Climate Change

[Byrthnoth]

E.P.A. to Limit Science Used to Write Public Health Rules

https://nyti.ms/2CxNwt0

Not really climate change related, but this is also a disaster. Any days with this as the policy are too many days, but at least it is eminently reversible because it is just executive branch internal crap.

[6souls]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50951981

Climate change is forcing a review of Cold War-era nuclear storage. Thanks Tulsi!

Congress wants the Department of Energy to report back on the state of the ageing Runit Dome within six months.

The demand is part of a huge defense bill approved by President Trump.

More than 40 nuclear weapons tests took place on or near the Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific between 1946 and 1958, including a bomb test on Runit Island.

The crater from that blast was used from the 1970s by the Defense Nuclear Agency to store nuclear waste. It was later covered in thick concrete slabs to form the 377ft (115 metre) protective dome.

There are concerns that the structure is deteriorating and could be vulnerable to sea-level rise caused by climate change.

The amendment to the defense bill was brought forward by Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

[6souls]

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/1...events-in-2019



2019 was MN's wettest and second hottest year on record. It was also the coldest since 1996.

A record 43.17 inches of precipitation (rain and snow) fell at MSP Airport this year. That’s more than the annual average precipitation for St. Louis, Missouri.

The Twin Cities broke the previous annual precipitation record of 40.32 inches set just in 2016 by nearly 3 inches. Twin Cities precipitation 2019 was an astounding 12.56 inches above average. That extra foot of liquid is roughly an extra 4 months’ worth of rain and snow this year.

Rochester recorded an astounding 55.16 inches of precipitation this year. That’s just about 5 inches shy of the all-time state record of 60.21 inches, set at Harmony in 2018. And 55 inches is about the annual average precipitation for Memphis, Tennessee.

One day stood out for summer heat in 2019, and it was this one, with heat indices well above 100 degrees. In fact, with an air temperature of 95 F and a dew point temperature of 80 F, the 115 F heat index value at MSP tied for the second highest on record.

This arctic outbreak followed in the wake of a vigorous Alberta Clipper. It was noteworthy for having the coldest air measured in Minnesota since 1996, and the lowest wind chills since the 1980s. Cotton, MN had an air temperature of -56F and the Twin Cities saw -28 F.

[archibaldcrane]

We're going to get this headline every year for the next 15 years.



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[Zealot]

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/14/79625...estment-strate

BlackRock is shifting the central investment strategy for its $7T in assets to focus on climate change.

It won't affect a huge portion of its holdings but even a small percentage for them equates to billions of dollars.

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[6souls]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51389690



A 93 mile (150km) wide, 656 foot (200m) thick, & 2,300 sq mi large iceberg that broke off of the coast of Antarctica in 2017 has finally entered the ocean.

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/80313...f-extreme-heat
https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/d...cience.aax8591

Researchers find raising global temps are to blame for the decline in the population of bumblebees. They also found that the bees cannot adapt to change and that's why the haven't migrated to colder climates.

Researchers looked at half a million records showing where bumblebees have been found since 1901, across 66 different species. They found that in places where bumblebees have lived in North America, you're about half as likely to see one today.

The decline is especially pronounced in Mexico, where bumblebees once lived in abundance.

Big heat events can stress both the bees and the flowers they depend on.

Bumblebees also don't seem to be rapidly expanding into new habitats in search of cooler temperatures. Scientists believe that some plants and animals will move northward or to higher elevations as the climate warms.

"They're simply not able to colonize new regions at the same rate that they're disappearing from old ones," Soroye notes.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/0...ng-communities

The global raising water levels are starting to show their effects on the Great Lakes. Erosion and flooding are the most prevalent.

High water is wreaking havoc across the Great Lakes, which are bursting at the seams less than a decade after bottoming out. The sharp turnabout is fueled by the region's wettest period in more than a century that scientists say is likely connected to the warming climate. No relief is in sight, as forecasters expect the lakes to remain high well into 2020 and perhaps longer.

The toll is extensive: homes and businesses flooded; roads and sidewalks crumbled; beaches washed away; parks were rendered unusable. Docks that boats previously couldn't reach because the water was too shallow are now submerged.

At one point last year, ferry service was halted in the Lake Erie island community of Put-In-Bay after the vessels' landing spot disappeared beneath the waves. On Mackinac Island in Lake Huron, portions of the only paved road washed away.

Homeowners and agencies are extending battered seawalls, constructing berms and piling stones and sandbags. Some are elevating houses or moving them farther inland. Even shanties in a historic Michigan fishing village dating to 1903 are being raised. The state's environment department has issued more than 400 permits for such projects.

