2862

January marked the fourth record warm month in a row and is now the most anomalously warm month since record keeping began in 1880 at 1.13 degrees celsius above average:

"January 2016 continues a string of 371 consecutive months at or warmer than average. "

Obviously El Nino is a contributing factor but still…

2863

‘Billions of bits of plastic waste threaten humans and wildlife, Australian senators told’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/18/billions-of-bits-of-plastic-waste-threaten-humans-and-wildlife-senators-told

Plastic pollution in the marine environment is a “critical problem” for global ecosystems and for human health as microscopic pieces of waste enter the food chain, an Australian Senate inquiry has been told.

The warning came as Guardian Australia learned the federal health minister has the power to instantly ban controversial plastic microbeads from products like soap and toothpaste without any new legislation, according to official parliamentary advice.

Marine biologist Jennifer Lavers told the first day of the inquiry in Sydney on Thursday that she discovered more than one in 10 young flesh-footed shearwater birds – common visitors to Australian coasts – were dying from ingesting plastic or from plastic chemical contamination. “This would be happening in other species as well,” she said.

Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, who instigated the inquiry, said the issue of plastic pollution in water was one of the main reasons he got into politics.

“I’ve been a surfer all my life, it’s probably my key passion,” he said. “It’s such a massive problem you don’t even know where to start. But I was determined to get started and that’s one of the reasons I went into parliament.”

A marine microbiologist, Mark Browne from the University of New South Wales, told the inquiry that plastic debris, particularly microplastics, has been recognised as a “critical problem for global conservation and human health” by the UN, European Union, US Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and CSIRO.

2864

And a bit more on that troublesome El-nino that Rightbug mentioned:

‘El Niño has passed peak strength but impacts will continue, UN warns’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/18/el-nino-has-passed-peak-strength-but-impacts-will-continue-un-warns

The El Niño that caused record temperatures, drought and floods over the last year has passed its peak strength but will continue to have humanitarian impacts for months to come, the UN has said.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the event, which plays havoc with weather systems around the world, was still strong and its impacts on communities in southern Africa, the Horn of Africa and Central America were becoming increasingly apparent.

El Niño is a global climate phenomenon that occurs every few years when a huge warm patch of water forms in the western tropical Pacific Ocean, affecting rainfall from the the western US and South America to Africa, India, Indonesia, and Australia. The UN World Food programme warned earlier this week that 100 million people were facing food and water shortages as a result of the El Niño.

The WMO said that although the current episode was closely comparable in strength with the record event of 1997-98, it was too early to say whether the 2015-16 El Niño was the strongest ever. The agency’s confirmation that the peak has passed follows similar recent announcements by national science agencies.

The WMO’s new secretary general, Petteri Taalas, said: “In meteorological terms, this El Niño is now in decline. But we cannot lower our guard as it is still quite strong and in humanitarian and economic terms, its impacts will continue for many months to come.”

He added: “Parts of South America and east Africa are still recovering from torrential rains and flooding. The economic and human toll from drought - which by its nature is a slowly developing disaster - is becoming increasingly apparent in southern and the Horn of Africa, Central America and a number of other regions.”

In a joint statement, the UN’s World Food programme, the European commission, the US government’s Famine Early Warning System and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned on Thursday that staple food harvests across much of southern Africa would be badly hit throughout 2016.

“Much of southern Africa has experienced significant delays in planting and very poor conditions for early crop development and pasture regrowth. In many areas, planting has not been possible due to 30 to 50-day delays in the onset of rains and there has been widespread crop failure,” said the agencies.

2865

Damn the British and their Industrial Revolution (and their colonialism, monopolies, institutionalized racism, short sighted border creations, inability to pick a side before World War 1 (leading the Germans to believe they will stay out) and claims of Sovereignty when it comes to the EU (Series, the UK is the worst when it comes to the EU)).

It’s their fault that all this is happening.

