“Last month was by far the world’s hottest October on record.
“According to NOAA, October global temperatures spiked to a remarkable 1.34 degrees Celsius (2.41°F) above the 20th-century average. Using NASA data, October 2023 was 1.57 degrees Celsius above the temperature of the 1880-1899 period, which is commonly called “preindustrial”…”
“The abundance of climate-heating gases in the atmosphere reached record highs in 2022, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has reported.
“The WMO said “there is no end in sight to the rising trend”, which is largely driven by the burning of fossil fuels.”
“Our new research! Amplified Arctic warming pushes us over the Paris 2°C limit 8 years earlier than in a world where the phenomenon is excluded.
“The Arctic also disproportionately contributes to our uncertainty in when we’ll breach the Paris limits.”
https://twitter.com/RobbieMallett/status/1724382506894389337
“It has been estimated that cereal growers in Northern Ireland have succeeded in getting no more than 50% of the ground earmarked for planned winter crops actually planted out.
““This is a very rough figure”, said Robin Bolton, a senior advisor with the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE)… Potato growers have been more severely affected by the wet October…”
https://www.agriland.co.uk/farming-news/ni-maximum-of-50-of-planned-winter-crops-in-the-ground/
“The number of [UK] properties that will be better protected from flooding by 2027 has been cut by 40%, and 500 of 2,000 new flood defence projects have been abandoned, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
“The number of homes forecast to be under enhanced flood protection by 2027 has been slashed from 336,000 to 200,000.”
“[UK] Insurance companies are using global warming to justify a huge hike in home cover premiums — even if the homeowners don’t live near rivers or the sea and have never made a claim for storm damage.
“In some cases, households have seen the prices of building and contents policies as much as triple, with ‘changes to weather patterns’ given as the reason for the rocketing costs.”
“This year likely to be the wettest on record in the Netherlands.
““This year is fast becoming the wettest year since measurements began in 1906,” the KNMI said on Tuesday. The current record stands at 1,109 millimeters of rain in 1998. The meteorological institute expects this year’s rainfall to amount to 1,079 mm.”
https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/14/year-likely-wettest-record-netherlands
“State of emergency declared in parts of France after record rainfall.
“State of emergency declared in parts of France after record rainfall. Floods force evacuation of homes, schools and town halls in Calais region and in the Alps. Record rainfall has caused rivers to break their banks…”
“There is a ‘remarkable’ early snow cover in the Alps, particularly at elevations above 1,800 metres, meteorologist Gilles Matricon told French weather network La Chaîne Météo…
“Between October 18th and November 12th, France recorded an average of 215.4 mm of rain, representing a record amount for a 26-day period in France.”
https://www.thelocal.fr/20231114/french-ski-resorts-opt-to-open-early-thanks-to-significant-snowfall
“Several bridges shut in Geneva due to flood threat…
“The Arve, a river that flows through Geneva and into the Rhône, experienced its highest volumetric flow ever recorded on Wednesday morning. “We have exceeded 1,000 cubic metres per second”, said Lieutenant Nicolas Millot, spokesman for the Fire and Rescue Service (SIS).”
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/several-bridges-shut-in-geneva-due-to-flood-threat/48980166
“Historic heat wave in France. 59 stations broke their November records both in Corsica (up to 28.9C at Oletta) and in mainland France. (see list below by Meteociel).
“Most important records include; 27.7C [81.9F] Cannes; 23.8C Avignon; 27.0C Cap Sagro; 25.9C Ile Rousse.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1724460909039325244
“Extraordinary heat in Corsica, France. A hot morning in Corsica with 27.4C [81.3F] at 7am under fohn effect. It’s far warmer than what you would expect in summer at the same time.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1724741349285535894
“Historic. 33.2 [91.8F] at Coin NEW NOVEMBER RECORD IN SPAIN.
“Record also 32.6C at Alicante/Elche; dozens stations >30C; It has been an extraordinary month in the Mediterranean; all countries except Italy beat records: Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Malta, Libya, Egypt, Greece, Turkey & Cyprus.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1724484976165503364
“Axarquía town hall issues drought reminder after residents challenge water bills…
“La Viñuela town hall in the Axarquíats… has sent out letters to residents reminding them of the drought situation and of a change in a bylaw reducing the consumption per inhabitant in line with a drought decree issued by the Andalusian regional government.”
“Morocco Steps to Regulate Watermelon Production Amid Water Scarcity…
“The government is continuing to implement measures to restrict the production of watermelon in Morocco in an attempt to ration dwindling water resources. In Zagora, a key production province of the water-intensive crop, the governor issued a decision limiting the maximum areas allowed for the cultivation of watermelon to one hectare.”
