In the last 10 years, warming in the Arctic has outpaced projections so rapidly that scientists are now suggesting that the poles are warming four times faster than the rest of the globe. This has led to glacier melt and permafrost thaw levels that weren’t forecast to happen until 2050 or later. In Siberia and northern Canada, this abrupt thaw has created sunken landforms, known as thermokarst, where the oldest and deepest permafrost is exposed to the warm air for the first time in hundreds or even thousands of years.
As the global climate continues to warm, many questions remain about the periglacial environment. Among them: as water infiltration increases, will permafrost thaw more rapidly? And, if so, what long-frozen organisms might “wake up”?
Zombie viruses, walking mosquito mutants, the possibilities are endless…and the stuff of sci-fi “B Movies” for the next decade or so.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/uDFmIDPzCo4znxgzKlT0_jgv4CqHkarUrQ005ED_HbclD4Ex32hmOHsAn95kbFc_WZMiOQ1BMlRj4Fu-vDLyOgnT3syuxfWFY8KxoEWpqd9gxcPzZnQUM8q76jkJzs7IQUNr_cUt
“Humanity is waging a ‘suicidal’ war on nature, UN chief warns” https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/02/world/un-state-of-the-planet-guterres-speech-intl/index.html
See also “United States withdrawal from the United Nations” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_United_Nations
“Think climate change is a hoax? Don’t watch this Google Earth timelapse” https://www.tomsguide.com/news/think-climate-change-is-a-hoax-dont-watch-this-google-earth-timelapse
8AM MDT, tomorrow morning, 17th
“Why climate change is getting the attention of world’s wealthy investors : With trillions of dollars in economic activity expected in the years ahead, letting the politics of climate get in the way of investments is being seen by affluent investors as a mistake.” (11/19/20) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/wealthy-investors-get-serious-about-climate-change-without-politics.html
Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas): “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge in mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.” (Wall Street, 1987)
Fantastic read!!! I loved this piece! Thank you for sharing such valuable information with your readers! To spread more awareness of the climate crisis, please feel free to check out my recent blog post! (:
“Climate change involves direct consequences on the cycling of water through our environment. The warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, making intense rainstorms dump even more water than they used to. On the flip side, warmer air can suck even more moisture out of the ground through evaporation, worsening droughts. These things should obviously result in changes for streams. But the amount of water in streams varies wildly under normal conditions, and it can also be affected by more than just weather. Finding trends in that data has proven difficult.
A new study led by Evan Dethier at Dartmouth College set out to group streams into physically meaningful categories, to see if consistent patterns emerge once apples are separated from oranges. That analysis does reveal some trends—both in extremes of high flow and low flow.”
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/new-analysis-extreme-flows-in-us-streams-are-rising/
See “Spatially coherent regional changes in seasonal extreme streamflow events in the United States and Canada since 1950” https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/49/eaba5939
In 2013, the Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico reached its lowest level in 40 years (right)—just 3 percent of its storage capacity, compared with a nearly full reservoir in 1994 (left).
https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/styles/original/public/images/gw-impacts-drought-elephant-butte-reservoir-new-mexico-1994-vs-2013.jpg?itok=dyvHAX5D
“How Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era : A warming world is expanding the range of deadly diseases and risking an explosion of new zoonotic pathogens from the likes of bats, mosquitoes, and ticks” https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
https://www.hallsigns.com/w4-4bp-oncoming-traffic-does-not-stop/
“Justifiable pride can be taken in the incremental accomplishments of international climate change cooperation, but it is “unthinkable” to continue at the current pace. The global response to climate change is completely insufficient and leaves the world on a “road to hell”.
That’s according to four former senior members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, who have published an exclusive critical insider insight piece -today published in the peer-reviewed journal, Climate Policy.” https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/tfg-cpo121020.php
“Beyond good intentions, to urgent action: Former UNFCCC leaders take stock of thirty years of international climate change negotiations” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2020.1860567
Today, France, along with the UK and the UN, will host a meeting of world leaders in Paris to mark five years since the Paris Agreement was adopted. Leaders will discuss progress to meet the collective global goals of limiting temperature increase below 2°C and even 1.5°C, along with global net zero emissions in the second half of this century. The message to leaders from the UNFCCC quartet is that they need to do much more, and quickly, to achieve the goals of Paris.
