In Kyushu, Japan on Friday, government officials urged 700,000 residents to evacuate as record heavy rains and severe flooding inundated the city for the fifth day in a row. Half a world away in West Virginia, another unpredicted record deluge dumped 8.2 inches of rain, washed out roads, cut off shopping malls, flushed burning homes down raging rivers, and left more than 14 people dead and hundreds more stranded.
Individually, these events would be odd. But taken together with what are now scores of other extreme flooding events happening around the world in the space of just a few months and the context begins to look a lot like what scientists expected to happen due to human-forced climate change.
700,000 Urged to Evacuate in Kyushu Deluge
(Heavy rains fall over Kyushu on Friday in the most recent wave of extreme storms to blanket the island. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)
In Kyushu, the skies opened up on Monday. An extension of a seasonal front draped across China and feeding on moisture bleeding off of record hot ocean surfaces edged out over Japan. Mountainous cloud banks unloaded. Record rains in the range of five inches an hour then began to inundate the southern Japanese island. This mass dumping of water eventually accumulated to half a meter (or 1.6 feet) over some sections of the island over the course of just one 24 hour period.
The rains set loose raging rivers of water through Kyushu streets and saturated hillsides already weakened by an April earthquake. The flooding and resulting landslides killed 6 people on Monday alone and resulted in calls for tens of thousands of people to evacuate the hardest hit areas. Over the week, hourly rainfall totals of 1-3 inches and daily rainfall rates of 4-8 inches continued as more and more of the region succumbed to flooding. By Friday, bridges and roads had been washed out, an elderly man, a university student, and a child had gone missing, trains had been blocked by mudslides and the evacuation calls extended to include 700,000 people.
Unexpected Record Floods Hit West Virginia
By early Wednesday in West Virginia the weather was starting to get a little rough. Strong storms had been running over the region since Tuesday as an unstable air mass funneled lines of thunderstorms into the Appalachian Mountain region. The forecast did indicate some potential for severe weather, but nothing near so extreme as what emerged.
NOAA QPC predictions called for peak rainfall amounts in the range of 3.24 inches from Wednesday through Friday. But the inundation that occurred on just Thursday alone resulted in rainfall totals of more than two and a half times that:
(In another instance that calls into question whether current forecast models are keeping up with the heavy rainfall potentials that are now made possible by a record hot global atmosphere NOAA’s predicted rainfall totals are again greatly exceeded by events — this time in West Virginia where 14 people have been reported dead due to flooding. An indication that weather prediction may not be fully taking into account the added threat posed by human-forced warming. And also an indication that endemic climate change denial in the US political system [in vast majority among republicans] — which has resulted in a dramatic failure to fund needed and necessary climate change monitoring — is having a harmful overall impact to public safety and disaster preparedness. Image source: NOAA QPC.)
Reports indicate that 8.17 inches of rain fell in just one 24 hour period in Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. But it was just the center mass of the worst flood in a century for parts of the state. One that has so far resulted in the deaths of more than fourteen people. Five hundred people are also currently stranded in a shopping mall that has now been cut off by the flood.
(A burning home floats down a West Virginia creek swollen to a raging torrent by the worst flood to hit the state in 100 years.)
Numerous homes and hundreds of cars have also been lost due to the flash floods that swept through West Virginia’s valleys. In one instance, a burning house was filmed floating down a river. As a result of the severe and unexpected rains, 44 of the state’s 55 counties have now been declared a disaster area.
Conditions in Context — Global Warming Fuels More Extreme Rainfall Events
These severe flooding events add to those this week occurring in China, Australia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Great Britian over just the past seven days. In addition, extreme floods have swept through Texas, Canada, Central Asia, Europe, Ghana and Argentina over the past couple of months.
The floods occur at a time when global temperatures are just coming off of new record highs during the first part of 2016. Temperatures that, in February peaked near 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than 1880s averages. For each 1 degree Celsius that you add to global temperature, you increase the atmospheric moisture loading by about 7 percent. This is a physical fact of the Earth’s climate system. If you heat the atmosphere, you increase evaporation and that results, in turn, in more moisture held up in the world’s airs.
It’s this well understood dynamic of atmospheric physics that scientists have long warned would result in more extreme droughts and downpours as a result a human-forced warming of the world. Chris Fields, a climate scientist cited by US News and World Report in an article covering the record Paris floods earlier this month also noted:
“One of the clearest signs of climate change, over much of the world, is the increase in the fraction of the rain that falls in the heaviest events.”
So not only does a loading up of the hydrological cycle with moisture result in heavier rainfall events generally, it also results in a greater fraction of overall rainfall coming in the form of heavy rain. In other words climate change causes heavier rain on top of heavier rain. The worst events, as a result do not just get worse, they get much, much worse. And this is due to the added convection — or updrafts — that keep moisture in the air longer. In other words, the rain in a hotter world needs to be heavier to fall out of clouds that are pushed higher and with greater force by heat rising up off the Earth’s surface.
(In a record-warm world, a transition from El Nino to La Nina can result in an unprecedented amount of moisture being wrung out into trough and storm zones. Extraordinarily heavy rainfall events like those experienced across the world over the past few months is the all-too-likely result. It’s a feature that has been added by global temperatures that are now about 1.2 C hotter than 1880s in the annual average. As global temperatures increase, heavy precipitation events will continue to grow more intense even as droughts in other regions worsen. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)
As for the timing of the most recent heavy rainfall events — the last element to the equation has been a transition from El Nino to La Nina. During the most recent El Nino, the Equatorial Pacific warmed and new record global temperatures were achieved. But as the Equatorial Pacific cooled, so did the atmosphere. And now, some of that record atmospheric moisture load isn’t recieving quite as much heat from beneath keeping it all aloft. So a greater portion of it tends to fall out in the post El Nino period.
And none of this is to say at all that El Nino is causing the increased rate of flooding. The El Nino to La Nina transiton is a natural variability based event that is instead being influenced by human-forced warming in such a way that is resulting in an increasingly extreme period of rainfall. And we’re experiencing that globally now.
Links:
Kyushu Deluge Continues, 700,000 Urged to Evacuate
Flooding, Landslides in Southwest Japan Kill 6
Heavy Rains Kill 6 in Kumamoto
14 Dead in West Virginia Flooding, Body of Missing Child Found
Flooding in West Virginia is So Bad a Burning House Flooded Down a Creek
French President: The Paris Floods are Exceptional
NOAA (please support funding for public climate change monitoring)
Hat tip to Greg
Hat tip to Colorado Bob
Hat tip to Climate Hawk
climatehawk1
/ June 24, 2016Tweet scheduled.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ June 24, 2016Also
Indonesia: http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/06/19/severe-flash-floods-landslides-wreak-havoc-across-central-java-indonesia/
Ghana: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/floods-leave-dead-southern-ghana-160616104330811.html
Australia: http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/06/19/brisbane-sydney-floods/
Sri Lanka: http://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/sri-lanka-hit-hard-floods-landslides-n578691
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ June 24, 2016Comment in w/ mult links, apologies. My bad.
