“HISTORIC HEAT WAVE IN THE YUCATAN PENINSULA, BELIZE:
“42.3 [108.1F] Barton Creek – HOTTEST DAY EVER IN BELIZE.
“MEXICO 45.0 Angel Albino Corzo ties HOTTEST DAY EVER IN CHIAPAS STATE; GUATEMALA -all time highs 43.0 Flores/Tikal 40.4 Puerto Barrios.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1778217090685493603
“Guatemala’s president issued a natural disaster declaration Wednesday as 44 forest fires continue to burn across the Central American country.
“Authorities canceled classes across three central provinces to protect students from the prevailing smoke. One of the largest fires is near a suburb of Guatemala City, the capital.”
“Venezuela: Wildfires break out in mountains around Caracas in record breaking year for blazes.
“Wildfires were seen burning on Waraira Repano mountain in Caracas on Monday afternoon. According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, a record number of fires have been detected in Venezuela in the early part of this year.”
“Dangerous tornado and flooding situation unfolding in South [US].
“A line of storms packing intense rains and wind smacked the metro area Wednesday, leaving streets submerged across New Orleans as officials rationed power to the city’s antiquated pumps, while a tornado tore up roofs and flipped cars in Slidell.”
“Hail the size of baseballs and softballs hit Central Texas Tuesday evening. Marble Falls saw some of the biggest hail and worst damage.
““This was way bigger than what we have seen in past years. This was anywhere from pea-size to softball-size hail,” said Thomas Jacobs with the Marble Falls Independent School District.”
https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/marble-falls-repairing-damage-from-softball-size-hail
“Ants in Colorado are on the move due to climate change…
“Over the past 60 years, climate change has forced certain ant species, unable to tolerate higher temperatures, out of their original habitats in Gregory Canyon. The resulting biodiversity change could potentially alter local ecosystems…”
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2024/04/10/ants-colorado-are-move-due-climate-change
“New Yorkers are being urged to keep their distance from wildlife after bird flu was discovered in NYC — amid fears the disease could jump to humans.
“Geese, falcons and hawks living in Manhattan’s parks and green spaces have tested positive for the virus, officials say, warning cases could be more widespread.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13293249/bird-flu-new-york-parks-warning.html
“Canada risks more ‘catastrophic’ wildfires with hot weather forecast…
““The temperature trends are very concerning. With the heat and dryness across the country, we can expect that the wildfire season will start sooner and end later and potentially be more explosive,” Harjit Sajjan, the minister for emergency preparedness, said at a press conference.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/10/canada-catastrophic-wildfire-season
“Lappeenranta Konnunsuo reached just 20.1 °C [68.2F]. This is the earliest 20°C on record in Finland (data since 1959).
“The previous record was 13 April 1989 (21.3 °C, Vaasa airport).”
https://twitter.com/mikarantane/status/1778046659743683017
“Another historical day for Estonia. Today temperatures reached almost +26 °C [78.1F] in southeastern part of the country. Highest official reading was 25.6 °C (Tartu-Tõravere). This is the earliest 25 °C on record.
“Previous record for the earliest 25.0 °C was 22.04.1996 (Tiirikoja).”
https://twitter.com/kairokiitsak/status/1778070259104162040
“Storm Babet caused five years’ worth of erosion along Musselburgh [Eastern Scotland] coastline, report reveals.
“A storm that wreaked havoc across the UK caused five years’ worth of erosion damage within a matter of days along a Scottish coastline, a new report has revealed… Scotland’s northeast was one of the worst affected regions…”
“[UK] Farmers warn of first year without harvest since Second World War.
“Vast swathes of farmland are still under water following an unprecedented period of flooding, with 11 named storms since September and the wettest 18 months on record… “It’s no exaggeration to say a crisis is building,” said Rachel Hallos, the NFU vice president.”
“Furious [UK] shoppers have branded the cost of olive oil ‘disgusting’ after prices almost tripled in three years…
“The increase is down to a mixture of droughts and wildfires in Italy combined with increased post-Brexit trade tariffs and a spate of olive tree thefts in Spain by crime gangs who want to profit from the high prices.”
