 66 and Route 211, large, energetic cumulus clouds sprouted all around us. Wafted in the hot, unstable air, many tops punched up through the troposphere, spreading out into the characteristic anvil shapes of thunderstorms.

Light streamed down between these big, wet beasts. For a while, as we made our way up to the campground, set up our gear, and took a hike along a local rock scramble, we were fortunate — able to enjoy our day despite the loud rumbles and roars of thunder echoing up from the valleys or off the nearby mountainsides in the steamy, moisture-choked air.



(A massive amount of atmospheric moisture fueled powerful thunderstorms on Saturday, July 30 from the Appalachians of northwestern Virginia to the Baltimore City region. One of these storms dumped more than 4.5 inches of rain on Ellicott City, Maryland Saturday in just one hour. Image source: Terp Weather.)

At about 3,000 feet in elevation, these conditions were a bit odd for Shenandoah National Park which typically experiences milder weather. Temperatures were around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (about 5-6 F hotter than average), and the level of atmospheric moist

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Climate Change Solutions in Maine
Fwd: [multi-issue] FW: Photos/Stories of Maine Climate Solutions Needed for Film
Aug 8, 2016, 10:03 AM
From sam f brown
Details
D​DATTers, here is an interesting request.  Can we connect some good projects in our area with some good photograph(er)s?  It's surprising how little our legislators and fellow citizens really know about what's going on in the literal grass roots, so let's help show them...​


Photos/Stories of Maine Climate Solutions Needed for Film

The Maine-based Down to Earth ClimateJustice Storytelling Project (DTE), which completed a full-length film in May featuring 13 Maine climate activists of all ages and backgrounds, is launching a new film project and needs your help. DTE is working in partnership with Maine environmental and social change groups and individuals on the project. 

The idea for the new film is to capture climate solutions that are already underway in every corner of Maine. DTE will put photos together into a fast-paced, 5-minute film that can be shared with Maine legislators and the general public through YouTube. Each legislator will be presented with a DVD containing the short film, and a card with background stories of solutions from their own constituent communities. The thought behind this project is that stories can change hearts and the pictures of Maine communities and citizens already adopting climate solutions can inspire others to do similar actions and introduce/support public policies that foster sustainability across Maine. The plan is to complete the film and story handout by early December, well ahead of the next legislative session.

DTE needs your help! Please take and email us good quality photographs that depict Maine solutions from your area. The photos might show a community solar farm, residential pv or solar heat system, municipal solar installation, community wind, community gardens, front lawn vegetable garden, innovative energy efficiency/renewable energy production projects, alternative transportation projects such as bike trails, trolleys, trains, electric cars/bikes, electric charging stations, etc. 
Photos should ideally be high resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels or higher but twice that size would be even better for the videographer to work with). Basically the bigger the picture, the better!  If you take a picture of a unique solution that is not as high quality, DTE may still be able to use it.

Email photos to DTE at downtoearth145@gmail.com. Please include the name of the Maine community where the photo was taken. If you can provide more background information about the photo...even a short paragraph that could be included in the handout that will accompany the film...that would be a bonus. And please include your name so we can give you credit for your photograph(s). 

The Down to Earth Climate Justice Storytelling Project was founded in 2014 by community organizer Anne D. (Andy) Burt to bring activists’ stories into the mainstream where they might change hearts and inspire actions. The project is funded by the Eleanor Humes Haney Fund, the Lyman Fund, and an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. Resources for Organizingand Social Change (ROSC) is the fiscal agent for the project.

Please help us capture on film Maine’s climate solutions and seed inspiration for more!

Down to Earth Project, POB 145, Edgecomb, ME  04556…www.downtoearthstories.org

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Hot Gulf of Mexico Hurls Rain Bombs at Florida and the U.S. Gulf Coast
Rain bomb. It’s a new kind of severe rainstorm that’s capable of overwhelming a city’s flood-handling capabilities in just an hour or two. Of generating 2-inch-plus per hour rainfall events in odd places and at unexpected times. A type of severe storm that’s been enabled by all the added heat and atmospheric moisture loading resulting from human-forced climate change.

