People relax in Victoria Gardens with the Houses of Parliament in the background in central London, as a heatwave hit the continent with temperatures touching 40 degrees Celsius on June 25, 2020. NIKLAS HALLE'N / AFP via Getty Images
The chance that UK summer days could hit the 40 degree Celsius mark on the thermometer is on the rise, a new study from the country's Met Office Hadley Centre has found.
<p>British summers currently only reach 40 degrees every 100 to 300 years. But the study, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16834-0" target="_blank"><em>Nature Communications</em></a> Tuesday, found that such temperatures could occur every 3.5 years if nothing is done to reduce <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenhouse-gases" target="_self">greenhouse gas</a> emissions and curb the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>"Climate change has already influenced the likelihood of temperature extremes in the UK. The chances of seeing 40°C days in the UK could be as much as 10 times more likely in the current climate than under a natural climate unaffected by human influence," lead author Dr. Nikolaos Christidis said in a <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/chances-of-40c-days-in-the-uk-increasing-due-to-human-influence" target="_blank">Met Office press release</a>. "The likelihood of exceeding 40°C anywhere in the UK in a given year has also been rapidly increasing, and, without curbing of greenhouse gas emissions, such extremes could be taking place every few years in the climate of 2100."</p>
<div id="f49f9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="548418422f9dfc779c1082b8d99bfcca"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1277980676583600134" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">New research published today shows the chances of 40°C days in the UK are increasing rapidly due to #GlobalWarming… https://t.co/gNwrqnYPMA</div> — Met Office (@Met Office)<a href="https://twitter.com/metoffice/statuses/1277980676583600134">1593529311.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>To reach their conclusions, the researchers combined temperature measurements across the country with 16 different climate models, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/30/likelihood-of-40c-temperatures-in-uk-is-rapidly-accelerating" target="_blank">The Guardian explained</a>. They found that reducing emissions made a big difference in lowering future temperatures. Under a medium-emissions scenario, in which emissions are reduced but not enough to honor the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement</a> goal of limiting global warming to below two degrees, 40 degree days would occur every 15 years.</p><p>"This research shows human-caused climate change has set us on a course to see temperature extremes in the UK that would be highly unlikely under a 'natural' climate, although urgent action to reduce emissions now can significantly reduce the occurrence of extreme high temperatures in the UK in the future," coauthor and head of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre Dr. Mark McCarthy said in the press release.</p>
<p>The study also looked at the likelihood of other temperature extremes. Days 35 degrees or higher currently occur every five years on average but could happen nearly every other year by 2100 under a high-emissions scenario. The 40 and 35 degree days would be most common in the Southeast, but the North could see 30 degree days once per decade by 2100. They are now extremely rare in that region.</p><p>UK summers are already feeling the impacts of the climate crisis. The summer of 2018 was the joint hottest on record, and the country saw its highest recorded temperature of 38.7 in Cambridge during July 2019, The Guardian reported. The climate crisis has made <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/heat-wave" target="_self">heat waves</a> in the country 30 more likely, and temperature extremes caused 3,400 early deaths between 2016 and 2019. These impacts will only worsen as temperatures rise, which is a big reason why the Met Office conducted the study, Christidis told <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20200630-uk-increasingly-likely-to-see-40c-temperatures" target="_blank">AFP</a>. He said he wanted to help the country plan better for extremes.</p>
<p>"Exceeding extreme temperature thresholds like the 40C in the UK would be accompanied by severe impacts — on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-health" target="_self">public health</a>, transport infrastructure," he told AFP.</p><p>However, on a global scale, the UK won't be feeling the heat as intensely as other places.</p><p>"Heatwaves are a real risk to life in the UK, especially if we do not begin modifying our homes, workplaces and hospitals to manage their expected overheating," University of Leeds professor Piers Forster, who was not involved in the study, told The Guardian. "However, we should note that in terms of heatwaves, the UK will get off lightly compared with most other nations. Heatwaves in the major crop-growing regions of the world could have more profound effects, both globally and for the UK."</p>
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A forest fire in central Yakutia (Sakha Republic) on June 2. Yevgeny Sofroneyev / TASS / Getty Images
By Eoin Higgins
The number of fires in the vast north Asian region of Siberia increased fivefold this week, according to the Russian forest fire aerial protection service, as temperatures in the Arctic continued higher than normal in the latest sign of the ongoing climate crisis.
<p>The news of the increase comes a week after the small Siberian town of Verkhoyansk reported a high temperature of 100.4° F on June 20, a reading that, if confirmed, would mark the hottest day ever recorded in the region. </p>
<p>"While fires are common at this time of year, record temperatures and strong winds are making the situation particularly worrying," the European Union's Earth Observation Programme, which is monitoring the situation, <a href="https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/arctic-wildfires-burning-further-north-than-previously-spotted-from-space-satellite-shows/" target="_blank">said</a> in a statement. </p>
<div id="73927" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="09b86e126577646f203d29afcf911879"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1276290239753936897" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">A record heatwave in Siberia has led to forest fires in the Republic of Sakha.
Temperatures spiked to 30C (86F) on… https://t.co/sCMYu6OUaj</div> — Shakthi #StayHomeSaveLives (@Shakthi #StayHomeSaveLives)<a href="https://twitter.com/v_shakthi/statuses/1276290239753936897">1593126280.0</a></blockquote></div><p>As the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/081bb0a6004b3f0596a2dab7cfd9817d" target="_blank">reported</a>:</p><blockquote>According to figures reported Saturday by Avialesookhrana, Russia's agency for aerial forest fire management, 1.15 million hectares (2.85 million acres) were burning in Siberia in areas that cannot be reached by firefighters.<br>The worst-hit area is the Sakha Republic, where Verkhoyansk is located, with 929,000 hectares (2.295 million acres) burning.<br></blockquote><p>The Sakha Republic's fire service reported 127 natural fires in the Russian federal sector.</p><p>The fires and heat are due to the climate crisis, Weather Channel meteorologist Carl Parker <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/siberia-fire-arctic-temperatures-1513721" target="_blank">told</a> Newsweek. </p><p>"What climate change is doing is moving the distribution of weather events, such that historically low-frequency, extreme events occur more frequently," said Parker. "Had the climate not changed due to man-made greenhouse gases, the heat we've seen in parts of Siberia would have been a 100,000-year event."</p><p>Parker warned that the fires are part of a dangerous feedback loop in the northern region. </p><p>"What's scary about the warming in Siberia is that there are huge quantities of carbon in permafrost, which can be unleashed during periods like this, particularly as fires develop in the region," said Parker.</p>
<div id="ecd41" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0468dfb70d2572cf52eaeaba0b44f15c"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1276949453023346688" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The situation is getting much worse in Siberia.. #WeDontHaveTime
https://t.co/XZ3EN1WueB</div> — We Don’t Have Time (@We Don’t Have Time)<a href="https://twitter.com/WeDontHaveTime/statuses/1276949453023346688">1593283448.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Jonathan Overpeck, University of Michigan environmental school dean, <a href="https://apnews.com/39c5b62946a0951cf0d98e4f952f47fd" target="_blank">told</a> AP in an email on June 24 that the situation in the Arctic region is unprecedented.</p><p>"The Arctic is figuratively and literally on fire," wrote Overpeck. "It's warming much faster than we thought it would in response to rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and this warming is leading to a rapid meltdown and increase in wildfires."</p><p>"The record warming in Siberia is a warning sign of major proportions," he added.</p><p>Temperatures in Siberia for the first five months of 2020 were an average 14° F over normal. </p><p>"That's much, much warmer than it's ever been over that region in that period of time," Zeke Hausfather, a Berkeley Earth climate scientist, told AP.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/27/warning-sign-major-proportions-number-siberian-forest-fires-increase-fivefold-week" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Mangrove Action Project video
Along many tropical shorelines, swampy mangrove forests create habitat for fish and buffer the impact of heavy waves.
