This map has been in the news this week as climate scientists are trying to call attention to the impact of cooling waters off Greenland's southeastern coast: www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-map-warning/
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Because warmer air can hold more moisture, humidity is expected to rise along with global temperatures. A recent study published in Nature Geoscience suggests that the combination could push human life in the tropics to the breaking point. "Humans’ ability to regulate their body heat is dependent upon the temperature and humidity of the surrounding air. We have a core body temperature that stays relatively stable at 37C (98.6F), while our skin is cooler to allow heat to flow away from the inner body. But should the wet-bulb temperature – a measure of air temperature and humidity – pass 35C, high skin temperature means the body is unable to cool itself, with potentially deadly consequences. ... The research team looked at various historical data and simulations to determine how wet-bulb temperature extremes will change as the planet continues to heat up, discovering that these extremes in the tropics increase at around the same rate as the tropical mean temperature. ... This has potentially dire implications for a huge swathe of humanity. Around 40% of the world’s population currently lives in tropical countries, with this proportion set to expand to half of the global population by 2050 due to the large proportion of young people in region. The Princeton research was centered on latitudes found between 20 degrees north, a line that cuts through Mexico, Libya and India, to 20 degrees south, which goes through Brazil, Madagascar and the northern reaches of Australia. ... '“Theoretically no human can tolerate a wet bulb temperature of above 35C, no matter how much water they have to drink,' [Boise State climate risk expert Mojtaba Sadegh] added."
www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability The Gulf Stream, which carries 30x more water than all the world's rivers combined, has played a pivotal role in shaping climate, biogeography, and human civilization in Europe, North America, Africa, South America, and even Asia. Now, a growing body of scientific research is finding this critical conveyor belt of thermal energy is slowing and weakening. This article from The New York Times walks readers through the science and its implications. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/02/climate/atlantic-ocean-climate-change.html
Wet winter or dry winter? According to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's weekly drought monitor, in most of the western U.S., it was a very dry winter, with short-term droughts exacerbating long-term trends and dry conditions extending across the upper Great Lakes region. droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Today is the vernal (or spring) equinox. The vernal equinox and the autumnal (or fall) equinox are the same in that both have equal amounts of day and night, but equal sunlight does not translate into equal temperatures, as this map of much of North America shows: www.alaskapublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/03202018_Climate2.jpg.
A new report finds that the planet is losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year, up from 760 billion tons in the 1990s, and the pace of ice loss is accelerating. Scientists used satellite data to study land and sea ice and found the areas experiencing the greatest loss of ice are Greenland and Antarctica, where warming water is eating away at glaciers and ice sheets where they meet the sea. Moreover, the report finds that previous estimates fail "to fully account for the role of ocean undercutting" and sea-level rise from melting ice "may be underestimated by 'at least a factor of 2.'” ... “'It’s like cutting the feet off the glacier rather than melting the whole body,' said Eric Rignot, a study co-author and a glacier researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Irvine. 'You melt the feet and the body falls down, as opposed to melting the whole body.'” www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/01/25/ice-melt-quickens-greenland-glaciers