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robertscribbler
/ June 24, 2016Got it! Thanks!
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Exposing the Big Game
/ June 24, 2016Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
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Spike
/ June 24, 2016Not as severe but Germany also today
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016It’s just everywhere…
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FrasersGrove
/ June 27, 2016We just got 6″ or more on friday night in about 4 hrs in Whiteshell Provincial Park In S.E. Manitoba. Only a month and a half ago we were experiencing near drought and bad forest fires, now it’s flooding. Un-freaking-real…
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016It’s the global litany of flood and fire. If there are those who think this is going to let up, they’re mistaken. We are on the up ramp now. The point where we are now is worse than where we were ten years ago. It’s going to keep getting worse for a while. In the best case, we can slow it down and maybe halt the worsening by late Century. In the worst case, if we keep burning fossil fuels, this really escalates rapidly.
The drum beat needs to sound loud and clear to stop burning fossil fuels.
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FrasersGrove
/ June 27, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 24, 2016” For each 1 degree Celsius that you add to global temperature, you increase the atmospheric moisture loading by about 7 percent… If you heat the atmosphere, you increase evaporation and that results, in turn, in more moisture held up in the world’s airs.
…
And this is due to the added convection — or updrafts — that keep moisture in the air longer. In other words, the rain in a hotter world needs to be heavier to fall out of clouds that are pushed higher and with greater force by heat rising up off the Earth’s surface.”
-RS
– This says a lot, Robert. It’s not a pleasant scenario but nice to see it one place.
This moisture loading process must have been going on for quite a while.
Thx
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dtlange
/ June 24, 2016I suppose this has been responsible for the milky white skies that has bothered me for a long time. ?
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danabanana
/ June 25, 2016A combination of more commercial aircraft and more humidity content at those heights results on extensive and persistent condensation trails.
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Genomik
/ June 25, 2016Danabanana, I have some conspiracy friends who think that contrails are chemtrails. I usually try to crush their arguments (as we don’t need conspiracies, the truth of fossil fuels is enough to destroy us), but you raise an interesting point. Perhaps a qualitative difference that they may refer to is as simple as more moisture in the air. If they say look at the skies there’s more chemtrails/contrails my response can be that’s likely because climate change is affecting the very nature of the atmosphere and higher moisture means they are more Chen/contrails!?
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danabanana
/ June 26, 2016It is as straight forward as that Genomik. The whole Global warming Climate change works is run by a well understood set of Physics. Now, chemtrail conspiracy followers don’t quite understand how the atmosphere, or thermodynamics for that matter, work and they will likely ask you to explain why is it that some days you get long trails and other times you don’t? or why sometimes you see a trail go on and off as the air plane moves across the sky? They reached their own conclusion for the later question which is that the ‘spraying’ is turned on and off at will. It will never occur to them that more heat equals more evaporation or that there can be pockets of dry air as well as high humidity alongside each other.
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Wharf Rat
/ June 27, 2016Rat will believe in chemtrails when somebody actually collects air samples from the vapor trails, analyzes them, and shows differences between the two in their chemical make-up.
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016If you expand the troposphere, you get more high clouds, more thick clouds at higher levels, and you heighten the range of even the higher cirrus clouds. All the added moisture and ice crystals will absolutely result in more blending away of the blue sky into white. Aerosols from things like coal burning complete the effect.
If you get an aircraft flying through an increasingly warm and moist atmosphere, you’ll get more condensation trails. In addition, the added air traffic will generate more condensation trails in general.
The whole chemtrails meme is disinformation and a bad one at that. We’d see the extra sulfur dioxide and other particulate in those layers of the atmosphere through our various sensors if that were the case. And they’d show up in a different dispersal pattern than what we see now coming from fossil fuel emissions sources and big population centers. It’s not really something that would be easy to hide if it were as widespread as conspiracy theorists indicate.
In my view, the meme is designed to draw attention away from the real issue that is human-forced climate change. Pretty much every time I see someone posting a chemtrails link, they’re blaming the added atmospheric warming on the so-called chemtrails. This is wrong on two levels. 1. There is no evidence of this spraying and 2. if there was spraying then it would be to cool the Earth, not to warm it.
If the government was spraying at these levels it would certainly be to reduce global warming. Global warming is a national security threat. And every agency with the capability of spraying at these levels (NASA, the DOD etc) is very concerned about human forced climate change. So if there was a covert activity to spray aerosols at these levels it would be to cool the Earth, not to warm it.
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016I keep trying to figure out ways to say these things simply. It’s pretty tough. Weather is already complex. Change it and it gets worse.
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danabanana
/ June 27, 2016Agree it is pretty tough but you’re doing a mighty fine job 😀
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016Cheers, Dana. 🙂 Will keep doing my best for you guys.
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Ryan in New England
/ June 24, 2016These events are just unbelievable. It seems like every day we’re seeing record breaking and unprecedented weather around the world. I just caught the CBS Evening news, and after the Brexit story, the top issues were the crazy flooding in West Virginia, and the crazy fires in California, both destroying dozens of homes and affecting countless lives…and not a single word about the fact that these are exactly the kinds of events James Hansen, and others, warned us would be occurring. They warned us decades ago. Now it’s all happening, and still the world acts as if it isn’t. It drives me absolutely crazy!!
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danabanana
/ June 25, 2016WV flooding worst in a 100 years.
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016It’s pretty annoying. Media still mostly mum on the issue. Climate change should be nightly news. It’s still a ‘special report.’ New York Times does a decent job here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/us/california-today-wildfires.html?_r=0
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Ryan in New England
/ June 24, 2016The fire in California is now deadly…
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lake-isabella-fast-moving-central-california-wildfire-kills-2/
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dtlange
/ June 24, 2016NWS Hanford Verified account @NWSHanford 4h4 hours ago
The #ErskineFire kernville has now burned at least 19k acres. That’s an increase of 11k acres since daybreak
###
Kern County Scanner @KernScanner 5m5 minutes ago
Kern County EMS is coordinating the evacuation of Mount Mesa Hospital. #Erskinefire
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Ryan in New England
/ June 25, 2016Thanks for all of the links, DT! A tragic situation in California.
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dtlange
/ June 24, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 25, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 25, 2016Kern County Fire @kerncountyfire 14h14 hours ago
Powerful imagery of the #ErskineFire by High Desert News. Our thoughts are with these communities and with all.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– Impressive footage of very fast burning wild/urban fire and firefighting in a very dry locale.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016LikeLike
robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016Hit saturation on this one last week. Wanted to cover this and the Siberian Wildfires and the floods in about five separate places. No time.
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dtlange
/ June 24, 2016– Interesting — Rossby waves:
Whistling Sound Coming From Caribbean Sea Can Be Heard From Space
The Caribbean Sea is whistling in an A-flat tone, roughly 30 octaves below the bottom of a piano.
