Billions of gallons of water from Lake Powell are being dumped into the Grand Canyon
Julia Jacobo – April 27, 2023
Billions of gallons of water are being taken from Lake Powell and dumped into waterways along the Grand Canyon, according to federal environmental agencies.
For 72 hours, water will be released from the Glen Canyon Dam at a rate of 39,500 cubic feet per second, which the National Park Service characterized as a “much larger than normal.”
PHOTO: Glen Canyon Dam holds back Colorado River water to create Lake Powell on April 15, 2023 in Lake Page, Arizona. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
The release aims to restore sandbars, beaches and campsites used by visitors to the Grand Canyon, according to the NPS. The water will enter the Paria River and move sediment onto beaches and sandbars in Marble Canton and eastern Grand Canyon to restore the Colorado River corridor in eastern Grand Canyon National Park.
In addition to serving as recreational areas for tourists, the sandbars also supply sand needed to protect archaeological sites.
Releases from Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell to supply water to Lake Mead typically happen in the fall.
Current sediment loads, as well as “favorable hydrology conditions” resulting from a wet winter with ample rainfall and snowpack, are conducive to the high-flow experiment, which is being conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The release will mimic the natural flow pattern of the Colorado River, which would typically occur each spring during the runoff of snowmelt.
PHOTO: Glen Canyon Dam holds back Colorado River water to create Lake Powell on April 15, 2023 in Lake Page, Ariz. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
The experiment will not affect the total annual amount of water released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead for the 2023 water allotment, officials said.
The high flows that follow the initial release could affect the difficulty of some of the rapids within the canyons, according to the NPS.
River users are advised to exercise caution along the Colorado River through Glen and Grand Canyons through Sunday.
“There are inherent risks associated with recreational activities along the Colorado River corridor through Grand Canyon at all times,” the NPS statement said.
PHOTO: A group of rafters push off from the banks at Lees Ferry for a 25-day rafting trip down the Grand Canyon on January 1, 2023 in Marble Canyon, Arizona. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images, FILE)
The water releases will eventually snake through the canyons to Lake Mead.
NEW – ABC News Explains How 'Cloud Seeding' is Being Used to Modify Weather Across the U.S.
"There are currently 42 cloud seeding projects across the American West…They fly right into the storm and send microscopic [silver iodide] particles into the clouds…The federal… pic.twitter.com/pL37nzcGkI
By Eliza Daley, orig. pub. by: By my solitary hearth – April 24, 2023
Photo by Annie Spratt on Upsplash
It’s spring, so obviously it’s time to get the garden in production. For those who don’t know where to start or who just want more tips I have some recommendations on books that I use every year in planning and implementing food production. I know I just talked about my book-free kitchen, however, this is one very important caveat — I definitely use books for the intersection of kitchen and garden. These books are less about cooking than growing, processing and storing the harvest, and all three affect food safety. So reference books are necessary.
I am reading a new one — The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How by Andrea Chesman (2015, Storey Publishing). Chesman lives on an acre in Vermont, so this book is highly relevant to me. However, with her decades of practical experience — in addition to her homestead life, she’s written many books and teaches classes on storing the harvest — there are tips for anyone anywhere who grows typical garden produce. I have already found useful suggestions and I have almost as much experience as she does, so I feel like this is a good book to recommend to anyone with a veg plot. One caution: her methods do tend to lean toward agricultural extension agency practices, lots of plastic and electricity. She acknowledges that not everybody is going to have the capacity to run two refrigerators and a chest freezer, but she also doesn’t talk as much about lower-energy preservation methods. However, she includes the most detailed instructions on drying food that I’ve ever encountered. Mostly without electricity. And since she does this in Vermont — in normal, New England summer humidity — I think I may have found my solution to that problem.
She also spends a bit at the beginning of the book talking about what you should grow. For example, if you don’t like stuffing squash in summer heat, don’t plant round varieties. And if your family is less than Victorian in number, then don’t plant more than a few bushes of all the summer squashes put together. But she doesn’t talk as much about gardening as she does about produce, so there isn’t good information on yields and varieties. I have other books for that.
Keeping the Harvest by Nancy Chioffi and Gretchen Mead (1991, Storey Publishing) is a slim but indispensable reference for basic recipes and techniques. It also contains a chart I have been using for decades: the yields of frozen veg per unit of harvest (bushels, heads, pounds, etc). This table is gold! Nothing is more annoying than running out of pint containers in the middle of processing veg, especially the chiles. With this chart, I know that I need at least 18 pint containers washed and ready when I tackle the 25 pound box of Big Jim peppers in August. They also give yields per unit of planting area (row feet, square feet, bushes, trees, etc). So if you are unsure about how many potatoes you should plant for a given yield or how much space will be necessary for that yield or even how much ‘yield’ you will be able to eat, then buy this book.
