Man-made climate change makes heatwaves twice more likely

 Last updated on July 30th, 2018 at 3:10 pm by Mihai Andrei
As large swaths of the northern hemisphere are dealing with some of the worst heatwaves in history, researchers have just published a study showing that climate change resulting from human activities makes such events twice as likely.
https://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Storm_Eleanor_01-02-2018.jpgMan-induced climate change makes climate events much more likely, studies have consistently shown. Depicted here, the 2018 storm Eleanor.

Summers are supposed to be hot — but in many parts of the world, it’s unnaturally and unbearably hot. The UK has witnessed its driest summer in modern history, Japan reported the hottest local temperatures in recorded history, and Scandinavia, known for its frigid temperatures, has been sizzling in temperatures over 30°C (86°F).

It’s hard to draw a direct cause-effect relationship between a complex, global phenomenon and singular heatwaves — but there’s a very good chance the two are connected. In the new study, renowned climatologist Michael Mann and colleagues address this issue, looking at data from seven weather stations in Finland, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. They chose these stations because they all had digitized records dating back to the early 1900s, unlike most other stations.
They found that, on average, man-induced climate change made heatwaves two times more likely. The results were not uniform and varied by country: in the Netherlands, Ireland, and Denmark, the odds of heatwaves have increased more than twofold.
“We found that for the weather station in the far north, in the Arctic Circle, the current heatwave is just extraordinary – unprecedented in the historical record,” said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and also part of World Weather Attribution, who worked on the study.

The influence of climate change
Assessing the influence of climate change involves complex models and number crunching. Researchers attribute how often extreme events happen at a particular weather station and then compare them with modeled results of climate without the influence of human emissions of greenhouses gases (especially CO2). This way, they work out how likely climate change is to influence extreme weather events.

These studies are called attribution studies.
Attribution studies are much easier to carry out thanks to the increased processing power of modern computers, and scientists often focus on weather stations which have digitized data, which also makes the analysis easier. Such a study used to take several years, but this new analysis was made in little over a week.
Multiple lines of evidence support attribution of recent climate change to human activities, and scientists have high confidence that human activities are to blame.

Climate scientists are loath to say that an event is “caused” by climate change, but in this case, results are “unambiguous.”
“In many parts of Europe three day heat is not very exceptional and you could argue that it would be better to look at longer,” said Dr. Friederike Otto from the University of Oxford, one of the study’s authors. “But we’ve looked at longer periods and it doesn’t change the result very much.”

This is by no means a singular study — previous efforts have also consistently linked climate change with extreme weather events (both hot and cold). For instance, the heatwave in South Wales, Australia, was made at least 50 times more likely by global warming. The 2017 “Lucifer” heatwave across Europe’s 

Mediterranean nations was made at least 10 times more likely by climate change, and Hurricane Harvey was 3 times more likely thanks to climate change. Overall, many extreme climate events — and the increasingly hot summers — are linked with man-made climate change. A previous study from last year, also co-authored by Mann, found that all these extreme weather patterns are very likely linked to climate change. Mann actually believes this study may have understated the effects of climate change.
We are now in the phase that the effects of climate change are way beyond deniability — it’s time to start acting and tackling this problem — or suffer the consequences.

Knight Jonny C. 

California is burning ... Again

 

At Scripps Pier in San Diego, the surface water reached the highest temperature in 102 years of records, 78.8 degrees.

Palm Springs had its warmest July on record, with an average of 97.4 degrees. Death Valley experienced its hottest month on record, with the average temperature hitting 108.1. Park rangers said the heat was too much for some typically hardy birds that died in the broiling conditions.

Across California, the nighttime brought little relief, recording the highest minimum temperature statewide of any month since 1895.

California has been getting hotter for some time, but July was in a league of its own. The intense heat fueled fires across the state, from San Diego County to Redding, that have burned more than 1,000 homes and killed eight. It brought heat waves that overwhelmed electrical systems, leaving swaths of Los Angeles without power for days.

 

Moreover, the extreme conditions — capping years of trends heading in this direction — have caused scientists and policymakers to speak more openly and emphatically about what is causing this dramatic shift.

