Climate Change Anecdotes

I had heard we expected jellyfish to do better than bony fish in a warming world, which was a problem because jellyfish are not very tasty, but octopuses are really good, so I do not see this as such an issue.

There used to be a time when fishing boats would go to sea, and take whatever they could catch.

But there seems to be a little over specialisation and inflexibility in the supply chain now.

I.e. they ought to be getting them to port, processed and chilled or frozen for the market.
 
Italy declares state of emergency in five regions over drought

Italy is facing an unusually early heatwave and a lack of rainfall, particularly in the northern agricultural Po valley, which has been hit by its worst drought in decades.

According to the country’s largest agricultural union, Coldiretti, the drought threatens more than 30 percent of national agricultural production, and half of the farms in the Po Valley, where Parma ham is produced.

Lakes Maggiore and Garda – located close to Milan between the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy – were also hit by lower than normal water levels for this time of year, while further south the Tiber river, which runs through Rome, also dropped.

In recent days, several municipalities have announced restrictions. Verona, a city of a quarter of a million people, has rationed the use of drinking water, while Milan has announced the closure of its decorative fountains.

As a result of the drought, hydroelectric power production has fallen sharply. Hydroelectric plants, mostly in the mountainous north of the country, account for nearly 20 percent of national energy production.
 
There are so many in the news ATM:

The collapse of a glacier on the Marmolada mountain, which has killed at least seven people, seems likely to be a herald of things to come.

Glaciers in Europe’s Alps are becoming more unstable and dangerous as rising temperatures linked to climate change are reawakening what were long seen as dormant, almost fossilised sheets of ice.

The collapse of the glacier was “without doubt linked to the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation”, Draghi said during a visit to the headquarters of the rescue operation in the Dolomites.

The tragedy struck one day after a record-high temperature of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded at the summit of the glacier, which has been rapidly melting over the past decades, with much of its volume gone.
Snow at Austrian observatory 3,000 metres above sea level melting earlier than ever before

The snow at the highest observatory in the world to be operated all-year-round is expected to completely melt in the next few days, the earliest time on record.

Scientists at the Sonnblick observatory in the Austrian Central Alps, which is 3,106 metres (10,190ft) above sea level, have been shocked and dismayed to see the snow depleting so quickly.

Some years the peak is covered in snow all summer. But this year it has melted more than a month before the previous record time, which was 13 August in 1963 and 2003.
‘Every year it gets worse’: on the frontline of the climate crisis in Bangladesh

Ever since she was a little girl, Amina Ahmed has been afraid of the water. Growing up in Sylhet, north-east of Bangladesh, the heavy rainfall that typically occurs during monsoon season would make her anxious.

But this year’s flooding has been unlike anything she’s ever seen before. “Every year, it gets a little worse but I don’t think anyone expected anything this extreme,” Ahmed says.

Over the past few weeks, catastrophic flash floods – the worst in Bangladesh in a century – have inundated much of Sylhet, where rising waters have washed away whole towns, killing at least 68 people and leaving thousands displaced. According to the UN, an estimated 7.2 million people across seven districts have been affected.
 
More glacier problems, with photos

We saw the spectacular videos of the flood caused by a glacial lake collapsing earlier (was it only in May?), but apparently that is just the tip of the iceberg. Pakistan is home to more than 7,000 glaciers, more than anywhere else on Earth outside the poles. But rising global temperatures linked to climate change are causing the glaciers to rapidly melt, creating thousands of glacial lakes. The government has warned that 33 of these lakes, all located in the spectacular Himalaya, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges that intersect in Pakistan, are at risk of bursting and releasing millions of cubic metres of water and debris in just a few hours, like in Hassanabad.


Passu glacier near Passu village in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.


Engineers and construction workers built a concrete wall to protect Passu village from land erosion. I think they are going to need a bigger wall.


Houses were damaged and swept away by the lake after the glacier melted, in Hassanabad.
 
There are so many in the news ATM:

The collapse of a glacier on the Marmolada mountain, which has killed at least seven people, seems likely to be a herald of things to come.

Glaciers in Europe’s Alps are becoming more unstable and dangerous as rising temperatures linked to climate change are reawakening what were long seen as dormant, almost fossilised sheets of ice.

