Global Warming & Climate Change: The Phenomenon

[Ogdred Weary]

This is pretty dystopian:

California is Australia now. The situation today in California isn’t yet quite as grim, although this week CalFire advised every citizen of the state — all 40 million of them — to be prepared to evacuate. Already, more than 100,000 already have. When I first began writing this article, 500,000 acres had been burned in the state; when I finished writing it, the it was 600,000, and when it was done being edited, it was 700,000 — a number that would have been, in recent memory, a historically devastating year of fire. In just five days, more land had burned than in all of 2019. And the number kept growing—well past a million acres to 1.25 million.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...cket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

 

[GNC]

Texas and Louisiana are being destroyed too... hope any board members from there are OK.

 

[AnonyJ]

An interesting news piece on BBC World Service last night: due to 2020's erratic climate (linked to climate change; I make no claims for the causes of an erratic, changing climate) the UK's wheat harvest this year is forecasted to be 40% lower than usual. Prepare for expensive buns!

https://www.farminguk.com/news/uk-could-see-worst-wheat-harvest-since-1980s-nfu-says_56335.html

This year's UK's wheat harvest is set to be the worst since the 1980s as the NFU predicts yields could be down by about a third due to extreme weather. Many farmers across the UK have had a growing season they would rather forget, from a wash away autumn and winter in parts, met by a hot and dry spring.....

 

[Trevp666]

International markets on cereal crops have price fluctuations like any other commodity though.
The UK wheat harvest might be poor, but the global wheat prices are currently quite low, most likely due to over-production in other countries.
This global commodities price tracker allows you to look at the data for many items in either $ or £ per tonne.
https://ahdb.org.uk/cereals-oilseeds/international-grain-prices

I'm certain that the poor harvest in the UK will be yet another hit on our arable farmers, but UK bakeries will still be able to access a good quality product at a reasonable price, but it might be provided by the US, Russian or South American farmers instead.

 

[ralfy]

The NAS, the "gold standard" of science review, came up with similar conclusions about global warming. So did skeptics when they funded Berkley Earth.

From there, organizations ranging from the Pentagon to Lloyds of London to various multinational banks and even oil companies have been publishing reports for personnel and clients concerning the effects of climate change.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Scientists blame climate change for bacteria that caused the mysterious deaths of 300 African elephants

Source: Quartz Africa
Date: 21 September, 2020

Veterinary scientists have confirmed that a bacterial toxin other scientists say is thriving more because of warming temperatures in water bodies as a result of climate change is the cause of massive elephant deaths in Botswana this year.

The death toll of elephants in the southern Africa country has subsequently risen to 330, with Monday’s announcement by its Department of National Parks and Wildlife confirming the elephants drank water contaminated by cyanobacteria. The research findings, building on tests conducted in laboratories in Zimbabwe, South Africa, the US, and Canada, represents a ground-breaking and until now elusive scientific explanation that could also provide answers to the yet to be explained deaths of more elephants in neighboring Zimbabwe.

Botswana first discovered carcasses of elephants along the wildlife rich Okavango Delta in May and June but was authorities were uncertain as to the cause of the mass deaths, leaving scientists and conservationists puzzled. Only last month, Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Authority said more than 20 elephants had also died in its massive Hwange National Park although this time there was a clue that the deaths could have been caused by bacterial infection after ruling out anthrax and poisoning by poachers.

[...]

https://qz.com/africa/1906876/scientists-climate-change-bacteria-killed-300-african-elephants/

 

[Mungoman]

Cyanobacteria will bloom when certain basic conditions are met - these are water temperature, lack of flow and nutrient overload from faeces and/or urine being washed into waterholes from recent rains, and the bacteria being present.

Cyanobacteria, or blue green algae is mundanely common in Australia when rivers get low and temperatures get high, and after a decent rain event.

We are (unknowingly) ameliorating the problem here by fencing off riparian zones and by planting creek and river banks with trees, shrubs, bushes, grasses that will potentially absorb the nutrient flow before it gets into our watercourses.

The farmer then pumps water from the river, massively reducing on point and off point pollution on the river banks from cattle and sheep.