University of Liverpool researchers detected the noise when they were analyzing sea level and sea floor pressure in the Caribbean Sea, an area that has been monitored for the past 60 years. But something unusual showed up on their ocean activity models: there were pressure oscillations across the Caribbean basin, according to Science Alert.
“We were looking at ocean pressure through models for quite different reasons, and this region just didn’t work,” Chris Hughes, of the University of Liverpool, told Gizmodo.
The models kept yielding large, inexplicable oscillations of the Earth’s gravity field across the basin. “It felt like a sore thumb,” Hughes added.
Hughes and his team decided to see if they could observe the phenomenon in the ocean, Gizmodo reported. They collected pressure readings and tide gauge records from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Grace satellite collected between 1958 and 2013. Soon, the researchers discovered that the Caribbean Sea acts like a giant whistle.
The strange sound, which cannot be heard by humans, is caused by the Rossby wave, which travels westward across the ocean. Scientists have observed the wave disappearing on the west side of the Caribbean basin and then reappearing 120 days later on the east side, according to Science Alert. The disappearance is known as the Rossby wormhole.
https://ecowatch.com/2016/06/24/rossby-whistle-caribbean-sea/
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Ryan in New England
/ June 25, 2016Very interesting.
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Cate
/ June 25, 2016Hmmm. Might be related to the Windsor Hum!
*kidding 😉 *
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016The Earth is being pinged by climate change.
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Aaron Lewis
/ June 24, 2016Blogging all of these events together seems like the treadmill test from Hell.
How much of this is better knowledge of events via cell phone etc,? And how much is more extreme weather events, and how much is more intense, extreme weather events, and is how much is larger, extreme weather events?
Based on the graphs retrieved by various comments, my guess would be that there are more extreme events, they are more intense, and affect broader regions.
The problem is putting floods, fires and etc. on the same graph. I am thinking of a base line period, taking the mean and standard deviation of each kind of event for the baseline period, and then plotting everything in standard deviations from the baseline period. Are there better approaches. What would Tufte do? I think he would find SDs way too abstract.
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016There are absolutely more extreme events. More extreme rainfall, more extreme droughts, more extreme fires, more extreme floods. All the indicators for these are up.
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Andy in SD
/ June 24, 2016Bit of a bump off the trend line for Greenland melt extant again. Roughly 36%
http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016Thanks for this, Andy. Pretty big spike emerging from this. Nothing like 2012. But we are challenging the 50 percent line again.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 24, 2016Why Brexit Freaks Out So Many Scientists
The United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union could disrupt research as well as commitments to fighting climate change.
Link
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Josh
/ June 25, 2016Plus in the UK at least nobody will be as focused on all that stuff anymore while the whole exit is ongoing. Speaking as a Remain voter in the UK the whole thing has been a fiasco and the country is now terribly divided.
Troubling times when it comes to focusing on slower-moving but more globally significant events..
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016I’d be interested to hear your take on things from the ground there. My initial thoughts are — what a mess. But these are the divisive forces you unleash when you scapegoat migrants, push inequality and foster ever-worsening impacts due to climate change.
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Josh
/ June 27, 2016We need a unifying force quickly, and I hope to God it doesn’t end up being far-right (I wonder what support UKIP would get now if a general election were to be called).
From the news at least, there has been an immediate rise in racist attacks, the Labour party is in upheaval and the main leaders of the leave movement have already gone back on several of their key “commitments”.
There are a curious number of reports of Leave voters changing their minds after seeing some of the consequences, or even after seeing that Leave actually won. I don’t know how common this was but I wouldn’t be surprised if some people used it as a general protest. Not a good idea in a referendum I suppose, but anyway I can’t really blame individual voters given the ridiculously poor quality of the national debate we had beforehand.
My personal feeling is that it is insane to have such a key decision made on a 4% majority, but that hasn’t stopped plenty of politicians calling it “decisive” or similar – including David Cameron.
Leave appears to have no plan on what to actually do, seemingly because they didn’t expect to win.
Leave voters will have included people angry with more general issues than just the EU I would imagine, and certainly won’t all be racist – but now there’s a leave majority its given the far right a sense of legitimacy, with all that entails. I really hope this can all be contained before it balloons out of all proportion… 😦
Meanwhile the Scottish government wants to start a new referendum to break away from the UK and join the EU seperately.
I feel that politicians that should’ve know better have gambled the stability of the country on the vote and lost big time by underestimating how many poor/disadvantaged people are angry at bankers, politicians and other elites. I suppose it would make sense given the particularly bad way the government has treated those disadvantaged groups over the last few years. Add in a racist party blaming immigrants and Tory Party Eurosceptics (who have been against the EU for a while) creating pressure for Cameron to sort the issue and bingo.
I know I’m rambling now but I feel absolutely terrible about what is happening, and so quickly. A few days ago everything seemed OK and I thought we’d probably vote Remain. Since Friday morning I (and I should think most people) have been checking the news frequently and seeing things crumble before our eyes. Well thats us Remainers anyway. I’m sure most of the Leavers are happy but as far as I can see we’ve made the worst decision possible, in the most stupid, populist way with lies on both sides of the campaign.
You are absolutely right, these are the forces that can be unleashed.
Now its time to distract myself with some happier thoughts before bed! Sorry again for the long comment.
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Bill H
/ June 25, 2016OH, BREXIT…..
I’m a Brit, and it’s a complete mess. The “victors” haven’t a clue what to do. They’re scurrying around claiming that the carnage on the global markets will sort itself out “in a few days”. Their ignorance is matched only by their complacency: the ruling conservatives are all going off on nice vacations, and then they will, at a nice leisurely pace, select a new leader, who will, after a length period of cogitation, embark upon “divorce proceedings” with the EU. So, we’ll be left in a state of complete uncertainty, and as anyone with any knowledge of economics can tell you: uncertainty is bad for the economy. So we’ve had a crash in the financial markets on Friday, not just here but across Europe. As you can imagine other EU leaders are furious about the way that their economies are getting screwed, and are demanding that Brexit be completed ASAP as a matter of urgency. The brexiteers ignorance, however, seems to matched by their complacency: the brexiteer-in-chief, a character by clever but utterly shallow character by the name of Boris Johnson, assures everyone that Britain will remain a “close friend” to its neighbours – something that sits ill with the way a UK vanity project is leading to continental carnage.
But, to return to the subject of this blog, Bob, I fear you’re right: tackling climate change is completely off the agenda over here.
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016Amazing what stoking xenophobia can do to a nation. I really hope that somehow you guys manage to reverse course soon. I wonder if some of the exiters are suffering from regret already?
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ June 25, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016Lots of treaties tied up in this. Many of them pretty positive. I think austerity and xenophobia have taken their first casualty. Bad combo that.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 24, 2016As Greenland melts, this iconic glacier is creating terrifying tsunamis
When Greenland’s melting glaciers lose large chunks of ice, it’s a violent process. Last year, for instance, scientists documented that gigantic glacial earthquakes are triggered by the rolling and tumbling of billion-ton icebergs as they break away and hit the glaciers to which they once belonged — hard.
