Too Hot
- Even your news is hot ....
2024
December/November
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December / November
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October / September
The Gulf of Mexico is almost as warm as a bath, and itโs stirring up monster storms
Via The Verge
Read about Hurricanes Helene and Milton at GreenPolicy360 Climate News
Oh Florida, at the 'Frontlines of Climate Change'
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August
Heat Wave Hits Antarctica In Dead of Winter
- Not a misprint....
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July
Purple and Red on the Sea Temp Maps and Questions about Ocean Current Shifts
On July 21st, 2024
Global temperatures hit the highest levels in recorded history on Sunday, according to preliminary data from Europeโs top climate monitor โ another worrying sign of how human-caused climate change is pushing the planet into dangerous new territory.
The results from the Copernicus Climate Change Service show the planetโs average temperature on July 21 was 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit) โ breaking a record set only last year. The historic day comes on the heels of 13 straight months of unprecedented temperatures and the hottest year scientists have ever seen.
โWe are in truly uncharted territory,โ Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement. โAnd as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see records being broken in future months and years.โ
The scientific community cares... and is measuring and monitoring now...
The 1970s with Earth Science mission of NASA/NOAA and then decades of additional Ocean Science studies from around the world have now put together 'trendline' data in educational/scientific institutions across nations.
The changes/dynamics of sea/ocean temps, the climate/weather patterns, the inter/intra ocean currents, the increases/decreases of phytoplankton (and its voluminous photosynthesis and impacts of production of oxygen in the atmosphere), and food-chain life in the oceans, are now 'on the radar'. Multiple projects, public and private, public interest, NGOs, Google mapping and outreach via APIs and data sharing are underway. Generation Green is up and operating...
Notes:
Tiny Blue Green, 'the tiny little ones'
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/TinyBlueGreen
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Prochlorococcus_blue-green.tiny_ones.png
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Phytoplankton_-_the_foundation_of_the_oceanic_food_chain.jpg
We are a Watery World
Global Fishing Watch
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Hollywood Emigrants in Palm Springs (& Everyone Out There!) Are Too Hot
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June
June 22, 2024
First, in the vernacular... "It's been a helluva year, a helluva month, a scorching week"
And, in scientific language about the Arctic region....
"The observed Arctic amplification consists of two parts โ the part that is forced by external forcing and the part due to natural variability (which leads to the temporal anomaly in the degree of Arctic amplification)...."
Got it... And what happens in the North doesn't stay in the North
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As data scientists do the data visualizations...
The measuring & monitoring data shatters records
Billions of people just felt the deadly intensity of climate-fueled heat waves
Scorching heat across five continents set 1,400 records this week and showed how human-caused global warming has made catastrophic temperatures commonplace
The scorching heat across five continents in recent days, scientists say, provided yet more proof that human-caused global warming has so raised the baseline of normal temperatures that once-unthinkable catastrophes have become commonplace.
The suffering came despite predictions that a year-long surge of global heat might soon begin to wane. Instead, in the past seven days alone, billions felt heat with climate change-fueled intensity that broke more than 1,000 temperature records around the globe. Hundreds fell in the United States, where tens of millions of people across the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard have been sweltering amid one of the worst early-season heat waves in memory.
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In the Caribbean, It's Busting Out Hot ....
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A Crop of Steaming, Streaming Headlines in the USA
New England Shatters Records, As Heat Wave Threatens More Temperature This Weekend
A heat dome brings dangerously high temperatures
Relentless heat wave threatens eastern US with record temperatures through the weekend
The heat dome that's brought record-breaking temperatures to the Midwest and Northeast this week will continue to bake the eastern U.S. this weekend.
Searing heat wave drives record temperatures across eastern U.S.
Officials in several states have activated emergency operations and opened cooling centers in response to the lingering heat dome.
Near Record Heat Today, Another Sizzler Tomorrow
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Over 1,000 Muslim worshippers die of heat exhaustion during Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia: report / FOX News
Over 1,000 individuals participating in the annual Hajj pilgrimage in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca this year have perished due to heat-related afflictions, according to AFP reports
More than 1,000 Muslim pilgrims that traveled to Islam's holiest sites in Mecca during this year's hajj have died amid intolerable heat in Saudi Arabia, according to a report. The grim death toll from the trek
Extreme Heat Kills More Than 1,000 Pilgrims During Hajj Pilgrimage, Report Says โ As Heat Waves Scorch Northern Hemisphere
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UN chief says world is on โhighway to climate hellโ
- Planet endures "12 straight months of unprecedented heat"
Check the 'Earth Information Center', It's Hot & We're Monitoring How Hot
Visit the Earth Information Center | Earth.gov
- Global Warming Animatic Mapping | 1880-2022
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May
The Middle East, a font of fossil fuel oil/gas riches and consequences, burns...
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Florida, Acknowledged as the "Frontlines of Climate Change" in the U.S, Prepares in Its Own Way
Florida politics moves away from climate science reality
'Insaneโ Heat Has Been Scorching Miami
May 21, 2024
The hottest May on record for the city has experts worried about the summer โ and hurricane season โ to come
So it is telling โ and scary โ that they seem at a loss for words to describe the extreme heat that the city experienced over the past few days, a full month ahead of summer.
โItโs completely crazy, what just happened,โ Brian McNoldy, a senior research scientist at the University of Miami, said.
โItโs insane,โ said John Morales, a meteorologist for ClimaData, a private weather forecasting and consulting firm, and a hurricane specialist at WTVJ-TV, the NBC station in Miami. โNot only is it insane, it is also dangerous.โ
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April
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March
Climate models canโt explain 2023โs huge heat anomaly โ we could be in uncharted territory
Taking into account all known factors, the planet warmed 0.2 ยฐC more last year than climate scientists expected. More and better data are urgently needed.
by Gavin Schmidt
When I took over as the director of NASAโs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, I inherited a project that tracks temperature changes since 1880. Using this trove of data, Iโve made climate predictions at the start of every year since 2016. Itโs humbling, and a bit worrying, to admit that no year has confounded climate scientistsโ predictive capabilities more than 2023 has.
For the past nine months, mean land and sea surface temperatures have overshot previous records each month by up to 0.2 ยฐC โ a huge margin at the planetary scale. A general warming trend is expected because of rising greenhouse-gas emissions, but this sudden heat spike greatly exceeds predictions made by statistical climate models that rely on past observations. Many reasons for this discrepancy have been proposed but, as yet, no combination of them has been able to reconcile our theories with what has happened.
For a start, prevalent global climate conditions one year ago would have suggested that a spell of record-setting warmth was unlikely. Early last year, the tropical Pacific Ocean was coming out of a three-year period of La Niรฑa, a climate phenomenon associated with the relative cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Drawing on precedents when similar conditions prevailed at the beginning of a year, several climate scientists, including me, put the odds of 2023 turning out to be a record warm year at just one in five.
El Niรฑo โ the inverse of La Niรฑa โ causes the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean to warm up. This weather pattern set in only in the second half of the year, and the current spell is milder than similar events in 1997โ98 and 2015โ16.
However, starting last March, sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean began to shoot up. By June, the extent of sea ice around Antarctica was by far the lowest on record. Compared with the average ice cover between 1981 and 2010, a patch of sea ice roughly the size of Alaska was missing. The observed temperature anomaly has not only been much larger than expected, but also started showing up several months before the onset of El Niรฑo....
Better, more nimble data-collection systems are clearly needed. NASAโs PACE mission, which launched in February, is a step in the right direction. In a few months, the satellite should start providing a global assessment of the composition of various aerosol particles in the atmosphere. The data will be invaluable for reducing the substantial aerosol-related uncertainty in climate models. Hindcasts, informed by new data, could also provide insights into last yearโs climate events.
But it seems unlikely that aerosol effects provide anything close to a full answer. In general, the 2023 temperature anomaly has come out of the blue, revealing an unprecedented knowledge gap perhaps for the first time since about 40 years ago, when satellite data began offering modellers an unparalleled, real-time view of Earthโs climate system. If the anomaly does not stabilize by August โ a reasonable expectation based on previous El Niรฑo events โ then the world will be in uncharted territory. It could imply that a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates, much sooner than scientists had anticipated. It could also mean that statistical inferences based on past events are less reliable than we thought, adding more uncertainty to seasonal predictions of droughts and rainfall patterns.
Gavin Schmidt is director of NASAโs Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City
Read more at Nature:
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It's [really) getting hotter
This year (2023) has probably been the hottest in the past 10,000 years โ but everybody agrees that 2024 will be even hotter.