“A Moroccan cobalt mine denies claims of arsenic-contaminated local water. Automakers are concerned…
“A mining company controlled by Morocco ‘s royal family on Wednesday denied claims that operations at a site used to mine minerals for car batteries were causing hazardous levels of arsenic to appear in the local water supply.”
https://qz.com/a-moroccan-cobalt-mine-denies-claims-of-arsenic-contami-1851024700
“Brutal heat wave in SOUTH AFRICA: 46.0 [114.8F] Augabries Falls 635m asl; 5th 46C in Southern Hemisphere in 9 days!
“Monthly records: 42.0 Worcester; 40.0 Riversdale… The heat will spread to the neighboring countries; it will be an extreme and dangerous heat wave.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1724861533950193776
“Hit by floods and drought, quarter of Somali people at risk of ‘crisis-level’ hunger, WFP says…
“Floods that have uprooted hundreds of thousands of people in Somalia and neighbouring countries in East Africa following a historic drought earlier this year have been described by the United Nations as a once-in-a-century event.”
“Torrential rain wreaks havoc on western, southern cities [Turkey]…
“The western and southern parts of the country have been plagued by torrential rain, with downpours turning into floods, resulting in streets, homes and businesses being inundated with water in several provinces.”
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/torrential-rain-wreaks-havoc-on-western-southern-cities-187850
“Students urged to stay home in smog-hit Tehran.
““One-third of the employees of all executive bodies will work remotely on Wednesday due to the accumulation of pollutants,” the official IRNA news agency reported, citing a government committee tasked with monitoring pollution.”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1789408
“Thick veil of smog over Delhi; air quality continues in ‘severe’ category…
“An athlete detailed his problems with the poor air. “I’m an athlete, but I find it difficult to breathe in this pollution. I train outdoors, and I find it difficult to breathe,” he said. Harshit Gupta, who came from Uttar Pradesh in Delhi, said that the government needs to come up with solutions quickly.”
“Dust blows across the Taklamakan desert in northwest China…
“The desert is subject to issues like desertification and the impact of climate change. Sandstorms from the Taklamakan can carry sand and dust far beyond its boundaries, affecting air quality and ecosystems.”
https://www.earth.com/image/dust-blows-across-the-taklamakan-desert-in-northwest-china/
“Sand and dust storm frequency increasing in many world regions, UN warns…
“…the warning comes as a five-day meeting takes place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan to take stock of global progress in the Convention’s implementation. The UNCCD is one of three Conventions originated at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.”
“Torrential rain has over the past few days triggered floods in central Vietnam, forcing local residents to move to a higher ground for safety reasons.
“Heavy downpours coupled with water discharged from Bien Dien and Ta Trach hydro power plants submerged parts of Thua Thien-Hue province, especially in low-lying areas, on November 14.”
“Bushfires in Australia’s north this year have burned an area larger than Spain…
“Experts say the massive fires are primarily due to a higher-than-average fuel load built up over the recent wet La Niña years, with an invasive grass species also contributing to more intense burns.”
“Australia keeps beating records: Today the long term station of Tambo in Queensland had a scorching hot night with its highest Tmin in November on record: 27.9C [82.2F].
“Next days hundreds records will fall in Southern hemisphere in South America, Southern Africa and Western Australia.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1724409535073255874
“It’s been NZ’s warmest 12 months in observed history – climate scientist…
“In assessing the local picture, Professor Jim Salinger compared October-to-November temperature data from 22 land sites against a 1951-80 average. The result came in at 1.55C above that three-decade baseline – the highest for any such period in records stretching back to 1870.”
“It’s another scorching day in South America with temperatures reaching 44C [111.2F].
“44.1C San Jose de Chiquitos, BOLIVIA tied its all time time set few days ago. In some areas of Bolivia the 20 hottest days of the past 70+ years were all set in the past weeks(!). This weekend will be brutal.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1724913855942304207
“Red alerts have been issued for almost 3,000 towns and cities across Brazil, which have been experiencing an unprecedented heatwave.
“Rio de Janeiro recorded 42.5C on Sunday – a record for November – and high humidity on Tuesday meant that it felt like 58.5C, municipal authorities said.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67422663
“Brazil’s precipitation the last 4 months has been terrible. Nearly half the country had their driest Jul-Oct in the last 50 years.
