What World Under Climate Change

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Climate Change Is Happening. Here's How We Adapt | Alice Bows-Larkin | TED Talks

TEXT: "Published on Oct 27, 2015: Imagine the hottest day you've ever experienced. Now imagine it's six, 10 or 12 degrees hotter. According to climate researcher Alice Bows-Larkin, that's the type of future in store for us if we don't significantly cut our greenhouse gas emissions now. She suggests that it's time we do things differently—a whole system change, in fact—and seriously consider trading economic growth for climate stability."

 

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The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here: The worst predicted impacts of climate change are starting to happen — and much faster than climate scientists expected By Eric Holthaus August 5, 2015
LINK: The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here | Rolling Stone

TEXT: "Historians may look to 2015 as the year when shit really started hitting the fan. Some snapshots: In just the past few months, record-setting heat waves in Pakistan and India each killed more than 1,000 people. In Washington state's Olympic National Park, the rainforest caught fire for the first time in living memory. London reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest July day ever recorded in the U.K.; The Guardian briefly had to pause its live blog of the heat wave because its computer servers overheated. In California, suffering from its worst drought in a millennium, a 50-acre brush fire swelled seventyfold in a matter of hours, jumping across the I-15 freeway during rush-hour traffic. Then, a few days later, the region was pounded by intense, virtually unheard-of summer rains. Puerto Rico is under its strictest water rationing in history as a monster El Niño forms in the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifting weather patterns worldwide.

"On July 20th, James Hansen, the former NASA climatologist who brought climate change to the public's attention in the summer of 1988, issued a bombshell: He and a team of climate scientists had identified a newly important feedback mechanism off the coast of Antarctica that suggests mean sea levels could rise 10 times faster than previously predicted: 10 feet by 2065. The authors included this chilling warning: If emissions aren't cut, "We conclude that multi-meter sea-level rise would become practically unavoidable. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea-level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization."

"Eric Rignot, a climate scientist at NASA and the University of California-Irvine and a co-author on Hansen's study, said their new research doesn't necessarily change the worst-case scenario on sea-level rise, it just makes it much more pressing to think about and discuss, especially among world leaders. In particular, says Rignot, the new research shows a two-degree Celsius rise in global temperature — the previously agreed upon "safe" level of climate change — "would be a catastrophe for sea-level rise."

"Hansen's new study also shows how complicated and unpredictable climate change can be. Even as global ocean temperatures rise to their highest levels in recorded history, some parts of the ocean, near where ice is melting exceptionally fast, are actually cooling, slowing ocean circulation currents and sending weather patterns into a frenzy. Sure enough, a persistently cold patch of ocean is starting to show up just south of Greenland, exactly where previous experimental predictions of a sudden surge of freshwater from melting ice expected it to be. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist, recently said of the unexpectedly sudden Atlantic slowdown, "This is yet another example of where observations suggest that climate model predictions may be too conservative when it comes to the pace at which certain aspects of climate change are proceeding."

"Since storm systems and jet streams in the United States and Europe partially draw their energy from the difference in ocean temperatures, the implication of one patch of ocean cooling while the rest of the ocean warms is profound. Storms will get stronger, and sea-level rise will accelerate. Scientists like Hansen only expect extreme weather to get worse in the years to come, though Mann said it was still "unclear" whether recent severe winters on the East Coast are connected to the phenomenon.

"And yet, these aren't even the most disturbing changes happening to the Earth's biosphere that climate scientists are discovering this year. For that, you have to look not at the rising sea levels but to what is actually happening within the oceans themselves. Water temperatures this year in the North Pacific have never been this high for this long over such a large area — and it is already having a profound effect on marine life.

"Eighty-year-old Roger Thomas runs whale-watching trips out of San Francisco. On an excursion earlier this year, Thomas spotted 25 humpbacks and three blue whales. During a survey on July 4th, federal officials spotted 115 whales in a single hour near the Farallon Islands — enough to issue a boating warning. Humpbacks are occasionally seen offshore in California, but rarely so close to the coast or in such numbers. Why are they coming so close to shore? Exceptionally warm water has concentrated the krill and anchovies they feed on into a narrow band of relatively cool coastal water. The whales are having a heyday. "It's unbelievable," Thomas told a local paper. "Whales are all over
the place."

"Last fall, in northern Alaska, in the same part of the Arctic where Shell is planning to drill for oil, federal scientists discovered 35,000 walruses congregating on a single beach. It was the largest-ever documented "haul out" of walruses, and a sign that sea ice, their favored habitat, is becoming harder and harder to find.

"Marine life is moving north, adapting in real time to the warming ocean. Great white sharks have been sighted breeding near Monterey Bay, California, the farthest north that's ever been known to occur. A blue marlin was caught last summer near Catalina Island — 1,000 miles north of its typical range. Across California, there have been sightings of non-native animals moving north, such as Mexican red crabs.

"No species may be as uniquely endangered as the one most associated with the Pacific Northwest, the salmon. Every two weeks, Bill Peterson, an oceanographer and senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Oregon, takes to the sea to collect data he uses to forecast the return of salmon. What he's been seeing this year is deeply troubling.

"Salmon are crucial to their coastal ecosystem like perhaps few other species on the planet. A significant portion of the nitrogen in West Coast forests has been traced back to salmon, which can travel hundreds of miles upstream to lay their eggs. The largest trees on Earth simply wouldn't exist without salmon.

"But their situation is precarious. This year, officials in California are bringing salmon downstream in convoys of trucks, because river levels are too low and the temperatures too warm for them to have a reasonable chance of surviving. One species, the winter-run Chinook salmon, is at a particularly increased risk of decline in the next few years, should the warm water persist offshore. "You talk to fishermen, and they all say: 'We've never seen anything like this before,' " says Peterson. "So when you have no experience with something like this, it gets like, 'What the hell's going on?' "

"Atmospheric scientists increasingly believe that the exceptionally warm waters over the past months are the early indications of a phase shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a cyclical warming of the North Pacific that happens a few times each century. Positive phases of the PDO have been known to last for 15 to 20 years, during which global warming can increase at double the rate as during negative phases of the PDO. It also makes big El Niños, like this year's, more likely. The nature of PDO phase shifts is unpredictable — climate scientists simply haven't yet figured out precisely what's behind them and why they happen when they do. It's not a permanent change — the ocean's temperature will likely drop from these record highs, at least temporarily, some time over the next few years — but the impact on marine species will be lasting, and scientists have pointed to the PDO as a global-warming preview. "The climate [change] models predict this gentle, slow increase in temperature," says Peterson, "but the main problem we've had for the last few years is the variability is so high. As scientists, we can't keep up with it, and neither can the animals." Peterson likens it to a boxer getting pummeled round after round: "At some point, you knock them down, and the fight is over."