The waters surrounding Indonesia are home to 20% of the world's coral reefs, with 75% of the world's coral species living in the so-called "coral triangle" of Southeast Asia and Oceania, from Indonesia to the Philippines to the Solomon Islands. Researchers studying these corals are finding they may be more resilient to temperature changes than has been feared. "In 2019, [scientists found] that corals that were predicted to exceed the bleaching threshold, defined by previous climate models, were actually showing a greater ability to adapt to thermal stresses. To investigate, [Kenya-based coral scientist Tim] McClanahan launched a study with researchers from 19 tropical research institutions to assess the sensitivities of 226 reefs in 12 countries across 2016, one of the Earth’s warmest years on record. Field observation data of bleaching events were collected and compared with satellite data of coral exposure to high sea temperatures. The team found that past climate warming models overestimated coral destruction in the Coral Triangle – the region that spans Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands, where three quarters of the world’s coral species live. In particular, reefs around the Australian, Indonesian and Fiji-Caroline regions were better able to adapt to thermal stress than was previously thought." geographical.co.uk/nature/oceans/item/3949-corals-susceptibility-to-bleaching-varies-with-geography-raising-conservation-hope
From Australia to both coasts of the U.S. to Siberia, extreme weather set numerous records in 2020. This article from Science News recaps some of the year's extreme weather events around the world. www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-wildfires-heat-waves-hurricanes-records-2020
There is a new geographic feature popping up in the permafrost of northern Siberia: exploding craters, in some cases well over 150 feet deep. Scientists are working to riddle out what is causing these enormous holes, which started developing in 2013 and have been known to explode with enough force to eject rocks and ice more than 300 feet. (Hint: methane may be playing a role.) www.bbc.com/future/article/20201130-climate-change-the-mystery-of-siberias-explosive-craters
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, significantly more powerful than carbon dioxide. An important source of methane to which humans contribute is livestock production, primarily by beef and dairy cattle. Recently, researchers discovered that adding a small amount of a specific seaweed to a cow's diet can cut methane production by a whopping 98%. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/11/27/climate-solutions-seaweed-methane
Santa is not the only one with an interest in the North Pole. This is an excellent look at the geopolitical issues at play in the Arctic, many of which are made more pressing by climate change. foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/13/arctic-competition-resources-governance-critical-minerals-shipping-climate-change-power-map
This geo-graphic, based on a survey of more than 28,000 people in 14 countries last April, compares people's views, by country, on COVID and climate change as a serious threat: the green bars show the percentage of respondents who agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, "In the long term, climate change is as serious a crisis as Covid-19 is." (The red bars show the percentage of respondents who disagreed or strongly disagreed with the same statement.) [from www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2020-04/earth-day-2020-ipsos.pdf]
As we are nearing the end of a hurricane season with an unprecedented number of named storms, extreme weather -- and forecasts surrounding extreme weather -- are becoming big business: "Fugaku is the fastest supercomputer on the planet. Recently built by Japanese company Fujitsu, it’s capable of 2.6 quadrillion operations per second. This staggering processing power is now at the service of the Japanese Meteorological Research Institute to help weather and climate forecasting and, above all, disaster warning. Extreme weather, largely fuelled by climate change, is an increasing liability to the world’s economy. ... As extreme events become the new normal, trucking companies, commodity traders and utility providers – not to mention insurance companies – need reliable hour-by-hour forecasts and analysis, just to save money. ... In late August, hurricane Laura made landfall at 150 mph in almost the exact location in Louisiana predicted 3.5 days earlier. Such a result would have been unthinkable a few decades ago, yet it’s precisely what is needed as we move forward into a more uncertain world. A constant increase in processing power, coupled with artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud-based systems are anticipating the near future. Not only do they tell an airline to reschedule flights to avoid storms, or suggest to a farmer when to irrigate crops, they also inform millions of people when to evacuate from a hurricane’s path, or simply when it’s time to grab an umbrella. ... It’s strange that countries, companies and families promptly react to the flash warnings of meteorologists, but still fail to act in the face of the dire predictions of climatologists. They both use the same processing power, the same artificial intelligence and essentially the same science."
