raf
New Member
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Post by raf on Nov 8, 2019 16:15:16 GMT
Wow...seems I'm a new member. I was just trying to figure out what my last pw was and I created a new account by mistake.
But I don't see my old account in here either. Did I not survive a previous purge? It has been awhile.
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Nov 8, 2019 21:52:13 GMT
Wow...seems I'm a new member. I was just trying to figure out what my last pw was and I created a new account by mistake. But I don't see my old account in here either. Did I not survive a previous purge? It has been awhile. Welcome/Welcome back raf, Crystal
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Post by gus on Nov 9, 2019 0:08:42 GMT
Some bad fires around in Australia at the moment. What this space.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2019 16:37:52 GMT
I've been following "Suspicious Observers" for years. Interesting stuff. CLIMATE FORCING Here's a shorter version.:
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raf
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Post by raf on Nov 25, 2019 19:29:27 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2019 15:05:09 GMT
RECORD-COLD SETS STAGE FOR BIG NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS : Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are now circumnavigating the South Pole. New images from NASA's AIM spacecraft show a 3000-mile ring of frosted meteor smoke glowing in the mesosphere 83 km above the frozen continent. This time-lapse video shows the clouds rapidly spreading since their first appearance on Nov. 15th: Continue @ spaceweather.com/
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2019 16:09:16 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Nov 29, 2019 3:07:34 GMT
Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against The growing threat of abrupt and irreversible climate changes must compel political and economic action on emissions.
Timothy M. Lenton, Johan Rockström, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmstorf,
Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
November 27, 2019
An aeroplane flies over a glacier in the Wrangell St Elias National Park in Alaska. Credit: Frans Lanting/Nat Geo Image Collection
Politicians, economists and even some natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points in the Earth system — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet — are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing the world to long-term irreversible changes.
Here we summarize evidence on the threat of exceeding tipping points, identify knowledge gaps and suggest how these should be plugged. We explore the effects of such large-scale changes, how quickly they might unfold and whether we still have any control over them.
In our view, the consideration of tipping points helps to define that we are in a climate emergency and strengthens this year’s chorus of calls for urgent climate action — from schoolchildren to scientists, cities and countries.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced the idea of tipping points two decades ago. At that time, these ‘large-scale discontinuities’ in the climate system were considered likely only if global warming exceeded 5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Information summarized in the two most recent IPCC Special Reports (published in 2018 and in September this year) suggests that tipping points could be exceeded even between 1 and 2 °C of warming (see ‘Too close for comfort’).
Source: IPCC
If current national pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are implemented — and that’s a big ‘if’ — they are likely to result in at least 3 °C of global warming. This is despite the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit warming to well below 2 °C. Some economists, assuming that climate tipping points are of very low probability (even if they would be catastrophic), have suggested that 3 °C warming is optimal from a cost–benefit perspective. However, if tipping points are looking more likely, then the ‘optimal policy’ recommendation of simple cost–benefit climate-economy models4 aligns with those of the recent IPCC report. In other words, warming must be limited to 1.5 °C. This requires an emergency response.
Ice collapse
We think that several cryosphere tipping points are dangerously close, but mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions could still slow down the inevitable accumulation of impacts and help us to adapt.
Research in the past decade has shown that the Amundsen Sea embayment of West Antarctica might have passed a tipping point: the ‘grounding line’ where ice, ocean and bedrock meet is retreating irreversibly. A model study shows that when this sector collapses, it could destabilize the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet like toppling dominoes — leading to about 3 metres of sea-level rise on a timescale of centuries to millennia. Palaeo-evidence shows that such widespread collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet has occurred repeatedly in the past.
The latest data show that part of the East Antarctic ice sheet — the Wilkes Basin — might be similarly unstable. Modeling work suggests that it could add another 3–4 m to sea level on timescales beyond a century.
The Greenland ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate. It could add a further 7 m to sea level over thousands of years if it passes a particular threshold. Beyond that, as the elevation of the ice sheet lowers, it melts further, exposing the surface to ever-warmer air. Models suggest that the Greenland ice sheet could be doomed at 1.5 °C of warming, which could happen as soon as 2030.