"Attendant with this weird wildlife behavior is a stunning drop in the number of plankton — the basis of the ocean's food chain. In July, another major study concluded that acidifying oceans are likely to have a "quite traumatic" impact on plankton diversity, with some species dying out while others flourish. As the oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it's converted into carbonic acid — and the pH of seawater declines. According to lead author Stephanie Dutkiewicz of MIT, that trend means "the whole food chain is going to be different."

"The Hansen study may have gotten more attention, but the Dutkiewicz study, and others like it, could have even more dire implications for our future. The rapid changes Dutkiewicz and her colleagues are observing have shocked some of their fellow scientists into thinking that yes, actually, we're heading toward the worst-case scenario. Unlike a prediction of massive sea-level rise just decades away, the warming and acidifying oceans represent a problem that seems to have kick-started a mass extinction on the same time scale.

"Jacquelyn Gill is a paleoecologist at the University of Maine. She knows a lot about extinction, and her work is more relevant than ever. Essentially, she's trying to save the species that are alive right now by learning more about what killed off the ones that aren't. The ancient data she studies shows "really compelling evidence that there can be events of abrupt climate change that can happen well within human life spans. We're talking less than a decade."

"For the past year or two, a persistent change in winds over the North Pacific has given rise to what meteorologists and oceanographers are calling "the blob" — a highly anomalous patch of warm water between Hawaii, Alaska and Baja California that's thrown the marine ecosystem into a tailspin. Amid warmer temperatures, plankton numbers have plummeted, and the myriad species that depend on them have migrated or seen their own numbers dwindle.

"Significant northward surges of warm water have happened before, even frequently. El Niño, for example, does this on a predictable basis. But what's happening this year appears to be something new. Some climate scientists think that the wind shift is linked to the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice over the past few years, which separate research has shown makes weather patterns more likely to get stuck.

"A similar shift in the behavior of the jet stream has also contributed to the California drought and severe polar vortex winters in the Northeast over the past two years. An amplified jet-stream pattern has produced an unusual doldrum off the West Coast that's persisted for most of the past 18 months. Daniel Swain, a Stanford University meteorologist, has called it the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" — weather patterns just aren't supposed to last this long.

"What's increasingly uncontroversial among scientists is that in many ecosystems, the impacts of the current off-the-charts temperatures in the North Pacific will linger for years, or longer. The largest ocean on Earth, the Pacific is exhibiting cyclical variability to greater extremes than other ocean basins. While the North Pacific is currently the most dramatic area of change in the world's oceans, it's not alone: Globally, 2014 was a record-setting year for ocean temperatures, and 2015 is on pace to beat it soundly, boosted by the El Niño in the Pacific. Six percent of the world's reefs could disappear before the end of the decade, perhaps permanently, thanks to warming waters.

"Since warmer oceans expand in volume, it's also leading to a surge in sea-level rise. One recent study showed a slowdown in Atlantic Ocean currents, perhaps linked to glacial melt from Greenland, that caused a four-inch rise in sea levels along the Northeast coast in just two years, from 2009 to 2010. To be sure, it seems like this sudden and unpredicted surge was only temporary, but scientists who studied the surge estimated it to be a 1-in-850-year event, and it's been blamed on accelerated beach erosion "almost as significant as some hurricane events."

"Possibly worse than rising ocean temperatures is the acidification of the waters. Acidification has a direct effect on mollusks and other marine animals with hard outer bodies: A striking study last year showed that, along the West Coast, the shells of tiny snails are already dissolving, with as-yet-unknown consequences on the ecosystem. One of the study's authors, Nina Bednaršek, told Science magazine that the snails' shells, pitted by the acidifying ocean, resembled "cauliflower" or "sandpaper." A similarly striking study by more than a dozen of the world's top ocean scientists this July said that the current pace of increasing carbon emissions would force an "effectively irreversible" change on ocean ecosystems during this century. In as little as a decade, the study suggested, chemical changes will rise significantly above background levels in nearly half of the world's oceans. "I used to think it was kind of hard to make things in the ocean go extinct," James Barry of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California told the Seattle Times in 2013. "But this change we're seeing is happening so fast it's almost instantaneous."

"Thanks to the pressure we're putting on the planet's ecosystem — warming, acidification and good old-fashioned pollution — the oceans are set up for several decades of rapid change. Here's what could happen next. The combination of excessive nutrients from agricultural runoff, abnormal wind patterns and the warming oceans is already creating seasonal dead zones in coastal regions when algae blooms suck up most of the available oxygen. The appearance of low-oxygen regions has doubled in frequency every 10 years since 1960 and should continue to grow over the coming decades at an even greater rate.

"So far, dead zones have remained mostly close to the coasts, but in the 21st century, deep-ocean dead zones could become common. These low-oxygen regions could gradually expand in size — potentially thousands of miles across — which would force fish, whales, pretty much everything upward. If this were to occur, large sections of the temperate deep oceans would suffer should the oxygen-free layer grow so pronounced that it stratifies, pushing surface ocean warming into overdrive and hindering upwelling of cooler, nutrient-rich deeper water.

"Enhanced evaporation from the warmer oceans will create heavier downpours, perhaps destabilizing the root systems of forests, and accelerated runoff will pour more excess nutrients into coastal areas, further enhancing dead zones. In the past year, downpours have broken records in Long Island, Phoenix, Detroit, Baltimore, Houston and Pensacola, Florida.

"Evidence for the above scenario comes in large part from our best understanding of what happened 250 million years ago, during the "Great Dying," when more than 90 percent of all oceanic species perished after a pulse of carbon dioxide and methane from land-based sources began a period of profound climate change. The conditions that triggered "Great Dying" took hundreds of thousands of years to develop. But humans have been emitting carbon dioxide at a much quicker rate, so the current mass extinction only took 100 years or so to kick-start.

"With all these stressors working against it, a hypoxic feedback loop could wind up destroying some of the oceans' most species-rich ecosystems within our lifetime. A recent study by Sarah Moffitt of the University of California-Davis said it could take the ocean thousands of years to recover. "Looking forward for my kid, people in the future are not going to have the same ocean that I have today," Moffitt said.

"As you might expect, having tickets to the front row of a global environmental catastrophe is taking an increasingly emotional toll on scientists, and in some cases pushing them toward advocacy. Of the two dozen or so scientists I interviewed for this piece, virtually all drifted into apocalyptic language at some point.

"For Simone Alin, an oceanographer focusing on ocean acidification at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, the changes she's seeing hit close to home. The Puget Sound is a natural laboratory for the coming decades of rapid change because its waters are naturally more acidified than most of the world's marine ecosystems.

"The local oyster industry here is already seeing serious impacts from acidifying waters and is going to great lengths to avoid a total collapse. Alin calls oysters, which are non-native, the canary in the coal mine for the Puget Sound: "A canary is also not native to a coal mine, but that doesn't mean it's not a good indicator of change."

"Though she works on fundamental oceanic changes every day, the Dutkiewicz study on the impending large-scale changes to plankton caught her off-guard: "This was alarming to me because if the basis of the food web changes, then . . . everything could change, right?"

