Climate Crisis - Haggard Earth

Helene Flooding Strands Hundreds of North Carolina Residents as Storm’s Death Toll reaches 95.

Glenn and Rick Climate Crisis

Helene flooding strands hundreds of North Carolina residents as storm’s death toll reaches 95. CNN News Dalia Faheid and Dakin Andone, September 29, 2024 The Southeast is grappling with widespread devastation after Helene made landfall Thursday as the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region and tore through multiple states, killing at least 95 people, knocking out power to millions and trapping families in floodwaters. In hard-hit North Carolina, days of unrelenting flooding have turned roads into waterways, left many without basic necessities and strained state resources.

Here’s the latest:At least 95 dead across 6 states....Deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. At least 36 people are dead in North Carolina, according to county and state officials. At least 25 are dead in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County, authorities said. In Georgia, at least 17 people have died, two of them killed by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. In Florida, at least 11 people have died, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. Two people have died in Virginia, officials said Sunday, and four deaths have been reported in Tennessee.

Scores of missing persons reports filed amid communication outages: Officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina – where at least 30 people have died – have received about 600 missing persons reports through an online form, County Manager Avril Pinder said Sunday. Former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate encouraged people not to lose hope. Communications being out and loved ones being unreachable “doesn’t necessarily mean the worst has happened,” he told CNN on Sunday, adding people will be reunited once cell phone reception and internet are restored. The state’s telecommunications partners activated disaster roaming on all networks, meaning “any phone on any carrier can access any network to place calls,” state Emergency Management Director William Ray said.“Although we know we have lost lives, we generally see more people that are missing or unaccounted for because of communication,” Fugate said.

Hundreds of roads closed in the Carolinas, hampering water delivery: About 300 roads are closed in North Carolina and another 150 are closed in South Carolina, acting Federal Highway Administrator Kristin White of the US Department of Transportation said Sunday. North Carolina officials on Sunday acknowledged those closures have hampered delivery of water supplies to communities in need, like the city of Weaverville in Buncombe County, which is without both power and water, Mayor Patrick.

Millions without power in Southeast: About 2.1 million power customers are in the dark in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us. On Sunday, Michael Callahan, president of Duke Energy’s utility operations in South Carolina, said infrastructure repairs need to precede power restoration efforts. Still, the utility hoped to have most of its customers in that state back up by Friday, he said.

President to visit disaster areas: President Joe Biden was briefed by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall on recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene and will visit impacted communities from the storm later this week “as soon as it will not disrupt emergency response operations,” the White House said Sunday evening. On Sunday, Biden spoke with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper as well as other officials across North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina. Former President Donald Trump on Sunday sent his condolences to those affected by Helene, which was the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region. ‘It looks like a bomb went off’ in Georgia: Helene “spared no one,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday. Among the 17 people who died in Georgia were a mother and her 1-month-old twin boys, a 7-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, and a 58-year-old man, according to Kemp. “It looks like a tornado went off, it looks like a bomb went off,” Kemp said.....and there's much more https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/29/weather/hurricane-helene-florida-georgia-carolinas-sunday/index.html

Catastrophe' as Deadly Floods Hit Central and Eastern Europe.

Glenn and Rick Climate Crisis

Catastrophe' as deadly floods hit Central and Eastern Europe. BBC Adam Easton

Correspondent Reporting from Poland Malu Cursino and Ruth Comerford 9-15-2024 A firefighter died during a flood rescue in Austria and one person drowned in Poland, as torrential rain caused by Storm Boris continued to wreak havoc across Central and Eastern Europe. In Romania, five people have died, while several remain unaccounted for in the Czech Republic. The Austrian province surrounding Vienna has been declared a disaster area, with its leaders speaking of "an unprecedented extreme situation". Poland's prime minister Donald Tusk declared a state of natural disaster. Some of the worst rainfall has been in the Czech Republic, where some areas have seen around three months’ rainfall in just three days. Evacuations are under way and four people remain missing - three in a car which disappeared into a river in North Moravia, and one man who was swept into a flooded stream in South Moravia. Marek Joch, a resident of Lipov in the southeast, said the town was "closed from all sides" and the "next wave" of the flood is still to come. "Now everyone is trying to clean up as quickly as possible to prevent further large spills from the river. Unfortunately, no one knows when the water will recede. "We still have to survive until Tuesday, this is not the end.” Jesenik, a town located in the Jeseniky mountains, is described as completely cut off, with roads and rail lines underwater. Around 17,000 people in the Kłodzko area alone are without power, and internet and mobile telephone connections are down. The mayor of Slobozia Conachi, a village in Romania's south-eastern Galati region, said 700 homes had been flooded. "This is a catastrophe of epic proportions," Emil Dragomir said.

Why has Storm Boris been so devastating?....Storm Boris has already brought extreme amounts of rain across central and eastern Europe, with more downpours forecast until at least the end of Monday.The storm has been so devastating for two reasons.....read on- there's much more https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jwp3ppp6xo

Time to Give Up on ‘Normal’ Weather: Australia’s Climate is Entering a Different Phase.