But large masses of ice falling into the waters of Greenland’s fjords do something else, too. Depending on the mass of ice lost and the particular configuration of the water and the fjord into which it surges, these events can also create destructive tsunamis, albeit of a relatively small scale (compared with how big open ocean tsunamis can get). And now, a recent study has found that at least one notable Greenland glacier, these tsunamis appear to be getting worse as melting advances.
Link
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 2016At least 20 dead in West Virginia flooding, governor says
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/24/us/west-virginia-flooding-deaths/
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Caroline
/ June 25, 2016From CNN:
“Weather radar estimates show that more than 10 inches of rain have fallen in portions of Greenbrier County. There is a 1 in 1,000 chance of this type of rainfall happening in any given year, according to the National Weather Service.”
Is that probability —-1 in 1,000 chance—–going to change? We are in a new world of weather chaos now. Are these probabilities applicable today?
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Wharf Rat
/ June 25, 2016At least 20 dead in WV, and at least 2 were killed in the Kern Co. fire today. That’s almost half as many as were killed in Orlando, and yet, there is no outrage. If we (Frank Luntz?) could re-brand climate change as Islamic thermo- terrorism, people might start screaming for action.
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Cate
/ June 25, 2016WV flooding—it seems a very high toll. So tragic. It’s hard to tell from scattered news reports, but people seem to have been caught off guard on this. Was this rainfall accurately forecast? Were people warned of the possible scale of flooding? And if not, why not?
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Ryan in New England
/ June 27, 2016Cate, I think that the current models are unable to capture the increased potential of heavier precipitation events. Like Robert pointed out in the post,
NOAA QPC predictions called for peak rainfall amounts in the range of 3.24 inches from Wednesday through Friday. But the inundation that occurred on just Thursday alone resulted in rainfall totals of more than two and a half times that…
I’ve also noticed this here in Connecticut in recent years. In both rain and snowfall events we have had a number of storms that have far exceeded the predicted potential totals.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 2016Why an E.U. without Britain is bad news for the fight against climate change
It’s not just the upheaval in global financial markets.
Now that Britain has voted to leave the European Union, there may also be negative consequences for international climate change policy, a number of climate change advocates and analysts say.
Link
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Bill H
/ June 25, 2016Bob, see my comments further up this thread. Glad to see that the fall-out of this referendum result is being registered in the US. It’s liable to get considerably worse. The best hope is that the referendum is declared void on the basis of egregious lies and deceit, by the brexiteers: 2 million people have already signed an online petition set up only yesterday.
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65karin
/ June 27, 2016A shocking outcome for the UK. Trump should ask Boris Johnson to be his running mate, they have so much in common, closing borders, anti immigration, nationalism, terrible environmental opinions, and they both seem to attract many of the same type of supporters, low information, authoritarian. Look at the Google searches in the UK AFTER the vote!
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/24/480949383/britains-google-searches-for-what-is-the-eu-spike-after-brexit-vote
The UK has its own Trump now, and his environmental views are not good http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2016/06/20/brexit-what-would-a-boris-johnson-government-do-to-the-environment/
Could this type of herd mentality voting happen in the US and Trump actually get elected, a frightening thought for our planet!
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Jay M
/ June 25, 2016comment
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Jay M
/ June 26, 2016comment seems to be lost
moisture from Mali/Algeria cloud track to spiral pattern centered on southeast Italy
I think this was when Britain was being pounded a bit during the Brexit kerfluffle
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Jay M
/ June 26, 2016the image appears altered to me
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– The vote for this was June 16. is it news here? It’s been quite busy.
GOP Blocks Pentagon Climate Plan
House Republicans passed an amendment Thursday blocking the Department of Defense (DOD) from financing its climate change and national security plan. The amendment passed 216-205, with not a single Democrat voting in favor.
DOD and other national security experts have warned that climate change is a national security threat, but Republicans who voted against funding the Pentagon’s climate plan said it was a distraction from other threats.
Experts say the DOD climate directive, which was released in January, would save the organization money in the long run and help the U.S. prepare for climate change.
“It’s actually crazy to me and it should be crazy to anyone in the military, that Congress is telling them not to do this,” Andrew Holland, the senior fellow for energy and climate at the American Security Project, said.
https://ecowatch.com/2016/06/24/gop-blocks-pentagon-climate-plan/
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016114th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 5293
AN ACT
Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017, and for other purposes.
…
Sec. 10013.
None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used to implement Department of Defense Directive 4715.21 on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016By James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal / USA TODAY Network
The United States military doesn’t see climate change as a hoax. It has viewed global warming as a threat to national security for years, despite a political divide largely along partisan lines that may be narrowing.
As the Department of Defense steps up its planning and preparations, however, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, including lawmakers in Kentucky and Indiana, are trying to block the way.
…
U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, opposed it.
“Beginning with the Bush Administration, pentagon officials have warned about the impact of climate change on our national security,” he said in a written statement. “President Obama responded in 2013 by requiring federal agencies to develop coordinated responses to prepare for this threat. My Republican colleagues have long ignored scientists on this issue. But now they are putting our national security at risk by ignoring the military experts.”
The vote has attracted national attention. A June 23 Politico article by Danny Vinick notes that the new Pentagon plan spells out a new climate adaptation strategy that “assigns specific top officials the jobs of figuring out how climate change should shape everything from weapons acquisition to personnel training.”
http://www.thegleaner.com/news/Ky-Ind-lawmakers-hit-Pentagon-on-climate-384321781.html
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016BTW: link to DOD DIRECTIVE 4715.21. CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE.
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robertscribbler
/ June 25, 2016The Pentagon wants biofuels and alternative energy. The Pentagon is trying to increase its fuel versatility and sees this as a national security issue. A more diverse fuel/energy base makes it tougher to cut off access to energy. The Pentagon has, for a long time now, realized that climate change is a severe threat multiplier and it does not want to operate is a world destabilized by climate change. It makes the job of keeping the US safe impossibly tough in the end. The Pentagon wants to reduce its own contribution to climate change. The republican congress is essentially fighting against the national security imperatives laid out by the Pentagon.
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Greg
/ June 25, 2016I worked for a consultant on specific recommendations for specific bases with climate change as the context. A lot of thought went into our work. Some of these bases are very close to sea level. Norfolk is a good example as is Tampa Bay. My main argument, however, which resonated, was that these bases were going to be increasingly used as staging areas for emergencies throughout the world. Local resources would end up being deployed internationally for climate related disasters.
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Eric Thurston
/ June 25, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 25, 2016Tesla signs $9 billion agreement to build factory in China, report says
Tesla Motors has reportedly signed a non-binding agreement with Chinese government-owned company Jinqiao Group to construct a Tesla production plant in the city of Shanghai.