<p>
"Mangroves reduce the effects of climate change, protecting coastlines against erosion and rising sea levels and hurricanes or storm surge events," said Alfredo Quarto, cofounder of the <a href="https://mangroveactionproject.org/" target="_blank">Mangrove Action Project</a>.
</p>
<p>He says mangrove forests also store a huge amount of carbon, so they help slow global warming.</p><p>But around the world, mangrove forests have been cut down for development and agriculture.</p><p>For example, in Thailand, vast areas were destroyed to make room for shrimp farms. Many of those farms have since been abandoned.</p>
<p>So Quarto's group is helping turn those shrimp ponds back into ecosystems where mangroves can thrive.</p><p>He says the work requires more than planting seeds. For example, the group works with local communities to repair and reconnect waterways, which helps mangroves regenerate on their own.</p><p>"We're trying to establish a kind of natural restoration that will bring back a healthy forest," Quarto said. "It's important for the wild fisheries. It's important for the health of the coast, the resilience of the coast, especially in times of climate change."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/group-helps-turn-abandoned-shrimp-farms-into-carbon-storing-mangrove-ecosystems/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646162196#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>
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Doha, Qatar is one of the cities that has experienced heat and humidity combinations past the threshold for human survival. Helen_In_UK / iStock / Getty Images Plus
For years, researchers have warned that the climate crisis could expose people around the world to a potentially deadly combination of heat and humidity later in the century.
<p>Now, a new study <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaaw1838" target="_blank">published in Science Advances Friday</a> shows that the conditions scientists thought were decades away are already here, and increasing.</p><p>"I was astonished by our findings," study coauthor Radley Horton of Columbia University told <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/08/weather/killer-heat-climate-change-study/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "My previously published study projected that these conditions would not take hold until later in the century. We may be at a closer tipping point than we think."</p>
<p>At stake is the human body's ability to withstand a certain combination of heat and humidity. When temperatures rise past 35 degrees Celsius, humans have to sweat to maintain their ideal body temperature, the study explained. But when it gets too humid, this is no longer possible. The combination of heat and humidity is calculated by something called the wet-bulb temperature, measured by wrapping a wet cloth around a thermometer and seeing how much it is cooled by evaporation, as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-deadly-heat-waves-2591748600.html?share_id=3814869" target="_self">EcoWatch explained previously</a>. When humidity reaches 100 percent, the cloth has no effect. Wet-bulb temperatures of 35 or higher are too much for even healthy humans to survive outside for more than six hours, but wet-bulb temperatures much lower than that can still cause problems for human health. The deadly European and Russian <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/heat-wave" target="_self">heat waves</a> of 2003 and 2010 respectively saw wet-bulb temperatures of only 28 degrees Celsius.</p>
<p>"It's hard to exaggerate the effects of anything that gets into the 30s," study coauthor Colin Raymond, a former Columbia Ph.D. student now at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/fatal-heat-humidity-emerging/" target="_blank">Columbia University Earth Institute press release</a>.</p><p>Previous observations had indicated that the 35 degree threshold had never been breached and that there had only been a few recordings of wet-bulb temperatures above 33 degrees, the study explained. But climate models had indicated that, without emissions reductions, such temperatures would be common later this century in parts of South Asia and the Middle East.</p><p>However, the latest research discovered that two weather stations had already recorded wet-bulb temperatures above 35 and several had seen temperatures higher than 31 and 33 degrees. In fact, since 1979, the number of wet-bulb temperatures above 30 degrees have doubled worldwide, CNN reported.</p>
<div id="6eca5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="694509871e13a59973023028db172df3"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1258840057420505088" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We find many values near, & a few briefly right at, the survivability limit for prolonged exposure. Just about the… https://t.co/pDchmO7W8d</div> — Colin Raymond (@Colin Raymond)<a href="https://twitter.com/regclimo/statuses/1258840057420505088">1588965832.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The study turned up such different results because it used a different method, as <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heat-and-humidity-are-already-reaching-the-limits-of-human-tolerance/" target="_blank">Scientific American</a> explained. Previous studies had considered wider areas over several hours, but this study looked at data from more than 7,000 weather stations since 1979.</p><p>"[W]e decided to zoom in a little bit closer," Raymond told Scientific American.</p><p>The highest readings were recorded 14 times along the Persian Gulf, including in Doha, Qatar, where the 2022 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to take place, CNN reported. High wet-bulb temperatures were also recorded multiple times in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, northwest Australia, the Red Sea coast and the Gulf of California in Mexico, according to the Earth Institute.</p><p>In the U.S., high temperatures were recorded dozens of times along the Gulf Coast. The worst-hit locations were New Orleans and Biloxi, Mississippi.</p><p>Extreme temperatures only occurred for an hour or two, Scientific American pointed out, meaning they are not yet at the level that automatically threatens human survival. However, heat waves are already the deadliest type of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" target="_self">extreme weather</a> event in the U.S., where it is relatively easier to shelter from high heat.</p><p>"This is not a problem for the end of the century, but in the present, especially in the developing world without widespread air conditioning," research meteorologist Ryan Maue, who was not involved with the study, told CNN.</p><p>And if temperatures rise to 2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, wet-bulb temperatures above 35 degrees would become common in parts of the world, the study found, according to Scientific American.</p>"[T]he inevitability of further increases is a sobering reminder of the importance of both mitigation of the temperature rise, and adaptation to what's already in store," <a href="http://www.regionalclimateperspectives.com/blog/new-paper-on-global-heat-humidity-extremes" target="_blank">Raymond wrote in a blog post</a>
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As a heat wave descends upon the city, people seek refuge from the record high temperatures at the fountains in Flushing Meadows Park on July 21, 2019 in the Queens borough of New York City. Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis / Getty Images
By Juan Declet-Barreto
In early April, when social distancing took hold across many places in the U.S. — with school and workplace closings and public life coming to a halt — it seemed like an inopportune time to talk about climate change.