A decade ago, some scientists would warn against making broad conclusions linking an extraordinary heat wave to global warming. But the pace of heat records being broken in California in recent years is leading more scientists here to assertively link climate change to unrelenting heat that is only expected to worsen as humans continue putting greenhouse gases in the air.

“In the past, it would just be kind of once in a while — the odd year where you be really warm,” state climatologist Michael Anderson said.

But the last five years have been among the hottest in 124 years of record keeping, Anderson said.

 “That’s definitely an indication that the world is warming, and things are starting to change,” said Anderson, who manages the California Department of Water Resources’ state climate program. “We’re starting to see things where it’s different. It’s setting the narrative of climate change.”

 

Gov. Jerry Brown, who has made climate change a central part of his agenda, was more blunt last week when discussing the devastation in Redding. “People are doing everything they can, but nature is very powerful and we’re not on the side of nature,” he said. “We’re fighting nature with the amount of material we’re putting in the environment, and that material traps heat.”

 

Signs of the trend are everywhere. California endured its warmest summer on record last year. But those all-time temperature records have been topped in recent months — On July 6, all-time temperature records were set at UCLA (111), Burbank and Santa Ana (114), and Van Nuys (117). Chino hit 120 degrees, the highest ever recorded in the Ontario, Riverside or Chino areas.

It was the warmest July on record in Fresno; for 26 consecutive days that month, temperatures reached or exceeded 100 degrees — the longest continuous stretch on record, said Brian Ochs, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford. (Maximum temperatures have continued to top 100 through the first several days of August.)

In terms of average temperature, it was the warmest July on record in San Luis Obispo , Oxnard, Camarillo, Long Beach, Van Nuys, Lancaster  and Palmdale, said weather service meteorologist Samantha Connolly.

Of particular concern is how overnight temperatures continue to climb. It’s no coincidence that they’re all in recent years, experts say.

“We are seeing the impacts of climate change now,” said Nina Oakley, regional climatologist for the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno. “This is certainly it. It’s happening.”

The effects are felt far beyond the record books. The mercury hit 113 in Redding and tied its temperature record for July 26 — the day the Carr fire raced out of control and began killing people.

It was one day among months of above-average temperatures that had dried out the brush to such a degree that it helped fuel the blaze’s ferocious spread.
 

And the lack of lower temperatures overnight has made fires harder to fight.

“You have greenhouse gases acting like a blanket and not letting things cool down as much — keeping things warmer,” Oakley said.

Take a look at a map of the world’s temperatures years ago, and an old heat wave  would be just one spot on Earth that’s anomalously warm, said Neil Lareau, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno. Now, “on a world map, the vast majority of the globe is hotter than normal,” he said.

“This is not some fluke. This is part of a sustained trend".
 

The excessive heat is already causing problems for wildlife. In Death Valley, where daytime highs reached at least 120 degrees on 18 of the last 19 days of the month, many birds have turned up dead in the last two weeks, the National Park Service said. The birds lacked signs of trauma, leading officials to believe they died from the intense heat. Birds lack the ability to produce sweat and instead cool themselves by puffing up their feathers and panting.

Before this July, last year’s was the hottest on record at Death Valley, when the average temperature hit 107.4. That one broke a 100-year-old record.

Off the Southern California coast, scientists say more record temperature readings could be broken in August, when maximum surface temperatures tend to be reached. Warming water temperatures can alter the marine food chain in various ways — bringing about toxic algae that make crabs, for example, dangerous to eat. Researchers are also seeing more warm water animals off the coast like jellyfish and sting rays.

Some experts thought water temperatures would return to more normal lower levels after El Niño faded, said Clarissa Anderson, executive director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System.

But that hasn’t happened. Temperatures have kept rising off Southern California, with near-shore surface temperatures a couple of degrees Celsius higher than average, Anderson said.
 

And the warm air temperatures are a foreboding sign for the rest of the fire season.

Projections show the next few months are likely to have well above-average activity in most of California’s fire zones, particularly in northern and central California, where the worst fires are burning now, Swain said.

“The fuels up there are just explosively dry,” Swain said, “due to a combination of low precipitation last winter, extremely high temperatures this summer and also, still, the legacy of the long-term drought.

“We’re having peak fire season conditions in the off-peak time of year, and there’s no real indication that things are going to get better before the peak of the season in the fall,” Swain said.