This paper takes a critical, and even “self-critical”, stock of what has been achieved since these international negotiations were launched on 21 December 1990.
“How climate change is disrupting ecosystems” https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2020/12/how-climate-change-is-disrupting-ecosystems.html
“The world is getting warmer and warmer – and many organisms native to lower latitudes or elevations are moving higher.
However, novel organisms moving into a new habitat could disturb the ecological balance which has been established over a long period. Plants and herbivores are characterized by long-term co-evolution, shaping both their geographic distribution and the characteristics that they display in their occupied sites.”
“Watching Earth Burn : For 10 days in September, satellites in orbit sent tragic evidence of climate change’s destructive power.” (NYT 12/28/20) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/opinion/climate-change-earth.html
“How Trump Tried, but Largely Failed, to Derail America’s Top Climate Report : The White House repeatedly attempted to thwart the country’s premier climate science document, one meant to steer policy for years. Scientists got in the way.” (NYT 1/1/21) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/climate/trump-national-climate-assessment.html
“Imminent sudden stratospheric warming to occur, bringing increased risk of snow over coming weeks” https://phys.org/news/2021-01-imminent-sudden-stratospheric-weeks.html
“The polar vortex is splitting in two, which may lead to weeks of wild winter weather
A sudden stratospheric warming event has pushed the polar vortex off the North Pole, sending Arctic air on the move” https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/05/polar-vortex-split-cold-snow/ “This unusually strong event may have profound influences on the weather in the United States and Europe, possibly increasing the potential for paralyzing snowstorms and punishing blasts of Arctic air, with the odds of the most severe cold outbreaks highest in Northern Europe. The United States is slightly more of a winter wild card for now, experts say, with individual winter storms tough to predict beyond a few days in advance.”
“A Polar Vortex collapse sequence has begun in late December 2020, with a major Sudden Stratospheric Warming event on January 5th, 2021. We will look at the sequence of these events, and how they can change the weather in Europe and the United States in the coming weeks.” https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-collapse-winter-weather-europe-united-states-2021-fa/
Spain paralyzed by snowstorm, sends out vaccine, food convoys (1/10/21) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-weather-snow/spain-paralysed-by-snowstorm-sends-out-vaccine-food-convoys-idUSKBN29F089
The Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) had warned that some regions would be receiving more than 24 hours of continuous snowfall due to the odd combination of a cold air mass stagnant over the Iberian Peninsula and the arrival of the warmer Storm Filomena from the south.
(Jan 11, 2021): The polar vortex is coming—and raising the odds for intense winter weather
In the stratosphere over Siberia, temperatures recently jumped nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, shoving the polar vortex off its North Pole perch. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2021/01/the-polar-vortex-is-coming-raising-odds-for-intense-winter-weather/
Video: “What is the polar vortex https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase/00000145-704c-d15e-abdf-784d34150000
“Ice Is Disappearing Across the Planet at Record Rate” https://scitechdaily.com/ice-is-disappearing-across-the-planet-at-record-rate/
“The figures have been published today (Monday, January 25, 2021) by a research team which is the first to carry out a survey of global ice loss using satellite data.
The team, led by the University of Leeds, found that the rate of ice loss from the Earth has increased markedly within the past three decades, from 0.8 trillion tons per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tons per year by 2017.
Ice melt across the globe raises sea levels, increases the risk of flooding to coastal communities, and threatens to wipe out natural habitats which wildlife depend on.
The findings of the research team, which includes the University of Edinburgh, University College London and data science specialists Earthwave, are published in European Geosciences Union’s journal The Cryosphere.
The research, funded by UK Natural Environment Research Council, shows that overall, there has been a 65 % increase in the rate of ice loss over the 23-year survey. This has been mainly driven by steep rises in losses from the polar ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.”
