Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label AGW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AGW. Show all posts

Saturday, September 05, 2020

Meanwhile

... back at the dying planet ...

NYT:

Nearly freezing and often an otherworldly shade of blue, glacial lakes form as glaciers melt and retreat. These lakes are a source of drinking and irrigation water for many communities. But they can turn deadly in an instant when the rocks that hold them in place shift and send torrents of water coursing downstream.

Now, researchers have compiled the first global database of glacial lakes and found that they increased in volume by nearly 50 percent over the last few decades. That growth, largely fueled by climate change, means that such floods will likely strike more frequently in the future, the team concluded in a paper published Monday in Nature Climate Change.

Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary, and his colleagues did not set out to take a global census of glacial lakes. They had originally planned to focus on only a few dozen concentrated in the Himalayas and neighboring mountain ranges in East and South Asia. But when the team finished writing computer programs to automatically identify and outline water in satellite images, they realized they could easily expand their study to include most of the world’s glacial lakes.

“It wasn’t that much of a bigger leap,” Dr. Shugar said.

The researchers collected more than 250,000 Landsat images of the Earth’s surface and fed that satellite imagery into Google Earth Engine, a platform for analyzing large Earth science data sets, to assemble the most complete glacial lake inventory to date.

“We mapped almost the whole world,” Dr. Shugar said.

This study demonstrates cloud computing’s capabilities, said David Rounce, a glaciologist at Carnegie Mellon University who was not involved in the research. “Being able to churn through over 200,000 images is really remarkable.”

The global coverage also makes it possible to pick out large-scale patterns and regional differences that other studies might miss, said Kristen Cook, a geologist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, who also was not part of the research team.

Dr. Shugar and his collaborators measured how the number and size of glacial lakes evolved from 1990 through 2018. The team found that the number of lakes increased to over 14,300 from roughly 9,400, an uptick of more than 50 percent. The volume of water in the lakes also tended to swell over time, with an increase of about 50 percent.

Lakes at high latitudes exhibited the fastest growth, the researchers found. That makes sense, Dr. Shugar and his colleagues proposed, because climate change is warming the Arctic faster than other parts of the world.

All this growth is troubling, Dr. Shugar and his research team members suggest, because glacial lakes, by their very nature, can pose significant danger to downstream communities.

Some glacial lakes sit in bowl-shaped depressions bordered by glacial moraine, the often unstable rocky rubble left behind by a retreating glacier. When moraine collapses, glacial lake water can course downslope in an outburst flood.

These events, which have occurred from Nepal to Peru to Iceland, can be devastating. “They are a very real threat in many parts of the world,” Dr. Shugar said.

Some countries have made significant investments to mitigate the risk of such floods. In 2016, Nepalese officials lowered the water level in Imja Lake, a glacial lake near Mt. Everest, by more than 11 feet.

This global census can help identify other lakes in need of monitoring or remediation, Dr. Shugar said. “We hope that it allows governments to see where the hot spots might be for glacial lakes growing in the future.”

Sunday, October 06, 2019

Lay That Burden Down

Don't throw your shit out the car window. Pick up after yourself. You can be a good Eco-Citizen without becoming a warrior-zealot about it.



But we can all stop acting like each individual is personally responsible for AGW-Driven Climate Change.

Vox, Mary Annaise Heglar:

I’m at my friend’s birthday dinner when an all-too-familiar conversation unfolds. I introduce myself to the man to my left, tell him that I work in the environmental field, and his face freezes in terror. Our handshake goes limp.

“You’re gonna hate me …” he mutters sheepishly, his voice barely audible over the clanging silverware.

I knew what was coming. He regaled me with a laundry list of environmental mistakes from just that day: He’d ordered lunch and it came in plastic containers; he’d eaten meat and he was about to order it again; he’d even taken a cab to this very party.


- and -

I don’t blame anyone for wanting absolution. I can even understand abdication, which is its own form of absolution. But underneath all that is a far more insidious force. It’s the narrative that has both driven and obstructed the climate change conversation for the past several decades. It tells us climate change could have been fixed if we had all just ordered less takeout, used fewer plastic bags, turned off some more lights, planted a few trees, or driven an electric car. It says that if those adjustments can’t do the trick, what’s the point?

The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous. It turns environmentalism into an individual choice defined as sin or virtue, convicting those who don’t or can’t uphold these ethics. When you consider that the same IPCC report outlined that the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions come from just a handful of corporations — aided and abetted by the world’s most powerful governments, including the US — it’s victim blaming, plain and simple.