Thus, we might already have committed future generations to living with sea-level rises of around 10 m over thousands of years. But that timescale is still under our control. The rate of melting depends on the magnitude of warming above the tipping point. At 1.5 °C, it could take 10,000 years to unfold; above 2 °C it could take less than 1,000 years. Researchers need more observational data to establish whether ice sheets are reaching a tipping point, and require better models constrained by past and present data to resolve how soon and how fast the ice sheets could collapse.
Whatever those data show, action must be taken to slow sea-level rise. This will aid adaptation, including the eventual resettling of large, low-lying population centres.
A further key impetus to limit warming to 1.5 °C is that other tipping points could be triggered at low levels of global warming. The latest IPCC models projected a cluster of abrupt shifts between 1.5 °C and 2 °C, several of which involve sea ice. This ice is already shrinking rapidly in the Arctic, indicating that, at 2 °C of warming, the region has a 10–35% chance of becoming largely ice-free in summer.
Biosphere boundaries
Climate change and other human activities risk triggering biosphere tipping points across a range of ecosystems and scales (see ‘Raising the alarm’).
@nature Source: T. M. Lenton et al.
Ocean heatwaves have led to mass coral bleaching and to the loss of half of the shallow-water corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A staggering 99% of tropical corals are projected to be lost if global average temperature rises by 2 °C, owing to interactions between warming, ocean acidification and pollution. This would represent a profound loss of marine biodiversity and human livelihoods.
As well as undermining our life-support system, biosphere tipping points can trigger abrupt carbon release back to the atmosphere. This can amplify climate change and reduce remaining emission budgets.
Deforestation and climate change are destabilizing the Amazon — the world’s largest rainforest, which is home to one in ten known species. Estimates of where an Amazon tipping point could lie range from 40% deforestation to just 20% forest-cover loss. About 17% has been lost since 1970. The rate of deforestation varies with changes in policy. Finding the tipping point requires models that include deforestation and climate change as interacting drivers, and that incorporate fire and climate feedbacks as interacting tipping mechanisms across scales.
With the Arctic warming at least twice as quickly as the global average, the boreal forest in the subarctic is increasingly vulnerable. Already, warming has triggered large-scale insect disturbances and an increase in fires that have led to dieback of North American boreal forests, potentially turning some regions from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Permafrost across the Arctic is beginning to irreversibly thaw and release carbon dioxide and methane — a greenhouse gas that is around 30 times more potent than CO2 over a 100-year period.
Researchers need to improve their understanding of these observed changes in major ecosystems, as well as where future tipping points might lie. Existing carbon stores and potential releases of CO2 and methane need better quantification.
The world’s remaining emissions budget for a 50:50 chance of staying within 1.5 °C of warming is only about 500 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2. Permafrost emissions could take an estimated 20% (100 Gt CO2) off this budget, and that’s without including methane from deep permafrost or undersea hydrates. If forests are close to tipping points, Amazon dieback could release another 90 Gt CO2 and boreal forests a further 110 Gt CO2. With global total CO2 emissions still at more than 40 Gt per year, the remaining budget could be all but erased already.
Global cascade
In our view, the clearest emergency would be if we were approaching a global cascade of tipping points that led to a new, less habitable, ‘hothouse’ climate state. Interactions could happen through ocean and atmospheric circulation or through feedbacks that increase greenhouse-gas levels and global temperature. Alternatively, strong cloud feedbacks could cause a global tipping point.
We argue that cascading effects might be common. Research last year analysed 30 types of regime shift spanning physical climate and ecological systems, from collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet to a switch from rainforest to savanna. This indicated that exceeding tipping points in one system can increase the risk of crossing them in others. Such links were found for 45% of possible interactions.
In our view, examples are starting to be observed. For example, Arctic sea-ice loss is amplifying regional warming, and Arctic warming and Greenland melting are driving an influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic. This could have contributed to a 15% slowdown since the mid-twentieth century of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) , a key part of global heat and salt transport by the ocean. Rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet and further slowdown of the AMOC could destabilize the West African monsoon, triggering drought in Africa’s Sahel region. A slowdown in the AMOC could also dry the Amazon, disrupt the East Asian monsoon and cause heat to build up in the Southern Ocean, which could accelerate Antarctic ice loss.
