Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

Megadroughts could return to southwestern U.S.

Ancestors of southwest Native American tribes today, Chacoans built impressive multi-storied stone buildings with a far-reaching trade system selling colorful macaws for turquoise. But a desperate lack of water—a megadrought—caused the advanced civilization to seemingly vanish within a generation.

Described in a comprehensive new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, scientists now understand the causes of the megadroughts common during the medieval period. With climate change, they predict more megadroughts in the future.

Like a scale measuring the total solar energy in Earth’s system, radiative forcing can be positive or negative. A positive radiative forcing occurs when the atmosphere traps more energy. To corral more energy, you can crank up the sun’s energy output, Steiger said. Or you can have molecules like carbon dioxide effectively trapping more incoming solar energy—the current scenario with climate change.

 

[S'toon]

Earth's natural cycles can't account for the recent warming seen over the past 100 years, new research suggests.

In one of three new studies published in the journals Nature and Nature Geoscience, researchers found that previous periods of climate change such as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warming Period were regional and not a global phenomenon.

In contrast, the warming that has occurred over the past century has been far-reaching and global in nature.

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In a second study, researchers examined Earth's rate of surface warming — the global mean temperature — and its drivers. They found that the rate of warming over periods of at least 20 years was fastest during the late 20th century.


"We find that at pre-industrial times … major volcanic eruptions were the major drivers of temperature fluctuations," said co-author Raphael Neukom, a scientist at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern. But external forces such as variations in the sun's output did not have "a significant influence" on temperatures.

The sun is also often used by climate skeptics as an external driving force responsible for climate change.

The third paper also concluded that volcanoes played a role in climatic upheaval in the past.

It's this agreement between the three separate studies that the teams of researchers believe is an important indicator of the climate state the planet is currently experiencing.


"The basic conclusion is that what's happening today is anomalous, and we understand why it's anomalous — it's not a mystery," said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who was not involved with the study.

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Full article at:
Recent warming over the past 100 years is not part of a natural process, studies find

 

[ohmman]

I'm a scientist. Under Trump I lost my job for refusing to hide climate crisis facts | Maria Caffrey

 

[SageBrush]

I'm a scientist. Under Trump I lost my job for refusing to hide climate crisis facts | Maria Caffrey

This crap found its legs during li'l bush's administration and Evangelical administrators who thought it legitimate to spin and manipulate science to fit a political agenda.

 

[Merrill]

I'm a scientist. Under Trump I lost my job for refusing to hide climate crisis facts | Maria Caffrey

That makes my stomach turn, a bigger question is how can we allow a person like this to remain in office. We should all be ashamed.

 

[cpa]

Sorry to post something that is directly off topic. But it has tangential relevance.

Juul hires expert on nicotine addiction

JUUL, makers of nicotine vaping devices, (with a large chunk owned by Altria nee Phillip Morris, fine makers of Marlboro) just hired away a pediatric professor and nicotine addiction researcher from UCSF to be their executive medical officer. He is supposed to determine the effects of vaping and nicotine addiction on adolescents.

I will be curious to see how his research develops and what conclusions he reaches. Safe! (when used as directed)

Excuse me, but this is just a smoke screen, as it were, to promote their products. And I am sure his salary is manifold times what he made as a professor and researcher with UCSF.

 

[SageBrush]

Sorry to post something that is directly off topic. But it has tangential relevance.

Juul hires expert on nicotine addiction

JUUL, makers of nicotine vaping devices, (with a large chunk owned by Altria nee Phillip Morris, fine makers of Marlboro) just hired away a pediatric professor and nicotine addiction researcher from UCSF to be their executive medical officer. He is supposed to determine the effects of vaping and nicotine addiction on adolescents.

It is hard to believe that the physician will be that corrupt but it is possible.
More likely the research will be massaged or squashed, rather like how Trump uses the National Enquirer to hide his perversions.

 

[mspohr]

Amazon deforestation accelerating towards unrecoverable 'tipping point'

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has surged above three football fields a minute, according to the latest government data, pushing the world’s biggest rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which it cannot recover.

The sharp rise – following year-on-year increases in May and June – confirms fears that president Jair Bolsonaro has given a green light to illegal land invasion, logging and burning.

 

[mspohr]

War on science: Trump administration muzzles climate experts, critics say

The Trump administration is disregarding science and expertise across a wide range of government work, as documented by whistleblowers and groups tracking agency decisions.

Trump officials are censoring warnings about the climate crisis, moving critical agencies out of Washington and enacting far-reaching changes in what facts regulators can consider when they choose between industry and the public good.

The White House and its agencies have kept their own experts from explaining how pollution from power plants and cars is increasing global temperatures, threatening both lives and economies.

 

[mspohr]

'He wants to destroy us': Bolsonaro poses gravest threat in decades, Amazon tribes say

Like other indigenous territories in the Amazon, the Javari Valley – created in 1998 in an effort to protect its dwellers and their homes – has long suffered incursions from intruders seeking to cash in on its abundant natural resources.

But as Bolsonaro ratchets up his anti-indigenous rhetoric and continues to dismantle Funai – the already chronically underfunded agency supposed to protect Brazil’s 300-odd tribes – Javari leaders fear a dramatic deterioration.

