Category: Labor and Working

Climate change made catastrophic flood more likely, study finds

Climate change made catastrophic flood more likely, study finds

Jeff Berardelli                      

 

One of the worst disasters in a summer full of extreme weather events — the Western European flooding in July — was made significantly more likely and more intense due to the impact of human-caused climate change, new research shows. More than 200 people lost their lives when rivers overflowed and roared through towns in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, washing away structures that had been standing for hundreds of years.

A Belgian government minister described the flood as “one of the greatest natural disasters our country has ever known.” As much as two months’ worth of rainfall fell in just two days, with some locations picking up nearly 8 inches.

The new study from a team of international scientists at World Weather Attribution has found that the European flooding event — even in today’s heated climate — would only be expected to occur once every 400 years in that part of the world. The study also found that the flood event was between 1.2 times and 9 times more likely than it would have been without climate change, and our warmer climate made it up to 19% more intense.

And the researchers warn, “these changes will continue in a rapidly warming climate.”

Rainfall totals from the mid-July European flood event in millimeters. / Credit: World Weather Attribution
Rainfall totals from the mid-July European flood event in millimeters. / Credit: World Weather Attribution

 

The factors the study takes into account involve fairly straightforward science. For instance, it’s well understood that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor and dump more rain. The relationship is simple: for every 2 degrees Fahrenheit increase in global temperature, atmospheric water vapor increases by 8%.

In addition, the attribution study uses climate models to analyze local effects like the impact on convection (downpours) due to a warmer atmosphere. The study can then use computer modeling to compare heavy precipitation in today’s heated atmosphere with what they call a counter-factual world — one with cooler, pre-industrial-level temperatures. The difference between the heated and not-heated world tells scientists how impactful climate change has become.

While these numbers are impressive in their own right, they don’t tell the whole story. That’s because assessments like these focus on statistical and climate model analysis, which do not take into account the climate change impact on large scale weather patterns, like atmospheric steering currents known as the jet stream.

Climate change and the jet stream

The jet stream is a narrow river of air in the upper atmosphere which is responsible for steering storms around the globe and also separating cold air masses from warm air masses. In the case of the European floods there’s no debate that a very abnormal jet stream was a significant factor.

The jet stream at the time, from July 12 to 15, was so elongated, wavy and unstable that a piece of it broke off, forming what is called a cut-off low. These type of lows move very slowly, often dumping heavy precipitation over the same areas for a prolonged period of time.

You often hear us talk about the wavy jet stream. Here’s a good illustration of how this manifests in extreme weather, connecting the Europe flooding to the Heat Dome in the US West. Some scientists have found a connection between climate change and a more amp’d – wavy jet 1/…. pic.twitter.com/4rEZNHL3mg

— Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) July 17, 2021

Cut-off lows like the one in Europe can and do happen naturally. But they are made more likely when the jet stream is slower and more wavy. Many climate scientists believe that a warmer climate is indeed making the jet stream slower.

In 2018, Penn State climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann published a paper about changes in persistent extreme summer weather events, coining the rather technical term quasi-resonant amplification (QRA), which refers to large scale weather patterns that are more likely to be semi-stationary due to a warmer climate.

In an email to CBS News, Mann says although he doesn’t see evidence that QRA contributed to this flood event, “There’s no question that the overall slowing down of the summer jet stream did play a role.”

Mann calls attribution studies like this one “extremely conservative” and says that since its modeling doesn’t appear to have taken this factor into account, “it is likely understating the role climate change likely played here.”

Why was the impact of warming on the jet stream not included in the World Weather Attribution analysis? Simply put, jet stream dynamics are extremely complicated and hard to replicate in climate models. The jet stream also exhibits tremendous day-to-day and year-to-year variability in terms of its location, speed and degree of waviness. This makes determining the impact of climate change on the jet stream extremely challenging, especially for a rapid study like this.

The extent to which climate change is causing the jet stream is become slower and more “wavy” is one of the hottest debates in the climate community. There’s one camp of scientists who buy into a concept called the wavy jet stream — the idea that because the temperature contrast from the poles to the tropics is lessening, the jet stream slows down and becomes more meandering and curvy. There’s another camp, just as big, who disagree.

Although there is still no clear winner in this climate debate yet, there is one study, coincidentally published just two weeks before the European floods, which seems to be especially applicable. In their research, the authors not only take into account changing rain rates due to increased moisture and convection, but also the change in steering currents in the atmosphere.

Using extremely high resolution climate simulations, the authors were able to show that a future increase in precipitation extremes across Europe happens not only because of more moisture, but also due to slower storm movement of storms, which increases their duration in a given location. What they describe bears a striking resemblance to what happen in mid-July.

“Our results suggest such slow-moving storms may be 14x more frequent across land [in Europe] by the end of the century,” the study concludes. The authors say the main reason seems to be a reduced temperature difference between the poles and tropics, which weakens upper-level winds, especially in the fall.

But this impact of a slower, more amplified jet stream reverberates all around the globe. This past weekend in the U.S., record-breaking rainfall occurred both near the path of Henri in the New York City area and to a much larger degree in western Tennessee, where more than 17 inches of rain fell in 24 hours — a new state record.