“There’s also a strong downward trend. Deforestation greatly reduces moisture available for tropical thunderstorms.”
https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/status/1724520962266423406
“Fires in Brazil’s Pantanal wetland surge to November record on lack of rain.
“The number of fires in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, surged in the first few days of November, breaking the record for the month since monitoring began in 1998, data from space research agency Inpe showed on Tuesday. The 2,387 fires recorded by Inpe in early November is already more than double October’s figure…”
“The Amazon’s record-setting drought: how bad will it be?
“…The third factor responsible for the Amazon’s severe drought is an unusual warming of the water in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Climate change is contributing to this anomaly, says Maria Assunção Dias, a climatologist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03469-6
“Mexico’s Water Crisis Is Spilling Over Into Politics.
“Mexico is running out of drinking water. From the arid and desert regions of the country’s north to sun-baked tropics of the south, water shortages are becoming increasingly common—and the national implications are already being felt in the form of mass protests, economic threats, and increasing attention by the leading candidates in the country’s presidential race.”
https://americasquarterly.org/article/mexicos-water-crisis-is-spilling-over-into-politics/
“Violence Related to Water Scarcity Surges to All-Time High…
“A global think tank said Wednesday that it has been alarmed by recent updates to its records on water-related conflicts, which now show a significant spike in violence breaking out over water access in 2022, following a steady increase over the past two decades.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/water-conflicts-2022
“Research reveals extreme fluctuations between drought and flooding are devastating millions of lives…
“Findings shows that under a “whiplash” of extreme climate pressures, areas that used to experience frequent droughts are now more prone to frequent flooding, while other regions historically prone to flooding now endure more frequent droughts. This is having a devastating impact on communities in these regions.”
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-reveals-extreme-fluctuations-drought-devastating.html
“‘Paying in lives’: health of billions at risk from global heating, warns report…
“The climate crisis will have a catastrophic effect on the health and survival of billions of people unless the world acts to reduce global heating, according to a leading report that warns that heat-related deaths are soaring, dangerous bacteria are spreading along coasts, and economies are being hit…”
“The corporate world is falling short in the fight against climate change…
“Two weeks before the leaders of the world and business meet in Dubai for Cop 28, a sobering reality is settling in. The world’s efforts to combat climate change are falling short. “Whatever measures one looks at for progress to date, we just aren’t where we need to be,” said Rich Lesser, global chair of Boston Consulting Group…”
https://fortune.com/2023/11/15/virtual-event-climate-change-cop28/
“COP28: Two-thirds plant-based menu promised in first for UN Climate Summit… Commitment to deliver a ‘1.5C-aligned menu’ for thousands of attendees at the upcoming talks in Dubai aims to encourage shift to lower carbon diets.
“Two-thirds of the food menu at this year’s UN Climate Summit in Dubai is to be plant-based, in a move aimed at providing its thousands of attendees with a “360-degree understanding of the climate challenges the world faces”, COP28 hosts the United Arab Emirates have confirmed.”
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4146819/cop28-thirds-plant-menu-promised-climate-summit
You can read the previous “Climate” thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with an “Economic” thread.
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Humanity is a fail.
It is difficult to sum us up. We are fiddling whilst Rome burns now because we lack the collective agency to do much more than that – but we have had a truly remarkable moment in the sun.
No species lasts forever. Do you prefer the staid longevity of the crocodile or the brief and bonkers supernova of Homo Sapiens?
This is one of my favorite questions. On one hand because we are a social species even in the best of times people will suffer hugely embarrasing moments and hugely terrifing moments. These moments can scar people for a life time. On this basis alone I am not sure that there should be any sentient spicies at all, ever. That is even before we get in to the subject of birth defects. That is before we even get in to the subject of conflict, and poverty, death due to starvation or thirst.
What if we were to say that the choice was a peaceful stone age agricultural, or hunter gatherer world that never industrializes and never outgrows its resources because at a certain point all women bear 2 children who live to adult hood and people die a swift and painless death due to cancer or a heart attack or stroke or an anurism between the ages of 60 and 90. And this goes on and on my friends like the song that never ends. Or the alternative being something much like we had only a tad bit better. First of all there never would have been a slave trade moving people from Africa to the Americas. I can live with indentured servitude in the story. Second the native populations would have never lost politcal control of the territories that they live on. Europeans would have more slowly immigrated to those territories in the new world and Australia and New Zealand and there would have been a lot of intermarriages with immigrants being assimilated on native terms. But other than that human history would have been pretty much the same.
There would have been wars. But because the people in this choice are better than what people really are the wars would have been over really important questions like whether or not abortion would be legal whether or not things like alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, opium and so forth would be legal. Humans would have reached the moon and then resources would have started running out and not so long after that we go extinct.