Barring an unseasonable period of rain, conditions will remain ripe for severe fires, he said.

“Time will tell, but it does look like this severe fire season is going to continue to be severe,” Swain said.
Get used to these conditions because they are the new norm. And in the future, these conditions will be the good old days.

Poppa and Me-----Peewee Football

Hi everyone   did you miss me   I been bust all summer   we are spending the summer on the lake  we take short trips with daddy to take  help him with all  the family busness  his brothers  and sister help him   it a lot of  business   there  racetrack   I have  race horde  his name is Horse  poppa gave him yo me when  he was born i was  4   Horse sray at the ranch in Reno  he is not there now  the traner  got him on the runing  curcut  I saw him  in June  he was in Erie  Pennylania  he came in 3   he know me  I gave Horse  a apple  , I tell the traner to give Horse apples every day 
We had a raley for climate change   we got lot of name    did you read the post  Aunt Jeannie post # this is zerohour.org    youth climate March   we join them  my sister  call kids in Bossier   told them to read  and join  to have a raley  it was fun    we went to Reno bedore  met Charles  and Charlene   we became  friend  they want to know about climate chgne   Jenny read aunt Jeannie post  call them  they was not at home    Jenny told their daddy she is emal them some  stuff  get back with her  no mater the time  we will be up    Bossier   Reno  teenager  join #thisiszerohour .org  any age can join I am a member  and my mama  member  aunt Jeannie is member    we have  lot of grown up member       Charles  Charlene is twins  they come to visit  see how we run our meet   their mama   daddy came  this weekend  they work in Reno  at Circus  and Silver Legcy  . Our aunt Jeannie lives is Canada  she and mama  was friends before I born  join us to make this a better place  for all things to live .
n  I say poppa  we do not  drink ow for my poppa  story 
I was on the 2 grade  I say poppa I want to play football  bubba wil play  we win all the game   poppa say good idea  poppa say he will go with me  to pratice  and my games   my uncle Glenn play football for cowboys  before I born  he was qurterback  poppa say   uncle Glenn will come  show Bubba and me some stuff   
poppa take me to by football stuff  poppa say Man  you need  a cup   I say poppa  we do not drink  when we is on the field   poppa say yhe cup is not  for drink  I say poppa  why do I need a cup  poppa say you need the cup to put on  your gun  
poppa say to the man  he need a cup  the man say what size  poppa say  he will check to see  we went to a room with miror  poppa look   he  say to the man  he need this size  for his gun  I say poppa what I need  cup for  poppa say when  you fall down you  it wil not break 
I show my stuff to them  mama hug me say my litle man grow up  daddy look at mama   he smile   daddy say  baby did not  cry  baby is grow up 
Eloise say  diner  is  ready  I run to my room   pul of my clothes  put on my cup    my chair is next to aunt Mae   and poppa   aunt mae say Nee  Man is nake  I say no mama  I got  on my cup , i got  up on my chair   to  let mama see  they  start smiling   mama say  go put  pants on your musty but 
it was a fat boy on the  team  he was in the 2 grade    his mama nad lot of stuff on him  not to get hurt    we start game   the fat boy got the ball  they say run Dennis    other boys run to us   to get the ball  Dennis  saw the boys   come  dennis  ran the oyher way   dennis fall down  the other boy got the ball  we run aftr the  boy with the ball  we not cath him  Dennis  try to get up  he had to much stuff on   he was on his back   Dennis mama   come got him up 
it was time for the othr team to kick the ball to us   I got the ball  uncle Glen was  on the side with our coach  he say run  Man  do not let them catch you   i run fast  I look back  a  big  boy  was going to catch me   uncle Glen say run  I look back  the boy was going to catch me   I throw the ball to one side   I run to the other side  to poppa  
rhe other boys got the ball  we cath them   take the ball   and run  the coach  blow  his wisher   we did not stop   we run   the  game end in a tie  we all got  0    it was fun  
poppa say he prod of me   we got beter   my big brother play football  in high school  he  can run fast  , lot of girls like him   he no have a stedy  girlfriend    go out in date with a lot of girl    my brother talk to poppa abiut  girl  now he talk to daddy  about girls  we not talk to mama about girl  poppa say mama is a girl   dhe not know what to tel us  mama talk to my sisters about boy   
poppa  take me  on walks  we look for 4 leaf clover I have some  in my favrite book poppa gave me  poppa love buterflys   poppa say the  come from caterpiller  turn in to somethng very beatiful and grecful  poppa and I sit in the garden  watch the  buterflys  aaand feed the  birds  sometme uncle Harvey   mr  Larry come  out  sit with  us   they tell me    bubba  to go see what  aunt  Mamie   aunr Snita    MeMa    mama  was cookng   it was time  for them to get some food  .Poppa draw   paint pictue he draw     write poems     poppa   write lot of peom about my grandmama Rosa   I will ask  saddy can I  put  some in my  p oppa and me post  they are so pretty.
I will not stay away so long  it is summer  play time  we are on the lake   we go home  stay  
hope you enjoy read about my poppa .