Another extremely useful reference book is Rosalind Creasy’s The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping (1982, Sierra Club Books). This is a permaculture book from before permaculture. I learned how to grow abundant food in small spaces from this one book. More a gardening manual than food processing book, Edible Landscaping contains general guides to growing and using just about every kind of fruit, veg and herb that might be grown in temperate climates. (And a few from more tropical conditions.) Creasy gives hardiness, growing season length, light and moisture needs, soil types and whatever else you need to grow a plant. She describes the different growing needs of different varieties of a given species also. For example, you may not live in a climate with the 1000 chill hours needed by Wolf River apples (my favorites), but there are plenty of apple varieties that can be grown in regions with warmer winters.
These two books are my main garden production planning references. I have many other books, but these are the ones that come out every year. I definitely recommend getting them if you are new to producing and storing your own food, or even if you just want to learn more about these skills that everyone will be needing in the not so distant future. However, I would also advise you to get at least one recently published reference on canning and preserving. This is one type of cookbook that I do use. Nobody should improvise on this stuff!
My two go-to garden planning books have plenty of recipes, however there have been many changes in the intervening decades on food safety recommendations. For just one example, it’s been determined that tomatoes are not high enough in acid to kill harmful microbes, so pressure-canning is safer than the water-bath canning I used to use on canned tomato sauce. Most of the recipes are fine and obviously I’m still alive after using them for many years, but that might just be because I’ve been lucky. (That, and botulism doesn’t stand a chance in my sterile kitchen…) But still, preserving low-acid veg is flirting with food poisoning even in the best conditions. So use up-to-date information on how to avoid that nightmare. I use Saving the Seasons by Mary Clemens Meyer and Susanna Meyer (2010, Herald Press), and I have the most recent copy of the USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning and Preserving (2008). I have a few other books on jams, chutneys and other high-acid things, but I always cross-reference cooking times and temperatures with the books I trust implicitly. And sometimes I even go look things up on extension agency websites, which presumably have the most recent information available.
So those books go very far toward planning a garden, including what use you’ll make of the produce. But to round out garden planning, especially for those who are looking to create a landscape that needs little maintenance and very few inputs, I have two other book recommendations. These are not quick reads, and maybe I should have suggested starting them last November, but they are invaluable in garden planning. The first is the classic ecology book by Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy (1977, Sierra Club Books). From how ecological balance is physically achieved to the history and ethics of the conservation movement, Worster’s book is a complete education. I only include one other book because it is written specifically for the garden: Ecology for Gardeners by Steven B. Carroll and Severn D. Salt (2004, Timber Press). If there is a fault in Worster’s book, it’s that he doesn’t talk as much as I’d like about the kinds of plants we grow intentionally. Carroll and Salt make up for that — and include lots of images! I don’t know about you, but I will never be able to sort out the good caterpillars from the evil spawn of hell without a good visual guide.
Hope these references help! They’ve inspired me to try new things and see the garden in new ways each year. And speaking of… it’s time to cut up the potatoes so they’ll be cured before planting time. So… I’m off to the cellar now.
Eliza Daley
Eliza Daley is a fiction. She is the part of me that is confident and wise, knowledgable and skilled. She is the voice that wants to be heard in this old woman who more often prefers her solitary and silent hearth. She has all my experience — as mother, musician, geologist and logician; book-seller, business-woman, and home-maker; baker, gardener, and chief bottle-washer; historian, anthropologist, philosopher, and over it all, writer. But she has not lived, is not encumbered with all the mess and emotion, and therefore she has a wonderfully fresh perspective on my life. I rather like knowing her. I do think you will as well.
By Chris Smaje, originallypublished by Small Farm Future
April 20, 2023
The time has come to announce my new book, Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future: The Case for an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods. It’ll be published in the UK on 29 June and the US on 20 July, with ebook and audio versions also available. So there’s no excuse… I’m delighted that Sarah Langford, the author of Rooted, is writing a foreword for it.
The folks at Chelsea Green have come up with this attractive but unfancy cover, which matches my feelings about the book.
I wrote the book in a two-month blur as a job of work that I felt somebody had to do to combat the head of steam building around the case for a farm-free future associated with George Monbiot’s book Regenesis and the Reboot Food initiative. And if that somebody was me, so be it.
My original motivation was mainly just to critique the fanciful ecomodernism of Reboot Food, which I believe is apt to bedazzle people of goodwill but with limited knowledge of food and farming into thinking that a technological solution is at hand that will enable them to continue living high-energy, urban consumerist lifestyles while going easy on the climate and the natural world. Really, it isn’t. The danger is that farm-free bromides will, as usual with ecomodernism, instil a ‘great, they’ve fixed it!’ complacency at just the time when we need to jettison the techno-fix mentality and radically reimagine our social and political assumptions.
So the book takes a somewhat polemical approach in critiquing the arguments for manufactured food. But actually I found that this provided a pretty good foil for making an alternative case for agrarian localism, what I call in my book ‘a predominantly distributed rural population, energy restraint, diverse mixed farming for local needs, wildlands, human-centred science, popular smallholder democracy and keystone ecology’. So the book has that more positive framing too, much of which will be familiar to regular readers of this blog or of my previous book, although I like to think I’ve pushed a few things forwards. Still, it’s a short book, so a more detailed exposition awaits.