If these were the two choices I would want to know if the following things would be possible in choice number one, playing cards to play card games with, dominoes, checkers, chess, chinese checkers, and go (A chinese board game). I would also want to know if basketball, volleyball, cricket or baseball or softball, and soccer would be consistent with a sustainable society. In addition I would want to know if practical bicycle could be made with only growable materials. Finally I would want to know if paper would be invented, even very limited amounts of paper could be very useful for preserving the tales of ancients.
If these things were all present I think that a life in such a society might be endurable for everyone. How does that measure up against a choice in which some live wonderfully. But usually at the expense of many more who do not live well at all. And a sizable amount live somewhere in between. All of which lasts until the resources are comparatively quickly used up. For me when I consider that even in choice number one, there will be humilations, and broken bones, and birth defects for a very long time to come the choice between the two alternatives is a very difficult one to make.
Methinks my answer to that question depends on whether the supernova takes out all the longevity species with it.
Yes. I’m afraid we are a bit of an ecological hand-grenade.
Exactly!
COP-outs? The Robert Hunziker 2020 piece below is the most accurate explanation/take down of COP conferences and you can include the absurd claim of “fighting climate change” when we have only gone further in the opposite direction every year.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Expert IPCC Reviewer Speaks Out
“The upcoming 26th COP (Conference of the Parties) to be held November 2021 in Glasgow is on the docket for scientists and bureaucrats, as well as big moneyed interests, to knock heads in a formal setting to discuss the state of the planet. If all goes according to plan, like past COPs, powerful economic interests will sabotage what would otherwise be a rather dim forecast of a planet in various stages of collapse, some terminal.
We’ve seen this act (COP) repeat over and over, ever since COP1 in Berlin in 1995, as each successive COP-ending-ceremony finds the Parties congratulating each other, slaps on the back, for one more successful climate conference of 20,000-30,000 able-bodied professionals wiped-out from overconsumption of Beluga caviar and Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, but subsequently carbon emissions increase the following year, and every following year thereafter. What’s to congratulate?
More to the point, the annualized CO2 emissions rate is +60% since COP1, not decreasing, not going down, not once. After 25 years of the same identical pattern, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the take-home-work from all 25 COPs mysteriously turns into the antithesis of the mission statement of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/20/expert-ipcc-reviewer-speaks-out/
When you add in all the climate and environmental NGO’s and climate change departments in most governments – add all that together and you have a multi billion dollar ‘Fight Climate Industrial Complex’ whose real job is to act as a gate keeper and make the masses think that something is being done to fight climate change so keep those donations coming in so the Normies >99% can all pretend & maintain a modicum of hope. As long as you don’t dig, then you will only see the surface. I compare it to aging. Once you hit 50 changes seem to happen with greater frequency. I’m 57 and last week I looked at my feet and it struck me – ‘Fuck I have old man feet.’ Not 100%, but over 70% of the way there. “Just don’t look at your feet again then you won”t have to deal with any aging-death fear & anxiety”. The other day when I got back from shopping I was like “Fuck, I’m on 6 prescription drugs…I’m a statistic”. I’m starting to forget if I took pill X this morning, so I thought, “I guess I can ask the pharmacy people to put my Rx’s in those daily bubble pack thingy – they’re free. You know the ones all the seniors have 🙁
2/3 plant diet for COP28 Ha! Im sure its very tasty too 🙂 I no longer believe there is a single country who goes to these COPs to present or discuss the climate agenda.
Seeing it only as a great opportunity to meet in person, in hotels, corridors, halls, over breakfast..with other countries/organisations/corporations/lobbyists etc to do quiet trade deals,
or regional diplomacy, or intel-gathering,
recruitment head-hunting for pet projects,
favour-trading etc
on any conceivable topic, except climate 🙂
While on climate, like everything else, business-as-usual continues – deal as best you can with each local natural disaster as it comes, do a cost/benefit analysis on whether its actually worth dealing with it or not, brace for the pain and grief of unavoidable population losses of humans and every other species, start scouting out for better lands more amenable to agriculture as it gets hotter, and scramble for the last reserves of fossil fuels. And if 5+ million arabs or whales or birds or whatever are in the way .. well its sad, but sh34 happens.
Once its over and done with, people will forget and move on. As Ben Gurion said about the Al Naqba – the old will die, and the young will forget.
Dr Scanlon “In the 1980’s this type of game playing {US vs USSR} was a daily occurrence.
