On Friday, amidst temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and at a time when California is now entering its fifth year of drought in a decade when seven out of the last ten years have been drought years, a rapidly growing and dangerous wildfire erupted in the hills north of Los Angeles.
(Sand Fire looms over Santa Clarita, California. Video source: Sand Fire Time Lapse.)
The Sand Fire, which some firefighters are calling practically unprecedented, sparked before typical wildfire season peak and began a rapid spread that consumed 10,000 acres per day from Friday through early Monday. Nearly 3,000 firefighters scrambled to gain a foothold against the blaze, but were somewhat unprepared as contracted water-bomb aircraft from Canada won’t be available until next month, during what is usually the worst part of fire season. The aircraft assistance was planned as extra fire-suppression capability for Santa Clarita, but typical fire threat and risk assessments no longer hold much water in an era where human-forced climate change is pushing temperatures and drought conditions to new extremes across California.
By Monday, the fire had exploded to 33,000 acres (51 square miles). In total, 18 buildings are now reported to have burned and more than 10,000 others have been evacuated. A population the size of a small city, 20,000 people, have now been displaced by this rapidly expanding wildfire. Due to heroic efforts by firefighters, an estimated 2,000 homes have been saved so far. Sadly, the fire has also now claimed a life.
(Smoke plumes from large wildfires burning over southern and western California, framed by a warming Pacific Ocean, a drying Central Valley, and what appear to be snow-free and bone-dry Sierra Nevada Mountains in this July 24 LANCE MODIS satellite shot.)
Continued hot temperatures and 30-mile-per-hour winds are expected to continue to fan the fire today, which as of this writing is just 10 percent contained. If the worst case is realized and this fire continues to expand out of control, as many as 45,000 homes may ultimately be forced to evacuate. Such an evacuation would be comparable in scale to the Fort McMurray Fire which raged through Alberta during May and forced more than 90,000 people to flee.
Conditions in Context — Living in a Fire Age
There is widespread geological evidence of voracious fires burning through large regions of the globe during past hothouse warming events. At the Paleocene-Eocene boundary 56 million years ago, a warming rate that was about ten times slower than what we are experiencing now set off immense blazes that ripped through the world’s peatlands and forests. In other words, evidence points to past instances of Earth warming into hothouse conditions generating periods of intense fires that may well be called fire ages. Today, the Earth is about 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than during the late 19th century. This high temperature departure combines with a very rapid rate of continued warming to dramatically increase wildfire risks around the globe.
(Conditions related to climate change continue to increase drought frequency across the U.S. West. For the past five years, California has seen the brunt of this predicted increasing drought trend as a result of human-forced warming. Image source: US Drought Monitor.)
More local to the Sand Fire, California is in a zone that global climate models have long predicted would suffer from severe heat and drought as a result of fossil-fuel burning and related human-forced warming. This year’s persistent above-average temperatures on the back of five years of drought have greatly increased wildfire risk for the state. Millions of trees now stand dead, surrounded by withered vegetation in a heating and drying land — a vast range of additional fuel that is ever more vulnerable to ignition.
Not only do these conditions generate a higher risk of extreme fires during fire season — sparking blazes like June’s Erskine Fire which burned 200 homes and was the most destructive fire in this California county’s history — but they also increasingly spark large wildfires out of season. It’s a set of conditions that basically generates a year-round fire season for the state, even as it also sparks winter wildfires at far-flung locations around the world.
Links/Attribution/Statements
10,000 Homes Evacuated Due to Wildfire
29 Million Trees Died in California this Year
Climate Models Predict US Megadrought
Hat tip to DT Lange
kay
/ July 25, 2016Thank you, Robert, for the in depth valuable information you provide that our news media does not. I often look for news on global warming and it is impossible to find anyone with a keen eye that takes in the entire picture. You are doing an invaluable service for so many.
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robertscribbler
/ July 25, 2016Thanks for the kind thoughts, Kay. Promise to keep trying to generate a good picture of an accurate climate context for you guys.
Note — updates and a few small tweaks added.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016Half the MSM, like the Murdoch cancer, are still vociferously denying EVERY ecological crisis. Here in Australia, his flag-shit, the ‘Australian’ is furiously denying the coral bleaching on the GBR, appealing to ‘Watts Up with That’ for their ‘science’. Also, they are part of a pretty obviously orchestrated witch-hunt against renewable energy. And the other half of the MSM simply ignore it.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Pretty amazing how distorted that all sounds. Here, I’m pretty sure that Fox is the only major outlet that supports Watts. Is the public wise to it?
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 27, 2016In Australia, Murdoch controls 70% of the MSM in the press. His ‘papers’ are just like FoxNews. In regard to the ecological crises, they are relentlessly denialist of ALL the individual crises, utterly opposed to renewable energy (they push the ‘wind turbine syndrome’ lie to oppose wind energy, despite some sixty studies now proving its non-existence)ferociously antipathetic to all environmentalists and environmentalism, and pursue vicious vendettas against Greens and various individuals, often libelous, and which continue for years and even after their deaths.
The rest of the MSM is either also denialist, often quite savagely so on talk-back radio or on FoxNews style TV shows, with some soft denialism downplaying the threat, and the rest has taken to ignoring it. In a few places the climate disasters get reported, the record temperatures etc, but almost nowhere are they linked to a generalised ecological crisis. That is verboten, even among the experts, when they get on TV, where down-players are much more preferred.
As a result you rarely meet anyone with any idea of the real situation. Those that work in the weather and experience the climate, like farmers and gardeners, particularly if old enough to have seen the changes with their own eyes, often know something is up, but even among them, the ideological blinkers are often on. Other times you can see that people, particularly with young children, know the truth, or suspect it, but, understandably don’t want to face it. A general atmosphere of utter impotence in the face of a remote and obdurate ruling class prevails. We may be one of the more extreme examples of an Anglosphere economy coming to the climax of the process of contradictions like infinite growth on a finite planet, and the dismissal of pollution as a mere ‘externality’, turning lethal.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 27, 2016Interesting the linkage between Finance, oil and media
This article is a must read
http://nomadicpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-environment-romney-and-hannity-share_12.html
As everybody knows, Fox News is a part of that Argus-eyed monster, News Corporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Most people mistakenly think of Rupert Murdoch as a media mogul — and this is not strictly true. Murdoch is also an oil man.
” Genie Energy Corporation (Genie Energy), a division of IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT, IDT.C), today announced that Lord (Jacob) Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch have each purchased equity stakes in Genie Oil and Gas Inc. Jacob Rothschild will join Rupert Murdoch on Genie Energy’s Strategic Advisory Board and Jacob Rothschild’s interests will partner with Genie Energy to raise capital for the eventual commercialization of its oil shale projects.
Jacob Rothschild and Mr. Murdoch separately purchased equity positions equivalent to a cumulative 5.5% stake in Genie Oil and Gas Inc., which consists of IDT’s interests in American Shale Oil, LLC (AMSO), and Israel Energy Initiatives, Ltd., (IEI), for a total of $11.0 million dollars.”
Incidentally, another member of Genie’s Strategic Advisory Board is the 46th Vice President of the United States. Former President and CEO of Halliburton Company, and U.S. Secretary of Defense, the immortal Dick Cheney.
As SourceWatch reveals, while he was in office, Cheney pulled a neat trick in regards to “fracking”:
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Jean
/ July 26, 2016I looked thru the LATimes on line yesterday trying to find a mention of human caused global warming as any kind of factor in such destruction..there ought to be a law to stop irresponsible media coverage
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016The same tiny elite who own the fossil fuels Moloch and their banks also own the MSM. QED.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016It’s an issue of failing to mention context. For whatever reason, the notion of context RE extreme weather and climate change is a no-mention for even the seemingly more responsible mainstream sources.
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JPL
/ July 25, 2016This is a really thought-provoking ted talk about how trees communicate with each other. Nature is so beautifully complex.
I can’t help but wonder what their last communications are as a forest fire is bears down on them.
John
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016‘See you on the other side’, I expect.
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Ailsa
/ July 26, 2016Really liked this talk John, thanks for posting
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Griffin
/ July 25, 2016My thoughts and prayers are with the folks that live near this ferocious fire. California is dry to the point of extreme danger that is downright terrifying to see. Thank you for keeping us posted on the bigger picture Robert.
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Griffin
/ July 25, 2016I guess the USGS is not among those paid to see the big picture in relation to our current carbon budget. They are busy putting out a happy press release about how they have found more fuel that we can’t afford to burn.
“Large Deposits of Potentially Producible Gas Hydrate Found in Indian Ocean”
The USGS has assisted the Government of India in the discovery of large, highly enriched accumulations of natural gas hydrate in the Bay of Bengal. This is the first discovery of its kind in the Indian Ocean that has the potential to be producible.
Natural gas hydrates are a naturally occurring, ice-like combination of natural gas and water found in the world’s oceans and polar regions. The amount of gas within the world’s gas hydrate accumulations is estimated to greatly exceed the volume of all known conventional gas resources.
“Advances like the Bay of Bengal discovery will help unlock the global energy resource potential of gas hydrates as well help define the technology needed to safely produce them,” said Walter Guidroz, USGS Energy Resources Program coordinator. “The USGS is proud to have played a key role on this project in collaboration with our international partner, the Indian Government.”
This discovery is the result of the most comprehensive gas hydrate field venture in the world to date, made up of scientists from India, Japan and the United States. The scientists conducted ocean drilling, conventional sediment coring, pressure coring, downhole logging and analytical activities to assess the geologic occurrence, regional context and characteristics of gas hydrate deposits in the offshore of India.
https://www.usgs.gov/news/large-deposits-potentially-producible-gas-hydrate-found-indian-ocean
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Ryan in New England
/ July 25, 2016Totally insane. We are no smarter than yeast.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016India is one of the first countries that will be rendered uninhabitable for our species. Modi seems a pretty bog-standard fascist, so I doubt that he will do anything to avert that fate.