What I don’t and won’t do is offer some alternative technical or social one-size-fits-all solution. Solutionism of this kind is itself part of the problem. I daresay that will lead to some incomprehension in the book’s reception along the lines that if I can’t provide an alternative ‘answer’, then I can’t have anything worthwhile to say. Naturally, I don’t subscribe to that line of reasoning. Researchers, opinion-mongers and writers of books just don’t have ‘the answer’, whereas you – whoever ‘you’ are – probably do have part of an answer locally. But you have to work at it. Maybe my book will help. In that sense, what I offer is a bit like the answer of farming itself. Instead of the magic beans and golden geese of the Reboot Food narrative, all I can realistically offer is a bare seedbed awaiting productive work. The scene then has to be peopled by others, ordinary working people, doing the work.
Or maybe you could think of the book as an exercise in rewilding, because the nature of wildness is that you can’t really tell what’s going to happen next.
Anyway, I’ll be interested to see what kind of reception the book gets. Possibly, it’s presumptuous of me to expect it’ll get much of a reception at all, but my tweet from a few days back announcing the book has had around 34,000 views – so by my humble standards I think there may be an appetite out there for this.
I’m not going to steal my own thunder from the book pre-publication, but I thought I’d offer loyal readers of this blog a few tidbits by way of a sneak preview.
So, after some introductory material the book asks whether the energetics and economic geography implied in the manufactured food narrative are feasible (as I just said, I can’t give too much away just now about the book’s contents, but I’ll offer a clue: the answer is a two-letter word beginning with ‘n’). Then I consider whether the case against the wildlife and climate impacts of familiar plant-and-livestock based agriculture articulated in manufactured food narratives is plausible (answer: it’s complicated – let’s call it a two-letter word beginning with ‘n’ again, but with a side of three-letter word beginning with ‘y’). Next, I move on to examine whether a farm-free future for humanity is likely to involve what ecomodernist pioneer Stewart Brand called ‘urban promise’ – urbanization as a positive and prosperity-enriching experience. On that one, we’re back to a straightforward answer – the two-letter ‘n’ word again. Or at least we are if we have any commitment to justice. Finally, I make an alternative case for agrarian localism as the best means of securing human and natural wellbeing and climate stability, involving long-term human relationships with the land that, like all long-term relationships, require regular and ongoing work.
So there you have it. If you’d like to read the full version (or alternatively hear me reading it) I’d suggest pre-ordering a copy now! But I daresay I’ll write more about its themes on this blog once the book is out, albeit most likely with a bit less expounding than I devoted to my previous one.
Chris Smaje
Chris Smaje has coworked a small farm in Somerset, southwest England, for the last 17 years. Previously, he was a university-based social scientist, working in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey and the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College on aspects of social policy, social identities and the environment. Since switching focus to the practice and politics of agroecology, he’s written for various publications, such as The Land , Dark Mountain , Permaculture magazine and Statistics Views, as well as academic journals such as Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems and the Journal of Consumer Culture . Smaje writes the blog Small Farm Future, is a featured author at www.resilience.org and a current director of the Ecological Land Co-op. Chris’ latest book is: A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity, and a Shared Earth.
Striking before-and-after satellite photos show the great California snowmelt underway
Terry Castleman – April 19, 2023
Cars on Highway 395 along the east side of the Sierra Nevada near Lone Pine, Calif., on March 22, 2023. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
As California’s wet winter has given way to warmer spring weather, the state’s record snowpack has begun to melt.
Though the accumulated snow still measures 249% of normal as of April 18, new satellite photos show that the white blankets enveloping mountains across the state have started to recede.
The Southern Sierra continues to be the standout region, with snow levels on slopes there at more than 300% of normal.
Satellite images seen below from NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System, or EOSDIS, show the snowy Sierra on March 16 (left), and a month later (right).
While the snowpack remains substantial in the more recent image , it has dissipated significantly at lower elevations. The Mendocino Range, seen in the top left of the image, also shows significant snow loss.
In Southern California, the change has been even more dramatic.
The San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains were blanketed in snow on March 24, but by April 8 much of the snow had melted away.
Images below from a European Space Agency satellite captured the snow melt.
While the Southern California snowpacks have caused relatively little flooding as they melt, the snow in the Sierra may be a different story.
Farm equipment stands in floodwater just South of Tulare River Road. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Flood danger could last through the year in the adjacent San Joaquin Valley, officials told the Times. The valley has already endured significant flooding this year, with excessive rains wreaking havoc in small towns and fueling the renaissance of Tulare Lake.
Tulare Lake continues to rise along its northern border. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Typically, about a quarter of snow melt takes place in April, with the majority coming in May and June as the weather warms up.
But the remarkably wet winter means flooding could linger through much of the year, the latest outlooks show.
View from aboard a whitewater raft during a tour of the upper Kern River in Kernville. (Jack Dolan / Los Angeles Times)
The Tulare Lake basin and the San Joaquin River basin remain the areas of top concern, as record-deep snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada is expected to send a cascade of water down into the San Joaquin Valley as it melts.