Thatโs because we are now entering El Niรฑo, the part of a seven-yearly oceanic cycle that heaps extra heat on whatever is already occurring.
El Niรฑo is not part of climate change, but in 2024 it will get piled on top of a lot of climate warming that has happened over the past seven years, so itโs certain to break all previous records. The question is by how much...
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A Story to Remember...
Encountering Steve Curry amid Death Valley's extreme heat
By ๏ปฟHayley Smith
Los Angeles Times
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- Measure-to-Manage
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Copernicus Climate Change Service
- Updates
Earth is on track for its hottest year on record, about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, according to Samantha Burgess, Copernicusโ deputy director.
And the 'Global Surface Air Temperatures' Data ... it is a <insert exclamation here> trendline
- "gobsmackingly bananas" ...
- * https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/heat-september-extreme-warmth-climate-rcna118401
- * https://x.com/hausfath/status/1709985570624311557?s=61&t=14LnFHA-cgLSdk-DhRp7cw
- "the largest monthly climate anomaly ever observed"
- * https://x.com/eliotjacobson/status/1709888031912804739?s=61&t=14LnFHA-cgLSdk-DhRp7cw
- * https://x.com/gergyl/status/1709805968526287224?s=61&t=14LnFHA-cgLSdk-DhRp7cw
- * https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/what-we-do/environmental-services/copernicus-climate-change-service
Hottest Summer on Record
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hottest-summer-on-record-2023-un-says-climate-change-global-warming-data/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/09/08/climate-change-temperatures-population-summer/
United Nations โ "Earth just had its hottest three months on record," the United Nations weather agency said on Sept. 6.
"The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting," warned U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement coinciding with the release of the latest data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) by the World Meteorological Organization.
Too Hot in (and Around) the Mediterranean Sea
- Mediterranean Sea warming to 'unprecedented' levels amid global heat wave
The waters of the Mediterranean Sea have spiked to a record-setting 84 degrees... a disturbing and growing trend.
Climate change has led to higher air temperatures in the Mediterranean, which raises water surface temperatures and evaporation... water from the Atlantic isn't getting into the Mediterranean as much as in the past, river flows are on the decline and the sea's waters are becoming hotter and saltier as a result.
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Too, too hot in North America...
Off the West Coast
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Off the East Coast and in the Caribbean...
Coral Bleaching due to heat stress
- Off-shore North America
- August 2023 / NOAA
Red shading (Alert Level 1) means "significant bleaching likely".
Dark red shading (Alert Level 2) means "severe bleaching and significant mortality likely."
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Too, too hot in South America...
South America is living one of the extreme events the world has ever seen.
"Unbelievable temperatures up to 38.9C in the Chilean Andine areas in mid winter! Much more than what Southern Europe just had in mid summer at the same elevation: This event is rewriting all climatic books."
โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ
The Heat Data Over the Ions:
- Scientists Look Back and Study the Geologic Record
The last glacial episode lasted nearly 100,000 years. There is no evidence that long-term global temperatures reached the preindustrial baseline anytime during that period.
If we look even farther back, to the previous interglacial period, which peaked around 125,000 years ago, we do find evidence of warmer temperatures. The evidence suggests the long-term average temperature was probably no more than 1.5 C (2.7 F)above preindustrial levels โ not much more than the current global warming level.
Now what?
Without rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth is currently on course to reach temperatures of roughly 3 C (5.4 F) above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, and possibly quite a bit higher.
At that point, we would need to look back millions of years to find a climate state with temperatures as hot. That would take us back to the previous geologic epoch, the Pliocene, when the Earthโs climate was a distant relative of the one that sustained the rise of agriculture and civilization.''
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"There is a very scientific word for this..."
- "It's called summer" -- Sen. Tommy Tuberville
Senator Tuberville (R-Ala.) and other politicos in the climate change denying camp have again chosen to wave a flag of disinformation. As the news of record-breaking heat is being measured/monitored and reported by scientists around the world, some in the sway of politics are blocking effective action to deal with the threat to local, national and global security. In other words, we'd say to Senator Tommy whose prior career was football coach in the southern state of Alabama, get a better game plan, the world isn't 'single-wing' any more.
Snapshot after snapshot of the state-of-play: Make no mistake, humans have pushed the planet into uncharted territory. Devastating heat waves have plagued the U.S., Europe and Asia in recent weeks. The extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica is at an all-time low. Sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic are at a record high. In the Florida Keys, hot tub-level marine temperatures have triggered widespread coral bleaching, and scientists have scrambled in recent days to rescue hundreds of corals before they perish....
And in the US, in Washington DC: On Capitol Hill, the GOP is advancing an appropriations bill that would gut funding for federal environmental agencies, mandate additional oil and gas lease sales both onshore and offshore, torpedo protections for wild animals, and rescind more than $9 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Bidenโs signature climate law that Democrats passed last year.
Right-wing groups recently crafted a 920-page โbattle planโ โ dubbed Project 2025 โ to guide a future Republican administration in dismantling environmental regulations and stymying federal climate action...
Democrats said the historic clean energy investments they passed last year are already making an impact, not only in reducing emissions but also in changing minds in red states with new green energy jobs and the wave of manufacturing.
โThereโs plenty of no-nothingism in this town now,โ Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) said. โItโs perfectly acceptable in certain circles to ignore the reality of the world as it is, and I just think thatโs really dangerous.โ
โWeโre a country thatโs flourished because for a long time, weโve believed in science and weโve followed facts,โ Heinrich continued. โEverybodyโs entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.โ
Stats - Green Research & Science
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Fox News/Entertainment invokes an Institute called 'Heartland'
Fox editors 'cherry-pick' an op/ed piece that fits their denial narrative -- " Heat waves happen every year, but this isnโt evidence that Americans are facing a global warming crisis. "
It's not climate change... Extreme weather and heat waves are not, per Fox, signs of human-induced temperature rise and climate change
The Headline: It's not climate change that's causing heat waves this summer but no one wants to explain why
The Fox opinion-editorial piece featured today (last week of July 2023) makes a number of claims, e.g.,
- Fox-Heartland - Although certain parts of the U.S. have undoubtedly experienced strong heat waves this summer, thereโs no reason to believe these weather events are evidence that the world is hurtling toward a climate change catastrophe. In fact, the best available evidence suggests that heat waves recorded a century ago were more problematic than anything weโre seeing today. ...
- Although itโs true that some parts of the U.S. have seen the number of hotter-than-usual days increase over the past 70 years โ including in California and the New York metropolitan area, both of which happen to be areas where a large number of media outlets are located โ most weather stations have shown no meaningful changes or even declines.
- When many media outlets and left-wing politicians talk about climate change data, they almost always selectively choose a range that offers an incomplete picture of the larger available dataset. This makes it appear as though todayโs temperatures are "historic" when they are actually well within normal historical ranges. ...
- Heat waves happen every year, but this isnโt evidence that Americans are facing a global warming crisis. When heat-wave data are put into their proper historical context, itโs clear that everything humans are experiencing today has been witnessed in the past.
- The ugly truth behind climate alarmism is that much of it is driven by a radical ideological agenda that is seeking to transform the global economy and American society, not by science. The best way to fight back against it is to use cold, hard facts. And those facts plainly show that there is no reason to panic about our ever-changing climate.
So there you have it. Fox has ferreted out the "ugly truth" as explained by a member of the Heartland Institute. Let's take the Fox-Heartland Institute point of view (without examining who the deep-pocket funders of the Heartland Institute are and their motives), and let's look closer...
For example, there is this (rather long) "Community Comment" from July 27 in response to Fox/Heartland's main claims:
1. The main โevidenceโ that these Heartland folks are using to nullify climate change come from cherry picked local US data, totally out of context compared to WORLD data. Their supposition that the EPA and NOAA are conceding that thereโs no real crisis is not the impression you get when you go to their actual websites:
Climate Change Indicators: Heat Waves | US EPA
Heat waves are occurring more often than they used to in major cities across the United States. Their frequency has increased steadily, from an average of two heat waves per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s and 2020s.
In recent years, the average heat wave in major U.S. urban areas has been about four days long. This is about a day longer than the average heat wave in the 1960s.
The average heat wave season across the 50 cities in this indicator is about 49 days longer now than it was in the 1960s (see Figure 1). Heat waves have become more intense over time. During the 1960s, the average heat wave across the 50 cities in Figures 1 and 2 was 2.0ยฐF above the local 85th percentile threshold. During the 2020s, the average heat wave has been 2.3ยฐF above the local threshold (see Figure 1).