“The current government’s dream is to exterminate the indigenous people so they can take our land,” claimed Kevin Mayoruna, 39, a leader from Javari’s Matsés tribe who recently staged a protest in his village on the Jaquirana River.

 

[mspohr]

All-time temperature records tumble again as heatwave sears Europe

The extreme temperatures follow a similar heatwave last month that made it the hottest June on record. Scientists say the climate crisis is making summer heatwaves five times more likely and significantly more intense.

A study published this year by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich said the 2018 summer heatwave across northern Europe would have been “statistically impossible” without climate change driven by human activity.

 

[mspohr]

The Guardian joins a major media initiative to combat the climate crisis

For a week this September, dozens of news organizations in the US and around the world will join forces to devote their front pages and airwaves to a critical but under-covered story: the global climate emergency.

This unique media collaboration, timed to coincide with landmark UN Climate Action Summit in New York, is the first initiative of Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review, in partnership with The Guardian, which aims to kickstart a conversation among journalists about how news outlets can improve their coverage of the climate crisis.

 

[mspohr]

EIB plans to cut all funding for fossil fuel projects by 2020

The European Investment Bank has vowed to end its multibillion euro financing for fossil fuel projects by the end of next year in order to align its strategy with climate targets.

The EU’s lending arm has drafted plans, seen by the Guardian, which propose cutting support for energy infrastructure projects which rely on oil, gas or coal by barring companies from applying for loans beyond the end of 2020.

 

[SageBrush]

The Guardian joins a major media initiative to combat the climate crisis

For a week this September, dozens of news organizations in the US and around the world will join forces to devote their front pages and airwaves to a critical but under-covered story: the global climate emergency.

This unique media collaboration, timed to coincide with landmark UN Climate Action Summit in New York, is the first initiative of Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review, in partnership with The Guardian, which aims to kickstart a conversation among journalists about how news outlets can improve their coverage of the climate crisis.

It is about time !

Will Fox news generate a propaganda flurry to dilute the story, or just ignore it ?

 

[mspohr]

Elephants are worth $43 billion in carbon storage solutions!

Elephant extinction will raise carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere
One of the last remaining megaherbivores, forest elephants shape their environment by serving as seed dispersers and forest bulldozers as they eat over a hundred species of fruit, trample bushes, knock over trees and create trails and clearings. Their ecological impact also affects tree populations and carbon levels in the forest, researchers report, with significant implications for climate and conservation policies

Without the forest elephants, less carbon dioxide will be taken out of the atmosphere. In monetary terms, forest elephantsrepresent a carbon storage service of $43 billion.

 

[Unpilot]

It is about time !

Will Fox news generate a propaganda flurry to dilute the story, or just ignore it ?

Ignore first.....gather talking point's then dilute and scare it's viewers with stories about taking away their way of life.

 

[SR22pilot]

Let's just ignore climate change because doing anything will be inconvenient and might affect our lifestyle. Hey, none of this climate change stuff will affect us. Nope. Just ignore it. Now how cheap is Main real estate?

Increased frequency of and population exposure to extreme heat index days in the United States during the 21st century

 

[mspohr]

'People are dying': how the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the US

'People are dying': how the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the US

But amid a deepening global climate crisis, drought, famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognized as major factors in the exodus.

 

[mspohr]

Ethiopia 'breaks' tree-planting record

Ethiopia has planted more than 350 million trees in a day, officials say, in what they believe is a world record.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is leading the project, which aims to counter the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone country.

 

[S'toon]

Margaret and Edward Kelly's home is coming apart at the seams.

The joints holding their walls, floors and ceilings together expand and contract as the ground underneath moves, a few centimetres at a time.

They built their family home in Fort Good Hope, on the banks of the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories, 30 years ago. Over the past decade, they've fought to keep the house together.

But every time they make a repair, another gap appears between the walls, or a section of the floor sinks.

"It's dangerous to live here," Margaret Kelly, 77, said. "The plywood underneath the floor moves. You can feel the house moving. It's unstable."

The Kellys are one of at least a dozen families in Fort Good Hope who feel threatened as the ground literally shifts beneath their feet. They blame the thawing permafrost, which is shifting the land and the houses that sit on top of it.

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Full article at:
Shifting Ground: How Thawing Permafrost is Threatening Homes in Canada's North

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Her research has taken her from the charred forests of America's Rocky Mountain ranges all the way to the Pacific Northwest, just south of the B.C. border.

What she's found: certain tree species are having a tough time growing back in areas that have been affected by wildfires due to warming temperatures — a discovery that could have major implications for both the forestry sector and long-term climate change targets.


Among Stevens-Rumann,'s work was a 2017 study of nearly 1,500 sites charred by 52 wildfires in the U.S. Rocky Mountains. Her research found that lower elevation trees had a tough time naturally regenerating in areas that burned between 2000 and 2015 compared with sites affected between 1985 and 1999, largely due to drier weather conditions.

More recently, a 2019 study written by her colleague Kerry Kemp found that both Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine seedlings in the Idaho's Rocky Mountains — just south of B.C. — were also struggling in low-lying burned areas due to warmer temperatures, leading to lower tree densities.

Both studies attribute climate change to be the lead cause of why the trees are struggling to grow back in certain fire-scarred areas.

<snip>

Full article at:
Charred forests not growing back as expected in Pacific Northwest, researchers say