The climate change thread

[Rewind]

Santa Claus may have to get his summer clothes out of storage.

Lack of snow in Lapland, Santa's official home, triggers holiday woe
CNN, Nov 22 2018

As thousands of families prepare to take their children on a magical journey to meet Santa Claus in his Lapland home, some holidaymakers are concerned that the winter wonderland may be missing a crucial element: snow. Unseasonably high temperatures have struck Finland's far north, and the region's main tourist attraction -- Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, near the Arctic Circle -- has seen just a few centimeters of patchy snowfall.

Northern Lapland typically receives 20 to 30 centimeters of snow by the end of November and it is usually snow-covered for around 175 days a year. But concerns are mounting that rising temperatures may wreak havoc on the region's critical winter tourism industry -- the annual "Santa season." Several British tour operators have already canceled excursions or entire flights, offering customers refunds or alternative dates

The unusual conditions are causing concern for officials, as the region witnessed its warmest day on record in July this year, reaching 32.2° Celsius.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/new...YUa1?ocid=AMZN

[Rewind]

Contrary to popular belief (and a speech in the movie Chinatown), the city of Los Angeles was not built in a desert. Los Angeles County is semi-arid and has a Meditteranean climate, as per the Köppen Climate Classification system. An editorial in today's Los Angeles Times, however, notes that the effects of climate change -- droughts, wildfires and dwindling lakes and rivers -- could gradually turn L.A. into a desert.

L.A. wasn't built in the desert but the desert may be coming to us

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/edit...123-story.html

[Rewind]

Climate change, which the President of the United States of America dismisses as a "hoax," is causing droughts, flooding and stronger hurricanes. It is causing an increase in allergic illnesses and food-borne and water-borne diseases. It is harming food production and water resources. It is putting ocean and marine species at risk. It is extending the range of disease-carrying insects. Climate change is not a hoax. Our own government (with the exception of Donald Trump) says so.

New government report reveals staggering economic and health toll of climate change

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate...ge-2018-11-23/

National Climate Assessment 2018

https://nca2018.globalchange.gov

[Rewind]

Two days ago, Trump (who is a chronic capital-letter abuser) tweeted: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?" Chad Myers, a meteorologist who worked at WXYZ-Channel 7 in Detroit before joining CNN in 1999, set him straight:

Meteorologist: Climate is long-term, not one-day
After President Donald Trump tweet incorrectly suggested cold temperatures discredited global warming,
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers shows one cold mass does not have a global reach.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...k-in-politics/

[Rewind]

Perhaps we could relocate all our nation's lighthouses to Omaha, Nebraska, where they would be safe from rising seas -- at least for a few years.

Rising sea levels are threatening historic lighthouses
The Associated Press, Nov 22 2018

Rising seas and erosion are threatening lighthouses around the US and the world, including those in low-lying areas being inundated by water as well as those on bluffs or cliffs being eroded by storms and rising sea levels. "It's happening faster than anybody had predicted," said Jeff Gales, executive director of the US Lighthouse Society in Hansville, Washington.

While some of the lighthouses continue to be relied upon for navigation, others have been supplanted by more modern technology and are treasured more for historical and tourism purposes. Climate change hastened by manmade greenhouse gases is not only melting polar ice, adding to sea levels, but the warmer waters are expanding and some land formations sinking. Rising seas have already forced the relocation of several lighthouses. Others were lost to storms or rising seas.

https://www.apnews.com/eb546214d3794f83b7230cc0ece730d1

[Rewind]

New government report reveals staggering economic and health toll of climate change

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate...ge-2018-11-23/

National Climate Assessment 2018

https://nca2018.globalchange.gov

Millions of Americans are feeling blue and seeing red because of what the President with the orange skin did on Black Friday:

Al Gore, environmental groups, activists blast Trump administration for trying to 'bury' climate change report by releasing it on Black Friday

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate...rt-2018-11-23/

[Rewind]

The Atlantic just published an essay about the 2018 Climate Assessment. Why, they ask, was the report not published as soon as it was completed? Obviously, someone in our government knew the report had to be released but delayed the release until today, when he thought it wouldn't draw so much attention. Now who could that person be? Hmm. Here is an excerpt from the story:

A grave climate warning, buried on Black Friday
The Atlantic, Nov 23 2018

On Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, the federal government published a massive and dire new report on climate change. The report warns, repeatedly and directly, that climate change could soon imperil the American way of life, transforming every region of the country, imposing frustrating costs on the economy and harming the health of virtually every citizen.