The palaeo-record shows global tipping, such as the entry into ice-age cycles 2.6 million years ago and their switch in amplitude and frequency around one million years ago, which models are only just capable of simulating. Regional tipping occurred repeatedly within and at the end of the last ice age, between 80,000 and 10,000 years ago (the Dansgaard–Oeschger and Heinrich events). Although this is not directly applicable to the present interglacial period, it highlights that the Earth system has been unstable across multiple timescales before, under relatively weak forcing caused by changes in Earth’s orbit. Now we are strongly forcing the system, with atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature increasing at rates that are an order of magnitude higher than those during the most recent deglaciation.
Atmospheric CO2 is already at levels last seen around four million years ago, in the Pliocene epoch. It is rapidly heading towards levels last seen some 50 million years ago — in the Eocene — when temperatures were up to 14 °C higher than they were in pre-industrial times. It is challenging for climate models to simulate such past ‘hothouse’ Earth states. One possible explanation is that the models have been missing a key tipping point: a cloud-resolving model published this year suggests that the abrupt break-up of stratocumulus cloud above about 1,200 parts per million of CO2 could have resulted in roughly 8 °C of global warming.
Some early results from the latest climate models — run for the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, due in 2021 — indicate a much larger climate sensitivity (defined as the temperature response to doubling of atmospheric CO2) than in previous models. Many more results are pending and further investigation is required, but to us, these preliminary results hint that a global tipping point is possible.
To address these issues, we need models that capture a richer suite of couplings and feedbacks in the Earth system, and we need more data — present and past — and better ways to use them. Improving the ability of models to capture known past abrupt climate changes and ‘hothouse’ climate states should increase confidence in their ability to forecast these.
Some scientists counter that the possibility of global tipping remains highly speculative. It is our position that, given its huge impact and irreversible nature, any serious risk assessment must consider the evidence, however limited our understanding might still be. To err on the side of danger is not a responsible option.
If damaging tipping cascades can occur and a global tipping point cannot be ruled out, then this is an existential threat to civilization. No amount of economic cost–benefit analysis is going to help us. We need to change our approach to the climate problem.
Act now
In our view, the evidence from tipping points alone suggests that we are in a state of planetary emergency: both the risk and urgency of the situation are acute (see ‘Emergency: do the maths’).
EMERGENCY: DO THE MATHS
We define emergency (E) as the product of risk and urgency. Risk (R) is defined by insurers as probability (p) multiplied by damage (D). Urgency (U) is defined in emergency situations as reaction time to an alert (τ) divided by the intervention time left to avoid a bad outcome (T). Thus:
E = R × U = p × D × τ / T
The situation is an emergency if both risk and urgency are high. If reaction time is longer than the intervention time left (τ / T > 1), we have lost control.
We argue that the intervention time left to prevent tipping could already have shrunk towards zero, whereas the reaction time to achieve net zero emissions is 30 years at best. Hence we might already have lost control of whether tipping happens. A saving grace is that the rate at which damage accumulates from tipping — and hence the risk posed — could still be under our control to some extent.
The stability and resilience of our planet is in peril. International action — not just words — must reflect this.
Nature 575, 592-595 (2019)
doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0
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Post by Ak9 on Dec 2, 2019 3:24:04 GMT
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Post by SuzyQ on Dec 2, 2019 18:25:39 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Dec 5, 2019 18:36:17 GMT
The state of the climate in 2019 and its impacts on us 05 Dec 2019 | James Dacey
On Tuesday 3 December the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released the provisional statement for its 2019 State of the Climate report. The full report will be published in March but it looks certain that 2019 will conclude the decade with the highest average global temperature since records began. WMO senior scientific officer Omar Baddour was the coordinator of the report and he speaks to science journalist James Dacey in Madrid at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 25) .
Baddour, who has an academic background in physics and math, speaks about how to report is synthesized from the multitude of available data. He also explains how the annual report’s scope has expanded to consider the impacts of climate change on natural and human systems. Acknowledging that audiences are fatigued by constant gloomy news from climate scientists, Baddour argues that such detailed climate information will be essential in the transition to low carbon societies.
James Dacey is a multimedia journalist based in Madrid.
Click to listen to the Dacey/Baddour discussion: physicsworld.com/a/the-state-of-the-climate-in-2019-and-its-impacts-on-us/
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Post by swamprat on Dec 9, 2019 17:59:13 GMT
Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans By Andy Borowitz
May 12, 2015
MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report)—Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.
The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.
“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”
More worryingly, Logsdon said, “As facts have multiplied, their defenses against those facts have only grown more powerful.”