"Alin's frank discussion of the looming oceanic apocalypse is perhaps a product of studying unfathomable change every day. But four years ago, the birth of her twins "heightened the whole issue," she says. "I was worried enough about these problems before having kids that I maybe wondered whether it was a good idea. Now, it just makes me feel crushed."

"Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and evangelical Christian, moved from Canada to Texas with her husband, a pastor, precisely because of its vulnerability to climate change. There, she engages with the evangelical community on science — almost as a missionary would. But she's already planning her exit strategy: "If we continue on our current pathway, Canada will be home for us long term. But the majority of people don't have an exit strategy. . . . So that's who I'm here trying to help."

"James Hansen, the dean of climate scientists, retired from NASA in 2013 to become a climate activist. But for all the gloom of the report he just put his name to, Hansen is actually somewhat hopeful. That's because he knows that climate change has a straightforward solution: End fossil-fuel use as quickly as possible. If tomorrow, the leaders of the United States and China would agree to a sufficiently strong, coordinated carbon tax that's also applied to imports, the rest of the world would have no choice but to sign up. This idea has already been pitched to Congress several times, with tepid bipartisan support. Even though a carbon tax is probably a long shot, for Hansen, even the slim possibility that bold action like this might happen is enough for him to devote the rest of his life to working to achieve it. On a conference call with reporters in July, Hansen said a potential joint U.S.-China carbon tax is more important than whatever happens at the United Nations climate talks in Paris.

"One group Hansen is helping is Our Children's Trust, a legal advocacy organization that's filed a number of novel challenges on behalf of minors under the idea that climate change is a violation of intergenerational equity — children, the group argues, are lawfully entitled to inherit a healthy planet.

"A separate challenge to U.S. law is being brought by a former EPA scientist arguing that carbon dioxide isn't just a pollutant (which, under the Clean Air Act, can dissipate on its own), it's also a toxic substance. In general, these substances have exceptionally long life spans in the environment, cause an unreasonable risk, and therefore require remediation. In this case, remediation may involve planting vast numbers of trees or restoring wetlands to bury excess carbon underground.

"Even if these novel challenges succeed, it will take years before a bend in the curve is noticeable. But maybe that's enough. When all feels lost, saving a few species will feel like a triumph.

"From The Archives Issue 1241: August 13, 2015"​

 

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Earth has lost a third of arable land in past 40 years, scientists say: Experts point to damage caused by erosion and pollution, raising major concerns about degraded soil amid surging global demand for food ~ December 2, 2015
LINK: Earth has lost a third of arable land in past 40 years, scientists say

TEXT: "The world has lost a third of its arable land due to erosion or pollution in the past 40 years, with potentially disastrous consequences as global demand for food soars, scientists have warned.

"New research has calculated that nearly 33% of the world’s adequate or high-quality food-producing land has been lost at a rate that far outstrips the pace of natural processes to replace diminished soil. The University of Sheffield’s Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, which undertook the study by analyzing various pieces of research published over the past decade, said the loss was “catastrophic” and the trend close to being irretrievable without major changes to agricultural practices.

"The continual ploughing of fields, combined with heavy use of fertilizers, has degraded soils across the world, the research found, with erosion occurring at a pace of up to 100 times greater than the rate of soil formation. It takes around 500 years for just 2.5cm of topsoil to be created amid unimpeded ecological changes. “You think of the dust bowl of the 1930s in North America and then you realize we are moving towards that situation if we don’t do something,” said Duncan Cameron, professor of plant and soil biology at the University of Sheffield. “We are increasing the rate of loss and we are reducing soils to their bare mineral components,” he said. “We are creating soils that aren’t fit for anything except for holding a plant up. The soils are silting up river systems – if you look at the huge brown stain in the ocean where the Amazon deposits soil, you realise how much we are accelerating that process. We aren’t quite at the tipping point yet, but we need to do something about it. We are up against it if we are to reverse this decline.”

"The erosion of soil has largely occurred due to the loss of structure by continual disturbance for crop planting and harvesting. If soil is repeatedly turned over, it is exposed to oxygen and its carbon is released into the atmosphere, causing it to fail to bind as effectively. This loss of integrity impacts soil’s ability to store water, which neutralizes its role as a buffer to floods and a fruitful base for plants.

"Degraded soils are also vulnerable to being washed away by weather events fueled by global warming. Deforestation, which removes trees that help knit landscapes together, is also detrimental to soil health. Researchers are presenting the new research at climate talks in Paris.

"The steep decline in soil has occurred at a time when the world’s demand for food is rapidly increasing. It’s estimated the world will need to grow 50% more food by 2050 to feed an anticipated population of 9 billion people. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the increase in food production will be most needed in developing countries. The academics behind the University of Sheffield study propose a number of remedies to soil loss, including recycling nutrients from sewerage, using biotechnology to wean plants off their dependence upon fertilizers, and rotating crops with livestock areas to relieve pressure on arable land.

" Around 30% of the world’s ice-free surfaces are used to keep chicken, cattle, pigs and other livestock, rather than to grow crops. “We need a radical solution, which is to re-engineer our agricultural system,” Cameron said. “We need to take land out of production for a long time to allow soil carbon to rebuild and become stable. We already have lots of land – it’s being used for pasture by the meat and dairy industries. Rather than keep it separated, we need to bring it into rotation, so that that there is more land in the system and less is being used at any one time.”

Cameron said he accepted this would involve direct government intervention, funding for farmers and “brave” policymaking. “We can’t blame the farmers in this. We need to provide the capitalization to help them rather than say, ‘Here’s a new policy, go and do it,’” he said. “We have the technology. We just need the political will to give us a fighting chance of solving this problem.”​

 

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An interesting article about the vagaries of mapping that impact our perceptions. This may be a repeat posting.

Louisiana Loses Its Boot: The boot-shaped state isn’t shaped like a boot anymore. That’s why we revised its iconic outline to reflect the truth about a sinking, disappearing place. By Brett Anderson
LINK: Louisiana Loses Its Boot — Matter

 

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Per usual, all caveats continue to apply to the SOTT videos.

SOTT Earth Changes Summary - November 2015: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs

TEXT: "Published on Dec 10, 2015: SOTT 'Earth Changes' video summary of extreme weather events, environmental indicators of 'planetary upheaval' (seismic, volcanic, etc), and Near-Earth Object activity in November 2015.

"November 2015 was another month of extreme weather events, with several major tornado outbreaks in the US causing widespread damage from Iowa to Texas. These devastating storm systems brought record early (and record amounts of) snow to many places, with Chicago experiencing its snowiest November in "more than 100 years." Further south, Oklahoma went from experiencing - in the space of two weeks - raging wildfires to ice-storms. Elsewhere, northern China saw record cold temperatures and Japan saw its heaviest November snowfalls in over 60 years.

