“Temperatures in the Arctic Ocean, an area that has a significant influence on the world’s weather, were much warmer last month than the average for the past two decades. [not an expansive data-set in chronological terms but some of the temperature anomalies were huge]
“Northeastern Canada and Greenland were also much warmer-than-average for February, according to a report Monday by Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
“Scientists have linked this warming to extreme weather events elsewhere in the world, including the blast of cold air that swept out of Canada and deep into the US south in the middle of last month, causing an energy crisis in Texas.”
“Inspectors will check an underwater pipeline for pollution after it caught fire on a frozen river in Russia’s Siberia, federal monitoring service Rostekhnadzor said Sunday.
“First reports suggest around 700 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (a mixture of propane and butane) could be on site, Rostekhnadzor spokesperson Andrei Vil said on his Telegram account.”
https://www.voanews.com/europe/pollution-checks-siberia-river-after-pipeline-fire
“Record spring temperatures build this week: It is feeling more like mid-May than mid-March across the Midwest as record warmth builds.”
[Video]
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/weather/2021/03/07/weather-record-spring-warmth-elevated-fire.cnn
“The Lower 48 states had their coldest February in more than 30 years, new data reveals, due largely to the winter storm that engulfed Texas, causing a deadly energy crisis.
“The cold, which was associated with a deep southward dip in the jet stream that sent polar air plunging to the U.S. border with Mexico, knocked out power to millions in Texas, Louisiana and other states…”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/03/08/us-coldest-february-1989-global-warming/
“Texas city-run and rural electric firms face bailout over storm crisis:
“Financial strains on Texas city-owned utilities, rural electric cooperatives and the grid operator has spurred calls for state aid and lured private equity firms into plans to fix multi-billion-dollar charges.”
https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/texas-city-run-rural-electric-100340868.html
“Millions of Americans live near Superfund sites, areas the federal government considers contaminated as a result of hazardous waste that was dumped, mismanaged or otherwise left out in the open.
“Many of those sites are still awaiting cleanup. And with climate change triggering sea-level rise, experts are ringing the alarm bell about the threat of flooding at Superfund sites…”
“Coastal populations are experiencing relative sea-level rise “up to four times faster than the global average”, which threatens many megacities located on deltas, according to research led by the University of East Anglia…
“…coastal inhabitants are living with an average sea level rise of 7.8mm to 9.9mm per year over the past 20 years, compared with a global average rise of 2.6mm a year.”
“Evacuations are ongoing in Haiku for everyone in the vicinity of Kaupakalua Dam and makai of Kaupakalua Road [Hawaii] as heavy rains flood homes and roadways…
““This is a real flooding situation we have not seen in a long time,” Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino said in a press conference on Monday, March 8.”
https://www.khon2.com/local-news/evacuations-ordered-on-maui/
“As health facilities battle the coronavirus pandemic, extreme weather presents another threat, with 70% of Latin America’s hospitals at risk from floods, hurricanes or earthquakes.
“70% of Latin America hospitals are in regions highly vulnerable to floods, earthquakes or hurricanes. 550 floods hit the region between 2000 and 2019, causing almost $26 billion in damage.”
https://news.trust.org/item/20210309004953-9x3mb
“Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen has called on residents to conserve water and prepare for shortages as the island faces a drought, following months of scant rainfall and a lack of typhoons making landfall last year.
“In a Facebook post over the weekend, Tsai said that Taiwan did not experience a typhoon in 2020 and faces its most severe water shortage in 56 years…”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/taiwan-water-shortage-president-says-to-brace-for-a-shortage.html
“A weather event in the Indian Ocean, known for triggering catastrophic bushfires in Australia and breeding crop-gorging locust swarms in Africa, also played a pivotal role in ravaging floods in China last year, according to a study on Tuesday.
“The unusually strong Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and a weak El Niño in the Pacific Ocean contributed to unexpected heavy summer rainfall, [which] killed 128 people, flattened 28,000 homes, leading to a financial loss of more than $11 billion at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic…”
“A marine heatwave off the east and south coast of South Africa has caused a large fish and shellfish “walkout” – a natural phenomenon where sea species are beached as they try to escape ocean conditions.
“The department of environment, forestry and fisheries said large numbers of fish and shellfish appeared to have died over the past week as a result of the marine heatwave.”
“With no clear signal from the South African Weather Service on when the region can expect decent rains, the Kouga dam, Nelson Mandela Bay’s largest supply reservoir, has dropped to its lowest-yet level since it was built in 1969.
“With no significant rainfall expected in the next couple of months, and the Kouga dam sitting at a historic low of 6%, Nelson Mandela Bay metro has been hit by water outages.”
“Preliminary reports and incessant calls from pastoralist nomads, regional and districts officials of Eastern regions of Somaliland corroborate the onset of a severe, life-threatening drought…
“The council, chaired by the President, Musa Bihi Abdi, took note of the devastation another purging drought would have on both human and livestock populations emerging from a three-year-long acute drought that lasted from 2015 to early 2017.”
https://menafn.com/1101716183/Severe-Drought-Threatens-Somaliland-Eastern-Regions
“Torn by conflict and suffering from severe droughts and flooding, South Sudan is stepping up its climate ambition…
““This country is really suffering from the impacts of climate change and we need to make sure that we are making our contribution to save our planet from this existential threat,” South Sudan’s lead climate negotiator Joseph Bartel told Climate Home News from sweltering Juba…”
“The climate crisis is pushing the planet’s tropical regions towards the limits of human livability, with rising heat and humidity threatening to plunge much of the world’s population into potentially lethal conditions, new research has found…
“Dangerous conditions in the tropics will unfold even before the 1.5C threshold…”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability
“At least seven people died and three were unaccounted for after floods caused by torrential rains in northwestern Algeria, the country’s civil protection agency said.
“Three men, two women, a five-year-old boy and a girl of 12 died after vehicles they were travelling in were swept away in the Chlef region on Saturday, the agency said in a statement.”
http://north-africa.com/2021/03/algeria-at-least-seven-killed-by-floods-in-chlef/
“Fears grow for endangered turtles after oil spill hits Lebanon:
“The sandy shores of the Tyre nature reserve on the Mediterranean are a nesting ground for more than one species of endangered turtles. But since an oil spill off the Israeli coast early last month, beaches in south Lebanon, too, are washed up with deposits of tar.”
You can read the previous ‘Climate’ thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with an ‘Economic’ thread.
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