I'm not seeing how we can blame this on climate change.

 

[Kondoru]

So, you are saying that the pacyderms should have boiled the water before drinking?

Thats helpful.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Cyanobacteria will bloom when certain basic conditions are met - these are water temperature, lack of flow and nutrient overload from faeces and/or urine being washed into waterholes from recent rains, and the bacteria being present.

Cyanobacteria, or blue green algae is mundanely common in Australia when rivers get low and temperatures get high, and after a decent rain event.

We are (unknowingly) ameliorating the problem here by fencing off riparian zones and by planting creek and river banks with trees, shrubs, bushes, grasses that will potentially absorb the nutrient flow before it gets into our watercourses.

The farmer then pumps water from the river, massively reducing on point and off point pollution on the river banks from cattle and sheep.

I'm not seeing how we can blame this on climate change.

I caught an episode of "Aussie gold hunters" - or whatever it's called as I know the country reasonably well but was quite shocked about cyanide washes to extract flakes of gold.

I get it that's it's in the middle of nowhere but that nowhere has its own ecosystem.

 

[Mungoman]

I caught an episode of "Aussie gold hunters" - or whatever it's called as I know the country reasonably well but was quite shocked about cyanide washes to extract flakes of gold.

I get it that's it's in the middle of nowhere but that nowhere has its own ecosystem.

We have an old arsenic dump in our village that stopped the building of a rather palatial house, stone dead. It was only discovered after the foundations, walls and doors were put in. Meanwhile...at Bungonia down on the Southern Tablelands there was a depression town where they used arsenic to recover flour gold from the Shoalhaven river. Needless to say, it is prohibited land.

These old arsenic dumps are pretty common due to the predominance of flour gold...and the desperation of the times. And then there is the mercury amalgam that is found in many a creek or river - it also was used to recover fine gold...

Yeah - if nature doesn't kill us, we'll do it ourselves N.F.

 

[Mungoman]

So, you are saying that the pacyderms should have boiled the water before drinking?

Thats helpful.

No Konduro...I'm saying that given the right variables, cyanobacteria will display itself in Bloom anywhere...you most probably have the bacteria in your backyard.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Warming temperatures are driving arctic greening

Source: phys.org
Date: 22 September, 2020

As Arctic summers warm, Earth's northern landscapes are changing. Using satellite images to track global tundra ecosystems over decades, a new study found the region has become greener, as warmer air and soil temperatures lead to increased plant growth.

"The Arctic tundra is one of the coldest biomes on Earth, and it's also one of the most rapidly warming," said Logan Berner, a global change ecologist with Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, who led the recent research. "This Arctic greening we see is really a bellwether of global climatic change—it's a biome-scale response to rising air temperatures."

The study, published this week in Nature Communications, is the first to measure vegetation changes spanning the entire Arctic tundra, from Alaska and Canada to Siberia, using satellite data from Landsat, a joint mission of NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Other studies have used the satellite data to look at smaller regions, since Landsat data can be used to determine how much actively growing vegetation is on the ground. Greening can represent plants growing more, becoming denser, and/or shrubs encroaching on typical tundra grasses and moss.

When the tundra vegetation changes, it impacts not only the wildlife that depend on certain plants, but also the people who live in the region and depend on local ecosystems for food. While active plants will absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, the warming temperatures could also be thawing permafrost, thereby releasing greenhouse gasses. The research is part of NASA's Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), which aims to better understand how ecosystems are responding in these warming environments and the broader social implications.

[...]

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-temperatures-arctic-greening.html

 

[Jim]

Another possible side effect of the reduced tundra, explosions of the beaver population and all the new bodies of water they create.
https://www.ktoo.org/2020/05/12/bea...ith-some-striking-effects-on-the-environment/

 

[Kondoru]

Beavers are creatures, that like Man, create an environment to their liking.

Too many Beavers (Like in parts of South America now) will turn everywhere into a swamp.

While some is a good thing, controlling them isnt easy. it took the Hudson Bay company four centuries to trap the beavers into rarity. (However they were not trying to control beavers...)

I am glad to see them again in this country but am wondering what it will be like in a few hundred years time.