The collapse of the glacier was “without doubt linked to the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation”, Draghi said during a visit to the headquarters of the rescue operation in the Dolomites.

The tragedy struck one day after a record-high temperature of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded at the summit of the glacier, which has been rapidly melting over the past decades, with much of its volume gone.
Snow at Austrian observatory 3,000 metres above sea level melting earlier than ever before

The snow at the highest observatory in the world to be operated all-year-round is expected to completely melt in the next few days, the earliest time on record.

Scientists at the Sonnblick observatory in the Austrian Central Alps, which is 3,106 metres (10,190ft) above sea level, have been shocked and dismayed to see the snow depleting so quickly.

Some years the peak is covered in snow all summer. But this year it has melted more than a month before the previous record time, which was 13 August in 1963 and 2003.
‘Every year it gets worse’: on the frontline of the climate crisis in Bangladesh

Ever since she was a little girl, Amina Ahmed has been afraid of the water. Growing up in Sylhet, north-east of Bangladesh, the heavy rainfall that typically occurs during monsoon season would make her anxious.

But this year’s flooding has been unlike anything she’s ever seen before. “Every year, it gets a little worse but I don’t think anyone expected anything this extreme,” Ahmed says.

Over the past few weeks, catastrophic flash floods – the worst in Bangladesh in a century – have inundated much of Sylhet, where rising waters have washed away whole towns, killing at least 68 people and leaving thousands displaced. According to the UN, an estimated 7.2 million people across seven districts have been affected.
Yep, anybody who bothered to look at a sea level rise in the last 20 yrs could see a *lot* of Bangladesh will go under. It's largely made up of deltas of 2 massive river systems.
 
Century-old stone hut built by Swiss guides in Rockies dismantled due to erosion
Abbot Pass Hut was designated a national historic site in 1992

When a daring construction crew entered a century-old hut in the Rockies on the first day of its takedown, they lit the fireplace one last time and discussed for an hour the gravity of what they were about to do.

"The whole crew knew the grandness and the sadness of what we were doing," said Sean Alexander, the manager of the construction crew that last month took apart the Abbot Pass Refuge Cabin.

"This was not just a regular takedown of a barn," Alexander said during a news conference on Wednesday. "This was history."

Parks Canada says only a piece of wall, some stone steps and a plaque about the Abbot Pass Refuge Cabin remain at the site that straddles the Continental Divide and the Alberta-British Columbia boundary.

The hut was designated a national historic site in 1992. At an elevation of 2,925 metres, the Abbot Pass Cabin was the second-highest permanently habitable structure in Canada. It was named after Philip Stanley Abbot, who was an American lawyer and the first recorded person to die while mountaineering in North America.

Parks Canada says it had to be dismantled because of erosion. Removal work was completed on June 30, according to Parks Canada's superintendent of the Yoho Kootenay Lake Louise field unit, François Masse, who spoke at Wednesday's news conference.

"The workers did salvage everything they could that could have heritage value," Masse said.

Parks Canada is preserving those salvaged stones, according to Masse, including key pieces of rock used to build the cornerstones.

Parks Canada says staff noticed in 2016 that the slope the hut sat on was unstable and, two years later, some construction was done to stabilize the rocks.

But due to harsh weather and the COVID-19 pandemic, additional work was delayed to 2021, and by then it was too late to preserve the structure. Masse said the hut was well-built and could have stayed in place for decades to come had it not been for climate change.

According to Masse, Parks Canada spent significant amounts of money trying to stabilize the hut. In 2019, the estimated costs for attempts to salvage the hut were about $1.13 million.

'Nobody wanted to see it go'
Keith Haberl, director of marketing and communications at the Alpine Club of Canada, said it was hard news to hear when earlier this year, Parks Canada announced it would be dismantling the cabin. The Alpine Club managed the hut for more than 30 years before it closed to visitors in 2018.

"It's emotional. It's heartbreaking," said Haberl.

"Nobody wanted to see it go."

Seeing the hut go was not only an emotionally difficult process — the crew that dismantled the cabin faced a difficult feat.

Sean Alexander of Tangiers Mountain Construction said his crew felt very fatigued working up at that high altitude. However, he reminded his crew how difficult it would have been for the original builders to haul the stones up the mountain and construct the cabin.

"We fly up in a helicopter and they didn't," he said.