“Met Eireann forecast ‘record-breaking’ airmass off Ireland to ‘scorch’ Europe this Summer…
“Met Eireann and other leading forecasters have said that a record-breaking airmass forming close to the Iberian peninsula could bring extreme heat to Europe this Summer… This is likely tied to (again) record breaking temperatures in the Atlantic.”
https://www.galwaybeo.ie/news/galway-news/met-eireann-forecast-record-breaking-9215663
“Today marks 400 consecutive days of record-breaking ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic. Alarming is an understatement.”
https://twitter.com/WxNB_/status/1777775200634847293
“The arrival of a mass of dry and warm African air will bring a period of “exceptionally high” temperatures, typical of the end of June, across Spain from tomorrow, Wednesday and the Balearics from Thursday.
“Temperatures will peak over the weekend between 5 and 12 degrees above normal for this time of year.”
“International court rules Switzerland violated human rights in landmark climate case brought by 2,000 women…
“The court ruled that the Swiss government had violated some of the women’s human rights due to “critical gaps” in its national legislation to reduce planet-heating emissions, as well as a failure to meet past climate targets.”
“HISTORIC IN SWITZERLAND. For the first time it records a tropical night and a minimum temperature >20C [68F] in April.
“20.1C MIN at Altdorf yesterday. More records of High minimums of April broken yesterday includes Zurich AP.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1777660230631051648
“Greece launches ‘free’ holidays for tourists who fled 2023 Rhodes wildfires…
“Under the programme, people who stayed in hotels that were evacuated because of the July fires will be able to redeem e-vouchers worth up to €500 to cover the accommodation charges of a week-long stay.”
“Sinkholes threaten large parts of Anatolia [Turkey] amid climate change, expert warns…
““The number of sinkholes has gradually increased in recent years,” Arık, who heads the university’s Sinkhole Research Center, told the Demiören News Agency on April 8. “The primary cause is climate change and drought.””
“More than 100 people have died in Mali because of an extreme heatwave that hit the country last month, reports say…
“Last week the southwestern town of Kayes recorded a temperature high of 48.5 degrees Celsius… the hottest day in African history recorded in April… Some local sources put the death toll at over 250 in three days.”
https://news.am/eng/news/816761.html
“Extreme temperatures are tied to more than half a million stroke deaths a year. With climate change, expect more…
“The study, published Wednesday in the medical journal Neurology, found that since 1990, the number of strokes attributable to high and low temperatures have been increasing all around the globe.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/10/health/climate-change-stroke-deaths-wellness/index.html
“Record heat is sweeping 100% of the tropics:
“In Mozambique and Tanzania also record warm night for April. MIN. temperature 26.5C [79.7F] at Pemba. Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean Tmin 26.9 the highest ever in April.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1777991894791856572
“Kenya floods: Bus full of passengers swept away by raging waters.
“Emergency services have been rescuing passengers who were trapped in a bus that was swept away by floods on a busy highway in northern Kenya… The incident occurred in the early hours of Tuesday following ongoing rains that have left the Garissa-Nairobi Highway heavily flooded.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68767879
“Record heat again in the French Territory of MAYOTTE in the Indian Ocean. With 37.0C [98.6F] yesterday recorded at Coconi-Ouangani it set again a new record of the highest temperature ever recorded in the Territory.
“Records have been falling no-stop since mid 2023.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1777977318373261340
“The Sri Lankan port of Hambantota with 37.5C [99.5F] today beat one of the oldest heat record in the world: 37.2C set on 3 June 1881 is gone now.
“History which erases history…”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1778060213846708278
“Pune [India]: The district administration has pressed into service 108 tankers to supply water to 81 villages and 533 clusters with a total population of over 1.64 lakh in rural Pune, grappling with acute water scarcity.
“Officials said they had initially started supplying water tankers to worst-hit villages in Purandar and Baramati taluka. “The demand for water tankers has, however, soared in Shirur and Ambegaon talukas too.”
“Russia, Kazakhstan evacuate 110,000 people as record floods set to worsen…
“Both countries have been battling the rising waters for more than five days and declared a state of emergency. The Kremlin said the worst of the flooding was still to come in some parts of the Ural and Siberian regions.”
“Russia-Kazakhstan floods: Is climate change warming the Ural Mountains and western Siberia?
“A study by scientists A A Vasiliev, L V Ufimsteva, N V Glaz and D Yu Norkhin from the Ural Federal Agrarian Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Yekaterinburg… showed that “global warming significantly affects at the climate of the Ural region”.”