 

[ramonmercado]

Even Old Faithful is at risk.

Old Faithful, it turns out, wasn’t always so faithful.

The geyser, in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, is famous because it blasts hot water tens of meters into the air at regular intervals—every 90 to 94 minutes, on average. Now, geologists examining petrified wood from the park have found evidence that 800 years ago, Old Faithful stopped erupting entirely for several decades, in response to a severe drought. With climate change making drought more common across the western United States, the researchers say a similar shut down might happen again.

The world’s 1000 or so geysers typically occur in areas that are volcanically active, like Yellowstone. Water percolating down through the ground reaches the boiling point as it approaches the heat of a magma chamber. But because the water is deep underground it is also at a high pressure that prevents it from becoming steam. Eventually the superheated water becomes hot enough to vaporize, triggering an explosive eruption of water and steam at the geyser’s vent.

Many geysers erupt randomly, but when Henry Washburn and his fellow explorers traveled through Yellowstone in 1870, they noted the regularity of Old Faithful, and named it to reflect its predictability. ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/drought-once-shut-down-old-faithful-and-might-again

 

[Mythopoeika]

Unfortunately, even if all human activity ceased, global climate change will continue:

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-greenhouse-gas-emissions-global.html

Ending greenhouse gas emissions may not stop global warming: study
Even if humanity stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, Earth will warm for centuries to come and oceans will rise by metres, according to a controversial modelling study published Thursday.

Natural drivers of global warming—more heat-trapping clouds, thawing permafrost, and shrinking sea ice—already set in motion by carbon pollution will take on their own momentum, researchers from Norway reported in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

 

[Mungoman]

The cessation of the effects of climate change will need, first of all, the ending of non-renewable forms of energy production, the temperature of the global seas and oceans to drop approx 2 degrees C. Then the percentage of atmospheric water vapour to drop about 2%, the oxidation of methane to CO2, and the stabilisation of all other GHG's in our atmosphere.

From my Laymans view, the recovery involving that, would take decades.

 

[ramonmercado]

A tidal wave of evidence?

Tucked against glacier-capped mountains, the Begich Towers loom over Whittier, Alaska.

More than 80 percent of the small town’s residents live in the Cold War-era barracks in this former secret military port, whose harbor teems every summer with traffic: barnacle-encrusted fishing boats, sightseeing ships, sailboats, superyachts and cruiseliner monstrosities. This summer, coronavirus travel restrictions put a damper on tourism in the usually buzzing port. Then came warnings of a potentially devastating tsunami.

Whittier residents have been mindful of tsunamis for generations. In 1964, the Good Friday earthquake was followed by a 25-foot wave that crushed waterfront infrastructure, lifting and twisting rail lines and dragging them back to sea. The Good Friday earthquake—which killed 13 people here and caused $10 million worth of damage—still occupies Whittier’s memory.

With tons of rock and rubble precariously perched high above a nearby fjord, ready to crash into the sea, the town’s present is being shaped by both its past and preparations for an uncertain future. This destabilization is being driven by climate change: Tsunamis are becoming more likely in Alaska as hillsides, formerly reinforced by glaciers and solidly frozen ground, loosen their hold on once-stable slopes.

On May 14, an Alaska Department of Natural Resources press release and a public letter from 14 scientists warned locals of a possible landslide-generated tsunami. Alaska has identified three similar events in the past: Tsunamis in 2015 and 1967 occurred in remote areas, while one in 1958 killed two people whose boat was capsized. But the unstable slope in Barry Arm, a narrow steep-walled fjord in Prince William Sound, is vastly more dangerous. The potential energy from a catastrophic slide here is approximately 10 times greater than previous events, the state’s top geologist said in the May press release.

https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-is-intensifying-the-tsunami-threat-in-alaska/

 

[ramonmercado]

Will Climate Change affect animal colouration?

A 19th century claim has fueled a 21st century debate about how a warming climate might reshape animals.

Beginning in the early 1800s, biologists identified multiple “rules” describing the ecological and evolutionary impacts of temperature. One rule held that animals have bigger appendages (ears, beaks) in hot climates, to help dissipate body heat. Another said that, within any group of animals, the biggest generally reside closer to the poles—think of polar bears towering over midlatitude brown bears—because larger bodies help retain heat.