*****



(High levels of atmospheric water vapor over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico is fueling the potential for severe, damaging and life-threatening rainfall events across the Gulf Coast this week even as numerous severe flood events occur across the globe. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Lately, due in large part to an atmosphere and ocean surface that’s about 1.2 degrees Celsius hotter than 1880s values and related added atmospheric moisture, the powerful, damaging, and life-threatening rain bombs have been going off hard and heavy across the globe. Last week, Ellicott City was hit, killing one and generating damage that will likely take years to repair. Yesterday, about 21 people lost their lives in a freak flood that dumped 20 inches of rain over part of Macedonia. In Sudan on Saturday, the Nile reached its highest levels in 100 years as thousands of homes were destroyed and more than 75 people lost their lives. In Karachi, Pakistan this weekend, 50 percent of the city is without power and ten people have lost their lives due to flooding. In India over the past two weeks, more than one million people have been displaced and 100 killed in devastating floods. And now, a very hot Gulf of Mexico appears to be hurling a number of similarly powerful storms at the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Severe Gulf Rainstorms Begin

There’s a hell of a lot of heat and moisture available to fuel storms over the Gulf of Mexico right now. And this region where ocean surfaces exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (running from 30 to 33 C, or 1 to 3 C above average) over a broad swath is just now starting to toss some extremely powerful rain bombs at nearby states.



(26 inches of rain fell over a portion of the Gulf of Mexico in one 24-hour period just west of northern Florida. Over the coming week, this moisture is expected to shift northward over Lousiana, Mississippi, and the Florida Panhandle. Image source: Jesse Ferrell at Accuweather.)

Strong convection is blowing up from the hot surface of these waters and exploding into thunderstorms. Already, big rain bombs are starting to fall out over the Gulf or streaming onto shore. As of yesterday, one of these systems produced more than 26 inches of rain in just one 12-hour period. That’s an average of about 2.2 inches of rainfall per hour for 12 hours running, an amount of water that would cause extremely severe flooding if it fell on a U.S. city.

Today, these rain bombs began roaring ashore over the Florida Panhandle. A series of such systems dumped 20 inches of rain near Dekle Beach, Florida even as powerful storms firing near Pinland and Perry dropped 16 inches.



(Earlier today, 20 inches of rain fell near Dekle Beach, Florida even as totals near 16 inches fell between Pinland and Perry. Image source: Jesse Ferrell at Accuweather.)

To be clear, these are just thunderstorms associated with a very hot and moist weather pattern over the Gulf — but they’re producing rainfall amounts usually seen in strong tropical cyclones. Meanwhile, National Weather Service radar shows strong storms continuing to cycle into this region of Florida even as south Florida is hammered by heavy storms and intense squalls swirl over the western Panhandle, Alabama, and Mississippi.

More Severe Rain on the Way, but the Rain Bombs Themselves are Tough to Predict

Over the coming week, the potential for continued heavy storms is high. NOAA’s precipitation forecast model shows rainfall potentials for the region in the range of 5-10 inches for some locations over the coming week. It’s worth noting, however, that NOAA model runs have often not captured the full potential peak rainfall totals in some recent severe events. To this point, it’s also worth noting that forecasting rain bombs can be difficult, particularly so during recent years. Monitors like NOAA can track the underlying conditions, but it’s generally tough to see exactly where the big precipitation spike will occur until perhaps a few hours before the rain starts falling.

Part of this prediction difficulty is likely due to the fact that the added atmospheric moisture loading — 8 percent since the 1880s and 5 percent since the late 1970s — due to global warming has increased instability to the point where new, and less well understood, types of weather are being generated. These days, there are new kinds of thunderstorms ranging the globe, and there’s a lot we don’t understand about them.

Links:

Jesse Ferrell at Accuweather

NOAA Rainfall Prediction

Earth Nullschool

The Macedonia Flood

Four Major Floods Taking Place Right This Second

20 Inches of Rain in One D

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Sahara-Like Heat Marches North, Sparks Scores of Massive Wildfires Across Portugal
Over the past week, Sahara Desert-like weather conditions marched north into Spain and Portugal. This extreme, abnormal heat brought with it a rash of severe wildfires. And, unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of conditions we should expect to see more and more of as a result of human-forced climate change.


(Wildfire consumes homes, businesses and vehicles on Madeira Island, Portugal on August 10, 2016. Meanwhile, scores of wildfires are also burning over the mainland. Video Source: CV.)

*****

Yesterday, the temperature hit a hot, dry 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) just west of Lisbon, Portugal — temperatures more typical to the Sahara desert hundreds of miles to the south. On any normal August day, this Atlantic coastal town would expect to see readings around 28 C (83 F).

To the north, a sprawling heat dome of high pressure has tucked beneath a big jet stream wave for much of the past week. Pulled poleward by near record-low sea ice extents, this atmospheric brute — one of a new breed made stronger and thicker by human-forced warming of the atmosphere — funneled in brisk winds even as it baked Portugal’s lands and islands day after day.

4,200 Firefighters Mobilized

Fires, already sparking in the extreme heat, expanded and multiplied. By Wednesday, more than 180 of these blazes raged over both Portugal and its island archipelago of Madeira.