"In the southern hemisphere, 'summer' storms dropped giant hailstones that turned streets in northern Argentina into rivers of ice, while an enormous multi-vortex tornado destroyed over a thousand homes in Brazil. The October deluges that washed away cars and homes across the Middle East continued throughout November, with Qatar receiving more than its entire annual rainfall average in just one day. Parts of Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen were also inundated with unprecedented rainfall. For the second month running, intense hailstorms led to ice flowing through the Arabian Desert.

"The spate of meteor fireballs seen around the world in late October continued into November, with a spectacular sighting in Bangkok, Thailand - the city's second such event in two months. In this month's SOTT Summary video, we also have footage of meteor fireballs visiting Ireland and South Africa twice; another one that rattled windows after it exploded above Saskatchewan, Canada; and don't miss the one that literally screamed over New Mexico."

 

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SHOCK: Boston & NYC WARMER on Christmas Eve Than 4th of July

TEXT: "Published on Dec 24, 2015: The US is experiencing some very strange weather."

 

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A little humor.....

 

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Clean Energy Could Fuel Most Countries by 2050, Study Shows: The main barriers to 100% energy from solar, wind and water sources are 'social and political,' said Mark Z. Jacobson, lead study author. November 27, 2015
LINK: Clean Energy Could Fuel Most Countries by 2050, Study Shows

TEXT: "A new study claims to leave little room for doubt that the world can run 100 percent on renewable energy, and it even maps how individual countries should best make this transition—by mid-century.

"The main barriers to overhauling the global energy system "are social and political," said Mark Z. Jacobson, lead study author. "They aren't technical or economic," added Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.

"Jacobson and his Stanford colleagues published the analysis in a draft paper online to coincide with the start of global climate talks in Paris on Nov. 30. In those vastly complicated negotiations, most of the world's nations have agreed on at least one thing: keeping the earth's warming to within 2-degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels—a target that scientists agree is relatively safe for the planet––will require a wholesale transformation of the world's energy economy.

"The paper, which will likely be submitted to scientific journals for publication next year, offers detailed roadmaps showing how most countries can make the switch to run entirely on clean energy across all sectors, from electricity to transportation to agriculture, as early as 2050.

"Focusing on the 139 countries with available 2015 energy data, researchers first used computer models to calculate how each nation's energy demand and mix would change by 2050. This so-called "business-as-usual" scenario was based on the assumption that the countries would continue to rely on conventional fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.

"Next, the researchers determined how each country could meet its future energy demands using only renewable sources. Under this "wind, water and solar" scenario, every country's ideal renewable energy mix was calculated based on its existing energy infrastructure and available clean energy resources, such as sunlight and wind. The researchers concluded that making this switch would lower a country's total energy demands because clean energy sources are more efficient than fossil fuels. They also concluded the transition would curb global warming, create jobs, and reduce air pollution, which, in turn, would boost public health.

"Take the United States, for example. By pursuing business as usual, the U.S. would require a total power load of 2,310 gigawatts by 2050. Under a clean energy scenario, however, the country would need only 1,296 gigawatts of power, the study said. Most of the energy would come from onshore and offshore wind (48 percent), utility-scale and rooftop solar (40 percent), and a mix of other sources, including hydropower, geothermal and wave energy. The estimated total electricity, health and climate cost savings of this transition would amount to about $8,000 per American per year (in 2013 dollars).

"Jacobson's team has also conducted a parallel study, recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That study dives deeper into the United States' clean energy transition, offering energy roadmaps for all 50 states, using the same modeling approach applied in the global study.

"If all the 139 countries succeed in getting 80 percent of their energy from renewables by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050, the Stanford researchers said, the world's warming would stay below the 2-degrees Celsius warming threshold. They also predict about 22 million net jobs would be created.

"Getting there won't be easy or cheap, Jacobson explained. The price tag of greening the world's energy system is $100 trillion, or $2 million per megawatt, over the next 35 years. Even without overhauling the energy system, the International Energy Association expects about $60 trillion should be invested during that same period to maintain electric grids and power plants and improve energy efficiency.

"The analysis doesn't say where the trillions should come from—or prescribe policies—but it shows "the burden of proof is now on the people who want to grow fossil fuels in any shape or form to explain to [the public] why they are doing something that we know is worse for the planet," Jacobson said.

"As of 2014, only 3.8 percent of the power capacity needed for 100 percent clean energy worldwide had been installed. Norway, Paraguay and Iceland lead the transition because they have successfully tapped their vast hydropower or geothermal resources. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's a mix of developing nations such as Trinidad and Tobago and oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The United States is in the middle, ranking 56th out of 139 countries in terms of its progress toward 100 percent renewables by 2050.

"Jacobson's study is not the only recent report drumming up support for renewables. Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency released its World Energy Outlook 2015 report, which demonstrated renewable energy is increasing. Despite that trend, the agency expects growth in coal and other fossil fuels unless other countries––notably India––change their policies.

"In addition, the International Renewable Energy Agency released a recent study suggesting renewables could make up 36 percent of the world's energy mix by 2030. Both reports said furthering the growth of clean energy is an essential piece in addressing climate change. "With the climate challenge in front of us, this can easily lead people to worry about our ability to meet that challenge," said Rachel Cleetus, lead economist and a climate policy specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The bottom line from all these studies is the challenge here is political will. "

" 'Mark's findings are not extreme,' said Karl Rabago, executive director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center at Pace Law School, in White Plains, N.Y. "They are well established," said Rabago, reflecting the latest science and experience in the lab and on the ground with how efficient and productive different clean energy sources can be.

"According to Rabago, "The real question now is: are we finally ready to get started?" "​

 

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The Lake That Fell Off a Cliff: A dramatic scene from our changing climate
LINK:Dramatic Scenes From Climate Change: The Canadian Lake That Just Fell off a Cliff (Video) 
TEXT: "In a remote region of Canada’s Northwest Territories, north of Vancouver, a lake breached a retaining wall weakened by thawing permafrost and dumped enough water to fill a dozen Olympic swimming pools into an adjacent valley. The breach also caused a slow slide of sediment, creating pools of sucking mud. Environmentalists are worried the runoff could also make its way into nearby streams and lakes, killing fish and other aquatic life. Increased temperatures and rain in the region have led to permafrost thaw slump, a cycle that causes ice deposited tens of thousands of years ago to erode over several years."

Pushed by climate change: Lake in Northwest Territories falls off cliff: Unnamed lake near Fort McPherson, undermined by melting permafrost, collapses into valley below, December 11, 2015
LINK: Pushed by climate change: Lake in Northwest Territories falls off cliff

Thaw slump and lake drainage near Fort McPherson, NWT, Canada

TEXT: "Published on Dec 8, 2015: Rapid drainage of a small lake due to expansion of a retrogressive thaw slump about 20km northwest of Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, Canada."

