The Great Climate Migration Has Begun

[David Lockmiller]

(08-01-2020 12:40 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Around here, the highly trained weather people with fancy college degrees have problems trying to accurately predict the weather forecast 2 to 3 days in advance.

Let's hope Donald Trump does not take out his Sharpie Pen and divert the path of the hurricane to Alabama.

[My Name Is Kate]

And that is what this thread has been about all along...a thinly-disguised attempt at more Trump-bashing. Who do you think you are fooling, besides yourself, Mr. Lockmiller?

[David Lockmiller]

There is a bit of good world environmental news published today (August 2, 2020) by the New York Times:

Under Pressure, Brazil’s Bolsonaro Forced to Fight Deforestation

RIO DE JANEIRO — A year ago, as fires engulfed the Amazon, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil reacted to criticism from abroad with indignation: “The Amazon is ours,” he said, arguing that the fate of the rainforest was for his country to decide.

Much has changed in a year.

Under pressure from European governments, foreign investors and Brazilian companies concerned about the country’s reputation, Mr. Bolsonaro has banned forest fires for the four months of the dry season and set up a military operation against deforestation.

The new stance represents a notable turnaround by a government that has drawn widespread global condemnation over its environmental policies.

Environmentalists, experts and foreign officials who have pressed Brazil on conservation matters are skeptical of the government’s commitment, afraid these actions amount to little more than damage control at a time when the economy is in deep trouble.

“Brazil is becoming an environmental pariah on the global stage, destroying a positive reputation that took decades to build,” said Sueley Araújo, a veteran environmental policy expert who was dismissed as the head of the country’s main environmental protection agency soon after Mr. Bolsonaro took office.

Brazil’s worsening reputation on the environment has also put in jeopardy two important foreign policy goals: the implementation of a trade deal with the European Union and its ambition to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a 37-country group. Both deals require Brazil to meet baseline standards on labor and environmental policies.

[David Lockmiller]

The following are two stories published in today’s Washington Post:

1. A derecho devastated crops in Iowa
A derecho is a line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds.

Satellite imagery shows the extent of the damage.
More than 10 million acres, or 43 percent, of the state’s corn and soybean crop suffered damage from the storms on Monday that brought winds exceeding 100 mph at times.

2. Baghdad’s record heat offers glimpse of world’s climate change future

[David Lockmiller]

Washington Post - one hour ago today.

Headline: "Tropical Storm Josephine forms in Atlantic as possible uptick in storm activity looms"

It's the earliest J storm to form in the Atlantic and may herald a barrage of storms to come from late August into early September.

[David Lockmiller]

Ryan R. Neely III, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds who studied under Dr. Steffen, said that not long ago crevasses in the area where Dr. Steffen was working “were unheard-of,” but that they had begun emerging with the stresses on the ice sheet created by warming.

“In the end,” he said, “it looks like climate change actually claimed him as a victim.”

Dr. Neely called his old mentor (“Koni” to his friends) a “larger than life explorer-scientist that you typically only get the chance to read about.”

Understanding Greenland’s ice sheet is crucial to understanding climate change and sea level rise. Current projections say that if the planet warms by two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial times, average sea levels will rise by more than two feet, and 32 million to 80 million people will be exposed to coastal flooding.

Greenland’s ice sheet, more than a mile thick, is the second largest mass of freshwater ice on the planet, after Antarctica. It is already a major contributor to the sea level rise.

Konrad Steffen, an Arctic scientist whose work showed that climate change is melting Greenland’s vast ice sheet with increasing speed, died on Saturday in an accident near a research station he created there 30 years ago. He was 68.

Police investigators said he had fallen into a crevasse in the ice and drowned in the deep water below.

(Source: New York Times obituary – August 14, 2020.)

Dr. Steffen told Mr. Gertner that the accumulating risks of climate change had not yet sunk in. If people hear that scientists have projected that warming will increase by two degrees by the year 2100, he said, they might dismiss it, saying “two degrees is not so bad.”

