Tag Archives: heatwave

Natural disasters surge in past 20 years, likely to continue to wreak havoc: U.N.

Heatwaves and droughts will pose the greatest threat in the next decade, as temperatures continue to rise due to heat-trapping gases, experts said.

China (577) and the United States (467) recorded the highest number of disaster events from 2000 to 2019, followed by India (321), the Philippines (304) and Indonesia (278), the U.N. said in a report issued the day before the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. Eight of the top 10 countries are in Asia.

Some 7,348 major disaster events were recorded globally, claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people and causing $2.97 trillion in economic losses during the two-decade period.

Source: Natural disasters surge in past 20 years, likely to continue to wreak havoc: U.N. | Reuters

This entry was posted in General and tagged Climate Change, environment, extremism, heatwave, world on October 18, 2020 by Steve.

Jason Kenney will likely use the ‘climate damn emergency’ to push more conspiratorial narratives

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A fleet of VORTEX2 vehicles tracks a supercell thunderstorm — Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

And the climate damn emergency is hard to deny. The west coast of the United States is aflame. What may be the hottest ambient air temperature ever noted in history, 54 and a half degrees Celsius, was recorded in Death Valley this summer. Serious people are suggesting it may not be long before millions of people in the United States face becoming climate refugees.

You don’t have to go to California to see that it’s real, either. You just have to sniff the air here in British Columbia’s capital these past few days.

Never mind COVID-19, as bad as it may be. When America’s suburbs start to burn, baby, burn, America’s party of climate change denial will be done like dinner. After all, a police station in flames in Minneapolis doesn’t hold a candle, if you’ll pardon a combustion metaphor, to 60-foot walls of flame roaring across a state with a population of 40 million.

Still, deny it some will — especially in petroleum-dependent places like Alberta. Which is presumably what Kenney’s “anti-Alberta” inquiry commissioner Steve Allan is trying to figure out how to do without actually analyzing any facts, because the facts are certainly not co-operating with the Alberta government’s narrative these days.

Source: Jason Kenney will likely use the ‘climate damn emergency’ to push more conspiratorial narratives | rabble.ca

Discussion here

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, Climate Change, heatwave, Steve Allan on September 18, 2020 by Steve.

It’s Not Just California. These Places Are Also on Fire

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Wildfires are devastating the American West, but the United States isn’t the only place on Earth that’s burning. This year, other countries have also experienced their worst wildfires in decades, if not all of recorded history.

In each case, the contributing factors are different, but an underlying theme runs through the story: Hotter, drier seasons, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, have made the world more prone to erupt in flames.

“We don’t have a fire problem; we have many fire problems,” said Stephen J. Pyne, an emeritus professor at Arizona State University who studies wildfires and their history. “One, obviously, is a deep one. It has to do with fossil fuels and climate.”

Here’s a look at some of the worst recent blazes and how humans played a role in them.

Source: It’s Not Just California. These Places Are Also on Fire. – The New York Times

This entry was posted in General and tagged Climate Change, global warming, heatwave, wildfires, world on September 17, 2020 by Steve.

The Disaffected Lib: Tick-Tock. One Million Tonnes – Per Minute

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Ice Fjord Greenland Sermilik Iceberg Arctic Sea. Photo by www.maxpixel.net

There are roughly 525,600 minutes in a year. There are just over 2,200 pounds in a metric tonne.

The most recent survey shows that the Greenland ice sheet has been shedding one tonne of ice – every minute. 525,000 metric tonnes every year. That’s a massive amount of fresh water that pours into the salt water, the seas around Greenland.

Sea level rise is a real menace. Greenland is one source, a major to be sure, but there are many others. This is a real worry in some places, including any place that has a sea coast. You know where they don’t much care about sea level rise? Alberta is one. No skin off their backsides. Sea level rise only brings “tidewater” that much closer to Athabasca. Hey, what’s not to like?

Source: The Disaffected Lib: Tick-Tock. One Million Tonnes – Per Minute

This entry was posted in General and tagged global warming, Greenland, heatwave, ice loss on August 21, 2020 by Steve.

Link

Siberia heat ‘almost impossible’ without climate change

Earth’s poles are warming faster than the rest of the planet, and temperatures in Siberia – home to much of the world’s carbon-rich permafrost – were more than 5C hotter than average between January and June.

One town, Verkhoyansk, recorded a temperature of 38C (100.4 Fahrenheit) – smashing previous records.

Andrew Ciavarella, senior detection and attribution scientist at Britain’s Met Office, described the findings released Wednesday as “staggering”.

“This is further evidence of the extreme temperatures we can expect to see more frequently around the world in a warming climate,” he said.

July 16, 2020

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Steve MacLellan

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Tag Archives: heatwave

Natural disasters surge in past 20 years, likely to continue to wreak havoc: U.N.

Jason Kenney will likely use the ‘climate damn emergency’ to push more conspiratorial narratives

It’s Not Just California. These Places Are Also on Fire

The Disaffected Lib: Tick-Tock. One Million Tonnes – Per Minute