Alexander said his crew found excitement in discovering small treasures hidden in the walls and floors of the cabin.

"You would hear a scream from upstairs going, 'Hey, I found something! Look at this! Look at this name on this wall.'"

"One of my favourites was what I think was an original walking stick that we found under the floor … and some very unique coins that were slit in purposely, I believe, in between pieces of wood that you wouldn't have found unless you pulled that piece of wood on."

In the coming months, Masse said, Parks Canada will engage with stakeholders, Indigenous groups and the public to identify possible options to recognize the historic importance of the hut.

Masse also said the dismantling of the hut is one of many examples of how climate change is affecting Canadian parks.

"This is something as an agency that we have to be extremely cognizant about. We have a lot of scientific staff that are keeping a close eye on the influence in the environments that we're managing, and trying to understand where it's going and how we can mitigate it."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/historic-abbot-hut-substantially-removed-1.6519463
 
And encouraging people to literally hold up giant victim cards for mass media to spread... am I the only one reminded of those car card games when a child?

Just that we replaced cubic capacity with latitude and cylinder capacity with brownness of skin or something? Like real grown ups.

I know, the statistics... well guess what... they are stupid. It is all stupid. No wonder it took me forever to get over my wrath phase. So better I just leave it at that... must still finish cleaning my room... and one should start small! hehe

I for one highly recommend the appendix of the novel State of Fear on the matter. People these days....
 
Climate change moving border, may force restaurant to change from pizza to fondue

A melting glacier in the Alps has shifted the border between Switzerland and Italy, putting the location of an Italian mountain lodge in dispute.​
The borderline runs along a drainage divide – the point at which meltwater will run down either side of the mountain towards one country or the other.​
But the Theodul Glacier’s retreat means the watershed has crept towards the Rifugio Guide del Cervino, a refuge for visitors near the 3,480-metre (11,417ft) Testa Grigia peak – and it is gradually sweeping underneath the building.​
When the refuge was built on a rocky outcrop in 1984, its 40 beds and long wooden tables were entirely in Italian territory. But now two-thirds of the lodge, including most of the beds and the restaurant, is technically perched in southern Switzerland.​

 
Climate change moving border, may force restaurant to change from pizza to fondue

A melting glacier in the Alps has shifted the border between Switzerland and Italy, putting the location of an Italian mountain lodge in dispute.​
The borderline runs along a drainage divide – the point at which meltwater will run down either side of the mountain towards one country or the other.​
But the Theodul Glacier’s retreat means the watershed has crept towards the Rifugio Guide del Cervino, a refuge for visitors near the 3,480-metre (11,417ft) Testa Grigia peak – and it is gradually sweeping underneath the building.​
When the refuge was built on a rocky outcrop in 1984, its 40 beds and long wooden tables were entirely in Italian territory. But now two-thirds of the lodge, including most of the beds and the restaurant, is technically perched in southern Switzerland.​


Switzerland could end up biggest country in Europe without firing a shot.
 
Carbon dating relies on the ratio of radioactive carbon-14 to non-radioactive carbon-12. Without us the level is kept fairly stable as C14 is created by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere being balanced by C14 breaking down. Our nuke testing in the '50s and '60s altered this upward, so there was more C14 than pre-industrial levels. As of 2021, the burning of fossil fuels has officially shifted the composition of carbon isotopes in the air of the Northern Hemisphere enough to cancel this out. This further complicates carbon dating and “could soon make it difficult to tell if something is 1,000 years old or modern”, says Paula Reimer, a radiocarbon-dating specialist at Queen’s University Belfast.


Writeup
Spoiler Article :
The fraction of radioactive carbon-14 (denoted as 14C/C) in atmospheric carbon dioxide increased after nuclear-bomb testing produced excess 14 C in the 1950s and 1960s, but is now falling below pre-industrial levels (see, for example, go.nature.com/3d96k8a). The ongoing decline is due mainly to increased fossil-fuel emissions, which contain carbon but no 14C. This has consequences for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating in archaeology, for example, is based on the decay of 14C over time. A low value for 14 C/C in recently formed materials could therefore incorrectly imply that these are aged. Conversely, in fields such as forensics and forgery detection, recently formed materials will no longer be easily identifiable by having a raised 14 C/C ratio. The decline in atmospheric 14C/C will stop if fossil-fuel burning is phased out to limit global warming. But with emissions still rising (see go.nature.com/3nu2qmr), atmospheric 14C/C could drop to levels that mimic those in the Middle Ages by 2050
 
Century-old stone hut built by Swiss guides in Rockies dismantled due to erosion
Abbot Pass Hut was designated a national historic site in 1992

When a daring construction crew entered a century-old hut in the Rockies on the first day of its takedown, they lit the fireplace one last time and discussed for an hour the gravity of what they were about to do.

