Margaret Renkl | This Winter, Snow Can Help Us Learn to Stop – The New York Times

By Margaret Renkl

Ms. Renkl is a contributing Opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.

“NASHVILLE — It was 78 degrees here on New Year’s Day, a record high for Nashville, and I broke into a sweat just packing for a weekend on the Cumberland Plateau. “Did you remember to bring your coat?” my husband asked when I got into the car.

It was not an unreasonable question, despite the heat. I hadn’t packed my coat when we left for the Cumberland Plateau last month. It was warm that day, too. In fact, it had been so warm for so long that the cherry laurels were already in bud. Who thinks to pack a coat when cherry laurels are in bud?

But the next day the temperature dropped to 45, and there I was, stranded in the woods with no coat nor even so much as a sweater. Apparently, this is how winter works now. Daffodils out of the ground, Lenten roses in full bloom two months out of time, and then wham.”

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT  Jan. 10,  NYT Comment:

Hi Margaret,

Thank you for another lovely post about snow and the changes in the weather. I am sharing with friends and neighbors a new 2021 video from climate scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI).

This is important information, not usually so well described. Here is the link to: “Earth Emergency: Feedback Loops” available at PBS for the next 3 weeks or so. https://www.pbs.org/show/earth-emergency/ Go to the PBS site, and the right video says it is for 52 minutes and 24s or seconds.

Here is a link to access separately the 5 original shorts from a year ago, that make up the full length video, through my blog post at InconvenientNews.Net. https://inconvenientnews.wordpress.com/2022/01/01/climate-emergency-feedback-loops/ The responsible group at WHOI is the Woodwell Climate Research Center, can be found at: https://www.woodwellclimate.org/?event=national-premiere-of-earth-emergency-on-pbs I hope to write a column on this, but while my head is high, my platform is small.

David Lindsay

5 Recommended

Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops (a video) by Woods Hole Research Center

(now, Woodwell Climate Research Center) and Northern Light (and Moving Still) Productions

Climate Emergency:Feedback Loops

Narrated by Richard Gere

MENU

INTRODUCTION

13:09

▶

The Earth is warming the Earth. In this series of five short films, learn why natural warming loops have scientists alarmed—and why we have less time than we think. SUBTITLED IN 23 LANGUAGES. 

“I highly recommend you to watch these five very educational short films on feedback loops.”—GRETA THUNBERG 

• 

  FORESTS

  14:10

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  PERMAFROST

  10:55

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  ATMOSPHERE

  8:45

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  ALBEDO

  10:35

EVENTSEDUCATIONAL MATERIALSCREDITSCONTACT

Source: Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops

Peter Coy | I Got to the Bottom of All Those Flight Cancellations – The New York Times

By Peter Coy

Opinion Writer

“The rash of flight cancellations over the winter break — is it a major blunder by the airlines or the forgivable consequence of the outbreak of Omicron? I looked into this over the past couple of days and my conclusion is that it’s a little of each.

First, the case against the airlines. They’re running with a precariously low ratio of employees to passengers, leaving themselves vulnerable to surprises like Omicron, the more contagious new variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, which drastically thinned the ranks of flight crews.

This fall, some airline executives even bragged to Wall Street analysts about how they were able to do more with less — providing more flights per employee. “We estimate that we can fly a schedule 10 percent larger than 2019 with the same number of employees we needed in 2019,” Gerald Laderman, the chief financial officer of United Airlines Holdings, told analysts on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Oct. 20.”

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT | NYT Comment:

Thank you Peter Coy, this was interesting. The comments are not pleased that you point out the airlines viewpoint, but it seems clear, few saw the success of omicron coming. I do often hate the way I feel mistreated when I fly, so I enjoyed the anger your piece stirred up. FYI, we watched a show on PBS called, Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops, narrated by Richard Gere, a series of five short films featuring 12 world-renowned climate scientists, that was made in January 2021. It explains very well the feedback loops that are approaching tipping points, and there are more than I knew about, and this is my beat. I recommend this 58 minute film to everyone. It looks bad for humans. We should probably think seriously about flying around a lot less on carbon based fuels.

David blogs at InconvenientNews.net

James B. Elsner | Did Climate Change Cause the Deadly Tornadoes? – The New York Times

By James B. Elsner

Dr. Elsner is a professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where his research focuses on tornadoes, hurricanes and climate change.

“I’m a tornado climatologist, and it is not unusual for people to ask me after a spate of storms like the ones that ripped through the center of the country on Friday whether climate change has anything to do with it. The answer is: It’s complicated.

We have started to detect changes in collective tornado activity, including more powerful storms, and are beginning to understand how these changes might be related to global warming. But much more work needs to be done to gain a fuller understanding of how the changing climate is influencing these deadly storms.

Let’s start with what we know. A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air inside a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm that lasts more than 20 minutes and is energized by continuously rising air is called a supercell. The rising air is fueled by warm, moist conditions and changes in wind speed or direction associated with the approach of a frontal system where warm and cool air collide. The warm, moist air and that wind shear can generate a series of supercells, some of which produce tornadoes.”

The Antarctic Is Signaling Big Climate Trouble. – The New York Times

David Lindsay: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all. May the gods and 350.org save us.

“THE IMMENSE AND FORBIDDING Southern Ocean is famous for howling gales and devilish swells that have tested mariners for centuries. But its true strength lies beneath the waves.