[Outlaw]

An Antarctic base recorded a temperature of 64.9 degrees F. If confirmed, it's a record high.

World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis, citing figures from Argentina’s national weather service, said the Esperanza Base recorded 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday — topping the former record of 17.5 degrees tallied in March 2015.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...ed-it-n1132541

That is almost shorts weather.

[Boyiee]

Almost?

Shorts until it freezes.

[Rooney]

Shorts into the high 40's np. Below that pants. I regularly walk out in way less than my neighbors, but they've never lived in the north.

[6souls]

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/12/80458...ater-treatment

A water treatment plant in Montana discovered that using barley waste from a local brewery in their filtration system could save them from a $1M upgrade to meet clean water standards.

In Bozeman, Mont., the Water Reclamation Facility treats more than 6 million gallons of water every day from sinks, showers, toilets — really anything that goes down a drain. That includes liquid waste from more than 10 breweries in this city of nearly 50,000.

Because it's rich in yeast, hops and sugar, brewery waste can throw off the microbes that wastewater plants rely on to remove nitrogen and phosphorus. The two nutrients can cause algae blooms in rivers and kill off fish.

"But if we can use [brewery waste] correctly and put it in the right spot, it's very beneficial to the process," engineering consultant Coralynn Revis says.

Across town, Drue Newfield, Havre's wastewater plant manager, walks over to something that looks like a well.

For the last three years, Newfield or one of his employees has been dumping one bucket of spent barley from Triple Dog Brewing into the water rushing below every morning.

Without the free spent barley, the wastewater treatment facility would have had to buy a chemical called alum to do the same thing.

"We know the alum that we saved already is about $16,000 a year for sure. But if that wouldn't have done it, that's when an upgrade around the corner would have been, and then if we have to do an upgrade, there's where you run into the millions," Newfield says.

[6souls]

A Quarter of All Climate Change Denying Posts Made on Twitter are from Bots
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51595285

[Outlaw]

Humanity poised to set record for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — again
"We've done in a little more than 50 years what the Earth naturally took 10,000 years to do,” one scientist said.

In May 2013, the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere hit a previously unthinkable milestone.

For the first time in human history, the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's airreached 400 parts per million (ppm). The last time the planet experienced such high levels of the greenhouse gas was more than 3 million years ago, when conditions on Earth were unrecognizable from today and giant camels roamed a mostly ice-free High Arctic.

But what was once seen as an alarming threshold has now become business as usual. This year, scientists are forecasting that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will likely peak at around 417 ppm, signifying that for every 1 million molecules of gas in the atmosphere, 417 are carbon dioxide.

When the planet last had an atmosphere that mirrored today's chemical makeup, Earth was in the midst of the Pliocene Epoch. During that geologic period, which lasted from about 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago, humans had yet to appear on the planet, and average sea levels were up to 65 feet higher than they are today. Global average temperatures were also around 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, with temperatures at the poles likely double that, according to Siegert.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/envi...again-n1142201

It disgusts me that climate change and is not on the news every night with a "oh shit!" mentality.

[Melena]

San Francisco bay area has to go back to the days Lincoln was president to have a February that's been this dry. 29 days straight so far with no rain, and absolutely no precipitation in February for San Francisco.

[Roranora]

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/envi...again-n1142201

It disgusts me that climate change and is not on the news every night with a "oh shit!" mentality.

we still ain't even ready for the conversations about what we might, could, or ought to do... to say nothing of doing anything

economists, how do we orchestrate well a controlled global contraction? or put the nix on ubiquitous air travel? curb deforestation?

we haven't even hit peak passenger miles flown, but we have already beaten all true meaning from words like sustainable, carbon-neutral, and environmentally friendly

[AoE]

The argument that's quickly coming up is how countries are gonna deal with the mass immigration that's gonna happen when the food shortages start hitting because the area they live is too hot to sustain life at a reasonable level. People aren't gonna sit there and starve while we take our time pretending we're developing a solution for the less fortunate.

[Zeb]

San Francisco bay area has to go back to the days Lincoln was president to have a February that's been this dry. 29 days straight so far with no rain, and absolutely no precipitation in February for San Francisco.

California going to try and out do Australia's fires this summer?

[TsingTao]

Better start raking now, amirite?

[Melena]

California going to try and out do Australia's fires this summer?

California goes for human fatalities in it's fires. That and California is always on fire.

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[Cantih]

It has not rained as much as it did last year by this point, in LA county anyways.
We did have some small hail this weekend though.

[Gadritan]

Meanwhile in NC, we had snow Friday and it's going to be in the mid 70s tomorrow.

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