Glenn and Rick Climate Crisis

CLIMATE CRISIS......It’s time to give up on ‘normal’ weather: Australia’s climate is entering a different phase. Guardian David bowman Fri 3 Nov 2023 Heavy winds struck south-east Australia over the weekend as a series of cold fronts moved across the continent. It followed a high fire danger in Sydney and other parts of New South Wales last week, and a fire in south-west Sydney that threatened homes.The severe weather rounds out a weird winter across Australia. The nation’s hottest ever winter temperature was recorded when Yampi Sound in Western Australia reached 41.6C on Tuesday. Elsewhere across Australia, winter temperatures have been way above average. We can look to the positives: spring flowers are blooming early and people have donned T-shirts and hit the beach. But there’s a frightening undercurrent to this weather. Earth’s climate has become dangerously unstable and it’s only a matter of time before we get the bad combination of hot and dry weather, strong winds and a spark. None of this should come as a surprise. The sooner we stop expecting Australia’s weather to be “normal”, the sooner we can prepare for life in a wild climate.

The green is deceiving........The landscape around Sydney – and in fact across much of south-east Australia – is very green at the moment. That’s because we’ve had a couple of years of good rains which triggered an explosion of vegetation growth. Nasa satellite imagery reveals the picture in stark detail. It’s certainly lush out there at the moment. But the problem with climate change is that weather conditions can turn on a dime. This August was a case in point. At month’s end, much of Australia was hit by a record-breaking heatwave and damaging winds – conditions that can dry out a green landscape with devastating efficiency, turning it into fuel for a bushfire. The dangerous fire weather that struck Sydney this week came as a surprise to many. But in reality, these abnormal conditions are the new normal. We must open our minds to this if we want to be prepared.

A climate off the rails.........The year 2023 was Earth’s hottest on record. And 2024 looks likely to be hotter still. In Australia the last 12 months have provided all the evidence we need that our climate is wobbling on its rails.In October 2023, Victoria’s Gippsland region suffered unseasonably early bushfires, then soon after battled heavy rain and flooding. And Tasmania, where I live, has been gripped by drought. This February was Hobart’s third driest in 143 years. But over the weekend we were hammered by a deluge of rain and wind. This climate instability is setting up bad fire conditions. Not everywhere in south-east Australia will be hit by fire but it will happen somewhere. It could be the hinterlands or the coast. It will depend on how our erratic climate behaves in the coming months. Let’s stick with the Tasmania example. Sure, the surface soils are now nicely saturated. But that will lead to a burst of grass and other vegetation in spring. If the dry weather returns and the temperatures heat up in summer, the fine fuels will dry out and become dangerously combustible. All we need then is a windy day and a spark, and a nightmare fire will soon be racing across the landscape.

Canada on fire......Of course, Australia is not the only country facing climate instability and a worsening fire risk. Canada suffered a catastrophic wildfire season in 2023 – one of the most severe on record. It burned almost 15m hectares and forced the evacuation of 232,000 people. Smoke produced by the fires affected communities up to 1,000 km away, such as in southern Canada and on the east coast of the United States. A recent paper in the journal Nature Communications outlined why. It pinpointed early snowmelt, early-season drought conditions and intense heat. In fact, the average temperature in Canada from May to October last year was 2.2C higher than the 30-year average. The researchers said human-caused climate change exacerbated the fire’s effects. They went on: The disproportionate effect a few days of extreme weather can have on the total area burned is also evident in this fire season, leading to worrisome prospects given projected future conditions.

Normal no longer exists......It’s always been difficult to forecast fire seasons in Australia, due to our natural climate variability. But now we are seeing climate instability layering over itself: background dryness, wet seasons bringing a proliferation of fuels, and above-average temperatures. Eventually we’ll get unlucky and experience extremely strong winds thrown into the mix. That’s when catastrophic fires are most likely to occur......read on https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/02/australia-august-weather-records-heat-wind-storm-bom-forecast

Climate Chaos week of August 5-11,2024

Glenn and Rick Climate Crisis

This week- August 5-11,2024.... Climate chaos.....no single link to all this news- just click on the individual links

DEADLY DISASTER: Devastating landslides have killed 167 people, with another 191 missing, in the Wayanad district in Kerala, India, reported the Indian Express. Prime minister Narendra Modi announced compensation of 200,000 Indian rupees (about $2,390) per person for the families of the deceased and 50,000 rupees (about $600) for those injured, the newspaper said.

CLIMATE FACTOR: The Hindustan Times noted that scientists have attributed the landslide to a “combination of climate change, excessive mining and loss of forest cover in the region”. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi called for “mapping of landslide-prone areas and…an action plan to address the growing frequency of natural calamities in the ecologically fragile region”, reported the Independent.

FLASH FLOODS: More than 10,000 people displaced from conflict in Sudan’s Sennar state – alongside other refugee and host communities – have been severely impacted by extreme rainfall and flash floods in Kassala state, reported the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At least five people have reportedly died, including a child, the report said. Other affected areas include Aj Jazirah, East Darfur and North Kordofan, according to ReliefWeb.

