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New Study shows Arctic Cold and Fresh pulses can set off a Chain Reaction from the Ocean to the Atmosphere causing Summer Heatwaves and Droughts in Europe.

Study Pinpoints Links Between Melting Arctic Ice and Summertime Extreme Weather in Europe. New research shows how last year’s warming melted ice in Greenland that increased flows of fresh, cold water into the North Atlantic, upsetting ocean currents in ways that lead to atmospheric changes. Inside Climate News Bob Berwyn March 1, 2024 The Arctic Ocean is mostly enclosed by the coldest parts of the Northern Hemisphere’s continents, ringed in by Siberia, Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, with only a small opening to the Pacific through the Bering Strait, and some narrow channels through the labyrinth of Canada’s Arctic archipelago. But east of Greenland, there’s a stretch of open water about 1,300 miles across where the Arctic can pour its icy heart out to the North Atlantic. Those flows include increasing surges of cold and fresh water from melted ice, and a new study in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics shows how those pulses can set off a chain reaction from the ocean to the atmosphere that ends up causing summer heatwaves and droughts in Europe. The large new inflows of fresh water from melting ice are a relatively new ingredient to the North Atlantic weather cauldron, and based on measurements from the new study, a currently emerging “freshwater anomaly” will likely trigger a drought and heatwave this summer in Southern Europe, said the study’s lead author, Marilena Oltmanns, an oceanographer with the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Centre. She said warmth over Greenland in the summer of 2023 melted a lot of ice, sending more freshwater toward the North Atlantic. Depending on the exact path of the influx, the findings suggest that, in addition to the immediate impacts this year, it will also trigger a heatwave and drought in Northern Europe in a more delayed reaction in the next five years, she said. 

The coming extremes will probably be similar to the European heatwaves of 2018 and 2022, she added, when there were huge temperature spikes in the Scandinavian and Siberian Arctic, as well as unusual wildfires in far northern Sweden. That year, much of the Northern Hemisphere was scorched, with “22 percent of populated and agricultural areas simultaneously experiencing heat extremes between May and July,” according to a 2019 study in Nature. In 2022, persistent heat waves across Europe from May to August killed more than 60,000 people, subsequent research showed. The United Kingdom reported its first-ever 40 degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) reading that summer, and the European Union’s second-worst wildfire season on record burned about 3,500 square miles of land.  Meanwhile, 2022 was also Europe’s driest year on record, with 63 percent of its rivers showing below-average discharge and low flows hampering important river shipping channels as well as power production. Oltmanns said the findings will help farmers and industries and communities to plan ahead for specific weather conditions by developing more resilient agricultural methods, predicting fuel demand and preparing for wildfires. Changing effects of freshwater flows into the North Atlantic had previously been observed over decadal timescales, associated with cyclical, linked shifts of ocean currents and winds, but that was “a very low frequency signal,” she said. “We have disentangled the signals.” Now the fluctuations are more frequent and more intense, “switching between different states very rapidly,” she said, adding that the study shows how the ocean changes driven by freshwater inflows have “direct and immediate consequences on the atmospheric circulation,” and thus on subsequent weather patterns in Europe. 

North American Links? Several recent studies already show some of the complex and maybe unexpected ways the North Atlantic and Arctic changes that are documented in the new study affect North American weather and climate patterns. A 2023 paper in Nature Communications, for example, suggests that the rapid decline of spring snowpack across North America promotes the warm and dry weather pattern over Greenland that caused the melting water tracked by Oltmanns......read on    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01032024/links-between-melting-arctic-ice-and-summertime-extreme-weather-in-europe/

How Climate Change Worsens Heatwaves, Droughts, Wildfires and Floods.