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dex3703
/ July 26, 2016That could be good for the rest of us. Maybe at last the trajectory of human population will start down.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016We won’t get anywhere hoping for Malthus to visit the sub-continent. Apart from anything else, they have nukes, and Doomsday scenarios for over one billion people will see them used, and that’s nuclear winter territory.
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Leland Palmer
/ July 26, 2016dex3703-
Using global warming as a tool to solve population problems is almost certain to have huge unintended consequences.
Firstly, if we’re concerned with resource use, it’s a lot more efficient to kill Americans than Indians. Americans use more than 10 times more energy than Indians, and 25 times more energy than Bangladeshis, per capita. Use of minerals, fiber, and so on are similar, I think. So, you’d have to kill huge numbers of Bangladeshis to make any sort of dent in energy or resource use, at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita
Population problems are already curing themselves via the demographic transition to low birthrate and low death rate societies. Social disruption is likely to disrupt the demographic transition and lead to increased birthrates, I think.
If the conflicts created by global warming are like conventional wars, then wars actually stimulate population growth. The threat to existence created by wars stimulates people to reproduce. Likely global warming will have the same effect, I think.
There will be no winners from global warming. The Russians thought that they would be winners, I think, but now they are subject to huge wildfires that will only get much worse. California is subject to crippling droughts and wildfires, China is being subjected to unprecedented flooding, and sea level rise will soon start to impact coastal areas and cities around the world. Deadly combined heat and humidity events will become more and more common, forcing migration from many coastal areas.
Fantasies about the Arctic Ocean turning into a new Mediterranean sea are just fantasies. The Arctic may well end up being the center of a methane catastrophe, and the Arctic Ocean may end up a cesspool covered with purple bacteria with methane geysers shooting up out of it. Hydrogen sulfide from acidifying and hypoxic oceans might become more and more deadly, and significant releases of seafloor methane could trigger huge storms and combined heat and humidity events. Huge clouds of mosquitoes could prowl the land, and wildfires could start burning there year round. Permafrost melt could threaten the structural integrity of homes and shelters. The Arctic, instead of being our lifeboat, could become the most dangerous place on the planet to try to live.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016I agree with much of what Leland has to say here. A few additional comments:
1. Stress on populations due to resource and infrastructure destruction impacts related to climate change results in spiraling instabilities that can quickly go global. Long before the population curve starts to bend down, you end up with a high global civilization collapse pressure. For example, loss of food and water security due to drought, extreme weather, and receding glaciers in India has wide-ranging impacts on the global food market. As a result, food and water stress in one region can quickly cause the same in another. As this happens, the potential for conflict rises. Populations seek to move from non productive zones to remaining productive zones. Failure to share resources results in conflict and, likely warfare. Syria’s population is about 1/50th the size of India. And we can see the vivid cascading impacts severe drought related to climate change had on that country, the Middle East, and the world. Of course, India is not Syria and would respond to stress differently. But old wounds would be torn open by that stress, old rivalries enflamed while new ones emerged.
2. Compassion is a far better way of looking at the world. We should work to save lives and prevent harm. As population pressure is an issue we should also meet it with compassion by continuing to enable women’s equality, women in the workplace, broader access to birth control, and continuing to expand women’s rights to family planning services. In this way, expansion of women’s rights should be seen as a vital infrastructure. It is the right way to do population restraint — where most of the other ‘solutions’ are basically rooted in a bloody minded, heartless, and murderous misanthropy.
3. RE Modi, my sense is that he’s pretty much trying to mix market liberalization and infrastructure growth as a way to invigorate India’s economy. The pure growth bent has been somewhat moderated by large public transport projects and a good deal of support for solar energy. My opinions on his policies are mixed. You can take a look at a basic overview here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narendra_Modi
Modi is also vegan, which I approve of — more world leaders should set this example.
More to the point, Modi has made some rather responsible advances when it comes to climate change. And ther policies I wholeheartedly support. Most notable is his plan to add 100 GW to India’s solar energy capacity by 2022. With the right kind of policy follow-through, this foundation could provide India with the opportunity to leap-frog fossil fuels as it attempts to develop its economy.
To this point, we will have to see if Modi’s bridges to the international trade system enable control by bad actor fossil fuel industries, help to open the door to emerging renewables or (more likely) result in the kinds of market dominance based conflicts that we have seen in the US, Australia, the U.K. and pretty much everywhere wher globalization has extended its related energy wars into national political systems.
But Modi looks to be pretty complex overall. And the fact that he has engaged with the US on positive climate change initiatives is somewhat reassuring:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/07/fact-sheet-united-states-and-india-–-moving-forward-together-climate
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Ailsa
/ July 26, 2016An addition to RS’s point number 2, promoting women’s rights in order to ameliorate our problems need not to be just about reproductive issues – without wanting to make sweeping generalisations, respecting female viewpoints often leads to a swing towards appreciation of cooperation rather than lauding competition.
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dex3703
/ July 27, 2016I just noticed all these great replies. I should have been more clear I intended my comment as gallows humor. Things are precarious. The challenge will be to be humane going forward with a planet that is more or less hopelessly overpopulated as the environments begin to fail.
There’s nowhere to run to, nowhere to go that’s better. Methane and H2S in the Arctic are real possibilities, re Peter Ward’s Under a Green Sky.
There was a great British sitcom from the early 80s–Whoops, Apocalypse! The wonderful Barry Morse played a doofus US President who launched the missiles and ended the world. I wake up feeling like I’m in my early teens again, just waiting for the mushroom clouds.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016So there’s a big arm of the USGS whose main job institutionally has been to identify mineral resources for industries seeking to extract them. The result is a good degree of institutional bias that favors extractive energy sources. That said, the EIA suffers from a similar fossil fuel bias as well.
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Ryan in New England
/ July 25, 2016Well done staying on top of unfolding events. And thank you for providing the context that these fires now develop in, context that is lacking elsewhere, especially the mainstream press. CBS reported on the fires, and mentioned that they’re occurring in a drought. They stopped there. In the most important election ever in regards to climate change, we have a lunatic narcissist that is so outrageous climate change is all but forgotten. An abysmal situation.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016They should look at California drought years vs non drought years, provide the context of hottest year in the global climate record, and provide the context of scientific expectations for increasing wildfire frequency and SW drying due to human forced climate change. Otherwise, you’re basically not telling the story as is. In a world where 75 percent of heatwaves can now be directly attributed to climate change, I think the responsible journalist adds in the relevant context. The non-mention is a kind of passive misinformation.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 25, 2016Aqua/MODIS
2016/207
07/25/2016
05:35 UTC
Fires and smoke in central Russia
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016The smoke from the individual fires just meld into one huge band…
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Noting a lot of cloud formation now among the smoke plumes. Looks like this thing is about to switch on the deluge machine.
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Griffin
/ July 25, 2016The economic cost of Sandy is far from fully tallied.
NEW YORK (AP) — A subway tunnel that was severely damaged by Superstorm Sandy will be closed for 18 months starting January 2019 for repairs, shutting down one of the system’s most crowded lines that connects Manhattan with vibrant neighborhoods in Brooklyn, officials said Monday.
Candice Freshko, who works at a bar in Williamsburg, was concerned about the economic impact at bars and shops in the popular neighborhood. “It will be crushing for a lot of businesses around here” when the tunnel is closed, she said.
https://apnews.com/38b8da1835f347468957e63868286439/Busy-NYC-subway-tunnel-to-close-for-18-months-for-repairs
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Colorado Bob
/ July 25, 2016Fires burning North of the Black Sea –
Terra/MODIS
2016/207
07/25/2016
08:40 UTC
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016There are just so many of these things — Baikal to the Arctic Ocean to Eastern Europe. It’s a triangle of fire.
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Bill H
/ July 26, 2016Ukraine on fire. Anyone else reporting this?
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Kalypso
/ July 26, 2016Thought this was crazy, figured I’d share it with you all…
“In a video released today by the Siberian Times, researchers Alexander Sokolov and Dorothee Ehrich investigate a seemingly nondescript tract of grass that turns out to be a large, concealed pocket of… something. Kind of like a trampoline, the subterranean bubble forcibly undulates as Sokolov puts pressure on one side using his foot. According to the Russian scientists, a total of 15 blister-like patches were discovered on the island.”
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/something-is-causing-siberias-tundra-to-literally-bubble-underground
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climatehawk1
/ July 26, 2016Tweet scheduled.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016One of my favorite climate cartoons shows a scientist at a climate change conference asking, “What happens if this is all a hoax and we end up with clean water and clean air for nothing?” Indeed, what if? That is the future I want to give my grandchildren.
CATHY JENNINGS
http://www.gazettextra.com/20160725/your_viewsclimate_change_evidence_mounts_yet_skeptics_exist
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016“TO READ THIS ARTICLE, please Sign In or Sign up.”
?
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Is this it?
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dex3703
/ July 26, 2016I love this cartoon. It’s easy to remember: the themes brought up over and over since 1970, when I was born.
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Marcel Guldemond (@marcel_g)
/ July 26, 2016+1
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Never grow tired of this one.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 26, 2016” but were somewhat unprepared as contracted water-bomb aircraft from Canada won’t be available until next month, during what is usually the worst part of fire season”
– Good point and context.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016You snooze, climate change eats your lunch, drinks your coffee, empties your water cooler, burns and floods your house, kills the cat, forces the neighborhood to pack up and move downtown, and makes your children sick with tropical viruses.
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 26, 2016Good one RS.
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016What? Take my coffee you bastard and I may just get mad!
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Invasive Tumble Weeds Hybridize.