Isabella Lake as seen from Wofford Heights on April 7, 2023. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Though most of the focus is on the Central Valley, officials in L.A. are also keeping an eye on on spring and summer flooding as it could cause additional damage to the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
Southwestern US rivers get boost from winter snowpack
Susan Montoya Bryan – April 18, 2023
In this May 9, 2021, photo a dam along the Rio Grande is seen near San Acacia, N.M. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)Low water levels are seen at Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences, N.M., on July 10, 2021. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Federal water managers have more room to breathe this spring as two Southwestern rivers that provide New Mexico and Texas with drinking water and irrigation supplies are seeing the benefits of record snowpack and spring runoff.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service delivered the good news Tuesday for water managers, cities and farmers as federal officials rolled out operating plans for the Rio Grande and the Pecos River.
The mountain ranges in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico that serve as headwaters for the two rivers last winter saw nearly double the snowpack of historic averages, resulting in runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs.
And even more of that snowmelt will reach streams and rivers since soil moisture levels were able to recover last summer during what was one of the strongest monsoons the region had seen in 130 years.
“This is really good news for us because one of the big things that’s been killing water supply for the last 10, 15 years is really dry soils soaking up a lot of that runoff before we could ever get any of it. That is not going to be the case nearly as much this year,” said Andrew Mangham, a senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service. “We’re going to have a much more efficient runoff coming out of this.”
The same story is playing out around the West. In California, most of that state’s major reservoirs were filled above their historical averages at the start of spring thanks to one of the massive snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. In neighboring Nevada, the snowfall was so overwhelming that the final day of the high school ski championships had to be cancelled.
Many of the officials gathered for Tuesday’s river briefing were combing their collective memories, trying to recall when they last saw hydrology graphs this favorable.
“We’re in better shape than we’ve been for a real long time,” Mangham said.
New Mexico’s largest cities that rely on diverted water from the San Juan and Chama rivers are expected to get a full allocation this year — the first time since 2019.
The Carlsbad Irrigation District on the southern end of the Pecos River opted to allocate a bit more to farmers this year due to the increased runoff.
“With the snowmelt coming in and still the chance for the monsoon season, things are looking pretty good,” said Coley Burgess, the irrigation district’s manager.
Still, he said farmers have had to be economical about how they use what amounts to just a little over half of a full allotment. Some have left fields unplanted so they can shift their share of water to their best alfalfa crops.
On the Rio Grande, managers say they have enough water stored in Elephant Butte — the largest reservoir in New Mexico — to avoid restrictions that prevent storing water in some upstream reservoirs. Under a water sharing agreement with Colorado and Texas, New Mexico is required to deliver a certain amount to Texas each year.
The states also are tangled up in litigation over management of the Rio Grande that is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. A special master is considering a proposed settlement that would resolve the decade-long fight.
Officials with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in New Mexico said whether the state can keep enough water in Elephant Butte later this year will depend on the monsoon season.
Farmers across southern New Mexico and in West Texas will be crossing their fingers, too.
Study warns critical ocean current is nearing ‘collapse.’ That would be a global disaster.
Doyle Rice, USA Today – April 11, 2023
Due to global warming, a deep ocean current around Antarctica that has been relatively stable for thousands of years could head for “collapse” over the next few decades.
Such a sudden shift could affect the planet’s climate and marine ecosystems for centuries to come.
So says a recent study that was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
The cold water that sinks near Antarctica drives the deepest flow of a network of currents that spans throughout the world’s oceans, known as the overturning circulation. The overturning carries heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients around the globe.
This in turn influences climate, sea level and the productivity of marine ecosystems. Indeed, the loss of nutrient-rich seawater near the surface could damage fisheries, according to the study.
‘Headed towards collapse’
This deep ocean current has remained in a relatively stable state for thousands of years, but with increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the melting of Antarctic ice, Antarctic overturning is predicted to slow down significantly over the next few decades.
“Our modeling shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, then the Antarctic overturning will slow by more than 40% in the next 30 years – and on a trajectory that looks headed towards collapse,” said study lead author Matthew England of the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Speaking about the new research, paleoclimatologist Alan Mix told Reuters “that’s stunning to see that happen so quickly.” Mix, a paleoclimatologist at Oregon State University and co-author on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, who was not involved in the study, added “It appears to be kicking into gear right now. That’s headline news.”
Such a collapse would also impact a nearby Atlantic Ocean current, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, which transports warm, salty water from the tropics northward at the ocean surface and cold water southward at the ocean bottom.
This current includes the well-known Gulf Stream, which affects weather patterns in the U.S. and Europe. “The main issue for the AMOC at the moment is meltwater from Greenland, which slows that current,” England told USA TODAY.
Other studies in recent years about the AMOC drew comparisons to the scientifically inaccurate 2004 disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” which used such an ocean current shutdown as the premise of the film. In a 2018 study, authors said a collapse was at least decades away but would be a catastrophe.
An Antarctic “tidewater” glacier meets the ocean in this 2018 photo that also shows sea ice floating on the water’s surface.
Cause of the current slowdown
What’s causing the currents to slow down and potentially collapse? “Climate change is to blame,” England wrote for the Conversation. “As Antarctica melts, more freshwater flows into the oceans. This disrupts the sinking of cold, salty, oxygen-rich water to the bottom of the ocean”.