How climate change worsens heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods. BBC News 17 June 2024 Mark Poynting and Esme Stallard 

1. More extreme rain.....For every 1C rise in average temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture. This can result in more droplets and heavier rainfall, sometimes in a shorter space of time and over a smaller area. Globally, heavy rainfall events have become more frequent and intense over most land regions due to human activity, according to the UN's climate body, the IPCC. It says this pattern will continue with further warming. Scientists assess whether individual extreme weather events can be attributed to climate change by considering both natural and human causes. In the case of the intense rainfall which fell in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman in April 2024, it was difficult to conclude exactly how much of a role climate change played. Heavy rain in this region is rare, which offers researchers fewer historical comparisons. But these types of events have become 10-40% heavier, and climate change is the most likely explanation, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.In May 2024, southern Brazil experienced heavy rainswhich lead to widespread flooding, displacing about 150,000 people. The Rio Grande do Sul region that was hit is particularly vulnerable to heavy rains, as it is the meeting point of tropical and polar air masses.But climate expert Francisco Eliseu Aquino told the AFP news agency that "these interactions [have] intensified with climate change".  Scientists believe the heavy rainfall which caused deadly flooding in northern Libya in Sep tember 2023 was made up to 50 times more likely by climate changeYears of political instability in the regionalso hampered preparations for such events.

2. Hotter, longer heatwaves......Even a small increase in average temperatures makes a big difference to heat extremes. As the range of daily temperatures shifts to warmer levels, hotter days are more likely and more intense. In April 2024, temperatures in Mali hit 48.5C during an extreme heatwave across the Sahel region of Africa, which was linked to increased hospitalisations and deaths.This level of heat would not have been  possible without human-caused climate change, the WWA found, and will become more common as the world continues to warm. In the UK, temperatures topped 40C for the first time on record in July 2022, causing extensive disruption. This would have been extremely unlikely without climate change, the WWA says. Heatwaves are also becoming longer in many places, including the UK.This can happen as a result of heat domes, which are areas of high pressure where hot air is pushed down and trapped, causing temperatures to soar over large areas.....there's much more- read on
            https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58073295

She’s the New face of Climate Activism — and She’s Carrying a Pickaxe.

She’s the new face of climate activism — and she’s carrying a pickaxe.National Observer Morgan Meaker August 29th 2024  The then-24-year-old’s long brown hair is untied; her face uncovered. That’s important, she says. It adds a sense of legitimacy to what she’s about to do. She drives the pickax into the ground as the crowd around her looks on. Again and again she strikes at the hard, dry earth. When she can’t dig any more, another person emerges from the huddle to take over. Several meters down, they find what they’ve been looking for: pipes. Beneath the field is a network designed to carry water to a new “mega-basin” — a giant reservoir being built near the village of Épannes. The group is here to rip one of those pipes out of the ground. In other parts of the world, environmentalists target oil giants, airports and banks to throw sand in the gears of companies they believe are actively warming the globe. For activists in France, mega-basins have become a symbol of how the government is adapting to climate change in precisely the wrong way. In response to intensifying droughts, French authorities have carved giant water storage systems into the countryside for large farms to draw down in dry months. Critics say these mega-basins — which can hold up to 720 million liters, the equivalent of nearly 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools — are effectively hoarding water, reserving it for private landowners, leaving rivers parched and local groundwater systems depleted. In the past few years, activists have smashed bank windows, attacked gas stations, broken into oil-pipeline control stations, deflated hundreds of SUV tires and, just this summer, doused Stonehenge with temporary orange paint.

They do this for different aims — to attract media coverage, to argue their case in front of a jury, or to make business untenable for companies they see as responsible for loading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, driving calamitous weather events and courting mass extinction.In the past few years, activists have smashed bank windows, attacked gas stations, broken into oil-pipeline control stations, deflated hundreds of SUV tires and, just this summer, doused Stonehenge with temporary orange paint. They do this for different aims — to attract media coverage, to argue their case in front of a jury, or to make business untenable for companies they see as responsible for loading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, driving calamitous weather events and courting mass extinction. If Greta Thunberg was emblematic of an earlier stage of the global climate movement, Léna Lazare signals what comes next. Today’s activists are wrestling with deep disappointment that 2019’s mass climate demonstrations didn’t portend big changes and a certainty that they are running out of time to prevent climate catastrophe. A combination of urgency and despair is pushing them to actions previously seized by only the most radical fringe of the environmental movement.

