“Twin cyclones are bearing down on Pacific islands, with Fiji’s main island likely to be directly hit by a category five storm for the second time this year.
“Tonga and Fiji were bracing for potentially catastrophic damage as tropical cyclones Zazu and Yasa intensified off their coastlines on Wednesday.”
“A major flood warning has been issued near Grafton on the New South Wales north coast as heavy rainfall and severe thunderstorms batter much of the region.
“In Lismore the State Emergency Service received about 100 calls for assistance in just a few hours on Wednesday afternoon, after the regional city received more than 200mm [7.9 inches] of rain.
[This is now Grafton’s wettest December on record].”
“The season’s most powerful cold air mass over Japan is bringing heavy snow to areas on the Sea of Japan coast…
“Snowfall in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning was 128cm [50.4 inches] in Minakami Town in Gunma Prefecture, and 113 cm [44.5 inches] in Yuzawa Town in Niigata Prefecture — both the heaviest 24-hour snowfalls on record.”
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20201216_17/
“There hasn’t been a huge amount of mainstream attention paid to cloud seeding or other forms of geoengineering, but now is the time to sit up and take notice.
“China has massively ramped up its efforts to control the weather, a move that should alarm us all… It is not just posturing (although that certainly plays into it), it is also desperation.
“The climate crisis isn’t around the corner – it is here.”
“Photos released on social media this week show how much climate change and pollution have affected the Rongbuk Glacier on Everest’s north side…
“The Rongbuk Glacier is a primary source of water for major Asian rivers such as the Indus and Yangtze, so its seasonal melt is essential to millions of people in India and China.”
https://explorersweb.com/2020/12/15/everests-rongbuk-glacier-continues-to-shrink/
“‘It’s over for us’: how extreme weather is emptying Bangladesh’s villages.
“…Like other villages nearby, Chakla in Bangladesh’s Satkhira district has not re-emerged from the flooding caused by Super-cyclone Amphan, which battered the south of the country in late May…”
“Turkey’s third-largest city İzmir has been battered by heavy rainfall since last week. Four days of precipitation led the Aegean Sea to overflow, inundating some residential blocks in the Karşıyaka district.
“Two people trapped in a car that was carried away by floodwaters elsewhere in the city were found dead on Monday morning.”
“Cyprus’s Minister of Interior Nikos Nouris visited the areas of the Nicosia District affected by a tornado, in order to assess the damage on the ground.
“In his statements, he said that “Our number one priority, of course, was to address people’s immediate needs. We are already transferring two families from Nikitari whose houses were deemed uninhabitable to a hotel in Nicosia.”
https://balkaneu.com/cyprus-minister-of-interior-visits-tornado-torn-areas/
“A winter storm taking aim at the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast from Wednesday night into Thursday is likely to dump more snow in about 24 hours than Philadelphia and New York City recorded all last season.
“It may also produce a significant snowstorm in Boston.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/14/snowstorm-hit-philadelphia-new-york-boston/
“Tennessee Valley Authority records record rainfall in 2020 for third year: With just over two weeks still to go, 2020 has already become the wettest year ever recorded in the Tennessee Valley, according to a recent report from the Tennessee Valley Authority.
“The record marked the third year in a row of above-average rainfall. As of Monday, TVA officials recorded 68.27 inches on average across the valley, beating the old record of 67.01 inches set in 2018. The third-wettest year? That was 2019, with 66.47 inches of rainfall.”
“Ocean heatwave has triggered new toxic algal blooms on the US west coast:
“Fishermen, swimmers and seafood enthusiasts may already know the dangers of “red tides,” but a recent study in Frontiers in Climate shows that climate change is increasing the frequency of one type of highly toxic algal bloom off the US west coast.”
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/f-ohh120320.php
“Even disaster experts are stunned by the devastation this fall in Honduras…
“The two Category 4 hurricanes – Eta and Iota — made landfall in Central America on Nov. 3 and Nov. 17, respectively. Even today, the region continues to dig out from mudslides. Aid agencies say nearly 7 million people… are in need of assistance.”
“In recent years, wildfires have become increasingly frequent in the Brazilian savannahs, also severely affecting the riparian forests.
“Investigations carried out with a scientist from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart have now shown how great the threat to these sensitive ecosystems actually is: “The loss here is even worse than in the tropical rainforest of the Amazon, because the area affected is larger,” said Dr. Anna Abrahão.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-riparian-forests-savannah-threaten-brazil.html
“Wildfires in the Arctic Circle and western US reached ‘unprecedented intensity’ in 2020 – although global fire emissions are decreasing overall, new EU data shows…
“There’s been increased wildfire activity in Siberia, Colorado, California, Australia, and parts of the Caribbean and the Pantanal region of Southern Brazil…”
“Plastic pipes are polluting drinking water systems after wildfires:
“When wildfires swept through the hills near Santa Cruz, California, in 2020, they released toxic chemicals into the water supplies of at least two communities. One sample found benzene, a carcinogen, at 40 times the state’s drinking water standard.”
“Wildfires have taken over from industry as a major source of a group of cancer-causing chemical toxins in the air, Environment Canada says.
“The first national assessment of polycyclic aromatic compounds in more than 25 years has found that air has improved around aluminum and steel plants. But wildfires and vehicles have stepped in to keep average concentrations at about the same level that they were in the 1990s…”
https://globalnews.ca/news/7521631/wildfires-cancer-air-toxins-environment-canada-study/
“Climate crisis sends temperatures soaring in Lapland: Traditional way of life under threat in vast area straddling the Arctic Circle.
“…recent summers have had unseasonably high temperatures, with records being not just broken, but smashed… In July 2018, Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland – the self-styled “official hometown of Santa Claus” – recorded an unprecedented high of 32C (90F).”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/15/climate-crisis-sends-temperatures-soaring-in-lapland
“A ‘frozen rainforest’ of microscopic life is melting Greenland’s ice sheet:
“Biodiversity is usually considered a good thing, but in this case the profusion of microbial life is speeding up ice melt [via declining albedo], and likely causing global sea levels to rise faster than scientists have predicted.”
““The story of methane really is a story of a very serious definitive threat to our future existence on this planet.” (Peter Wadhams)…
““The Arctic is no longer the Arctic” (Wadhams). It is something entirely different. The change is palpable. It has morphed into a looming threat of radical climate upheaval. Regrettably, neither the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) nor any major nation/state is braced for Arctic upheaval. It is not universally recognized as an impending threat in the near future.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/15/menacing-methane-an-analysis/
“Global warming is faster than evolution [just a bit!].
“The world is getting warmer, and life has to adapt to new conditions.
“But if the warming continues, many species may have trouble keeping up.”
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/nuos-gwi121020.php
“Just how warm Earth stays this December will determine if 2020 goes down as the hottest year on record. And it’s looking a lot like it will…
“Earth’s temperature in November was 56.95 degrees Fahrenheit, which was 1.75 degrees above the 20th century average, according to NOAA. Nearly 7 percent of the world had record-warm November temperatures, including Australia and Norway.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/2020-likely-end-hottest-year-record-rcna199
You can read the previous ‘Climate’ thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with an ‘Economic’ thread.
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