Glaciers Created a Huge 'Flour' Dust Storm in Greenland

By Rafi Letzter, Staff Writer | November 2, 2018 
A large plume of "glacier flour" blew off of Greenland Sept. 29.Credit: NASA Earth Observatory 
If you're in Greenland and a strange cloud darkens the sky, that cloud might be made up of something scientists call "glacier flour."

Researchers have written and speculated about glacier-flour dust storms in Greenland for a long time, according to NASA. But it took until this September for investigators to spot such a massive plume of the elusive dust forming and drifting 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of the far-northern village of Ittoqqortoormiit. Glacier flour is a fine dust created when glaciers pulverize rocks, NASA wrote. While satellites had occasionally spotted smaller storms of the stuff, this one was "by far the largest." 

"We have seen a few examples of small dust events before this one, but they are quite difficult to spot with satellites because of cloud cover," Joanna Bullard, a professor of physical geography at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, said in a NASA statement. "When dust events do happen, field data from Iceland and West Greenland indicate that they rarely last longer than two days." [7 Crazy Facts About Dust Storms]
The flour storm formed when a summer floodplain in the region dried out with late September's colder weather, leaving behind a large deposit of sediment carried south from more-northern glaciers.

NASA satellites watched the floodplain become grayer and grayer as it dried out, then saw the plume form when strong winds swept through the area on Sept. 29.

A composite image shows how the plume emerged over the course of several days.Credit: NASA Earth Observatory 
According to NASA, storms like this are interesting because researchers just don't know much about them or how they affect the climate. While large dust storms found closer to the equator have known climate impacts, the role of glacial flour remains a mystery.
Originally published on Live Science.
Thanx Rafi letzter 
Knight Jonny

 

The Seafloor Is Dissolving Away. And Humans Are to Blame.

By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | November 5, 2018 
Carbon emissions are dissolving the seafloor, especially in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Shown here, Azkorri beach in Basque Country in northern Spain.Credit: Inaki Bolumburu/Shutterstock 

Climate change reaches all the way to the bottom of the sea.
The same greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the planet's climate to change are also causing the seafloor to dissolve. And new research has found the ocean bottom is melting away faster in some places than others.

The ocean is what's known as a carbon sink: It absorbs carbon from the atmosphere. And that carbon acidifies the water. In the deep ocean, where the pressure is high, this acidified seawater reacts with calcium carbonate that comes from dead shelled creatures. The reaction neutralizes the carbon, creating bicarbonate.

Over the millennia, this reaction has been a handy way to store carbon without throwing the ocean's chemistry wildly out of whack. But as humans have burned fossil fuels, more and more carbon has ended up in the ocean. In fact, according to NASA, about 48 percent of the excess carbon humans have pumped into the atmosphere has been locked away in the oceans.

-- 7 Ways the Earth Changes in the Blink of an Eye]
All that carbon means more acidic oceans, which means faster dissolution of calcium carbonate on the seafloor. To find out how quickly humanity is burning through the ocean floor's calcium carbonate supply, researchers led by Princeton University atmospheric and ocean scientist Robert Key estimated the likely dissolution rate around the world, using water current data, measurements of calcium carbonate in seafloor sediments and other key metrics like ocean salinity and temperature. They compared the rate with that before the industrial revolution.

Their results, published Oct. 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were a mix of good and bad news. The good news was that most areas of the oceans didn't yet show a dramatic difference in the rate of calcium carbonate dissolution prior to and after the industrial revolution. However, there are multiple hotspots where human-made carbon emissions are making a big difference — and those regions may be the canaries in the coalmine.

The biggest hotspot was the western North Atlantic, where anthropogenic carbon is responsible for between 40 and 100 percent of dissolving calcium carbonate. There were other small hotspots, in the Indian Ocean and in the Southern Atlantic, where generous carbon deposits and fast bottom currents speed the rate of dissolution, the researchers wrote.

The western North Atlantic is where the ocean layer without calcium carbonate has risen 980 feet (300 meters). This depth, called the calcite compensation depth, occurs where the rain of calcium carbonate from dead animals is essentially canceled out by ocean acidity. Below this line, there is no accumulation of calcium carbonate.