Of the 50 metropolitan areas in this indicator, 46 experienced a statistically significant increase in heat wave frequency between the 1960s and 2020s. Heat wave duration has increased significantly in 29 of these locations, the length of the heat wave season in 44, and intensity in 17.
Longer-term records show that heat waves in the 1930s remain the most severe in recorded U.S. history (see Figure 3). The spike in Figure 3 reflects extreme, persistent heat waves in the Great Plains region during a period known as the โDust Bowl.โ Poor land use practices and many years of intense drought contributed to these heat waves by depleting soil moisture and reducing the moderating effects of evaporation.6
So yeah, while the Dust Bowl was an extreme event, the EPA is NOT assuming its isolated example refutes present world climate change. And in fact:
2. The climate denier Dust Bowl argument falls apart when you realize that although temps were indeed extreme, this was a local US event, not reflected in simultaneous heat waves elsewhere in the world as is the case now.
3, Hereโs a Washington Post article from last year that explains this further:
Why the 1930s Dust Bowl made the Plains hotter than this week's heat wave - The Washington Post
Why the Dust Bowl doesnโt disprove climate change
โSince the event, the United States has warmed about a degree-and-a-half due to human-induced climate change โ but the Dust Bowl remains a favorite anecdote for some who deny climate science.
Steve Milloy, an outspoken opponent of climate scientists and a former member of President Donald Trumpโs Environmental Protection Agency transition team, frequently cites Dust Bowl-era observations in efforts to undermine recent climate warming.
โJuly 20, 2022 was hot in the US for sure. But not nearly as hot as July 20, 1934,โ he tweeted on Tuesday, the day that both Mangum, Okla., and Wichita Falls, Tex., hit 115 degrees.
Atmospheric scientists, including many PhD researchers who have published peer-reviewed studies, assert that comparing the events is like comparing apples to oranges.
โFor me, the main issue with the โ1930s were hotโ meme is that a global perspective shows that the very hot part of the planet was quite small,โ wrote Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M, in an email. He shared a plot of temperature anomalies during 1936, noting the greatest departure from average was localized only to the Plains and the Canadian Prairie.โ
More re: a Heartland Institute (CO2 Coalition and PragerU) point of view:
Via InsideClimateNews, July 2023: In 2017, the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change and the health impacts of smoking, sent 350,000 copies of its publication, โWhy Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,โ to teachers across the country. The campaign had mixed results, as some teachers used the materials to teach about the dangers of propaganda. This year, Heartland sent out copies of a new publication called โClimate at a Glance,โ which the institute claims โprovides the data to show the earth is not experiencing a climate crisis,โ to 8,000 teachers. Other groups, like the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit foundation that focuses on CO2โs benefits, and Prager University, a conservative advocacy and media organization, have also targeted children with materials questioning the existence or severity of the climate crisis.
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And let's add a GreenPolicy360 reply to the Fox-selected opinion piece by Heartland Institute:
The Fox-Heartland Institute piece focuses on the US, a select number of 1930s "dustbowl" years and ignores the conclusions (extensively documented by EPA, NOAA, and NASA and most all Earth Science academics) that climate change is a global, "whole earth" phenomena. Yet, as most all scientist in most all related scientific fields agree, the climate change/global warming record has to be studied "360" (as we at GreenPolicy put it). We are studying planet science.
The science, facts, temperatures, oceans, seas, land, atmosphere (especially the lower atmosphere, the troposphere) are now all being "measured and monitored" across national borders, with land- and sea-level instruments, and remotely with scanning devices from near-Earth orbit Earth Observation Science missions that began to be launched in the 1970s. The record is now longer, more extensive, and more complete, with data bases 'crunching' through vast libraries of dynamic (changing) data available.
What we say to Fox is -- to those who care to see and know... the facts are there to observe and report in an unbiased, competent way.
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Science_Research_from_Space
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Science_Vital_Signs
- https://greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Earth_Observing_System_-_fleet_of_satellites.png
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Right_Now
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South Florida and It's Surrounding Sea Waters Are Hot
- Off-shore, the Gulf of Mexico & Atlantic Gulf Stream Are 'Hurricane-Feeding Temp'
A Desperate Push to Save Floridaโs Coral: Get It Out of the Sea
Teams dedicated to ocean restoration are urgently moving samples to tanks on land as a marine heat wave devastates entire reefs -- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/climate/coral-reefs-heat-florida-ocean-temperatures.html
With climate change ravaging Floridaโs beloved reef, people whoโve devoted their careers to restoring coral in the sea are now racing to get it out of the water, to tanks on land. Theyโre pushing through feelings of grief and fear over the future to save what genetic material and young corals they can. But in the background, an existential question looms: How can they restore reefs if the ocean is getting too hot for coral to live there?
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- Ghost reefs: Floridaโs vibrant underwater cities are turning into relics
by: Jeff Berardelli
Posted: Jul 27, 2023
Jeff Berardelli is a climate specialist and the Chief Meteorologist at News Channel 8.
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) โ In the Florida Keys, this is the face of climate change.
Once colorful coral cities overflowing with marine life, transforming into ghost towns, or better stated, โGhost reefsโ seemingly overnight...
We are surprised by the pace. It is unprecedented what we have seen,โ said Scott Atwell the communications and outreach manager for The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
Atwell told WFLA Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist Tuesday: โWeโve never seen anything like this. Some are not even bleaching, they are going straight to dead.โ
โStraight to deadโ illustrates just how extreme the marine heatwave is and how quickly itโs evolving. When under stress, typically coral bleach first, expelling their symbiotic algae partners which give them their vibrant hues, and turn white. Then sometime later, if the heat persists, the coral can succumb and die.
(In) the Florida Keys, there are reports of rapid mortality. Coral is dropping like dominoes across much of the reef tract from Key Largo to Key West โ the third largest tract in the world and the only shallow water reef system in the U.S. mainland.
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Mariam Zachariah: Zacharia and the World Weather Attribution Science Explains the Heat
July 2023 saw extreme heatwaves in several parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including the Southwest of the US and Mexico, Southern Europe and China. Temperatures exceeded 50C on the 16th of July in Death Valley in the US as well as in Northwest China (CNN,2023). Records were also reached in many other weather stations in China and the all-China heat record was broken in Sanbao on the 16th of July. In Europe, the hottest ever day in Catalunya was recorded and highest-ever records of daily minimum temperature were broken in other parts of Spain. In the US, parts of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico tied their all time high, parts of Arizona, Cayman Islands, highest ever night time temperatures in Phoenix Arizona which also had its record for longest time without falling below 90F/32.2C.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution initiative collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the extreme July heat in these three regions.
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We are living through Earthโs hottest month on record, scientists say
Itโs not just a record-hot day or two, unprecedented heat waves or abnormally warm ocean waters: All indications are that this will be the hottest single month on Earth on record, and possibly in more than 100,000 years. Every day this month has set records for average global annual temperatures, and already, 17 days in July have been hotter than any others in more than 40 years of global observations, climate scientists said.
Not even three weeks into the month, scientistsโ declarations of an already assured monthly global record serve to punctuate what has been an onslaught of recent weather extremes. . . .
In line with what has been expected from past climate projections and IPCC reports these events are not rare anymore today. North America, Europe and China have experienced heatwaves increasingly frequently over the last years as a result of warming caused by human activities, hence the current heat waves are not rare in todayโs climate with an event like the currently expected approximately once every 15 years in the US/Mexico region, once every 10 years in Southern Europe, and once in 5 years for China.
Without human induced climate change these heat events would however have been extremely rare. In China it would have been about a 1 in 250 year event while maximum heat like in July 2023 would have been virtually impossible to occur in the US/Mexico region and Southern Europe if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels.
In all the regions a heatwave of the same likelihood as the one observed today would have been significantly cooler in a world without climate change. Similar to previous studies we found that the heatwaves defined above are 2.5ยฐC warmer in Southern Europe, 2ยฐC warmer in North America and about 1ยฐC in China in todayโs climate than they would have been if it was not for human-induced climate change. Unless the world rapidly stops burning fossil fuels, these events will become even more common and the world will experience heatwaves that are even hotter and longer-lasting. A heatwave like the recent ones would occur every 2-5 years in a world that is 2ยฐC warmer than the preindustrial climate.