– I’ve been expecting signs of a ‘reverse’ Batesian mimicry then these hybrids show up.
We have stirred nature’s brew…
“… mimicry in which an edible animal is protected by its resemblance to a noxious one that is avoided by predators.” – Google
‘New species of Russian thistle on the move in California’
What happens when two problematic invasive plant species hybridize? In the case of Salsola tragus and S. australis, both widespread and co-occuring, but genetically distinct species commonly referred to as Russian thistle, the result has been a new species, S. ryanii. So far S. ryanii is off to a running start, indicating that it’s potentially just as problematic as its parent species, perhaps even more so, because while records exist showing the presence of S. tragus in San Bernardino County since the 1890s and S. australis for at least several decades, S. ryanii was first documented in 2002. For more on the significance of this point, refer to a previous UC Weed Science Blog post on the importance of lag times in invasion. In short, a single snapshot in time may not be the best predictor of a species’ invasiveness, especially close to time of introduction.
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=21617
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016We have stirred nature’s brew… AND turned the heat up.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016Some back ground on the Russian thistle.
The Santa Fe railroad sent agents into Russia, and the Ukraine , as they pushed West.
With leaflets, saying , “The rain follows the plow”. The Russian women made the trip with sealed jars of hard winter wheat. Mixed in with those seeds were the “Tumblin Tumble Weeds”
Kansas become a wheat state, and Texas got the “Tumblin Tumble Weeds” .
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Great addition there, Bob.
” The Russian women made the trip with sealed jars of hard winter wheat. Mixed in with those seeds were the “Tumblin Tumble Weeds” ‘
Connecting the ‘dots’.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016dtlange
Globalization
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016OT:
Did you see the Dem Convention? Fantastic opener. Inspirational. Unified.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016“Did you see the Dem Convention? Fantastic opener. ‘
No, but I’ll check it out. 🙂
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016‘Russian thistle?”-bloody Putin! He’ll stoop to anything!
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
DaveW
/ July 26, 2016A++
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 26, 2016USA Big Sur/Carmel area fire.
[AND ZERO, NO MENTION OF THE MOST BASIC SELF DEFENSE : N95 dust mask!]
– mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_30167279/wildfire-smoke-drifts-into-south-bay
Wildfire smoke from Monterey County drifts into South Bay
SAN JOSE — Bay Area residents are getting a double assault on the air they breathe this week — smog in a heat wave plus thick smoke drifting from the Soberanes wildfire into the South Bay and heading toward other parts of the Bay Area.
Winds swept wildfire smoke from the Monterey County wildfire to the north into San Jose, Gilroy and other parts of the South Bay late Sunday and Monday as air quality regulators issued a Spare the Air health alert for the region for Tuesday — the second day in a row.
The plume of wildfire smoke may worsen air quality in other parts of the Bay Area as well, depending on wind directions and how much success firefighters have in controlling the blaze.
…
[AND ZERO, NO MENTION OF THE MOST BASIC SELF DEFENSE : N95 dust mask!]
… Borrmann, a spokesman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
His overall advice: Use common sense in deciding whether you need to go indoors or take other measures to protect yourself from smoke.
Smoke fills the air with tiny particles that can reach deep into the lungs and trigger asthma, bronchial and heart attacks.
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_30167279/wildfire-smoke-drifts-into-south-bay
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Perspective of heat/ash/H2o rising…
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016I believe the photo is from a Aerojet Rocketdyne cam. They have a rocket motor test facility in the area.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016RocketDyne Peak Fire Cam
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016I read these small town op-eds now, more than ever . Please attack this jackass –
Sec. Kerry’s false narrative on climate change
http://wvmetronews.com/2016/0/25/sec-kerrys-false-narrative-on-climate-change/
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016I did too.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016‘Hoppy’s’ just yet another Rightwing imbecile. God (or Rupert, His Representative on Earth) must love ’em, because they made so very many of them.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016Famous birthdays July 25; Bob Dylan plugs in, turns on generations
‘Like a Rolling Stone’
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Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016This guy is a fake, and add I was fooled.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– I suspected as much in this mega high output factory farm/slaughter house world.
Evidence suggests migratory birds are not a reservoir for highly pathogenic flu viruses
July 25, 2016
The H5 avian influenza A virus that devastated North American poultry farms in 2014-15 was initially spread by migratory waterfowl, but evidence suggests such highly pathogenic flu viruses do not persist in wild birds. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital led the research, which appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While wild ducks and other aquatic birds are known to be natural hosts for low pathogenic flu viruses associated with milder symptoms, the results of this study indicate that is not the case with the highly pathogenic flu viruses that are associated with more severe illness. The research suggests that wild ducks and other aquatic birds are not an ongoing source of highly pathogenic flu infection in domestic poultry.
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-evidence-migratory-birds-reservoir-highly.html
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basmith13f
/ July 26, 2016I live in the red zone near the Sierra Nevada foothills in southeastern Madera County. I am not too happy about it. I don’t have the risk of being caught in a forest fire, but the smoke settles in the Valley and makes it painful to breathe.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Do you have, or can you get a N95 dust mask respirator?
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humanistruth
/ July 27, 2016I recommend running a HEPA filter in your house. Move it into your bedroom to sleep.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016… hmmm.
Bermuda Triangle mystery solved? Experts claim methane gas explosions could be responsible
GAS explosions in the ocean floor could be responsible for mysterious disappearances over the Bermuda Triangle, a new report has claimed.
The 3,900,000 km square patch between Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda has long been associated with the vanishing of ships and aircrafts which has stumped experts looking for an explanation.
However, a new theory may have finally solved the mystery.
Earlier this year, several craters were discovered which piqued scientists’ interest from around the globe.
Soon after it was discovered that the large holes in the ground were likely caused by the release of large amounts of gas beneath the surface in a process known as methane hydrates.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/693100/Bermuda-Triangle-mystery-solved-methane-gas-explosions-responsible
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016Bob Dylan Changed my life .
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Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016The Band – Chest Fever
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016” Pulled into Nazareth…” – PA, Home to C.F. Martin Guitars
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Jay M
/ July 26, 2016east coast NA:
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Big Sur Calif. fire
CAL FIRE Verified account @CAL_FIRE 19m19 minutes ago
#SoberanesFire [update] near Big Sur (Monterey County) is now 16,100 acres – 10% contained
###
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Genomik
/ July 26, 2016My conservative friend asked me to comment on this article titled “China’s coal peak hailed as turning point in climate change battle”
Here’s some of my thoughts. Please add some more.
GREAT START but only just that. Its like going to the doctor at age 50 w diabetes, high blood pressure and weighing 300lbs and asking if you stop eating donuts everyday now will that prevent a heart attack?
Other questions include:
A lot of climate change is happening already. Systems seem to be breaking or reaching tipping points. Its probably the case that many subsystems are completely broken. Will Californias fire season wait till 2035 for coal to be gone?
Will coral reefs wait? Kelp forests? Boreal Forests? All seem to be near or past tipping points.
China has had catastrophic (and expensive) floods recently and Im sure this is not lost on the leaders of China. They see the risk and they also see the opportunity in alternative energies.
This article was by an economist not climate change scientists.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/25/china-coal-peak-hailed-turning-point-climate-change-battle
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labmonkey2
/ July 26, 2016OT but relevant – More discussion of
—
A changing climate means less rain and lower water supplies in regions where many people live and much of the planet’s food is produced: the mid-latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres, including the U.S. Southwest, southern Europe and parts of the Middle East, southern Africa, Australia and Chile. As WRI-Aqueduct’s future scenarios for water supply show, diminished water supplies will be apparent in these areas by 2020 – less than four years away — and are expected to grow worse by 2030 and 2040.
—
Article does not paint a very pretty picture, either, as I doubt the steps required will be implemented. Fucking Humans….
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labmonkey2
/ July 26, 2016Sorry for the outburst – just not feeling the Bern right now. And after watching Newt Gingrich explain that ‘feelings’ are more important than facts in an argument… weli, I just can’t hold my tongue any longer…
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Significant social/psychological/propaganda ‘data point’ this: “‘feelings’ are more important than facts.”
It is much too prevalent. It drives the advertising of destructive consumerism — and is in the political realm.
The way I put it recently is/was: “emotion is more important than ‘actuals’.”
It is insidious. It is anti science and anti reason. And can’t really be verified.
“Well, I felt better yesterday but today I feel crappy — It’s your fault.”
So, this fascist corrupter of the Constitution NG speaks plainly – he is exposing quite a bit that endangers us.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016“Well, I felt great yesterday but today I feel crappy — I need to buy something.”
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mfranklin
/ July 26, 2016Fascism waits for the right conditions to present themselves.
The right conditions are a populace with traumatic memories of a destroyed economy, the result of a failed attempt at world domination.
To force the population to forget the improving conditions of the current economy, use emotion: fear, rascism,greed, loathing, name calling; whatever it takes to resurface the inchoate fears of the past so that they may be employed to cause the followers to disregard improved conditions of the present- And then the fear addled followers will disregard all logic and common sense as they blame their fears on the current government and support the readily available fascist candidates.
This reads like something written in the 30’s, or 20’s? But I swear I have never read anything from that time.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 26, 2016Gingrich’s ‘argument’ takes him back to before the Enlightenment, but that’s just what the religious nut-jobs want. It seems pretty plausible that many of these fanatics are determined to destroy humanity, in ‘the fire next time’, by way of a frenzy of apocalyptic madness.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Request for an interpretation, please.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Pretty sure he’s pointing out the big ridge in the southern Indian Ocean. Been looking at that feature and similar Southern Hemisphere ridge patterns popping up during June and July. The Mangled Jet Stream appears to have popped up in the SH with a vengeance.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– California fire weather–NWS Hanford @NWSHanford 1h1 hour ago
Triple digit temperatures forecast for the San Joaquin Valley through at least early next week
###
This is inland.