The rise in depth indicates that now that there is more carbon in the ocean, dissolution reactions are happening more rapidly and at shallower depths. This line has moved up and down throughout millennia with natural variations in the Earth's atmospheric makeup. Scientists don't yet know what this alteration in the deep sea will mean for the creatures that live there, according to Earther, but future geologists will be able to see man-made climate change in the rocks eventually formed by today's seafloor. Some current researchers have already dubbed this era the Anthropocene, defining it as the point at which human activities began to dominate the environment. 

"Chemical burndown of previously deposited carbonate-rich sediments has already begun and will intensify and spread over vast areas of the seafloor during the next decades and centuries, thus altering the geological record of the deep sea," Key and his colleagues wrote. "The deep-sea benthic [bottom] environment, which covers ~60 percent of our planet, has indeed entered the Anthropocene." 
Originally published on Live Science.
Thanx Stephanie Pappas

Knight Sha

Will This Winter Be Mild or Wild? Here's What We Can Expect

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | October 18, 2018 
The winter outlook 2018-2019 map for temperature shows higher than average temperatures across much of the U.S.Credit: NOAA 
Most of the United States can look forward to a mild winter with above-average temperatures, particularly in Alaska, Hawaii and the northern and western states, experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today (Oct. 18).

Officials with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) shared their predictions at a news conference, describing the outlook for winter precipitation and temperatures in the U.S. from December 2018 through February 2019.

Below-average temperatures are expected to be scarce in every part of the U.S., but there's likely to be plenty of snow or rain, with wetter-than-average conditions predicted for the southern part of the country and up into the mid-Atlantic states, according to the NOAA winter outlook. [In Photos: Best National Parks to Visit During Winter]

A developing El Niño — part of an ocean-climate cycle that can influence weather — could also leave its mark on the winter weather, as El Niño typically brings wetter conditions to the southern U.S., while shaping warm, dry conditions in the North, Mike Halpert, the CPC's deputy director, explained at the news conference.

Northern Florida and southern Georgia have the highest probability of experiencing a wetter-than-average winter, according to the report.

Though El Niño is still taking shape, there's a very good chance — about 70 to 75 percent — that it will emerge over the next few months and persist through the winter, Halpert said. El Niño is part of a climate cycle known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO); during El Niño, warm Pacific Ocean waters shift to the eastern coast of South America. In a strong El Niño year, ocean temperatures are even warmer than average. This phenomenon heats the air above the water and sets up a feedback loop between the sea and the atmosphere, which can dramatically impact weather patterns.

A powerful El Niño can bring unusually warm winter temperatures to the U.S. The winter of 2015 to 2016, which took place during the strongest El Niño in 60 years, was the warmest winter on record for the continental U.S., Halpert said.
However, this year's El Niño is anticipated to be much weaker than that, he added.

As for drought predictions, some relief is expected in Arizona, New Mexico, the southern parts of Colorado and Utah, and the coastal Pacific Northwest.

But drought conditions are expected to persist in the northern Plains states; in Southern California and the interior parts of the Pacific Northwest; and in the central Rockies, the central Plains states and the central Great Basin.

While there is always a certain amount of uncertainty in long-term weather and drought predictions such as these, the track record for the accuracy of the CPC seasonal outlooks is about 40 percent, up from a previous estimate of 30 percent, Halpert said.
"That's the general level for these type of forecasts," he added.
Originally publishedon Live Science.

Thanx Mindy Weisberger
Knight Man

Voters rejected most ballot measures aimed at curbing climate change

From Arizona to Colorado, voters reject measures to ramp up renewables and limit drilling. 
Measures to curb climate change foundered in many Western states, but environmental advocates did see victories in Florida and Nevada. (Luis Velarde /The Washington Post) 
By Brady Dennis and  In Arizona, voters said no to accelerating the shift to renewable energy. In Colorado, they said no to an effort to sharply limit drilling on nonfederal land. And a measure to make Washington the first state to tax carbon emissions appears to have fallen short.
The failure of environmental ballot measures in Arizona and Colorado — and the likely defeat of a proposal to impose fees on carbon emissions in Washington state — underscore the difficulty of tackling a global problem such as climate change at the state and local level, where huge sums of money poured in on both sides.
Even as a U.N.-backed panel of scientists recently warned that the world has barely a decade to radically cut its emissions of greenhouse gases that fuel global warming, the Trump administration has been busy expanding oil and gas drilling and rolling back Obama-era efforts to mitigate climate change. Environmental advocates and Democratic lawmakers have placed much hope in state and local governments to counter those policies.
But while Tuesday saw the election of numerous candidates dedicated to climate action, individual ballot measures aimed at the same goal largely foundered.
“What we learned from this election, in states like Colorado, Arizona, and Washington, is that voters reject policies that would make energy more expensive and less reliable,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, an industry-backed free-market advocacy group.
Richard Newell, president of the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future, drew a different conclusion.
“The complexities and politics of the clean energy transition are best navigated through a legislative process, which has been the basis for virtually all significant state level climate and renewable energy policy,” Newell said in an email. “I would not take this as a repudiation of public desire to address climate change, including through carbon pricing or clean energy standards, but rather that the details and who is engaged in the policy formulation matter, a lot. That’s tough to do through a ballot initiative.” 