Most significantly, the National Climate Assessment, which is endorsed by NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense and 10 other federal scientific agencies, contradicts nearly every position taken on the issue by President Donald Trump.

Where the President has insisted that fighting global warming will harm the economy, the report responds: Climate change, if left unchecked, could eventually cost the economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year and kill thousands of Americans to boot. Where the President has said the climate will "probably change back," the report replies: Many consequences of climate change will last for millennia and some (such as the extinction of plant and animal species) will be permanent.

The report is a huge achievement for American science. It represents cumulative decades of work from more than 300 authors. Since 2015, scientists from across the US government, state universities and businesses have read thousands of studies, summarizing and collating them into this document. By law, a National Climate Assessment like this must be published every four years.

Why was this report dumped on the public on Black Friday, when most Americans care more about recovering from Thanksgiving dinner than they do about adapting to the grave conclusions of climate science? Indeed, who ordered the report to come out today? It’s a good question.

The report is blunt: Climate change is happening now, and humans are causing it. "Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities," declares its first sentence. Since 1901, the United States has warmed 1.8°. Heat waves now arrive earlier in the year and abate later than they did in the 1960s. Mountain snowpack in the West has shrunk dramatically in the past half century. Sixteen of the warmest 17 years on record have occurred since 2000.

This trend "can only be explained by the effects that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, have had on the climate," the report says.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...friday/576589/

[Rewind]

Ice cider is a fermented beverage made from the juice of frozen apples that are harvested in winter. Frozen apples have a higher concentration of sugar and thus the cider has a higher alcohol content than cider made the traditional way. Global warming may eventually cause the demise of Canada's ice cider industry, eh?

Ice cider revived Canada's apple industry. It could soon disappear because of global warming.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-cid...lobal-warming/

[Rewind]

A few people still refuse to believe climate change is real. Those people don't know beans!

Illinois soybean farmer witnesses effects of climate change in ruined crops
CBS News, Nov 26 2018

At his soybean farm in Versailles, Illinois, Jim Benham says 20 acres of crops have been ruined this year by excessive rain – a casualty of climate change. "It's like chewing gum; they're just too wet," he said of the soybeans too soggy to harvest — they'd turn to paste if he tried. The 67-year-old farmer says he doesn't need a PhD to know things have changed. "When we have a rain event, we're not getting an inch; we're getting two and three and four inches," Benham said. "It doesn't take a scientist to know you have a problem. It's what I'm experiencing."

Scientists agree. A new government report says manmade climate change is already wreaking havoc on the US and it will only get worse in the coming decades. In the Fourth National Climate Assessment, issued Friday, 13 federal agencies warn that climate change "will reduce Midwest agricultural productivity to levels of the 1980s." The report also warns of more destructive Western wildfires, longer heat waves in the Southeast and more powerful Atlantic hurricanes. It says climate change could shrink the US economy by hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illinoi...-ruined-crops/

[Rewind]

Our Ignoramus-In-Chief will never accept that climate change is real unless Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte or Mohammed bin Salman tell him it's real. He won't believe anything his own government tells him but he trusts the world's dictators 100%.

Trump buried a climate change report because 'I don't believe it'
CNN, Nov 26 2018 4:04 PM ET

President Donald Trump today dismissed a study produced by his own administration, involving 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change. Why, you ask? "I don't believe it," Trump told reporters, adding that he had read "some" of the report.

This shouldn't be surprising. Trump's views on climate change at this point are very, very well established. Eight years ago, he tweeted this: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive." In 2014, he penned this tweet: "It's late in July and it is really cold outside in New York. Where the hell is GLOBAL WARMING??? We need some fast! It's now CLIMATE CHANGE." Trump has repeatedly dismissed the idea of global warming and/or climate change.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/polit...nge/index.html