I had a look at the photo.

The hut appears to have been built on unconsolidated glacial till, an unstable foundation at the best of times.
 
Carbon dating relies on the ratio of radioactive carbon-14 to non-radioactive carbon-12. Without us the level is kept fairly stable as C14 is created by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere being balanced by C14 breaking down. Our nuke testing in the '50s and '60s altered this upward, so there was more C14 than pre-industrial levels. As of 2021, the burning of fossil fuels has officially shifted the composition of carbon isotopes in the air of the Northern Hemisphere enough to cancel this out. This further complicates carbon dating and “could soon make it difficult to tell if something is 1,000 years old or modern”, says Paula Reimer, a radiocarbon-dating specialist at Queen’s University Belfast.


Writeup
Spoiler Article :
The fraction of radioactive carbon-14 (denoted as 14C/C) in atmospheric carbon dioxide increased after nuclear-bomb testing produced excess 14 C in the 1950s and 1960s, but is now falling below pre-industrial levels (see, for example, go.nature.com/3d96k8a). The ongoing decline is due mainly to increased fossil-fuel emissions, which contain carbon but no 14C. This has consequences for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating in archaeology, for example, is based on the decay of 14C over time. A low value for 14 C/C in recently formed materials could therefore incorrectly imply that these are aged. Conversely, in fields such as forensics and forgery detection, recently formed materials will no longer be easily identifiable by having a raised 14 C/C ratio. The decline in atmospheric 14C/C will stop if fossil-fuel burning is phased out to limit global warming. But with emissions still rising (see go.nature.com/3nu2qmr), atmospheric 14C/C could drop to levels that mimic those in the Middle Ages by 2050
I guess we need to conduct more nuke testing then
 
I've been pondering lately.

I've mentioned before that I pay for the externalities on my voluntary emissions (and I'm a little aggressive in defining 'voluntary', because others aren't). I originally worked through the calculations, and decided that funding an advocacy group was the best use of those dollars. But when I look at the distribution of economic harms from our delay in pivoting, it strikes me that just paying the people whose children I'm harming might also work. Funding their ability to adapt will be a similar effect, but might even be better if they're compounding growth faster than the increase in damage. In other words, hiring a middle-income expert to advocate is being compared to hiring a low-income economy to grow itself. I subscribe to the thesis that R&D is the long-term solution here, but that's quite difficult to fund directly.
 

Billionaires are funding a massive treasure hunt in Greenland as ice vanishes​

Nuussuaq, Greenland (CNN)Some of the world's richest men are funding a massive treasure hunt, complete with helicopters and transmitters, on the west coast of Greenland.
The climate crisis is melting Greenland down at an unprecedented rate, which -- in a twist of irony -- is creating an opportunity for investors and mining companies who are searching for a trove of critical minerals capable of powering the green energy transition.
A band of billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, among others, is betting that below the surface of the hills and valleys on Greenland's Disko Island and Nuussuaq Peninsula there are enough critical minerals to power hundreds of millions of electric vehicles.

"We are looking for a deposit that will be the first- or second-largest most significant nickel and cobalt deposit in the world," Kurt House, CEO of Kobold Metals, told CNN.

The Arctic's disappearing ice -- on land and in the ocean -- highlights a unique dichotomy: Greenland is ground zero for the impacts of climate change, but it could also become ground zero for sourcing the metals needed to power the solution to the crisis.
The billionaire club is financially backing Kobold Metals, a mineral exploration company and California-based startup, the company's representatives told CNN. Bezos, Bloomberg and Gates did not respond to CNN's requests for comment on this story. Kobold is partnered with Bluejay Mining to find the rare and precious metals in Greenland that are necessary to build electric vehicles and massive batteries to store renewable energy.