Even in the solidly blue state of Washington, initial results looked grim for perhaps the most consequential climate-related ballot measure in the country this fall: a statewide initiative that would have imposed a first-in-the-nation fee on emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases that drive global warming. While voters in King County, home to Seattle, turned out heavily in favor of the measure, residents across the rest of the state largely opposed it.
One bright spot for environmental advocates came in Nevada, where voters appeared poised to pass a measure similar to the one Arizonans rejected. It would require utilities to generate 50 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2030. The proposal was leading handily with most votes tallied Wednesday. But before the measure could become law, it has to survive a second vote in 2020.
Since President Trump took office, a handful of states — notably California — have vowed to serve as a counterweight on energy and environmental policy to a president who frequently dismisses the government’s own findings that human activity is warming the globe. In September, California codified into law a commitment to produce 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free courses by 2045.

But Tuesday’s ballot question results demonstrate the limits to which other states are willing to follow California’s lead — particularly when campaigners against the proposals emphasize the potential impact on pocketbooks.
Supporters and proponents poured an eye-popping amount of money, more than $54 million, into the fight over the future of energy in Arizona. Only two Senate races in the country — in Florida and Texas — saw more spending this year.
The influx of cash underscores how much both sides believed was at stake. The ballot initiative would have amended the Arizona constitution to require electric utilities to use renewable energy for 50 percent of its power generation by 2035. That might seem easily within reach in sunny Arizona. But the state now gets only about 6 percent of its energy from the sun.

The state’s biggest utility, Arizona Public Service, or APS, emerged as the most fervent opponent of the proposal, pouring more than $30 million into a political action committee called Arizonans for Affordable Electricity. In an aggressive ad campaign, the group argued that the measure would cost households an additional $1,000 a year.
“We’ve said throughout this campaign there is a better way to create a clean-energy future for Arizona that is also affordable and reliable,” APS chief executive Don Brandt said in a statement Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, an alliance of dozens of organizations called Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona argued that the shift toward cleaner energy will improve public health and create good jobs in the state. The group got a huge assist from California billionaire investor and political activist Tom Steyer, who donated the lion’s share of the nearly $23.6 million raised through the end of September.
Twenty-nine states and the District already have programs known as Renewable Portfolio Standards, or RPS, that require utilities to ensure a certain amount of the electricity they sell comes from renewable resources. But only a fraction of those have targets as ambitious as the ones proposed this year in Arizona and Nevada. For instance, New York and New Jersey also have targets of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. Hawaii would require 100 percent of its energy to be from renewable sources by 2045.
During the 2018 campaign, however, 11 Democratic candidates for governor vowed to try to get all of their respective states’ electricity from “clean” energy sources by the middle of the century, according to surveys done by the state affiliates of the League of Conservation Voters. Several of those candidates, including Jared Polis in Colorado, won their races.
In Colorado, environmental advocates failed to pass a measure known as Proposition 112. The initiative would have required new wells to be at least 2,500 feet from occupied buildings and other “vulnerable areas” such as parks and irrigation canals — a distance several times that of existing regulations. It also allows local governments to require even larger setbacks.
As oil production has soared in Colorado in recent years and the population has grown, more and more residents are living near oil and gas facilities. Those who supported the ballot measure argued it was necessary to reduce potential health risks and the noise and other nuisances of living near drilling sites. Opponents countered that the proposal would virtually eliminate new oil and gas drilling on nonfederal land in the state — they have derided it as an “anti-fracking” push — and claimed it would cost jobs and deprive local governments of tax revenue.
The industry-backed group, Protect Colorado, raised roughly $38 million this year as it opposed the controversial measure, which it says would “wipe out thousands of jobs and devastate Colorado’s economy for years to come.” By contrast, the main group backing the proposal, known as Colorado Rising for Health and Safety, raised about $1 million.
“We appreciate Colorado voters who realized what a devastating impact this measure would have had on our state’s economy, school funding, public safety and other local services, ” Karen Crummy, spokeswoman for Protect Colorado, said in an email late Tuesday.
Separately, Chip Rimer, chairman of the board for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, called Proposition 112 “an extreme proposal” that would have devastated the state’s economy. “Moving forward we will continue working together with all stakeholders to develop solutions that ensure we can continue to deliver the energy we need, the economy we want and the environment we value,” he said in a statement.
Coloradans also rejected a separate but related measure Tuesday that would have amended the Colorado constitution to allow property owners to seek compensation if government actions devalue their property. The proposal has been sharply criticized by dozens of city councils and panned by Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), who called it “a dangerous idea” in which “unscrupulous developers and speculators could make claims on local governments for literally anything they think has hurt the value of their land.” 
Meanwhile, in Washington, the effort to put a price on carbon emissions appeared on the verge of defeat early Wednesday, with 56.3 percent of voters rejecting the measure and 43.7 percent supporting it with two-thirds of votes counted. An official at the Washington secretary of state’s office said the vote-by-mail system in the state means it could take several days for a final vote tally.