2866

Older link, but International Monetary Fund estimates that total oil, gas, and coal subsidies by governments are $5.3 trillion per year. The amount is greater than the total worldwide health spend. Of the $5.3 trillion, roughly $700 billion is in the US.

In contrast, total worldwide subsidies for renewable energy currently amount to $120 billion per year.

2867

Hey, I know where Bernie can get the money to pay for college education!

2868

Yeah we have had some pretty terrible stats in this thread on that subject before! It does seem that finally this era might be coming to a close though (divestment and general acceptance about AGW), hopefully not too late for a total disaster in the near future.

It is certainly true to a large extent, but don’t forget Slavery, and although we did start that also (yes Barclays), we also finished it in the form it used to be then. I offer that as an example of hope in the Climate Change (and other issues) stakes, we can change our ways.

Also we created America (and much of the problems around the globe during out Colonial years). I think the Americans are right to cast us as baddies in most of their films, even if that is mostly an echo of times past, and not really self-reflective enough on their own misdeeds through history (hey Native Americans etc).

2869

‘Climate change will lead to deformed and virus-hit coral reefs’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/19/climate-change-will-lead-to-deformed-and-virus-hit-coral-reefs

Coral will become deformed and increasingly fall victim to outbreaks of herpes-like viruses as humans continue to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to two new studies.

Combined, the two effects suggest coral reefs will have trouble recovering from bleaching events, like the the world is currently experiencing.

When carbon dioxide is emitted from factories, cars and power plants, about 30% of it is absorbed by the ocean. As that happens, the acidity of the oceans increases, which makes it harder for corals to build their alkaline skeletons.

But exactly how the increasing acidity impacts coral growth was hard to determine. “If you just look at survival rates of these things, effectively they all survive,” said Peta Clode from the University of Western Australia. “So if you look at that data you think nothing is wrong.”

Even studies that used microscopes to examine how corals grow in more acidic water had trouble finding differences, she said.

So Clode and colleagues went a step further and grew corals in a range of different temperatures and acidities, and then used a high-resolution three-dimensional x-ray microscope to examine how they grew.

Published in the journal Science Advances on Friday, the images and videos they produced revealed striking deformities in corals grown under conditions the oceans are expected to see by the end of the century.

Under normal conditions, baby corals grew skeletons that were symmetrical, strong and with thick walls.

But when the acidity was raised to the level expected by 2100 if emissions are not cut drastically, the skeletons had some spines stunted in growth, while others grew longer. Some parts of the skeleton were completely absent.

They grew into an asymmetrical shape and their walls became pitted and porous, and half of them had fractures in their deformed skeletons.

“You think ‘oh my god, look at them.’ It is very dramatic,” said Clode. “You would expect they would not grow very well. But to see such deformity is surprising. We expected they might just grow less.”

The effect of heat alone seemed to have little impact, and when combined with high acidity it had a beneficial effect, mitigating some of the deformities caused by the higher acidity.

Clode said that was not completely surprising, since higher temperatures that did not stress coral – temperatures that were not too high or too suddenly raised – had been seen to improve coral growth before.

The results showed that as the ocean acidifies, young coral reefs will have trouble re-establishing after they get damaged by events like bleaching or storms, Clode said.

“The juveniles, they’re the reef formers of the future so to start out at a disadvantage like this, you start to worry about how [much] it can take,” said Tracy Ainsworth from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.

Ainsworth and colleagues recently published a different paper examining the struggles coral will experience in the future.

They examined the viral loads in corals as they got bleached over three days in 2011 on part of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, publishing their results in the journal Frontiers of Microbiology.

Bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by things including hot temperatures, being exposed to the air, or heavy rainfall that lowers the salinity of the water. Global warming is expected to increase the frequency of bleaching by pushing corals closer to the limits of temperatures they can tolerate.