While scientists have no clear understanding of the mechanisms that prevent the fact-resistant humans from absorbing data, they theorize that the strain may have developed the ability to intercept and discard information en route from the auditory nerve to the brain. “The normal functions of human consciousness have been completely nullified,” Logsdon said.
While reaffirming the gloomy assessments of the study, Logsdon held out hope that the threat of fact-resistant humans could be mitigated in the future. “Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen,” he said.
www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans?fbclid=IwAR3yumNO7KKr8IId951jZQBtGj-sUfeyYb0N97fQqWPWfHNzfAZppFBYPwA
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Post by swamprat on Dec 21, 2019 16:48:40 GMT
Happy Winter Solstice!Climate change contributing to increase in extreme weather events, says expert report 21 Dec 2019
Heating up: wildfires were one extreme phenomenon that was covered in the report. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Bruno-Ismael-Silva-Alves)
Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall are becoming increasingly likely to occur because of human-caused climate change. That is a conclusion of a report by climate experts that was released recently at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
“Explaining extreme events from a climate perspective” is the eighth report in an annual series published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). Comprising 21 peer-reviewed studies of extreme weather around the world in 2018, the report is based on the research of 121 scientists in 13 countries.
Since the first report in 2011, BAMS editor-in-chief Jeff Rosenfeld says, “it feels like a century, in terms of how the science has changed.” The papers are now are much more adventurous and look to the future as much as to the past. We study extremes, he said, “because they are the way we experience climate.” This year’s paper covers not only temperature extremes, but floods, hailstorms, wildfires, rainfall, drought, and other phenomena.
Stephanie Herring of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the lead editor of the series, notes that the report did not attempt to be comprehensive and that some areas of the world, including South America, Africa, and the oceans are under-sampled. That said, over the eight years of reports, 168 extreme events have been studied, representing 29 event types. Of those, around 73% involved a role for climate change, while around 27% did not. Over just the past two years, however, around 95% of the events studied involved human-caused climate change.
Statistical approach
The most common events studied over the eight years, Herring says, were temperature (50 studies) and precipitation or its lack (37 studies). Only in 2016 were scientists able to conclude for the first time that several events were not possible without human influence on climate. No events quite made that list for 2018. The way attributions are made, said Herring, draws on the statistical approach of epidemiologists who compare, for example, lung cancer levels in a group of smokers with that in a similar group of nonsmokers, to determine the increased risk attributable to smoking.
With regard to climate, we have the observable record of, for example, rainfall in a certain region over a certain period of time. But, Herring says, we have no “planet B” to use as a control study. Therefore, a modelled planet B is created, with atmospheric data based on 1850, prior to the start of the industrial revolution. By comparing observed inputs for our real planet with simulated inputs for planet B, scientists come up with a fraction of attributable risk, the likelihood that the event was contributed to by anthropogenic climate change.
The reason that more and more papers in the annual reports are finding a role for climate change could be that scientists now have improved observational tools and models, allowing them to better detect the signal in the noise, Herring says. But, also, it may be that the role of climate change has become a more significant driver of events in recent years.
physicsworld.com/a/climate-change-contributing-to-increase-in-extreme-weather-events-says-expert-report/
Sorry, Mr. President.....
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Post by swamprat on Dec 23, 2019 21:06:58 GMT
Towards a sustainable future23 Dec 2019 | Dave Elliott
Taken from the January 2020 issue of Physics World.
Dave Elliott says that, while renewable energy has rapidly progressed over the past decade, more needs to be done to help limit the impact of climate change.
Power for the people Renewables are now the cheapest power option in most places around the world. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Eviart)
“The country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century.” So said former US President Barack Obama in 2009. At the time, renewables such as wind and solar power were just getting off the ground with around 160 GW of wind capacity and just 21 GW of solar photo-voltaics (PV solar) in place worldwide.
Since then, the costs of renewables have fallen dramatically – by 76% in the case of PV solar. The boom has been aided by concerns about the impact of climate change as well as by rampant air pollution, particularly in some Asian cities. And the costs continue to fall. Indeed, they are now the cheapest power option in most places.