geographical.co.uk/opinion/item/3866-climatewatch-the-insecurity-market Today, Alaska's glaciers, the melting of which has already fueled about 30% of global sea level rise, are all that remains of the Cordilleran ice sheet that once covered the northwestern quadrant of North American down into what is today Idaho and Washington. Researchers are now finding, to their surprise, that temperature changes in the North Pacific, rather than the Atlantic, are perhaps a better leading indicator of global climate changes as diverse as a weakening of Asian monsoons, melting in Antarctica, and a drop in salinity in the Atlantic. www.sciencenews.org/article/north-pacific-ice-sheets-climate-change
The Institute for Economics & Peace (headquartered in Australia) has released its first Ecological Threat Register, "which measures ecological threats that countries are projected to face between now and 2050. The report uniquely combines measures of resilience with the most comprehensive ecological data available, to shed light on the countries least likely to cope with extreme ecological shocks." Among the report's findings: by 2040, more than half of the world's population will be living in countries experiencing "high" or "extreme" water stress; by 2050, the number of people suffering from food insecurity could more than double, to 3.5 billion; mass population displacement is likely with more than one billion people living in countries where the country’s resilience is unlikely to withstand the impact of ecological events by 2050. To download the report and explore the data, visit visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2020/09/ETR_2020_web-1.pdf
British researchers have found that between 1994 and 2017 the earth lost 28 TRILLION metric tons of ice. This geo-graphic shows from where this ice has disappeared: www.statista.com/chart/22673/ice-lost-globally
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting an "extremely active" hurricane season this year. But heat waves kill more people in the U.S. than any other weather-related event. An international coalition of researchers is now advocating naming heat waves, the way meteorologists name hurricanes, in order to draw the public's attention to the risks posed by extreme heat. www.sciencenews.org/article/hurricanes-names-heat-waves-climate-health
Canada's last intact ice shelf, the second largest in the Arctic, has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days in early July, satellite images show. The Milne ice shelf was on the northern coast of Canada's Ellesmere Island, northwest of Greenland. (Despite its remote location, Ellesmere is the world's 10th largest island.) www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/milne-ice-shelf-collapse-canada-mk/
This article from ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine looks at the future of issue of climate migration, or rather at several possible futures depending on the choices leaders make today. "For most of human history, people have lived within a surprisingly narrow range of temperatures, in the places where the climate supported abundant food production. But as the planet warms, that band is suddenly shifting north. According to a pathbreaking recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the planet could see a greater temperature increase in the next 50 years than it did in the last 6,000 years combined. By 2070, the kind of extremely hot zones, like in the Sahara, that now cover less than 1% of the earth’s land surface could cover nearly a fifth of the land, potentially placing 1 of every 3 people alive outside the climate niche where humans have thrived for thousands of years. Many will dig in, suffering through heat, hunger and political chaos, but others will be forced to move on." features.propublica.org/climate-migration/model-how-climate-refugees-move-across-continents
Himalayan glaciers are losing their ice mass, but resourceful people who depend on those glaciers for irrigation are creating their own glaciers: "Discussions about climate change tend to focus on low-lying areas, like coastal cities. Yet people who live at higher elevations also feel its negative effects — including fresh water shortages. To help these folks get by, a Ladakhi inventor named Sonam Wangchuk has created a line of artificial glaciers. Called 'ice stupas,' they're storing frozen water so it can be used to hydrate crops in the driest stretch of the year. ... As a 'cold desert,' the Ladakh area sees very little rainfall, receiving an average of just 2 to 3 inches (50 to 70 millimeters) per year. ... Demand for meltwater grows exponentially in April and May, when the life-sustaining crops of wheat, buckwheat and barley need to be sown and hydrated. But in the springtime, before the glacial water arrives in force, the streams often run dry. ... Wangchuk devised an irrigation system that's brilliant in its simplicity. The major component is a long pipeline. Most of this is buried deep underground, with one end tapping into a glacial stream or naturally occurring reservoir high in the mountains. Through the tube, the water rushes in the direction of populated areas at lower altitudes. No moving parts or electrical gizmos are needed to keep the liquid H2O flowing; gravity does the trick. It also pushes the water into the final stage of its journey. Downhill, the pipeline connects at a sharp angle to another, narrower pipe that rises out of the soil, standing vertically like a telephone pole. ... Gravity naturally propels the liquid straight up until it flies out of a sprinkler on the pipe's raised tip. High in the air, the spray encounters atmospheric temperatures in the ballpark of -4 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius) or lower. Before landing, it freezes solid, forming a large cone of ice around the vertical pipe. The cone's distinctive shape resembles that of a stupa, traditional Buddhist prayer monuments that've graced Ladakh for thousands of years. Hence, Wangchuk and his associates have taken to calling the new glacier-like structures 'ice stupas.'"
science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/ice-stupas.htm High above the Arctic Circle, on the summer solstice, the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk reported a high temperature of more than 100°F. If verified, this would be the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic. Although late June is the height of the Arctic summer, Siberia has been usually warm since January. This map, based on NASA satellite data, shows how much land surface temperature in northern latitudes has differed from the 15-year average throughout the entire spring: eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/146000/146879/arctic_amo_2020172.png (It is useful to keep in mind that 2003-18 temperatures were already higher than the historic norm.)