All told, the investment could cost $9 billion, a person close to the matter told Bloomberg.
http://mashable.com/2016/06/24/tesla-factory-china-9-billion/#x4yohnadGSqV
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016Researchers offer new theory on how climate affects violence
Climate impacts life strategies, time orientation, self-control
Researchers have long struggled to explain why some violent crime rates are higher near the equator than other parts of the world. Now, a team of researchers have developed a model that could help explain why.
This new model goes beyond the simple fact that hotter temperatures seem to be linked to more aggressive behavior.
The researchers believe that hot climates and less variation in seasonal temperatures leads to a faster life strategy, less focus on the future, and less self-control — all of which contribute to more aggression and violence.
“Climate shapes how people live, it affects the culture in ways that we don’t think about in our daily lives,” said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160624110035.htm
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wili
/ June 25, 2016Yet the Vikings and other very violent Germanic tribes came out of the far north, and the Jains, Buddhists, and other radically peaceful sects developed in some of the hottest places in the world. Climate surely plays a role in many things, but it is never going to be simple and straightforward, since so many other things also come into play.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016LikeLike
Ryan in New England
/ June 25, 2016Death toll from the West Virginia floods rises to 23 as of Saturday morning. As was said in a previous comment, if this many people were killed by a terrorist there would be outrage and calls for something to be done. But since climate change isn’t real according to the GOP, these events must not really be happening. What a relief! Someone needs to tell all of our fellow citizens that have been rendered homeless by floods, fires, and increasingly devastating storms to cheer up because none of this is real.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/west-virginia-floods-23-killed-thousands-without-power-n598346
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Ryan in New England
/ June 25, 2016Britain’s vote to leave the EU could have ramifications for the Paris climate agreement.
The UK government won high praise six months ago for taking a leading role in the successful Paris climate change agreement, the first legally binding commitment on curbing carbon emissions by all 195 United Nations countries.
With the vote to leave the EU, the UK’s future participation in that landmark accord is now in doubt.
More importantly, for the rest of the world, the Leave campaign’s victory provides a fillip globally for groups opposed to climate action, and if it causes delays to the Paris accord coming into effect, it could provide an opening for aspiring right-wing leaders – including Donald Trump – to try to unpick the pact.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/25/eu-out-vote-puts-uk-commitment-to-paris-climate-agreement-in-doubt
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Bill H
/ June 25, 2016It’s interesting that a lot of the leading brexiteers also hate the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Monckton is prominent figure in the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Nigel Lawson, chair of the Global Warming Policy Forum, as well as Thatcher’s finance minister for 6 years, is also the “elder statesman” of the Brexiteers, The chief brexiteer regularly hints at being an AGW-“skeptic” while never actually stating that he is – because he’s a bloody devious piece of work. UKIP itself is full of AGW-haters/conspiracy theorists as is the grassroots Conservative Party.
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Spike
/ June 26, 2016Virtually every prominent member of the Brexit crowd is an enemy of climate action, the environment and animal welfare in addition to callous disregard of human interests. The tactics they have used are right out of the climate denial handbook – disregard of evidence, fake experts, disregard of real experts, ad hominem attacks, cherry picking etc… It’s a right wing coup, and just what we didn’t need at this time. Think Abbott or Harper – these guys would be very comfortable in that company, as Trump’s effusive welcome of the vote shows.
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todaysguestis
/ June 25, 2016Twenty people die in West Virginia floods
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36627274
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Abel Adamski
/ June 25, 2016I try and keep track of positive scientific advances.
As we know refrigeration is and will be an increasing issue, the refrigerant being a major element of concern
Drum roll, the refrigerant free refrigerator, maybe doesn’t get below 0C, but 2.5 – 3C will suffice as a damn good start and will keep the milk fresh
http://www.gizmag.com/cooltech-commercial-magnetic-cooling/43874/?li_source=LI&li_medium=default-widget
Magnetic fridge eliminates gases, drastically reduces energy use
The days of the rackety, energy-gobbling refrigerator may be numbered with the advent of more efficient systems that cool with the use of magnets. The idea has been around almost as long as your standard gas-compression fridge, but it hasn’t yet been viable for the household and commercial markets. Now, Cooltech Applications has launched the first magnetic refrigeration system (MRS) for commercial use.
The system is based on the magnetocaloric effect, which states that the temperature of a material can be changed by exposing it to a magnetic field. As magnetocaloric materials in the system are put through a cycle of magnetization and demagnetization, a water coolant is pumped through them, transferring the heat from the interior of the fridge to the outside air.
Magnetic emissions are a potential concern, but the levels surrounding its devices are reportedly far lower than even an individual magnet you’d stick on the fridge.
The idea of magnetic cooling itself isn’t entirely new, but this is the first time the technology has become available to the public. Previous machines were too big for common use, and nowhere near as effective as conventional refrigerators
Cooltech’s first commercial system, the MRS400, boasts 400 W of cooling power, keeping the internal temperature between 35.6° F and 41° F (2° C and 5° C), which is within the recommended levels for safe food storage. Its first applications will be in the commercial sector, for use in refrigerated retail display cases, wine cellars, and medical facilities. It’s currently being beta-tested in three locations, using various configurations. Larger industrial systems, capable of 20 KW of cooling power, are also in development.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 20162016 Eastern Arctic ice melt weeks ahead of normal: Canadian Ice Service
Most of the ice on Frobisher Bay should be melted out by early July, says a forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service, as this year’s melt in the Eastern Arctic is weeks ahead of schedule.
“The ice on the Northern Baffin Bay opened up earlier in May, maybe four or five weeks earlier than normal,” said Jason Ross, a ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service.
“Elsewhere in the Arctic — Hudson Bay, Davis Strait and Labrador area — ice melted one to two weeks ahead of normal at this time.”
Link
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Cate
/ June 25, 2016Four or five weeks earlier than normal……
Words fail.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 2016UK-funded ice breaker in ‘elite’ Arctic tourism row
Starting in Alaska, the 32-day voyage will see the 1,700 passengers and crew travel 1,500km across the top of Canada, ultimately ending in New York.
Berths on the 14-deck luxury liner are not cheap, starting at around $20,000 per person and running up to $120,000 for a deluxe stateroom.
While the route is accessible to ships, it is not ice-free and the company behind the voyage has chartered an ice breaker, RRS Ernest Shackleton, from the British Antarctic Survey.
Link
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 2016Siberian larch forests are still linked to the ice age
Press release from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
June 24, 2016 – 8:35am – By The Arctic Journal
A new AWI study shows that the flora of the Northern Russian permafrost lags behind the climate often by several thousand years
A look into the past indicates: The colder the ice age was, the longer the vegetation needed to adapt afterwards to the new climate of the warmer period. “In analogy to these results, this means: Due to the fact that the most recent ice age, about 20,000 years ago, was extremely cold, the permafrost spread over a large area, and forced deep rooted trees such as pines and spruces far to the south. The shallow-rooted Siberian larch trees – which only require a summer thawing of the permafrost soils of 20 to 30 centimetres – were able to survive in protected areas in the region,” explained Ulrike Herzschuh.