Following a weekend of record-breaking rain after #Henri made landfall, @WeatherProf breaks down how climate change is intensifying these naturally occurring weather patterns. pic.twitter.com/iDNtam1OA8

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) August 23, 2021

The Tennessee flooding, which claimed at least 22 lives, was not caused by a large weather system. Rather, it was caused by a very narrow band of heavy rain which got stuck over one small area for an extended period of time.

The result was an extremely rare event — one that would be expected to happen less than once every 1,000 years.

As seen in the graphic below, this can be blamed on a blocked weather pattern — a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam in the atmosphere — which extended well into the Atlantic Ocean and even Greenland. When nothing can move, heavy rain bands persist in the same spot.

This summer has featured a very amplified and wavy jet stream across the globe. One aspect of this type of pattern is a blocked flow, in which systems get stuck for extended periods of time.  / Credit: CBS News
This summer has featured a very amplified and wavy jet stream across the globe. One aspect of this type of pattern is a blocked flow, in which systems get stuck for extended periods of time. / Credit: CBS News

 

While the connection between climate change and extreme weather is still hard for science to put an exact number on, what this summer has made abundantly clear is that greenhouse warming from the accumulation of carbon emissions is amplifying extreme weather all over the globe. These extremes will only increase at a faster rate as the climate continues to warm.

Climate change made catastrophic flood more likely, study finds

Climate change made catastrophic flood more likely, study finds

Jeff Berardelli                    

One of the worst disasters in a summer full of extreme weather events — the Western European flooding in July — was made significantly more likely and more intense due to the impact of human-caused climate change, new research shows. More than 200 people lost their lives when rivers overflowed and roared through towns in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, washing away structures that had been standing for hundreds of years.

A Belgian government minister described the flood as “one of the greatest natural disasters our country has ever known.” As much as two months’ worth of rainfall fell in just two days, with some locations picking up nearly 8 inches.

The new study from a team of international scientists at World Weather Attribution has found that the European flooding event — even in today’s heated climate — would only be expected to occur once every 400 years in that part of the world. The study also found that the flood event was between 1.2 times and 9 times more likely than it would have been without climate change, and our warmer climate made it up to 19% more intense.

And the researchers warn, “these changes will continue in a rapidly warming climate.”

Rainfall totals from the mid-July European flood event in millimeters. / Credit: World Weather Attribution
Rainfall totals from the mid-July European flood event in millimeters. / Credit: World Weather Attribution

 

The factors the study takes into account involve fairly straightforward science. For instance, it’s well understood that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor and dump more rain. The relationship is simple: for every 2 degrees Fahrenheit increase in global temperature, atmospheric water vapor increases by 8%.

In addition, the attribution study uses climate models to analyze local effects like the impact on convection (downpours) due to a warmer atmosphere. The study can then use computer modeling to compare heavy precipitation in today’s heated atmosphere with what they call a counter-factual world — one with cooler, pre-industrial-level temperatures. The difference between the heated and not-heated world tells scientists how impactful climate change has become.

While these numbers are impressive in their own right, they don’t tell the whole story. That’s because assessments like these focus on statistical and climate model analysis, which do not take into account the climate change impact on large scale weather patterns, like atmospheric steering currents known as the jet stream.

Climate change and the jet stream

The jet stream is a narrow river of air in the upper atmosphere which is responsible for steering storms around the globe and also separating cold air masses from warm air masses. In the case of the European floods there’s no debate that a very abnormal jet stream was a significant factor.

The jet stream at the time, from July 12 to 15, was so elongated, wavy and unstable that a piece of it broke off, forming what is called a cut-off low. These type of lows move very slowly, often dumping heavy precipitation over the same areas for a prolonged period of time.

You often hear us talk about the wavy jet stream. Here’s a good illustration of how this manifests in extreme weather, connecting the Europe flooding to the Heat Dome in the US West. Some scientists have found a connection between climate change and a more amp’d – wavy jet 1/…. pic.twitter.com/4rEZNHL3mg

Cut-off lows like the one in Europe can and do happen naturally. But they are made more likely when the jet stream is slower and more wavy. Many climate scientists believe that a warmer climate is indeed making the jet stream slower.

In 2018, Penn State climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann published a paper about changes in persistent extreme summer weather events, coining the rather technical term quasi-resonant amplification (QRA), which refers to large scale weather patterns that are more likely to be semi-stationary due to a warmer climate.

In an email to CBS News, Mann says although he doesn’t see evidence that QRA contributed to this flood event, “There’s no question that the overall slowing down of the summer jet stream did play a role.”

Mann calls attribution studies like this one “extremely conservative” and says that since its modeling doesn’t appear to have taken this factor into account, “it is likely understating the role climate change likely played here.”

Why was the impact of warming on the jet stream not included in the World Weather Attribution analysis? Simply put, jet stream dynamics are extremely complicated and hard to replicate in climate models. The jet stream also exhibits tremendous day-to-day and year-to-year variability in terms of its location, speed and degree of waviness. This makes determining the impact of climate change on the jet stream extremely challenging, especially for a rapid study like this.

The extent to which climate change is causing the jet stream is become slower and more “wavy” is one of the hottest debates in the climate community. There’s one camp of scientists who buy into a concept called the wavy jet stream — the idea that because the temperature contrast from the poles to the tropics is lessening, the jet stream slows down and becomes more meandering and curvy. There’s another camp, just as big, who disagree.