(NASA satellite shot shows large wildfires burning over Portugal and Spain on August 10, 2016. For reference, width of bottom edge of frame represents 250 miles. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

On mainland Portugal scores of fires cut roads and power lines. Whole villages were emptied as the blazes encroached, numerous homes were destroyed and one life was tragically lost. Everywhere, firefighters scrambled to get a toehold in containing multiple out-of-control fires with a massive mobilization that included more than 4,200 emergency personnel from across the country.

This abnormally tough-to-control fire situation spurred Portuguese officials to seek aid from the EU. The request drew a swift response from Spain as well as Italy, which immediately sent three fire suppression aircraft to aid in the massive effort.

Madeira Burns

Southwest across the Atlantic, the Portuguese island of Madeira, one of several islands in the Madeira Archipelago, was also burning. Abnormally hot conditions over the past week with 35 C (95 F) temperatures and strong, dry winds had fanned large fires running across the island. By Tuesday, Archipelago capital city Fuchal saw numerous fires rushing toward town. Both firefighters and the military mobilized, but this combined effort was unable to prevent the fire from entering the town. Three people were tragically caught up in the blazes as 40 homes burned and a famous five-star hotel was consumed to its foundations.



(Fires cover large sections of Madeira, a Portuguese island, on August 10, 2016. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

Across town, two hospitals shut down operations as fires encroached. As a result the 379 people injured by the blaze were forced to flood into the few remaining medical facilities.

As of this afternoon, fires still rage around Madeira. One thousand people ha

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Dr. Jeff Masters' Blog
Record Flooding in Southeast Louisiana May Get Worse
By: Bob Henson , 8:20 PM GMT on August 12, 2016

A devastating flood event was unfolding over southeast Louisiana on Friday, and conditions may get worse yet, as an extremely slow-moving center of low pressure is dumping colossal amounts of rain on the region. This sprawling, “stacked” low is carrying more water vapor than many tropical cyclones, and its slow motion is leading to persistent rains that could add up to all-time record totals in some places.

Multi-sensor analyses indicate that several areas in southeast Louisiana and southermost Mississippi racked up more than 6” of rain from 7:00 am CDT Thursday, August 11, to 7:00 am Friday (see Figure 1). More than 10” of rain was analyzed just northeast of Baton Rouge, the hardest-hit area thus far. In the 24 hours from 2:00 pm CDT Thursday to 2:00 pm Friday, Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport recorded a preliminary total of 8.49” of rain. Since records began in 1892, the city’s largest calendar day total is 11.99” (set on April 14, 1967), and the largest two-day calendar total is 14.03” (June 6-7, 2001). Given the very slow motion of the stacked low, these all-time records are conceivably within reach. A cooperative observer in Livingston, LA, reported 17.09” of rain from midnight to 3:00 pm CDT Friday. The state’s official 24-hour record is 22 inches, reported near Hackberry on August 28-29, 1962.


Figure 1. Multi-sensor rainfall analysis for the period from 7:00 am CDT Thursday, August 11, to 7:00 am Friday shows a gyre-like pattern of torrential rains spinning around a low in southern Mississippi. Image credit: NOAA/NWS Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service.


As the low edges westward over the next 24-48 hours, the zone of heaviest rain potential will shift toward west Louisiana and east Texas, but southeast Louisiana will remain under the gun for more downpours at least into early Saturday. The short-range HRRR model produces another 2”-6” of widespread rain over southeast Louisiana through Saturday morning, with localized totals of 8-12” not out of the question.


Figure 2. Enhanced infrared satellite image for the central Gulf Coast reveals the vast scope of the area of low pressure generating torrential rains in southeast Louisiana. Image credit: NOAA/NESDIS.

Severe flood threat for Baton Rouge area
Both flash flooding and river flooding threats are looming large for southeast Louisiana, where flash flood warnings were in place on Friday afternoon. Major flooding has already occurred throughout the day Friday, and a flash flood emergency (the most urgent type of flash flood warning) was in effect Friday afternoon for parts of Feliciana, West Feliciana, St. Helena, and East Baton Rouge parishes, which extend roughly from Baton Rouge northward. Water rescues and evacuations were under way in this region, according to the NWS. Even if the rains ease during the weekend, the area faces a major flood threat. The Tickfaw River at Montpelier, LA, hit a record crest of 22.75 feet at 1:30 pm CDT Friday, with several more feet expected this weekend. A number of other rivers across southeast Louisiana are projected to reach all-time crests, including the Amite River, where record levels of flooding can be expected to inundate many homes and roadways on the eastern side of the Baton Rouge metro area for an extended period.


Figure 3. Forecasts issued on Friday morning, August 12, 2016, were calling for an all-time record flood crest of 42.5 feet late Sunday on the Amite River at Denham Springs, just east of Baton Rouge, LA. The forecast keeps waters above the previous record of 41.5 feet (April 8, 1983) for a full 24 hours. These projections could be boosted further in light of the heavy rains persisting in the area on Friday. The last major crest in this region was 36.09 feet on March 13, 2016. Image credit: NOAA/NWS Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service.