When people come to me and confess their green sins, as if I were some sort of eco-nun, I want to tell them they are carrying the guilt of the oil and gas industry’s crimes. That the weight of our sickly planet is too much for any one person to shoulder. And that that blame paves the road to apathy, which can really seal our doom.


Way back when, we got messages about "Don't be a litter bug" and "Beautify America" and Iron Eyes Cody in one of the most famous ads ever.



And not to get too Foil-Hat-y, but:


The kicker:

I don’t care how long you’ve been engaged in the climate conversation, 10 years or 10 seconds. I don’t care how many statistics you can rattle off. I don’t need you to be all-solar-everything to be an environmentalist. I don’t need you to be vegan-er than thou, or me, for that matter. I don’t care if you are eating a burger right this minute.


I don’t even care if you work on an oil rig. In some parts of the country, those are the only jobs that pay enough for you to feed your family. And I don’t blame workers for that. I blame their employers. I blame the industry that is choking us all, and the government that is letting them do it. 

All I need you to do is want a livable future. This is your planet, and no one can advocate for it like you can. No one can protect it like you can.

We have 11 years — not to start but to finish saving the planet. 

I’m not here to absolve you. And I’m not here to abdicate you. I am here to fight with you.

Friday, March 29, 2019

It Rolls Downhill


In keeping with Cult45's leadership on such things (cough*Puerto Rico*cough), may I just say this about the folks in Nebraska who are struggling to deal with some pretty bad shit because of the floods - because of the long-predicted effects of Climate Change - because of Anthropogenic Global Warming - because they've spent years deciding to do nothing about it:


Fuck 'em - they didn't vote for my guys - they didn't vote for my agenda - so fuck 'em - right thru the eyeballs - just - fuck 'em.

That's how we do it now, right?

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Brrr



Even Hell, Mich., froze over: The community outside of Ann Arbor was expected to see temperatures drop to minus-26 overnight into Thursday. The nearby University of Michigan took the rare step of canceling classes through Thursday.

But, according to DumFux News, we can't stop using fossil fuel now, even though the use of fossil fuel has fucked it all up for us, because fossil fuel is the only thing we have that's really reliable - and let's be sure to conveniently ignore the fact that the fossil fuel industry's efforts to make their fuel the only one we can rely on is what got us into this fuckin' mess in the first fuckin' place.

The only real defense against Winter Storm Jayden is fossil fuels—the source of the vast majority of electricity that Americans will need to stay warm. Pie-in-the-sky talk about renewable energy won’t warm hearths and hearts during this storm, because the sun isn’t shining all the time and the wind capacity simply isn’t there.

Sorry not sorry but - goddammit, I hate these assholes.


Overheard on the intertoobz yesterday:

"I think I just keyed that guy's car with my nipples."




Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Safety Tip


Please make an extra effort to control your rage over the next few days, because it's inevitable that you'll hear some typically stoopid jokes about "Global Warming" from some typically stoopid Red Hat Rubes.

Just try to remember: busting your knuckles on that idiot's head hurts a lot more when it's really cold like this.


Stay calm and keep shoveling

Sunday, January 13, 2019

It's Here


Notice: I will not continue my efforts at self-restraint - I will not resist saying, "I told you so".

Alex Harris (w/ Jenny Staletovich), Miami Herald:

Miami-Dade has tens of thousands of septic tanks, and a new report reveals most are already malfunctioning — the smelly and unhealthy evidence of which often ends up in people’s yards and homes. It’s a billion-dollar problem that climate change is making worse.

As sea level rise encroaches on South Florida, the Miami-Dade County study shows that thousands more residents may be at risk — and soon. By 2040, 64 percent of county septic tanks (more than 67,000) could have issues every year, affecting not only the people who rely on them for sewage treatment, but the region’s water supply and the health of anyone who wades through floodwaters.

“That’s a huge deal for a developed country in 2019 to have half of the septic tanks not functioning for part of the year,” said Miami Waterkeeper Executive Director Rachel Silverstein. “That is not acceptable."

- and -

Sea level rise is pushing the groundwater even higher, eating up precious space and leaving the once dry dirt soggy. Waste water doesn’t filter like it’s supposed to in soggy soil. In some cases, it comes back out, turning a front yard into a poopy swamp.

High tides or heavy rains can push feces-filled water elsewhere, including King Tide floodwaters — as pointed out in a 2016 study from Florida International University and NOAA — or possibly the region’s drinking supply.


The loonie lefties have been warning us about this for 40 years.