Although there is still no clear winner in this climate debate yet, there is one study, coincidentally published just two weeks before the European floods, which seems to be especially applicable. In their research, the authors not only take into account changing rain rates due to increased moisture and convection, but also the change in steering currents in the atmosphere.

Using extremely high resolution climate simulations, the authors were able to show that a future increase in precipitation extremes across Europe happens not only because of more moisture, but also due to slower storm movement of storms, which increases their duration in a given location. What they describe bears a striking resemblance to what happen in mid-July.

“Our results suggest such slow-moving storms may be 14x more frequent across land [in Europe] by the end of the century,” the study concludes. The authors say the main reason seems to be a reduced temperature difference between the poles and tropics, which weakens upper-level winds, especially in the fall.

But this impact of a slower, more amplified jet stream reverberates all around the globe. This past weekend in the U.S., record-breaking rainfall occurred both near the path of Henri in the New York City area and to a much larger degree in western Tennessee, where more than 17 inches of rain fell in 24 hours — a new state record.

Following a weekend of record-breaking rain after #Henri made landfall, @WeatherProf breaks down how climate change is intensifying these naturally occurring weather patterns. pic.twitter.com/iDNtam1OA8

 

The Tennessee flooding, which claimed at least 22 lives, was not caused by a large weather system. Rather, it was caused by a very narrow band of heavy rain which got stuck over one small area for an extended period of time.

The result was an extremely rare event — one that would be expected to happen less than once every 1,000 years.

As seen in the graphic below, this can be blamed on a blocked weather pattern — a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam in the atmosphere — which extended well into the Atlantic Ocean and even Greenland. When nothing can move, heavy rain bands persist in the same spot.

This summer has featured a very amplified and wavy jet stream across the globe. One aspect of this type of pattern is a blocked flow, in which systems get stuck for extended periods of time.  / Credit: CBS News
This summer has featured a very amplified and wavy jet stream across the globe. One aspect of this type of pattern is a blocked flow, in which systems get stuck for extended periods of time. / Credit: CBS News

 

While the connection between climate change and extreme weather is still hard for science to put an exact number on, what this summer has made abundantly clear is that greenhouse warming from the accumulation of carbon emissions is amplifying extreme weather all over the globe. These extremes will only increase at a faster rate as the climate continues to warm.

Denmark, Costa Rica seek alliance to speed up the end of oil and gas

Reuters

Denmark, Costa Rica seek alliance to speed up the end of oil and gas

By Kate Abnett and Stine Jacobsen         August 25, 2021

A flame burning natural gas is seen at the Joint stock company "Mozyr oil refinery" near the town of Mozyr, Belarus January 4, 2020. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko/File Photo

A flame burning natural gas is seen at the Joint stock company “Mozyr oil refinery” near the town of Mozyr, Belarus January 4, 2020. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko/File Photo

BRUSSELS/COPENHAGEN, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Denmark and Costa Rica are trying to forge an alliance of countries willing to fix a date to phase out oil and gas production and to stop giving permits for new exploration, government ministers said and documents showed.

Burning fossil fuels is the main source of the greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet, but so far there has been no collective government action to end oil and gas production.

“Restricting domestic oil and gas production in line with what is required to live up to the Paris Agreement goals will be the core focus for BOGA,” a draft of the rules for the alliance said, referring to the group’s name – the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA).

Industry and governments are moving too slowly to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit), which scientists say requires the world to reach net zero emissions by 2050. read more

The International Energy Agency has said there should be no new investments in fossil fuel supply projects anywhere in the world if the Paris targets are to be met. read more

The draft document seen by Reuters said a core task for the BOGA would be to establish a deadline for developing and developed countries to phase out existing oil and gas production that would align them with the Paris goals.

To become a full member of the alliance, countries must promise to end new licensing rounds for oil and gas production on their territories, as well as to phase out existing production, the draft said. The draft could change before the expected launch of the BOGA at the U.N. climate summit in November in Glasgow, Scotland.

Countries could become second-tier members if they have taken some steps to limit oil and gas output, such as ending public financing of it abroad or reforming fossil fuel subsidies.

LEVEL OF SUPPORT UNCLEAR

Danish climate and energy minister Dan Jorgensen told Reuters Denmark, which is co-leading the initiative with Costa Rica, was talking to many countries, but it was too early to say how many would join the alliance.

One of the largest European oil and gas producers, Denmark last year banned new North Sea oil and gas exploration and committed to ending its existing production by 2050.

“Very few countries have taken such steps and we hope that this alliance will be something that will be noticed and hopefully inspire others to join,” Jorgensen said.

Costa Rica has never extracted oil, but is considering a bill to permanently ban fossil fuel exploration to ensure no future governments do so.

“Costa Rica represents the commitment and decision of a developing country that has the possibility to explore, makes a brave decision and decides to go for another development model and rides into the economy of the future,” Costa Rica’s environment minister Andrea Meza said.

New Zealand, which banned new permits for offshore oil in 2018, told Reuters it had been approached by Denmark and was “in the process of learning more about this initiative”.