Tropical cyclone or not? Does it matter?
Although this system does not qualify as a tropical cyclone--its center has remained just inland--the point is moot in terms of impact, as the torrential rains and flooding from this low could end up ranking among some of the more damaging tropical depressions and tropical storms on record. The low’s rainmaking power is a combination of its extremely slow motion and the astoundingly moist air mass feeding into it. The upper air sounding launched from Slidell, LA, at 12Z Friday (7:00 am CDT) showed that the atmosphere was carrying 2.85” of precipitable water (the amount of water in a column of air over a given point). This is the second-highest amount of water measured in any sounding since records began in the New Orleans area in 1948, and just 0.03” below the record of 2.88”. In Jackson, MS, only two other dates have seen more precipitable water than the 2.74” measured on Friday morning, with the record being just 0.02” higher (2.76”). These values may seem puzzlingly low compared to the amounts of rain occurring. This is because showers and thunderstorms can concentrate the amount of moisture present in the atmosphere throughout a region, so they can produce much higher local totals than the precipitable water values would suggest.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune is providing live updates on the situation in southeast Louisiana. Governor John Bel Edwards has declared a state

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Blogs
Dr. Jeff Masters' Blog

Historic Flood Event in Louisiana From 20-30
By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson , 5:31 PM GMT on August 14, 2016


A historic flooding event continues over southern Louisiana, where widespread rainfall amounts in excess of twenty inches since Friday have brought all ten river gauges on the Amite, Tickfaw, and Comite Rivers to record flood crests, flooded thousands of homes, and caused over 1,000 water rescues. The most extreme floods have occurred on the Amite River, which flows along the east side of the Baton Rouge metropolitan area. Flood waters stranded hundreds of cars on Interstate 12 just east of Baton Rouge for more than 24 hours, Saturday through Sunday. About 25 miles east-southeast of Baton Rouge, the flood crest on the Amite River appears likely to overtop the levee system built at Port Vincent after the destructive floods of April 1983 (at the tail end of the 1982-83 “super” El Niño). The flood control system was designed to handle a recurrence of the 14.6-foot crest observed in that record event. However, the Amite at Port Vincent had already reached 14.91 feet as of 9:15 am CDT Sunday, and it is projected to hit a crest of 16.5 feet early Monday, remaining above the previous record until Tuesday. Major flooding can be expected to the south of Port Vincent in southern parts of Ascension Parish, where voluntary evacuations are already in effect. “If you can get out, get out now,” said parish president Kenny Matassa on Sunday morning.


Figure 1. Major flooding in Prarieville, Louisiana on Friday, August 12, 2016. (@presleygroupmk/twitter.com) 


Figure 2. The Amite River at Denham Springs, just east of Baton Rouge, was at 46.2 feet on Sunday morning, August 14, 2016, nearly five feet above its previous record crest of 41.5 feet on March 8, 1983. Records there date back to at least 1921, making this an impressive feat. Today's crest is the only one of the river’s top 80 historic crests to occur during August, since the worst floods in the region are more commonly associated with winter and spring rainfall than with landfalling tropical cyclones. The Amite crested at 58.56 feet in Magnolia, Louisiana, topping the old record at that location by more than six feet set on April 23, 1977. Image credit: NOAA/NWS Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service.


Figure 3. Aerial view of flooding in Hammond, Louisiana on August 13, 2016. AP Photo/Max Becherer.

Some of the 24-hour rains that fell on Friday in Louisiana (ending at 11AM CDT/16UTC) had a recurrence interval at over 500 years, according to Metstat. Topping the list of phenomenal rainfall amounts catalogued by the NWS Weather Prediction Center for the period 6:00 am CDT Tuesday, August 9, 2016, through 9:00 am CDT Sunday was 31.39” near Watson, Louisiana. Other impressive amounts:

27.47”  Brownfields, LA
22.84”  Gloster, MS
14.43”  Panama City Beach, FL
8.97”  Fairhope, AL
8.11”  Williamsville, MO
7.90”  Cobden, IL


Figure 4. In a dramatic rescue on Saturday near Baton Rouge, a woman and her dog were pulled to safety just as their car went under water. See the powerful video here. Image credit: WAFB.

A tropical depression-like storm with tropical depression-like impacts
The storm system responsible for the record rains formed a distinct surface low just inland along the Alabama co

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Powerful Cyclone to Blow Hole in Thinning Arctic Sea Ice
Back in 2012, a powerful Arctic cyclone smashed the sea ice with days of wind and powerful waves. This year, a storm that’s nearly as powerful threatens to make a similar mark on late-season melt. With a very unstable Arctic weather pattern in play, there’s an outlier possibility the dynamic is setting up for something even more dramatic by late August.