At the bottom of the CV is the Transverse Range and is the location of the Sand Fire.
Consider also that the large wildfire in Big Sur/Carmel is in the seaside of the Coast Range.
If the coastal burn so easily — it is a problem.
Am watching smoke/air currents to see how the air is circulating or changing through this region. (Not a new subject for me re air pollution but it adds to it another dimension.)
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Hello polar amplification.
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 28, 2016” Live a message, please…” 🙂
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Spike
/ July 26, 2016Interesting article on the Russian fires here – I never realised the scale of annual CO2 emissions from wildfires. “Although necessary for many ecosystems, wildfires do release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, currently 1.6–2.8 gigatonnes a year, equivalent to a third of the total amount emitted from the burning of fossil fuels.”
https://theconversation.com/vast-wildfires-are-burning-in-remote-siberia-far-from-humans-heres-why-we-should-care-62881
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Leland Palmer
/ July 26, 2016Huge wildfires around Lake Baikal right now. The carbon monoxide image from earth.nullschool:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2016/07/26/1500Z/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/orthographic=85.79,59.65,2048/loc=104.955,58.685
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Leland Palmer
/ July 26, 2016I’ve wondered too about the charcoal produced by wildfires, and whether it is a significant carbon sink. Repeated wildfires may be a negative feedback, or perhaps would be a negative feedback if the rate of change of global warming was slower:
Pyrogenic organic matter production from wildfires: a missing sink in the global carbon cycle
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12800/full
They’re talking about 100 million tons of carbon sequestered per year by boreal forest fires – 0.1 gigatonnes. For comparison, we emit 10 or more gigatonnes of fossil fuel carbon per year, so this is about 100 times smaller.
So, it’s significant but not a game changer, I think. If we weren’t emitting fossil fuel carbon at such an insane pace, this could be a negative feedback that could help stabilize the system. But human fossil fuel carbon emissions are overwhelming this carbon sequestration mechanism, as usual.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016OK. Figure fact check here:
1. Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning is near 10 billion tons each year. Please see:
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/15/hl-compact.htm
2. So that’s about 3 times the average emissions from wildfires.
3. Wildfires are a typical part of the global carbon cycle. However, warming can generate a feedback that increases wildfire prevalence, providing a positive feedback to warming.
4. Wildfire prevalence increase due to warming is part of the total land carbon feedback.
5. Human development interactions with climate change in places like the Amazon and Indonesia have tended to make the problem markedly worse. This is why land use is an issue when mitigating climate change.
6. But to be very clear, the human fossil fuel emission’s outside addition to the global carbon cycle is practically unprecedented in scale as a forcing mechanism. In other words, though the internal fluxes within the carbon cycle are large, the external flux at this time is probably one of the largest ever seen, if not the largest in the history of the carbon cycle itself.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ July 26, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016As people get richer, they buy into air conditioning. Demand is increasing exponentially in countries like China and India, where people are no longer prepared to live without AC. This piece by an economist suggests that we can mitigate through carbon taxes the climate impact of the burgeoning use of AC.
https://theconversation.com/the-global-impact-of-air-conditioning-big-and-getting-bigger-62882
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016A carbon tax would be wonderful. We might have to get rid of republicans first, though.
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labmonkey2
/ July 26, 2016I’ll drink to that…
Cheers
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PlazaRed
/ July 26, 2016I’m sitting in my lounge at 10 pm, the temps is +37/C inside the house and it was about +42/C or plus outside today.
I have no AC and only a small electric fan.
I’m in the first world in Europe and I know of very few people in my town with AC, in fact almost none.
People become soft with wealth. Here in Sountern Spain the cash in the bank or pocket is much more important than AC!
I don’t think things will change much here in my remaining lifetime.
I’m paying about $7 amonth for the electricty I use in my house and my workshop is solar of course, so that costs nothing after the inital costs of $500 for the system about 9 years ago.
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016PlazaRed, yes, I think AC is very much a North American thing, it seems to me, from the time I spent living in Europe. It’s just not expected there as it is here. But I expect that once people do experience it, and get used to it, they will want it—and indeed, worldwide demand is growing by leaps and bounds. I’ve posted a link further down the thread here to a really good article on our history with AC and why we might need to rethink some aspects of our relationship to it.
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PlazaRed
/ July 27, 2016I did a swift survay of my street on the subject of AC.
One house out of 10 has it.
I asked the owners of the others why they had no AC. The reply was at about 10 $cents an hour to run it, who would be crazy enough to turn it on even if anybody could afford to install it in the first place! That about $2.5 a day plus tax at 21% so over $3 a day, $21 a week, some people here in my town live on less than that amount of money.
Poverty prevails.
Its up to about 40/C in Seville Spain near my town today.
Que sera sera?
https://www.wunderground.com/q/locid:SPXX0074;loctype:1
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016World Resources Institute weighs in on the need to build resiliency into our food and water supply systems in the face of climate change.
We should be identifying “global water risk” and “food security hot spots….The risks are not always obvious…. A country can be relatively water-secure within its own borders but still be highly dependent on food imports…” (That’s Canada, for one.)
Building resiliency and improving production in a changing climate is not an impossible task and some work is being done, but this article calls for more foresight in planning for future shocks indicated by current climate trends. “The shifting of cloud and rainfall patterns around the globe are just one more visible sign of the effects of climate change. What we need to begin doing in response is to anticipate the location and magnitude of these effects, and build resilience into the lives and livelihoods of those who will be most vulnerable.”
http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/07/clouds-head-poles-time-prepare-food-and-water-shocks
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ July 26, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 27, 2016The weather patterns are going to keep shifting. Planning on where they are going to be conducive to growing food stuffs in two years time is going to a lottery at best. Insurance for the farmers sounds great but we can’t eat farmers money any more than they can. The changes are going to be to fast for our systems to to catch up. It takes years to get new ground ready for mass production. The rate of change we seem to be experiencing is already close to what we accommodate. I hope I’m sooo wrong.
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John S
/ July 26, 2016Re China and climate change, Lateline snuck one past the censors and aired a rare visit to Chinese glaciologists working on the Qinghai-Tibetian Plateau, where they discuss data from China’s first [weather] research station, operating since 1958.
“It’s in the heart of a region known as the Third Pole because it contains the largest body of frozen water outside the North and South poles. Temperatures there have increased by 1.5 degrees [in the last 50 years] – more than double the global average. More than 500 small glaciers have disappeared altogether [in the last 50 years] and the biggest ones are shrinking rapidly…the Third Pole is the source of Asia’s 10 biggest rivers and it supports 1.5 billion people and it’s seriously under threat.”
[there’s some serious future strife there]
“… confirming the extent of the glacier melt by checking the speed and depth of water flow at the same positions for 50 years”
Solid data, also research on melt effect of dust and black carbon.
The senior Chinese glaciologist nailed it –
“QIN XIANG (subtitle translation): For the time being, the entire world hasn’t done enough. If they had, then global warming wouldn’t be getting worse…”
Given the (purportedly) rare access to a Western film crew maybe the Chinese authorities have a point to make, if so a pity our leaders don’t seem to be listening. Then again, maybe there were some delcons who watched it and have given it a second thought.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016There’s been a good series of reporting on this issue over the past couple of months in the broader media (social and otherwise). Lets hope it continues.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 27, 2016I remember hear Jeremy Leggett, a couple of years ago, where he said that he had just returned from Beijing, where, he asserted, there were NO denialists. The leadership are technocrats. many engineers and the like, and they can read and understand science. And the Government governs, and corporations producing denialist propaganda would not be tolerated. As in the traditional Chinese system of governance, ‘merchants’ are useful for producing stuff, but they are NOT allowed near power, unless they join the Party of Government. I can’t help thinking that it is a more efficient and rational system than that on display in the USA right now.
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Exposing the Big Game
/ July 26, 2016Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
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Greg
/ July 26, 2016If you are fearful of the increase in quantity and intensity of fires remember Hansen called it Storms of my grandchildren. Jeff Masters latest blog takes a look at a recent study of what these storms potential strength and likelihood is, so called Grey Swans. In a business-as-usual global warming scenario, six climate models showed that such a storm might become between four and fourteen times more likely by the end of the century. A run of the HADGEM climate model showed an unimaginably intense hurricane with a central pressure of 830 mb, top sustained winds of 233 mph, traveling parallel to the coast along just the right track to generate a titanic 36-foot storm surge. Tampa Bay would be wiped out.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/extreme-grey-swan-hurricanes-in-tampa-bay-a-potential-future-catast
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Greg
/ July 26, 2016Hurricane Phoenix: The Tampa Bay Region’s Worst Case Scenario. An eye-opening & frightening look at the potential effects of a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane making a direct landfall on the Tampa Bay metro area (2014)
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PlazaRed
/ July 26, 2016Good senario Video. Its not a probablity that something like this will occur, its a certainty, short or long term.
Interesting that they talk about rebuilding the city at the end of the video? With sea level rise and the shock of the devastation it would be a much better idea to talk about re-locating as far away from the coastline both in distance and vertically as possible.
2 things that cant be messed with for certain are hurricanes and sea level rise and both are on the cards; if everybody does not change the way they are living ver soon.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Hello superstorm… Dear God — 36 foot storm surge???
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ July 26, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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seal in the Selkirks
/ July 26, 2016My NE corner of WA is yellow on drought monitor map but last year I was four miles downwind from the Carpenter Rd fire under Evac Level 2 in a mask and swim goggles swatting burning airborne debris off my clothing in 100’F heat. I know exactly what those people down south are going through.
Yesterday was 95’F at 4:30pm, humidity 70%, Wet Bulb over 100’F. We aren’t burning again. Yet.
