Tag Archives: Global Warming

What we need to do to stop global warming

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Obviously, we need to stop the human enhanced extra greenhouse effect. There are a number of ways to approach this. Let me say right away that taking CO2, the main greenhouse gas of concern long term, out of the atmosphere is NOT one of the ways. Here’s why: It takes energy to put Carbon into solid or liquid form. You get energy back when you move the Carbon into a gas form (as CO2). That is something of an oversimplification but long term, large scale, it is correct. Since, for the most part, the greenhouse effect is caused by the the generation of energy for use, which causes the movement of solid or liquid Carbon compounds in fossil sources to gas Carbon compounds (CO2), it is not possible to solve this problem by adding energy demand to the system to put that Carbon back. Again, I oversimplify, but that is the big picture.

One approach may be to increasingly use “clean energy” such as nuclear, solar, wind, and so on, while we otherwise allow the fossil fuel industry to do whatever it needs to produce our energy, either in support of electricity generation or as stuff we burn directly in vehicles or buildings. That, however, is also NOT a viable approach.

There has been a sense among experts for quite some time now that there is only one way to address climate change: Keep the Carbon in the ground. We need to do everything we can, as quickly as we can, to keep the Carbon currently in solid or liquid form, or as gas trapped in the ground, in place.

So, the very first thing you need to do that is to NOT build more pipelines NOT drill more wells, NOT start up new coal mines.

Check out: The IKONOKAST Science Podcast. Excellent interviews with top scientists.

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At the same time the other first thing you need to do is to STOP building any sort of new electricity generating plant that uses fossil fuels. No more coal plants, no more methane plants.

At the same time the other other first thing you need to do is to NOT build any more infrastructure that processes fossil fuel into usable products. No more refineries, etc.

And now, there is a current report that backs up this sense, and tells us how important it is to NOT do these things.

The rpeport is by “OilChange” but produced in cooperation with 350.org, Amazon Watch, APMDD, AYCC, Bold Alliance, Christian Aid, Earthworks, Équiterre, Global Catholic Climate Movement, HOMEF, Indigenous Environmental Network, IndyAct, Rainforest Action Network, and Stand.earth. Here are the bullet points (summarized here):

Key Findings:

  • The potential carbon emissions from the oil, gas, and coal in the world’s currently operating fields and mines would take us beyond 2°C of warming.
    • <li>The reserves in currently operating oil and gas fields alone, even with no coal, would take the world beyond 1.5°C.</li>

<li>With the necessary decline in production over the coming decades to meet climate goals, clean energy can be scaled up at a corresponding pace, expanding the total number of energy jobs.</li>

    Key Recommendations:

    <li>No new fossil fuel extraction or transportation infrastructure should be built, and governments should grant no new permits for them.
  • Some fields and mines – primarily in rich countries – should be closed before fully exploiting their resources, and financial support should be provided for non-carbon development in poorer countries.
  • This does not mean stopping using all fossil fuels overnight. Governments and companies should conduct a managed decline of the fossil fuel industry and ensure a just transition for the workers and communities that depend on it.

    • I am being told by experts that I trust that these findings are probably substantially correct. These are experts who have made similar studies and are now reviewing this important report. If they produce any posts or articles about this, I’ll insert them here.

    <li>Ashley Braun  at DESMOGBLOG writes: <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/21/nations-embrace-paris-agreement-world-s-existing-fossil-fuels-set-exceed-its-goals">As Nations Embrace Paris Agreement, World’s Existing Fossil Fuels Set to Exceed its Goals</a>

    Meanwhile, you can download the report here, and read it for yourself. Pick it apart, tell us what you think.

    Tell The AGU To Do The Right Thing About AGW #ExxonKnew

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    A while back it became apparent, or should I say, more apparent, that Exxon corporation had been playing a dangerous and unethical game with the science of climate change, and for decades, misled people on the relationship between their fossil fuel related activities, the effects of those activities, and possible solutions. (They’ve known about this problem all along.)

    Part of this seems to have involved making misstatements about climate change, and pumping resources into anti science activities and organizations.

    The American Geophysical Union is the unifying organization for geologists and physicists and other scientists who study climate change. The AGU does a lot more than that, but a good portion of the climate science community, internationally, engages at the AGU’s annual conference.

    Meanwhile, the AGU has a rule against accepting sponsorship from anti science organizations. Yet, Exxon has been sponsoring events at the AGU for some time.

    Obviously this can get tricky. Why not take money from a major corporation that ultimately benefits from the AGU, as it does by having a better equipped scientific community from which to draw both employees and expertise? And to some extent that is true, and to some extent many situations of tension exist like this.