****

Earlier today, a strong gale roared up out of the Laptev Sea north of central Siberia. Feeding on the abnormally warm, moist air over the Barents Sea and the hot air over northwestern Siberia, the storm collided with comparatively cold air over the central Arctic. The differences between hot/cold and damp/dry air can really bomb out a storm system.



(Storms, heat and moisture feed up through a high-amplitude wave in the Jet Stream over northern Europe and Siberia and into a developing Arctic cyclone over the Laptev Sea during the early hours of August 15, 2016. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

Central pressures in the storm fell to 969 millibars and the winds whipping out over the Laptev, East Siberian, and central Arctic waters gusted at 45 to 55 miles per hour. Waves of 6 to 10 feet or higher roared through the newly-opened waters filled with increasingly dispersed ice floes.

The Great Arctic Cyclone of 2016?

This powerful storm is pulling these strong winds over some of the weakest and thinnest sections of Arctic sea ice. During July and August a huge section of ice running along the 80° North Latitude line and stretching from the Laptev, through the East Siberian Sea, and into the Beaufort Sea grew ever more thin and eventually dispersed. Now 25 to 60 percent ice concentrations in this region abound — a tongue of thinning which stretches nearly to the North Pole itself.



(A powerful storm running out of the Laptev Sea and into the central Arctic is threatening sea ice with strong winds, large waves, and the motion of abnormally warm surface waters. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

The storm is generating waves, mixing warmer-than-normal surface waters with even higher temperature waters just below. These sea surfaces are between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius above average over much of the area, with pockets of 3 or even 4 C above normal surface water temperatures interspersed. The storm’s Coriolis Effect will spin chunks of ice out from the pack to float lonely in these warmer-than-normal waters as they are churned by the raging swells.

Storm Raging Over Warm Waters, Thin Ice

Currently, the storm’s strongest winds and waves are running through a big melt wedge that extends from the Laptev and East Siberian Seas toward the 85th parallel. The motion and force produced by the storm’s winds and waves will eject the ice currently located over the northern East Siberian and Chukchi Seas even as waves eat into it. Upwelling of warm water in the seas beneath the center of the storm will open and disperse the ice, generating holes and polynya as it tracks north of the 85th parallel and toward the Pole.



(Very low concentrations of ice, like those seen in this Uni Bremen image, are vulnerable to disruption and melting by storms during August and early September. Current ice thinning and dispersal are among the worst seen for any year. With a powerful storm now raging over the ice, impacts to end-season totals could be significant. Image source: Universität Bremen.)

Compared to the Great Arctic Cyclone (GAC) of 2012 — an event that helped to tip th

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Climate change




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Nasa: Earth is warming at a pace 'unprecedented in 1,000 years'
Records of temperature that go back far further than 1800s suggest warming of recent decades is out of step with any period over the past millennia
Tuesday 30 August 2016 06.00 EDT


The planet is warming at a pace not experienced within the past 1,000 years, at least, making it “very unlikely” that the world will stay within a crucial temperature limit agreed by nations just last year, according to Nasa’s top climate scientist

This year has already seen scorching heat around the world, with the average global temperature peaking at 1.38C above levels experienced in the 19th century, perilously close to the 1.5C limit agreed

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Pope Francis
Pope Francis says destroying the environment is a sin
Pontiff says humans are turning planet into ‘wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth’ in call for urgent action on climate change

Pope Francis welcomes the Paris accord but suggests voters might need to take additional action to ensure their governments do not backtrack on the deal. Photograph: Galazka/Sipa/Rex Shutterstock
Josephine McKenna in Rome
Thursday 1 September 2016 10.30 EDT

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More Fuels from Hell or the Renewable Grid? Stark Energy Choices for the Next Decade
Continuing to burn and extract fossil fuels comes at a terrible and rising risk for pretty much everyone. Thankfully, the capacity to reduce our dependence on these fuels from hell and transition to far less environmentally harmful energy sources is available like never before. But whether or not we make that choice as a society will depend on the actions of both political and economic leaders as well as individuals in the U.S. and around the world.

Biggest Oklahoma Earthquake Ever Seen and Fossil-Fueled Storms

In Oklahoma, the filling of fracking wastewater injection wells is applying a huge stress to the bedrock. There, the new presence of billions of tons of water is changing the way the land bears weight even as it lubricates existing fault lines. This change, in turn, is setting off earthquakes of never-before-seen intensity, not only in Oklahoma, but in many places across the central U.S.



(USGS map of a fracking-related earthquake that struck Oklahoma City on Friday. Continuing to frack in the central U.S. will likely produce increased risk for such quakes even as it provides greater access to climate change-worsening fossil fuels. Image source: USGS and Arstechnica.)