Chinese fighter jet flies 400 feet in front of U.S. plane in ‘aggressive’ maneuver”.
Yes DrScanlon, for some of us of a certain age group, its likely a case of “here we go again”. The older I get, the more I see world politics as “playing chicken” (literally or figuratively) and “crying wolf”.
I remember as a child being quite scared of the “red menace”, culminating in the shooting down of the KAL jetliner.
On geopolitics, Nate Hagens had an interesting guest recently – Helen Thompson. After weeks of boring ones, it was nice to get one that grabbed my attention. Its long, but a lot of factoids I hadnt been aware of before.
https://youtu.be/FQbdNXQcT3E?si=G9nretJw4D1nxa4T
“2/3 plant diet for COP28 Ha!”
Having read the article more carefully than I did this morning, I am still not any clearer on what the remaining third is. If most of it is meat then this hardly seems a sacrifice worthy of mention!
Certainly serving 250,000 meals every day in the Arabian desert to more than 60,000 visitors, most of whom will have flown in, doesn’t seem the most sustainable of activities, irrespective of what the BSI may eventually tell us in its “Event Sustainability Management System Standard” assessment.
Just what we needed…another study… keep them coming.
Study projects how mountain climate systems will change with rising carbon dioxide
by Sarah Derouin , American Geophysical Union
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-mountain-climate-carbon-dioxide.amp
In a new study, Kad and team fill a knowledge gap by projecting how mountain precipitation will change with global warming in response to rising CO2. The study is published in Earth’s Future.
In previous work, mountain precipitation was predicted to increase with global warming, because atmospheric moisture rises along with temperature. However, observations in many regions over the past few decades have shown varying weather patterns in mountainous areas.
Global climate models divide Earth’s surface into a 3D grid, and the smaller the size of the grid cells, the higher resolution the results.
To better account for the complex orographic precipitation changes with increasing CO2, the researchers used the Community Earth System Model (version 1.2.2), which has a high resolution of 25 kilometers (meaning the grid cells measure 25 kilometers across horizontally). This allowed the team to input details about the local conditions, including topography and surface roughness—along with information about wind patterns, moisture sources, and temperature—to run global simulations spanning the next century.
Their projections found that mountain regions warm more in response to CO2 than the global mean, and that doubling CO2 levels would lead to a 3.44°C temperature increase compared to present-day, while quadrupling CO2 levels would lead to a 7.35°C increase.
The researchers discovered that changes in precipitation patterns are most pronounced over mountains in low-latitude regions, especially over their summits and steep terrains.
It’s because many of the attendees won’t eat meat from animals with cloven hooves, as they are lack-toes intolerant.
😆
Thanks for that last item, Mr. Pan, we needed a laugh. Perhaps the other 1/3 is minerals. How nice to know they didn’t only jet in tens of thousands of conferees but an equal tonnage of nutrition to feed the freaks.
Meanwhile the “corporate world”, the one created by the legal system, without which it wouldn’t exist, has no business model to “fight” climate change, it’s only mandate being, everywhere in the world, to maximize profits, which climate change, by supplying it with taxpayer bounties of mountains of cash, is busily concocting elaborate schemes to divvie up the bonanza among its execs and investors, as they are won’t to do by legal mandate.
Today’s Moana loa CO2 reading was 4.5 ppm’s higher than a year ago, so when I see that both Australia AND South America, specifically Brazil, are having wildfires the size of Spain blazing through vegetation that is now supposed to be sinking carbon instead of pumping it into the troposphere, this anomalous reading reminds me of a David Bowie song I rewrote the lyrics for:
https://robertlowrey.blogspot.com/2021/04/beware-savage-jaws-of-2024.html
I’m sure the Thin White Duke would approve, Rob.
Alex Smith from Radio Ecoshock posted a great interview yesterday with Author and activist Marjorie Kelly: “ “Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises.”
It talks about how the system is rigged to maximize profits at the expense of everything else. Hard to see how to stop the train…
https://www.ecoshock.org/2023/11/wealth-supremacy-vs-climate-doom.html
Thanks, JPF, and my apologies your comment was held in moderation for so long – WordPress does this too all first time commenters.
More new borne Clever Apes is the only solution.
Two days ago,here ; “‘Staggering’ 347 million children facing water scarcity in South Asia: UN.
Every time a child says they are hungry or thirsty the parents should be caned? With what this species have done to the planet all parents will see their offspring suffer. Hope all the moms & dads are happy.
I simply use ignorance as an excuse every time I have to pay the consequences of my stupidity. 😉