Ainsworth and colleagues found that as the coral bleached, a viral outbreak occurred. Among the many viruses they saw explode was a big spike in one that was similar to the herpes viruses that infect humans. Viral loads were up to four times higher than has ever been seen in corals before.

Ainsworth said the viral loads of corals during a bleaching event hadn’t been studied before, and outbreaks like this might be normal.

That is bad news since it might be too much for corals to cope with as they bleach more frequently, she said. “When corals are under stress, it’s not just bleaching that they have to overcome,” she said. “It’s coupled with a change in the microbial communities that it has to deal with.”

2870

Someone better tell Rupert:

‘Fossil fuel emissions behind Australia’s record-breaking spring heat, suggests study’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/feb/22/fossil-fuel-emissions-behind-australias-record-breaking-spring-heat-suggests-study

World leaders and street protesters were struggling in a heatwave with temperatures hovering around 40C at Brisbane’s G20 meeting.

Longreach in central Queensland had 13 days straight when the maximum temperature hit 40C (104F) or higher – four days longer than the town’s previous record.

Down in New South Wales and Tasmania, residents fought off bushfires. A few weeks earlier, South Australia had its hottest October on record.

This was the spring of 2014, Australia’s hottest September-November period on a record going back to 1910, beating the previous record by a 10th of a degree – a large margin in climatological terms.

“Temperatures were 1.67C above the 1961–1990 average, the largest such departure from the long-term average observed since national records began in 1910,” the Bureau of Meteorology said.

These sorts of spring conditions are perfect for priming bush areas for dangerous fire seasons (extreme fire weather is on the rise in Australia) that damage property, risk lives and devastate wilderness areas.

But the spring of 2014 had been the second record breaker in a row. The previous hottest spring had been the year before, 2013.

There had never been two record-breaking springs occurring back-to-back in Australia’s entire record, going back to 1910.

The most recent spring of 2015 was hotter than 2013, but not quite as hot as 2014. The hottest October on record was the one we just had.

So springs in Australia are starting to feel like summer, but could the so-called “lucky country” just be having a run of bad luck?

If there had not been about 40% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than there had been before the start of the industrial revolution, could Australians have still sweated through record-breaking springs?

2871

does seem that finally this era might be coming to a close though (divestment and general acceptance about AGW), hopefully not too late for a total disaster in the near future.

I wouldn’t count on it. The UK announced additional subsidies for fossil fuels just a few months ago.

2872

Of course individual events are 99% weather-related and 1% climate-related, but still… this is the first time that the Arctic Ocean melted on a net basis across the month of January.

Cool animation and graphics at the link.

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/whats-up-in-climate-change-arctic-ice-cap-record-low-after-record-hot-january/63907/

2873

The Tory government that want fracking at any cost? Is that a sign of anything over than self-serving ministers on the make? (ie not related to anything else but that).

2874

Only 44% of Canadians believe the Earth is getting warmer because of human activities. That was a surprising study report released here earlier today. The story has been subsequently updated to state that 61% of Canadians believe humans are at least partly involved in any global warming. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/climate-change-yale-project-montreal-study-1.3458142

2875

Scientists are floored by what’s happening in the Arctic right now.

2876

What’s not surprising is skepticism is the deepest in Alberta and Saskatchewan, particularly in the areas north of Edmonton.

2877

“We’ve looked at the average January temperatures, and we look at what we call the 925 millibar level, about 3,000 feet up in the atmosphere,” says Mark Serreze, the center’s director. “And it was, I would say, absurdly warm across the entire Arctic Ocean.” The center reports temperature anomalies at this altitude of “more than 6 degrees Celsius (13 degrees Fahrenheit) above average” for the month.

The low sea ice situation has now continued into February. Current ice extent is well below levels at the same point in 2012, which went on to set the current record for the lowest sea ice minimum extent.

