Fyi - Terroir for the ocean is called merrior, and it's for oysters not for wine.
Homeowners insurance could go up more than 55% due to severe weather, inflation, Allstate warns
Feb 2024, nj.com
Allstate is warning customers their homeowners insurance premiums could be hiked more than 55% after the insurer asked the state to approve a series of rate hikes. (They ask for 36.9% but get approved for about 7.0%.)
“Our payments to help New Jersey residents recover from accidents and disasters have increased significantly in recent years and we need to adjust rates to reflect the cost of providing the protection our customers depend on,” Allstate told NJ Advance Media on Thursday.
In the letter to consumers, it said the increase is needed because of inflation and because of costs “due to our catastrophic exposure (severe weather) in the state.”
Newsflash - Pollution was helping us the whole time?
Research shows how air pollution has offset expected increases in rainfall
Feb 2024, phys.org
The expected increase in rain has been largely offset by the drying effect of aerosols.
"Prior to our study, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had concluded that the evidence was mixed and inconclusive for changes in U.S. precipitation due to global warming," said Bill Collins, associate laboratory director for the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Berkeley Lab and co-lead author on the study. "We have now provided conclusive evidence for higher rainfall and also helped explain why past studies assessed by the IPCC reached conflicting conclusions."
Over the long term, aerosols cool the planet, which causes a drying effect. But they also have a faster, more local response. That fast impact depends on the season, with aerosols generally reducing rainfall in the winter and spring, and amplifying it in summer and fall over much of the United States.
via Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45504-8.
Scientists create new idea on how to hack a warming planet: drying the upper atmosphere
Feb 2023, phys.org
They're calling it the Last-Ditch Toolbox:
Inject ice high up in the air so water vapor in the upper atmosphere would get a bit drier and that could counteract a small amount of the human-caused warmth.
High-tech planes could inject ice particles about 11 miles high, just below the stratosphere, where the air slowly rises. Then the ice and cold air rise to where it's coldest and gets the water vapor to turn to ice and fall, dehydrating the stratosphere. Injecting 2 tons a week could conceivably take out about 5% of the overall warming created by carbon.
So far there is no workable injection technique, he said.
Schwarz is not quite sure about what side effects could occur, and that's the problem, other scientists said.
via National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA: Joshua P. Schwarz et al, Considering intentional stratospheric dehydration for climate benefits, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk0593
Power company admits role in igniting Texas wildfire
BBC News
Keep in mind that the power companies are burning up our planet while making OUR electricity, so it's doubly crazy how it's all happening.
Soil may release more carbon than expected, affecting climate change models
Mar 2024, phys.org
Soil stores 80% of carbon on Earth, and with increasing cycles and severity of droughts in several regions, that crucial reservoir is cracking and breaking down, releasing even more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In fact, it may be creating an amplified feedback loop that could accelerate climate change well beyond current predictions.
via Tufts University: Farshid Vahedifard et al, Amplifying feedback loop between drought, soil desiccation cracking, and greenhouse gas emissions, Environmental Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad2c23
Here's a reminder that airplane and satellite surveillance are changing - rapidly - the data on carbon emissions:
US energy industry methane emissions are triple what government thinks, study finds
Mar 2024, phys.org
Using one million anonymized measurements from airplanes that flew over 52% of American oil wells and 29% of gas production and delivery system sites over a decade, and found that 3% of the U.S. gas produced goes wasted into the air, compared to the Environmental Protection Agency figures of 1%.
This is likely because more than half of these methane emissions are coming from a tiny number of oil and gas sites, 1% or less,
The overflight data shows the biggest leaks are in the Permian basin of Texas and New Mexico. Contrast that with tiny leak rates found in drilling in the Denver region and the Pennsylvania area. Denver leaks are so low because of local strictly enforced regulations and Pennsylvania is more gas-oriented, Sherwin said.
via the International Energy Agency, U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and Stanford University: Evan D. Sherwin et al, US oil and gas system emissions from nearly one million aerial site measurements, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07117-5
Atmospheric observations in China show rise in emissions of a potent greenhouse gas
Mar 2024, phys.org
The GWP of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is 24,300 times that of CO2, and it's used primarily in high-voltage electrical switchgear in electric power grids. Atmospheric concentrations of SF6 have risen sharply along with global electric power demand.
via MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Fudan University, Peking University, University of Bristol, and Meteorological Observation Center of China Meteorological Administration: Minde An et al, Sustained growth of sulfur hexafluoride emissions in China inferred from atmospheric observations, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46084-3
Here is another example about how leaving sulfur pollution in the air may have been a better idea than taking it out:
Mysteriously rapid rise in Legionnaires’ disease incidence correlates with declining atmospheric sulfur dioxide.
Mar 2024, PNAS Nexus
Legionnaires’ disease is a severe form of pneumonia caused by inhalation of aerosols containing Legionella. These bacteria can grow, spread, and aerosolize through building water systems.
A recent dramatic increase in Legionnaires’ disease incidence has been observed globally, with a 9-fold increase in the United States from 2000 to 2018, and with disproportionately higher burden for socioeconomically vulnerable subgroups.