“Searing heat is back across Southeast Asia and it’s not going away anytime soon…
““This phenomenon has led to unprecedented high temperatures across the region,” IQ Air said in a statement on April 5. “There is currently no definitive end date projected as an abatement to the heat will depend on factors such as weather patterns and (government) mitigation efforts.””
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/10/asia/southeast-asia-extreme-heat-climate-intl-hnk/index.html
“RECORD HEAT OCEANIA/ASIA:
“INDONESIA TMIN 28.6 Hottest April night in Indonesia; 36.1 Serang monthly record… THAILAND Crazy 39.9 [103.8F] Krabi all time high; Records High Tmins: 28.8 Prachin Buri; 29.2 Suphan Buri; 29.3 Phuket; 29.6 Lop Buri; 30.3 Bangkok.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1778055286068011253
“Fears of another ‘forest collapse’ event in Western Australia after record dry spell.
“After a record-breaking hot summer and significant dry spell, ecologists are warning large pockets of WA’s central to south-west coast are facing a potential forest collapse event, where trees and other smaller plants get so dry they die.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-11/ecologists-warn-potential-forest-collapse-event-wa/103682304
“Great Barrier Reef suffering ‘most severe’ coral bleaching on record as footage shows damage 18 metres down.
“The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority last week said aerial surveys… confirmed the 2,300-kilometre reef system was experiencing its fifth mass bleaching event in eight years. The authority said sea surface temperatures had been between 0.5C and 1.5C hotter than expected for this time of year.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/11/great-barrier-reef-severe-coral-bleaching-impact
“Code Yikes!
“Not to be outdone, global sea surface temperatures are once again nearing their record high of 21.17°C, hit way back on March 1st & 2nd. Yesterday’s global SST was 21.15°C.”
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1777718751850639545
“The heat is on: what we know about why ocean temperatures keep smashing records.
“…what is remarkable about the past year is the huge ongoing spike in global ocean temperature which began in April last year. Last year was hotter than the previous record year by a whopping 0.25°C.In contrast the margins of other previous record years were all less than 0.1°C… Researchers around the world are trying to understand what’s going on.“
“U.N. climate chief says two years to save the planet…
“Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said the next two years are “essential in saving our planet”. “We still have a chance to make greenhouse gas emissions tumble, with a new generation of national climate plans. But we need these stronger plans, now,” he said.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/un-climate-chief-says-two-years-save-planet-2024-04-10/
“World Bank must take ‘quantum leap’ to tackle climate crisis, UN expert says…
“Many scientists believe that the 1.5C limit is already well beyond reach… However, the Paris agreement cannot be said to be breached based on the temperatures of one year alone, and many other scientists, heads of global institutions, political leaders and experts argue that the world must keep aiming for a 1.5C limit in order to galvanise action.”
You can read the previous “Climate” thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with an “Economic” thread.
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End of the world party!
Global capacity to generate power from coal, one of the most polluting fossil fuels, grew in 2023, driven by a wave of new plants coming online in China that coincided with a slowing pace of retirements of older plants in the United States and Europe.
The findings came in an annual report by Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit organization that tracks energy projects around the world.
Coal’s heavy greenhouse gas footprint has prompted calls for it to be rapidly phased out as a source of energy, and all of the world’s countries have broadly agreed to reduce their dependence on coal. But industrializing economies, particularly in Asian countries with inexpensive access to domestic coal reserves, have set longer horizons for their transitions.
Party on Baby
We’re 40 years too late for any substantive remedy to be enacted. Please don’t bring any more children onto this poor and beleaguered sphere.
“Global capacity to generate power from coal, one of the most polluting fossil fuels, grew in 2023…”
So much of that Chinese coal consumption is fuelling the “clean energy” boom, too. This really is a very silly era.
“Clean energy contributed a record 11.4tn yuan ($1.6tn) to China’s economy in 2023, accounting for all of the growth in investment and a larger share of economic growth than any other sector.”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-was-top-driver-of-chinas-economic-growth-in-2023/
It’s actually worse than that, as it’s not coal, but hydraulically produced oil and natural gas that are the most polluting fossil fuels, w/out the benefit of coal’s cooling aerosols, and it is this most destructive of fossil fuels that is fueling the moronically monikered “Green New Deal”.