!!Not good. And one way the fossil fuel industry is responding is to ensure green energy solutions do not go ahead:

‘Nevada’s solar workers and customers reel as new rules ‘shut down’ industry’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/23/nevada-solar-power-industry-workers-customers-costs-solarcity-elon-musk

The conversation at SolarCity’s hollowed-out warehouse in Las Vegas felt like it came after a funeral, and in a sense it did, with workers cycling between sadness, disbelief and anger at the untimely death of the rooftop solar industry.

The cause, as seen by workers drifting in to clean out their belongings, was state-assisted suicide, after the Nevada regulator imposed costly new rules for residential solar customers.

The decision to replace economic incentives with new higher fees pulled the carpet out from under an industry that provided 8,700 jobs in the state last year, according to the Solar Foundation, and stranded some 17,000 homeowners who have already gone solar with a financial liability on their rooftops.

Three companies, including SolarCity, announced they were quitting the state, laying off about 1,000 workers.

“Everyone in this warehouse was let go, 550 people across the valley,” said Chandler Gray, who lost his job as an installations inspector for SolarCity.

The havoc turned solar panels into a hot topic for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton ahead of the Nevada caucuses on 20 February.

Call it the solar wars. From Arizona to California to Florida and now Nevada, states are struggling to reconcile residential solar – with its promise to give homeowners greater independence while fighting climate change – with highly centralised business models of the electricity industry.

California and a number of other states eventually defeated efforts by energy companies and corporate lobby groups to claw back incentives for solar customers.

Now Nevada has raised the stakes, levying the highest charges to date and breaking with convention to impose those charges on existing customers as well as new ones.

The solar showdown pits Elon Musk, the electric car billionaire and cofounder of SolarCity, against Warren Buffett, owner of the state’s monopoly electricity provider NV Energy.

2878

That’s depressing. Elon should pull his mega factory that’s going to be build in NV.
You’ll appreciate this Zak:

BREAKING: Wikileaks Documents Show NSA Spied on World Leaders on Behalf of Big Oil
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/wikileaks-documents-show-nsa-spied-world-leaders-behalf-oil-companies

2879

colour me not surprised.

‘Increased flooding in US coastal cities caused by climate change, study says’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/23/us-coastal-cities-flooding-climate-change-sea-level-study

Rising sea levels are putting increasing pressure on US coastal cities, with a new analysis showing that human-driven climate change is to blame for three-quarters of the coastal flooding events over the past decade.

The Climate Central research shows that coastal flooding days have more than doubled in the US since the 1980s, the primary drivers of which have been the warming of the atmosphere and oceans. The findings are based on a separate study, released on Monday, that found the Earth’s seas are rising at a pace unseen in the past 2,800 years.

Between 2005 and 2014, a gauge at Kings Point in New York showed there were 157 days where the water reached above an established “nuisance” level – double the total of the previous decade. A total of 96 of these flooding events are attributed to changes in the climate.

2880

I honestly don’t know how you can take anything seriously from that site, given the other clickbait material all over that page. “22 pictures the broke the internet”, “These cameramen captured more than they bargained for!”, “Selfies gone horribly wrong!” Utter shite.

And the article in question cites no evidence that demonstrates the recently leaked documents track back to Big Oil. I’ve not read them myself, so it may be right, but holy shit that is a shitty site to be getting your internet news from and re-linking without checking their sources - I can only assume you took the time to do that, rather than take them at their word.

2881

Oh no doubt. I didn’t read anything else from that website. (That link came from Twitter.)
But I clicked through to Wikileaks and read the actual leaked documents. Those are authentic. I can’t ascertain that it was done on behest of Big Oil though. They got that lede from Julian Assange:

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange said “Today we proved the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s private meetings over how to save the planet from climate change were bugged by a country intent on protecting its largest oil companies.”
There’s an accompaning batch of leaks and a story that outlines how MNC’s ravage developing countries for their resources https://wikileaks.org/car-mining/, which is really Oliver Stone-level evil corp stuff, only it’s true. Mea Culpa on including the original site though.