    But in this case, there is a very strong argument that AGU should stop taking money from Exxon.

    Also, see this piece by Geoffrey Supran: Scientific organizations must be braver in confronting climate denial

    Recent revelations about Exxon have indicated that that organization’s activities are over the top. And, hundreds of members of the scientific community that is served by AGU and that engages in this sort of research signed on to a letter demanding that the AGU stop taking Exxon’s tainted money.

    And, the AGU board met, and blew off the scientists, and sidled up to Exxon. They gave all the usual, but rather lame, excuses.

    Tomorrow the board meets again. ClimateTruth.org is asking people to sign a petition supporting the scientists. Below is information from ClimateTruth.org. HERE IS THE LINK TO SIGN THE PETITION.

    The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is the largest association of Earth scientists in the world and a well-respected institution that advances public understanding of science. Yet, the AGU continues to accept funding from Exxon, one of the world’s leading funders of climate change denial.

    The AGU’s own sponsorship policy forbids accepting funding from any organization that supports science misinformation, a rule that was put in place for good reason. It’s time for the AGU to start abiding by its own policy — starting with Exxon.

    Now’s your chance to take a stand. Over 300 Earth scientists have signed on to an open letter calling on the AGU to reject Exxon sponsorship. Signers include renowned climatologists James E. Hansen, the former director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Michael E. Mann, Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. Today, we’re asking you to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these scientists, and 50,000 citizens, by adding your name.

    The AGU Board meets TOMORROW and we’ll be hand-delivering the thousands of petition signatures from across the nation directly to AGU headquarters in Washington, DC. It’s not too late! You can still join this collaborative campaign of scientists and citizens — and help us remind the AGU that its leadership matters to all of us.

    Stand with scientists and tell the AGU: Stop taking funds from Exxon, a company that misleads the public about climate change.

    Exxon has been deceiving the public about the science of climate change for decades and funding climate disinformation at a massive scale. Yet, the AGU Board couldn’t be convinced at their last meeting and decided to continue accepting funding from Exxon. It took a letter from U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Ted Lieu to push the AGU Board to vow to once again “review and discuss the information” at its next meeting tomorrow, on September 14.

    Your voice matters. Tell the AGU to drop Exxon sponsorship.

    Thank you for helping us hold the AGU accountable and for standing up for science — today and every day.
    Truthfully Yours,

    Amanda, Emily, Brant, Brandy, Daniela and the rest of the ClimateTruth.org team

    Update: Super Typhoon Meranti Heads For Mainland China

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    Wed AM Update:

    Meranti passed near the southern tip of Taiwan, and apparently it was pretty windy and nasty there. But, Taiwan has invested heavily in infrastructure with the idea of being hit with giant typhoons now and then, so things were not as bad as they could have been.

    apparently Meranti is now a category 5 equivalent heading for China. The storm is expected to weaken only a bit as it makes landfall (see this post on what landfall means) so this is going to be a direct hit by a major hurricane. There are some pretty densely populated areas in the storm’s path. There are also many harbors that narrow quickly on the way into the elevated interior, where there is a very hilly terrain and some moderately restricted inland valleys. So, the prospects for major storm surges and serious inland flooding are significant.

    Original Post:
    typhoon_meranti_taiwan_china
    Within a 24 hour time period, Typhoon Meranti cranked up from what we in the US would call a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 storm. Or stronger, if we had more categories.

    Some time between late Tuesday and mid day Wednesday, the typhoon will have a run at the southern tip of Taiwan. This is the less populated part of the island, but this is a big storm and its effects will be felt over the entire country.

    wp201616_5day

    Interacting with Taiwan is not expected to slow down the storm too much, and some time late Thursday, possibly as a Category 3 equivalent, it will slam into China.

    Then it will go inland and contribute significantly to flooding.

    This is the strongest cyclone so far in this year’s Northern Hemisphere season. Under climate change, we expect some cyclones to undergo much more rapid intensification, which can be a real problem when it occurs just before making landfall. This is the case with Meranti, though, as noted, the area to be affected initially is not as dense of a population zone as it might have been. The storm is stronger than it otherwise would have been had it not been for global warming, as well.

    For a further discussion of human caused global warming and this storm, visit Climate Signals (Beta). The graphs above are from Weather Underground.

    Atlantic’s Hermine Is A Big Deal (UPDATED)

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    For the latest post on Hermine GO HERE.

    Update Thursday PM

    Hermine has grown in strength, and may even make landfall as a Category 2 storm. At least a strong Category 1.