The larch forest however, with its dense carpet of roots protects the ice underneath from thawing. “We have observed many times in regions where the larch forest was cut down, that the permafrost melted faster than in other forested areas,” according to the AWI researcher.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 2016When I read the article I was reminded that this appeared after they cut down the forest –
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016Yeah, I saw that too. The larch acted like a buffer. And sort of like the way micro-climates work. Nature knew/knows how to keep things in, or near, balance.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– I came up with a term while working with the micro-climates in the Monarch butterfly overwintering sites. I called it ‘ameliorated circumstance(s)’ in the way it functions.
Change is constant- balance is always near. When it’s not — there are problems.
I saw that too. It’s very bothersome.
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Gingerbaker
/ June 25, 20161000-year floods becoming commonplace. Local downpours of more than two feet becoming commonplace. Heat waves approaching wet bulb death ray status. Droughts measured by the decade or century.
I would propose that that the answer to the question:
“Which specific extraordinary weather events can be attributed wholly to climate change?” has an answer that some may not like:
“All of them.”
The idea that we are experiencing ANY normal weather events (“normal” being within our life experience) anymore is a deception. A perfect 72F sunny June day in 2016 is NOT the same as a perfect 72F day in June 1850. We now live in an geosphere that has significantly higher temperature, significantly higher energy, significantly more water vapor than what was present in 1850. More than was present in 1950. More than was present in 1990. More than was present in 2012.
All weather can now only be properly seen through the lens of our higher energy geosphere. We live today on a different planet than we did in 1850. Our 72F sunny June day in 2016 is a different event that that sunny 72F day in June 1850, because our 72F day in 2016 is the product of a meteorological calculus that has different values for its constants. Our 72F day in 2016 is actually an event that has produced a cooler day, in the context of our climate, than a day in 1850 with the same temperature.
It is more than semantics. None of our weather is the same as it was. ALL of our weather events are now attributable to AGW.
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Aaron Lewis
/ June 25, 2016True. The weather machine is a heat engine. All the weather is affected by all the heat.
At one time it was worth while to account for the sources of heat in an effort to estimate the effects of different carbon budgets. We are way past that. Consider what the models said about Arctic Sea Ice in 2007. They missed the melt. Likewise, the models miss the extreme rain, snow, wind, lighting, and heat waves that are destroying our engineered infrastructure.
The IPCC covers the greatest pile of reticence to ever accumulate under a single acronyme. Never before have so many understated so much.
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Griffin
/ June 25, 2016Great comment. Many folks (including popular meteorologists) are busy caught up in the “we cannot attribute any one event to” rhetoric. You summed the fallacy of such an argument very well. When the background state of the atmosphere has changed, all of the weather is affected all of the time!
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Suzanne
/ June 25, 2016Woke up to this in local news:
“Blue green algae spotted at Bathtub Reef in Martin County”
http://www.wptv.com/news/region-martin-county/suspected-blue-green-algae-spotted-at-bathtub-reef-beach-in-martin-county
A report of the green goo on the beach is apparently so unusual the Martin County spokesperson tells NewsChannel5 she doesn’t remember if or when this has happened before.
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June
/ June 25, 2016We were hoping Bernie would be able to influence the party platform, but it doesn’t look like that will happen, at least as far as climate/energy issues go.
“Democrats ignore urgency of climate crisis, vote against adding fracking ban to platform”
Democrats appointed to the Democratic Party’s Platform Committee by Hillary Clinton and the party’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, defeated a ban on fracking on June 24.
The moratorium was introduced by 350.org founder and environmental activist, Bill McKibben, who was named to the committee by Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.
…The same Democrats, who opposed a fracking ban, opposed a strong measure to keep fossil fuels in the ground to protect the environment. And Browner voted in defense of incrementally phasing out carbon or fossil fuels rather than taking bold action to address climate disruption.
https://shadowproof.com/2016/06/25/clinton-democrats-block-fracking-ban/
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Caroline
/ June 25, 2016Thanks June. This needs to be addressed. To ignore the very real possibility that a Clinton white house will not do enough to address climate change is damaging—- to say the least. It’s easy to focus on repubs and Trump but we MUST challenge corporate backed democrats as well. It is inexcusable that HC won’t call for a ban on fracking and pledge to instate a carbon tax.
We don’t have time to hold yet another President’s “feet to the fire” (and there are plenty of fires around for that).
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36556-obama-administration-approved-gulf-fracking-during-deepwater-horizon-disaster
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June
/ June 25, 2016Exactly right, Caroline. If the mainstream Democrats aren’t willing to treat this with the urgency it requires, then our only alternative will be to take to the streets en masse.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– TransCanada – NAFTA – Extortion by another name?
(Personally, I think that the West Coast was heavily and negatively impacted by NAFTA generated fossil fuel use.)
– How does one argue with a ‘company’s “expectations.” ?
TransCanada Files NAFTA Suit Demanding More Than $15 Billion for Keystone XL Rejection
On June 24, foreign oil company TransCanada filed a lawsuit against the U.S. under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline violated NAFTA’s broad rights for foreign investors by thwarting the company’s “expectations.” As compensation, TransCanada is demanding more than $15 billion from U.S. taxpayers.
http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/25/transcanada-nafta-keystone-xl-tpp/
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DaveW
/ June 25, 2016Crazy, isn’t it. Seems in all of these “free trade”agreements being promoted, countries are ceding aspects of their sovereignty to private corporations. – most especially in areas that would need to be addressed to tackle climate change and other resource / environmental problems.
To paraphrase Kevin Anderson’s comments on such agreements – they are not really about free trade at all, more about protecting the “rights” and privileges of corporations and wealthy investors.
And governments go along with it – sad comment on the priorities of our politicians.
January 2016 Kevin Anderson Interview , post COP 21
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Bill H
/ June 25, 2016Stand by for the UK to enter into similar such “benign” free trade agreements after the Brexit vote. They love citing Canada as an example of a “sovereign state, free of the shackles of a supranational organisation
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Bill H
/ June 25, 2016Sorry, when I say “they love…” I mean “Brexit supporters love….”
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Cate
/ June 25, 2016I remember all the NAFTA hype. I’ve been around long enough to see how it’s all played out here in Canada, in my province, in my community, and in my household—how the values of this place and the people who live here have been trashed, diminished, or ignored in the name of “growth”, which is just another word for “greed.”
I think it’s pretty fair to say that the sole and whole purpose of trade agreements like the NAFTA, TPP, and so on, is to hand over the entire planet—its natural and its human resources—to the universal profit-manufacturing project of the psychopathic corporatist elites. Their aim, in brief, is to enslave the world in the service of their limitless greed.