Full Report | Author(s) - M. Zachariah et alia
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"The heat index reached 152 degrees in the Middle East โ nearly at the limit for human survival"
Read the Comments following the Washington Post report on latest temperatures across the planet -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/18/extreme-heat-record-limits-human-survival/
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A Week of Hot Climate News from Around the World
Screenshots from the Second Week of July 2023
Headlines/graphics Compiled by Simon Evans of Carbon Brief
Visit a "week in extreme weather", the Thread at Twitter
30+ Posts of news publisher frontpages from around the world
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Hot, Hot
NCEP @NOAA has placed Earth's average temperature yesterday (July 3rd) as the hottest single day thus far measured by humans.
This is driven by the combination of El Niรฑo on top of global warming, and we may well see a few even warmer days over the next 6 weeks.
Global warming, by the digits
40 billion: Tonnes of planet-warming CO2 humans are emitting into the atmosphere every year, according to senior climate scientist Pieter Tans from the NOAAโs Global Monitoring Laboratory
Heat Records Broken Across Earth
Dangerous Extreme Heat Topples Records Around the World
โBeyond extremeโ ocean heat wave in North Atlantic is worst in 170 years
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Heating up? How are Earth's oceans doing?
Global oceans were warmer last month than any other May in records stretching back to the 19th century, the European Unionโs climate monitoring unit reported Wednesday (7 June).
Spain has experienced its hottest spring in over 60 years of recordkeeping, with average temperatures almost two degrees Celsius above average, the national weather agency reported Wednesday (7 June).
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Marta Schaaf / Amnesty International write of climate change effects:
- Climate, economic, social justice -- a 'just energy transition' with 'corporate accountability'
โThe effects of the climate crisis are increasingly evident. A severe heatwave is currently gripping large parts of Asia, including Thailand, Laos, Bangladesh, parts of China and swathes of India, with temperatures far exceeding 40หC. There is water rationing in Tunisia and a shortage in Spain, the forest fire season has already begun in France, and there are warnings that the harvest in Morocco and the wider Maghreb will be reduced by drought. A just energy transition away from fossil fuels has never been more urgent and we are not moving fast enough to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.โ -- Marta Schaaf, Director of Climate, Economic and Social Justice, and Corporate Accountability Programme, Amnesty International
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Siberian Extremis, No Way, Way
When climate change goes extreme
June 3, 2023 ... Heatwave in Siberia with reports of temperatures exceeding 38ยฐC (100.4ยฐF), breaking monthly and an all time heat record
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Global Sea Surface Temperatures are at record levels. The North Atlantic is a whole 1 degree F above record territory.
- 2022
- ๐ฅต
- ๐ฅต
California temperatures soar to new records, adding strain to power grid
Via Reuters
California Governor's Office of Emergency Services
'Heat Dome' & 'Rolling Blackouts'
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Where We'll End Up Living as the Planet Burns
By Gaia Vince
Adapted from Gaia Vinceโs new book NOMAD CENTURY: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World, published by Flatiron Books (August 2022)
While nations are trying to cut their carbon emissions and adapt to warmer climates, the elephant in the room is that for large parts of the globe, the local conditions are too extreme. There is no other way of adapting. To survive, people will need to relocate.
The next 50 years will see increased heat, combined with greater humidity, make huge swathes worldwide uninhabitable. Massive numbers will have to flee from the tropics, coasts, and former arable lands. You will either be one of them or they will give you housing. This migration has already begunโwe have all seen the streams of people fleeing drought-hit areas in Latin America, Africa, and Asia where farming and other rural livelihoods have become impossible.
Over the past decade, global migration has increased by two-thirds. The issue of dealing with the rapidly rising number of refugees will be more important as the earth heats.
We canโand we mustโprepare. A radical plan to ensure humanityโs survival in a hotter world involves building new large cities to the far north and abandoning vast areas of the unsustainable tropics. This involves adapting food, energy and infrastructure to the changing environment. As billions are forced from their homes, they will need new housing.
Cooperating like never before is our best chance of success: dissociating the political map and geography. It may sound absurd, but we must look at the world from a new perspective and create plans that are based on geography, ecology, and geology. In other words: identify the areas with the greatest freshwater supply, safe temperatures, solar energy sources, and plan for population growth, food, and energy production. The good news is, thereโs plenty of room on Earth...
More on Climate Migration @GreenPolicy360 -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Climate_Migration
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August 2022
Extreme Temperatures / China / 2022
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Another Weather Forecast
โThe results will be direโ: Extreme heat to impact a quarter of US by midcentury
Dire?
Report: Some 107 million Americans will experience heat index temperatures above 125 degrees F by 2053
""Hazardous Heat"
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True or Not: โExtreme heat beltโ will impact more than 100 million Americans
- โWe need to be prepared for the inevitable, that a quarter of the country will soon fall inside the Extreme Heat Belt with temperatures exceeding 125 degrees Fahrenheit and the results will be direโ
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Around the world, weโre witnessing the impacts of global heating: in the past week, airport runways have melted in the UK, wildfires have torched huge swathes of Europe, and more than 100 million Americans have sweltered in dangerously high temperatures. Already this year, prolonged heatwaves and drought in many of the worldโs breadbaskets have exacerbated a global food shortage that has raised the number of people living with food insecurity from 440 million to 1.6 billion.
There are many to blame for the climate crisis and its extreme weather impacts. Executives of fossil fuel companies bear the greatest responsibility. More than anything else, it has been their great deceit โ their burying of climate science, funding of climate denial, and spending of billions to kill climate policy โ that has prevented us from transitioning away from an economy powered by coal, oil and gas. Compromised politicians, including the entire Republican party and the Democratic coal baron Joe Manchin, deserve special condemnation, too.
In the cast of climate villains, however, another character rises to claim a special place on center stage: Wall Street.
On 12 December 2015, virtually every nation on earth adopted the Paris agreement. โToday, the American people can be proud โ because this historic agreement is a tribute to American leadership,โ enthused President Obama. But there were problems from the beginning. The most obvious was that the agreement was voluntary; it lacked a legally binding commitment to reduce emissions. Another major problem was that no one on Wall Street was paying attention.
Since the Paris Agreement, the six largest US banks โ Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs โ have provided $1.4tn in financing to the fossil fuel industry. Indeed, since that heralded day in the French capital, the worldโs four largest funders of fossil fuel expansion have all been US banks. So much for โAmerican leadershipโ.
Read more in The Guardian
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Environmental full-cost accounting
- Measuring Full Costs: Dealing with Damage to 'The Commons'
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August 2, 2022
BP sees biggest profit in 14 years
Oil/Gas Prices Soar
Energy giant sees underlying profits hit $8.45bn (ยฃ6.9bn) between April and June - more than triple the amount it made in same period last year
Short-term profit taking ..... long-term 'externality' costs adding up
Today (July 30), oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron reported historic profits from the last three months. Exxon made $17.9 billion (not a typo) last quarter, up 273% from the same time last year, while Chevron made $11.6 billion. Exxonโs rate of income was $2,245.62 every second of every day for the past 92 days; Chevron made $1,462.11 per second.
Together, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies are expected to announce $60 billion in profits for the past three months. They plan to spend much of the profit not on reinvesting in their businesses, but on stock buybacks, which drives up the price of the stock. (HCR)
โ
July 2022
'Oil/Gas Capital of the World'.... Say What Lone Star State?
Houston, Texas, is experiencing its hottest summer on record, with sizzling stretches of triple digit days and rolling blackouts caused by extreme power demand. Lena Arango, a local meteorologist at FOX26, wanted her viewers to understand why. โThe temperatures weโre experiencing today are five times more likely [because of] climate change,โ she said on a TV forecast earlier this month. โI thought that was pretty interesting.โ
โ
Nationally Integrated Heat Health Information System
Heat related illnesses and death are largely preventable with proper planning, education, and action. Heat.gov serves as a vital source of heat and health information for the nation to reduce the health, economic, and infrastructural impacts of extreme heat.
Heat.gov is the web portal for the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS).
How Hot? Lawyerly Hot
Heat Waves: Legal Adaptation to the Most Lethal Climate Disaster (So Far)
By Michael B. Gerrard
Michael B. Gerrard is Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice and Faculty Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. He formerly chaired the faculty of Columbia Universityโs Earth Institute, and the Section of Environment, Energy and Resources of the American Bar Association
(Conclusion-Excerpt)
State legislatures should expand the warranty of habitability to require landlords to provide tenants with protection against heat as well as cold. Low-income energy assistance programs should be fully funded and should cover both the purchase of air conditioners and the electricity to run them (as they now help pay for heating oil and gas). As is now the case with military family housing, public housing in all but the coolest areas should have air conditioning. Because this action could make the housing less affordable, the government will need to step up its funding to fill the need.