Costa Rica’s Meza said the countries the alliance had approached included Portugal and Spain. Spain did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, while Portugal said it had not applied for membership of the alliance yet.

The United Kingdom, which is hosting the U.N. climate summit December and has not committed to phase out its oil and gas production or halt exploration, declined to comment on its involvement.

A UK government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the government is engaging with Denmark on the alliance.

However, some large producers – including Norway, western Europe’s top oil and gas producer, are not yet involved.

“We’ve not been contacted in this regard,” Norwegian deputy energy minister Tony Tiller told Reuters.

PARADOXIAL SITUATION

As a coalition of the willing, BOGA is unlikely to touch major oil and gas producers, such as Saudia Arabia or Russia, whose economies depend on fossil fuels, and which have shown no interest in curbing production.

But part of BOGA’s aim is to redefine what counts as climate leadership from governments. Large countries’ climate change targets tend to focus on reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels, but rarely limit the production of the fuels themselves.

“We are in a paradoxical situation right now where many countries have pledged to become carbon neutral but are actually still planning to produce oil and gas after that date,” Jorgensen said.

The United States, the world’s largest producer of both oil and gas, this year pledged to halve its emissions by 2030, from 2005 levels. The U.S. government did not respond to a request for comment on whether it is involved in BOGA.

Of the few countries that have taken action to ban fossil fuel exploration and production, France has committed to do so by 2040, and Spain by 2042.

‘Times have changed’: some Afghan women defiant as Taliban return

‘Times have changed’: some Afghan women defiant as Taliban return

Rupam Jain and Lucy Marks                      

Afghan women wait to receive free wheat donated by the Afghan government during a quarantine, amid concerns about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Kabul.

 

(Reuters) – Afghan women and girls who have won freedoms they could not have dreamt of under the last Taliban rule that ended 20 years ago are desperate not to lose them now the Islamist militant movement is back in power.

Taliban leaders have made reassurances in the build-up up to and aftermath of their stunning conquest of Afghanistan that girls and women would have the right to work and education, although they have come with caveats.

Some women have already been ordered from their jobs during the chaos of Taliban advances across the country in recent days. Others are fearful that whatever the militants say, the reality may be different.

“Times have changed,” said Khadija, who runs a religious school for girls in Afghanistan.

“The Taliban are aware they can’t silence us, and if they shut down the internet the world will know in less than 5 minutes. They will have to accept who we are and what we have become.”

That defiance reflects a generation of women, mainly in urban centers, who have grown up being able to attend school and university and to find jobs.

When the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, their strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law – sometimes brutally enforced – dictated that women could not work and girls were not allowed to attend school.

Women had to cover their face and be accompanied by a male relative if they wanted to venture out of their homes. Those who broke the rules sometimes suffered humiliation and public beatings by the Taliban’s religious police.

During the past two years, when it became clear that foreign troops were planning to withdraw from Afghanistan, Taliban leaders made assurances to the West that women would enjoy equal rights in accordance with Islam, including access to employment and education.

On Tuesday, at the Taliban’s first press conference since seizing Kabul on Sunday, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said women would have rights https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/evacuation-flights-resume-kabul-airport-biden-defends-us-withdrawal-2021-08-17 to education, health and employment and that they would be “happy” within the framework of sharia.

Specifically referring to women working in media, Mujahid said it would depend on what laws were introduced by the new government in Kabul.

On Tuesday, a female anchor for the private Afghan channel Tolo TV interviewed a Taliban spokesman live on air.

WOMEN FORCED FROM WORK

Afghan girls’ education activist Pashtana Durrani, 23, was wary of Taliban promises.

“They have to walk the talk. Right now they’re not doing that,” she told Reuters, referring to assurances that girls would be allowed to attend schools.

“If they limit the curriculum, I am going to upload more books to (an) online library. If they limit the internet … I will send books to homes. If they limit teachers I will start an underground school, so I have an answer for their solutions.”

Some women have said that one test of the Taliban’s commitment to equal rights would be whether they give them political and policy making jobs.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot in the head by a Pakistani gunman in 2012 after she campaigned for girls’ rights to education, said she was deeply concerned https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/malala-yousafzai-urges-world-leaders-take-urgent-action-afghanistan-2021-08-17 about the situation in Afghanistan.

“I had the opportunity to talk to a few activists in Afghanistan, including women’s rights activists, and they are sharing their concern that they are not sure what their life is going to be like,” Yousafzai told BBC Newsnight.

The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF expressed cautious optimism https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/unicef-says-some-taliban-support-education-afghan-girls-2021-08-17 about working with Taliban officials, citing their early expressions of support for girls’ education.

It is still delivering aid to most parts of the country and has held initial meetings with new Taliban representatives in recently seized cities like Kandahar, Herat and Jalalabad.

“We have ongoing discussions, we are quite optimistic based on those discussions,” UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Afghanistan, Mustapha Ben Messaoud, told a U.N. briefing.

But U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned on Monday of “chilling” curbs on human rights under the Taliban and mounting violations against women and girls.

Reuters reported https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-women-bankers-forced-roles-taliban-takes-control-2021-08-13 last week that in early July, Taliban fighters walked into a commercial bank branch in Kandahar and ordered nine women working there to leave because their jobs were deemed inappropriate. They were allowed to be replaced by male relatives.