Well, isn’t that the icing on the cake. 🙄
BYOB or D. D for drug. 😉
Oh Boy! What a wild ride and we’re only just getting started.
I was watching a talk by Jem Bendell, who apparently is still flying around the world even after bugging-out to Bali. There was an awkward moment when he started talking about the heat anomalies and then he simply stopped and said “I’m scared”. End of sentence. Weak applause.
Yes, scary indeed. I’ve been telling people, or rather ranting at people for awhile now that our old planet is long gone, but no one knows it yet. We’ll, I think we’re starting to get the idea.
“…and said “I’m scared””.
Well, that is a very human reaction, and #relatable, as my youngest would say.
I tend to rationalise our predicament in various comforting ways, and a lot of the time that works, because it makes it all an abstraction. But then I’ll unexpectedly succumb to dread, panicking about the future, and the kids in particular; or fill up with sorrow for the suffering we are collectively causing and must undergo.
And then sometimes, I’m just staring out the window at the willow trees and munching on a piece of toast or moaning about work. The human experience is indeed a rich tapestry. 😂
“I’m scared” that many will die from disease & old age before they get to experience the consequences of their carbon footprint.
“It never had to be like this.” keeps rambling around in my head.
“It never had to be like this.”
I actually draw comfort from a sense of the inevitability of it all. The Honest Sorcerer wrote a good article along these lines the other day:
“Such is life: some generations experience the ‘rising tide lift all boats’ period in a civilization’s lifecycle, while others have to live through its multi-decade (if not centuries) long decline.
“I did feel envy, shame, and anxiety over that, but as the thoughts I’ve written about above have slowly sunk in, these bad feelings all went away. It all started look perfectly normal, and dare I say: natural.
“No one set out to design this modern iteration of a civilization with an idea to base it entirely on finite resources; so that it will crash and burn when those inputs start to run low, and the pollution released during their use start to wreck the climate and the ecosystem as a whole. No. It all seemed like just another good idea.”
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/on-radical-acceptance?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
As todays reading of CO2 hits an all-time high of 427.35 (at 5.06 ppm over last year’s 422.29, this increase is a full 1.2% over a year ago) the silence is deafening. The annual rise and fall of CO2 concentration in the troposphere is referred to as one of the earth’s vital sign; methinks the patient is suffering tachycardia. Nice graphic:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5115
Meanwhile, as suggested above, fossil fuel production and incineration in all of its forms: gas, liquid, and solid, proceeds at a blistering pace. The fact that we see the southern States of the US, far from suing Texas to halt their mad level of emissions production, is instead suing the Biden administration for halting the construction of yet more LNG terminals, is a clear indication that the denial that such acceleration is acting as an accelerant will only continue.
“…methinks the patient is suffering tachycardia.”
I wish I had some medical training because I love medical analogies for the health of the biosphere and, especially, for the superorganism that is global human society. They can offer some really helpful insights. If any doctors, nurses etc. happen to read this site then please feel free to chip in!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/11/utah-panguitch-lake-dam-crack
More infrastructure collapse
A utah dam
“An ice sheet on the reservoir had pushed up against the dam, causing the top to crack and tilt downstream, with water gushing through the opening…”
That’s a situation I haven’t come across before. Usually it’s excess rain causing the stress, like we saw with the Oroville dam crisis in 2017 or with the failure of the Orsk dam in Russia last week.
Two years he says….bully for them…enough time to squeeze in several world party conferences to voluntarily agree to curb greenhouse gasses. After 30 something or more of them it’s proved that the world can come together and fiddle faddled as the planet slowly heats up…after all the United Nations has prevented worldwide military conflicts…
We just need more technology to enhance our communications exchange between each other so we can come to a common understanding of the urgency of needed action before it’s too late.
Naturally, too late comes sometime in the future..
“Alarming is an understatement.”
No problem, we’ve taken no substantive action, talking at forums or commenting on the web doesn’t count. Surely we can wait a few more decades before we have to give up any of our destructive habits.
“U.N. climate chief says two years to save the planet…”
“World Bank must take ‘quantum leap’ to tackle climate crisis, UN expert says…”
Wonder what the total CO2 footprint is of these talking heads & their gatherings?