 

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December 15, 2015
Record high Arctic temperatures in 2015 having 'profound effects' on region: Latest Noaa report reveals 2015 temperatures were in some cases 3C above long-term average and 70% of ice pack in March was made of first-year ice
LINK: Record high Arctic temperatures in 2015 having 'profound effects' on region

TEXT: "The Arctic experienced record air temperatures and a new low in peak ice extent during 2015, with scientists warning that climate change is having “profound effects” on the entire marine ecosystem and the indigenous communities that rely upon it. The latest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) report card on the state of the Arctic revealed the annual average air temperature was 1.3C (2.3F) above the long-term average – the highest since modern records began in 1900. In some parts of the icy region, the temperature exceeded 3C (5.4F) above the average, taken from 1981 to 2010.

"This record heat has been accompanied by diminishing ice. The Arctic Ocean reached its peak ice cover on 25 February – a full 15 days earlier than the long-term average and the lowest extent recorded since records began in 1979. The minimum ice cover, which occurred on 11 September, was the fourth smallest in area on record. More than 50% of Greenland’s huge ice sheet experienced melting in 2015, with 22 of the 45 widest and fastest-flowing glaciers shrinking in comparison to their 2014 extent.

"Not only is the ice winnowing away, it is becoming younger – Noaa’s analysis of satellite data shows that 70% of the ice pack in March was composed of first-year ice, with just 3% of the ice older than four years. This means the amount of new, thinner ice has doubled since the 1980s and is more vulnerable to melting.

"The report card – compiled by 72 scientists from 11 countries – noted sharp variations in conditions in the northern part of the Arctic compared to its southern portion. The melting season was 30-40 days longer than the long-term average in the north but slightly below average in the south, suggesting that changes to the jet stream, causing colder air to whip across the southern part of the Arctic, are having an impact.

"Noaa said warming in the Arctic is occurring at twice the rate of anywhere else in the world – a 2.9C (5.2F) average increase over the past century – and that it is certain climate change, driven by the release of greenhouse gases, is the cause. “There is a close association between air temperature and the amount of sea ice we see, so if we reduce the temperature globally it looks like it will stabilize the Arctic,” said Dr James Overland, oceanographer at Noaa. “The next generation may see an ice-free summer but hopefully their decedents will see more ice layering later on in the century.”

"Overland said if the world hits the 2C (3.6F) warming limit agreed by nations in the recent Paris climate talks, the Arctic will experience a 4C (7.2F) to 5C (9F) increase in temperature by 2050. The Chukchi Sea, by Alaska, is warming the fastest of any of the Arctic waters while the overall minimum ice extent has slumped by 13.4% a decade, on average.

"The changes in the Arctic are also causing “major challenges” for the indigenous communities in the region, according to Rick Spinrad, Noaa’s chief scientist. Warmer-water fish such as cod are moving north, displacing Arctic species, while an increase in sunlight reaching the upper layers of the ocean triggered widespread blooms of algae in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Russia, in 2015.

"This altered environment is causing severe problems for walruses, with unprecedented “haul outs” of the animals occurring in 2015. The large marine mammals traditionally use sea ice for mating and nurturing young but in recent years have been forced to congregate on land in north-west Alaska. This behaviour has led to stampedes that have killed calves and hampered walruses’ ability to find food. “Females now have to make 110-mile (177km) treks for food. We just haven’t seen haul outs in these numbers before,” said Kit Kovacs, biodiversity research program leader at the Norwegian Polar Institute. “I don’t think there is much uncertainty here. We have a dramatic situation in the north Pacific with walruses.”

[see LINK for Video]​

 

[Tyger]

Dece,ber 17, 2015
Superior is one of the more rapidly warming lakes, study finds
LINK: Superior is one of the more rapidly warming lakes, study finds

TEXT: "The world’s lakes are warming up — even frigid Lake Superior — scientists warn. Dozens of researchers pooled decades’ worth of data from hundreds of lakes and concluded that the world’s lakes are warming even more rapidly than the oceans or the atmosphere. The warmer waters threaten fish populations, ecosystems and fresh water supplies around the globe.

"Closer to home, University of Minnesota Duluth Professor Jay Austin says the thick sheets of ice that blanketed Lake Superior for the past two winters did nothing to change the fact that Superior, like the other Great Lakes, is growing ever warmer. “Lake Superior is one of the more rapidly warming lakes” among the 235 lakes in the study, Austin said. A two-degree temperature shift can mean the difference between an iced-over Superior or an ice-free lake, he said. “Relatively small changes can lead to large changes in systems that define our region. Duluth would be a fundamentally different place if Lake Superior never formed ice.”

"The study, which was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, found that lakes have been warming by more than half a degree per decade. That might not sound like much, but when lakes warm up, toxic clouds of algae can bloom, fish habitats can be disrupted and invasive species currently held at bay by Superior’s inhospitable cold might be able to make themselves at home.

"The lake study is the first of its kind to use both satellite temperature data and long-term ground measurements. More than 60 researchers surveyed more than 200 lakes that hold more than half the planet’s freshwater supply, using data that stretched back at least 25 years. Their findings were announced Wednesday at the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C. “These results suggest that large changes in our lakes are not only unavoidable, but are probably already happening,” the study’s lead author, Catherine O’Reilly, an associate professor of geology at Illinois State University, said in a statement. O’Reilly’s research found that as lakes warm, their productivity declines.

"A ‘climate antenna’
"The world’s lakes are warming faster than the oceans or the atmosphere, Austin said. Unlike air temperatures, which can fluctuate wildly from day to day or even hourly, lake temperatures are stable, making them ideal systems for measuring climate change. It takes a significant shift to change the temperature of a lake — much as it takes as much energy to heat a pot of water on the stove as it does to heat an entire room. “Obviously, Lake Superior is going to stay cold for a very long time,” Austin said. “But these lakes provide a sort of ‘climate antenna’ that allows us to look at these global trends.”

"The current rate of lake warming — an average of 0.61 degrees per decade — carries the risk of a 20 percent increase in algae blooms, which deplete oxygen in the water and can be toxic to fish. The lakes seem to be warming faster in northern climates like Minnesota, where lakes are losing their ice cover earlier. In 2007, Austin and his colleagues found that the average summer water temperature on Lake Superior had risen more than 4 degrees since 1979. “We have documented, since 1970, a significant reduction in the ice on Lake Superior,” despite the past two winters, when the ice was so thick that tourists could trek across the lake to gawk at the Apostle Islands ice caves along the Wisconsin shore. “It sounds a little bit hollow, after the last two winters when we had quite a bit of ice. … I’m not suggesting that we won’t see ice on Lake Superior again, but we are going to see more years like 2012 when we had no ice.” "​

 

[Tyger]

Interesting interactive graph within this link. To see it complete one must scroll 'down' as each graph completes it's run. Summation is at end.

It gives the data on Earth Orbit, Sun, Volcanoes, and then all three combined. Then Deforestation, Ozone Depletion, Aerosol Pullution, then Greenhouse Gases - with a Compare and Contrast Graph at end.

[See LINK for Interactive Graph]
What Is Really Warming The World? 1880-2006
LINK: What's Really Warming the World?