Knight Man  C.

Heatwave was triggered by climate change, according to new research

July 30, 2018,          University of Oxford 
The unprecedented temperatures seen over Summer 2018 are a sign of things to come, and are a direct result of climate change, according to new Oxford University research. Credit: Shutterstock 
The unprecedented temperatures seen over Summer 2018 are a sign of things to come—and a direct result of climate change, according to new Oxford University research. 

In the newly published report, researchers from the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the School of Geography and Environment, Oxford University, who worked in collaboration with the World Weather Attribution network (WWA), reveal that climate change more than doubled the likelihood of the European heatwave, which could come to be known as regular summer temperatures.

Dr. Friederike Otto, Deputy Director of the ECI at the University of Oxford, said: "What was once regarded as unusually warm weather will become commonplace – in some cases, it already has."

The research compares current temperatures with historical records at seven weather stations in northern Europe – two in Finland, one each in Denmark, the Irish Republic, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
These stations were selected because current temperature data could be accessed in real time, and they possess digitised records extending back to the early 1900s. The scientists also used computer models to assess the impact of man-made climate change.

For each year in the historical record, the team looked at the hottest consecutive three-day period. For 2018, it was the hottest three days of the year so far – either observed or in the 
short-term forecast.

The findings show that the planet is definitely heating up, and for some of the weather stations, current temperatures are unprecedented in the historical record.
"We found that for the weather station in the far north, in the Arctic Circle, the current heat wave is just extraordinary – unprecedented in the historical record," said Dr. Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands 

Meteorological Institute (KNMI).
"And while that is a striking finding, it's hard for us to quantify the increase in likelihood accurately because summer temperatures vary a lot from year to year, making it impossible to estimate the trend from the observations. The same is true for the other three northern stations.
"But for the three stations further south – in the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland – the historical record does allow us to make a calculation, and it shows that climate change has generally increased the odds of the current heatwave more than two-fold."

Knight Sha C.

For every Trump tweet about climate change .... a tree is planted

 

An organization has launched a campaign to tackle environmental issues by planting trees for every Donald Trump quote denying climate change.

 

Treepex, sponsors the planting of trees. It has created a new campaign to allow members to “fight back” against Mr Trump, who has publicly and frequently cast doubt on the existence of climate change throughout the years. The campaign titled, Treespond, aims to be an outlet for those frustrated by the  president’s constant comments about climate change, by allowing users to plant trees for every environment-related quote and tweet by Mr Trump. 

                      

 

 

"The main antagonists of our campaign are politicians, one of them: Donald J. Trump, who is one of the biggest climate deniers with THE biggest media stage," the campaign website states.
Treespond has tracked quotes from Mr Trump and evaluated them on a scale of how ignorant the organization perceives the statements to be. The more ignorant Treespond rates a statement, the more trees will be planted for that particular quote.

Treespond has pulled together various quotes and tweets on climate change by Mr Trump, like in 2012 when he tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” Although Mr Trump later claimed his 2012 tweet calling climate change a Chinese hoax was a joke, he has notably been critical of climate change often, since then. He has publicly cited cold temperatures to undermine concerns on global warming.

It costs about $10 for contributors to actually plant a tree for the Treespond campaign; contributors receive information on where the sponsored tree is really planted with updates on the plant’s progress. Treespond has partnered with the American Forestry Association to plant trees across the national forests of California recently devastated by wildfires.