Building codes should encourage ventilation, awnings, shades, and other traditional methods to lower the heat.
Governments at all levels should buy only the most efficient air conditioners to help drive the market. The federal government should progressively tighten the efficiency standards for air conditioning to help drive the technology.
To lower the urban heat island effect and reduce energy demand, states and cities should require cool roofs, green roofs, or solar panels for new buildings and reconstructed roofs where the geometry of the architecture allows it. Incentives such as tax credits should be provided to help owners retrofit existing buildings. Paved surfaces should be minimized, and where they are necessary, created with light-colored and preferably porous pavement. Cities should plant large numbers of trees on public property, and maintain them well, ideally with community assistance. Cities should also require private developments to preserve as many trees as possible, and to have extensive landscaping and vegetation, both horizontal and vertical.
Social service agencies should encourage programs to check in on vulnerable people (especially the elderly and disabled living alone) during heat waves. Heat warnings and tips should be widely announced through broadcast and social media. All-night cooling centers should be established, and their locations well-publicized. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities should be frequently checked during heat waves.
Air conditioning should be provided in the hottest prisons, jails, and other detention facilities, and at least passive cooling in the rest. Where it is still hot, inmates should be given ample cool water and allowed to take frequent showers. Contracts with private facilities should require the same precautions. The size of the incarcerated population should also be reduced, but that is straying into other areas of law.
In the occupational setting, OSHA should establish formal binding standards for heat exposure and relief, not just guidelines, and it should conduct frequent inspections to ensure compliance. For outdoor workers, precautions similar to those adopted by the United States Armed Forces and California should be required.
If all of this is done, people and communities will be much better able to cope with the extreme temperatures that are in our future.
โ
LONDON (AP) โ Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered Tuesday (July 19), with a provisional reading of 39.1 degrees Celsius (102.4 degrees Fahrenheit) โ and the national weather forecaster predicted it would get hotter still.
UK: Extreme Heat Warning
Two months ago, France experienced its hottest May on record, with record highs in some cities. Last month, France was blistered again, by a spring heat wave that also affected Spain, Italy and other countries. Then, this month, Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe suffered during a spell of extreme heat.
Now temperatures across Europe are soaring yet again, at or near triple digits from Spain to the British Isles and spreading east. Wildfires stoked by the heat are burning in many countries, and much of the continent is in the throes of a lengthy drought.
And there are still two months of summer left.
Scientists say the persistent extreme heat already this year is in keeping with a trend. Heat waves in Europe, they say, are increasing in frequency and intensity at a faster rate than almost any other part of the planet, including the Western United States. (NYT/July 18)
Heat and humidity gets dangerous to health sooner than most people realise
"It's way too late I'm afraid to stop runaway climate change,i.e. well beyond 1.5C.
- You only have to look at the picture on energy use to realise that
The Times view on dangerous heatwaves: Climate Alarm
โ
EXTREME SUMMER: Summer in America is becoming hotter, longer and more dangerous
The process is โturning what for many Americans is a time of joy into stretches of extreme heat, dangerously polluted air, anxiety, and lost traditions.โ
Scientists say the recent spate of severe summers is a clear change from previous generations. The average summer temperature in the past five years has been 1.7 degrees (0.94 Celsius) warmer than it was from 1971 through 2000, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But some parts of the country have been much harder hit, with the West showing a 2.7 degrees (1.5 Celsius) increase.
Journal of Climate
- Sixfold Increase in Historical Northern Hemisphere Concurrent Large Heatwaves Driven by Warming and Changing Atmospheric Circulations
More global heat records are broken, from the Arctic to Japan
June heat waves set monthly and all-time high-temperature records in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Russian Arctic...
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June 2022
Texas Hot
- https://texasclimatenews.org/2022/06/22/extreme-summer-heat-could-rival-texas-record-setting-summer-of-2011/
- https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Forecasts-show-ERCOT-may-need-reserve-power-17260753.php
Around the World Hot
In a blistering hot June around the Northern Hemisphere, in which heat records have fallen on every continent, Japan is the latest to swelter. Temperatures shot above 104 degrees (40 Celsius) for the first time on record during the month, another clear sign of the sweeping effects of human-caused climate change. (WaPo, June 26)
Europe Sizzles
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"It's not going to be something you can escape."
How Extreme Heat Kills, Sickens, Strains and Ages Us
Researchers are drilling down into the ways life on a hotter planet will tax our bodies, and looking for protections that, unlike air-conditioning, donโt make the problem worse
June 14, 2022
- NASA
Hot Springtime for India
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Australia reaches global high temperatures
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Ocean warmth sets record high in 2021 due to greenhouse gas emissions
- Since the late 1980s, Earthโs oceans warmed at a rate eight times faster than the preceding decades
Global Report: Fifth Warmest Year on Record
- Last seven years hottest ever recorded globally
Gavin Schmidt, who heads NASAโs temperature team, said โthe long-term trend is very, very clear. And itโs because of us. And itโs not going to go away until we stop increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.โ
The past seven years have been the hottest in recorded history, new data shows
Global temperatures in 2021 were among the highest ever observed, with 25 countries setting new annual records, according to scientists from NASA, NOAA and Berkeley Earth
Berkeley Earth is a Berkeley, California-based independent 501 non-profit focused on land temperature data analysis for climate science. Berkeley Earth was founded in early 2010 with the goal of addressing the major concerns from outside the scientific community regarding global warming and the instrumental temperature record.
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December 2021
Kodiak, Alaska.
This is berserk. Kodiak, Alaska hit 65 degrees today, 20 DEGREES warmer than their previous record.
Not their average. Their record.
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November
Global temperature over the last 24,000 years find warming unprecedented:
- 1. GHG concentrations;
- 2. ice-sheet retreat;
- 3. warming rate unprecedented
The study, published in Nature 10 11 2021, had three main findings:
It verified that the main drivers of climate change since the last ice age are rising greenhouse gas concentrations and the retreat of the ice sheets.
It suggests a general warming trend over the last 10,000 years, settling a decade-long debate about whether this period trended warmer or cooler in the paleoclimatology community.
The magnitude and rate warming over the last 150 years far surpasses the magnitude and rate of changes over the last 24,000 years.
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Earth gets hotter, deadlier during decades of climate talks
October
September
The hottest summer most Americans have ever lived through
Via Yale Climate Connections
August
Mediterranean Style Heat Setting Records
Aug. 13, 2021
Sicily โ Before this week, the small Sicilian town of Floridia had a few claims to fame. The second wife of a Bourbon king was the townโs duchess. The snails that are a local delicacy are raised here. Its surrounding fields won it the greenest city in Italy prize in 2000. Its mayor is among Italyโs youngest.
But now Floridia has become known for something else, something far more ominous. It is perhaps the most blisteringly hot town in the recorded history of Europe, offering Italy and the entire Mediterranean a preview of a sweltering and potentially uninhabitable future brought on by the globeโs changing climate.
โFloridia is now the center of the world when it comes to the climate,โ said Mayor Marco Carianni... a day after a nearby monitoring station registered a temperature of 119.84 degrees...
NOAA declares July 2021 the hottest month on Earth since record-keeping began
(August 13) The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared July 2021 the worldโs hottest month in 142 years of records. โIn this case, first place is the worst place to be,โ NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement.
โThis new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe.โ
Heat Emergency Brings Record Temperature and Fire to Southern Europe
- Evacuations Spread as Fires Flare Up
Greece experiences its hottest day on record this week and wildfires leave much of Southern Europe struggling to cope
More history-making fires in California
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Power outages cripple parts of the Middle East amid record heat waves and rising unrest
A team of chemists at the American University in Beirut estimated this month that Lebanon's nearly 24-hour reliance on generators is poisoning the air eight times as fast as when Beirut was operating generators on average only several hours a day. ... The brutal heat is punishing...โThe heat is so bad that it hurts you. Itโs hard to even describe to someone who hasnโt experienced it,โ said Tahsin Mohamed, sitting in his home in the southern Iraqi town of Majer. He rolled up his long, black djellaba shirt to reveal a burn scar etched on his shin.โImagine,โ he said. โThe sun did that to me.โ
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Seven Big Warnings
The 'killer heat wave', the โheat domeโ signalled our new reality. Here are key issues we must address now โ or pay a big price later.
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July 14, 2021
Via Associated Press / By Seth Borenstein
The West is going through โthe trifecta of an epically dry year followed by incredible heat the last two months and now we have fires,โ said University of California Merced climate and fire scientist John Abatzoglou. โIt is a story of cascading impacts.โ
And one of climate change, the data shows.