Sabotage has been a strand of the modern environmental movement for half a century. In 1975, two homemade bombs exploded in a yet-to-be opened French nuclear power station, delaying its construction by several months. In 1986, activists sank two roughly 430-ton Icelandic whaling ships and used sledge hammers and acid to destroy processing equipment in the country’s only whale oil plant. In 1998, the year Lazare was born, a group associated with the Earth Liberation Front caused more than $12 million in damage when it torched a mile-long strip of a Colorado ski resort that had been planning to expand into an area considered a potential habitat for a threatened lynx. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/08/29/news/shes-new-face-climate-activism-shes-carrying-pickaxe

JULY 11 is World Population Day,......Time to Raise Awareness of Population Issues.

World Population Day 2024: Debunking Common Population Myths EARTH.ORG VIABILITY OF LIFE ON EARTH BY OLIVIA NATER  JULY 11 is World Population Day, a United Nations observance day which seeks to raise awareness of population issues. There are many myths and misconceptions about population trends and their significance — let’s explore the facts. 
Myth 1: Our population has already stopped growing..... Due to countless headlines about declining birth rates, many believe our global population has already stopped growing, and some even believe it is shrinking. This is not true. While approximately half of all countries now have fertility rates (the number of live births per woman) at or below the replacement level of 2.1, the global rate still stands at 2.3. We passed the 8 billion milestone in November 2022, and the United Nations projects that our population will keep growing until the 2080s, likely peaking above 10 billion, with no significant decline this century. 
Myth 2: Underpopulation is a greater threat than overpopulation........Politicians and economists fret about low or no population growth because this leads to population aging and a smaller pool of consumers and taxpayers. Tech billionaire Elon Musk went as far as claiming that low birth rates present “a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.” Population aging is an inevitable step towards a sustainable future, and while it does present challenges, these can be lessened in very beneficial ways, such as through investment in preventive healthcare and child welfare to maximize the number of productive members of society. Our planet is finite — failing to rein in our unhealthy addiction to infinite population and economic growth can only lead to disaster. 
Myth 3: There is plenty of space on Earth for more people.....A surprisingly widespread argument is that there is enough room for many more people because our entire world population could fit into the state of Texas.......read on   https://earth.org/world-population-day-2024-debunking-common-population-myths/

Carbon Pricing Explained...... Carbon Pricing is a Market-based Policy Tool that Assigns a Cost to Carbon Emissions

CLIMATE ISSUES Visualized: The Price of Carbon Around the World in 2024  National Public Utilities Council
  Only 1% of global emissions are priced high enough to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature target in 2024In our latest chart, we visualize carbon prices around the world using data from the World Bank.   https://mailchi.mp/visualcapitalist/visualized-the-price-of-carbon-around-the-world-in-2024?e=658afa5556.

...And.... Visualized: Carbon Pricing Initiatives in North America. Carbon pricing mechanisms are a vital component of an effective emissions reduction strategy. But these initiatives currently cover just 15% of total North American carbon emissions. To discover which initiatives are currently contributing to this coverage, this graphic sponsored by theNational Public Utilities Council maps out all of the national and subnational carbon pricing initiatives across North America using data from the World Bank. Let’s begin by looking at types of carbon pricing.

Carbon Pricing Explained...... Carbon pricing is a market-based policy tool that assigns a cost to carbon emissions, incentivizing reductions through the use of economic signals. While there are several ways to go about carbon pricing, the most commonly used types of carbon pricing strategies include......Emissions Trading Systems (ETS) establishes a market for trading emissions allowances among companies. A cap on total em...issions is set, and all companies receive tradable emission units. Those exceeding their limits can buy allowances from those with a surplus.Carbon Taxes.....Carbon taxes impose a direct price on carbon emissions. Their goal is to disincentivize carbon-intensive activities, such as burning fossil fuels, by making them financially less attractive. In 2022, carbon pricing strategies generated $5 billion in the U.S. and $8 billion in Canada. These funds were primarily allocated toward green investments and support for low-income households.

Carbon Pricing Initiatives By Country......The U.S. is currently the only country in North America without a national carbon pricing initiative. Both Canada and Mexico, on the other hand, have implemented federal ETS and carbon tax programs. Beyond federal initiatives, many regions on the continent have also implemented or are considering their own carbon pricing initiatives. These subnational initiatives are listed in the article.....check it out    https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-carbon-pricing-initiatives-in-north-america/?utm_source=decarb-channel&utm_medium=email-ne wsletter&utm_campaign=Decarbonization