Tuesday, January 08, 2019

On Climate Recently

Elasticity is a thing. 

We can get a spike in prices long after supply has caught up with demand.

We can see unemployment drop even after the economy starts to go south.

Etc

So 45* can crow about how US carbon emissions have been nice and low - surprising everybody by saying something that's more or less true - even as his "cabinet" and "policies-makers" are busily pulling shit on us that all but ensure a worse-than-normal outcome down the road.

And that down-the-road thing can come up pretty fast - there's always a Snap-Back.

Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis, WaPo:

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions rose an estimated 3.4 percent in 2018, according to new research — a jarring increase that comes as scientists say the world needs to be aggressively cutting its emissions to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change.

The findings, published Tuesday by the independent economic research firm Rhodium Group, mean that the United States now has a diminishing chance of meeting its pledge under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to dramatically reduce its emissions by 2025.

The findings also underscore how the world’s second-largest emitter, once a global leader in pushing for climate action, has all but abandoned efforts to mitigate the effects of a warming world. President Trump has said he plans to officially withdraw the nation from the Paris climate agreement in 2020 and in the meantime has rolled back Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing the country’s carbon emissions.


“We have lost momentum. There’s no question,” Rob Jackson, a Stanford University professor who studies emissions trends, said of both U.S. and global efforts to steer the world toward a more sustainable future.

The sharp emissions rise was fueled primarily by a booming economy, researchers found. But the increase, which could prove to be the second-largest in the past 20 years, probably would not have been as stark withoutTrump administration rollbacks, said Trevor Houser, a partner at Rhodium.

“I don’t think you would have seen the same increase,” Houser said, referring to the electric power sector in particular.



Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Old Ice

Chris Mooney, WaPo:

Over the past three decades of global warming, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95 percent, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report Card.

The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears, but in the long term, perhaps, for the pace of global warming itself.

The oldest ice can be thought of as a kind of glue that holds the Arctic together and, through its relative permanence, helps keep the Arctic cold even in long summers.

“The younger the ice, the thinner the ice, the easier it is to go away,” said Don Perovich, a scientist at Dartmouth who coordinated the sea ice section of the yearly report.



- and -

The new findings about the decreasing age of ice in the Arctic point to a less noticed aspect of the dramatic changes occurring there. When it comes to the icy cap atop the Arctic ocean, we tend to talk most often about its surface area — how much total ocean is covered by ice, rather than by open water. That’s easily visible — it can be glimpsed directly by satellite — and the area is, indeed, in clear decline.

But the loss of old and thick ice, and the simultaneous decline in the total ice volume, is even larger — and arguably a much bigger deal. Young and thin ice can regrow relatively quickly once the dark and cold winter sets in. But it may not add much stability or permanence to the Arctic sea ice system if it just melts out again the next summer.

Remember - it's the volume, not the area:


- and - keeping in mind the tendency of "conservatives" to cherry-pick the data, watch out for the assertion, "everything's just peachy because the ice is making a comeback" - along the same lines of their famous bullshit about how "AGW has paused, and the planet is actually cooling now".

In fairness, the ice volume has rebounded somewhat since 2012. And PIOMAS is only a model, cautioned the University of Washington’s Axel Schweiger, who runs the analysis. (The model draws upon direct measurements of ice thickness taken from submarines, satellites, and other sources.) Still, Schweiger agreed that when you think about the total volume of the ice, rather than its mere surface extent, you realize that far more has been lost.

“We’ve lost about half of the extent, we’ve lost half of the thickness, and if you multiply these two things,
we’ve lost 75 percent of the September sea ice,” he said


Scientists get it wrong sometimes. I'll still take their word for things over the deniers because science is self-correcting - deniers will always just deny because that's what they believe, as opposed to people who can be convinced due to evidentiary knowledge.




Tuesday, February 28, 2017

It's Changing

It doesn't matter if you believe it or you don't - climate change is not some global conspiracy of thousands of scientists and hundreds of national governments being valiantly resisted by a plucky band of billionaires.


National Phenology Network (USANPN.org)

Nobody's trying to snooker you out of a few extra tax bucks and your F-350 Super Duty. Get over yourself.  We'd just like your help figuring out how we can all keep what we've got without committing suicide-by-toxic-waste. Can we try that for a while?