This project was consciously formulated as a global mission by the 1980s and has been implemented piece-meal in various guises ever since, such as “Thatcherism”, “trickle-down, “globalisation”, “deregulation”, and various “trade” agreements (which are basically contracts to guarantee the interests and rights of corporations above those of national govts). A generation later, we see that most govts in the developed world now follow the dictates of the corporatists in formulating their economic and especially taxation policies.
Yeah, this kinda gets ma pee hot. 🙂
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– It’s also fair to state that this trade is really about transportation — which at this time, and for many years is wholly fossil fuel dependent. Add to this the petrochemical based fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, and packaging.
Most of the above is also water intensive.
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Bill H
/ June 26, 2016Cate, thanks for reinforcing what I had heard about the experience of Canada – the Brexiteers pin-up for a “free and independent state, in charge of its own destiny” (sorry, I know that quote’s awful, but, as a Brit, I’ve had to put up with these dreadful cliches for months on end). Since you used to live in Britain you might be interested in my comments on Brexit further up this comments thread.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– I meant, the ‘transportation’ of goods.
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016But the profits and kickbacks, I’m sure, are done with electronic transfer.
All else is trucked/shipped, warehoused, trucked again, warehoused again, and maybe refrigerated, then often brightly lit with electricity.
– Best to buy and eat local if possible.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– Simultaneous WVA floods – CA wildfires under a new climate regime.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– A nighttime shot for effect:
Lisa Muhammad @iamlisamuhammad 10m
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016Kit @vulpus_umbra 9m9 minutes ago
Proposal: cross-country pipeline from flood areas to wildfire areas to pump flood waters to help put out wildfires #ErskineFire #wvflooding
###
Kern Public Health
@KCPublicHealth
Kern Valley Hospital taking precautionary measures and evacuating due to water boil notice. We’re onsite assisting. #ErskineFire
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Greg
/ June 26, 2016Wow, dystopic
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016– Nosy people using drones hampering firefighting.
BLM NIFC Verified account
@BLMNIFC
Public drones have shut down aerial firefighting operations at least 4 times already this year. #IfYouFlyWeCant
Marc Peebles @SoCalTeam3PIO 42m42 minutes ago
#SanGabrielComplex Active water and retardant drops had to be stopped due to drone. #IfYouFlyWeCant
#SanGabrielComplex Air Ops have resumed over the fire. Aircraft were grounded for slightly over an hour.
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 25, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 25, 2016LikeLike
Bill H
/ June 26, 2016Wow, such a vast area over 90 degrees in June. That looks like some sort of record as well.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 2016Coal to solar: Retraining the energy workforce
Date:
June 24, 2016
Source:
Michigan Technological University
Summary:
As the solar industry booms, coal workers have the opportunity to pursue new work. A new study looks at what it takes to retrain underground skills for sunnier prospects.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160624100825.htm
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Colorado Bob
/ June 25, 2016Well, we lost another great one –
Man Of Constant Sorrow – Ralph Stanley
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– Indeed.
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016In the birthplace of U.S. oil, methane gas is leaking from wells everywhere
…
In Pennsylvania, birthplace of the U.S. oil industry, century-old abandoned oil wells have long been part of the landscape. Nobody gave much thought to it when many were left unplugged or filled haphazardly with dirt, lumber and cannon balls that slipped or rotted away.
But the holes — hundreds of thousands of them pockmarking the state — are the focus of growing alarm, especially those in close proximity to new wells fracked in the Marcellus shale formation, the nation’s largest natural-gas field. They leak methane, which contaminates water, adds to global warming and occasionally explodes; four people have been killed in the past dozen years.
“We had so much methane in our water, the inspector told us not to smoke a cigar or light a candle in the bath,” said Joe Thomas, a machinist who lives with his wife, Cheryl, on a 40-acre farm with at least 60 abandoned wells. Patches of emerald-hued oil leech to the surface, transforming the ground into a soupy mess.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/in-the-birthplace-of-u-s-oil-methane-gas-is-leaking-from-wells-everywhere
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dtlange
/ June 25, 2016– Trade related – Panama Canal expansion:
(Massive amounts of soybeans mentioned are usually for livestock feed’ – also very FF intensive.)
Expanded Panama Canal: Bigger ships, bigger paydays for beans, coal, gas
…
Soybean farmers, natural gas producers, container shippers, and coal miners hope to be among the winners when the expanded Panama Canal is inaugurated on Sunday at a cost of $5.2 billion and after a two-year delay. Crude oil and iron ore exporters will see less benefit as they still depend on vessels too big for the waterway.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-canal-commodities-idUSKCN0ZB0Z0
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Colorado Bob
/ June 26, 2016Climate change could threaten new Panama Canal expansion
About 200 million liters of fresh water are needed to push one ship through the country’s famous canal. The heavier the ship, the more water it needs beneath it.
A drought last year forced authorities to restrict the amount of cargo vessels could carry. A few years ago, it was too much water. Excessive flooding brought canal transit to a halt.
More than half of Panamanians get their water from the Panama Canal Authority. By law, they are the priority.
Which means, when levels drop in Gatun Lake in the middle of the canal, canal ship traffic suffers first and foremost.
Right now, just one river supplies the Panama Canal. There have been talks at the national level of building more dams, diverting more rivers to more lakes, to feed the canal, to ensure water levels stay high.
http://www.cctv-america.com/2016/06/24/climate-change-could-threaten-new-panama-canal-expansion
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Colorado Bob
/ June 26, 2016http://www.cctv-america.com/2016/06/24/climate-change-could-threaten-new-panama-canal-expansion
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016” The heavier the ship, the more water it needs beneath it.”
Good catch.
What’s that term they use?
Displacement. 🙂
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Colorado Bob
/ June 26, 2016Two people died in the so-called Erskine fire, which started Thursday in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and exploded from 5,000 acres to 30,000 acres by Friday night.
By Saturday the fire had grown to just over 35,700 acres and was experiencing “extreme wind driven and uphill runs,” the Bureau of Land Management said.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/western-wildfires/more-homes-destroyed-growing-california-wildfire-n599041
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Colorado Bob
/ June 26, 2016Lone Wati –
” Get ready little lady , hell is coming to breakfast”
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Colorado Bob
/ June 26, 2016For those who want to know, “Wati” is an elk.
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Colorado Bob
/ June 26, 2016“I thought this was my retirement fund,” said Danny Walker, who lost his house, his garage, and two of his three dogs. “Everything’s gone.”
“I ain’t got money to start over,” he said. “I’ll start somewhere.”
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Colorado Bob
/ June 26, 2016“I’ve never been in a wildland fire where I’ve seen so many homes burn,” Kern County fire Capt. Tyler Townsend told NBC Los Angeles Friday. “It’s one of the most devastating I’ve ever seen.”
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016LikeLike
todaysguestis
/ June 26, 2016Unprecedented rainfall causes floods and landslides in Kyushu, southern Japan
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/9398417/Unprecedented-rainfall-causes-floods-and-landslides-in-Kyushu-southern-Japan.html
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Colorado Bob
/ June 27, 2016Rainfall of 10.1 centimetres (about 4 inches) per hour was recorded in the southern region of Kagoshima.