Specifically, more than 250 trillion tons of that cold, salty, oxygen-rich water sinks near Antarctica each year. This water then spreads northward and carries oxygen into the deep Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
“If the oceans had lungs, this would be one of them,” England said.
“Simply put, a slowing or collapse of the overturning circulation would change our climate and marine environment in profound and potentially irreversible ways.” he wrote.
England told USA TODAY that the main impact for North America would be sea-level rise along the East Coast.
In addition, another impact of the collapse of the AMOC would be a transition to a more La Nina-like-state in the Pacific Ocean, England said. La Niña, a natural cooling of sea water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, affects weather and climate in the U.S. and around the world.
It tends to lead to worsening droughts and wildfires in the Southwest U.S., and more hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.
What can be done?
“Our study shows continuing ice melt will not only raise sea levels, but also change the massive overturning circulation currents which can drive further ice melt and hence more sea-level rise, and damage climate and ecosystems worldwide,” England wrote in the Conversation. “It’s yet another reason to address the climate crisis – and fast.”
Add more of one ingredient and you get one result. Take away an ingredient or substitute one ingredient for another and you get an entirely different result.
Scientists studying the “recipe” for tornado activity in the United States, now and in the future, say it’s difficult to tease apart how all the pieces that have to interact for tornadoes to form – such as warmer temperatures and more intense rainfall – may affect storm activity in the future.
However, research announced this week by Northern Illinois University reports continued increases in carbon dioxide emissions could bring about more frequent and more intense supercell storms and tornado activity in the future, especially in the eastern U.S.
One thing’s for sure, the atmospheric ingredients are in overdrive so far this year.
How many tornadoes have there been in the US this year?
Even before the March 31 outbreak, tornado activity – at 311 tornadoes through March 29 – was already the third busiest start to the year since records began, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Combined with the preliminary total of 104 tornadoes during the devastating March 31 outbreak, the 415 tornadoes for the first quarter would be the busiest start to the year on record. The average through the end of April between 1991-2020 is 337.9.
The U.S. had seen above normal tornado activity through the end of March, even before the March 31st tornado outbreak.
Why so much tornado activity?
A host of climate patterns and oceanic and atmospheric currents come together to create the conditions favorable for the supercell storms that spawn tornadoes.
“You really need to look at them all together holistically and understand that they all play together in an orchestra in a symphony, a very delicate symphony,” says Victor Gensini, an associate professor at Northern Illinois University.
Heat and humidity help create the instability that spins up supercell storms, intense, long-lived thunderstorms with a rotating updraft. Supercells are responsible for tornadoes and hail and cause billions of dollars in losses and hundreds of casualties every year.
One essential ingredient is moisture, and the dial is cranked higher than normal in the Gulf of Mexico this year. Sea surface temperatures have been warmer than normal, thanks in part to a dearth of cold fronts and a persistent high pressure ridge in the region over the winter to help cool it down, said Gensini and others.
“We’re running anywhere from 2 to maybe 4 degrees Celsius warmer than average in the Gulf,” he said. When you have “bath water like this” and a southerly wind, it brings more moisture northward.
Combine that with the lingering effects of the La Nina and warm, dry winds from the west and it’s the recipe for an active period.
“I don’t really see this going away either,” Gensini said. “I think we will end up with an above average April.”
What do researchers know about climate change and tornadoes?
For more than a year, Professor Walker Ashley and his colleagues in the Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Northern Illinois, including Gensini and Assistant Professor Alex Haberlie, have been running models that simulate storm activity.
Their results suggest the potential by century’s end for more supercell storms, hail, extreme rainfall and significant tornadoes. And that could have “disastrous consequences,” said Ashley, the lead author.
They used two trajectories for potential greenhouse gas emissions, to see how that could influence the frequency or characteristics of tornado activity in the future.
Under either trajectory, the number of annual supercell storms becomes more frequent and intense, with the mean supercell activity increasing in the U.S. by 7-15%.
With increasing carbon dioxide emissions, the study projects an eastward shift in heightened supercell storm activity, particularly in the Ozarks and mid-South, with slight increases in the north and central regions of the Eastern U.S..
The simulations documented “diminished” storm activity in much of the Great Plains, west of the I-35 corridor.
Storm timing is expected to shift to earlier parts of the year, trailing off in the later months when temperatures climb in the summer.
Researchers at Northern Illinois University say rising greenhouse gas emissions may increase the number of supercell storms that increase tornadoes.
Are we seeing climate change impacts already in US tornadoes?
Possibly, but it’s not as obvious as a heat wave or extreme rainfall.
Although a multitude of factors enhance conditions and available energy for storms, it’s likely we are seeing a climate change signal in storm activity, Gensini said. Their projections, based on model simulations of the future, are consistent with changes already being seen in tornado frequency and location.
“The storms are more intense. They are longer-lived and they happen more frequently in the cool season,” he said. The distribution of tornadoes also is spreading out through the year, and decreasing in the summer when temperatures get really hot and wind shear decreases.
A June 2019 supercell over a field in Kansas.
Harold Brooks, a senior research scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, was a reviewer for the Northern Illinois study.
