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GeoengineeringArctic “Ice Management” Delays, but Not Negate, Climate Change Effects
According to a much-debated geoengineering approach, both sea-ice retreat and global warming could be slowed by using millions of wind-powered pumps, drifting in the sea ice, to promote ice formation during the Arctic winter. Researchers say that the approach could potentially put off ice-free Arctic summers for a few more decades, but beyond that, the Arctic the massive campaign wouldn’t produce any meaningful cooling effect.
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Climate crisisEarly Climate Models’ Global Warming Predictions Were Spot-On
Climate skeptics have long raised doubts about the accuracy of computer models that predict global warming, but it turns out that most of the early climate models were spot-on, according to a look-back by climate scientists.
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WildfiresInvasive Grasses Are Fueling Wildfires Across the U.S.
People alter fire regime patterns by adding ignition sources, such as campfires or sparking power lines; suppressing fires when they develop; and introducing nonnative invasive plants. My research suggests that nonnative invasive grasses may be fueling wildfires across the United States. Some fires are occurring in areas that rarely burn, like the Sonoran Desert and the semiarid shrublands of the Great Basin, which covers most of Nevada and parts of five surrounding states. In the coming months, some of the grasses that help feed these blazes will germinate, producing tinder for future fires.
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FloodsBolstering Florida’s Flood Resilience
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science have received a $1,688,955 grant from the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) for a pilot project to create a framework for their Watershed Planning Initiative. In 2017, Florida had 1.7 million flood insurance policies included in the Presidential Emergency Declaration. This is roughly 35 percent of all National Flood Insurance Program policies across the country and serves as an indicator of the impact of Hurricane Irma on the National Flood Insurance Program.
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Climate crisisThe Past Decade Saw Exceptional Global Heat, High-Impact Weather
The year 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods are almost certain to be the highest on record. 2019 is on course to be the second or third warmest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
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FloodsBolstering Florida’s Flood Resilience
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science have received a $1,688,955 grant from the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) for a pilot project to create a framework for their Watershed Planning Initiative. In 2017, Florida had 1.7 million flood insurance policies included in the Presidential Emergency Declaration. This is roughly 35 percent of all National Flood Insurance Program policies across the country and serves as an indicator of the impact of Hurricane Irma on the National Flood Insurance Program.
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WildfiresCalifornians Unwilling to Subsidize Wildfire Prevention: Poll
With blazes raging across the state, smoke impacting the Bay Area and the largest power utility shutting off electricity to avoid ignitions, California is experiencing another devastating fire season. As state, federal and local officials try to figure out what policies to implement to address the state’s wildfire crisis, a new poll reveals where the public stands on regulations and other public policy measures to prevent wildfires.
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Power gridGrid Reliability under Climate Change
Researchers are using a new modeling approach for infrastructure planning of a long-term electricity grid that considers future climate and water resource conditions. Those conditions include reduced hydropower production as well as reduced availability of cooling water due to reduced streamflow and increased streamflow temperature.
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EarthquakesUnderwater Telecom Cables to Be Used as Seismic Detection Network
About 70 percent of Earth’s surface lies under the sea, which means that, until now, most of the Earth’s surface had been largely without early-warning seismic detection stations. Scientists say that fiber-optic cables that constitute a global undersea telecommunications network could one day help in studying offshore earthquakes.
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Perspective: Weather businessWeather Is Turning into Big Business. And That Could Be Trouble for the Public.
This may well be the future of weather forecasting: “Now for your local weather forecast: That’ll be $10, please.” Climate change is inflicting an increasingly heavier costs on the U.S. economy, and those rising costs — along with advances in data-gathering and processing, and cheaper access to low Earth orbit — have spurred start-ups and established companies to get into the business of weather forecasting.
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Perspective: Climate threatsTechnologies to Manage Climate Change Already Exist – but U.K. Needs to Scale Up Efforts Urgently
In the U.K., climate change is being tackled by taking baby steps. Andreas Busch writes that this is unfortunate, because “The world already has effective engineering solutions to manage climate change and to limit global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C – a target set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But there is a desperate lack of conviction from politicians and society to address the climate emergency.”
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Perspective: Coastal challengesThe Sea Wanted to Take This California Lighthouse. Now, It’s Part of a Conflict Between a Town and Two Tribes
For decades, the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse stood like atop the coastal bluff overlooking the rocky outcrops of Trinidad Bay in northern California. But then, climate change began to take its toll: “the ground began to crumble. Rain moved the earth. The bluff cracked, a sidewalk warped, and thus ended the charmed life of the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, which suddenly threatened to slide into the Pacific,” Hailey Branson-Potts writes.