    The right front quadrant of the storm is where the main “punch” (of winds) is located. If the storm winds come into an embayment, they can really build up the storm surge. Look at this image:

    rbtop_lalo-animated

    You can see the right front quadrant of the storm heading right into Apalachee Bay. Barrier islands to the west of the bay’s head, and the communities right in the bay, are very much at risk for severe flooding.

    Here is a blowup of part of the NWS’s experimental storm surge product for the area:

    Screen Shot 2016-09-01 at 7.51.24 PM

    You can see the increase in storm surge intensity/risk in the bay.

    Also, there is a small possibility that the storm, which will turn “extratropical” as it passes over Florida and joins an existing storm system, will later move out to sea in an area conducive to re-formation. Not too likely but the idea is being bandied about.

    Update (Noon Thursday):

    It is very likely that Hermine will become an actual hurricane by the end of business day today, or during the early evening. It is really starting to look like one now, as of this writing.

    The storm is likely to make landfall (as a hurricane?) before mid day tomorrow (Friday). There is a very serious storm surge threat from some point east of Apalachicola, all the way over to about Spring Hill, or even a bit farther south (heading towards Tampa). Especially at risk are areas around Big Bend Wildlife Management area and Suwanee River, where embayments may focus the storm surge.

    Some of these places may have storm surges over over 9 feet above the ground.

    After that, the National Weather Service is trying to be vague, because Hermine will interact with a large existing low pressure system. How much rain, where, how much wind, where, all that, is not clear. By the time the storm gets to near Norfolk, it might not even be near Norfolk. This could become a land threatening Nor’Easter affecting New York or Boston, or it could to out to sea and rain mainly on boats. Stay tunes.

    This is not a major hurricane, but it is likely to be a significant flooding and rain event for a lot of people over a large area. This is also going to mess up Labor Day weekend, which will have a significant economic impact on many areas where people usually visit and recreate.

    Original Post:
    For a while there it looked like the Atlantic might develop up to four simultaneous named storms, but that has not worked out. One of the storms will never get a name, one of the disturbances now looks like it may never be a storm. Gaston continues to chug away towards the Azores.

    But one of these four weather events is now a named storm that will matter.

    Tropical Storm Hermine is a global warming enhanced storm that will produce record rainfall events, catastrophic inland flooding, and likely, coastal storm flooding, in many locations in the US east.

    Paul Douglas of Aeris Weather notes that this storm reminds him, somewhat of Sandy, because of its bigness and wetness and potential to reach far inland. It will not be as bad as Sandy, but, he notes, “there is a growing potential for disruptive weather all up and down the East Coast from Friday into Sunday; coastal Georgia and the Carolinas right up I-95 into Washington D.C. and New York City may be impacted by 40-60 mph winds, flash flooding and coastal flooding and beach erosion as Hermine churns north.”

    Also like Sandy, a blocking pattern in the Atlantic will cause Hermine to stay longer off the coast than otherwise.

    Places that normally flood are likely to flood. The storm will come over land at the base of the Florida Peninsula and the Florida Panhandle. It is possible that the storm will be a weak Category One hurricane just before landfall, but not likely. It will then cross florida and run up the coast, either just on land or just off shore. One model h as the storm curving back from the Atlantic into southern Newe England, another model has it staying on land until New York City, then curving back out over Long Island. That gives you the range of uncertainty for the storm’s activity in several days from now.

    But the track for the first several days is pretty well understood. Across the base of florida, then across Georgia, South Carolina, and into or near the Tidewater area, staying near the coast the whole time, more or less straddling the strandline.

    It will be windy and wet with a lot of rainfall. The loss of Labor Day business will be bad for tourism regardless of any damage to such facilities that may occur as well.

    Is Hermine enhanced by global warming?

    Hermine is a weather event. Global warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gasses (and other human effects) is a climate phenomenon. So how can we possibly connect them?

    Well, we have moved well past the days when one could pose such a lame brained question. Climate is weather, long term, and weather is climate, here and now. So, if climate is fundamentally changed, then the wether is fundamentally changed. The question is not whether weather that drenches or withers and climate wither are bound! The question is, what ways are a particular untoward weather event and the recent changes in the climate bound?

    Here’s how.

    Warmer seas and warmer air, causing generally more moisture in the air; and changes in air currents due to Arctic warming and other effects, causing a more uneven distribution of moisture in the air causing big dry areas and big wetter areas, and large wet blobs to form up and then move more slowly than usual across the landscape, make something like this storm (which at the base of it could have happened anyway) be bigger, wetter, slower-moving and thus rainier.