Methodology: NASA's Model
Researchers who study the Earth's climate create models to test their assumptions about the causes and trajectory of global warming. Around the world there are 28 or so research groups in more than a dozen countries who have written 61 climate models. Each takes a slightly different approach to the elements of the climate system, such as ice, oceans, or atmospheric chemistry.

The computer model that generated the results for this graphic is called "ModelE2," and was created by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which has been a leader in climate projections for a generation. ModelE2 contains something on the order of 500,000 lines of code, and is run on a supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation in Greenbelt, Maryland.

A Global Research Project
GISS produced the results shown here in 2012, as part of its contribution to an international climate-science research initiative called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase Five. Let's just call it "Phase-5."
Phase-5 is designed both to see how well models replicate known climate history and to make projections about where the world’s temperature is headed. Initial results from Phase-5 were used in the 2013 scientific tome published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

There are more than 30 different kinds of experiments included in Phase-5 research. These tests address questions like, what would happen to the Earth’s temperature if atmospheric carbon dioxide suddenly quadrupled? Or, what would the world’s climate be like through 2300 if we keep burning fossil fuels at the current rate?

Phase-5 calls for a suite of "historical" experiments. Research groups were asked to see how well they could reproduce what's known about the climate from 1850-2005. They were also asked to estimate how the various climate factors—or "forcings"—contribute to those temperatures. That's why this graphic stops in 2005, even though the GISS observed temperature data is up-to-date. The years 2005-2012 were not a part of the Phase-5 "historical" experiment.

A Word About Temperatures
Climate scientists tend not to report climate results in whole temperatures. Instead, they talk about how the annual temperature departs from an average, or baseline. They call these departures "anomalies." They do this because temperature anomalies are more consistent in an area than absolute temperatures are. For example, the absolute temperature atop the Empire State Building may be different by several degrees than the absolute temperature at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. But the differences from their own averages are likely to be about the same. It means that scientists can get a better idea about temperature with fewer monitoring stations. That’s particularly useful in places where measurement is very difficult (ie, deserts).

The simulation results are aligned to the observations using the 1880-1910 average. What's most important about these temperatures are the trends—the shape and trajectory of the line, and not any single year’s temperature.

What the Lines Show
The black "observed" line is the GISS global land and ocean temperature record, which can be found here. It starts in 1880.

The colored temperature lines are the modeled estimates that each climate factor contributes to the overall temperature. Each factor was simulated five times, with different initial conditions; each slide here shows the average of five runs. GISS researchers laid out their historical simulations in detail last year in this article. The modeled years 1850-1879 from the Phase-5 "historical" experiment are not shown because the observed data begins in 1880.

Confidence Ranges
Researchers do not expect their models to reproduce weather events or El Niño phases exactly when they happened in real life. They do expect the models to capture how the whole system behaves over long periods of time. For example, in 1998 there was a powerful El Niño, when the equatorial Pacific Ocean warms ( we're in another one of that scale now). A simulation wouldn't necessarily reproduce an El Niño in 1998, but it should produce a realistic number of them over the course of many years.

The temperature lines represent the average of the model’s estimates. The uncertainty bands illustrate the outer range of reasonable estimates.

In short, the temperature lines in the modeled results might not line up exactly with observations. For any year, 95% of the simulations with that forcing will lie inside the band.

Data
The raw observational and model data can be downloaded here:
Observed land-ocean temperature
Responses to climate forcings
850 year Preindustrial control experiment​

 

[Tyger]

The following is what precedes mass migration of populations....

December 18, 2015
Scarred Riverbeds and Dead Pistachio Trees in a Parched Iran
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/w...0151219&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=54852892&_r=1

TEXT: "POUZE KHOON, Iran — The early-morning sun meagerly brightened the gloom of this sad township, a collection of empty, crumbling houses along a highway through the dusty desert landscape in southeastern Iran. Until a decade or so ago, Amin Shoul would come here every year to help his father harvest pistachios, the nuts that are as much a symbol of Iran as caviar. Now, with the last reserves of groundwater tapped out, the family’s grove and the seemingly endless fields beyond it are filled with dead trees, their bone-colored branches a deathly contrast to the turquoise sky.

"Mr. Shoul, 32, a journalist, said he and his family had moved away years ago, leaving the house to squatters, unemployed laborers living off meager government stipends — and even they had started to leave. “I don’t see how we can ever return to the past,” he remarked, matter-of-factly. As Iran emerges from isolation after signing a nuclear agreement with the West, attention has focused on its business relations, particularly in the oil and airline industries. But Iran needs expertise in a number of areas, including the environment. Most pressing in that regard is its impending water crisis.

"Iran is in the grip of a seven-year drought that shows no sign of breaking and that, many experts believe, may be the new normal. Even a return to past rainfall levels might not be enough to head off a nationwide water crisis, since the country has already consumed 70 percent of its groundwater supplies over the past 50 years.

"Always arid, Iran is facing desertification as lakes and rivers dry up and once-fertile plains become barren. According to the United Nations, Iran is home to four of the 10 most polluted cities in the world, with dust and desertification among the leading causes.

"In Zanjan, northwest of Tehran, the historic Mir Baha-eddin Bridge crosses a riverbed of sand, stones and weeds. In Gomishan, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, the fishermen who once built houses on poles surrounded by freshwater now have to drive for miles to reach the receding shoreline. In Urmia, close to the Turkish border, residents have held protests to demand that the government return water to a once-huge lake that is now the source only of dust storms.

"More than 15 percent of the approximately 150,000 acres of pistachio trees in the main producing area in Kerman Province have died in the last decade or so. [See Link for Maps] A nationwide network of dams, often heralded by state television as a sign of progress and water management, is adding to water shortages in many places while helping deplete groundwater. In Isfahan, the once-iconic Zayanderud River is now a dusty scar the size of the Seine snaking through the city, because officials were forced to divert its water to the desert city of Yazd.

"In Tehran, officials barely managed to keep the water running this summer as reservoirs shrank to dangerously low levels. Subsidies for water and electricity encourage overconsumption in urban areas. Isa Kalantari, a former minister of agriculture, warns that more than half of Iran’s provinces could become uninhabitable within 15 years, displacing millions of people.

"The changing landscape is all too visible in Kerman Province. In a not-so-distant past, the area was a beltway of green stretching for hundreds of square miles, using groundwater to produce grain and pistachios. Now, the sun bakes treeless plains that are increasingly giving way to deserts. During storms, the dead trees lose their branches, turning them into stumps, while the dust swirls about in ever-growing quantities.

"In the dead pistachio grove, a rare rainstorm recently left white lines in the red soil. “Salt and other things,” Mr. Shoul said — residue from the contaminated water brought up by wells that sucked the last remaining groundwater years ago. He said he had kidney stones, as do many others in the region: a result, he said, of their drinking water from the taps. “The irony,” he said, “is that I have to drink even more water to reduce the pain.”