Global renewable energy capacity hit 2351 GW by the end of 2018, accounting for a third of the world’s total power capacity and supplying over 26% of global power. In the UK, the overall share of renewables in power generation has increased to over 33% – a figure that is set to rise as new offshore wind projects come online. The share of renewables in Portugal is over 54% while in Denmark it is near 60% and Sweden has reached 66%. Interestingly, renewable energy accounted for 70% of electricity production in Scotland in 2017.
The Norwegian energy firm DNG-GL forecasts an 80% share of power generation by 2050 for renewables, while the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says it could be more like 86%. That may be too much for some countries, however, as the ongoing energy transition means a host of political and economic issues.
As ever, there are doubters who say the whole renewable agenda is ill-conceived and that renewables cannot deliver on the scale and pace necessary to cut emissions. Part of the problem is that, in some locations, energy demand is rising and so is -fossil energy use. This leads to a lowering of the renewable share percentage, followed by a rise in emissions, which is likely to get worse unless urgent action is taken. Despite the potential, the short-term prognosis does not look too good. Renewable investment levels have recently reduced and annual capacity expansion has stalled.
This is partly because costs are decreasing and the profit margins on new projects are falling. It is possible to get more output and better returns from less money. Competition has also led to a “race to the bottom”, also known as the “market-cannibalization” effect whereby only the cheapest projects are funded.
Globally – in capacity and investment terms – China is the clear leader in renewables with over 720 GW. But faced with delays in matching its power-grid expansion to its renewables expansion, China has reduced its rate of investment in renewables. Yet the global slowdown seems unlikely to affect the overall cumulative global expansion process. Indeed, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the share of renewables in global power generation will rise from 26% today to 30% by 2024. Global renewable power capacity could grow by 50% between 2019 and 2024 – an increase of 1200 GW – but even this might not be fast enough to meet climate change goals.
The IEA says we therefore need to go faster both with renewable and, crucially, with energy saving and demand reduction. Demand for electricity has actually fallen in recent years in 18 out of 30 IEA member countries. However, demand for other types of energy is rising, especially for transportation. But if this is decarbonized by switching to electric vehicles, for example, electric power demand may start rising again.
Some are still optimistic for the future of renewables. IRENA states that renewables could be able to supply 50% of all global energy – not just electricity – by 2050. Studies in the US, Germany and elsewhere even claim that renewables could supply 100% of all global energy by 2050. That may be technically possible and even economically attractive, but it would certainly require new investment in hardware and back-up systems, and in new technology for both.
The IEA notes that R&D on renewables has expanded significantly in recent years and is now roughly similar to nuclear. Overall, global investment in clean-energy technology has been running at $300bn or more per year in recent years while that for nuclear fell to a new low of $17bn last year. Nuclear is not zero carbon and it seems to have stalled or declined in many places.
However, we need more carbon-free energy investment – and fast. One way to raise more money for accelerating renewables is by carbon taxes and the creation of a global carbon market. But this might not be enough and we may need a more radical energy and economic transition – one that includes implementing new economic models and patterns of energy use.
The longer-term benefits of renewables are substantial, not least helping to avoid the ever-increasing social, environmental and economic costs of fossil fuel. Given the political will and continued technological development, including energy storage, grid balancing and demand-management systems, I believe that renewables can help us all move to a sustainable energy future.
• Read more about the current status of renewable energy in Dave Elliott’s recently updated and expanded ebook Renewables, published by IOP Publishing. He blogs at renewnatta.wordpress.com/
physicsworld.com/a/towards-a-sustainable-future/
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Post by swamprat on Dec 28, 2019 19:00:29 GMT
10 Signs That Earth's Climate Is Off the Rails By Kimberly Hickok - 23 Dec. 2019
Our planet's climate is bananas.
Climate change is happening, it's real and it's our fault. The evidence is overwhelming — our planet is changing faster than it ever has before. Here are 10 stories from the past year demonstrating how Earth's climate has gone completely off the rails.
A polar bear invasion
Earlier this year, 52 hungry polar bears occupied a small work settlement in a remote Russian Arctic archipelago, much to the displeasure of the town's residents. It's not uncommon to see polar bears near Russia's southern coasts, where they regularly converge in winter for seasonal seal hunts. But thinning sea ice caused by global warming likely drove the bears inland in search of food. The allure of edible waste in the town's garbage bins and dump sites likely stopped the bears from migrating farther north and prompted regional officials to declare a state of emergency.
Record-breaking carbon dioxide levels
This year, scientists measured more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there has been for 800,000 years — since before our species evolved.