    Climate Signals has a nice summary here.

    Mad About Science Denial? This Book Is For You and your Uncle Bob!

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    Michael Mann has a specialty or two. Climate simulation modeling, analysis of proxy data, the study of global teleconnections, Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures over historic time scales, etc. A while back, Mann’s research interests and activities converged, I assume by some combination of design and chance (as is often the case in Academia) with a key central question in science. This question is, “What is the pattern of surface warming caused by human effects on the atmosphere, including changes in greenhouse gas concentration and other pollutants?”

    Mann and his colleagues essentially solved that problem in 1998, with the publication of a study looking at tree ring data, ice cores, and direct measurements of the atmosphere and the ocean surface, to estimate “surface temperature” of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere. NASA, NOAA, and other agencies already had a temperature record going back into the 19th century, about a century of data. But since human effects started way before that, and since there is a lot of non-human caused variation in the system, the only way the basic pattern of surface warming, and the relative role of human effects, could be ascertained was by extending that record back several more centuries. Mann and his colleagues did that.

    What they did was to turn this graph:

    What scientists used to think. This is not far from what is now known, but much less detailed.
    What scientists used to think. This is not far from what is now known, but much less detailed.

    Into this graph:

    The results of several scholars' work, including and mainly Mann and Hughes, summarized in a key IPCC report. This science clarified our position in the natural system we are so dramatically changing, and won the teams who did this work a Nobel Prize.
    The results of several scholars’ work, including and mainly Mann and Hughes, summarized in a key IPCC report. This science clarified our position in the natural system we are so dramatically changing, and won the teams who did this work a Nobel Prize.

    Ironically, that first graph is from the oil industry, a report by ExxonMobil to be exact. Scientists generally knew that greenhouse warming was a thing, but these ExxonMobil scientists hid their research in order to … well, you can guess their motivation. (And you thought they were just about oil!)

    So, that should have been about it. A major question was clarified and science marches on.

    But there were two other things that happened after that. One makes total sense, and is a good thing. The other is mad. Mad as in madhouse.

    The first thing was clarifying the science even more. Mann and colleagues worked mainly on the Northern Hemisphere because that is where much of the data lived. They were not using all the proxy data that would eventually become available. The record had to be pushed even farther back in time. The direct surface measurements needed to be reanalyzed a few times by different people, using different approaches, in order to understand it better. And so on.

    Also, climate needed to march along a bit, as it turns out. The years since 1998 or so have seen dramatic changes in surface temperature, and dramatic effects of warming.

    So that all happened, and our understanding of climate change is much refined and pretty darn good, with a few interesting and important questions remaining. But we know enough to confirm several times over the existential nature of the problem.

    But something else happened at the same time.

    Your curmudgeonly old Uncle Bob got mad at the climate data because, well, it seemed like it was Environmentalism which is all Hippie and Communist and stuff. Your cousin the developer and your other cousin who works at the power plant got mad because it became clear that modern civilization’s present day technologies for making and using buildings, making and using vehicles, and making and using energy, were the cause of an existential crisis. So they got mad about being blamed, even though they weren’t really being singled out. And all the energy producing corporations, stock holders, and their … well, their wholly owned souls such as members of Congress, Republicans, talk show hosts, and, to bring it full circle, your curmudgeonly old Uncle Bob, all got mad because addressing climate change would ruin the American Dream.

    The American Dream, by the way, is this: You are a poor slob living in dirt. Them something happens and the dirt is gone but somehow you are still filthy. Filthy rich! Every American would become filthy rich if only … if only Mike Mann would shut up and go away.

    So, this second thing that happened involved intense harassment, often bought and paid for, of climate scientists, active opposition to truthful and honest science, and the organic development of what Mann and his coauthor Toles refer to as a “Madhouse.”

    Screen Shot 2016-08-24 at 3.57.34 PMMann has been in the middle of the conversation about climate science, the needed energy transition, and the denial of climate science, for years now. (See his first hand historical account of the first half of that journey.) He’s also a great communicator of science. So, he’s one of the best people to tell the story of climate change.

    Mann has done this before a couple of times (notably, see this DK publication authored by Mann that summarizes the IPCC report). And now he’s done it again.

    The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy, by Michael Mann and cartoonist Tom Toles, consists of Mann’s account of climate change, the denailism industry, the fight between science and anti-science, the energy transition, and all the important nuances of the problem. Well written and easily understood, an excellent and very current expose of the whole thing. And, along side all this, the cartoonish stylings of cartoonist Tom Toles.