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Meanwhile, Back In The World

Charlie Pierce:
As the presidential campaign staggers to its conclusion, I think we can fairly sum up the positions of the respective political parties on the climate crisis in the following way.
Republican: It might be real. It might not be. It might be the Chinese. Middle Ages. Grant-sucking lab rats. But, if it is real, it isn't worth doing anything about because sooooo much money.
Democratic: It's real. It's happening. You hate science. Here are some solution-like proposals that prove that we know it's real and that it's happening and that we love science with a love undying. And you hate science.
Repubs may have hit on the one big thing about everything that'll count over the next 25 years - immigration.

More accurately, migration. The herds follow the food, and the food follows the water.  As more places become less human-friendly, those humans have to go someplace else.

Unfortunately, we're showing ourselves to be unwilling to do much to prevent the circumstances that drive people away from their traditional homelands, which seems to be leading us to believe the only thing we can do is to react to a shitty situation by turning USAmerica Inc into a giant Gun Club where the object is simply to keep everybody else out.



Eventually though - what's the fuckin' point? We won't be defending anything worth saving.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Not For Nothing

via HuffPo:
Still not convinced the Earth is rapidly warming? Consider this: The last time the global monthly temperature was below average was February 1985.
That means if you are 30 years old or younger, there has not been a single month in your entire life that was colder than average.
“It’s a completely different world we’re already living in,” Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, told scientists gathered this week for the International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu. He added it likely won’t be long before that same age bracket has experienced only above-average temperatures.
“It’s happening that fast,” Eakin said.
 

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Today's GIF


Grist:
The temperature spiral that took the world by storm has an update. If you think the heat is on in our current climate, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
To recap, University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins wrecked the internet a few weeks ago with a revolutionary new way to look at global temperatures. Using a circular graph of every year’s monthly temperatures and animating it, Hawkins’ image showed planetary heat spiraling closer to the 2 degrees C threshold in a way no bar or line graph could do.
Let's see ya cherry pick that one, DumFux News. 

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Seems Like Good News

From Juan Cole:
Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman announced Friday that Saudi Arabia would use its oil assets to back a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund. The move suggested to many observers that the kingdom is preparing for a likely end of the petroleum business and transitioning to being primarily an investor. While it is true that the money for the sovereign wealth fund is expected to come from petroleum sales, it also seems clear that the kingdom recognizes that it has a stranded asset that won’t be nearly as valuable in a decade or two as it is now. It could even end up, like coal, being regulated out of existence in many countries.
Here are 3 reasons Saudi Arabia is likely making this massive change in economic strategy:
1. Climate change denial, which the Saudis pushed and helped fund, has failed. A majority of Americans now accepts that humans burning fossil fuels is causing global warming. And that’s in anti-science, capitalist-ridden America. Everywhere else in the world it goes without saying. Since the impact of global warming will become increasingly apparent in the coming decades, likely pressure to abandon burning fossil fuels will grow. Already, most new investment in power plants is in renewables,not coal and gas.
2. Another fossil fuel, coal, is being quickly phased out and will likely be illegal in fifteen or twenty years. It is being phased out by the Environmental Protection Agency because it puts out pollutants, including CO2. The writing is on the wall for coal and petroleum.
3. More affordable, longer-range electric cars are now coming on the market, with the Chevy Bolt due next December and Tesla 3 the following year. Most petroleum is used for transportation, so electric vehicles are deadly to that market. The new generation of electric cars is less than $30,000 in the US after tax rebates. And it typically can go 200 miles on a charge. Tesla is putting fast recharging stations everywhere it can, and people have already gone across the country in a Tesla. Battery costs are falling and batteries are becoming more efficient, so the writing is on the wall for the combustion engine. Consumers are combining electric cars with solar panels on their houses, getting free fuel. Low gasoline prices won’t impede solar car sales because prices would have to fall another dollar US before EVs would not be worth it.
In as little as fifteen to twenty years, petroleum may be illegal in some places; and will be in retreat everywhere. Saudi oil is a stranded asset. So they are attempting to create a revenue stream from investments. As for fossil fuels, their business model is under severe pressure.
So, if I look past the part about The House of Saud becoming even more parasitic than they are now - at least they're making some attempt to move away from literally burning the place to the ground trying to milk every last dime outa the suckers, to a new and exciting career as straight-up Rent-Collecting Leeches.  Which somehow seems bizarrely logical in that it means they're being more "honest" as to the total buggery of what they're all about(?)

Baby steps.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Skipping To The Chase

...and also too, a new acronym: ACD = Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

The "good news" is that Climate Change has been on a minor hiatus; tho' not really, since the bad-news part is that all the shit we were expecting somewhere down the road is  pretty much on pace to become one ginormous fuckburger way sooner than we tho't it would.

