
Florida was spared the worst of Isaias, the earliest "I" storm on record of the Atlantic hurricane season and the second hurricane of the 2020 season.
The storm's projected path had prompted fears that Floridians would have to evacuate in large numbers as the state struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic. But Isaias weakened to a tropical storm Saturday afternoon, ABC 11 reported. It also remained offshore, drenching parts of the Florida coast with rain but largely sparing the state, according to USA TODAY.
"Florida dodged a bullet for sure!" BAM Weather meteorologist Ryan Maue tweeted.
Tropical Storm #Isaias no longer expected to restrengthen into a hurricane. 🌀 The vertical wind shear shredder has… https://t.co/kqBsJOS3Tj— Ryan Maue (@Ryan Maue)1596381581.0
However, Isiais isn't done with the U.S. yet. It now approaches the Carolinas, and is expected to strengthen into a hurricane again before reaching them Monday night, CNN reported.
A storm surge warning is in effect from Edisto Beach in South Carolina to Cape Fear in North Carolina, along with parts of the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and the North Carolina Outer Banks from Oregon Inlet to the North Carolina and Virginia borders. It could raise water levels by three to five feet from South Santee River, South Carolina to Cape Fear, North Carolina, according to an 11 a.m. EDT update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
"A Storm Surge Warning means there is a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline, during the next 36 hours in the indicated locations," NHC explained.
Here are the 5 am EDT Monday, August 3 Key Messages for Tropical Storm #Isaias. For the full advisory on #Isaias, v… https://t.co/5MbSBJmEhI— National Hurricane Center (@National Hurricane Center)1596445959.0
The North Carolina coastal communities of Ocracoke Island and Hatteras Island were evacuated Friday ahead of the storm, CNN reported.
President Donald Trump approved a disaster declaration for parts of North Carolina, and Gov. Roy Cooper reminded residents Sunday to have their emergency kits ready, ABC 11 reported.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, meanwhile, said Friday he would not issue any evacuations.
"Right now we're hoping this storm will not hit us hard if it hits at all," McMaster said in the CNN story. "At this time we have no intention at all of declaring any sort of evacuation."
Isaias is expected to slowly weaken after making landfall and then travel north. It will bring strong winds to Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York, impacting the Mid Atlantic states on Tuesday and New Hampshire and Maine on Wednesday.
Along the way, storm surges and winds aren't the only threat.
"Heavy rainfall from Isaias will result in flash and urban flooding, some of which may be significant in the eastern Carolinas and the mid-Atlantic, through Tuesday night near the path of Isaias up the East Coast of the United States," NHC wrote.
There is a moderate risk of flash flooding across portions of the eastern Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic states from… https://t.co/C5Ys46ZetX— National Hurricane Center (@National Hurricane Center)1596446600.0
Tornadoes could touch down in coastal South Carolina Monday and eastern North Carolina into Tuesday. Twisters are also possible from eastern Virginia to southern New England on Tuesday.
Before Isaias reached the U.S., it knocked down trees and tore off roof shingles in the Bahamas, Al Jazeera reported. Some residents of Abaco and Grand Bahama Islands, who were still living in temporary shelters following last year's devastating Hurricane Dorian, had to be evacuated ahead of the storm.
"With everything not quite shored up, property not secured, homes not prepared, even a category one will be enough to set them back," Bahamas Mercy Corps Director Paula Miller told The Associated Press, Al Jazeera reported.
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The speed and scale of the response to COVID-19 by governments, businesses and individuals seems to provide hope that we can react to the climate change crisis in a similarly decisive manner - but history tells us that humans do not react to slow-moving and distant threats.