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EarthquakesQuake Kills at Least 27 in Albania, State of Emergency Declared
The death toll from the strongest earthquake to hit Albania in more than three decades rose to at least 27 on Wednesday, as the country observed a day of mourning. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was a magnitude 6.4 with an epicenter 30 kilometers northwest of the capital, Tirana. Three hours after the initial quake, a magnitude-5 aftershock struck in the Adriatic Sea.
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Thoughts and prayersPrayers May Crowd Out Donations for Disaster Victims
People who offer prayers for victims of natural disasters may be less likely to donate to those victims, according to research. “The results suggest that the act of praying is a substitute for material help — in other words, prayers crowd out donations, at least in some contexts,” Professor Linda Thunstrom says.
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Coastal challengesPolicy Decisions' Effect on Migration from Sea Level Rise
A new modeling approach can help researchers, policymakers and the public better understand how policy decisions will influence human migration as sea levels rise around the globe. “Sea level rise is going to reorganize the human population around the globe,” says one researcher.
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The long view
Perspective: CommunicationGood Communication Is a Key Part of Disaster Response
Behind the scenes during hurricanes and other disasters, scores of public information officers (PIOs) in state and local government agencies are fixed to their screens – often in 24-hour shifts – frantically fielding facts and phone calls, rushing to get information to the news media and the public. While this work may not seem as critical as search-and-rescue operations, it is essential.
Perspective: Climate crisisGlobal Temperatures Rising More Quickly, Warns UN
Sea-level rise, ice loss, extreme weather and other effects of climate change are increasing, according to the United Nations’ weather agency. The period from 2015 to the end of 2019 is likely to be the warmest five-year period on record globally, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. Last year there was the largest number of tropical cyclones of any year since 2000 and large parts of Africa, central America, Brazil, the Caribbean and Australia have experienced more frequent droughts since 2015.
Perspective: Saving the ArcticArctic Ice Is Melting Faster Than Expected. These Scientists Have a Radical Idea to Save It.
glaciers, polar land, and sea ice are rapidly melting, much faster than many scientists expected, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report on oceans and the cryosphere released Wednesday reiterated. During a five-day heat wave this summer, Greenland lost more than 60 billion tons of ice, including the biggest loss in a 24-hour period since record-keeping began. Recent projections warn that Arctic summers could be nearly ice-free in 10 to 40 years. These grim warnings have prompted more researchers to apply technological solutions that intervene in the earth’s climate systems to slow the impacts of global warming, also known as “geoengineering.”
Perspective: Coastal challengeDesigning the Coastal City of the Future
Boston is situated along the Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than 99 percent of the ocean due, in part, to changing sea patterns from melting ice in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean. Coupled with increased heat and precipitation, the rising sea level is threatening the low-lying city, much of which was built on landfill over the past 300 years along a 50-square-mile harbor. To save the 685,000-person city, the local government is calling on architects to help implement one of the most ambitious municipal resiliency plans in the United States: Climate Ready Boston. Launched in 2016 by Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Climate Ready Boston is an initiative to prepare the city for the long-term impacts of climate change.
Perspective: Post-disaster reconstructionBans on Rebuilding in Disaster-Prone Areas Ignore Homeowners Preferences – Raising Costs Works Better
As California’s wildfire season intensifies, a growing number of residents in the state want to ban people from building in areas at greatest risk. That’s because taxpayers bear the burden of protecting homes in dangerous areas when fire breaks out – and they often help foot the bill when it’s time to rebuild. A recent assessment showed that 1 in 4 Californians live in an area at “high risk” of wildfire. And people tend to want to rebuild in the same spot that was hit by a disaster. Alexander Smith writes that as a behavioral economist who studies the psychology of decision-making, he tries to understand people’s motivations before taking a position in a policy debate. He believes there’s a better way for policymakers to achieve the same goal of getting people to avoid building in disaster-prone areas without forcing people from their homes.
Perspective: Climate & hybrid warHow Climate Change Will Help China and Russia Wage Hybrid War
Americans and Europeans may not yet notice the existential threat climate change poses, but they had better pay attention to it. Their adversaries could use climate change as a new front in hybrid warfare. “In several African countries we’re already seeing rural settlements disrupted by development projects funded and executed by China,” Howard Jones, CEO of the Born Free Foundation. Told Defense One’s Elizabeth Braw. “Those projects include altering the flows of entire river systems and putting good land to use for export of food and resources to China. Put this together with climate change and pre-existing poverty and we have a huge problem. And why would China care?” Braw adds: “Indeed, China, Russia, and other hostile states can use climate change as a new tool in blended aggression (often called hybrid warfare) against the West.”