Today cooler & clear says weather underground. WRONG! 80’F at 9am. Out the window this minute I’ve got lightning & thunder with incredible black ugly clouds roaring in from the w/sw. Looks like main show is just a few miles away. One of the dogs is barking at the booming, another is hiding in the laundry room.
I’m about to unplug this machine.
Scientists are conservatives. Science is an inherently conservative profession. The last 30 years of reading climate science has proven that they always under-estimate what is coming. AMEG was on the ground in the Arctic not sitting in front of a computer doing ‘modeling’ and wondering about if they pissed off enough people they wouldn’t get any more grant funding.
And my apple tree bloomed in April instead of late June after the last frost. Which we didn’t have. Again. If you live in a city you truly aren’t seeing what is happening in the real world.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016You can’t have a wet bulb reading that is higher than actual temperature just as you can’t have a humidity higher than 100 percent. Do you mean heat index?
And while it’s probably not a good idea to ignore the risk of amplifying methane feedbacks, I don’t think it’s a good idea to completely close out the rest of science. The precatutionary principle is important. But we should also be clear that we don’t know the risk potential ranges for large scale release, timeframes, or velocity of carbon system response to warming. It’s also important to note that we didn’t have huge methane feedbacks during the arguably slightly warmer than present Eemian (though that gap is rapidly closing and we also didn’t then see the kind of energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere that we see today).
I’m waiting for AMEG to do something other than use their claims to promote dangerous geo-engineering and attack responsible climate change mitigation. I’m waiting for people like Paul Beckwith to produce actual science rather than doubling down on outrageous claims and exaggerating emerging threat analysis like the responsible, responsive, inclusive and adaptable work done here.
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 26, 2016Here, Here.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– I hear that here in PDX too.
“And my apple tree bloomed in April instead of late June after the last frost. Which we didn’t have.”
Odd as hell but people around me quite lackadaisical when extreme concern is needed.
Thanks for the report.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ July 26, 2016“Odd as hell but people around me quite lackadaisical when extreme concern is needed.”
Hoping if they don’t pay attention, it will go away. Hey, that’s worked great so far–and will, right up until it doesn’t.
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Greg
/ July 26, 2016Michael Moore tells it how it is and brings a dose of reality to those of us who may need it. Donald Trump, as it now stands, will be the next president of the United States. Ouch. President Trump. Possibly just because, for many voters, it will play out a good practical joke on a sick political system – like the election of Jesse Ventura in Minnesota. This is going to happen with Trump. Buckle your boot straps because we will then have to remove him from the White House with our bare hands. Buckle your seat belts.
http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/
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Marcel Guldemond (@marcel_g)
/ July 26, 2016As much as I love Michael Moore, he did predict Romney was going to win in 2012 as well. His reasoning is pretty good, but I’m not sure working class resentment is going to swing far enough to take all of those states for Trump. We still have to wait for the DNC bounce to see where things are at.
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Trump’s not going to win. We’re not going to let him.
Keep your powder dry guys.
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016Michael Moore may be just rallying the troops. A Trump world is an ugly place for those of us who believe in our humanity. One of his sons showing his priorities:
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Kalypso
/ July 27, 2016If he were to win it would be game over for the climate. There wouldn’t be a United States anymore.
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Greg
/ July 26, 2016Armed-conflict risks enhanced by climate-related disasters in ethnically fractionalized countries. Ethnic divides play a major role in many armed conflicts around the world and might serve as predetermined conflict lines following rapidly emerging societal tensions arising from disruptive events like natural disasters. We find evidence in global datasets that risk of armed-conflict outbreak is enhanced by climate-related disaster occurrence in ethnically fractionalized countries. Although we find no indications that environmental disasters directly trigger armed conflicts, our results imply that disasters might act as a threat multiplier in several of the world’s most conflict-prone regions.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/07/20/1601611113
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robertscribbler
/ July 26, 2016Hmm. Looks like someone did a climate change vs civilization stability risk assessment. Kudos.
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Griffin
/ July 26, 2016Ethnically fractionalized countries. They must be talking about the United States..
Half-joking aside, I think of a good comment that I heard regarding weather disasters and human behavior.
When disaster strikes and the surrounding resources are plentiful, such as in a tornado that destroys a section of town but other areas are untouched, the best in human compassion is brought forward. When disaster removes the resources from an area, we are more likely to see the brutality of human behavior faster.
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Mulga Mumblebrain
/ July 27, 2016The PNAS is a group dedicated to using sectarian conflict to destroy states targeted by the USA. That Report is, in fact, a planning document for a ‘regime change’ operation like that inflicted on Syria.
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Witchee
/ July 27, 2016PNAS is Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It seems unlikely that they are dedicated to using sectarian conflict to destabilize anyone.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 201618:52 UTC Sand Fire
Ed Joyce @EdJoyce 32m32 minutes ago California, USA
#SandFire @Angeles_NF Santa Clarita
• 37,473 acres
• 25% contained
• 3,048 firefighters
###
BLM NIFC Verified account @BLMNIFC 3h3 hours ago
Sand Fire is the top priority fire in the nation today. Credit: Inciweb, Ryan Babroff #SandFire
###
LAC Incident Alert @lacfd 1h1 hour ago
*#SandFire* Per Air Attack, fire is looking good. Sees no need for Air Tankers today. Any retardant drops will be by HeliTankers. #LACoFD
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Wet Weather USA
The fossil fuel carbon powered atmospheric water hose appears to be: ON
-NWS New York NY Verified account @NWSNewYorkNY 22h22 hours ago
Move to higher ground! Flash Flood Warning including Grasmere NY and Annadale NY until 8:00 PM EDT
– NWS Springfield Verified account @NWSSpringfield 53m53 minutes ago Missouri, USA
Move to higher ground! Flash Flood Warning including Mountain View MO and Summersville MO until 7:00 PM CDT
– @5SOSLocate 54m54 minutes ago
There’s a flood advisory for Cincinnati! Stay warm and dry fam. ©: @fightingstyles
– Sierra Club Verified account @sierraclub 3h3 hours ago
Flood concerns rise as wetlands are paved over outside Houston
– https://twitter.com/HoustonOEM/status/758013004092809216
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Needless to say that a succession of heavy rain events have been happening for a long time this year 2016:
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
Greg
/ July 26, 2016Meet Luca, the Ancestor of All Living Things, a very possible genetic precursor to all life on Earth when Earth was a mere 560 million years old. Good thing she can survive in thermal ocean vents because the future may depend on that kind of strength:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/science/last-universal-ancestor.html
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Leland Palmer
/ July 27, 2016Uh, I had an idea once that I never pursued, that the first life may have evolved in a thermal ocean vent. The natural cycling of materials through such a vent might be able to set up an inorganic form of the polymerase chain reaction, I thought. This polymerase chain reaction (with an inorganic chemical substituting for the polymerase) might be able to churn out a large number of identical copies of RNA or a RNA like macromolecule. The idea was that convection through the vent could substitute for the the thermal cycling seen in the modern polymerase chain reaction. Repeated cycles of heating and cooling could crank out billions of identical copies of a RNA sequence. This could overcome the hydrolysis barrier, where macromolecules tend to hydrolyze and break down faster than they can polymerize and become larger. The inorganic polymerase substitute I was speculating about was cyanamide, sometimes used to create commercial polynucleic acids.
http://www.pnas.org/content/52/1/27
CYANAMIDE: A POSSIBLE KEY COMPOUND IN
CHEMICAL EVOLUTION
Just a thought, never pursued. But this would be a highly ideosyncratic origin of life. The fortuitous nature of this process might tend to indicate that life might be very rare. We could in fact be alone in this galaxy, if this was true, and could even be alone in the universe.
We don’t know if we are alone or not, in the galaxy or the universe. We need to take care of the life and the biosphere we know exists, and keep the climate from destabilizing and killing some or even all of the life on Earth.
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Cate
/ July 27, 2016Leland, “just a thought”—but a sobering one.
We’ve got so used to the idea of aliens as pop cultural icons that we fail to consider the possibility that we’re all alone.
If we are—and so far, we haven’t much proof to the contrary, so it’s a pretty safe bet—all the more precious Life is, and all the more reason to do what we can to preserve and protect Life on this planet.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Wet Weather South Africa — Durban and region:
The fossil fuel carbon powered atmospheric water hose is: ON
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Anna Downes @AnnaAtkinson 1h1 hour ago
#Durbanrain #Durbanfloods this is too hectic!
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– High water, or low ground? 🙂
The climate has: CHANGED
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016Record rainfall has been recorded over the last 24-hours in KZN, with an estimated 203mm in Margate up from its previous record of 158.6mm set on 7 July 2004. Durban south saw some 99.6mm of rain, while in Virginia 162mm has fallen, Mt Edgecombe has seen 142.4mm of rain – a massive spike compared to its previous spike of 97.8 mm on 7 July 1996. An estimated 266.4mm has also fallen in Paddock.
http://traveller24.news24.com/News/Alerts/record-rainfall-hits-kzn-travellers-advised-to-be-cautious-20160726
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ July 26, 2016Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 26, 2016India Monsoon Flooding Kills 7, Displaces 1.2 Million
https://weather.com/safety/floods/news/monsoon-floods-7-dead-12-displaced-india
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Nepal:
It looks like the river’s banks have quickly and severely eroded.
Published on Jul 26, 2016
Huge overflow of Tinau river at Butwal founders the Suspension bridge located at Devianagar, Butwal early morning.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016NW of the India floods of CB’s post.
This area seems to be part of an Annapurna drainage from on high. Glacier ice and snow pack likely effected too.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Precipitable water 0726 Look for the PURPLE
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– It looks like a bamboo raft.