See also: “Earth’s ice imbalance” (The Cryosphere 1/25/21) https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/233/2021/
8AM MST, tomorrow morning, 26th
“Climate change “may have played a key role” in coronavirus pandemic, study says” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-coronavirus-bats-study/
https://globalworldaffairs.wordpress.com/2021/01/30/combating-climate-change/
New research from West Virginia University biologists shows that trees around the world are consuming more carbon dioxide than previously reported, making forests even more important in regulating the Earth’s atmosphere and forever shift how we think about climate change. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/wvu-wbu020821.php
“Global tree intrinsic water use efficiency is enhanced by increased atmospheric CO2 and modulated by climate and plant functional types” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) https://www.pnas.org/content/118/7/e2014286118
“Large-scale commodity farming accelerating climate change in the Amazon rainforest” (University of Helsinki) https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/science-news/large-scale-commodity-farming-accelerating-climate-change-in-the-amazon-rainforest
PNAS: “Large-scale commodity agriculture exacerbates the climatic impacts of Amazonian deforestation” https://www.pnas.org/content/118/7/e2023787118
“Climate crisis pushing great white sharks into new waters” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/climate-crisis-pushing-great-white-sharks-into-new-waters See also https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82424-9
“Climate crisis: record ocean heat in 2020 supercharged extreme weather : Scientists say temperatures likely to be increasing faster than at any time in past 2,000 years” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/13/climate-crisis-record-ocean-heat-in-2020-supercharged-extreme-weather
“Heatwaves sweeping oceans ‘like wildfires’, scientists reveal : Extreme temperatures destroy kelp, seagrass and corals – with alarming impacts for humanity” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/04/heatwaves-sweeping-oceans-like-wildfires-scientists-reveal
“The Heat Belt Is a Glimpse Into a Climate-Changed America” (2/18/21) https://slate.com/technology/2021/02/heat-belt-climate-change-local-action-interviews.html
“Here’s how a week of frigid weather and catastrophe unfolded in Texas” (2/21/21) https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/weather/texas-winter-storm-timeline/index.html
A Looming Disaster: New Data Reveal Where Flood Damage Is An Existential Threat https://www.npr.org/2021/02/22/966428165/a-looming-disaster-new-data-reveal-where-flood-damage-is-an-existential-threat
The United States has warned inaction by world powers on climate change is tantamount to a “mutual suicide pact” after countries such as China, India, and Russia expressed scepticism on the global security threat it posed.
John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the Pentagon has described the climate crisis as “a threat multiplier”.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/24/mutual-suicide-us-issues-stark-warning-on-climate-change
“A Climate Resilience Road Map for the New Administration” https://www.resourcesmag.org/archives/a-climate-resilience-road-map-for-the-new-administration/
Alaska may need to brace for more thunderstorms — along with the landslides, floods and wildfires they can bring — if current climate trends continue, a team of scientists warns. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-alaska/alaska-thunderstorms-could-triple-if-climate-trends-continue-scientists-warn-idUSKBN2AO2JT
Atlantic currents seem to have started fading last century : Another predicted impact of climate change may be here. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/atlantic-currents-seem-to-have-started-fading-last-century/
8AM MST, tomorrow morning, 2nd
Climate warming is lifting the lid off the Arctic Ocean https://cage.uit.no/2021/04/13/snow-chaos-in-europe-caused-by-melting-sea-ice-in-the-arctic/
“What we’re finding is that sea-ice is effectively a lid on the ocean. And with its long-term reduction across the Arctic, we’re seeing increasing amounts of moisture enter the atmosphere during winter, which directly impacts our weather further south, causing extreme heavy snowfalls. It might seem counter-intuitive, but nature is complex and what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.” says Dr. Hanna Bailey at the University of Oulu, Finland.
When analyzing the long-term trends from 1979 onwards, researchers found that for every square meter of winter sea-ice lost from the Barents Sea, there was a corresponding 70 kg increase in the evaporation, moisture, and snow falling over Europe.
Their findings indicate that within the next 60 years, a predicted ice-free Barents Sea will likely become a significant source of increased winter precipitation – be it rain or snow – for Europe.
Re: ‘Beast from the East’ (Anticyclone Hartmut) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_British_Isles_cold_wave
8AM MDT, this morning, 16th
“Tropical species are moving northward in U.S. as winters warm : Insects, reptiles, fish and plants migrating north as winter freezes in South become less frequent” (University of California – Berkeley) https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uoc–tsa031921.php
“What early-budding trees tell us about genetics, climate change” (Michigan Technological University) https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/mtu-wet032221.php
Great post.
Thanks for sharing.
https://thesocialtalks.com/world/climate-change-a-vital-thread-with-adverse-effects/