In May 2019, the levels of the greenhouse gas reached 415 parts per million (ppm), as measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at its Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. During the ice ages, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were around 200 ppm. And during the interglacial periods — the planet is currently in an interglacial period — levels were around 280 ppm, according to NASA. Humans are burning fossil fuels, causing the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And as a result, every year, the Earth sees about 3 ppm more carbon dioxide in the air.
The Arctic permafrost is rapidly disappearing
This year, we learned that in the Canadian Arctic, layers of permafrost that scientists expected to remain frozen for at least 70 years have already begun thawing. The once-frozen surface is now sinking and dotted with melt ponds and from above looks a bit like Swiss cheese, satellite images revealed.
This was shocking news because climate experts had predicted that air temperatures wouldn't be warm enough to melt the frozen ground until after 2090. However, researchers believe higher summer temperatures, low levels of insulating vegetation and the presence of ground ice near the surface contributed to the exceptionally rapid and deep thawing.
Alaska got hotter than NYC this summer
This year, for the first time in recorded history, Anchorage, Alaska, reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). That sweltering temperature, recorded on July 4, meant that the normally snowbound city, which is just 370 miles (595 kilometers) from the Arctic Circle, was hotter than New York City. (NYC hit 85 F that day, according to timeanddate.com.)
The previous record-breaking temperature in Anchorage was 85 F (29 C), which occurred June 14, 1969, according to KTUU, an Anchorage broadcast station affiliated with NBC News.
Arctic fires were visible from space
The wildfires that burned large swaths of Russia generated so much smoke last summer that they were visible from space. NASA's Earth Observatory captured images of the 100-plus wildfires burning in the Arctic in late July.
The Arctic is heating up faster than other parts of the world, making it easier for fires to thrive there. The largest fires — blazes likely ignited by lightning — were located in the regions of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Buryatia, according to the Earth Observatory, and together, had burned over 500 square miles (1,295 square km) of land.
More than 200 reindeer died from starvation
This summer, researchers found more than 200 dead reindeer on the island of Svalbard in Norway. The animals starved to death because climate change disrupted their access to the plants that they typically eat.
Climate change brings warmer temperatures to Svalbard, which results in more rain. After the heavy December rain hit the ground, the precipitation froze, creating "tundra ice caps," a thick layer of ice that prevented reindeer from reaching vegetation in their usual winter grazing pastures, and the reindeer eventually starved to death.
July was the hottest month ever recorded
July 2019 was really, really hot. It was at least as hot as the previous warmest month ever, recorded in June 2016, and it may have even been hotter. The record put 2019 on track to be among the top five hottest years in history.
More than half of the Greenland ice sheet melted
A staggering 217 billion tons (197 billion metric tons) of meltwater flowed off Greenland's ice sheet into the Atlantic Ocean this July. The worst day of melting was July 31, when 11 billion tons (10 billion metric tons) of melted ice poured into the ocean.
This massive thaw represents some of the worst melting since 2012, according to The Washington Post. That year, 97% of the Greenland ice sheet experienced melting. By July of this year, 56% of the ice sheet had melted, but temperatures — 15 to 20 F above average — have been higher than during the 2012 heat wave. All told, this July's melt alone was enough to raise global average sea levels by 0.02 inches (0.5 millimeters), according to the Post.
September temperatures also set a record
September also joined the list of hottest months on record. This September tied the record for the warmest September on the planet since record keeping began 140 years ago, and it was the warmest ever recorded for North America. However, it wasn't just September that experienced unusual warmth; 2019 also saw the second-warmest January through September ever recorded, according to a NOAA climate report.
This year, scientists released a report describing how "flesh-eating" bacteria that live in the ocean may be spreading to previously unaffected beach waters, thanks to climate change.
The report authors described five cases of severe flesh-eating bacterial infections in people who were exposed to water or seafood from the Delaware Bay, which sits between Delaware and New Jersey. Such infections have historically been rare in the Delaware Bay, as the bacterium responsible for the disease, called Vibrio vulnificus, prefers warmer waters, such as those in the Gulf of Mexico.
But with rising ocean temperatures due to climate change, V. vulnificus may be moving farther north, making these infections more common in areas that were previously off limits, the authors said.
www.livescience.com/10-signs-of-climate-change-in-2019.html
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