More here:

 
Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change

We found that 58% (that is, 218 out of 375) of infectious diseases confronted by humanity worldwide have been at some point aggravated by climatic hazards; 16% were at times diminished. Empirical cases revealed 1,006 unique pathways in which climatic hazards, via different transmission types, led to pathogenic diseases. The human pathogenic diseases and transmission pathways aggravated by climatic hazards are too numerous for comprehensive societal adaptations, highlighting the urgent need to work at the source of the problem: reducing GHG emissions.​


Spoiler Legend :
Here we display the pathways in which climatic hazards, via specific transmission types, result in the aggravation of specific pathogenic diseases. The thickness of the lines is proportional to the number of unique pathogenic diseases. The colour gradient indicates the proportional quantity of diseases, with darker colours representing larger quantities and lighter colours representing fewer. Numbers at each node are indicative of the number of unique pathogenic diseases (caveats in Supplementary Information 1). An interactive display of the pathways and the underlying data are available at https://camilo-mora.github.io/Diseases/. Several disease names were abbreviated to optimize the use of space in the figure; their extended names are provided in Supplementary Table 1. Credits: word clouds, WordArt.com; bacteria, Wikimedia Commons (www.scientificanimations.com); other images, istockphoto.
 

To rate wildfire danger, Britain looks to Canada​

The Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System is being adapted by U.K. researchers

Andy Elliott trudges up a hill through a large, blackened patch of the heath lands in the Dorset countryside where he and a crew of firefighters put out a wildfire the week before.

Charred branches reach up from the soil like antlers made of coal.

"Fire conditions across the U.K. are really extraordinary, and particularly in the southeast of England," Elliott said. "We would use the word extreme."

The firefighter and wildfire researcher with the University of Exeter says that though the U.K. has always had lots of small wildfires, they're now seeing blazes become larger and more intense, threatening lives and homes.

Elliott leans down to put a soil moisture gauge in the ground and reaches into the brush to collect crisp leaves and brambles which he places in a bag. These samples will be taken to a university lab where they'll be ignited under controlled conditions to measure how flammable they are and how they could fuel a fire.

It's all part of a project involving universities and researchers across the U.K. to adapt a national wildfire danger rating system based on the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System.

U.K. teams hope to create single system​

"The U.K. doesn't officially have a fire danger rating system as such," Elliott said.

"It's very ad hoc. It's down to local fire rescue services to put safety messages out, and the local authorities will put safety messages out, but there's no real co-ordination."

Elliott and the teams working across the country hope to change that by adopting the Canadian system to create a single source of high-quality information for fire officials to use to plan and warn the public.

Because there are such a diverse number of ecosystems in the United Kingdom, teams in different areas have had to split off to do field work.

"Fuels are different across the U.K. We recognize that they change with latitude," Elliott said.

"So all of that is being looked at and measured at the moment so that we can give a system that will be, we hope, publicly available, that we hope will be used by the responding emergency services."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/wildfire-danger-rating-system-canada-u-k-1.6544860
 
Last month was one of the warmest Julys on record, says UN

Last month marked one of the three hottest Julys ever recorded, with global temperatures measuring nearly half a degree Celsius (0.9F) above average, the United Nations’ weather agency has said.​
“The world just had one of the three warmest Julys on record,” Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.​
And this despite the fact that the weather phenomenon La Nina, which has held the globe in its clutches almost uninterrupted since September 2020, “is meant to have a cooling influence”.​
In a month that saw temperature records broken across parts of northern Europe and the United Kingdom, C3S said July was drier than average for much of the continent, noting a number of low-precipitation records in several locations. C3S said July was also abnormally dry across much of North America, South America, Central Asia and Australia.​
Lowest July Antarctic sea ice

Meanwhile, C3S recorded the lowest extent of Antarctic sea ice on record for July.​
The monitoring service found Antarctic sea ice extent reached 15.3 million square kilometres (5.9 million square miles) – some 1.1 million sq km, or 7 percent, below the 1991-2020 average for July.​
This was the lowest ice cover for July since satellite records began 44 years ago, and followed record-low Antarctic sea ice levels for June, too.​
Arctic sea ice cover, meanwhile, was 4 percent lower than average, making it the 12th lowest July sea ice extent on record.​
 
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