    One of the topics Mann deals with in this new book, that has not been dealt with enough, is the Breakthrough concept, especially as related to geoengineering. To quote from the text:

    Many of those who advocate against taking action when it comes to dealing with the underlying problem—our ongoing burning of fossil fuels— have instead turned to possible technosolutions for counteracting climate change that involve other massive interventions in the Earth system: geoengineering. In some ways, for the free-market fundamentalist, geoengineering is a logical way out because it reflects an extension of faith that the free market and technological innovation can solve any problem we create, without the need for regulation.

    Unsurprisingly, even many rather level-headed captains of industry, such as Bill Gates, have embraced the concept along with techno-Pollyannas, such as Bjorn Lomborg and the Breakthrough Institute. Price on carbon? Nah, the market doesn’t need it. Renewable energy? It’s a pipe dream. Massively interfering with the Earth system in the hope that we might get lucky and offset global warming? Yeah, that’s the ticket!

    One of the important Stages of Science Denial (and there is a whole chapter on the stages in The Madhouse Effect) is to assume that this problem will be solved with one great technological advance.

    We might have some helpful technological advances, but most of the key advances have already happened and now need some fine tuning. The laws of physics can’t be broken just because we want them to be. It takes energy to separate Carbon from Oxygen, and we get energy by combining the two (if we start with the right molecules). We can’t suck the CO2 out of the atmosphere and make it solid without either spending more energy, or violating the laws of physics. And at the scale we are talking about here, we can’t store the gas in some safe place. The bottom line: We have to keep the fossil fuel in the ground, and use the widely available, abundant, clean, inexpensive, and by the way, very cool alternative sources of energy that already exist but that don’t happened to be owned by the Koch Brothers.

    Check out The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy. It is available for pre-order as of this writing, but will be available for actual reading around Labor Day on line, and in print, ready to ship by mid September.

    First Known Climate Change Extinction

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    When the sea levels rose following the last major glaciation, most rapidly between around 18,000 and 10,000 years ago, somewhat less rapidly until about 6,000 years ago, a lot of interesting things happened.

    I used to live, and do archaeology in, New England (the one in the US). It was always fun to contemplate George’s Bank. George’s Bank is a high place out in the ocean, not far from Boston. If you’ve ever been whale watching off P-town, you were probably out on George’s Bank, where the baleen whales forage and frolic, and are easily found during the right season. This is also a great fishing ground.

    But prior to the melting of the glaciers and the rising of the seas, George’s Bank was an island, and initially, a rather large one. It is almost certainly true that at the time Clovis Period native Americans were in the area, George’s bank was readily accessible by modest water craft, and very likely colonized by them. But, over time, the island would have become smaller and smaller, and eventually, inundated. Anyone who lived there would have to move. A similar story happened all along the East Coast of the US. In m view, this is one of the most under-studied and under-appreciated “events” in North American prehistory, and likely relates to numerous observations in coastal prehistoric archaeology. But, perhaps owing to the deeply seated (seemingly hard wired and primordial) belief that the sea does not change even when we know it does change, this has not been developed sufficiently as an academic topic. Someone please do so.

    George's Bank. The entire continental shelf, shown here, was exposed during lowest sea level (excepting areas to the north where the land was depressed by vast quantities of glacial ice).
    George’s Bank. The entire continental shelf, shown here, was exposed during lowest sea level (excepting areas to the north where the land was depressed by vast quantities of glacial ice).

    Anyway, that’s an interesting story, and versions of this happened all over world for thousands of years at the close of the last glacial. And, starting about now (geologically speaking), some version or another of this story will be happening for the next several centuries or so, as sea levels begin once again to rise rapidly, because we are polluting the earth.

    Entire island nations will disappear, and entire ecological systems will vanish. But first, the canaries have to die.

    And the first canary, that we know of, is Melomys rubicola, aka the Braqmble Cay Melomys. Bramble Cay is a very tiny atoll that is part of the Great Barrier Reef, and it has been inundated by human caused sea level rise. The Brable Cay Melomys is a rodent that lived only there. Lived.

    Michelle Innis, writing in the New York Times, quotes the local expert:

    “The key factor responsible for the death of the Bramble Cay melomys is almost certainly high tides and surging seawater, which has traveled inland across the island,” Luke Leung, a scientist from the University of Queensland who was an author of a report on the species’ apparent disappearance, said by telephone. “The seawater has destroyed the animal’s habitat and food source.”

    “This is the first documented extinction of a mammal because of climate change,” he said.