(Writing and editing by Mike Collett-White)

Climate change: Europe’s 2020 heat reached ‘troubling’ level

Climate change: Europe’s 2020 heat reached ‘troubling’ level

Matt McGrath – Environment correspondent      
Fire
Fire. Last year was the warmest on record across Europe, breaking the previous high mark by a considerable distance, say scientists.

Temperatures across the region were more than 1.9C above the long-term average between 1981 and 2010.

The State of the Climate 2020 report from the American Meteorological Society says temperatures in the Arctic are also rising rapidly.

The temperature over land there was the highest since records began in 1900.

Reports earlier this year had confirmed that 2020 was Europe’s warmest on record and one of the three hottest globally.

This new data shows that Europe’s temperature margin over previous years was significantly greater than previously thought.

Not only was the year 1.9C above the long-term average, it was more than 0.5C greater than the previous high mark.

“This level of difference to the previous long-term average, which is a large difference, is something that is concerning,” said Dr. Robert Dunn, a senior climate scientist at the UK Met Office.

“It is something to sit up and take notice of, but it’s not just the temperatures that are increasing, the extreme events, the heat waves we’re seeing this year, and last year as well. We’re seeing these responses across the world.”

Other researchers agreed that the scale of the record-breaking heat in Europe was troubling.

“The amount by which the previous record has been exceeded should worry us all,” said Prof Gabi Hegerl, professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study.

“European temperatures are well measured and can be tracked back to the beginning of industrialization and beyond, using documentary evidence and proxy records. This long-term context emphasizes how unusual this warmth is.”

river
River. The warmth across Europe brought huge temperature differences from the long-term average in some countries with Estonia, Finland and Latvia all recording anomalies of 2.4C.

 

Overall, Europe has seen its five warmest years on record all occur since 2014.

One other area of the world experiencing rapid warming is the Arctic.

Temperatures over land reached worrying new heights, getting to 2.1C above the 1981-2010 average. This was the highest since the series of records began 121 years ago.

It was also the seventh year in succession with an annual average temperature more than 1C above the average.

“The Arctic, we see warming incredibly rapidly. It was the warmest average surface temperature in the Arctic in a series going back 121 years, in 2020,” said Dr Dunn.

“That, of course feeds down into places nearby, which includes Europe to some level. But we’re seeing these effects throughout the world.”

Key findings from the State of the Climate 2020
  • Earth’s greenhouse gases were the highest on record. Despite the global pandemic that slowed economic activity, the major atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide rose to a new record high in 2020.
  • CO2 levels were the highest in both the modern 62-year record and in ice cores dating back as far as 800,000 years.
  • Global sea level was the highest on record. For the ninth consecutive year, global average sea level rose to a new record high and was about 91.3mm higher than when satellite observations began.
  • Earth’s warming trend continued. The year 2020 was among the three-warmest years since records began (around 1850) and was the warmest year on record without an El Niño event (a warming climate pattern in the Pacific).
  • The last seven years (2014-20) were the seven warmest years on record.

While rainfall around the world wasn’t exceptionally high during 2020, the authors say that there’s a clear response from the hydrological cycle to sustained heating.

Total atmospheric water vapor was well above average. The extra moisture adds to the impact of higher temperatures on humans.

Drought
Dry conditions were seen in many parts of Europe in 2020

 

Taken together, the indicators show what one of the study’s editors calls “our new normal”.

“This report follows closely on the latest [UN] IPCC [climate] report which could not be clearer in its messaging,” said Dr. Kate Willett, from the Met Office.

“Our climate has changed and is likely to continue changing unless the key driver, greenhouse gases, are curbed, and what we’re seeing now is already straining our society and our environment.”

The House seat of one of the GOP’s ‘most prominent’ Trump critics is on the chopping block

The House seat of one of the GOP’s ‘most prominent’ Trump critics is on the chopping block

Brigid Kennedy, Contributing Writer                      
Adam Kinzinger.
Adam Kinzinger. Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images

 

A new congressional map in Illinois could spell trouble for the House tenure of “one of the GOP’s most prominent” critics of former President Donald Trump, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Politico reports.

Democrats, having “total control” over redistricting in Illinois, will almost definitely “attempt to maximize party gains” with the updated map, especially as sure-to-be contentious midterms threaten the party’s razor-thin majority. That said, “thanks to declining population,” Kinzinger’s seat will very likely be cut, writes Politico.

Although no official proposed map has yet emerged, “few party operatives in D.C. or Illinois could envision a final plan that leaves much of Kinzinger’s seat intact,” Politico writes. “If I had to take a bet, I bet that we lose a Republican district,” said Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.).

Should Kinzinger lose his seat, he’d be forced to choose between running somewhere new, perhaps against another incumbent, or making a long shot bid for governor or Senate, assuming he could perform in a GOP primary after having repeatedly criticized Trump. Said Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), when asked if Kinzinger could win in a different seat: “It’d be hard.”

But maybe that’s counting him out too early. Some think Kinzinger could mount a successful 2024 presidential run. Others think he could shore up the vote from suburban moderates and democrat-skeptical independents. For his part, Kinzinger, who told Politico he isn’t “losing sleep” over the possibility of losing his seat, hasn’t counted himself out of the political conversation moving forward.