<p>We are knee-deep in a global health crisis of a kind not seen for a hundred years, and #FlatteningTheCurve is crucial in order to prevent even more widespread contagion, the overwhelming of health services, and even larger-scale loss of life than what COVID-19 has already caused. This is where our collective attention, resources, and efforts should be focused.</p>
<p>The pandemic is a global crisis long in the making. Public health and pandemic disease warriors have been warning for years that a dangerous pandemic was imminent. They also warned us what we needed to do mount an effective response and protect lives: a focus on science-based preparedness and prevention, strong public health institutions and international collaboration, widespread access to health care, and social safety nets to absorb the impacts of protracted economic contractions like the one in which we are currently living. And yet, in the U.S. and in many countries across the world, this is exactly where we are now.</p><p>On top of this, <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/rachel-licker/how-to-keep-us-south-safe-from-covid-19-and-scorching-heat-even-as-some-states-ignore-pandemic-dangers" target="_blank">seasonal extreme weather is upon us</a>. Suddenly, it doesn't seem so strange anymore to be talking about climate change. Here, I take a look at the colliding dangers of extreme weather–with a focus on extreme heat–and COVID-19, and lay out a few ways in which Congress can bring relief to the millions in the path of both threats.</p>
The Double whammy of Climate and COVID-19 on Vulnerable People
<p>If the litany of pandemic scientists' warnings sounds familiar, it's because climate scientists have been issuing, for decades, similar warnings about the need to reduce carbon emissions to curb climate change and avoid catastrophic consequences for human life and the infrastructure that supports it. And while climate change and COVID-19 may seem unrelated on the surface, we live in an interconnected world where carbon emissions and viral agents like the novel coronavirus are globalized, operating and disrupting our lives at different spatial and temporal scales. Think, for example, of the novel coronavirus' 1-14 day incubation period in our bodies, a climate change-driven heat wave through our city, or seasonal flooding through our region.</p><p>Our new pandemic reality has been made more complicated and dangerous by climate change and the added pressure it can exert on millions of people — e.g., to seek cooling centers, endure a long power outage, flee the path of hurricanes, the loss of life or property, habitats, and ancestral ways of life — and the combination looks frightening.</p><p>A few weeks ago, my colleague Dr. Kristy Dahl and I analyzed the <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/kristy-dahl/new-ucs-analysis-coronavirus-and-flooding-set-to-collide-in-us?fbclid=IwAR0H0KQu7pq6mlssXFHYCCrJ_NPcQ9sIiYVbV00vPiqtXjJOCKdSMUNlezg" target="_blank">confluence of projected COVID-19 infections</a> and spring flood predictions by the end of May 2020. We found that many areas in the U.S. South and Midwest, including rural agricultural communities like Cedar Rapids, IA, and large metropolitan areas like Atlanta and St Louis could be dealing with evacuating people to shelters while simultaneously trying to prevent spread of the novel coronavirus by maintaining social distancing guidelines.</p><p>Fortunately, most of those flood predictions have not come true. But NOAA's Spring flood outlook, <a href="https://www.weather.gov/dvn/2020_springfloodoutlook" target="_blank">updated since we did that analysis</a>, is warning that spring rain and wet soil conditions could still drive flooding in the late season.</p>Protecting Against Both COVID-19 and Extreme Weather
<p>As temperatures across the U.S. rise with the approach of summer, another climate and COVID-19 quandary is in sight: how to protect people — especially the most vulnerable — from heat waves, while also protecting them from COVID-19?</p><p>For example, elderly people, who are at <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/adrienne-hollis/catch-22-of-coronavirus-for-seniors-most-at-risk-and-the-importance-of-up-to-date-information" target="_blank">higher risk of death from COVID-19</a>, are also at high risk of becoming sick or dying from extreme heat, as was the case in the <a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/July-2015/1995-Chicago-heat-wave/" target="_blank">1995 Chicago heat wave</a> that killed 700-plus (many of them people of advanced age who lived on their own). In some cities, where heat tends to be more extreme because of the <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/WCAS-D-15-0026.1" target="_blank">urban heat island effect</a>, many elderly people live on their own, may not have an air conditioner unit at home, or may be unable to afford its use. Many among those will be forced to observe social distancing by sheltering in place in dangerously hot homes. But poverty and social isolation on their own will unfortunately also take their toll on the most vulnerable if we don't take steps to protect them.</p><p>COVID-19 is already ravaging <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/adrienne-hollis/the-crisis-within-the-crisis-covid-19-is-ravaging-african-americans" target="_blank">African American</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coronavirus-takes-more-native-americans-lives-killing-our-elderly-erases-ncna1189761" target="_blank">Native American communities</a>, and <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/juan-declet-barreto/para-enfrentar-la-pandemia-del-coronavirus-necesitamos-escuchar-a-los-cientificos-y-mantener-el-distanciamiento-social" target="_blank">Latinos are also disproportionately exposed</a> to the novel coronavirus. Many of the usual steps taken to protect people from extreme heat in many of these communities — in urban and rural areas alike — are incompatible with the social distancing measures taken to prevent virus contagion. And if climate change continues unchecked, the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/killer-heat-united-states-0" target="_blank">number of "killer heat" days</a> could quadruple in many areas of the U.S., putting more people in harm's way.</p><p>Before the COVID-19 crisis, it may have been possible for elderly people and other vulnerable persons to go to nearby cooling centers, malls, movie theaters, parks, lakes, or beaches, but in many states these are closed to limit spread of COVID-19 infections.</p><p>In mid-April, the <a href="https://twitter.com/DecletBarreto/status/1250882413837901826" target="_blank">heat index in parts of Florida exceeded 100<strong>°</strong>F</a>, prompting calls for Governor DeSantis to enact a statewide moratorium on utility shutoffs for lapses in bill payment. Keeping the air conditioner (AC) on is a critical way for people to stay healthy and alive indoors during extreme heat days while observing social distancing and stay-at- home orders.</p><p>This came into focus last week across the Southern U.S. as a deadly heat wave blanketed the region. As my colleague <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/rachel-licker/how-to-keep-us-south-safe-from-covid-19-and-scorching-heat-even-as-some-states-ignore-pandemic-dangers" target="_blank">Dr. Rachel Licker pointed out</a>, the combination of income loss, COVID-19, extreme heat, and the lack of utility shutoff moratoria are bad, bad news for millions across the South. In this time when multiple environmental hazards are hitting us, the way to keep people safe from a heat wave is to keep the AC running at home so they don't have to go outside to cool and risk spread of COVID-19.</p><p>Under normal times, it's difficult for a significant chunk of the U.S. population to keep the AC, refrigerator, and other essential home appliances running, but loss of jobs and income will make it even harder for an even larger segment of the population.</p>Six Ways Congress Can Keep Low-Income People at Home and Cool During the Pandemic
<ul> <li><strong>Ensure Parity in energy bill assistance benefits to residents of public housing </strong>– In at least 26 states, residents of public housing with energy costs included in rent are <a href="https://liheapch.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/440.htm" target="_blank">not eligible for energy bill payment</a> assistance under the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Such an arrangement means that tenants don't have to pay out of pocket for electric bills, which can serve to protect from heat those residents of public housing that includes AC units. But it does not work for public housing that does not include AC units because LIHEAP does not cover the purchase of AC units. In addition, residents of public housing in many states receive less LIHEAP benefits regardless of how energy costs are paid. Residents of public housing, like other low-income populations, already face significant challenges to meeting material needs, and should not be penalized by LIHEAP. Congress must ensure parity in LIHEAP benefits for all low-income populations.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Eliminate LIHEAP medical documentation requirement </strong>– One requirement for LIHEAP benefits eligibility is that an applicant with a health or medical risk that could worsen with a utility disconnection provides medical documentation of such risk. In this country, many low-income persons lack health insurance due to cost barriers. In addition, in-person medical appointments are currently largely not possible due to the need to observe social distancing during the pandemic, and virtual medical appointments require broadband internet connections at home and computer equipment that may be out of reach for many low-income populations. Beyond pre-existing medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes that could be exacerbated by extreme heat, many persons without diagnosed medical conditions are still at risk of heat-related illness or death. While some <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/resource/liheap-dcl-initial-covid-19-program-guidance" target="_blank">LIHEAP implementation guidelines have been explicitly relaxed during the COVID-19 emergency</a>, jurisdictions do not appear to have authority to relax medical documentation eligibility requirements.