    Go read Michelle’s report, HERE, it is quite unsettling. Then imagine similar scenarios of permanent disappearance. Times a thousand. No, times a million. You won’t be able to keep track.

    Calling out the Koch Brothers

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    Just got this media release:

    Washington, DC – Today, Monday, from 4:45 p.m. to 6:45 p.m., tomorrow, Tuesday, from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and throughout the week,* 19 Senators will take to the Senate floor to call out Koch brothers- and fossil fuel industry-funded groups that have fashioned a web of denial to block action on climate change.

    Despite polling that shows over 80 percent of Americans favor action to reduce carbon pollution, Congress has failed to pass comprehensive climate legislation. The Senators will each deliver remarks detailing how interconnected groups – funded by the Koch brothers, major fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal, identity-scrubbing groups like Donors Trust and Donors Capital, and their allies – developed and executed a massive campaign to deceive the public about climate change to halt climate action and protect their bottom lines.

    As part of their effort to draw attention to the web of denial, Senators Whitehouse, Markey, Schatz, Boxer, Merkley, Warren, Sanders, and Franken are introducing a resolution describing and condemning the efforts of corporations and groups to mislead the public about the harmful effects of tobacco, lead, and climate. The resolution also urges fossil fuel corporations and their allies to cooperate with investigations into their climate-related activities. Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) is introducing the resolution in the House this week.

    Use #WebOfDenial and #TimetoCallOut to follow the speeches on Twitter.

    EVENT: Senators to call out Koch brothers- and fossil fuel-backed web of denial blocking climate action

    WHO:

    Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
    Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
    Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)
    Senator Jack Reed (D-RI)
    Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
    Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD)
    Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
    Senator Tom Udall (D-NM)
    Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
    Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
    Senator Al Franken (D-MN)
    Senator Chris Coons (D-DE)
    Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)
    Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI)
    Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM)
    Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA)
    Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
    Senator Edward Markey (D-MA)
    Senator Gary Peters (D-MI)

    WHEN:

    Monday, from 4:45 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.
    Tuesday, from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

    *Several Senators will also deliver their remarks during the day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Follow #WebOfDenial and #TimetoCallOut for specific times.

    Super Typhoon Nepartak

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    This is a huge hurricane/typhoon heading quickly, and imminently, towards taiwan.

    The storm itself is roughly as wide as the island nation is long, so very little will be left unaffected.

    The storm is at the very high end of the range of storms in size, strength, etc. It is currently equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane. It may weaken a bit before landfall over the next few hours, but it may remain a Category 5.

    Winds, huge waves and coastal flooding from storm surges will be a big problem with this storm, but the largest problem may be the incredibly high rainfall, with about one meter of rain (3 feet) predicted in some locations. This could cause unprecedented and major flooding.

    Nepartak should be regarded as a global warming enhanced storm. The storm is made so large and strong because of extraordinarily high sea surface temperatures, which in turn is an effect of human caused global warming.

    Locally, the Green Island and the Taiwanese city of Taitung City are on or very close to the expected storm track. If the storm tracks a bit south, expect very severe storm surges in Taitun city. Either way, there will be major rainfall in the river basins, and the valley ousee north of Taitung City, which has several settlements in it, seems likely to be at major risk.

    Screen Shot 2016-07-07 at 10.31.03 AM

    Here is the most current (10:34 AM CT) map from Weather Underground showing the relationship between the storm and Taiwan.

    Screen Shot 2016-07-07 at 10.33.58 AM

    Climate Signals has info on the storm, and does a good job at evaluating the likely relationship between the storm and human caused climate change.

    On July 4 and 5, in just 24 hours, cyclone Nepartak intensified from a 70 mph storm to a Category 4 super typhoon with 150 mph winds, peaking with 1-minute sustained winds of 173 mph (150 knots) on July 6. Currently a Category 5 storm, Nepartak is forecast to strike Taiwan Thursday night, July 7, local time (midday Eastern time) before moving on to eastern China. The rapid intensification of Nepartak was driven by favorable climate conditions, including passage over unusually warm seas with some of the highest oceanic heat content readings observed in conjunction with a tropical cyclone. There is a documented increase in the intensity of the strongest storms in several ocean basins in recent decades, including the Pacific Northwest. And warming seas are offering more energy to passing storms. Extreme rainfall over Taiwan is expected to be intense, fueled in part by a warmer atmosphere, with total rainfall in some areas reaching well above 3 feet. The reach of Nepartak’s storm surge will be extended due to elevated sea levels driven up by global warming.