Our results suggest that declining sulfur dioxide air pollution, which has many well-established health benefits, results in reduced acidity of aerosols emitted from cooling towers, which may prolong the survival duration of Legionella in contaminated droplets.
The heat index—how hot it feels—is rising faster than temperature: Study
Mar 2024, phys.org
The reason that it feels much hotter than you'd expect from the increase in ambient temperature alone is that global warming is affecting the interplay between humidity and temperature, he said. In the past, relative humidity typically dropped when the temperature increased, allowing the body to sweat more and thus feel more comfortable. However, with climate change, the relative humidity remains about constant as the temperature increases, which reduces the effectiveness of sweating to cool the body.
So it really does feel hotter - it IS hotter, to the human body - than it used to, even at the same temperature.
Note for the image above - The corrected heat index created by UC Berkeley researchers fixes problems encountered at humidities and temperatures that the originator of the index thought would be rarely reached and also where the model broke down. (Graphic by David Romps and Yi-Chuan Lu, UC Berkeley)
via University of California Berkeley: David M Romps, Heat index extremes increasing several times faster than the air temperature, Environmental Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad3144
Scientists don't exaggerate, so when you hear them use the words "crazy" and "mind-boggling", you know you are in for some sh*t:
Simply 'mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe
Apr 2024, The Guardian
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that sea levels are likely to rise between 0.3m to 1.1m by the end of the century. Many experts now fear this is a dangerous underestimate. In the past, climate change deniers accused scientists of exaggerating the threat of global warming. However, the evidence that is now emerging from Antarctica and other parts of the world makes it very clear that scientists did not exaggerate. Indeed, they very probably underrated by a considerable degree the threat that now faces humanity.
Cloud engineering could be more effective 'painkiller' for global warming than previously thought
Apr 2024, phys.org
Cloud Engineer sounds like a perfectly respectable career in the 2050's (not like the internet AI cloud, but like regular actual clouds)
Marine cloud brightening (MCB), also known as marine cloud engineering, works by spraying tiny particles, or aerosols, into the atmosphere where they mix with clouds and with the primary aim of increasing the amount of sunlight that clouds can reflect.
Researchers created a "natural experiment" using aerosol injection from the eruption of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. With machine learning and historic satellite and meteorological data, the team created a predictor to show that how the cloud would behave during periods when the volcano was inactive. This predictor enabled them to identify clearly the impacts on the clouds that had been directly caused by the volcanic aerosols.
And fyi: In the U.S., a team from the University of Washington recently carried out its first outdoor aerosol experiment from a decommissioned aircraft carrier in Alameda, California.
via University of Birmingham: Nature Geoscience (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01427-z
Study presents evidence that recent reductions in aerosol emissions create an additional warming effect
Apr 2024, phys.org
Sulfate particles have masked part of global warming by reflecting sunlight. In the last couple of decades, however, this cooling effect has reversed and now contributes to a warming due to extensive measures to improve air quality in many regions worldwide.
When removing emissions of reflecting particles, the particles and their cooling effect disappear in the order of days.
"Continued reductions of particle emissions may lead to an accelerated surface temperature warming already in this decade."
via CICERO Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research: Øivind Hodnebrog et al, Recent reductions in aerosol emissions have increased Earth's energy imbalance, Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01324-8
Jersey Shore town’s disappearing beach is getting smaller
Apr 2024, nj.com
“The city of North Wildwood has been experiencing significant erosion of its berm and dune, especially along the northern sections of the municipality’s oceanfront, since the 1990s,” Army Corps officials wrote in a February update on the project.
According to experts, stronger wave action and more frequent storms will only be fueled further by human-caused global warming — bringing on more erosion.
Critics also say the beach protection strategy of replenishment, also done to bolster shores with sand for beachgoers each summer, has only encouraged more people to build homes and settle on the coast.
The climate porn is so hard to ignore, by the sheer irony of it all.
They used LCA, or life cycle assessment, which is way too complicated for public discourse, and part of the reason why "plastic bans" are enacted in the first place:
Replacing plastics with alternatives is worse for greenhouse gas emissions in most cases, study finds
Apr 2024, phys.org
Findings from the study have revealed that in 15 out of the 16 applications examined, plastic products actually result in lower GHG emissions compared to their alternatives. The reduction in emissions spans from 10 percent to as high as 90 percent across the product life cycle.
Lower energy intensity during production, the weight efficiency of plastics, and superiority in upstream processes including production and transport all highlight the efficiency of plastic materials in mitigating emissions. Also, plastic packaging plays a crucial role in preserving the quality of food across a wide range of categories, helping prevent food spoilage and the GHG emissions it causes.
"Demand reduction, efficiency optimization, lifetime extension, and reuse/recycling are win-win strategies to reduce emissions effectively. Solely focusing on switching to alternative materials is not."
via University of Sheffield Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Cambridge and KTH Royal Institute of Technology: Fanran Meng et al, Replacing Plastics with Alternatives Is Worse for Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Most Cases, Environmental Science & Technology (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c05191
Good to remember:
US seeing surge of climate-related power outages, report says
Apr 2024, The Guardian
"The conditions that our infrastructure was built to handle are much different than what they were.”
