Erratic temperatures causing more deaths than heatwaves, study finds
May 2022, phys.org
Similar to the axiom, "It's not the crime that gets you caught; it's the coverup", and yet in opposition to "It's not the heat; it's the humidity", we've got another reason to be concerned about the climate apocalypse -- It's not the absolute heat that kills you, it's the rapid fluctuations in temperature.
This is well-known in the occupational health world, where it is expected that businesses who send their workers to faraway places allow those workers to acclimate to that faraway environment for one to two weeks prior to starting work.
That sounds like a lot of time, but that's how long it takes our bodies to adjust. From Death Valley to Denver? You better adjust to that mile-highness, otherwise you won't be able to get enough oxygen to your brain to avoid passing out. Minnesota to Miami? You better adjust, or your heart won't be able to pump your blood around your body fast enough to cool you off, and you could have a heart attack.
Up to two weeks! Here the summer of New Jersey, the temperature went from a daily high of 85 F for a whole month to one week of temps above 95 (longest heat wave on record, until it got broken again the following week), with some days above 105. But it happened all of the sudden. When the temperatures, and entire seasons, jump back and forth like this, our body can't adjust fast enough, and your heart has to work a lot harder to keep you cool. And for some of us, that might be harder than we can handle.
via Monash University: Yao Wu et al, Global, regional, and national burden of mortality associated with short-term temperature variability from 2000–19: a three-stage modelling study, The Lancet Planetary Health (2022). DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(22)00073-0
New data reveals climate change might be more rapid than predicted
May 2022, phys.org
Storm intensification over recent decades has already reached levels projected to occur in the year 2080.
via Weizmann Institute of Science: Rei Chemke, The intensification of winter mid-latitude storm tracks in the Southern Hemisphere, Nature Climate Change (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01368-8
A fresh look into grasslands as carbon sinks
Aug 2022, phys.org
"This is the first review which applies the new paradigm of soil organic matter formation and persistence to both discuss the effect of global changes on grasslands' soil organic carbon and estimate the potentials of soil organic carbon sequestration of global grasslands,"
Because "either the amount of carbon coming out of the atmosphere from the plants is wrong or the amount coming out of the soil is
wrong".
And don't forget that "
roughly a quarter of all human greenhouse gas emissions are from land use".
via Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Botany and Colorado State University: Yongfei Bai et al, Grassland soil carbon sequestration: Current understanding, challenges, and solutions, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abo2380
Scientists evaluate Earth-cooling strategies with geoengineering simulations
Aug 2022, phys.org
"Anybody who has not heard of this strategy before, the first reaction should be 'Wow, you can't be serious. That sounds horrible,'" MacMartin said. "And it might be, but climate change isn't good either.
via Cornell University: D. G. MacMartin et al, Scenarios for modeling solar radiation modification, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202230119
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A depiction of Trantor, a fictional ecumenopolis from Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire |
Post Script: Heating and Cooling
Heat waves aren't going away. Here's how we can prepare
Aug 2022, phys.org
A lack of shade in broad swaths of urban areas adds to the heat burden, making it harder for people to find relief.
Cooling neighborhoods down by adding trees and vegetation and using more reflective outdoor materials could save up to nearly one in four lives currently lost to heat waves, and delay climate change-induced warming by approximately 40-70 years.
In Los Angeles, one project reducing heat in cities is Cool Streets LA. It focuses on the hottest and most-vulnerable neighborhoods in the city by planting 2,000 trees and adding 60 miles of cool pavement, using various special materials, including one known as
CoolSeal. Originally developed by the military, CoolSeal was designed to keep spy planes cool and hide them from infrared cameras. The city reports that these cool pavements can lower surface temperatures by as much as 10 degrees on a summer afternoon.
Adding tree cover can provide much needed shade and help naturally cool the air. But it doesn't work everywhere. Urban planners should consider how to bring shade to areas like bus shelters, school playgrounds and other highly trafficked areas
"My team looked at municipal plans from the 50 largest cities in the U.S., and we found that the overwhelming majority don't even include shade in any of their heat planning documents," Turner says.
Note: While it is illegal to rent an apartment in California that doesn't provide heat, there are no standards that require adequate cooling. The state legislature could soon take up the issue. Cooling will likely need to be subsidized.
via Applied Climatologists Inc, UCLA School of Medicine, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, School of Geographical Science and Urban Planning at Arizona State University: Laurence S. Kalkstein et al, Increasing trees and high-albedo surfaces decreases heat impacts and mortality in Los Angeles, CA, International Journal of Biometeorology (2022). DOI: 10.1007/s00484-022-02248-8