“I certainly wouldn’t rule out Senate or governor and anything else,” he said. “Maybe, who knows?” Read more at Politico.

Is climate change to blame for extreme weather events? Attribution science says yes, for some – here’s how it works

Xubin Zeng, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorolgy Center, University of Arizona.
<span class="caption">Climate change made the devastating flooding in Belgium, Germany and other European countries in July 2021 more likely.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-taken-on-july-15-2021-shows-a-view-of-a-flooded-news-photo/1233994855" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:Anthony Dehez/Belga/AFP via Getty Images">Anthony Dehez/Belga/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
Climate change made the devastating flooding in Belgium, Germany and other European countries in July 2021 more likely.

Anthony Dehez/Belga/AFP via Getty Images

 

Extreme rainfall and flooding left paths of destruction through communities around the world this summer. The latest was in Tennessee, where preliminary data shows a record-shattering 17 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, turning creeks into rivers that flooded hundreds of homes and killed at least 18 people.

A lot of people are asking: Was it climate change? Answering that question isn’t so simple.

There has always been extreme weather, but human-caused global warming can increase extreme weather’s frequency and severity. For example, research shows that human activities such as burning fossil fuels are unequivocally warming the planet, and we know from basic physics that warm air can hold more moisture.

A decade ago, scientists weren’t able to confidently connect any individual weather event to climate change, even though the broader climate change trends were clear. Today, attribution studies can show whether extreme events were affected by climate change and whether they can be explained by natural variability alone. With rapid advances from research and increasing computing power, extreme event attribution has become a burgeoning new branch of climate science.

The latest attribution study, released Aug. 23, 2021, looked at the rainfall from the European storm that killed more than 220 people when floods swept through Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in July 2021.

A team of climate scientists with the group World Weather Attribution analyzed the record-breaking storm, dubbed Bernd, focusing on two of the most severely affected areas. Their analysis found that human-induced climate change made a storm of that severity between 1.2 and 9 times more likely than it would have been in a world 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.1 F) cooler. The planet has warmed just over 1 C since the industrial era began.

An overturned trailer and flooded car were washed into a creek by flash flooding during heavy rainfall in Tennessee.
An overturned trailer and flooded car were washed into a creek by flash flooding during heavy rainfall in Tennessee.

Similar studies haven’t yet been conducted on the Tennessee storm, but they likely will be.

So, how do scientists figure this out? As an atmospheric scientist, I have been involved in attribution studies. Here’s how the process works:

How do attribution studies work?

Attribution studies usually involve four steps.

The first step is to define the event’s magnitude and frequency based on observational data. For example, the July rainfall in Germany and Belgium broke records by large margins. The scientists determined that in today’s climate, a storm like that would occur on average every 400 years in the wider region.

The second step is to use computers to run climate models and compare those models’ results with observational data. To have confidence in a climate model’s results, the model needs to be able to realistically simulate such extreme events in the past and accurately represent the physical factors that help these events occur.

The third step is to define the baseline environment without climate change – essentially create a virtual world of Earth as it would be if no human activities had warmed the planet. Then run the same climate models again.

The differences between the second and third steps represent the impact of human-caused climate change. The last step is to quantify these differences in the magnitude and frequency of the extreme event, using statistical methods.

For instance, we analyzed how Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 and a unique weather pattern interacted with each other to produce the record-breaking rainstorm in Texas. Two attribution studies found that human-caused climate change increased the probability of such an event by roughly a factor of three, and increased Harvey’s rainfall by 15%.

Another study determined that the western North American extreme heat in late June 2021 would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.

US Map showing strong temperature anomalies from Oregon through British Columbia.
US Map showing strong temperature anomalies from Oregon through British Columbia.
How good are attribution studies?

The accuracy of attribution studies is affected by uncertainties associated with each of the above four steps.

Some types of events lend themselves to attribution studies better than others. For instance, among long-term measurements, temperature data is most reliable. We understand how human-caused climate change affects heat waves better than other extreme events. Climate models are also usually skillful in simulating heat waves.

Even for heat waves, the impact of human-caused climate change on the magnitude and frequency could be quite different, such as the case of the extraordinary heat wave across western Russia in 2010. Climate change was found to have had minimal impact on the magnitude but substantial impact on the frequency.

There can also be legitimate differences in the methods underpinning different attribution studies.

However, people can make decisions for the future without knowing everything with certainty. Even when planning a backyard barbecue, one does not have to have all the weather information.

Read more: The water cycle is intensifying as the climate warms, IPCC report warns – that means more intense storms and flooding

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Xubin Zeng, University of Arizona.

Read more:

Xubin Zeng receives funding from NASA, DOE, NOAA, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the California Department of Water Resources. He is a fellow of both the American Meteorological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a member of the American Geophysical Union.

A Florida teacher who couldn’t get vaccinated because of her cancer treatment died of COVID-19.

A Florida teacher who couldn’t get vaccinated because of her cancer treatment died of COVID-19. Her union says she caught it from her classroom, which had no mask mandate.

Ashley Collman                         
Lake Shipp Elementary
Lake Shipp Elementary School in Florida Google Street View
 
  • Florida elementary school teacher Kelly Peterson died of COVID-19 complications on Monday.
  • She was advised not to get a COVID-19 vaccine by her doctor due to her leukemia treatment.
  • Her sister and union believes Peterson got infected in the classroom, where masks were not mandatory.