And Gloger’s rule, named after German biologist Constantin Gloger, declared that animals in warmer regions usually have darker exteriors, whereas those in cooler regions are lighter. Among mammals, darker skin and hair was thought to protect against damaging ultraviolet light, which is more plentiful in Sun-soaked equatorial areas. Among birds, the specific melanin pigments in darker feathers seem to resist bacterial infestation, an advantage in the Petri dish of the tropics.

Back in July, Li Tian of the China University of Geosciences and Michael Benton of the University of Bristol revived interest in these largely forgotten rules when the two paleontologists used them to predict how climate change might remake animal bodies. Among other things, they relied on Gloger’s rule to propose that, as Earth warms, most animals would get darker. Simple enough.

But a series of back-and-forth essays in Current Biology, including two this month, showed that other biologists consider the matter far from settled. “I was a bit taken aback,” says Kaspar Delhey, an ornithologist who lives in Australia and works remotely for the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany. “I thought, ‘There’s more work to do.’” ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/will-climate-change-make-animals-darker-or-lighter

 

[charliebrown]

Did you know that 2020 was the second hottest year on record?

Today the Biden administration said climate warming will have catastrophic hardships on all humans by the year 2050.

 

[maximus otter]

It’s not a myth: 2020 was another good year for polar bears

"...survey results for 8 of the 19 polar bear subpopulations, only two of which showed insignificant declines after very modest ice loss. The rest were either stable or increasing, and some despite major reductions in sea ice. As a result, the global population size is now almost 30,000 – up from about 26,000 in 2015."

"...the official IUCN Red List global population estimate, completed in 2015, is 22,000-31,000 (average about 26,000) but surveys conducted since then, including those made public in 2020, would raise that average to almost 30,000. There has been no sustained statistically significant decline in any subpopulation."

https://www.thegwpf.org/its-not-a-myth-2020-was-another-good-year-for-polar-bears/

maximus otter

 

[maximus otter]

Today the Biden administration said climate warming will have catastrophic hardships on all humans by the year 2050.

We all died in 2000:

...and again in 2020:

Manhattan vanished under water 2 years ago:

The arctic has been ice-free for the past 2 years:

Greenland melted a while ago, drowning New Orleans:

Etc. ad nauseam.

maximus otter

 

[Trevp666]

Venice. Sinking, or being left high and dry?
It's hard to decide.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-56223357

 

[maximus otter]

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice

In 1966, US Army scientists drilled down through nearly a mile of ice in northwestern Greenland -- and pulled up a fifteen-foot-long tube of dirt from the bottom. Then this frozen sediment was lost in a freezer for decades. It was accidentally rediscovered in 2017.

In 2019, University of Vermont scientist Andrew Christ looked at it through his microscope -- and couldn't believe what he was seeing: twigs and leaves instead of just sand and rock. That suggested that the ice was gone in the recent geologic past -- and that a vegetated landscape, perhaps a boreal forest, stood where a mile-deep ice sheet as big as Alaska stands today.

Over the last year, an international team of scientists have studied these one-of-a-kind fossil plants and sediment from the bottom of Greenland. Their results show that most, or all, of Greenland must have been ice-free within the last million years, perhaps even the last few hundred-thousand years.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210315165639.htm

maximus otter

 

[ramonmercado]

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice

In 1966, US Army scientists drilled down through nearly a mile of ice in northwestern Greenland -- and pulled up a fifteen-foot-long tube of dirt from the bottom. Then this frozen sediment was lost in a freezer for decades. It was accidentally rediscovered in 2017.

In 2019, University of Vermont scientist Andrew Christ looked at it through his microscope -- and couldn't believe what he was seeing: twigs and leaves instead of just sand and rock. That suggested that the ice was gone in the recent geologic past -- and that a vegetated landscape, perhaps a boreal forest, stood where a mile-deep ice sheet as big as Alaska stands today.