The ocean’s dominant feature, extending up to two miles deep and as much as 1,200 miles wide, is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, by far the largest current in the world. It is the world’s climate engine, and it has kept the world from warming even more by drawing deep water from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, much of which has been submerged for hundreds of years, and pulling it to the surface. There, it exchanges heat and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere before being dispatched again on its eternal round trip.

Without this action, which scientists call upwelling, the world would be even hotter than it has become as a result of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.

“From no perspective is there any place more important than the Southern Ocean,” said Joellen L. Russell, an oceanographer at the University of Arizona. “There’s nothing like it on Planet Earth.”

For centuries this ocean was largely unknown, its conditions so extreme that only a relative handful of sailors plied its iceberg-infested waters. What fragmentary scientific knowledge was available came from measurements taken by explorers, naval ships, the occasional research expeditions or whaling vessels.

But more recently, a new generation of floating, autonomous probes that can collect temperature, density and other data for years — diving deep underwater, and even exploring beneath the Antarctic sea ice, before rising to the surface to phone home — has enabled scientists to learn much more.

They have discovered that global warming is affecting the Antarctic current in complex ways, and these shifts could complicate the ability to fight climate change in the future.”

Explainer: What’s the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming? | Reuters

“GLASGOW, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Over and over at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The 2015 Paris Agreement commits countries to limit the global average temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to aim for 1.5°C.

Scientists have said crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change effects on people, wildlife and ecosystems.

Preventing it requires almost halving global CO2 emissions by 2030 from 2010 levels and cutting them to net-zero by 2050 — an ambitious task that scientists, financiers, negotiators and activists at COP26 are debating how to achieve and pay for.

But what is the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of warming? We asked several scientists to explain: . . . .”

Source: Explainer: What’s the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming? | Reuters

(443) Is It Too Late To Stop Climate Change? Well, it’s Complicated. – YouTube

David Lindsay

A young technician came by from a local vendor to service my 3 in1 printer. He said he understood climate change was a serious problem. I asked him is source of information, and he said, Youtube videos by some group he recommended but couldn’t recall. He looked it up on my computer, and it was Kursgesagt, and below is one of their videos. It turns out, it is run by Breakthrough Energy, which was founded by Bill Gates and friends.
Regarding Bill Gates, I just read his new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need. It is excellent. So by the way, is this quirky video, which is stocked full for facts from an organization called Our World and Data.

 

Biden’s Climate Plans Are Stunted After Dejected Experts Fled Trump – The New York Times

By Coral Davenport, Lisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle

Aug. 1, 2021

WASHINGTON — Juliette Hart quit her job last summer as an oceanographer for the United States Geological Survey, where she used climate models to help coastal communities plan for rising seas. She was demoralized after four years of the Trump administration, she said, in which political appointees pressured her to delete or downplay mentions of climate change.

“It’s easy and quick to leave government, not so quick for government to regain the talent,” said Dr. Hart, whose job remains vacant.”

David Lindsay:

Here is a top comment I strongly endorse:

Mary Richards

MassachusettsAug. 1

..Biden should offer them a deal to come back. No loss of time toward retirement benefits and 10% raises across the board. It would work…trust me

264 Recommended

A Hotter Future Is Certain, According to U.N. Climate Report – The New York Times

By Brad Plumer and Henry Fountain

Aug. 9, 2021Updated 9:07 a.m. ET

Leer en español

“Nations have delayed curbing their fossil-fuel emissions for so long that they can no longer stop global warming from intensifying over the next 30 years, though there is still a short window to prevent the most harrowing future, a major new United Nations scientific report has concluded.

Humans have already heated the planet by roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 19th century, largely by burning coal, oil and gas for energy. And the consequences can be felt across the globe: This summer alone, blistering heat waves have killed hundreds of people in the United States and Canada, floods have devastated Germany and China, and wildfires have raged out of control in Siberia, Turkey and Greece.

But that’s only the beginning, according to the report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations. Even if nations started sharply cutting emissions today, total global warming is likely to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades, a hotter future that is now essentially locked in.”

“. . . . While the broad scientific understanding of climate change has not changed drastically in recent years, scientists have made several key advances. Computer models have become more powerful. And researchers have collected a wealth of new data, deploying satellites and ocean buoys and gaining a clearer picture of the Earth’s past climate by analyzing ice cores and peat bogs.

That has allowed scientists to refine their projections and conclude with greater precision that Earth is likely to warm between 2.5 degrees and 4 degrees Celsius for every doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

Opinion | America in 2090: The Impact of Extreme Heat, in Maps – The New York Times

By Susan Joy Hassol, Kristie Ebi and Yaryna Serkez

Ms. Hassol is the director of the nonprofit organization Climate Communication. Dr. Ebi is a professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington in Seattle. Ms. Serkez is a graphics editor for Opinion.

“Yes, it is getting hotter. And while you might be able to escape the intensifying tropical storms, flooding or droughts by moving elsewhere, refuge from extreme heat is no longer easy to find.

Even in Siberia.

Summers that seemed exceedingly hot 50 years ago are becoming much more commonplace. The extreme heat of that era — which had a chance of occurring of only one-tenth of 1 percent during the summer season — is now reached more than 20 percent of the time, according to calculations by the climate scientist James Hansen. That’s 200 times as often. And nights are warming faster than days, at nearly twice the rate. So much for relief.

And though the deadly, intense heat that baked the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada recently was startling, extremely hot temperatures have struck elsewhere in recent years, in surprising places and with calamitous consequences.

This should be reason enough — along with the recent disastrous floods in China, Germany and other European countries — to move quickly to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming.”