But that is only the start, he warned. “Sorry,” he said. “It won’t stop there. The melting won’t stop there. The curve gets steeper and steeper.” ["exponential curves" for those familiar with corona virus pandemic data]

Dr. Box said he wanted to return to the site next year. “We’ve got to keep the measurements running,” he said.

[David Lockmiller]

I hope that no one bothered to watch the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight - the experts interviewed were obviously all Trump-bashers or people that think like I do.

[David Lockmiller]

Today, [the New York Times is] sharing a deeper dive about how Indigenous Californians’ use of fire has long been dismissed. Now, though, as record-breaking wildfires continue to burn in California, there’s growing recognition of their expertise:

When Belinda Brown was a child, she would rise early in the morning every spring and fall to help her father and grandfather light the fields of the XL Ranch Indian reservation outside of Alturas, Calif. She would take a metal rake to the grasses and watch as flames spread.

“Fire was absolutely a part of what we did all the time,” she said. “It wasn’t a fearful thing.”

Long before California was California, Native Americans used fire to keep the lands where they lived healthy. That meant intentionally burning excess vegetation at regular intervals, during times of the year when the weather would keep blazes smaller and cooler than the destructive wildfires burning today.

The work requires a deep understanding of how winds would spread flames down a particular hillside or when lighting a fire in a forest would foster the growth of certain plants, and that knowledge has been passed down through ceremony and practice. But until recently, it has been mostly dismissed as unscientific.

Now, as more Americans are being forced to confront the realities of climate change, firefighting experts and policymakers are increasingly turning to fundamental ecological principles that have long guided Indigenous communities.

[What would President Abraham Lincoln do? He would listen to the wisdom of the Indigenous People. And, now this process would work even better than centuries ago because of accurate weather forecasts.]

More than five million acres have burned on the West Coast this year, including a staggering four million in California, where four of the five largest fires ever recorded here started in August or September.

Officials and experts have coalesced around the need to abandon longstanding policies requiring that every fire be extinguished and to significantly increase the use of prescribed burning. The practice involves determining which areas are overgrown and when conditions like wind direction and air moisture are right to intentionally ignite less intense fires that can be carefully managed.

[LincolnMan]

Good post David. I just watched Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds. I haven’t seen it in years. Somehow it resonates to our times today. I may be way off track on this. If I am forgive me.

[LincolnMan]

Just got word that my cousin who has lived in Santa Rosa since 1970 has lost his house-completely burned down. He is safe.

[David Lockmiller]

John Kerry, the former secretary of state, will be Biden’s international envoy on climate. “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat that it is,” Kerry said.

[Gene C]

I learned in school that the sun controlled the earth's climate/weather.
But that was long ago before we knew better and learned that through helpful government regulations, the government could control it.

[David Lockmiller]

(11-25-2020 10:39 AM)Gene C Wrote:  I learned in school that the sun controlled the earth's climate/weather.
But that was long ago before we knew better and learned that through helpful government regulations, the government could control it.

The world emits about 43 billion tons of CO2 a year (2019). Total carbon emissions from all human activities, including agriculture and land use. This was an all time high, breaking the previous record from 2018. From 1850 to 2019, 2,400 gigatons of CO2 were emitted by human activity. Around 950 gigatons went into the atmosphere. The rest has been absorbed by oceans and land.

(Source: The World Counts)

Gene, would you happen to know how many gigatons of CO2 that the dinosaurs put into the atmosphere, by comparison? Oh, by the way, did you know that the sun was around at that time too?

[Gene C]

Sorry David, I do not know.
The government is holding back that vital statistic for some unknown reason. Something smells fishy.

Speaking of smells, I wonder if dinosaurs emitted more methane gas than cattle are alleged to produce.
https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause...thane-CO2/

I'm convinced that with all that methane, the dinosaurs helped trigger volcanic activity, which polluted the atmosphere, blocking the suns rays, contributing to the ice age.

Fido has decided to do his part. He has eliminated baked beans and broccoli from his diet, but he refuses to give up his ice cream.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/most-gassy-foods-1944687