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Enact utility shutoff moratoria in all states and territories for the duration of the pandemic </strong>– While Florida is the only state with no protections against utility shutoffs due to health or medical reasons, only nine states have enacted bans for electricity shutoffs based on temperature thresholds. <a href="https://www.metro.pr/pr/noticias/2020/03/17/aee-rechaza-otorgar-moratoria-pagos-energia-electrica.html" target="_blank">Puerto Rico</a> and the <a href="http://www.viwapa.vi/news-information/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/03/28/wapa-reiterates-commitment-to-not-disconnect-delinquent-accounts-during-covid-19-state-of-emergency" target="_blank">US Virgin Islands</a> have not formally enacted moratoria, but their respective power companies have committed publicly to not disconnect power for non-payment during the COVID-19 emergency. But as my colleague Joe Daniel wrote, voluntary actions of <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/joseph-daniel/how-covid-19-leads-to-energy-insecurity" target="_blank">power companies do not provide</a> comprehensive protection and are not uniform across the U.S. Therefore, what is needed is a national mandatory moratorium on utility disconnections that includes territories and tribal nations as well. If power bills stack up and become due at some point after the crisis, many low-income people will see their energy burden increase, so a national utility disconnection moratorium needs to come with a plan for recouping costs that does not impose an inequitable burden.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Enact parity in evictions moratoria for the duration of the pandemic </strong>– The CARES Act temporarily banned evictions for not paying rent, but similar to the utility shutoff ban, the evictions moratorium "<a href="https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/04/amid-pandemic-congress-suspends-evictions-but-not-for-all/" target="_blank">has gaps, limits, and pitfalls</a>" and can also be problematic for landlords. There is no straightforward way for renters to know if their landlords are banned by law from evicting renters–not unless the landlord shares with renters information on for example, if the landlord has a federally-backed mortgage, or participation in housing programs for victims of domestic violence. And landlords will typically have little incentive to share such information with their tenants. Regardless, <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/cares-act-eviction-moratorium-covers-all-federally-financed-rentals-thats-one-four-us-rental-units" target="_blank">the CARES Act moratorium</a> covers just 28 percent of rental units in the US. Just like with the utility shutoff ban, Congress must enact a national moratorium on evictions that includes the territories and tribal nations as well.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Increase income ceiling for LIHEAP eligibility </strong>– Income eligibility for LIHEAP is somewhere between 100 and 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (<a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-fpl/" target="_blank">FPL</a>), and states have discretion in choosing the specific cutoff within that range. To use an example, the FPL for a family of four (like mine) is $26,200, obviously a very modest income, and too low for many households to deal with the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewdepietro/2017/12/28/cost-of-living-is-surging-in-these-major-cities-and-what-it-could-mean-for-2018/#74d1fe5571c6" target="_blank">increasing cost of living in US cities</a>. Congress must raise the income limits for LIHEAP eligibility, which would go a long way to reduce energy insecurity among millions in the US.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Increase funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program </strong>– Poor-quality homes increase cooling (and heating) costs, which can increase the energy burden of low-income households. The <strong><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/three-stimulus-package-priorities-to-rebuild-a-more-equitable-and-sustainable-economy" target="_blank">Weatherization Assistance Program</a> (WAP) funds home improvements such as insulation, repairs to heating or cooling systems, and home appliance upgrades to more energy-efficient models. </strong> This program supports thousands of jobs, and can help low-income households lower their energy bills and thus their energy burden. Increased funding for the program will create more jobs and lower energy burdens.</li></ul><p>The changes suggested above are stopgap measures to help working families stay safe during the pandemic. As the economic and human health costs of the pandemic continue to climb, we need to think about how to provide long-term funding for these measures.</p><p>LIHEAP, for example, has been <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/families-need-more-help-keep-lights-and-water-running-during-pandemic" target="_blank">severely underfunded</a> relative to the needs for years now, even before the COVID crisis. That is in part why the CARES Act assigned the large sum of $900 million to LIHEAP alone. Thus increasing the income ceiling for LIHEAP eligibility would have to be accompanied by an increase in overall funding to make any difference because at the current income ceiling, the program is already oversubscribed.</p><p>In addition, LIHEAP is a federally-funded block grant program that is administered by states, territories, and tribal nations. There is lack of parity in LIHEAP eligibility requirements and benefits because jurisdictions are allowed to have different rules in choosing how to implement the program. In addition, landlords cannot be expected to shoulder the economic hit from not receiving rental payments. Property owners need to pay mortgages, insurance, maintenance, etc., so a moratorium on rental payments must also come with a federal government plan to cover those expenses.</p>
<p><strong>A return to normalcy should address existing inequities magnified by climate change and COVID-19.</strong></p><p>Summer heat drives us together, but social distancing is needed to beat COVID-19.</p><p>Sunny days and higher temperatures drive people to gather in parks, pools, beaches, lakes, or attend music festivals or concerts. But for people who cannot shelter from heat at home, gathering in public places is not just a way to enjoy the summer. Sheltering in a cooling center or splashing around in water from a fire hydrant are key adaptation behaviors that can keep people safe from heat.</p><p>Across the country, the desire to resume normalcy is encouraging many state plans to lift social distancing guidelines and open public spaces. But as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious-disease expert in the U.S. has said, reopening the economy and lifting social distancing guidelines prematurely will very likely <a href="https://time.com/5824144/fauci-reopening-economy/" target="_blank">trigger a spike in cases</a> and not lead to the economic recovery that many are hoping for. We need to manage the compound hazards of heat and COVID-19 to get through the summer without large increases in infections.</p><p>We also should resist the urge to romanticize the "normalcy" we wish to return to. "Normal" before the novel coronavirus means deep inequities in access to good jobs, housing, health care, and environmental protections that are magnifying impacts among many communities during the pandemic. It also means the seasonal and year-round impacts of a warming world–devastating hurricanes, floods, wildfires, heat waves, and droughts.</p><p>While we all want to go back to economic and leisure activities of everyday life, we must aspire to a post-pandemic world in which all, not just the wealthy or well-connected can avoid the worst consequences of climate change and the terrible COVID-19 disease. Besides the measures above that Congress can take to protect heat-vulnerable populations during the pandemic, Congress should also include long-term investments in economic and workforce development among low-income communities in the next stimulus package (see <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/adrienne-hollis/why-congress-must-invest-in-environmental-justice-and-equity-in-the-next-recovery-package" target="_blank">Dr. Adrienne Hollis' post on this</a>).</p><p>Providing immediate relief to the most climate-vulnerable in society is a first step in that direction.</p>
<p> <em>Juan Declet-Barreto is a climate scientist for the UCS Climate & Energy program and the Center for Science and Democracy.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Pixabay
By Roman Goncharenko
Unseasonably warm temperatures, blue skies and gardens in full bloom — most of Europe is currently enjoying dreamy spring weather. But that's not how farmers see it. They are hoping for rain, and fear that without it their crops will suffer greatly. And experts say there is a very real prospect that beyond the continuing coronavirus pandemic, Europe could be facing weather-induced crop failures in the very near future.