A Game of Jenga
<p>Think of it as a game of Jenga and the planet's climate system as the tower. For generations, we have been slowly removing blocks. But at some point, we will remove a pivotal block, such as the collapse of one of the major global ocean circulation systems, for example the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), that will cause all or part of the global climate system to fall into a planetary emergency.</p><p>But worse still, it could cause runaway damage: Where the tipping points form a domino-like cascade, where breaching one triggers breaches of others, creating an unstoppable shift to a radically and swiftly changing climate.</p><p>One of the most concerning tipping points is mass methane release. Methane can be found in deep freeze storage within permafrost and at the bottom of the deepest oceans in the form of methane hydrates. But rising sea and air temperatures are beginning to thaw these stores of methane.</p><p>This would release a powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, 30-times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming agent. This would drastically increase temperatures and rush us towards the breach of other tipping points.</p><p>This could include the acceleration of ice thaw on all three of the globe's large, land-based ice sheets – Greenland, West Antarctica and the Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica. The potential collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is seen as a key tipping point, as its loss could eventually <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5929/901" target="_blank">raise global sea levels by 3.3 meters</a> with important regional variations.</p><p>More than that, we would be on the irreversible path to full land-ice melt, causing sea levels to rise by up to 30 meters, roughly at the rate of two meters per century, or maybe faster. Just look at the raised beaches around the world, at the last high stand of global sea level, at the end of the Pleistocene period around 120,0000 years ago, to see the evidence of such a warm world, which was just 2°C warmer than the present day.</p>Cutting Off Circulation
<p>As well as devastating low-lying and coastal areas around the world, melting polar ice could set off another tipping point: a disablement to the AMOC.</p><p>This circulation system drives a northward flow of warm, salty water on the upper layers of the ocean from the tropics to the northeast Atlantic region, and a southward flow of cold water deep in the ocean.</p><p>The ocean conveyor belt has a major effect on the climate, seasonal cycles and temperature in western and northern Europe. It means the region is warmer than other areas of similar latitude.</p><p>But melting ice from the Greenland ice sheet could threaten the AMOC system. It would dilute the salty sea water in the north Atlantic, making the water lighter and less able or unable to sink. This would slow the engine that drives this ocean circulation.</p><p><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/atlantic-conveyor-belt-has-slowed-15-per-cent-since-mid-twentieth-century" target="_blank">Recent research</a> suggests the AMOC has already weakened by around 15% since the middle of the 20th century. If this continues, it could have a major impact on the climate of the northern hemisphere, but particularly Europe. It may even lead to the <a href="https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/39731?show=full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cessation of arable farming</a> in the UK, for instance.</p><p>It may also reduce rainfall over the Amazon basin, impact the monsoon systems in Asia and, by bringing warm waters into the Southern Ocean, further destabilize ice in Antarctica and accelerate global sea level rise.</p>The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation has a major effect on the climate. Praetorius (2018)
Is it Time to Declare a Climate Emergency?
<p>At what stage, and at what rise in global temperatures, will these tipping points be reached? No one is entirely sure. It may take centuries, millennia or it could be imminent.</p><p>But as COVID-19 taught us, we need to prepare for the expected. We were aware of the risk of a pandemic. We also knew that we were not sufficiently prepared. But we didn't act in a meaningful manner. Thankfully, we have been able to fast-track the production of vaccines to combat COVID-19. But there is no vaccine for climate change once we have passed these tipping points.</p><p><a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2021" target="_blank">We need to act now on our climate</a>. Act like these tipping points are imminent. And stop thinking of climate change as a slow-moving, long-term threat that enables us to kick the problem down the road and let future generations deal with it. We must take immediate action to reduce global warming and fulfill our commitments to the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paris Agreement</a>, and build resilience with these tipping points in mind.</p><p>We need to plan now to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but we also need to plan for the impacts, such as the ability to feed everyone on the planet, develop plans to manage flood risk, as well as manage the social and geopolitical impacts of human migrations that will be a consequence of fight or flight decisions.</p><p>Breaching these tipping points would be cataclysmic and potentially far more devastating than COVID-19. Some may not enjoy hearing these messages, or consider them to be in the realm of science fiction. But if it injects a sense of urgency to make us respond to climate change like we have done to the pandemic, then we must talk more about what has happened before and will happen again.</p><p>Otherwise we will continue playing Jenga with our planet. And ultimately, there will only be one loser – us.</p>By John R. Platt
The period of the 45th presidency will go down as dark days for the United States — not just for the violent insurgency and impeachment that capped off Donald Trump's four years in office, but for every regressive action that came before.
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