On Saturday, one of these quakes reached a 5.6 magnitude near Oklahoma City, injuring one person, damaging a number of buildings in the historic section of town, and causing stock losses at local grocery stores. As earthquakes go, this was a moderate-intensity event, but it was the largest such event that Oklahoma City had ever seen. There is a reasonable and growing concern that the fossil-fuel extraction activity that is fracking could produce far worse — especially if sections of the New Madrid Fault Line to the east in Missouri become stressed.

Farther south, concerned residents in Louisiana, after suffering a 500-year rainfall event linked to climate change that dumped 6.9 trillion gallons of water over the state in just a few days, are attempting to block oil exploration leases in the Gulf of Mexico. This heavy weather is being born in a world in which increasing rates of evaporation are intensifying droughts in some regions and sparking powerful rainfall events in others. This type of extreme weather will continue to worsen so long as we keep burning fossil fuels.



(A 500-year rainfall event that dumped 6.9 trillion gallons of water over Louisiana in August — one of numerous climate change-related 500-year flood events hitting the U.S. in 2016 — helped to raise concerns and spark protests over the opening of new drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico. Image source: Weather Matrix/Jesse Ferrell.)

Louisiana residents are starting to get worried, and with good reason. Now, hundreds of Louisiana protesters are valiantly attempting to prevent the opening of new fossil fuel leases that could free up another 30 billion tons of carbon-based fuels for burning. If such oil was discovered and brought to market, it would effectively add three more years to the lifespan of global fossil-fuel burning at a time when a rapid cessation of such burning is necessary to preserve anything remotely resembling a livable climate. Similar protests along the East Coast spurred the Obama Administration’s choice to close oil exploration leases in the Atlantic for at least the next five years. Sadly, thus far, no such positive outcome has occurred for the Gulf. After the recent exploration rights auctions, the production of these harmful fuels is one step closer to market.

A Huge Opportunity For the Alternatives

Fracking-related earthquakes in Oklahoma City and oil-lease protests as an upshot of climate concerns by citizens are just two events in a larger tapestry of conflict over the use of dangerous and volatile fossil fuels. As this conflict rages across the globe, new energy sources are starting to make inroads. In particular, wind and solar power during recent years have gone mainstream as electrical power generation sources. In the U.S. so far during 2016, more than 90 percent of new installed electricity generation capacity has come from wind and solar combined. On the current path, these two energy sources will account for ten percent of total U.S. electricity production by 2021, a more than five-fold increase in ten years.

Moreover, a recent report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) finds that it is technically possible for the largest grid in the world (occupying the eastern U.S.) to receive fully 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2026. These potentials do not include recent and projected advances in battery storage technologies, which provide an opportunity to further expand wind and solar generation by helping to make these clean energy sources less variable.

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Home NewsElectric CarsWorld's largest fast-charging site opens in Norway: 28 electric cars can charge, all standards included
World's largest fast-charging site opens in Norway: 28 electric cars can charge, all standards included
Stephen Edelstein
44 Comments4,865 viewsSep 2, 2016
DC fast-charging site in Nebbenes, Norway [photo: Norsk elbilforening]
Norway has once again proven to be the friendliest place in the world for electric cars.

The country where plug-in cars make up a higher proportion of new-car sales than any other now also boasts the world's largest single DC fast-charging site.


DC fast-charging site in Nebbenes, Norway [photo: Norsk elbilforening]
Norway has once again proven to be the friendliest place in the world for electric cars.

The country where plug-in cars make up a higher proportion of new-car sales than any other now also boasts the world's largest single DC fast-charging site.

It's located in Nebbenes, a rural town about 40 miles from the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

DON'T MISS: What can we learn from electric-car owners in Norway (more than 100K of them)?

And it can boast that it has the capability to charge 28 electric cars simultaneously—across all current DC fast-charging standards.

The charging site opened Thursday with a celebration attended by numerous electric-car drivers, including 150 Tesla owners, as described in a blog post by the Norsk elbilforening (Norwegian EV Association).

Large DC fast-charging sites are less common than sites dedicated to slower Level 2 AC charging, although Tesla Motors has had to expand some of its most-used Supercharger sites in California.

Electric-car rally in Geiranger, Norway [Image: Norsk elbilforening via Flickr]
DC fast-charging equipment is more expensive than Level 2 equipment, and stations providing DC fast-charging demand far more electrical capability.

Development of DC fast-charging infrastructure has also split along the lines of the three competing standards.

The CHAdeMO standard is preferred by Asian carmakers, while all U.S. and German carmakers except Tesla have committed to the Combined Charging Standard (CCS).