Here're the last bits from a long piece at truthout (with a link to a report from those treehuggin' pussies at DoD):
Hence, they are also unlikely to believe anything that comes out of the "progressive" and "left-leaning" US Pentagon, which just released its 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, which states:
"Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions - conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence."
Every single piece of information you’ve just read is only from the last month.
This is what catastrophic ACD looks like.
This information may lack the dramatic background music and thrilling scenes that would accompany the Hollywood blockbuster movie that many in the United States might expect advancing ACD to look like. However, it is real. It is happening right now. And it is time for all of us to pay attention.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Seems A Little Silly

...but sometimes ya gotta beat the horse even after it's dead(?)  I honestly don't know what else to say about it.  Climate Change (most probably due to AGW) is a real thing, and somehow, we still have a substantial percentage of people who just can't bring themselves to recognize it.

I refuse to give Marsha Blackburn any time on my little blog here; and I sure as fuck hate even acknowledging a preening fluffer like David Gregory; so I'll just give ya'll this little bit:

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Some Things Don't Get Better

Just a tasty tidbit - a little reminder that we still have to figure out what to do about the political and economic disasters heading our way, now that we've pissed away practically every chance we had at being able to do anything about the actual causes of the coming disasters.

And in case you've been wondering about "the cooling period" or the "warming pause" over the last several years?   Well, it appears the ocean's been doing its job; soaking up the kajillions of calories or BTUs or whatever you like to call all that "missing" heat, only to deliver it right back to us in the form of a typhoon that pushes a 20-foot tidal surge with winds gusting 170 mph.

Isn't it the least bit puzzling that we have a "once-in-a-lifetime storm" every few years now?

Nature bats last, dumbass.
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) -- As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city alone after one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes and schools. Corpses hung from tree branches and were scattered along sidewalks and among flattened buildings, while looters raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water.
Officials projected the death toll could climb even higher when emergency crews reach areas cut off by flooding and landslides. Even in the disaster-prone Philippines, which regularly contends with earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical cyclones, Typhoon Haiyan appears to be the deadliest natural disaster on record.

Friday, July 05, 2013

Are We There Yet?

There are no atheists in foxholes, and there are no Climate Change Deniers carrying axes and chainsaws on the fire line.



I know a goodly buncha people who still say Climate Change isn't a real thing because the Gloomy-Doomy predictions haven't materialized.

How 'bout 2 dead homeowners in Colorado?  And how 'bout 19 dead firefighters in Arizona?  Do ya wanna talk about the 285 dead because of Sandy last year?  Tragedy enough for those 400 or 500 families, but that's the proverbial drop in the bucket when we know the World Health Organization attributes 150,000 deaths per year to AGW/Climate Change.

Do you really need to be ass-deep in alligators before you realize you've wandered into the swamp?

Shit got real quite a while ago, kids - we're just starting to see the beginning of the horribleness.

An awful lot of us have to do some serious cramming to get ourselves up to speed on this.  And the first thing is that we have to understand that we're well past the point of being able to prevent the 2-or-3-degree rise in average temperature that triggers the catastrophe, so we have to work now on dealing with it as it happens.

Bill McKibben 'splains it all (btw, try to ignore his highly annoying quirks - the guy's in desperate need of some Presentation Coaching):

Monday, June 17, 2013

Show Of Hands, Please

Katrina; Rita; Sandy.

Tornado season starts in March now and Wild Fire season starts in May.

Floods aren't just about heavy rain in the spring any more.

The Maldives and some of the best farm land in India and Bangladesh are disappearing.

Some significant portion of the sidewalks in Venice are now always under water...

and
and
and

OK, real quick - everybody who kinda figured we should be kinda expecting the kinda weird weather-related shit we've been seeing over the last 8 or 10 years, raise your hands.


Pretty good - now - everybody's who's been pretending Lord Monkton and Sarah Palin had something real to say (about anything really - but about Climate Science in particular); and anybody who claimed to have "looked at the Vostok Ice Core samples myself"...and/or stated straight up "y'know, computer modeling isn't really all that accurate - you can make those things tell you anything you wanna hear"...  All those who think it's just another game the politicians play because they're all alike, and they just wanna scare us, and those Librul Scientist fellers are all a buncha freeloadin'-looter redistributin'-Commie-Nazi-Muslim faggots who just wanna force us all to have buttsex with Al Gore... all you serious adult smart guys who are now revealed to have had your heads up your asses, raise your hands for me one time.




Thought so.

And do we wanna talk about the role of The Press Poodles for a minute?