<p>Right now, there is little talk of that threat as farmers are more concerned with an acute lack of seasonal harvesters from abroad. The labor shortage is the direct result of travel bans put in place in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. Quarantine-related stories like this one have dominated headlines for weeks, leaving no space for the climate change stories they replaced — stories about massive forest fires raging across Australia and Brazil, for instance.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/europes-hot-summer-weather-could-worsen-the-effects-of-covid-19/a-53089956" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2645699288#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>
Global Warming Hasn't Gone Away
<p>"January was too warm. There is no evidence that global warming has paused or slowed," says Andreas Becker of the German Weather Service (DWD) in Frankfurt am Main. Moreover, he says, January and March were far too dry and February too wet. Water levels in Germany's largest river, the Rhine, were more than 6 meters (20 feet) above average in early March, though they are now falling once again. Currently, the Rhine is close to its average depth of 3.5 meters, but water levels are continuing to drop.</p><p>Meteorologist Becker says the good thing about having such a wet February is that it helped offset some of the groundwater loss that occurred over the past two years as temperatures soared above 40℃ (104℉). He says plants, which draw water from the top 20-50 centimeters (8-20 inches) of soil, have been doing better than trees, which draw theirs from depths closer to two meters. Becker says there is very little water remaining at those levels.</p><p><span></span>Now, he warns, things will have deteriorated further still as March was such a dry month. This year, Germany only received 50-75% of the rainfall that it usually gets for the month. For meteorologists, that comes close to qualifying as a drought.</p>Eastern Europe Especially Dry
<p>Andreas Marx from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research's Central Germany Office in Leipzig points out that the past three years have seen unusually low amounts of precipitation. He says that has been the case not only in northern Germany, but also in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Romania.</p><p>The expert says three-week cycles without rain are normal for Europe, but says what has been unusual over the past three years has been the increasing stabilization of the jet stream, which normally meanders around the North Pole some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) above the Earth. A veritable conveyor belt for winds, the jet stream normally winds and shifts its path, changing weather patterns on the Earth's surface.</p><p>"Climate change has caused the North Pole to warm far faster than the Equator. Now the jet stream is increasingly moving in a north-south direction," says Marx. As a result, the jet stream is not moving around as much as it once did, leading to stable weather patterns such as the extended dry periods that Germany suffered in 2018.</p>How Dry Will Things Get This Summer?
<p>Since weather predictions for even a week or two are considered uncertain, meteorologists shy away from making long-term weather predictions about things such as how the upcoming summer might be. Both Becker and Marx add that due to Europe's varied geography — including its mountains and oceans — it is far more difficult to predict the weather in Europe than in places like Australia, which is surrounded by water. Still, both expect this summer to be warmer than usual. The German Weather Service, for instance, has already suggested that temperatures in Germany could be half a degree (Celsius) warmer than average.</p><p>Marx, who is currently basing his modeling on data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), says not only does he expect the coming summer to be warmer than usual, but also drier. He points out that hot periods have changed all over the world.</p><p>"Technically, hot days are those over 30℃. Statistically, one can expect seven or eight such days each year in Leipzig. But we had 36 of them in 2018, and 29 in 2019. That means heat waves last three to four times longer than average." Marx says that has serious consequences for farmers but also for human health. </p>Heat Could Amplify the Effects of the Coronavirus
<p>If things go as the experts expect, Europeans will not only face the prospect of movement restrictions necessitated by COVID-19, but will also have to suffer under extended periods of extreme heat. That heat is something that already plagues elderly citizens — who are also most at risk from the coronavirus — and it makes wearing a face mask all the more uncomfortable.</p><p>Long droughts also increase the chance of forest fires and the massive amounts of smoke that they produce. That would be yet another burden on peoples' lungs, especially those infected with the coronavirus.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Penguins are seen near the Great Wall station in Antarctica, Feb. 9, days after the continent measured its hottest temperature on record at nearly 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Xinhua / Liu Shiping / Getty Images
By Richard Connor
Scientists have recorded Antarctica's first documented heat wave, warning that animal and plant life on the isolated continent could be drastically affected by climate change.
<p>Australian Antarctic Program researchers recorded the heat wave event at Casey research station in East Antarctica during the 2019-2020 southern hemisphere summer.<em></em></p>
<p>Findings by the team were published in the Global Change Biology journal on Tuesday, with authors warning that the changes could affect global weather patterns.</p><p>Between January 23 and 26, a research team at Casey — directly south of Perth in western Australia — recorded the highest maximum and minimum temperatures ever seen at the base.</p>
<p>During the period, minimum temperatures were higher than zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) while the maximums peaked above 7.5 degrees.</p><p>On January 24, the Casey team recorded a record high temperature of 9.2 degrees Celsius, 6.9 degrees higher than the station's mean maximum.</p><p>Heat waves are classified as three consecutive days where very high maximum and minimum temperatures are recorded.<br></p><p><span></span>At the same time, record high temperatures were also reported on the other side of the continent, on the Antarctic Peninsula. Last month, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/antarctica-records-continents-hottest-temperature-ever/a-52295518" target="_blank">the highest ever temperature — 18.3 degrees — was recorded at the Argentinian research station Esperanza Base</a>.</p>
Global Impact on Climate
<p>The authors of the study said the local effects of climate change could have a global impact.</p><p>"Antarctica may be isolated from the rest of the continents by the Southern Ocean, but it has worldwide impacts," they said.</p><p>"It drives the global ocean conveyor belt, a constant system of deep-ocean circulation which transfers oceanic heat around the planet, and its melting ice sheet adds to global sea-level rise."</p><p>Co-author Dana Bergstrom said the hot summer could affect local populations positively at first, but could also lead to drought and heat stress on species adapted for the cold.</p><p>"Most life exists in small ice-free oases in Antarctica, and depends on melting snow and ice for their water supply," said Bergstrom, a principal scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division.</p><p>While an increase in meltwater flooding associated with higher temperatures could provide extra water to such ecosystems – helping them on a short-term basis - it could also dislodge plants and radically change the composition of communities of invertebrates and microbes.</p><p>"Based on our experience from previous anomalous hot summers in Antarctica we can expect a multitude of biological impacts to be reported in coming years, illustrating how climate change is impacting even the most remote areas of the planet," the study said.</p><p>Contributors to the research came from Australia's University of Wollongong, the University of Tasmania and the government agency Australian Antarctic Division.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/antarctica-experiences-first-known-heat-wave/a-52963959?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Mapping Urban Heat through Portland State University / video
Concrete and asphalt absorb the sun's energy. So when a heat wave strikes, city neighborhoods with few trees and lots of black pavement can get hotter than other areas — a lot hotter.