"Just over 50 miles north, in the city of Sirjan, decisions long postponed have begun to impose themselves on local officials, forcing them to make difficult choices in allocating scarce water supplies. Wedged between two newly built neighborhoods of five-story apartment buildings, a convoy of water trucks waited in line to fill their 5,000-gallon tanks. Under a deal with the local water management company, up to 400 of these trucks a day draw water from the city’s main well and head to the Golgohar iron mine, the largest such mine in the Middle East. It employs over 7,000 people, many of them from Sirjan, and a water shortage has compounded an already difficult situation brought on by collapsing iron ore prices. “It is internationally unprecedented to carry water with tankers, but we have no other way,” Naser Taghizadeh, chief executive of the Golgohar Iron Ore Company, told the local Negarestan news outlet. “If water is not taken to the complex, projects are stopped, and many people will lose their jobs.”

"Residents have objected and even staged a sit-in, but the tankers keep coming for the water, kicking up clouds of fine dust as they drive off. The drivers, often from the city, say they are scorned by their neighbors. “We need to feed our families too,” one of them, Saaed Salimizadeh, said. “When the water runs out, it will run out for all of us. We have to choose between jobs and drinking water.”

"Sirjan is by no means alone in its water shortages. In surrounding Kerman Province, 1,455 of 2,064 village reservoirs have dropped below levels needed to sustain the population, according to the local water management agency. The semiofficial Mehr news agency reported in July, citing local statistics, that 541 villages were dependent on tanker deliveries for the water. It is not just water levels that are declining. “The quality of the water has decreased dramatically, as have the levels of the underground water,” Akbar Mahmoud Abadi, a deputy at the local department of the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad in Sirjan, said in a written reply to questions. “The condition is very worrisome.”

"As in drought-stricken California, agriculture accounts for about 90 percent of water consumption in Iran. And here, matters are not helped by the prevalence of crude, centuries-old irrigation methods and other wasteful practices.

"Where there are no longer rivers and lakes to be tapped, desperate farmers and municipalities are turning to dwindling groundwater supplies. Drillers report that they are increasingly coming up dry, even at depths of more than 600 feet. When they do find water, they say, it is often polluted with heavy metals and arsenic, released as the drill bits break through sediment.

"Kerman Province remains one of the largest producers of pistachios in the world, but its irrigation methods are frequently outdated. In one field, a farmer, Ismael Alizadeh, opened an eight-inch water pipe during the middle of the day, under the burning sun, flooding a field of pistachio trees. “We have always done it like this,” he said with a shrug. Soheil Sharif, a major producer in the area, said other farmers had ridiculed him when he installed a $600,000 drip irrigation system in his 90-acre pistachio grove a few years ago. But now his farm is green, while others around it have dried up. He blamed the government for keeping energy and water prices low, saying that he paid only $270 a month for his electricity bill, covering his huge pump and 20 employees. “It’s ridiculous,” he said. “And while we have no water, its price is also dirt cheap.”

"His investment has paid off, Mr. Sharif, 44, acknowledged. “I have bought myself another 15 years,” he said as he walked among freshly picked pistachio trees. That is just enough to last to his retirement. “After that,” he said, “this place, like everything else here, is done for.” "
​

 

[Tyger]

December 17, 2015
What Just Happened in Solar Is a Bigger Deal Than Oil Exports
LINK: What Just Happened in Solar Is a Bigger Deal Than Oil Exports

TEXT: "The clean-energy boom is about to be transformed. In a surprise move, U.S. lawmakers agreed to extend tax credits for solar and wind for another five years. This will give an unprecedented boost to the industry and change the course of deployment in the U.S.

"The extension will add an extra 20 gigawatts of solar power—more than every panel ever installed in the U.S. prior to 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The U.S. was already one of the world's biggest clean-energy investors. This deal is like adding another America of solar power into the mix.

"The wind credit will contribute another 19 gigawatts over five years. Combined, the extensions will spur more than $73 billion of investment and supply enough electricity to power 8 million U.S. homes, according to BNEF. "This is massive," said Ethan Zindler, head of U.S. policy analysis at BNEF. In the short term, the deal will speed up the shift from fossil fuels more than the global climate deal struck this month in Paris and more than Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan that regulates coal plants, Zindler said.

Data Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
"This is exactly the sort of bridge the industry needed. The costs of installing wind and solar power have dropped precipitously—by more than 90 percent since the original tax credits took effect—but in most places coal and natural gas are still cheaper than unsubsidized renewables. By the time the new tax credit expires, solar and wind will be the cheapest forms of new electricity in many states across the U.S.

"The tax credits, valued at about $25 billion over five years, will drive $38 billion of investment in solar and $35 billion in wind through 2021, according to BNEF. The scale of the new projects will help push costs down further and will stimulate new investment that lasts beyond the extension of the credits.

Data Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
"Few people in the industry expected a five-year extension. Stocks soared. SolarCity, the biggest rooftop installer, surged 34 percent yesterday. SunEdison, the largest renewable-energy developer, climbed 25 percent, and panelmaker SunPower increased 14 percent.

"Congress is expected to vote by the end of this week on the tax credits as part of a broader budget deal that also lifts the 40-year-old ban on U.S. oil exports. Oil producers have lobbied for years to lift the ban, but it isn't likely to significantly affect either consumption of oil or deployment of renewables. Leaders from both parties reached an agreement on the bill late Tuesday.

"The 30 percent solar tax credit was set to expire next year and will now extend through 2019 before tapering to 10 percent in 2022. The wind credit had expired at the end of 2014, and the extension will be retroactively applied from the start of 2015 through 2019, declining in value each year.

"Wind power has had an especially tumultuous relationship with U.S. lawmakers, who have kept the industry's credits alive through a disruptive ping-pong game of short-term extensions every year or two. "You open manufacturing plants and then you close them. And then you open them and you close them," BNEF's Zindler said. "It's economically inefficient. This will give them a good five-year line of sight on what the market will look like, and that's really important."

Watch Next: How the Energy Market Could Shift in 2016

TEXT: "Published on Nov 12, 2015: Coal, nuclear, natural gas, renewables, and oil are all going head-to-head for dominance of the energy market - will we see a shift in the balance of power next year? Bloomberg looks at energy trends to watch in 2016."​

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Here's the latest information on the weather in 2015:

2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say - CNN.com

 

[Tyger]

Fascinating research regarding human adaptation to hydrogen sulfide from past CO2 rises....

A Theory of Earth's mass Extinctions: TEDTalk
Peter Ward: A theory of Earth's mass extinctions | TED Talk | TED.com

TEXT: "Asteroid strikes get all the coverage, but "Medea Hypothesis" author Peter Ward argues that most of Earth's mass extinctions were caused by lowly bacteria. The culprit, a poison called hydrogen sulfide, may have an interesting application in medicine."