Over the last year, an international team of scientists have studied these one-of-a-kind fossil plants and sediment from the bottom of Greenland. Their results show that most, or all, of Greenland must have been ice-free within the last million years, perhaps even the last few hundred-thousand years.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210315165639.htm

maximus otter

Triffids will escape from the research lab.

 

[Nosmo King]

Just seen this interesting story on the red button

Antarctic seafloor exposed after 50 years of ice cover

Life gets busy wherever it can, even under thick ice cover in Antarctica.

German scientists have inspected an area of seafloor newly exposed by the calving of mega-iceberg A74 and found it to be teeming with animals.

Video cameras tracked abundant filter feeders thriving among the soft muds.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56424338

 

[ramonmercado]

It doesn't bode well for the Narwhal.

RESEARCHERS HAVE LONG debated what the 10-foot-long tooth that erupts from a narwhal’s head is actually for. Perhaps it has something to do with sexual selection, and males with longer horns attract more females. Or maybe the things sense salinity. Or perhaps a narwhal uses its tusk to flush out prey on the ocean bottom.

Whatever the purpose, scientists know this for certain: The Arctic region, which the narwhals call home, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and by analyzing these tusks, researchers can glean surprisingly detailed insights into how the animals are dealing with catastrophic change. It’s not looking good.

Writing in March in the journal Current Biology, scientists described what they found in 10 tusks collected from animals in northwest Greenland. Because a tusk grows continuously over the many decades of a narwhal’s life, the researchers could read the outsized teeth like the rings of a tree. They found that between 1962 and 2000, the mercury in the tusks increased by an average of 0.3 percent a year, but between 2000 and 2010 it increased by 1.9 percent per year. This is consistent with increased mercury discovered in the bodies of other top predators in several regions across the Arctic, possibly due to air pollution blowing in from the south.

https://www.wired.com/story/narwhal-tusks-tell-a-troubling-tale/

 

[ramonmercado]

Shocking news.

Climate change may be sparking more lightning in the Arctic.

Data from a worldwide network of lightning sensors suggest that the frequency of lightning strikes in the region has shot up over the last decade, researchers report online March 22 in Geophysical Research Letters. That may be because the Arctic, historically too cold to fuel many thunderstorms, is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world (SN: 8/2/19).

The new analysis used observations from the World Wide Lightning Location Network, which has sensors across the globe that detect radio waves emitted by lightning bolts. Researchers tallied lightning strikes in the Arctic during the stormiest months of June, July and August from 2010 to 2020. The team counted everywhere above 65° N latitude, which cuts through the middle of Alaska, as the Arctic.

The number of lightning strikes that the detection network precisely located in the Arctic spiked from about 35,000 in 2010 to about 240,000 in 2020. Part of that uptick in detections may have resulted from the sensor network expanding from about 40 stations to more than 60 stations over the decade.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/arctic-lightning-climate-change-global-warming

 

[Trevp666]

Climate change may be sparking more lightning in the Arctic.

I'm always suspicious of reports like this linking something to climate change. There can't possibly be any historical record dating back beyond the set-up of the detection network, and as such, nothing to compare current measurements against.
Any climate change, whether that be the natural change that occurs over centuries, or any effect attributed to the activities of humans on the planet, needs a historical record that is accurate, and measured in the same way, in order to be studied.

Saying it is 'historically too cold' is just waffle and horse-feathers as research has proved that the arctic has gone through periods of being forested area in the past.

 

[Nosmo King]

The Arctic region, which the narwhals call home, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and by analyzing these tusks, researchers can glean surprisingly detailed insights into how the animals are dealing with catastrophic change. It’s not looking good.

They found that between 1962 and 2000, the mercury in the tusks increased by an average of 0.3 percent a year, but between 2000 and 2010 it increased by 1.9 percent per year. This is consistent with increased mercury discovered in the bodies of other top predators in several regions across the Arctic, possibly due to air pollution blowing in from the south.

These two parts of the study are about two different things, the first is talking about how the temperature chage is affecting the narwals and then the evidence they use to back this up does nothing of the sort, it just shows and increase in pollution.
Both things are bad for the narwals but the evidence in this study does not make sense.