<p>"Fifteen, 18 degrees Fahrenheit difference across the city at the same time," said Vivek Shandas of Portland State University.</p>
<p>He leads a heat-mapping project funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.</p><p>Listen here:</p><iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/12815396/height/45/theme/standard/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/" height="45" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>Over the last few summers, the project partnered with local groups in Washington, DC, Portland, Boston and other cities. Volunteers use cars equipped with sensors that gather temperature and humidity data.</p><p>Shandas and his team use that data to create digital maps showing how temperatures vary block by block. The hottest areas are often low-income, underserved neighborhoods.</p><p>Shandas said getting residents involved in collecting data can help inspire local solutions.</p><p>For example, people may initiate tree planting projects targeted at the neighborhoods that need them most.</p><p>"The partnerships have been really instrumental in being able to get the communities together, to convene them, to go out and do this campaign, and then to come back and start interpreting what it is that they're seeing and ultimately what it is they can do about it," he said.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/02/hottest-places-in-a-city-are-often-low-income-neighborhoods/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2645206802#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Oil rigs seen at sunset off the southern California coast. Neil Nissing / The Image Bank / Getty Images
By Daisy Dunne
Deadly "day-night hot extremes" are increasing across the northern hemisphere due to climate change, a new study finds.
<p>And the number of people exposed to such events, also known as "compound hot extremes," is likely to increase "several-fold" as temperatures continue to climb in the coming decades, the study authors tell Carbon Brief.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-change-driving-surge-in-day-night-hot-extremes-in-northern-hemisphere" target="_blank">Carbon Brief</a>.</em></p>
<p>If global temperatures reach 2 C — the upper limit set by countries in the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/interactive-the-paris-agreement-on-climate-change" target="_blank">Paris agreement</a> — the frequency of compound hot extremes could more than double across the northern hemisphere, when compared to 2012, the research finds.</p><p>However, if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, compound hot extremes could become eight times more frequent by the end of the century.<br></p><p>The study sets out "clear evidence" that human-caused climate change is leaving its mark on extreme heat events, another scientist tells Carbon Brief.</p>
Day and Night
<p>The new study, published in <a href="https://nature.com/articles/s41467-019-14233-8" target="_blank">Nature Communications</a>, looks specifically at "compound hot extremes" — a 24-hour period in summer where hot daytime temperatures are followed by similar nightime temperatures. (Temperatures are considered "hot" if they are in the top 10% of temperatures experienced by a region from 1960-2012.)</p><p>These kinds of events pose a particularly high danger to human health, explain study authors <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/people/yang-chen/" target="_blank">Dr Yang Chen</a>, a climate extremes scientist from the <a href="http://www.cma.gov.cn/en2014/aboutcma/organizational/InstitutionsunderCMA/201409/t20140915_261139.html" target="_blank">Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences</a>, and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jun_Wang272" target="_blank">Dr Jun Wang</a>, a climate and meteorological scientist from the <a href="http://english.iap.cas.cn/" target="_blank">Institute of Atmospheric Physics</a> in China. In a joint interview, they tell Carbon Brief:</p><blockquote>Simply put, compound hot extremes deprive humans of the valuable chance of relief, which could have been provided by the 'cooling-off' effects of a nighttime low.<br></blockquote><p>Such conditions occurred during the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/study-links-heatwave-deaths-london-paris-climate-change" target="_blank">2003 summer heatwave</a> in Europe, which saw <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069107003770" target="_blank">70,000 deaths</a> across 16 countries, the authors say. Another example is the <a href="https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/July-2015/1995-Chicago-heat-wave/" target="_blank">1995 Chicago heatwave</a>, which led to more than 700 heat-related deaths in just five days.<br></p><p>The study is the first to present "a complete storyline on compound hot extremes" — investigating how they have changed, the role of climate change in this and how they might increase in the future, the authors say.<br></p><p>The results show that compound hot extremes "are significantly increasing and will continue to increase in frequency and intensity" across the northern hemisphere, say Chen and Wang:</p><blockquote>These increases in heat hazards will translate into several-fold increases in population exposure to them. The rise of anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gas emissions is to blame for these increases.<br></blockquote>Burning Up
<p>For the first part of their study, the authors analysed the "fingerprint" of human-caused climate change on compound hot extremes to date. To do this, they conducted an "<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/category/science/extreme-weather/attribution" target="_blank">attribution</a>" analysis.<br></p><p>This involves using <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-do-climate-models-work" target="_blank">climate models</a> to produce two sets of simulations: one including <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-scientists-think-100-of-global-warming-is-due-to-humans" target="_blank">all the factors that affect the climate</a>, including human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, volcanic eruptions and solar variability, and one including all of these factors except for greenhouse gas emissions.</p><p>The researchers then compared the frequency and intensity of compound hot extremes in both of these scenarios.</p><p>They found that only the scenario including human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could closely reproduce the pattern of compound hot extremes observed from 1960 to 2012. In their research paper, the authors write:</p><blockquote>We find that the summer-mean warming over 1960-2012 largely dictates the past increases in frequency and intensity of compound hot extremes during that period in both observations and simulations.<br></blockquote><p>The maps below show observed changes in summertime compound hot extreme frequency (left) and intensity (right) across the northern hemisphere from 1960-2012.</p><p>The left-hand map shows changes in the number of compound hot extreme days per decade (yellow to red for increases; light to dark blue for decreases), while the right-hand map shows changes in the average temperature of compound hot extremes per decade (same color scale).</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY3ODQ5MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MzcyNzMxNn0.3Qy08rehvqYym0vPHFEYOOlXygOkrz_ALOQUiWKL8y8/img.png?width=980" id="57a44" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="48ac462dca461f1cc5a9ff87f7c67427" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Contributions from changing temperature mean and variability. Wang et al. (2020)
<p>The map shows that increases in the frequency and intensity of compound hot extremes are widespread across the northern hemisphere, with parts of continental Europe and China particularly affected.</p><p>(Gaps in the data prevented the researchers from analysing changes in the most southern parts of the northern hemisphere, the authors say in their research paper.)</p><p>While the global pattern of increases is best explained by human-caused global warming, it is possible that some regional differences may be explained by other factors, the authors say.</p><p>For example, the drying of soils could help to explain local variation of heat extremes, the authors say in their research paper.</p><p>This is because dry soils accumulate heat during the day and release it at night, Wang and Chen say, making night hot extremes and, therefore, compound hot extremes, more likely.</p>Furnace Forecast
<p>The authors also used climate models to project possible future changes to compound hot extremes until 2100. They investigated two scenarios: one "<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-011-0148-z" target="_blank">intermediate mitigation</a>" pathway with moderately high greenhouse gas emissions ("<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-011-0151-4" target="_blank">RCP4.5</a>") and one with very high greenhouse gas emissions ("<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp8-5-global-warming-scenario" target="_blank">RCP8.5</a>").</p><p>Within each emissions scenario, they also looked at the changes to compound hot extremes expected if the world reaches 1.5 C and 2 C of global warming, which are the temperature limits set by the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/interactive-the-paris-agreement-on-climate-change" target="_blank">Paris agreement</a>.</p><p>The charts below show the average expected change in the number of summertime compound hot extreme days (purple line), as well as independent hot days (blue line) and independent hot nights (turquoise line) across the northern hemisphere under RCP4.5 (top) and RCP8.5 (bottom) until 2100. (Compound extremes are where a hot day is followed by a hot night, whereas an "independent hot day" is when a hot day is not followed by a hot night.)</p><p>On the charts, red circles point out when the temperature limits of 1.5 C and 2 C will be breached in each scenario. The bottom chart also highlights when 4C could be breached. The various data points represent results from different climate models.</p><p>(It is worth noting that events are considered to be compound or independent. So, a 24-hour period where a hot day is followed by a hot night would be considered a compound extreme, but not an independent hot day or hot night.)</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY3ODQ5My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwODcyNzk3Mn0.C2pCow5E2GKET9tRcrpw_BszacBruAs5y9kDGFg4AD4/img.png?width=980" id="31a0d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5a2361782343ec141a8d14863900d80f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Constrained projections of summertime hot extremes. Wang et al. (2020)