A 41-year-old Florida teacher whose doctor had advised her against getting vaccinated has died of COVID-19 complications after she was forced to return to in-person teaching where there was no mask mandate, local outlets say.

Kelly Peterson was not vaccinated against the coronavirus because she had leukemia and her doctor advised against getting the shot in her already weakened state, her sister, Christin, told KTVU.

Lake Shipp Elementary School announced Peterson’s death in a Facebook post on Monday, saying she “touched hundreds of students’ lives” and “made a lasting impression on us all.”

Both Peterson’s sister and the Polk County teacher’s union said that she contracted COVID-19 in the classroom, KTVU reported. However, it should be noted that it’s almost impossible to know how someone contracted COVID-19.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned mask mandates in the state, but several schools have defied the order.

Peterson’s sister told KTVU of the doctor’s warnings against the COVID-19 vaccination: “Because her leukemia was so bad at this point, their concern was by getting the vaccine that potentially could put too much stress on her body.”

Cancer patients and survivors are encouraged to get the vaccine, but to discuss the decision with their doctor first, according to the American Cancer Society. ACS said the main question about vaccines and cancer is not whether the vaccine is safe, but whether it is as effective in people with already compromised immune systems.

Last year, Peterson worked remotely, but her sister said she was forced to return to in-person learning this school year, even though she’s immunocompromised.

“With all the COVID cases this year and her medical situation, she should have been a virtual teacher this year. The school didn’t offer that,” Peterson’s sister told The Ledger.

Both the Polk County School District superintendent and the Lake Shipp principal did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Lorinda Utter, one of Peterson’s coworkers, told The Ledger that Peterson took every precaution in the classroom, wearing a mask at all times and sanitizing surfaces regularly.

“She did everything she could to try to stay away from COVID,” Utter said.

Peterson was terrified of getting COVID-19, her sister said, and knew the effects it would have on her if she contracted it.

“She had voiced concerns many times that if she contracted COVID, she was afraid that it would kill her, and unfortunately that’s what happened,” Christin Peterson told KTVU.

Christin Peterson also said she hopes her sister’s story will encourage more people to get vaccinated.

Stephanie Yocum, president of the Polk County Teachers union, said she hopes parents “set good examples” for their kids by wearing masks.

“If wearing a mask can keep somebody from dying, that should be something that every person should do right now,” Yocum told KTVU.

Pristine Lake Tahoe shrouded in smoke from threatening fire

Pristine Lake Tahoe shrouded in smoke from threatening fire

Sam Metz and Brian Melley                

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Ash rained down on Lake Tahoe on Tuesday and thick yellow smoke blotted out views of the mountains rimming its pristine blue waters as a massive wildfire threatened the alpine vacation spot on the California-Nevada state line.

Tourists ducked into cafes, outdoor gear shops and casinos on Lake Tahoe Boulevard for a respite from hazardous air coming from an erratic blaze less than 20 miles (32 kilometers) away.

The Caldor Fire erupted over the course of a week into the nation’s No. 1 firefighting priority and was “knocking on the door” of Tahoe, said Thom Porter, California’s state fire chief. A major wildfire has not penetrated the Lake Tahoe Basin since 2007.

Tourists typically come to swim and hike, relax along the lake’s calm shores or take their chances gambling, not risk their lives in the face of a potential disaster.

Although there were no evacuations ordered and Porter said he didn’t think the fire would reach the lake, it was impossible to ignore the blanket of haze so thick and vast that it closed schools for a second day in Reno, Nevada, which is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the fire.

Visitors wore masks outdoors — not because the coronavirus pandemic, but because of the toxic air and inescapable stench of fire. The gondola that ferries summer passengers to the summit of the Heavenly Mountain ski area was closed until winter due to the wildfire risk.

Cindy Osterloh, whose husband pushed a relative in a wheelchair beneath the idled cables, said she and family members visiting from San Diego were all on allergy medications to take the sting out of their eyes and keep their noses from running so they can ride out the smoke for the rest of their vacation.

“We got up and it was a lot clearer this morning. We went for a walk and then we came back and now it’s coming in again,” she said of the smoke. “We’re going to go and see a movie and hopefully it clears up enough that we can go do our boat rides.”

An army of firefighters worked to contain the blaze, which has spread explosively in a manner witnessed in the past two years during extreme drought. Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

Massive plumes have erupted in flames, burning embers carried by gusts have skipped miles ahead of fire lines, and fires that typically die down at night have made long runs in the dark.

Northern California has seen a series of disastrous blazes that have burned hundreds of homes and many remain uncontained. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden declared that a major disaster exists in California and ordered federal aid made available in four northern counties ravaged by blazes dating back to July 14.

The Caldor Fire had scorched more than 190 square miles (492 square kilometers) and destroyed at least 455 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe. It was 11% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.

Nationally, 92 large fires were burning in a dozen states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Although many fires are larger, the Caldor Fire has become the top priority to keep it from sweeping into the Tahoe.

As the fire grew last week, politicians, environmentalists, and policy makers gathered on the shore for the 25th annual Lake Tahoe Summit dedicated to protecting the lake and the pine-covered mountains that surround it.