Frédérique Geffard Verified account @fgeffardAFP 1h1 hour ago
INDIA – An Indian boy paddles a raft carrying his family through flood waters in Morigoan district. By @BoroBiju
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Christina MacPherson
/ July 26, 2016Reblogged this on nuclear-news.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016🙂 I’ve gotta put this one up:
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Humor as morale booster. NWS Podunk
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Add irony…
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Asia – China – NW of Bhutan
Another mountain drainage.
Risk Map:
Itanagar: The situation in flood-ravaged Namsai and East Siang districts of Arunachal Pradesh continued to be grim today even as water level of several rivers in other affected areas showed a receding trend with an improvement in weather condition.
The flood situation at Namsai, the worst-affected district, worsened with reports of fresh areas being inundated by Noa Dehing, Tengapani and Jengthu rivers which were flowing above the danger mark.
Terming flood as major problem which hits Diyun area in Changlang every year, Mein suggested plugging of river in the lower banks to avert its recurrence.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– China flood victims accuse officials of negligence
160 people drown in heavy flooding, which residents in Hebei Province, blame on government negligence as much as nature.
Residents in flood-hit areas of northern China are accusing authorities of negligence and inaction, following a disaster that killed more than 160 people in Hebei Province.
Six days since the flood destroyed the village of Daxian, residents told Al Jazeera that officials failed to warn them in time about the incoming storm.
As soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army cleared away on Tuesday all the mud and debris from the village, residents continued to grieve for their losses.
“I don’t know who I can talk to. No one listens to me,” Zhang Erqiang, father of two missing children, told Al Jazeera.
Instead of answers, Zhang was questioned by police demanding to know what he had told Al Jazeera.
“This area was cursed by nature. But man gave it a helping hand,” Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Daxian, said.
Four months before the flooding, a heating company began laying giant pipes in the village. According to local residents, the dug-up dirt was dumped under a bridge, blocking the Qi Lie river.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/china-flood-victims-accuse-officials-negligence-160726182553699.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 26, 2016Listening to the CBC radio 2 show this afternoon at 3pm eastern they had a blip about this then on the 4pm news cast no mention hmmm…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prince-albert-sask-shuts-down-water-intake-in-wake-of-oil-spill/article31094749/
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 26, 2016P.S. I’m in the atlantic time zone.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Good Gawd — the horrible stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has on our communities.
“The sighting of an oily sheen on the North Saskatchewan River from last week’s Husky Energy pipeline leak has prompted the City of Prince Albert to shut down the intake at its water treatment plant.
City manager Jim Toye said the slick was spotted near the Saskatchewan community of more than 35,000 shortly after 6:00 a.m. Monday.
“Right now, we are not receiving any water into our plant from the North Saskatchewan River.”
Toye said the city’s reservoirs had a two-day supply of water and the city could get permission from Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency to tap its storm retention pond for treatment and distribution.
That would add another four to five days worth of water.
Work was already underway to lay out a temporary pipeline stretching upwards of 30 kilometres to draw water from the South Saskatchewan River, should the water emergency continue for a much longer period. It was hoped work on the line could be completed within the next two days.”
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016Reports are now saying that Husky knew about the leak for 14 hours before they closed down the pipeline. Big Oil = corporate hoodlums, not fit for civilised society.
It may be “months” before the water is clean enough to go through Prince Albert’s water system, which services the city and surrounding areas—upwards of 60,000 people.
This is pretty much just down the road from Fort Mac.
It’s hard not to get the feeling Mother Nature is trying to tell us something up here in Canada. Are we too damn thick, or just too addicted to the oil teat, to hear it?
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 27, 2016The worst for me is that there are farmers that rely on the water supply for their animals as well and that’s also cut. I have a soft spot for animals both domestic and wild. The problems of people caused by people for/to people well that’s just karma. The critters don’t deserve any of this. F&%# this brings me to tears.
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Cate
/ July 27, 2016Shawn, ditto here. Our greatest crime may be that we have forgotten how precious are all these other beautiful creatures on the planet, that we have trashed not only our own place but theirs.
It was another 30C day here today, and that’s hot for Newfoundland. I watched a couple of tiny yellow warblers sitting on the branch of a shrub rose. They were taking showers in the mist from a sprinkler, clearly delighting in the fine spray of water, fluttering their wings and ruffling their feathers repeatedly, getting themselves all nicely refreshed.
There are no words to describe the feeling in the heart—the heaviness and the sorrow—to realise what we have brought all these fellow-beings to.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Do I sense some ‘backbone’ here. I hope so — we need more of it too.
New York AG refuses to comply with U.S. House subpoena on Exxon probe
New York state’s attorney general on Tuesday said his office will not comply with a subpoena issued by U.S. congressmen for details on its probe of whether Exxon Mobil misled investors on climate change risks, saying it interferes with the state’s “sovereign” interests.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-mobil-climatechange-idUSKCN1062GX
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016– Anyone here trying to educate those in denial, etc. — you might reinforce your logic and science with what Exxon itself came to conclude:
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ July 26, 2016Retweeted, thanks.
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dtlange
/ July 26, 2016Rep. Murphy drops off algae water to Gov. Scott
TALLAHASSEE – U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, upset by what he called Gov. Rick Scott’s lack of attention to the water crisis on the Treasure Coast, delivered samples of algae-contaminated water from the St. Lucie River to Scott’s office in the Capitol on Tuesday.
“We have repeatedly called on the Governor to come down and visit our district and see this first hand, and the Governor has refused to see it,” Murphy said.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/os-patrick-murphy-rick-scott-algae-story.html
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016http://grist.org/food/how-air-conditioning-made-america-and-how-it-could-break-us-all/
A fascinating history of air conditioning, and a sobering reflection on what we need to do about it as global demand for it grows exponentially.
“….the massive amount of greenhouse gases we emit to power our air conditioners actually increases our need for air conditioners. As Stan Cox, the author of Losing Our Cool, a definitive history of air-conditioning, told me: “It’s an especially vicious cycle because air conditioning inside makes it even warmer outside.”
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Abel Adamski
/ July 27, 2016Increasingly there are alternatives.
Yes a PR blurb. But lays out the information.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/08/26/chemours-commercializes-low-global-warming-potential-refrigerants/
The commercialization of Opteon XP40 and Opteon XP10 will help the industry transition away from products that the EPA has removed from the SNAP list in applications such as commercial refrigeration and air conditioning.
Contractors, supermarkets and other equipment owners can rely on the Opteon family of refrigerants to ease the transition away from high GWP refrigerants such as R-404A, 507 and 134a, Chemours says.
Opteon XP40 delivers a 67 percent lower GWP and an 8-12 percent gain in energy efficiency compared to R-404A. Opteon XP10 offers a 56 percent lower GWP than R-134a. Both products have been approved by major original equipment manufacturers.
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016Pipeline watch:
Think Keystone XL was bad? It has an even nastier little sister.
Keep an eye out for “Energy East”, a plan for an all-Canadian pipeline that will shunt tar sands bitumen across Canada to the Atlantic coast, and then south along the American seaboard in tankers to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.
“… the Gulf of Maine, Acadia National Park, and the Florida Keys are all in the pipeline’s “crosshairs,” as well as iconic marine species and billion dollar commercial fisheries on the East Coast, including New England and Atlantic Canada’s lobster and sea scallops fisheries…..The project is currently under consideration by the National Energy Board (NEB), with hearings expected to begin in Saint John, New Brunswick, on August 8.”
Brought to us all, willy-nilly, by the Big Oil Hoodlums of Canada.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/26/worse-keystone-xl-transcanadas-terrifying-plan-b
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June
/ July 26, 2016There is a new report out from the Natural Resources Defense Council about the impact of this pipeline. Here in Maine there is significant opposition to the pipeline. The city council in South Portland passed an ordinance that “prevents the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line Co. from using its pipeline to carry tar sands oil to South Portland for export. The company has since filed suit.”
Unfortunately, we also have a regressive, obnoxious tea party governor who is a climate change denier (and a real embarrassment to boot).
Environmentalists Take Aim at TransCanada Pipeline Project
http://www.mpbn.net/post/environmentalists-take-aim-transcanada-pipeline-project#stream/0
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June
/ July 26, 2016Oops…just read your link, Cate. This link is the same story just a different source. Note to myself: read before posting.
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016June, no worries, it happens to us all. Sometimes stuff gets reposted several times. No-one minds. 🙂
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016Actually, June, the different source makes your link even more interesting because of the variety of viewpoints expressed. I for one enjoy reading about the same story in different publications, as there is always different info brought into play, as well as a different spin, different emphasis, conclusions, etc. 🙂
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Cate
/ July 26, 2016http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/hearts-content-transatlantic-subsea-cable-150-anniversary-1.3695418
This is a cool little story from out here on the Far Eastern Edge. 🙂
150 years ago this week, the first transatlantic communications cable went into service, forever changing the way news and information was transmitted. The subsea cable from Ireland came ashore at Heart’s Content, Newfoundland, where today the former cable station serves as a museum of this pioneering communications technology.
What’s this got to do with climate change? Well, some scientists think the now-disused cables might be commandeered to collect deep ocean data in order to gain a clearer picture of just what is happening in the depths of the Atlantic.
“The ocean is the main driver of climate change, and we need to understand the changes that are taking place in the deep ocean,” said Chris Barnes, head of a United Nations joint task force on ocean cables and the former head of NEPTUNE, the world’s first regional cable ocean observatory….”Particularly the temperature changes, which are an indicator in changes of ocean circulation down there, and also what’s happening when we melt the poles and that cold water comes down and starts to influence the deep ocean circulation.”
Barnes’s dream is to have sensors attached to existing undersea cables and, from those, collect all sorts of data: temperature fluctuations, sea level changes and seismic activity among them.