RECORD HEAT
In the past 30 days, the country has set 585 all-time heat records, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of those, 349 are for daily high temperatures and 236 are the warmest overnight low temperatures, which are vital for people to recover from deadly heat waves.
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The Middle East is burning. This threat could turn it into scorched earth
Two recent heat waves in the Gulf are a sign of things to come as temperatures rise due to climate change
โBusiness-as-usual will lead to super and ultra-extreme heat waves in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region)โ
In the space of little more than a month, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates and other countries bordering the Gulf have suffered two blistering heat waves. In back-to-back doozies, temperatures pushed past 50 degrees centigrade (122 degrees fahrenheit), once early June and again in the first days of July. Bahrain experienced its hottest June in nearly a century.
The MENA region is destined to suffer lengthy bouts of temperatures exceeding 55-56 degrees celsius during this century. In urban environments, where an increasing share of the population lives, top temperatures could spike by another 3-4 degrees due to a phenomenon called โurban heat islands.โ
โThe warming is getting worse and getting faster.โ
Israel, like much of the Middle East, is seeing temperatures rising faster in the summer than in the winter.
Climate change may also strike a final, fatal blow to the many governments in the Arab world that are barely functioning...
North Africa Heat Wave:
Today 11 July was another scorching day with more all time record temperatures set
The Arctic Melts
Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in North America
- Highest minimum temperature ever recorded worldwide in July
Trouble in Alaska? Massive oil pipeline is threatened by thawing permafrost
In Californiaโs interior, thereโs no escape from the desperate heat: โWhy are we even here?โ
11 July 2021 was another historic day: Stovepipe Wells in the Death Valley area recorded a new world record of the highest daily average temperature on records with a staggering average temperature of 47.9C.
Death Valley temperatures just got more complicated
Rising temperatures: How to avoid heat-related illnesses and deaths - Harvard Health
From Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver, Canada, the heat during the end of June didn't just break records; it buried them
Surface temperatures in Siberia heat up to a mind-boggling 118 degrees
Warning Flashes for Europe: Climate Change Will Heat the Continent
During the heat wave of 2003, European cities cooked their people. It was the hottest August in at least half a millennium, temperatures in the high 30s squatted over much of the continent for weeks. The EU estimates that something like 80,000 people died. French President Jacques Chirac attended a somber burial service for 57 people whose bodies were never claimed.
Under any future warming scenario, a summer like 2003 will be disturbingly normal. According to EU research, at 1.5 degrees of warming, around one in every five people in the EU and U.K. will experience similar heat in any given year. At 3 degrees, that rises to more than half the population.
The heat is literally maddening. Italian researchers found a strong link between psychiatric emergencies and daily temperature. Suicides doubled in Moscow during a heat wave in 2010. In Madrid, incidents of domestic violence and women being murdered by their partners jump when the temperature goes over 34 degrees. Hot nights bring climate insomnia.
We arenโt helping ourselves. An increasing share of Europeans have made their homes in giant, heat-concentrating concrete crucibles. Cities are typically 5 to 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside. If little is done to reduce global emissions, Europeโs cities could warm 6 to 10 degrees on top of that. The south will see the greatest increases. In Rome and other Mediterranean cities, the heat will become so intense that traditional architectural systems relying on natural ventilation will no longer function.
Itโs bad timing for an experiment in heat endurance. Not only are millions migrating from rural areas into cement cities; Europe is also getting older and more vulnerable. Better medicine and falling birth rates mean the number of Europeans older than 65 is expected to rise by around 40 million by 2050, even as the overall population slowly declines.
The elderly are at high risk of dying from heat stress and heatstroke. Old bodies also get worn down by heat, making them more susceptible to asthma or cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Hot days see spikes in hospitalizations for age-related complaints. Aging populations are also more likely to be diabetic; heat causes blood vessels to dilate, absorbing insulin and dragging down blood sugar.
The world has barely warmed by more than 1 degree. But in 2010, the heat killed 54,000 in Russia and Central Europe. Eight years later, during a brutal heat wave that climate change made five times more likely, 104,000 died โ the most in any region of the world that year. Germany alone recorded around two-thirds of the heat-related deaths of India, the Lancet medical journal reported, despite having a population 16 times smaller.
At these lower temperature increases, deaths are concentrated in Southern and Central Europe. If warming reaches 3 degrees, 200 million Europeans, not only in the south, but many in the north and the U.K., will live at high risk of heat stress. Without rapid changes to the built environment, the EU says extreme heat could kill 95,000 Europeans every year โ more than 30 times the current average rate.
Of course, there are things we can do. The immediate answer is air conditioning. But that brings its own problems. Energy use for cooling buildings in the Mediterranean โ already a big source of carbon emissions โ will double by 2035. In Southern Europe a new cooling poverty gap is already opening up between those who can afford to beat the heat and those who canโt.
Europe is destined to become a hot continent. Even though Northern Europeans face less steep temperature increases, they need to start thinking like southerners. Buildings designed to trap heat in winter do the same in summer. It costs four times as much to build passive cooling into an existing home than it does to fit it to a new build, according to the U.K.โs Committee on Climate Change. To cope, the streets of London, Copenhagen and Brussels will need to acquire the romantic, eyelidded feel that heavy wooden shutters bring to Rome and Marseille or the utilitarian look of roller blinds in Athens, Seville or Naples...
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America in 2090: The Impact of Extreme Heat, in Maps
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The "Wet Bulb"
What's the hottest temperature the human body can endure?
Via Live Science
The 'Wet Bulb' temperature takes into account both heat and humidity
With climate change causing temperatures to rise across the globe, extreme heat is becoming more and more of a health threat. The human body is resilient, but it can only handle so much. So what is the highest temperature people can endure?
The answer is straightforward: a wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius), according to a 2020 study in the journal Science Advances. Wet-bulb temperature is not the same as the air temperature you might see reported by your local forecaster...
~
"Wet bulb" temperature is the temperature plus relative humidity at which water stops evaporating off a "wet" thermometer bulb. If air is sufficiently humid (saturated w/ water vapor), evaporation will no longer cool the bulb, and it gets continuously hotter.
This matters for humans, because our bodies regulate heat via evaporation: sweat glands carry heat from body to the skin surface, where it evaporates, dissipating heat into the air. As long as you stay hydrated (and take salts! salt is important), you can stay cool at high temps.
However, a key interaction here is evaporation, which is controlled in part by a) amount of energy in the sweat (how much heat it is carrying) and b) how much moisture is already in the air.
Wet bulb (is) about the absorptive capacity of air. A wet bulb temperature in the mid-80s F can, and does, kill humans.
While body temp is ~97-99 F, we maintain temp by sweating. If sweat won't evaporate, our body temp rises, continuously. And when body temp hits ~108, we're dead.
For a vulnerable person in wet bulb temp, this takes much less than an hour.
(GreenPolicy360: Weather forecasters should begin to announce a Wet Bulb / WB temperature and/or a Human Heat Index as a matter of public service)
So, what does this have to do with you? Until last ~ 40 years, wet bulb temperatures were *extremely rare* on this planet.
But that's over, now. We're already seeing multiple wet bulb temperatures per year in multiple locations. By mid-century, parts of the Southeastern U.S will see *weeks* of wet bulbs *every year.*
This is quite bad. Thousands of people will die on each of those days.
Via the Washinton Post
Wet-bulb temperature is important, climate experts say. So what is it?
At a certain threshold of heat and humidity, โitโs no longer possible to be able to sweat fast enough to prevent overheating.โ
Scientists have found that Mexico and Central America, the Persian Gulf, India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia are all careening toward this threshold before the end of the century.
Hotter than the human body can handle: Pakistan city broils in worldโs highest temperatures
Pakistan along the Indus Valley considered one of the places most vulnerable to climate change in the world, there are fears that Jacobabad's temperatures may increase further, or other cities may join the club.
โThe Indus Valley is arguably close to being the number one spot worldwide,โ says Tom Matthews, a lecturer in climate science at Loughborough University. โWhen you look at some of the things to worry about, from water security to extreme heat, it's really the epicentre.โ
Mr. Matthews and colleagues last year analysed global weather station data and found that Jacobabad and Ras al Khaimah, north east of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, have both temporarily crossed the deadly threshold. The milestone had been surpassed decades ahead of predictions from climate change models.
The researchers examined what are called wet bulb temperatures. These are taken from a thermometer covered in a water-soaked cloth so they take into account both heat and humidity.