Its projected change in seasonal activity make sense, Brooks said. “If we make it warmer things should happen,” he said. It’s already been shown, for example, that fewer tornadoes occur when it’s really hot during the summer.
Ashley noted their research is still in its early stages.
One of the more concerning findings, he said, is that the cumulative footprint of the strongest supercells is projected to increase at the same time that communities are becoming more vulnerable because of expanding populations and development, which creates bigger target ares for storms.
Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate and environment issues for USA TODAY.
Sullivan Mayor Clint Lamb and Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb survey the damage caused by a tornado on Saturday, April 1, 2023 in Sullivan, Indiana.
Video shows guards walking away during fire that killed 38 migrants near US-Mexico border
Wyatte Grantham-Philips, Christine Fernando and Jeanine SantucciUSA TODAY March 29, 2023
Surveillance footage from inside the immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border where 38 migrants died in a dormitory fire appears to show guards walking away from the blaze and making no apparent attempt to release detainees.
The fire broke out when migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze late Monday at the National Immigration Institute, a facility in Ciudad Juarez south of El Paso, Texas, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said.
Authorities originally reported 40 dead, but later said some may have been counted twice in the confusion. Twenty-eight people were injured and were in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute.
The security footage, which was broadcast and later authenticated by a Mexican official to a local reporter, shows at least two people dressed as guards rush into the frame, then run off as a cloud of smoke quickly filled the area. They did not appear to attempt to open cell doors so migrants could escape the fire.
Authorities were investigating the fire, the institute said. The country’s prosecutor general has launched an investigation, Andrea Chávez, federal deputy of Ciudad Juarez, said in a statement. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission also was alerted.
What caused the fire?
López Obrador said the fire was started by migrants inside the facility after they learned they would be deported.
“They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune,” López Obrador said.
The immigration institute said it “energetically rejects the actions that led to this tragedy,” without further explaining what those actions may have been.
Video shows guards leaving as fire starts
The video footage shows the area in the facility filled with smoke within seconds, obscuring the view of the camera. In the video, two people dressed as guards are seen rushing into the frame, then walking quickly off as migrants remain behind bars. At least one migrant is seen kicking at a cell door while flames grow.
Mexico’s interior secretary, Adán Augusto López, told local journalist Joaquín López Doriga he was familiar with the video.
Katiuska Márquez, a 23-year-old woman from Venezuela and her two children, ages 2 and 4, were looking for her half-brother in the aftermath of the fire.
“We want to know if he is alive or if he’s dead,” she told The Associated Press. She wondered how all the guards who were inside made it out alive and only the migrants died. “How could they not get them out?”
Migrants from Central, South America caught in blaze
The institute said 68 men from Central and South America were staying at the immigration facility at the time of the fire. Authorities were working with other countries to identify the dead.
Victims were identified as being from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Guatemalans made up the largest contingent, according to the Mexican attorney general’s office.
Guatemalan Foreign Affairs Minister Mario Búcaro said 28 of the dead were Guatemalan citizens.
“We are going to look to find those responsible for this,” Búcaro said.
A migrant cries leaning on an ambulance as a person she knows is attended by medics after a fire broke out at the Mexican Immigration Detention center in Juarez on Monday, March 27, 2023.
Photos show mass law enforcement response in Ciudad Juarez
Photos showed ambulances, firefighters, Mexican soldiers and vans from the morgue swarm the scene. Rows of bodies were laid out under silver sheets in a parking lot outside the facility. Survivors were carried on stretchers into ambulances. A woman wept while leaning her head against an ambulance.
Mexico border fire sheds light on systemic issues, advocates say
Global human rights organizations called for stronger protections for asylum seekers and expressed outrage over the fire, which they said sheds light on systemic issues related to the detention and treatment of migrants.
The immigration institute has struggled recently with overcrowding in its facilities. About 20 migrants, officials and human rights workers described a southern Mexico immigration detention center run by the institute as crowded and filthy, according to an investigation by The Associated Press in 2019.
The “extensive use of immigration detention leads to tragedies like this,” Felipe González Morales, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights of migrants, said in a Twitter statement. He said immigration detention “should be an exceptional measure” and not generalized.
Human rights organizations have warned for years about the risks people from Central and South America face when trying to apply for asylum in the United States, Rafael Velásquez, Mexico director for the International Rescue Committee, a global human rights organization, said in a statement. The dangers have increased, and humanitarian infrastructures in the country have been “increasingly strained” amid “historic numbers of new asylum claims” and stricter border policies.
“The news of the fire at the migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez is devastating,” Velásquez said. “This is proof of the extremely urgent need to ensure that there are systems in place to provide safety for people in need of international protection.”
Mounting tensions in Ciudad Juarez
Tensions between authorities and migrants had apparently been running high in recent weeks in Ciudad Juarez, a major crossing point across the border from El Paso for migrants entering the United States. Shelters in the city are full of migrants waiting for opportunities to cross or who have requested asylum in the U.S. and are waiting out the process.
On March 9, more than 30 advocacy organizations and migrant shelters wrote an open letter denouncing the criminalization of migrants and asylum seekers in Ciudad Juarez and accusing authorities of excessive force in detaining migrants.