ALSO SEE: Norwegian Electric-Car Club's Scenic Driving Video: Surprise Hit

Tesla uses its own, unique Supercharger standard and plug, available at a company-operated network of charging sites (although it does sell adapters that allow cars to be charged from CHAdeMO plugs).

The fractured nature of DC fast-charging infrastructure means that availability can vary widely depending on what model of car a person owns.

In the U.S., Tesla has built a substantial network of Supercharger sites, while Nissan has encouraged the development of CHAdeMO sites to support its Leaf electric car.

2016 Bentley Continental GT Speed, First Drive, Oslo, Norway
Development of CCS charging sites had lagged somewhat, as none of the automakers offering CCS-equipped cars have so far made the commitment that Tesla or Nissan has.

On the other hand, most publicly funded fast-charging sites these days have one charging station with two cables: one for CHAdeMO, one for CCS. Those funded by carmakers don't necessarily offer that flexibility.

It all goes to show that Norway remains an outlier today when it comes to electric cars. Generous government incentives have stoked consumer enthusiasm for electric cars over the past few years.

MORE: Two-thirds of new cars in Norway last month were hybrid or electric

Drivers pay no road tax, registration fee, sales tax, or value-added tax. The corporate-car tax is also lower for electric cars.

Electric cars also get free public parking, free public charging, free ferry transport, and are exempt from tolls on roads, bridges, and tunnels.

They can also travel in restricted bus lanes, although this perk is expected to be rolled back due to traffic issues.

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https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffM ... -open-atla" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;





Dr. Jeff Masters
Taiwan, China Brace for Cat 5 Meranti; TS Ian Churns Through Open Atlantic
By: Bob Henson and Jeff Masters , 4:45 PM GMT on September 13, 2016


Mammoth Super Typhoon Meranti may spare Taiwan a direct hit as it continues barreling toward a potentially destructive landfall in China. Now moving just north of due west at about 15 mph, Meranti will be located near the southern tip of Taiwan by around 8:00 am Wednesday local time (8:00 pm Tuesday EDT). The latest forecast from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JWTC) takes the center of Meranti within 50 miles of southern Taiwan, close enough to generate torrential rains, possible landslides, and significant wind damage. Meranti is expected to slam into the southeast coast of China early Thursday local time (8:00 pm EDT Wednesday), perhaps near or just south of the city of Xiamen (population 3.5 million) in China’s Fujian province


also see


htttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/?icid=hjx004" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



also see

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http://www.climatecentral.org/news/ghos ... rees-20701" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

‘Ghost Forests’ Appear As Rising Seas Kill Trees
Published: September 15th, 2016
By John Upton

OCEAN COUNTY, N.J. — Jennifer Walker stepped off her kayak into a wall of riverside grass. She steadied herself and stooped to scoop soil into a jar, then disappeared into the thicket for more. Analysis of amoeba fossils

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2 stories


1.


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/f ... ary-228364" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Interior Secretary
By HELENA BOTTEMILLER EVICH and ANDREW RESTUCCIA 09/19/16 01:02 PM EDT Updated 09/19/16 05:44 PM EDT
An oil industry executive who has spoken out against animal rights is a leading contender for Interior secretary should Donald Trump win the White House, two sources familiar with the campaign’s deliberations told POLITICO on Monday — a prospect that drew immediate condemnation from environmental activists.

Forrest Lucas, the 74-year-old co-founder of oil products company Lucas Oil, is well-known in his native Indiana, where in 2006 he won the naming rights to Lucas Oil Stadium, the home of the Indianapolis Colts football team, for a reported $121.5 million over 20 years. He and his wife have given a combined $50,000 to the gubernatorial campaigns of Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, according to



2.



https://robertscribbler.com/2016/09/19/ ... ange-link/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Giant Gravity Waves Smashed Key Atmospheric Clock During Winter of 2016 — Possible Climate Change Link
Two [climate change] effects [of Arctic warming] are identified … : 1) weakened zonal winds, and 2) increased [Rossby] wave amplitude. These effects are particularly evident in autumn and winter consistent with sea-ice loss… Slower progression of upper-level waves would cause associated weather patterns in mid-latitudes to be more persistent, which may lead to an increased probability of extreme weather events … — Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes, Dr. Jennifer Francis and Dr. Stephen Vavrus, Geophysical Research Letters (emphasis added)

The recent disruption in the quasi-biennial oscillation was not predicted, not even one month ahead. — Dr. Scott Osprey

This unexpected disruption to the clima

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Environmental Concerns - And Anger - Grow in Month After Thousand Year Flood in Louisiana
http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/17/en ... -louisiana" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Earth's unprecedented warm streak continues as more records fall: NOAA
http://mashable.com/2016/09/20/august-1 ... S3jbQ928qu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

When it Rains it Pours, and Sewage Hits the Fan

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/heav ... lows-20718" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Gary Johnson Wants to Ignore Climate Change Because the Sun Will Destroy the Earth One Day
Attention, millennials




9. 22, 2016 6:00 AM



Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president, takes what he calls the "long-term view" of climate change. "In billions of years," he said in 2011, "the sun is going to actually grow and encompass the Earth, right? So global warming is in our future."