Known as Initiative 1631, the measure would have made Washington the first state in the nation to tax carbon dioxide — an approach many scientists, environmental advocates and policymakers argue will be essential on a broad scale to nudge the world away from its reliance on fossil fuels.
But that proposal, like other environmental initiatives across the country, faced a bitter fight, pitting Big Oil refiners against a collection of advocates that includes unions, Native American groups, business leaders such as Bill Gates and former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, as well as the state’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee.
It also has set a state spending record along the way for a state ballot initiative. The group pressing for the carbon fee, known as the Clean Air, Clean Energy coalition, has raised more than $15 million. Meanwhile, oil companies belonging to the Western States Petroleum Association pumped more than $31 million into opposing the measure.
The initial $15-a-ton fee would have kicked in beginning in 2020, then increased $2 per ton (plus inflation) each year until 2035, when it would either freeze or rise, depending on whether the state had met its targets to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate campaigners did win at least one victory Tuesday in the Sunshine State. Florida voters, perhaps with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill still fresh in mind, overwhelmingly decided to amend the state’s constitution to ban offshore oil and gas drilling in state waters.
But even then, it was unclear whether offshore drilling alone motivated 69 percent of voters to support the measure. It was paired, oddly, with a proposal to prohibit indoor vaping.

Crusader Jenny , Nanook & Mika

Canadian Wildlife Federation

Wildlife on the planet earth has, at the latest, broad spectrum calculation, including aquatic life, been reduced by 60%.... that is sixty percent. Just contemplate that for a moment fellow humans. The principal causes are climate change, pollution, loss of habitat and food sources, hunting and poaching. We cannot save a lot of these species from total extinction. Their situations have become irreversible.

 In Canada, we have lost 50% of our wildlife. Our fecund northern wilderness has always had an over-abundance of mammals, predators and prey, amphibians and reptiles. I remember as a child, the sky could grow black with enormous flocks of birds. We camped near the grazing grounds of great stags and moose. We watched, from a distance, the bears fishing for salmon in the rapids. We could hear the wolves, lynx and bobcats calling at night. We stayed far away from the hunting grounds of the mountain lions who can reach over two hundred pounds and the big bears who were grumpy fellows who could kill with a swipe of their massive paws. I remember hauling big pickerel and trout from the waters by the dozen, fishing with my dad and uncle. I guess we thought it would always be that way and we were careless and thoughtless, along with the rest of the world. Global warming is a major cause of wildlife loss in our most northern regions.  Global warming causes our climate to change and is like a cancer on the planet....It grows and grows, unrestrained. And, until we come up with a comprehensive solution, all we can do is try and reduce our carbon footprint and find a substitute for fossil fuels. It's the greatest tragedy in human history.

 We should not worry about immigrants seeking asylum or terrorists sneaking into our country. The biggest crisis we face does not carry a gun or seek to overthrow the government. But it will destroy the world nonetheless.