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June
/ June 26, 2016BREAKING: Amazon oil spill puts Peruvian communities at risk
26 June 2016
The spill is the third major one since January along the 40-year-old pipeline, where more than 20 have occurred in the past five years,
https://news.mongabay.com/2016/06/breaking-oil-spill-in-peruvian-amazon-puts-local-communities-at-risk/
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 26, 2016Via climatehawk1:
A series of extended quotes from various observers. RS is one of them.
climatecrocks.com/2016/06/26/not-just-w-virginia-its-a-hard-rain-falli
Climate Denial Crock of the Week
with Peter Sinclair
Not Just W. Virginia: It’s a Hard Rain Fallin’
June 26, 2016
…
Robert Scribbler:
In Kyushu, Japan on Friday, government officials urged 700,000 residents to evacuate as record heavy rains and severe flooding inundated the city for the fifth day in a row. Half a world away in West Virginia, another unpredicted record deluge dumped 8.2 inches of rain…
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016https://climatecrocks.com/2016/06/26/not-just-w-virginia-its-a-hard-rain-fallin/
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016Means a lot to me that Peter picked this up.
It’s like a shot-gun of extreme rainfall impacts. They’re hitting all over the place and it really makes it hard to provide a complete coverage. It’s not just one big event. It’s like 15 big events interspersed with a hundred smaller events. In places, garden variety thunderstorms are unloading 1-3 inches per hour while nearby areas aren’t hit at all. So you get these extreme but isolated floods. And then there are these state and region sized events as well.
The heavens are really unloading. And we’ve probably got in the range of 6-12 months more along the timeline of the El Nino to La Nina transition.
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June
/ June 26, 2016“Unimpeded Rivers Crucial as Climate Changes: New Study”
Gravel-bed rivers and their floodplains are the lifeblood of ecosystems and need to be allowed to run and flood unimpeded if species are to be protected and communities are to cope with climate change, a ground-breaking scientific study has found.
“A wild and free river drives the life support system across the whole landscape and we need to keep them happy,” Locke said in an interview with DeSmog Canada.
“We need to let them be rivers and run free and do our development respecting that need instead of trying to control them.”
http://desmog.ca/2016/06/24/unimpeded-rivers-crucial-climate-changes-new-study
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016Another So Cal wildfire — down coast from LA.
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016– It’s only June.
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016LikeLike
Syd Bridges
/ June 26, 2016As a Brit, I’ll merely comment that my assessment of my fellow-countrymen’s stupidity has taken a turn for the worse. I also notice that this week’s Mauna Loa average is showing 406.66 ppm CO2 as opposed to 402.78 a year ago. It seems to me that a combination of wildfires and failing sinks is taking its toll. I wonder if increasing levels of CO2 decrease intelligence in some people.
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Vic
/ June 26, 2016LikeLike
Vic
/ June 26, 2016https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2724
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016– Thanks. Will check it out.
– I think I pointed out before that the Keeling CO2 Curve was also a reflection of very poor decision making.
Our brains depend of nourishment from what our blood stream takes in from what we breathe.
– Sigh…
– Nap time.
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2724 Posted by Marcin Popkiewicz on Monday, 17 November, 2014
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robertscribbler
/ June 27, 2016It’s fear on both sides, I think. xenophobia from the right and fear of trade agreements (TTIP) killing NHS through privatization from the left.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/72816/cameron-forced-into-major-climbdown-over-nhs-ttip-deal
The stoked fear of losing yet one more social safety net came at a time just before the Brexit vote and, in my opinion, seems to have united some public sentiment on the left and the right over breaking with the EU.
This is exactly the kind of destabilization you get when you combine impacts associated with climate change (increased global migration) with impacts associated with increasing inequality around the world. If you rig the game economically for the rich and then basically wreck the wealth and livelihood generating services provided by the environment, then this is the heightened instability that comes as a result.
So it seems to me that some of the harms generated by globalization and fossil fuel dependence combined stoked the political fires that are now raging throughout Britain.
I agree, it’s not a positive response, all told. More just an angry flailing about. At least that’s what it looks like from over the pond. There’s a similar myopic pseudo populism here supported by Trump. He’s keying in to the fear, a natural knee jerk reaction to withdraw. But the policies he supports will mostly worsen the situation that caused the problems in the first place. In addition, his inflammatory rhetoric is likely to add further stresses to the internal structures of our society should he be elected.
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dtlange
/ June 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 26, 2016– Middle East – Saudi Arabia – Oil
DUBAI—Saudi Arabia has hired J.P. Morgan, HSBC and Citigroup to help sell its debut international bond, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday, as the kingdom seeks to shore up its finances hurt by low oil prices.
Saudi Arabia has already secured a $10 billion loan from a consortium of international lenders in April and has sold debt to its domestic banks.
Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf neighbors—whose principal source of revenue stems from the sale of oil and gas—are increasingly borrowing from international markets as government finances are under strain due to a prolonged period of low energy prices.
Qatar last month sold $9 billion worth of bonds, while Oman recently raised $2.5 billion and the emirate of Abu Dhabi preceded them with a $5 billion bond sale.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-hires-banks-for-first-global-bond-sale-1466936352
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Jay M
/ June 27, 2016Heavy line of moisture mid continent
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dtlange
/ June 27, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ June 27, 2016– USA – Wet in some places — dry in others.
– E. PA/NJ area.
At 12:30 a.m. Monday, the Delaware River in Easton dropped below a foot.
Flood stage is 22 feet at the USGS gauge at the toll bridge and it really doesn’t cause much trouble until a few feet above that.
So too much water isn’t the problem.
But it’s late June and it already looks like late August outside.
Your yellowing lawn likely isn’t dead. It’s just resting. And really thirsty.
Random leaves are starting to fall months early.
While there aren’t water restrictions in place, the eastern edge of the Lehigh Valley and much of northwestern New Jersey have moved into a moderate drought, the U.S. Drought Monitor reports. The rest of the Valley is one step down at “abnormally dry.”
It’s quite localized, WeatherWorks meteorologist Rob Reale explained.
The weather pattern has been quite “troughy,” Reale said, with the Lehigh Valley on the dry side and places such as West Virginia getting soaked and flooded.
Unlike winter, when storm after storm builds up and moves across the country, summer is more likely to feature pop-up events, Reale said, where Bethlehem gets a soaking and Easton doesn’t get a drop.
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/weather/index.ssf/2016/06/part_of_region_in_moderate_dro.html
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dtlange
/ June 27, 2016– ‘Troughy’ — To my imaginative mind, these troughs and ridges have been behaving rather ‘spikish’ as in out of character — spikes. But definitely ‘troughy’.
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dtlange
/ June 27, 2016– India:
Drought migrants flee to India’s cities
https://www.irinnews.org/news/2016/06/27/drought-migrants-flee-india%E2%80%99s-cities
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dtlange
/ June 27, 2016LikeLike