    Jeff Masters is covering the storm here. He discusses the very rapid development of this storm:

    Category 5 Super Typhoon Nepartak is steaming towards a Thursday landfall in Taiwan after putting on a phenomenal display of rapid intensification on Monday and Tuesday. Nepartak went from a tropical storm with 70 mph winds on Monday afternoon to a Category 4 super typhoon with 150 mph winds on Tuesday afternoon, in just 24 hours.

    Energy Irony: Trans Canada Wants 15 Billion From Obama

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    Governments, and the people, should be filing law suits against the energy industry for causing the imminent collapse of civilization as we know it. But instead, the opposite is happening.

    From Reuters:

    TransCanada formally seeks NAFTA damages in Keystone XL rejection

    TransCanada Corp is formally requesting arbitration over U.S. President Barack Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, seeking $15 billion in damages, the company said in legal papers dated Friday.

    …

    The Keystone XL was designed to link existing pipeline networks in Canada and the United States to bring crude from Alberta and North Dakota to refineries in Illinois and, eventually, the Gulf of Mexico coast.

    Obama rejected the cross-border crude oil pipeline last November, seven years after it was first proposed, saying it would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to the U.S. economy.

    TransCanada is suing the United States in federal court in a separate legal action, seeking to reverse the pipeline’s rejection.

    About 750,000 homes could be fitted with some really sweet solar arrays for that money. Let’s do that instead!

    Why do we need to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground?

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    Roughly speaking, we are toast if the Earth’s surface temperatures reach something like 3 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.

    We have already reached about 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial, and we will go higher even if we stop adding more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, because it takes time for the Earth’s system (the oceans, atmosphere, and ice, mainly) to catch up.

    It is generally thought that if we don’t keep about 80% of the known fossil fuel, including coal, oil and other oily substances, and gas, in the ground, then we will go past that 3 degree level.

    As noted in a recent panel discussion with the Democratic National Convention platform committee:

    These numbers vary, and if you look at the literature on this topic over the last few years, you may become justifiably mystified. One of the problems is that people have been talking about a 2.0 degree limit, but with the assumption that we are now closer to 1.0 degree. But we have been beyond that for a long time, if you measure the surface temperature fairly and accurately. Another factor is some confusion and uncertainty (two different things) about the level of surface warming that will occur with a given increase on greenhouse gasses. But even if all this is straightened out, there is still another source of uncertainty. This is the degree to which Earth systems will helpfully absorb some of this extra carbon, or be altered to release even more, because of feedback effects.

    Historically, feedback effects have turned out to be positive more often than negative. Here, the word “positive” is bad, because it means that when you release greenhouse gasses, it warms stuff up, and then that causes some extra greenhouse gasses that were previously stored away somewhere to also be released (such as from warmed up Arctic soils). There is no reason to expect that in the future this trend will reverse, and in fact, there are some systems that are likely to become more of a positive (as in bad) effect than they are now. The degree to which this may occur is not clear.

    There are two important things you need to know about the 80% limit and its relation to effects on the planet. First, if we meet that 80% limit, things are still going to continue to warm up and change, and things are going to get pretty bad for some people. The difference between staying just under the limit and going well beyond the limit is the difference between things getting bad and things getting so bad that we can start talking about extinction and the collapse of civilization.

    The second thing you need to know is that we need to remain skeptical about this number. Among those in the know, who are not deniers of the science, there are very few if any who think this is too conservative, and a good number who see it as not enough. No matter what, we have to constantly monitor what is happening with the climate as well as our energy industry.

    This is doable.

    Climate Change Denial Threatens Our Planet and is Driving Us Crazy

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    The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy is a great new book by climate scientist Michael Mann and cartoonist Tom Toles.

    This book serves many purposes. It includes an overview of the basic science of climate change and human caused global warming. It has a compendium of many of the key science deniers, and a description of the well known taxonomy of science denial (“It’s Not Happening!”, “OK, It’s Happening but It’s Natural”, “It Will Take Care Of Itself”, “It Will Be Good For Us”, etc.). The authors discuss the war on climate science, and of special interest because it isn’t discussed enough, the prospects (which are poor) and the problems (which are very serious) of geoengineering as a means of addressing climate change.

    And, everything is well documented with detailed notes and references at the end, including some to my own writing on the topic!

    This is not like a cartoon guide to a topic (though those guides are great), but is mainly text richly illustrated with Tolees’ often ironic and biting cartoons. The text is well written and very accessible but at the same time authoritative.

    And the book will prove its own need. Just visit the amazon reviews of this book and you’ll see, I suspect (give it a few weeks for the deniers to mass on the borders of reason and charge in).