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Griffin
/ July 27, 2016That is a cool article Cate! Hopefully the sensors attached to the cables works out. The legacy of the SS Great Eastern and her lasting contributions to humanity would live on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– PNW — not sure of the scope of the WARNING:
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 27, 2016OT. Okay the CO2 thing. Is it possible that the sizeable increase we are seeing this year over and above the contribution from El Nino is due to the down turn in China’s use of coal? Is it possible that the lack of aerosols is allowing more solar radiation in as compared to say five or six years ago? Is this even quantifiable? Their sudden reduction in coal burning is quite large over the past two years and that would translate to quite a large drop in sulphur dioxide and other shading pollutants. If so maybe the temperature jump is a one off this year.
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 27, 2016Opps should read CO2/record temps.
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– NA – USA – Does anyone know where, or direction, the NE usually gets its moisture (Nor’easters?).
Right now TX, LA and Midwest areas above are getting soaked, or re-soaked a number of times. But NE is dry.
‘The latest drought is not where you’d expect to find it’
In a Northeastern regional drought, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine are experiencing severe conditions.
…
New York has the largest area of severe drought in the Northeast at this time. Eleven percent of New York state is in severe drought, and 89 percent of the state is either abnormally dry or in a drought that will last weeks or months, meteorologists told Syracuse.com.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0726/The-latest-drought-is-not-where-you-d-expect-to-find-it
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Griffin
/ July 27, 2016I can provide a local ground report on this. It sucks.
Water levels are low obviously. Many trees are already showing discoloration in preparation for a very early leaf drop. The grass is crunchy. Well, any grass that is left to nature that is. Plenty of well-off McMansion owners are still clinging to the socially acceptable symbol of suburban success with the lush green lawn out front. They look ridiculous in contrast to the brown landscape all around. It has been heartening to see that plenty of average homeowners are letting go of the lawn though. It is almost as if there is a greater awareness of this not being a normal dry spell. I hope so.
I don’t know who said it first but somewhere on here I read a great line regarding the impact of our warming climate: “Your turn will come”
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ July 27, 2016Science says droughts in the New York region can be very severe, even without us wreaking havoc on the climate system. Much worse droughts have occurred in the past. https://seaandskyny.com/2012/04/29/trees-tell-the-story-of-500-years-of-nyc-drought-history/
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labtekjen
/ July 27, 2016Southern New Hampshire resident here… and our well is 18 feet deep. We are using 5 rain barrels to try to keep our garden alive while we wait for normal precipitation to come back. Landlord at my work is still mowing the brown grass religiously. We haven’t touched ours at home in a month. Its mostly crabgrass and clover anyway so alive and leggy! I watch the weather forecast with the intensity of a farmer. No “rainy days” here. We just hop from thunderstorm to thunderstorm and hope there is SOME rain involved.
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Andy_in_SD
/ July 27, 2016Another algae bloom, Discovery Bay, California
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Latest-algae-bloom-in-Discovery-Bay-threatens-8425495.php
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016Note: Inland and located SW of Stockton, Discovery Bay looks like it’s a planned fabricated waterside community of cul de sacs with boat docks. Far from a major waterway, and likely dredged and configured, it sits next to a fertilizer intensive golf course.
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9157489,-121.6338046,11z
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016It is also in the middle of an agriculture zone — farms/ag business intersected and connected with small waterways and ditches.
With AGW this will likely repeat.
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9072241,-121.5952202,8609m/data=!3m1!1e3
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– It gets ‘better’…
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.908911,-121.5974085,1078m/data=!3m1!1e3
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 27, 2016The Algae Nitrogen/phosphorus Chronicles continue.
[Enid, OK USA Koch Nitrogen/Industries : Dishonorable Mention]
NYT Science @NYTScience Jul 24
A dreaded forecast for our times: Algae, and lots of it
#
Paul Rogers Verified account @PaulRogersSJMN Jul 24
California drought: Algae in drinking water a headache for Silicon Valley water official
#
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– I’m out of free WaPo views for the month but:
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– Add glyphosate RoundUp, and Monsanto to the Bill of Particulars for any indictment for Crimes Against Nature and Humanity.
– Serious issue here but this garish bright green goop is hard to ignore for its visual power. It ships well too.
(This may have been linked to before but this succession of articles is telling.)
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– Santa Barbara, CA is also scrambling to get pumps to the lowering water level in its main reservoir in order to get the water to the intakes to send to the city.
Desal was an option. Years ago, they decommissioned an existing desal plant. As I recall some, or much, of it went Saudi Arabia.
– As I’ve watched with alarm the breakdown of air quality, the weather and climate — I’ve also seen tremendous breakdowns of in civil government and its agencies in its decision making.
This is a relatively small example though.
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Spike
/ July 27, 2016The unfolding disaster of worsening drought across three continents.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jul/26/southern-africa-appeals-for-billions-el-nino-devastation-drought
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Colorado Bob
/ July 27, 2016Climate models are accurately predicting ocean and global warming
A new study from my colleagues and I vindicates climate models, which are accurately predicting the rate of ocean heat accumulation
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jul/27/climate-models-are-accurately-predicting-ocean-and-global-warming
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Aaron Lewis
/ July 27, 2016What do you think of
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-high-chance-current-atmospheric-greenhouse.html
?
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016CB, I took their figure of 5,400 billlion 60 watt light bulbs of added heat energy due to GWG. I divided this number by the current est. world population of 7.4 billion. This leaves us with a contribution of having 730 light bulbs (60 watt) of heat per human being on day and night contributing to our warming planet. Real bright people.
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ July 27, 2016“… In this study, we did a few new things. First, we presented a new estimate of ocean heating throughout its full depth (most studies only consider the top portion of the ocean). Second, we used a new technique to learn about ocean temperature changes in areas where there are very few measurements…”
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Cate
/ July 27, 2016http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/07/25/entire-usa-heat-wave-warm-forecast/87528944/
Forecasters are predicting above average heat for the entire US August-October.
From the article:
“For the first time on record, every square inch of all 50 states is forecast to see above-average temperatures for the next three months, according to a forecast map from the federal government’s Climate Prediction Center….
Collins attributes the persistent heat to unusually warm ocean temperatures, which will keep the atmosphere over the U.S. warm over the next few months. Additionally, he said the warmer U.S. temperatures during this decade, when compared to what was “normal” in past decades, increase the chance of U.S. warmth in late summer and early fall…
The ongoing heat is due to a “blocking” pattern in the upper atmosphere that allows high-pressure ridges to build. Air sinks under high pressure, preventing clouds and rain from forming.
Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist with the Weather Company, said that these types of blocking patterns during the summer months have been more common in recent years, and it may be related to a sharp decline in Arctic sea ice due to climate change.”
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Cate
/ July 27, 2016Same story, better link:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/warmer-temps-favored-across-entire-us-20561
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016“Air sinks under high pressure…”
Q: Doesn’t the air also heat as it ‘sinks’?
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Cate
/ July 27, 2016dt, yeah, I know, that usatoday article was a bit thick—which is why I posted the climatecentral take on the story—it’s a better explanation.
Oh for an edit or even a delete button. 🙂
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Cate
/ July 27, 2016https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2016/07/25/study-identifies-link-between-cold-temperatures-in-new-york-destructive-storms-in-spain/
“There is a link between severe cold spells in the US northeast and strong storms in western Europe.”
Cold polar outflows into the northeastern US are thought to be related to an intensifying and flattening of the jet stream. This group will be studying the relationship between the jet stream and climate change wrt to storms. A better understanding of the mechanisms involved will hopefully lead to better forecasts and more accurate risk assessments in various contexts (insurance, construction, etc).
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016” … flattening of the jet stream.”
– The following climatereanalyzer reflects the jet for the past many days…
– As a former surfer, when the surf is flat — there are no waves — no amplitude___.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 27, 2016From a MSM source not completely under the control of Rupert the malevolent, even if Dear Gina who is a denialist does have major shareholdings.
http://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-funds/is-your-super-at-risk-from-climate-change-20160719-gq94c6.html
Money and Risk in a long term investment environment.
Superannuation is the ultimate long-term investment. So, it probably makes sense for those who manage our retirement savings to scan the horizon for risks that could arise several years, even decades, into the future.
Climate change is one such risk. That’s why more and more funds are building it into their thinking for how they manage all members’ money, not just those who have chosen an “ethical” investment option.
He stresses that managing climate change risks does not need to mean divesting from carbon-intensive assets – that is a “last line of defence”. Its approach is to first engage with the companies the fund holds shares in, and determine if they too are thinking about the risks from climate change.
“It’s about trying to identify what those risks are, and work out where we might have a material exposure that we may not want to have,” he says.
Barry says there are signs climate change has already started to have an impact – pointing to insurance companies saying there are more frequent extreme weather events. Others point to the plunge in coal miners’ shares – a sector where some funds are cutting their exposure altogether.
However, it is up to funds to decide how they respond, and not all of them have clear public strategies for climate change risk.
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Abel Adamski
/ July 27, 2016A different POV on Brexit and the changes happening in the UK
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/56618-2/
Why the end of the Department for Energy and Climate Change could be good news on climate change
What does the creation of a new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) mean for climate change policy? Samuel Fankhauser argues that it doesn’t have to be the disaster portrayed by some environmentalists: by bringing energy and climate issues together with industrial strategy, and with the right political will, it could be an effective platform to turn the UK into a true global leader in the low-carbon economy.
The move has variously been described as the abolition of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) or the merger of DECC with the remains of a much-diminished Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). Either way, most commentators agreed that the new BEIS signalled a softening of Britain’s stance on climate change.
Climate sceptics were jubilant, sensing a second victory after the Brexit vote that most of them supported. Environmentalists were alarmed not just about climate change, but about environmental protection post-Brexit more broadly.