Mexico’s migrant facilities have seen protests from time to time as the American government has pressured the country to ramp up efforts to reduce the number of migrants coming to United States.
Frustrations reached a fever pitch this month when hundreds of migrants, most of them Venezuelan, heard false rumors that the U.S. would allow them to enter and tried to cross an international bridge to El Paso. In October, migrants rioted at a Tijuana immigration center, and in November, dozens rioted at the country’s largest detention center in the southern city of Tapachula.
A girl lights candle during a vigil for the victims of a fire at an immigration detention center that killed dozens in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. According to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze at the center, starting the fire. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez) ORG XMIT: XMC156
The Ultra-Processed Canned Foods No One Over 40 Should Be Eating Anymore
Georgia Dodd – March 28, 2023
Canned food is convenient, budget-friendly, and shelf-stable. It’s a way of processing food to extend its shelf life. The canning process is usually done within hours after picking. Some examples of canned foods include canned peaches, pears, corn, beans, noodle soup, evaporated milk, tuna, and so much more. But not everyone loves canned food. It has a reputation for being over-processed and less flavourful than its fresh and frozen counterparts. Some canned foods contain harmful chemicals that can have a detrimental effect on gut health, increase blood pressure, and the high sodium content may also lead to water retention that can cause weight gain.
To learn more about the worst kinds of canned food for women over 40, we spoke with Michelle Saari, registered dietitian and founder of The Dietitian Prescription. She said that the most ultra-processed canned foods no one should be eating anymore are canned fruit in syrup and canned meats that’ve been cured (like pork, beef, and fish). This is because they have an incredibly high sugar and sodium content which can lead to health problems like weight gain, diabetes, increased blood pressure, and more. Read on to learn more!
Canned fruit like peaches, pears, and pineapple can be a convenient alternative to fresh fruit. But, not all canned fruit are created equally. Fruits that are canned in syrups can be especially unhealthy because of their incredibly high sugar content. Saari says, “While fruit does have natural sugars called Fructose when the fruit is canned in syrup it’s just added sugar. The added sugar is typically corn syrup, which if the body doesn’t use it just turns to fat. It doesn’t provide any added nutrients, it’s simply there to sweeten up the fruit, which by nature is already sweet.” Adding excessive sugar to your diet provides barely any nutritional value.
Saari says that it’s ok to have canned fruit every once in a while. “It’s fine to have a sweet treat every so often, but if we’re looking at eating for long-term health, we should limit it. Instead of reaching for canned fruit, reach for either fresh or frozen. Frozen fruit can provide the same nutritional value as fresh, but will save you some money!” she explains. Check out the best types of fruit to eat for a healthier body over 40.
Canned Meat
Another canned food that Saari recommends women over 40 avoid is canned meat. Canned meats, she says, can have an incredibly high amount of sodium. “If you choose a canned meat like pork, for example, you may be getting half of your daily recommended amount of salt in one serving,” she notes. “A recommended daily salt amount would be 2,300 milligrams, for someone with heart disease this number will be even lower. Canned meat can have as high as 1,400 milligrams of sodium.” Yikes! And, experts point out that canned tuna is usually packed with oil that is high in saturated fat and alarmingly high mercury content which can lead to neurological side effects.
When it comes to long-term health, canned meats like pork, beef, and fish won’t provide you with the nutrition your body needs. “If you need less expensive protein options, look for canned beans, lentils, and legumes as an alternative. You can find these in the canned vegetable aisle. These will have little to no sodium, and will provide protein and fiber, which can actually have cardiovascular protective factors,” Saari explains. We guess it’s best to just avoid canned meats and opt for fresh meat from the grocery store.
At the end of the day, Saari says that while canned foods by nature get a bad rap. However, there are some canned foods that can actually provide the same nutritional value as their fresh counterparts. “If you want to buy canned vegetables, fruits, or meats, just look at what they’re ‘soaking’ in. For canned fruits look for some that are not canned in syrup, this is typically right on the front label. For canned vegetables, you want to select those that have no added sodium. The same goes for canned meats, look for the low to no added sodium options,” she recommends. Noted!
Do Anti-ESG States Know They’re Facing Some of the Worst Climate Change Hazards?
By The Daily Upside – March 24, 2023
Unless the data are dead wrong, it is increasingly clear that many of the U.S. states facing some of the greatest climate change hazards appear to be the ones most virulently opposed to environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.
The data also show something else that we don’t like to talk about: Americans are already dying due to climate change and have been since around 2005. U.S. cities from coast to coast are experiencing fatalities in the double digits yearly, especially south of the Mason-Dixon line, according to an in-depth project surveying more than 24,000 regions of the world, led by the United Nations Development Program and New York-based Rhodium Group, a provider of independent research, data and analytics tackling mission-critical global topics.
In Texas, the fatality rate due to climate change – for instance, from heat stroke or other underlying causes – is estimated to be 14 people a year per 100,000 of the population in both Dallas and Austin. Those numbers will rise to 38 and 39, respectively, by 2040, and leap to 130 and 131 people a year, respectively, by 2080, according to the data.