With the Caldor Fire burning to the southwest and the Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history with a 500-mile (804-kilometer) perimeter, burning about 65 miles (104 kilometers) to the north, the risk to the lake was top of mind.

“The fires that are raging all around us nearby are screaming this warning: Tahoe could be next,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif.

The last major blaze in the area took South Lake Tahoe by surprise after blowing up from an illegal campfire in the summer of 2007. The Angora Fire burned less than 5 square miles (13 square kilometers) but destroyed 254 homes, injured three people and forced 2,000 people to flee.

Scars from the fire can still be seen not far from the commercial strip where South Lake Tahoe meets the Nevada border in Stateline, where tourists go to gamble.

Inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, cocktail waitresses in fishnet stockings and leopard-print corsets served customers playing slots and blackjack who said they weren’t overly concerned about the fire.

Sitting at a slot machine near a window looking out at cars driving through the haze on Lake Tahoe Boulevard, Ramona Trejo said she and her husband would stay for their 50th wedding anniversary, as planned.

Trejo, who uses supplemental oxygen due to respiratory problems, said her husband wanted to keep gambling.

“I would want to go now,” she said.

Melley reported from Los Angeles. Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Over 100 million U.S. households paid no federal income tax last year

MarketWatch

Over 100 million U.S. households paid no federal income tax last year

By Andrew Keshner                       August 22, 2021

‘If this was a permanent and not a pandemic-driven phenomenon, this would be very troubling to me’

A new Tax Policy Center study looked at the number of Americans who didn’t pay taxes in 2020. CARMEN MANDATO/GETTY IMAGES

Nearly two-thirds of America’s households owed no federal income tax in 2020, due to the pandemic’s economic upheaval and the government responses, like stimulus checks, crafted to counter the financial damage.

Nearly 61% of the tax base for individual income taxes at the federal level. It equates to a 40% increase year-over-year from the almost 76 million households who didn’t have a federal income tax bill in 2019, researchers said.

Almost 107 million households — clustered on the lower rungs of the income ladder — had a $0 federal income tax liability in tax year 2020, according to the estimates released Thursday by the Tax Policy Center.

But the situation is both unusual and temporary as the economy improves and pandemic-related tax credits fade away, noted Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The percentage of households without a federal income tax liability usually hovers around 40% — and it will be 2022 before getting back to that point, the Tax Policy Center’s estimates show.

These households still had payroll taxes, state income taxes and sales taxes to pay up. Approximately 20% of households paid neither federal income taxes nor payroll taxes in 2020, up from almost 17% in 2019, the research found.

The percentage of households without a federal income tax liability usually hovers around 40%.

This year, culminating in tax returns filed in 2022, the Tax Policy Center estimates that 101.7 million households — 57% of the tax base — will not have a federal income tax bill.

That can be partly attributed to the tax effects of the third round of stimulus checks and boosted credits like the child tax credit and earned income tax credit, Gleckman said.

It can also be linked to improving job conditions and more pay for people who were once out of work.

Assuming tax laws stay where they are now, an estimated 74.8 million households (41.6% of the tax base) will not face a federal income tax bill in 2022, the estimates showed.

The projections were based on Tax Policy Center modeling, not IRS statistics for a tax year where people can still file through Oct. 15.

Low incomes

There are two powerful forces at play, Gleckman said. First off, “COVID wrecked the economy. It threw a lot of people out of work,” Gleckman said.

Many of those people, he added, were on the lower end of the income ladder and, as a result, faced smaller income tax bills to begin with. Without income to report, their tax exposure fell even lower.

The income tax brackets start at 10%, and in 2020, it kicked in for individuals making up to $9,875 and $19,750 for married couple filing jointly. The 12% bracket for individuals ran up to $40, 125.

Nearly half (40%) of the households making under $40,000 who had a job in February 2020 didn’t have it one month later, Federal Reserve data revealed. Approximately 22 million people were laid off early in the pandemic, and 6.7 million workers still aren’t back in the labor force.

Stimulus checks

Secondly, the two rounds of stimulus checks in 2020 effectively reduced the liability even further, Gleckman said. Technically speaking, the economic impact payments were refundable tax credits that the Internal Revenue Service paid in advance.

The stimulus-check payment “in effect, was subtracted from the taxes you owed. You could almost think of it as getting an advance refund.”

The first round of direct checks paid $1,200 to adults and $500 for eligible children, while the second round paid $600 apiece. As of earlier this year, the IRS said it distributed more than $412 billion in payments between the two batches.

The American Rescue Plan passed in March exempted the first $10,200 in jobless benefits from federal income taxes.

Congress had other ways to reduce 2020 tax bills, Gleckman noted. For instance, the American Rescue Plan passed in March exempted the first $10,200 in jobless benefits from federal income taxes.

The IRS has received 152.4 million tax returns as of early June, and distributed more than 100 million refunds. The average refund was $2,775, it said.

“It’s very important as many people as possible contribute to the general operations of the government because they have a stake in the operations of the government,” Gleckman said.

But he still viewed the findings as an anomaly that illustrated just how jarring 2020 was for households. “If this was a permanent and not a pandemic-driven phenomenon, this would be very troubling to me,” he said.