Wet bulb thermometer readings are significantly lower than the more familiar dry bulb readings, which do not take humidity into account. Researchers say that at a wet bulb reading of 35C, the body can no longer cool itself by sweating and such a temperature can be fatal in a few hours, even to the fittest people.
โIt approximates how warm it feels to humans because we cool via sweating,โ Mr Matthews says. โWe rely on that exclusively. When you use that measure, the wet bulb temperature, the two regions that stand out on earth are the shores of the Gulf and the Indus Valley in Pakistan. They are truly exceptional...โ
โPeople are aware that the heat is getting up and up, but they are poor people. They can't go anywhere, they can't leave their places,โ said Zahid Hussain, a market trader. โI myself have been thinking about shifting, but have never got around to it.โ
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Dangerous humid heat extremes occurring decades before expected
Oppressively hot summer days often evoke the expression, โitโs not the heat, itโs the humidity.โ That sticky, tropical-like air combined with high temperatures is more than unpleasant โ it makes extreme heat a greater health risk.
Climate models project that combinations of heat and humidity could reach deadly thresholds for anyone spending several hours outdoors by the end of the 21st century. However, new research says these extremes are already happening โ decades before anticipated โ due to global warming to date.
The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance
June 2021
Via The Guardian
A โheat domeโ without parallel trapped hot air over much of the states of Oregon and Washington in the United States, and southern British Columbia in Canada, in past days, shattering weather records in the usually temperate region.
In Washington and Oregon, largely liberal, climate-conscious states, efforts to combat global heating have long been popular. The Washington governor, Jay Inslee, put himself forward as the โclimate candidateโ during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. He argued residents of the region would, in the absence of federal leadership, โdo our part to address a global problemโ.
Climate conversations have generally centered on what north-westerners could do to protect the planet or other people in places at greater risk of extreme heat. But after three days of temperatures near or above 100F (38C) in Seattle โ a city where residents often describe the sixth month as โJune-uaryโ, as temperatures rarely reach 80F (27C) โ theyโre increasingly concerned about themselves.
โIt felt like weโd set our Earth on fire,โ said Summer Stinson, a 49-year-old resident of Seattle...
Temperatures in tiny Lytton, British Columbia, hit 49.6C (121.3F) and set a Canadian all-time record, days before a wildfire tore through the town. Roads buckled under the heat in Washington and Oregon. Heat and heavy air conditioner use knocked out power for tens of thousands. The dead, thought to number in the hundreds, are not yet counted.
Ron Merkord, CalTech: Lytton, British Columbia, Canada... Named in 1858 for a novelist named Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Two days ago, it set Canada's all time temp record of 121.3F. Yesterday, it hit 121.6F. Today, it burned to the ground. Bulwer-Lytton, a contemporary of Charles Dickens, is responsible for the saying "The pen is mightier than the sword". He is also the writer responsible for the beginning novel line called the worst ever written -- "It was a dark and stormy night..."
In Lytton today, it was indeed a dark and stormy night.
Lytton's municipal website boasts: โLytton is the ideal location for nature lovers to connect with incredible natural beauty and fresh air freedom.โ
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said this weekโs unexpectedly fierce heat at Lytton and elsewhere should prompt climatologists to consider additional impacts of human activity.
โWe should take this event very seriously,โ he wrote in an email. โYou warm up the planet, youโre going to see an increased incidence of heat extremes. Climate models capture this effect very well and predict large increases in heat extremes. But there is something else going on with this heatwave, and indeed, with many of the very persistent weather extremes weโve seen in recent years in the US, Europe, Asia and elsewhere, where the models arenโt quite capturing the impact of climate change.โ
โ
Via Climate.gov
Astounding heat obliterates all-time records across the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada
From Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver, Canada, the heat during the end of June didn't just break records; it buried them. Learn more in this Event Tracker post.
Devastating News: Climate Change Impacts to Hit Sooner than Predicted
Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions
Landmark report from the UN's climate science advisors obtained by AFP
Climate change threats to life on Earth are systemic, interconnected and on a scale unprecedented in human history
Earth is now trapping an โunprecedentedโ amount of heat, NASA says
New research shows that the amount of heat the planet traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land
The amount of heat Earth traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land, according to new research from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
โThe magnitude of the increase is unprecedented,โ said Norman Loeb, a NASA scientist and lead author of the study, which was published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. โThe Earth is warming faster than expected.โ
Using satellite data, researchers measured what is known as Earthโs energy imbalance โ the difference between how much energy the planet absorbs from the sun, and how much itโs able to shed, or radiate back out into space.
When there is a positive imbalance โ Earth absorbing more heat than it is losing โ it is a first step toward global warming, said Stuart Evans, a climate scientist at the University at Buffalo. โItโs a sign the Earth is gaining energy.โ
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From Clearwater, Florida, May 2021
GreenPolicy360 Siterunner/SJS:
Trendlines, we are looking at trendlines today. Data, the data changing as time passes. We need to step back and have perspective. We need to look closely, to 'drill down' and see with detail. Measure-to-Manage NASA says, science advises, GreenPolicy360 recommends as a guide.
GreenPolicy360 believes in personal responsibility to manage wisely. We are planet citizens and earth is in human hands. Together we are guiding our planet home into the future. We are delivering a legacy to future generations.
Join planet citizens who are monitoring our Earth's 'Vital Signs'.
One of GreenPolicy360's great concerns is climate change, as all our readers and sharers know. A recent study of a 'new normal' caught our attention today, a global study and national breakout of data changing over time. And as we are looking at this 'new normal' data, a century of temperatures, we cannot help but think what will happen if the temperature increases continue, a trendline into the future, up and up into the 'unliveable... uninhabitable' temperatures range. 'Cooling technology' will be required and being outdoors will be limited...
Let's look more closely, a recent news 'wrap up' from a science reporter for the Associated Press.
Look .... recognize the threats. Act planet citizens, act ....
- Via the Washington Post
- Unprecedented Heatwave in the U.S. Pacific Northwest
- June 29, 2021
โ
Record heat bakes Middle East as temperatures top 125 degrees
It has been called โthe harshest heat wave in history for this time of the yearโ
June 9, 2021
Via the Boston Globe
Ninety degree days occurring earlier and more often. A rising toll of health effects
What does this say about climate change?
June 7, 2021
Via the Associated Press
Billions projected to suffer nearly unlivable heat in 2070
By Seth Borenstein
May 4, 2020
(AP) โ In just 50 years, 2 billion to 3.5 billion people, mostly the poor who canโt afford air conditioning, will be living in a climate that historically has been too hot to handle, a new study said.
With every 1.8 degree (1 degree Celsius) increase in global average annual temperature from man-made climate change, about a billion or so people will end up in areas too warm day-in, day-out to be habitable without cooling technology, according to ecologist Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
'How many people will end up at risk depends on how much heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions are reduced and how fast the world population grows.
Under the worst-case scenarios for population growth and for carbon pollution โ which many climate scientists say is looking less likely these days โ the study in Mondayโs journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences predicts about 3.5 billion people will live in extremely hot areas. Thatโs a third of the projected 2070 population.
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GreenPolicy360 / Reporting from our terrestrial home base, Clearwater, Florida, USA:
As just one of multiple examples of what's coming with climate change and global warming, life in Florida, USA is going to be a quite a different experience in the not too distant future. Semi-tropical will become tropical. Then there's the water... not to cool off, but to deal with the consequences of heat...
Florida 13,576 km coastline is at the frontlines of global sea-level rise. Florida is, as few realize is also 'on top of water', situated on a peninsula of 'karst', an ancient seabed of porous limestone. Above the underground water exchange of fresh-and-seawater is a political brew. Florida today, unfortunately, has become chock full of climate-change denying politicos. The state's former governor, now a US Senator, denies climate change is a serious problem, closing his eyes and ears to policy preparation and action as he was reported forbidding state government officials from even using the term 'climate change' .... Florida's following governor, fortunately, is not as extreme in his views and signed a first-ever piece of legislation to establish a state climate-related resiliency program. So there... as of May 2021, signs of environmental protection and progress in the so-called "Sunshine State".
GreenPolicy360 will continue to do what we can to push Florida to become forward-looking. Perhaps a quick look at sea-level rise would be a place to start the new "Too Hot" GreenPolicy360 page.
-- SJS / May 13, 2021
May 2021
Miami gets a "Chief Heat Officer"
by Craig Pittman / Via the Washington Post
Jane Gilbert, the cityโs new chief heat officer, says she will put together a task force of experts to address the problem
Last June, Miami reported its hottest temperatures on record. The daytime sun was brutal and there was little respite even at night. Dozens of heat-related deaths were reported that year.