The situation in Phoenix is even more dire, with an annual fatality rate of 17 people per 100,000 of the population, climbing to 46 by 2040 and 148 people a year by 2080. In Atlanta, the fatality rate is estimated to be around 10 people a year per 100,000, with that number at 29 by 2040 and shooting to 100 people by 2080.
“The mortality impact is some of the most striking of the data,” says Hannah Hess, associate director at Rhodium, who worked on the project. “When you look at the year 2040, it can seem really far out and distant in the future, but the people most affected by the heat are 65 and older – those are people in their 40s today who will be impacted.”
By the same token, those in their 20s and 30s will be confronting even higher temperatures, and those who are currently in their teens or younger will be forced to contend with some of the most extreme climate challenges of anyone alive.
This week, President Biden cast his first veto since taking office, rejecting a bill that would have scuttled a Labor Department rule he put in place allowing money managers to account for climate change when making investment decisions for their clients’ retirement savings. The Biden rule supplanted a Trump-era rule that sought to impede the consideration of ESG principles in investing, “even in cases where it is in the financial interest of plans to take such considerations into account.”
In issuing the veto, Biden blasted “MAGA House Republicans” and others for risking Americans’ retirement plan savings by making it illegal to weigh ESG principles. “Your plan manager should be able to protect your hard-earned savings, whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likes it or not,” he said, noting strong opposition from the Republican congresswoman from Georgia.
Two Democrats also backed the bill. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who charged that Biden’s veto was “absolutely infuriating” and denounced the administration’s “radical” and “progressive agenda,” and Jon Tester of Montana, who voted alongside the Senate’s Republicans to overturn the Biden rule.
Both Georgia and West Virginia are forecast to sustain pronounced effects from climate change relative to northern states, like Montana.
The ESG fight, not surprisingly, is focused on money – primarily, how resources will be marshaled or redirected in anticipation of future shifts that are expected to devastate real estate, housing and jobs markets. “Without concerted and urgent action, climate change will exacerbate inequalities and widen gaps in human development,” the UNDP projected at the end of last year.
A smattering of top money managers and private equity firms have begun to prepare for the transition, touting pro-ESG investing principles that aim to capture a profit. But they have also warned adopting these strategies poses heightened financial and reputational risks with the growing anti-ESG backlash.
The world’s biggest private-equity firm, Blackstone, disclosed in a recent filing that pushback from states across the country over so-called “boycotts” of investments in the fossil fuel industry could affect the company’s fundraising and revenue and will be perceived negatively by some stakeholders. Others signaling similar headwinds include KKR & Co., State Street, Carlyle Group, T. Rowe Price, TPG Inc., Ares Private Equity Group, Raymond James, and BlackRock.
While partisanship seems to be ruling the debate, it’s worth looking closely at what is forecast for some of the states that are most assiduously pursuing anti-ESG legislation, many of which are expected to experience some of the most serious fallout of climate change. Among them are Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.
Over the past few years, these states have sought to introduce or pass legislation barring companies from discriminating against investing in fossil fuel developers or energy companies contributing to climate change. Those succeeding in passing legislation against so-called “woke capitalism” include Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.
Other states that have tried or are still trying to pass anti-ESG legislation include North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a Denver nonpartisan research organization. Meanwhile, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida have more anti-ESG legislation pending, in addition to what they’ve already enacted, even though all of them are now dealing with fatalities from climate change.
Hess says research shows that some states’ attitudes may change on climate change as “those places start to feel the impact,” but, until then, states suffering the ongoing fatalities of climate change while fighting to ban ESG-friendly policies, sustainability practices and “social credit scores” to protect investments in fossil fuels is “an odd reality.”
Worth noting are the states that have pursued anti-ESG legislation, but will not feel the impact of climate change as strongly as some of the states mentioned above. They are Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska.
The one state that will be hard hit by climate change but is working to bolster pro-ESG initiatives – and block any attempts to stop it from doing so – is California. According to the UNDP-Rhodium data, the state’s cities are already sustaining some of the highest annual fatality rates in the country due to climate change. At present, the death toll is estimated to be around a dozen people per 100,000 of the population in San Francisco and Sacramento, but is seen rising to 30 and 33, respectively, by 2040, and 104 and 113 people a year, respectively, by 2080.
Other cities that are being impacted by climate change include Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Miami, Virginia Beach, Raleigh, Charlotte and Washington, DC, according to the data.
Interestingly, the data show a handful of states will see some benefits from climate change, at least in theory. Rising temperatures likely will contribute to fewer mortality rates in cooler cities such as Seattle, Portland, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. These benefits stem from the fact that, as temperatures rise, annual fatality rates resulting from cold weather will ease, Hess says.
Even with fewer fatalities in some regions, by the end of the century, the effects of climate change will eventually overtake much of the U.S., whether through rising temperatures, changes in precipitation, droughts, serious weather patterns, or what is expected to be an influx of displaced populations – also known as “climate refugees” – who will need to migrate to safer locations to survive. That means anyone living in safe zones will find their regions more and more crowded.
“Income will matter a lot in how people will be able to adapt and respond to the impact of climate,” Hess says.