Coral bleaching occurs when unusually warm water temperatures lead to coral polyps' eviction of their symbiotic algae. But some of the world's most spectacular coral reefs are located in the hot, saline waters of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Scientists based in the UAE are studying local reef ecology to try to understand how corals and other fauna can withstand the extreme conditions. www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/06/united-arab-emirates-coral-reef-fauna-climate-change.html
Forests are on the move across North America. Scientists are keeping a special eye on Minnesota, where coniferous boreal forests (taiga) dominate the northern part of the state, with deciduous forests in the middle of the state, and prairie in the south. Changes in climate are pushing out the boreal forest -- Minnesota's famous North Woods -- with the deciduous forest and the prairie both expanding north.
"[Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Forest Ecology] thinks the boreal forests that soak up huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could disappear entirely, taking with them a third of the state's native species of trees, flowers, birds and pollinators. In an extreme scenario, he has warned, prairie land could expand across much of Minnesota by 2100, upending everything from the timber industry to tourism to the state’s very identity. 'Minnesota could become the new Kansas,' he said. 'We have a perfectly good Kansas now. We don't need a second one in Minnesota.' ... A Washington Post analysis of historical temperature data found that seven counties in Minnesota [including the county that contains the headwaters of the Mississippi River] have warmed more than 2 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century — about twice the global average. Winters here have warmed even faster, with 59 of the state's counties — about two thirds — eclipsing the 2C threshold during the months of December through February. ... That fast change contributes to some 'zombie' forests in parts of the state, said his colleague Stephen Handler, a Forest Service climate change specialist. 'There are places where climate change is already influencing forest regeneration,' Handler said. 'Big, healthy trees overhead — but on the forest floor, no baby trees to fill in the gap.'" www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/climate-solutions/climate-change-minnesota/ Volcanic eruptions have changed the course of human history many times across the millennia. New research finds that a volcanic eruption in the Aleutian Islands, 6000 miles from Italy, may have contributed to the end of the Roman Republic. "In recent years, geoscientists, historians and archaeologists have joined forces to investigate the societal impacts of large volcanic eruptions. They rely on an amalgam of records — including ice cores, historical chronicles and climate modeling — to pinpoint how volcanism affected civilizations ranging from the Roman Republic to Ptolemaic Egypt to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. ... Dr. [Joseph] McConnell and his collaborators recently analyzed six ice cores drilled in the Arctic. In layers of ice corresponding to the early months of 43 B.C., they spotted large upticks in sulfur and, crucially, bits of material that were probably tephra. The timing caught the scientists’ attention. Researchers have previously hypothesized that an environmental trigger may have helped set in motion the crop failures, famines and social unrest that plagued the Mediterranean region at that time. ... There’s good evidence that the Northern Hemisphere was colder than normal around 43 B.C. Trees across Europe grew more slowly that year, and a pine forest in North America experienced an unusually early autumn freeze. Using climate models to simulate the impact of an Okmok [Aleutian volcano] eruption, Dr. McConnell and his collaborators estimated that parts of the Mediterranean, roughly 6,000 miles away, would have cooled by as much as 13.3 degrees Fahrenheit. 'It was bloody cold,' Dr. McConnell said. Rain patterns changed as well — some regions would have been drenched by 400 percent more precipitation than normal, the modeling revealed. ... These cold, wet conditions would have almost certainly decimated crops, Dr. McConnell and his colleagues said. Historical records compiled by Roman writers and philosophers note food shortages and famines. In 43 B.C., Mark Antony, the Roman military leader, and his army had to subsist on wild fruit, roots, bark and 'animals never tasted before,' the philosopher Plutarch wrote." www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/rome-caesar-volcano.html
Last summer's European heatwave and regional droughts had an unexpected consequence: water flow in the Tagus River was sufficiently reduced in western Spain that the Dolmen of Guadaperal, also known as the Spanish Stonehenge, was visible for the first time in more than 50 years. Built 4000 to 7000 years ago, the Neolithic circle of granite stones had been submerged under the waters of the Tagus since a hydroelectric dam was built on the river in 1963. news.artnet.com/art-world/drought-reveals-spanish-stonehenge-1646509
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