<p>The results show that the average number of compound hot extreme days across the northern hemisphere in summer would more than double if temperatures reach 2 C, when compared to 2012.</p><p>Keeping temperatures at 1.5 C could see five fewer compound hot extreme days across the northern hemisphere, on average, when compared to 2 C, the research adds.</p><p>If greenhouse gas emissions are extremely high (RCP8.5), the number of summertime compound hot extremes could increase eight-fold by 2100, when compared to 2012, the results show.</p><p>The charts also show that compound hot events are expected to increase at a much more rapid rate than independent hot day or hot night events.</p><p>This is chiefly because <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/11/climate/summer-nights-warming-faster-than-days-dangerous.html" target="_blank">climate change is known</a> to have a larger effect on nightime temperatures than daytime temperatures, the authors say.</p><p>Therefore, as the chances of hot nights become higher, the chances of compound hot events also increase — and, so, the chances of a hot day or night occurring independently decreases, explain Chen and Wang.</p>‘Clear Evidence’
<p>The findings reinforce "the urgency in reducing emission of greenhouse gases" for policymakers, say Chen and Wang:</p><blockquote>We should keep the point in mind that as the globe warms, future summers are increasingly dominated by compound hot extremes and become more uncomfortable. Namely, a hot day accompanied by a hot night without a relief window for humans might become a 'new norm'. As a result, vigilance against excess heat should be kept through day and night.<br></blockquote><p>The study is "impressively comprehensive," says <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/geography/people/eunice-t-lo/overview.html" target="_blank">Dr Eunice Lo</a>, a research associate in climate extremes from the <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/" target="_blank">University of Bristol</a>, who was not involved in the research. She tells Carbon Brief:</p><blockquote>I think the main take home message from this study is that we should use consecutive day-night hot extremes as a major heat-health indicator for policymaking, as compound hot extremes are projected to have larger future increases in frequency and intensity then hot days or nights.<br></blockquote><p>The findings produce "clear evidence" that human-caused climate change is leaving its mark on extreme heat events, says <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/people/peter-stott" target="_blank">Prof Peter Stott</a>, who leads on climate monitoring and attribution at the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/organisations-and-reports/met-office-hadley-centre" target="_blank">Met Office Hadley Centre</a>. Stott, who was also not involved in the research, tells Carbon Brief:</p><blockquote>I don't find the conclusions of the study very surprising, but I do like the way the authors have comprehensively set out the implications – the clear evidence that the changes to date are driven by human emissions and the clear evidence that future changes will result in significant increases in the frequency and intensity of these compound extremes worldwide.<br></blockquote>From Your Site Articles
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chuchart duangdaw / Moment / Getty Images
By Tim Radford
The year is less than four weeks old, but scientists already know that carbon dioxide emissions will continue to head upwards — as they have every year since measurements began — leading to a continuation of the Earth's rising heat.
<p>And they warn that the rise will be <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/2020-global-co2-forecast" target="_blank">steeper than usual, partly because of the devastating bush fires in Australia</a>.</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/2020-starts-with-the-plain-prospect-of-rising-heat/" target="_blank">Climate News Network</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2644916059#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>
<p>The warning is a reminder that global heating and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a> create their own positive feedbacks: more numerous and calamitous forest fires surrender more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which helps raise temperatures, <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/half-a-degree-may-make-heat-impact-far-worse/" target="_blank">accentuate droughts and heat extremes</a>, and create conditions for even more catastrophic forest fires.</p><p>The news is that the proportion of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will peak at 417 parts per million (ppm) in the next 11 months, but settle to an average of just over 414 ppm. This represents <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/australia-ablaze-up-close-and-in-your-face/" target="_blank">a predicted 10 percent increase on the previous year's rise</a>, and a fifth of that can be pinned on blazing eucalypts in New South Wales.</p><p>Atmospheric scientists began keeping meticulous records of CO2 levels in the atmosphere in 1958. The average for most of human history — until the Industrial Revolution and the mass exploitation of coal, oil and gas — was no higher than 285 ppm.</p><p>The warning, from the British Met Office, comes hard on the heels of an address by America's President Trump — who has previously claimed that climate change is a hoax — at Davos in Switzerland. He told the World Economic Forum (WEF) <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51189430" target="_blank">to disregard those he dismissed as "prophets of doom."</a></p>
<p>In fact he was addressing an organization that had only recently issued its own warning that "<a href="https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/01/burning-planet-climate-fires-and-political-flame-wars-rage/" target="_blank">severe threats to our climate</a>" accounted for all the identified top long-term risks that face the modern world.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2020" target="_blank">WEF Global Risks Report warned of extreme weather events</a> with major damage to property, infrastructure and loss of human life. It also pointed to other hazards: among them the failure of attempts to mitigate or adapt to climate change by governments and industry; human-induced environmental damage; and to biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, all of which are inseparable from the climate crisis.</p><p>Even the fifth set of global risks was environmental: these included earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and geomagnetic storms.</p><p>And, the WEF said, time to address these threats was running out. "The political landscape is polarised, sea levels are rising and climate fires are burning. This is the year when world leaders must work with all sectors of society to repair and invigorate our systems of co-operation, not just for short-term benefit, but for tackling our deep-rooted risks," said Borge Brende, president of the WEF.</p><p>And as the WEF issued its own doom-laden warnings, scientists at two great U.S. research agencies confirmed those fears. <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/nsfc-nna011520.php" target="_blank">The space agency NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</a> examined their separate datasets to pronounce 2019 the second warmest year since global records began, and to confirm that the decade just ended was also the warmest since records began.</p>
Relentless Increase
<p>"Every decade since the 1960s has been warmer than the one before," said <a href="https://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/gschmidt/" target="_blank">Gavin Schmidt of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies</a>.</p><p>The British Met Office — working from yet another set of data — agreed that <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/confirmation-that-2019-concludes-warmest-decade-on-record" target="_blank">2019 had been 1.05°C above the average for most of human history</a>, and that the last five years were the warmest since records began in 1850.</p><p>And only days beforehand, Chinese scientists had taken the temperature of the world's oceans to find them <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/ioap-row010920.php" target="_blank">warmer than at any time in recorded history</a>. The past 10 years had been the warmest decade for ocean temperatures worldwide.</p><p>In 2019, they write in the journal <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00376-020-9283-7" target="_blank">Advances in Atmospheric Sciences</a>, a partnership of 14 researchers from 11 institutes around the world had measured from the surface to a depth of 2000 meters to find that the global ocean — and 70 percent of the planet is covered in blue water — is now 0.075°C warmer on average than it was between 1981 and 2010.</p><p>Measured in the basic units of heat-energy, this means that the seas have soaked up 228,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of heat.</p>100 Seconds to Midnight
<p>"That's a lot of zeros indeed. To make it easier to understand, I did a calculation," said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lijing_Cheng" target="_blank">Lijing Cheng, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences</a>, who led the study.</p><p>"The amount of heat we have put into the world's oceans in the last 25 years equals to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atomic bomb explosions. This measured ocean warming is irrefutable and is further proof of global warming. There are no reasonable alternatives aside from the human emissions of heat-trapping gases to explain this heating."</p><p>On Jan. 23 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that it had moved the hands of its symbolic Doomsday Clock to <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/" target="_blank">100 seconds from midnight</a> <i>—</i> the closest they have ever been to the time chosen to represent apocalypse.</p><p>The reason? "Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers <i>— </i>nuclear war and climate change <i>—</i> that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society's ability to respond," said the scientists.</p><p>"World leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Australia Fire Crisis: PM Morrison Cuts Vacation Short After Two Firefighters Die
20 December 2019
Climate
A farmer drives a tractor as he uses a hose to put out a fire burning in his paddock and near homes on the outskirts of the town of Bilpin on Dec. 19, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. David Gray / Getty Images
Two firefighters died Thursday battling wildfires fueled by a record-breaking heat wave in Australia, prompting Prime Minister Scott Morrison to return home from a Hawaiian vacation he had been much criticized for taking.