It need not turn out that way. It is true, climate change has disappeared from the departmental name, and it is possible officials will be preoccupied with the issues that the name still contains – business, energy and industrial strategy. However, the new department also creates a much better, stronger basis from which to decarbonise the UK economy. With the right political will, BEIS can become an effective platform to turn the UK into a true global leader in the low-carbon economy.
That would be an attractive prize. The global green economy is thriving and is in fact much bigger than most people think. According to FTSE Russell, a quarter of the companies in its FTSE Global Equity Index have green business lines, which between them generate annual revenues worth US$2.9 trillion.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 27, 2016An extremely crisp shot of the Russian Tundra on fire –
Terra/MODIS
2016/208
07/26/2016
06:05 UTC
Fires and smoke in central Russia
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Robert in New Orleans
/ July 27, 2016Heat Wave Sparks Anthrax Outbreak in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Area
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/heat-wave-sparks-anthrax-outbreak-russia-s-yamalo-nenets-area-n617716
Of course it is just another dot to fill in the big picture. 😦
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016That beautiful old Oak from the end of Shawshank Redemption toppled by high winds:
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DaveW
/ July 27, 2016Greg –
Interesting to note the way the trunk shattered, and the dark (rotted) core of the tree.
I followed Gail Zawacki ‘s blog “Wit’s End” for a number of years – she has now pretty well stopped posting.
She made the very interesting point that Ozone is doing a lot of damage to trees, and had some very forceful arguments to that point. The damage to your oak is typical.
Have seen the same sort of thing in our woods – Maples – same sort of core rot, in an apparently healthy tree – sometimes come down even in very moderate breeze.
Link to Gail’s “Basic Premise” page – and many of her older posts are informative about this problem. Don’t know how many here at RS’s site have heard about this – but I am seeing it happen here in our woods (Southern Quebec)
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016DT has a lot to say on this subject of air pollution and its impact on vegetation and people.
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– Yes. 🙂 A little:
– Gail’s Basic Premise is good and generally to the point but I add the following.
There are two basic premises at play here that we hear about but we rarely do see the two linked together at the same time:
– Trees (plants, bushes, hedges etc.) help trap (remove) air pollution (pollutants). This is quite popular and is recommended by various agencies/media, etc.
– But these same trapped/removed pollutants also kill trees and damage foliage. This is, or should be, common knowledge.
You likely don’t hear of this part though.
– Different plants and trees react differently to the type and concentration of various pollutants. The largest mass of the trees and plants are usually the leaves which respirate, or breathe — IN and OUT of whatever the atmosphere offers at any given time.
– Many of these caustic and phytotoxic pollutants also blister/destroy sturdy outdoor paints among other things.
– Sooty, viscous Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) deposits often accumulate into black heat absorbent films, or even puddles, which the radiant sunlight heats and likely increases volatility. A very active ‘stew’, at that.
– Ozone will, and does, damage and destroy biotic tissue — plant or animal.
Think of a sunburn of the skin but add in something like the physical/physiological effects of x-rays and microwaves. You get damage and destruction…
– Plants can’t seek relief, avoid exertion, or grab a glass of iced-tea though. They must endure, live and die, in place — in an atmosphere we insist on making more toxic.
🙂
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Colorado Bob
/ July 27, 2016Slimy Green Beaches May Be Florida’s New Normal
The guacamole-thick algae that fouled both coasts earlier in July will likely be a regular occurrence for the Sunshine State. Here’s why.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/toxic-algae-florida-beaches-climate-swamp-environment/?google_editors_picks=true
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Robert in New Orleans
/ July 27, 2016Enjoy your vacation on Playa Guacamole!!
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/carl-hiaasen/article88550307.html
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Colorado Bob
/ July 27, 2016In Alaska’s Remote Towns, Climate Change Is Already Leaving Many Hungry
There was a time when Sandra Gologergen’s freezer never ran out. Packed with traditional Inuit foods like whale, walrus, seal and fish, her freezer has been an essential lifeline, ensuring her husband, three kids and grandson make it through the long harsh winters of Savoonga, Alaska.
“Then that changed,” she says.
Warmer winters and changing ice conditions meant hunters were unable to bag the Pacific walrus the Savoonga residents traditionally relied on as a key food source. Three years ago, the situation became so dire, the governor declared the island an economic disaster to help loosen assistance funds.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/27/487364060/in-alaskas-remote-towns-climate-change-is-already-leaving-many-hungry
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Colorado Bob
/ July 27, 2016SEVERE flooding across large parts of the country has raised fresh concerns about food safety. Since the rainy season began in June, millions of domestic animals have been washed away in flooding, authorities said.
In Anhui Province, one of the worst-hit areas, about 80,000 pigs and more than 12 million chickens and ducks were dragged away by floodwaters.
In Hubei Province, more than 80,000 pigs and over 3.6 million chickens and ducks died, while in Jiangxi Province, about 5.2 million chickens and ducks were lost.
Many are worried that the meat might find its way to markets around the country.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nation/Floods-spark-fears-over-food-safety/shdaily.shtml
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016A highly relevant find…
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 27, 2016DT in response to your query about Nor’Easters. They usually track up the US eastern seaboard and move out to sea around the NYC to Boston area following the Gulf Stream off the coast of Nova Scotia in the fall and winter. The warm moist air of the gulf Stream is probably where they draw their energy and moisture from. The circulation gives the Eastern seaboard the wind direction and hence the name. The time of year means the warm storms meet cold arctic air flowing south giving us some spectacular snow and ice storms.
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Colorado Bob
/ July 27, 2016China continues orange alert for heat wave
CHINA’S meteorological authority on Sunday renewed its orange alert for high temperatures in southern and western regions, with temperatures expected to top 40 degrees Celsius in some areas.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nation/China-continues-orange-alert-for-heat-wave/shdaily.shtml
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Spike
/ July 27, 2016Very interesting story on the guy who had the first Tesla Powerwall in Australia
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/inventions/first-aussie-resident-to-have-tesla-powerwall-installed-has-a-saving-on-90-per-cent-on-power-bill/news-story/4fcb76b650468f99bb50ff7dce92e853
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– USA
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016“We need to consider ourselves as crew members not passengers” From a trailer for a Beautiful Planet. Combine Toni Myers and Jennifer Lawrence with the Earth as the subject of awe and you have a winning combination.
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Greg
/ July 27, 2016What if instead of collecting Pokemon characters at Pokemon stops one could collect some sort of health/tax/carbon credits! Since this game requires it be done on foot, everyone would abandon their vehicles and seek these rewards from their insurance company/gov’t. Double benefits! John Hanke is the founder of Niantic Labs, the company that produced the smartphone-based augmented reality game which has whipped the young world into a frenzy. Anyone know how to reach him?
http://www.news.com.au/technology/home-entertainment/gaming/apps/crazy-footage-of-pokefans-running-through-traffic-at-rhodes-as-furious-residents-try-to-navigate-through-crowds/news-story/600d0380d5abae872a7d60b0bc1e4de7
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016– Gas? Liquid? Solid?…
– Will look at this more closely when time permits. It was part of the “Climate models are accurately predicting ocean and global warming” thread from Bob. It looks interesting
Middle atmosphere in sync with the ocean
July 26, 2016
… For climate variations, water vapor is particularly important in the stratosphere at altitudes between 15 and 50 kilometers. How much of the gas actually reaches the stratosphere mainly depends on the temperature at the transition between the lowest atmospheric layer, the troposphere, and the overlying stratosphere. This boundary layer is called the tropopause.
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-middle-atmosphere-sync-ocean.html
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Colorado Bob
/ July 27, 2016In his grandchild’s question — ‘Why is it you don’t understand global warming?’— Sen. Jim Inhofe sees ‘brainwashing’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/27/why-is-it-you-dont-understand-global-warming-sen-jim-inhofe-cites-grandchilds-question-as-evidence-of-school-brainwashing/#comments
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dtlange
/ July 27, 2016🙂 MAYBE: Jim Inhofe has his brain ‘dry cleaned’ and ‘blow dried’. That’s my theory…
Yes, siree…
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anthropocene
/ July 27, 2016“Their sudden reduction in coal burning is quite large over the past two years and that would translate to quite a large drop in sulphur dioxide and other shading pollutants” – got a reference to support the ‘quite large’ statement? Best and most recent I can find is here: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/26/3802017/china-peaked-coal-use-study/ and that seems to have a confusing mistype. At most it’s a 7% decrease. Off the top of my head, SE Asia particulate pollution as a whole is providing 0.2 to 0.3degC cooling. With a complete shutdown of coal burning the particulates would wash out in 2 to 3 weeks. It is doubtful the warming would operate on such a short time frame. The 0.2 to 0.3degC figure is effective climate impact figure so you may be talking in the order of years for the complete temperature rise to occur. 7% decrease in Chinese coal burning (NOT 7% decrease in particulates) is unlikely to have made any significant temperature increase so far.
You could potentially measure the impact by measuring top of atmosphere incoming and outgoing radiation over Asia but I’ve not seen anywhere a measurement of this type broken down to regions instead of the entire globe. I would guess that any change at global level would be hard to detect due to (seasonal) variance in albedo etc. So (hopefully) it’s an experiment we will run on the Earth and will only see what the complete impact is after the event. If you go to Neven’s sea ice forum and search in either Science or Consequences (Sorry can’t remember which) there was a discussion on Asian particulate cooling and whether this was starting to decrease and was contributing rising global temperatures (thinking about it, it may have been in global temperatures thread in the consequences section).
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anthropocene
/ July 27, 2016Sorry that was meant to be an answer to a question raised by Shawn Redmond above.
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Shawn Redmond
/ July 27, 2016Thank you for that.
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