US politicians have fiercely lambasted climate change deniers for opposing scientific consensus that human-caused global climate change is occurring.                   

Such is the case for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old Democratic socialist who defeated longtime US House Representative and Democratic Party star Joe Crowley in a stunning primary victory. She has proposed implementing a bold climate proposal, titled “Green New Deal” aimed at investing in the “development, manufacturing, deployment, and distribution” in green energy.
 

The founders of Treepex told The Independent that its viral campaigns, like Treespond, further its efforts to fight deforestation. Lasha Kvantaliani, co-founder of Treepex, said its platform provides an alternative to having a “verbal argument” about the environment.

“In order to fight back and compensate for the damage a single ignorant opinion can cause, we created a platform that gives ‘a green fighter’ or 'tree hugger' the possibility to skip ‘verbal argument’ and immediately take action”. All of this is done with a lot humor and 'tongue in cheek'.

So, Mr Trump, keep on dissing climate change and climate scientists, keep letting those dumb remarks fall from your cake hole. The more mistruths the better. The more denials....the more trees get planted. That is taking a negative and turning it into a positive.

Information gathered from The Independent ….Thanx

NOT DENIERS....BUT DO-LITTLES....THEY'RE JUST AS BAD

Heatwave and climate change having negative impact on our soil, say experts

August 2, 2018 by Jordan Kenny, University of Manchester 
Credit: CC0 Public Domain 
The recent heatwave and drought could be having a deeper, more negative effect on soil than we first realised say scientists. 
This could have widespread implications for plants and other vegetation which, in turn, may impact on the wider entire ecosystem.
That's because organisms in soil are highly diverse and are responsible not only for producing the soil we need to grow crops, but also provide humans with many other benefits, such as cleaning water and regulating greenhouse gas emissions
The new study, led by researchers at The University of Manchester which has been published in Nature Communications, provides new insight into how a drought alters soil at microbial level. It shows that expected changes in climate will affect UK soil and that soil is not as tough as previously thought.
Due to climate change, disturbances such as drought are increasing in intensity and frequency. These extreme weather conditions change vegetation composition and soil moisture, which in turn impacts the soil's underlying organisms and microbial networks.
By studying how microbes react to severe drought, the study provides a better understanding of how underground soil networks respond to such environmental disturbances.
Lead author, Dr. Franciska de Vries, from Manchester's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, explains: "Soils harbour highly diverse microbial communities that are crucial for soil to function as it should.
"A major challenge is to understand how these complex microbial communities respond to and recover from disturbances, such as climate extremes, which are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity with climate change.
"These microbial communities within the soil play a crucial role in any ecosystem. But it wasn't known how soil networks respond to such disturbances until now."
Sequencing of soil DNA for the study was conducted at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH). Dr. Robert Griffiths, a molecular microbial ecologist at CEH, said: "This study further identifies those key organisms affected by drought, which will guide future research to predict how future soil microbial functions are affected by climate change."
The research team tested the effects of summer drought on plant communities consisting of four common grassland species. They found that drought increased the abundance of a certain fast-growing, drought-tolerant grass. With greater aboveground vegetation comes an increased rate of evapotranspiration, or cycling of water from plants to the atmosphere, lowering the overall soil moisture.
Science conducted as part of Lancaster University's Hazelrigg grassland experiment was key to the findings.
Professor Nick Ostle, from the Lancaster Environment Centre, said: "Our hot and dry summer this year is a 'wake up' to prepare for future weather stresses. We have just had the hottest ten years in UK history. This work shows that continued summer droughts will change soil biology. This matters as we plan for ensuring food security that depends on healthy soil."
Unlike past research, this study considered the multitude of direct and indirect interactions occurring between different microbial organisms in soil. Rather than focusing on select attributes of bacteria and fungi, this research takes a comprehensive approach to studying soil ecosystems.
Dr. de Vries added: "This study allows soil ecologists to estimate the current and future impacts of drought on belowground organisms, helping to understand the complex interactions of species due to climate change." 
Provided by: University of Manchester https://phys.org/partners/ university-of-manchester/https://phys.org/partners/university-of-manchester/
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/ 
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/
Thanx Jordan Kenny

Knight Jonny C. & the visiting  twin Reno Knights Charles & Charlene  J.