    I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in climate change and global warming. Teachers discussing this issue in class may want to have a copy of it handy, especially to prepare for denialist charges and complaints, but also, for the basic science. Activists will find the material on what to do about climate change, at several levels, interesting and helpful.

    The book is available now for pre-order.

    Climate Signals: Excellent new resource

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    Weather is climate here and now, and climate is weather over the long term. Climate is the large scale process of movement of air and water, and changes in the properties of air and water, on and near the surface of the Earth, the atmosphere, oceans, and ice fields respond to the imbalance of heat — with more of it near the equator and less of it at the poles — as the world literally turns. Weather is the local, temporal, and personally observable sign of that climate system. Climate is meaning and weather is the semiotic process by which we understand that meaning.

    OK, perhaps I’ve gone too far with the semiotics.

    Anyway, I’m pretty sure that the number one way in which change in the climate system, that change caused over several decades of release of greenhouse gasses (and other changes) by humans, is understood by people is through the observation and experience of weather. All the data from NOAA and other earth-watching science agencies, all those excellent blog posts about this or that piece of research, all the great talks by the top climate scientists don’t amount to a hill of beans when compared to a long lasting killer heat wave, a devastating hurricane, a swarm of town-smashing tornadoes, or a vast flooding event. Not so much one event, but the obvious and undeniable increase in frequency of such events.

    Climate Signals is one of those great ideas that addresses a basic need using a compelling approach. Climate Signals, currently in Beta form, is a data base of climate events, with geographical information, and highly structured information linking these events to research, indicating climate change connections with varying degrees of certainty, news reports, and all the other information one might want about those events.

    I believe Climate Signals will become a significant go-to source for journalists writing about climate, as well as policy makers and even scientists who want to make reference to specific events and get those references right.

    Climate change affects us all. Through the use of mapping, Climate Signals shows what climate change looks like on the ground, in your region, state, or neighborhood and identifies the long-term climate trends and physical processes that may be at work.

    You should go to the Climate Signals website and browse around. Give them feedback. Send the link to friends and foes. I’m going to make it part of my daily reading.

    Explaining The Recent Extreme Weather: Global Warming

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    The human release of greenhouse gasses has ultimately caused changes in weather patterns so that major storm systems in the Northern Hemisphere get wetter and move along more slowly, causing significant rainfall events to occur at a much higher rate than previously. This has become a nearly ongoing phenomenon, with major floods in Canada, Colorado, Texas, Western Europe, Texas again, various places in Azia, more in Europe, Texas again, and so on.

    The short version of the story: The jet stream is often fairly linear, traveling around the planet at a high speed, but it can also get all wavy and those waves can become “quasi resonant” meaning that they sit in the same place for a long period of time. Also, they go slower and thus move weather patterns along more slowly. This can cause the aforementioned major rainfall events, as well as persistent droughts. And we’ve had plenty of both of those.

    I have written quite a bit about this, but especially this item (but see also this). And now we have more research confirming the findings.

    The same (or overlapping) team of researchers that did this earlier work has a new paper out in PNAS. Here’s the summary material from the paper:

    Significance:

    Weather extremes are becoming more frequent and severe in many regions of the world. The physical mechanisms have not been fully identified yet, but there is growing evidence that there are connections to planetary wave dynamics. Our study shows that, in boreal spring-to-autumn 2012 and 2013, a majority of the weather extremes in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes were accompanied by highly magnified planetary waves with zonal wave numbers m = 6, 7, and 8. A substantial part of those waves was probably forced by subseasonal variability in the extratropical midtroposphere circulation via the mechanism of quasiresonant amplification (QRA). The results presented here support the overall hypothesis that QRA is an important mechanism driving many of the recent exceptional extreme weather events.

    Abstract
    In boreal spring-to-autumn (May-to-September) 2012 and 2013, the Northern Hemisphere (NH) has experienced a large number of severe midlatitude regional weather extremes. Here we show that a considerable part of these extremes were accompanied by highly magnified quasistationary midlatitude planetary waves with zonal wave numbers m = 6, 7, and 8. We further show that resonance conditions for these planetary waves were, in many cases, present before the onset of high-amplitude wave events, with a lead time up to 2 wk, suggesting that quasiresonant amplification (QRA) of these waves had occurred. Our results support earlier findings of an important role of the QRA mechanism in amplifying planetary waves, favoring recent NH weather extremes.

    The paper is: Role of quasiresonant planetary wave dynamics in recent boreal spring-to-autumn extreme events, by Vladimir Petoukhov, Stefan Petri, Stefan Rahmstorf, Dim Coumou, Kai Kornhuber, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.