Sizzling Olympics

HEATWAVE GAMES: A rapid attribution analysis found that the “heat dome” striking the Paris Olympics and the “scorching temperatures” across western Europe and North Africa this week would have been “impossible” without the “fossil-fuelled climate crisis”, reported the Guardian. Scientists at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said human-caused global warming made the heatwave “2.5C to 3.3C hotter”. Leading climate scientist Dr Friederike Otto told reporters: “Climate change crashed the Olympics on Tuesday”.

KEEPING COOL: BBC Sport said that organisers used hoses and misters to keep spectators cool at the Paris Olympics. In Marseille, where temperatures reached around 40C, athletes taking part in sailing events wore “ice vests” to try to counteract the heat, the broadcaster added.

TRIATHLON TIMEOUT: The men’s triathlon was postponed due to “unsafe pollution levels” in the Seine following heavy rainfall in the French capital, reported Sky Sports. The organisers blamed the postponement on climate change, with Aurélie Merle – the Paris 2024 director of sports – saying: “We are living in the 21st century where, unfortunately, there are far more meteorological events…which are beyond the control of the organisers.”

Around the world

UK RENEWABLES: UK energy secretary Ed Miliband announced an increase to this year's renewable energy auction budget to a record £1.56bn on Wednesday, reported BBC News.
HARRIS APPROVED: Inside Climate News reported that Kamala Harris has clinched an endorsement from the Green New Deal Network – “a key coalition of progressive, youth-led and environmental justice-focused climate advocates” – which had previously held back its endorsement for president Joe Biden.
FUND FIGHT: The EU is gearing up to pressure wealthier “emerging” economies, such as China, to pay into the climate fund at the COP29 climate summit, reported Politico. Currently, only countries categorised as “industrialised” under the 1992 UN climate treaty contribute climate finance under the Paris Agreement.
OFFSETS BLOW: A review by the Science Based Targets initiative, a global auditor of corporate climate targets, has concluded that “various types of carbon credits are ineffective”, reported Bloomberg.

COP16 SAFE: Reuters reported that “Colombian rebel group” Estado Mayor Central has withdrawn its threat, issued earlier this month, to disrupt the UN biodiversity summit COP16 taking place in October in the Colombian city Cali – as a “gesture of [their] will for peace”.

7,500,000......The methane emissions, in tonnes, from US oil and gas facilities – four times more than the estimates of regulators – which is equivalent to the annual energy needs of over half of US homes, reported the Financial Times.

Utah’s Great Salt Lake rings Climate Alarm bells over Release of 4.1m tons of Carbon Dioxide

Glenn and Rick Climate Crisis

Utah’s Great Salt Lake rings climate alarm bells over release of 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide. Study has found that the lake, which has lost 73% of its water, released climate-warming emissions.Guardian Maanvi Singh Fri 2 Aug 2024 For years, scientists and environmental leaders have been raising alarm that the Great Salt Lake is headed toward a catastrophic decline.Now, new research points to the lake’s desiccating shores also becoming an increasingly significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have calculated that dried out portions of the lakebed released about 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2020, based on samples collected over seven months that year. Their study, published last month in the journal One Earth, suggests that the Great Salt Lake – which is the largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere – and other shrinking saline lakes across the world could become major contributors of climate-warming emissions. The research also adds to a dire list of environmental consequences brought on by the lake’s precipitous decline. Last year, environmental and community groups sued Utah officials over failures to save the famous lake from irreversible collapse. In recent decades, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns, a report last year estimated that the lake had lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area. Its decline was accelerated by global heating and a mega-drought in the US south-west.

The declining lake has exposed a dusty lakebed laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxic substances that threaten to increase rates of respiratory conditions, heart and lung disease and cancers. As its volume shrinks, the lake is also becoming saltier and uninhabitable to native flies and brine shrimp. Eventually, scientists have warned that it may be unable to support the 10 million migratory birds and wildlife that frequent it.“I think the impacts on air quality, the impacts on migratory birds and other wildlife are maybe more pressing, locally,” said Soren Brothers, a climate change curator at Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum, who led the study. “But especially at a time when we are all trying to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint, as Salt Lake City is working to reduce emissions, this desiccating lake is adding some of that back.” Other research has documented emissions from other saline lakes, including the Aral Sea in central Asia, though more research is needed to fully understand the extent. Both saline and freshwater lakes can act as carbon sinks, he noted – in some cases locking up huge amounts of carbon in their sediments. But as the climate crisis hastens the decline of these lakes, they could begin unleashing large amounts of carbon dioxide that in turn could exacerbate global heating, creating a vicious feedback loop. Brothers said they hope the study encourages researchers to take more measurements of emissions from across and around Great Salt Lake to better understand how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases it is absorbing and emitting.....not good!...read on https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/02/great-salt-lake-shrinking-greenhouse-gas-emissions