The former New Mexico governor did acknowledge that humans are making the world warmer in the near term, too—but he doesn't think the government should do much about it. In the same speech, he denounced "cap-and-trade taxation," said we "should be building new coal-fired plants," and argued that the "trillions" of dollars it would cost to combat climate change would be better spent on other priorities.

All of that makes Johnson's popularity among younger voters pretty surprising. Surveys have consistently found that millennials care deeply about climate change. A November 2015 ABC News/Washington Post poll, for example, found that 76 percent of 18- to-29-year-olds see global warming as a serious problem, and 64 percent want the federal government to do more to combat it. Nevertheless, a recent Quinnipiac poll found that Johnson is now running second among 18- to-34-year-old voters, just 2 percentage points behind Hillary Clinton.

"At a point in the very distant future, the sun will actually encompass the Earth. So global warming is something that's going to be inevitable."
Johnson's 2011 comments weren't an aberration. Over the past few years, he has spoken out repeatedly against environmental regulation. In a 2011 NPR interview, he instead called for a "free-market

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The Most Important Issue Of This Generation is Climate Change

But Will It Come Up at Tonight’s Presidential Debate?



Climate change is threatening cities and island nations with sea-level rise, spurring mass die-offs of sea life, generating extreme weather events with amazing frequency, and posing a rising threat to global food and water supplies. It is no longer just an issue for future generations. It’s a global crisis now, and it’s getting worse. But will the 2016 presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, even be afforded the opportunity to mention it in tonight’s debate?



(IPCC’s global warming index just recently hit 1 C above 1861-1880 temperatures in the five-year average. These temperatures are in the range of the Eemian interglacial period when global ocean levels were 15-25 feet higher than they are today. Furthermore, the current rate of warming at 0.18 C every ten years is about 30-40 times faster than at the end of the last ice age. We’re now in the process of unleashing geological forces capable of producing a mass extinction event on human timescales. Image source: Global Warming Index.)

*****

The 2016 presidential candidates’ stances on the most important issue facing this generation couldn’t be clearer.

Donald Trump believes climate change is a hoax, wants to increase fossil-fuel burning until the planet bakes and the oceans putrefy, plans to shut down the EPA, wants to back out of the Paris Climate Agreement, can’t wait to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and has a noted penchant for attacking climate change solutions like wind power. Trump’s stances on climate change are so appalling that 375 of the world’s top scientists, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel Prize winners, issued an open letter to the U.S. electorate, essentially pleading that we not vote for Trump on the basis of climate change alone.

The letter notes:

The United States can and must be a major player in developing innovative solutions to the problem of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Nations that find innovative ways of decarbonizing energy systems and sequestering CO2 will be the economic leaders of the 21st century. Walking away from Paris makes it less likely that the U.S. will have a global leadership role, politically, economically, or morally. We cannot afford to cross that tipping point.

Hillary Clinton, by comparison, wants to push a big solar energy build-out, support electric vehicles, cut carbon emissions, and ensure that policies like COP 21 and Obama’s Clean Power Plan are enacted and enhanced. Though some climate hawks might not be completely satisfied with Clinton’s record on climate change (we’re going to have to do quite a bit more than what Clinton is shooting for), the reality is that Clinton’s proposed climate policies are aimed at building on and improving Obama’s initial plans.



(Clinton plans to push renewable energy growth even faster than rates that would be achieved under Obama’s Clean Power plan. By contrast, Trump’s policies would severely reduce current initiatives, likely resulting in less than 10 percent of energy generation from clean sources by 2030. Image source: Hillary for America.)

Clinton’s overall push is for U.S. renewable energy leadership and climate action:

I won’t let anyone take us backward, deny our economy the benefits of harnessing an clean energy future, or force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change.

Hermione versus Voldemort on a Tilted Stage

It’s pretty obvious that the difference between Trump and Clinton on an issue that involves the safety and wellbeing of pretty much everyone living on Earth is stark, so much so that Joe Romm at Climate Progress has aptly characterized the debate as a contest between Hermione Granger and Voldemort.

But will the 80 million viewers of tonight’s debate actually get a chance to listen to the candidates’ stances and views on an issue that will impact them from now until the end of their natural lives? Will the debate moderator Lester Holt, a registered Republican, field questions on climate change? Or will a deafening dome of silence fall over the issue, as ice caps melt, seas rise, droughts expand, extreme weather events wors

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