<p>The firefighters were 32-year-old Geoffrey Keaton and 36-year-old Andrew O'Dwyer, and both of them had young children, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/world/australia/fires-firefighters-killed-scott-morrison.html" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. They had been battling blazes southwest of Sydney when their truck struck a tree and rolled off the road, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) <a href="https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/138369/191220-NSW-RFS-Statement.pdf" target="_blank">said in a statement</a>. Three other firefighters traveling in the truck were also injured.</p><p>"Our hearts are breaking," NSW RFS association president Brian McDonough said in a statement reported by The New York Times.</p>
<div id="599fd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5YVEWU1576854311"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1207784485158187008" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The 2 firefighters killed in a vehicle accident last night are Deputy Captain Geoffrey Keaton 32yrs & Firefighter A… https://t.co/lJwU9BXEed</div> — NSW RFS (@NSW RFS)<a href="https://twitter.com/NSWRFS/statuses/1207784485158187008">1576793235.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The two men were the first firefighters to die during this Australian spring's historic fire season, according to The New York Times, but their deaths bring the total fire death toll in New South Wales up to eight since October, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-bushfires-idUSKBN1YN2Q3?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3gRJ9NScSXAtWMQuYAupuMgpOH4zc5LnefYgylPt8ljGeJP8MtTiQ2YdM" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>. Ten firefighters were also seriously injured Thursday.</p><p>The news prompted Morrison to announce he would return from a family vacation in Hawaii.</p><p>Morrison's absence sparked protests outside his residence in Sydney Thursday. One protester carried a sign reading, "ScoMo, where the bloody hell are you?" borrowing a slogan from a popular Tourism Australia ad campaign. #wherethebloodyhellareya also trended on Twitter, according to The New York Times.</p>
<div id="29745" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="CL487E1576854311"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1207836062086651904" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Let’s face it. This is what @ScottMorrisonMP really thinks!! #Nero #NotMyPM #bullshitboy #wherethebloodyhellareya https://t.co/xTsgnWYDtM</div> — bmac (@bmac)<a href="https://twitter.com/bmac23768441/statuses/1207836062086651904">1576805532.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Morrison announced he would return soon after the firefighters' deaths were made public.</p><p>"Over the course of the past week I have been taking leave with my family. Our leave was brought forward due to the need to cancel our scheduled leave in January because of our official government visit to India and Japan at the invitation of PMs Modi and Abe," Morrison said in a statement reported by <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/12/20/two-firefighters-killed-bushfires/?fbclid=IwAR0XghrfVnxute3Cb9bVzsVMB_p82LJ25H5YztCSGE4Zd56NEAWLUhnDUc4" target="_blank">The New Daily</a>. "I deeply regret any offence caused to any of the many Australians affected by the terrible bushfires by my taking leave with family at this time."</p><p>But it isn't just Morrison's absence that has some Australians upset. It's also his lack of action on the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> that makes extreme temperatures and fire seasons more likely.</p><p>"We're not offended. We're terrified and we're furious," <a href="https://www.facebook.com/9480502970/posts/10158278732582971/" target="_blank">Greenpeace Australia Pacific wrote in a Facebook post responding to Morrison's return</a>. "The country is on fire, the sky is poison, it's the hottest day we've ever recorded and you're failing us. This is climate change. Do something about it."</p><p>Australia is one of the top greenhouse gas emitters per capita because of its reliance on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal</a>, and the government approved a new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/adani-coal-mine-2638575797.html" target="_self">coal mine</a> in the state of Queensland in June that will be built by Adani Enterprises, Reuters reported.</p><p>Fires have been burning in Australia for months and have consumed more than 700 homes and millions of hectares since September, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50850386" target="_blank">BBC News reported</a>.</p><p>But this week's blazes have been made worse by record-breaking heat. The country broke its record for hottest day on Tuesday when it recorded an average temperature of 40.9 degrees Celsius. It then broke that record the next day, recording an average temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/19/419c-australia-records-hottest-ever-day-one-day-after-previous-record?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2twqnTNJWxZkGvu7sQxtbKEPLO20VzY1vu6EZKpqfj7ZdtBPwbfPmKGkM#Echobox=1576775617" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p>
<div id="ebfb7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="F7S2491576854311"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1207539156483792897" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Based on preliminary analysis, yesterday, Australia recorded its hottest day on record. The nationally-averaged max… https://t.co/MmlIFhFY0u</div> — Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@Bureau of Meteorology, Australia)<a href="https://twitter.com/BOM_au/statuses/1207539156483792897">1576734744.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"It is frightening and a little frustrating, but this is what climate scientists have been saying for decades," University of New South Wales climate scientist Dr. Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick told The Guardian of the extreme heat. "I'm bordering on saying 'I told you so' but I don't think anyone really wants to hear that."</p><p>New South Wales is the state most impacted by the fires, according to BBC News, and a state of emergency has been declared there as around 100 blazes burn. Fires also ignited in Victoria and South Australia Friday when temperatures reached higher than 47 degrees Celsius in some places. In South Australia, asphalt on roads even began to melt, The New York Times reported.</p><p>Also on Friday, smoke from the New South Wales fires reached Melbourne in Victoria for the first time, according to BBC News.</p>
<div id="c7a8a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ZNMBLH1576854311"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1207815448571633664" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Smoke is extending over #Victoria this morning from the #nswfires and the Gippsland fires, reducing visibility to a… https://t.co/1BOtEjDR09</div> — Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria)<a href="https://twitter.com/BOM_Vic/statuses/1207815448571633664">1576800617.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"It's come a very long way to get here," a Bureau of Meteorology spokesman told <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/melbourne-shrouded-in-smoke-from-nsw-bushfires/news-story/c5fb60c1604873737a675b310cba37d4" target="_blank">The Australian</a> of the smoke.</p>
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