As the Earth warms, the city by the ocean says its heat problem is poised to become even deadlier.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D) recently announced the county was creating a first-of-its-kind position โ chief heat officer.
โWe know extreme heat does not impact people equally โ poorer communities and Black and Hispanic people bear the brunt of the public health impacts,โ the mayor said in a statement. A chief heat officer will โcoordinate our efforts to protect people from heat and save lives.โ
Q: But heat is such a fact of life in Miami. What makes that deserving of a chief officer?
A: Miami knows heat โ weโre hot and humid a good part of the year. A heat index of 105 degrees is about when youโve hit dangerous levels, when people could really suffer from heatstroke.
We currently have an average of seven days where we get over that heat index for a couple of hours. By mid-century, weโre going to have 88 of those days โ thatโs more than 10 times as many days....
Q: How can you answer someone who challenges the existence of climate change?
A: We donโt have many of them in Miami-Dade County.
Iโve felt the change in the heat in the 26 years Iโve been here. Itโs hard to argue that heat canโt be a risk when youโve seen people die. Itโs the number one climate- and weather-related killer in the United States.
Read Craig's Full Interview with Jane Gilbert
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NOAA's "new normal" climate report is anything but normal
By Jeff Berardelli
May 8, 2021 / 7:11 AM / CBS News
It doesn't take a climate scientist to see the changes that have occurred. In the maps below, using NOAA data, Climate Central illustrates the warmer temperatures the U.S. has experienced. When comparing the latest "normals" to what used to be normal a century ago, the difference is clear โ seen in red from coast to coast...
Some climate scientists, like Michael Mann of Penn State, don't love the system of reporting new normals. As he told The Associated Press, Mann prefers using a constant baseline because updating what is normal for present-day conditions obscures the long-term warming trend and makes the warming due to climate change seem less significant. "Adjusting normal every 10 years perverts the meaning of 'normal' and 'normalizes' away climate change."
US Climate Normals
The U.S. Climate Normals are a large suite of data products that provide information about typical climate conditions for thousands of locations across the United States. Normals act both as a ruler to compare todayโs weather and tomorrowโs forecast, and as a predictor of conditions in the near future. The official normals are calculated for a uniform 30 year period, and consist of annual/seasonal, monthly, daily, and hourly averages and statistics of temperature, precipitation, and other climatological variables from almost 15,000 U.S. weather stations.
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) generates the official U.S. normals every 10 years in keeping with the needs of our user community and the requirements of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and National Weather Service (NWS). The 1991โ2020 U.S. Climate Normals are the latest in a series of decadal normals first produced in the 1950s. These data allow travelers to pack the right clothes, farmers to plant the best crop varieties, and utilities to plan for seasonal energy usage. Many other important economic decisions that are made beyond the predictive range of standard weather forecasts are either based on or influenced by climate normals.
๐
Future of the Human Climate Niche
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.
May 26, 2020
Significance
We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earthโs available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around โผ13 ยฐC. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today.
Abstract
All species have an environmental niche, and despite technological advances, humans are unlikely to be an exception. Here, we demonstrate that for millennia, human populations have resided in the same narrow part of the climatic envelope available on the globe, characterized by a major mode around โผ11 ยฐC to 15 ยฐC mean annual temperature (MAT). Supporting the fundamental nature of this temperature niche, current production of crops and livestock is largely limited to the same conditions, and the same optimum has been found for agricultural and nonagricultural economic output of countries through analyses of year-to-year variation. We show that in a business-as-usual climate change scenario, the geographical position of this temperature niche is projected to shift more over the coming 50 y than it has moved since 6000 BP. Populations will not simply track the shifting climate, as adaptation in situ may address some of the challenges, and many other factors affect decisions to migrate. Nevertheless, in the absence of migration, one third of the global population is projected to experience a MAT >29 ยฐC currently found in only 0.8% of the Earthโs land surface, mostly concentrated in the Sahara. As the potentially most affected regions are among the poorest in the world, where adaptive capacity is low, enhancing human development in those areas should be a priority alongside climate mitigation.
Heat Stress (HS) in Earth's Future
2020
2020 Tied for Warmest Year on Record, NASA Analysis Shows
Climate 2020: How Excess Heat is Expressed on Earth
Fastest Warming Cities and States in the U.S.
Urban Heat is Hot
Spend time in a city in summer and you can feel the urban heat rising from the pavement and radiating from buildings. Cities are generally hotter than surrounding rural areas, but even within cities, some residential neighborhoods get dangerously warmer than others just a few miles away.
Within these โmicro-urban heat islands,โ communities can experience heat wave conditions well before officials declare a heat emergency.
Earth-observing satellites and population data map these hot spots, often on projects with NASA. Satellites like the Landsat program have become crucial for pinpointing urban risks so cities can prepare for and respond to extreme heat, a top weather-related killer...
ยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยท
- Chart the 'Big Picture': The Keeling Curve
- Keeling's Curve has been called one of the most important scientific works of the 20th century
- Oh NOAA, Oh Mauna Loa, Oh Keeling
https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png
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Year by Year, Measure and Monitor CO2 in the Atmosphere
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Let's look more closely.
Let's look at a recent feature news 'wrap up' from a science reporter for the Associated Press.
Here, look....
Pay attention, recognize the threats, act planet citizens, act ....
Billions projected to suffer nearly unlivable heat in 2070
By Seth Borenstein
May 4, 2020
(AP) โ In just 50 years, 2 billion to 3.5 billion people, mostly the poor who canโt afford air conditioning, will be living in a climate that historically has been too hot to handle, a new study said.
With every 1.8 degree (1 degree Celsius) increase in global average annual temperature from man-made climate change, about a billion or so people will end up in areas too warm day-in, day-out to be habitable without cooling technology, according to ecologist Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, co-author of the study.
'How many people will end up at risk depends on how much heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions are reduced and how fast the world population grows.
Under the worst-case scenarios for population growth and for carbon pollution โ which many climate scientists say is looking less likely these days โ the study in Mondayโs journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences predicts about 3.5 billion people will live in extremely hot areas. Thatโs a third of the projected 2070 population.
Future of the Human Climate Niche
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.
May 26, 2020
Significance
We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earthโs available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around โผ13 ยฐC. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today.
Abstract
All species have an environmental niche, and despite technological advances, humans are unlikely to be an exception.
Here, we demonstrate that for millennia, human populations have resided in the same narrow part of the climatic envelope available on the globe, characterized by a major mode around โผ11 ยฐC to 15 ยฐC mean annual temperature (MAT). Supporting the fundamental nature of this temperature niche, current production of crops and livestock is largely limited to the same conditions, and the same optimum has been found for agricultural and nonagricultural economic output of countries through analyses of year-to-year variation. We show that in a business-as-usual climate change scenario, the geographical position of this temperature niche is projected to shift more over the coming 50 y than it has moved since 6000 BP.
Populations will not simply track the shifting climate, as adaptation in situ may address some of the challenges, and many other factors affect decisions to migrate.
GreenPolicy360: Speaking of Climate-induced migration.... it will be an increasingly serious strategic demand...
Climate migration -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Climate_migration
143 Million People May Soon Become Climate Migrants
Climate change will drive human migration more than other events, a new report warns. But the worst impacts can be avoided.
National Geographic / World Bank / March 2018
Climate change will transform more than 143 million people into โclimate migrantsโ (#ClimateMigration) escaping crop failure, water scarcity, and sea-level rise, a new World Bank report concludes.
Most of this population shift will take place in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin Americaโthree โhot spotsโ that represent 55 percent of the developing worldโs populations.
... One third of the global population is projected to experience a MAT >29 ยฐC currently found in only 0.8% of the Earthโs land surface, mostly concentrated in the Sahara. As the potentially most affected regions are among the poorest in the world, where adaptive capacity is low, enhancing human development in those areas should be a priority alongside climate mitigation.
๐ฅต
June 1, 2017
- The US will be judged, this day will be long remembered
- National Security & Global Security are interrelated. He doesn't know this. There's so much he doesn't know & so much he doesn't know that he doesn't know.
๐ฅต
GreenPolicy360 ... Connecting & sharing world changing stories
GreenPolicy360 journeys across 50+ years of the modern environmental movement
How's Today's Temp? Look Here - https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/
- Climate Forecast System - https://cfs.ncep.noaa.gov/ | https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/weather-climate-models/climate-forecast-system
- National Centers for Environmental Prediction - https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/ | https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
๐ฅต
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