 

[Tyger]

Is This Our Final Century? TEDTalk
Martin Rees: Is this our final century? | TED Talk | TED.com

TEXT: "Speaking as both an astronomer and "a concerned member of the human race," Sir Martin Rees examines our planet and its future from a cosmic perspective. He urges action to prevent dark consequences from our scientific and technological development."

 

[Tyger]

Seas Are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries By JUSTIN GILLIS FEB. 22, 2016
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/s...0160223&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=54852892&_r=0

TEXT: "The worsening of tidal flooding in American coastal communities is largely a consequence of greenhouse gases from human activity, and the problem will grow far worse in coming decades, scientists reported Monday. Those emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, are causing the ocean to rise at the fastest rate since at least the founding of ancient Rome, the scientists said. They added that in the absence of human emissions, the ocean surface would be rising less rapidly and might even be falling.

"The increasingly routine tidal flooding is making life miserable in places like Miami Beach; Charleston, S.C.; and Norfolk, Va., even on sunny days. Though these types of floods often produce only a foot or two of standing saltwater, they are straining life in many towns by killing lawns and trees, blocking neighborhood streets and clogging storm drains, polluting supplies of freshwater and sometimes stranding entire island communities for hours by overtopping the roads that tie them to the mainland. Such events are just an early harbinger of the coming damage, the new research suggests. “I think we need a new way to think about most coastal flooding,” said Benjamin H. Strauss, the primary author of one of two related studies released on Monday. “It’s not the tide. It’s not the wind. It’s us. That’s true for most of the coastal floods we now experience.”

"In the second study, scientists reconstructed the level of the sea over time and confirmed that it is most likely rising faster than at any point in 28 centuries, with the rate of increase growing sharply over the past century — largely, they found, because of the warming that scientists have said is almost certainly caused by human emissions. They also confirmed previous forecasts that if emissions were to continue at a high rate over the next few decades, the ocean could rise as much as three or four feet by 2100. Experts say the situation would then grow far worse in the 22nd century and beyond, likely requiring the abandonment of many coastal cities.

"The findings are yet another indication that the stable climate in which human civilization has flourished for thousands of years, with a largely predictable ocean permitting the growth of great coastal cities, is coming to an end. “I think we can definitely be confident that sea-level rise is going to continue to accelerate if there’s further warming, which inevitably there will be,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of ocean physics at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Germany, and co-author of one of the papers, published online Monday by an American journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"In a report issued to accompany that scientific paper, a climate research and communications organization in Princeton, N.J., Climate Central, used the new findings to calculate that roughly three-quarters of the tidal flood days now occurring in towns along the East Coast would not be happening in the absence of the rise in the sea level caused by human emissions. The lead author of that report, Dr. Strauss, said the same was likely true on a global scale, in any coastal community that has had an increase of saltwater flooding in recent decades.

"The rise in the sea level contributes only in a limited degree to the huge, disastrous storm surges accompanying hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy. Proportionally, it has a bigger effect on the nuisance floods that can accompany what are known as king tides. The change in frequency of those tides is striking. For instance, in the decade from 1955 to 1964 at Annapolis, Md., an instrument called a tide gauge measured 32 days of flooding; in the decade from 2005 to 2014, that jumped to 394 days.

"Flood days in Charleston jumped from 34 in the earlier decade to 219 in the more recent, and in Key West, Fla., the figure jumped from no flood days in the earlier decade to 32 in the more recent. The new research was led by Robert E. Kopp, an earth scientist at Rutgers University who has won respect from his colleagues by bringing elaborate statistical techniques to bear on longstanding problems, like understanding the history of the global sea level. Based on extensive geological evidence, scientists already knew that the sea level rose drastically at the end of the last ice age, by almost 400 feet, causing shorelines to retreat up to a hundred miles in places. They also knew that the sea level had basically stabilized, like the rest of the climate, over the past several thousand years, the period when human civilization arose. But there were small variations of climate and sea level over that period, and the new paper is the most exhaustive attempt yet to clarify them.

"The paper shows the ocean to be extremely sensitive to small fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature. The researchers found that when the average global temperature fell by a third of a degree Fahrenheit in the Middle Ages, for instance, the surface of the ocean dropped by about three inches in 400 years. When the climate warmed slightly, that trend reversed. “Physics tells us that sea-level change and temperature change should go hand-in-hand,” Dr. Kopp said. “This new geological record confirms it.”

"In the 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution took hold, the ocean began to rise briskly, climbing about eight inches since 1880. That sounds small, but it has caused extensive erosion worldwide, costing billions. Due largely to human emissions, global temperatures have jumped about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century. The sea is rising at what appears to be an accelerating pace, lately reaching a rate of about a foot per century.

"One of the authors of the new paper, Dr. Rahmstorf, had previously published estimates suggesting the sea could rise as much as five or six feet by 2100. But with the improved calculations from the new paper, his latest upper estimate is three to four feet. That means Dr. Rahmstorf’s forecast is now more consistent with calculations issued in 2013 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that periodically reviews and summarizes climate research. That body found that continued high emissions might produce a rise in the sea of 1.7 to 3.2 feet over the 21st century.

"In an interview, Dr. Rahmstorf said the rise would eventually reach five feet and far more — the only question was how long it would take. Scientists say the recent climate agreement negotiated in Paris is not remotely ambitious enough to forestall a significant melting of Greenland and Antarctica, though if fully implemented, it may slow the pace somewhat. “Ice simply melts faster when the temperatures get higher,” Dr. Rahmstorf said. “That’s just basic physics.” "​

 

[Tyger]

A good summary by Al Gore in a TED Talk given in February 2016. (Some excellent video - like of the Florida 'sunny day flooding'). The changes in the scope of the science and the pace of the reality 'on the ground' - both in global change and the technological changes coming to meet it - are exponential. Gore addresses the 'leap-frogging' of whole countries past the 'old energy grid' technologies, and much more.

Al Gore: The case for optimism on climate change
LINK: Al Gore: The case for optimism on climate change | TED Talk | TED.com
TEXT: "Al Gore has three questions about climate change and our future. First: Do we have to change? Each day, global-warming pollution traps as much heat energy as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs. This trapped heat is leading to stronger storms and more extreme floods, he says: "Every night on the TV news now is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation." Second question: Can we change? We've already started. So then, the big question: Will we change? In this challenging, inspiring talk, Gore says yes. "When any great moral challenge is ultimately resolved into a binary choice between what is right and what is wrong, the outcome is foreordained because of who we are as human beings," he says. "That is why we're going to win this." "

 

[Tyger]

7 NASA Selfies Show Just How Much Our Climate Is Changing
The Climate Reality Project | February 24, 2016
LINK: 7 NASA Selfies Show Just How Much Our Climate Is Changing
TEXT: "We’ve all heard the line that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” So to bring home what’s happening to our planet, we rounded up a series of pictures of Earth through the years from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). And while some pictures could use a thousand words to make their point, these images only need four: “Our climate is changing.” "

[See Link For Side-By-Side Comparison Pictures of Regions of the Earth Over Time]