Climate Letter #1267

A new and rather gloomy IPCC report will be unveiled next month.  These comprehensive reports covering all aspects of climate science are published every five years, and thus eagerly awaited.  According to this issue’s co-author, Drew Shindell, “The world’s governments are “nowhere near on track” to meet their commitment to avoid global warming of more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial period…..A massive, immediate transformation in the way the world’s population generates energy, uses transportation and grows food will be required to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C and the forthcoming analysis is set to lay bare how remote this possibility is.”

Order it from the internet and get ready for the big job. levitra sildenafil Also known as impotence, most levitra sale men suffering ED can overcome their problems by taking medication. Minimum risk of cheap levitra tablet side effects is one of the main advantages of using herbal remedies. Kamagra is the most renowned medication for men’s levitra pills http://icks.org/data/ijks/1482457047_add_file_1.pdf erection problems.

—–
A new study shows the close linkage between major hurricanes and the temperature of ocean surface waters.  For example, “Sea water in the main hurricane development region of the Atlantic Ocean averaged 0.7 degrees warmer than normal for the entire 2017 season, which is unusual for a full six-month time period.”  Each ocean has broad regions that vary up and down in temperature from year to year, but the underlying trend of ocean warming implies that a growing total number of major hurricanes can be expected in the future.
—–
The rapid disappearance of Earth’s wetlands creates a serious risk that has not been well-recognized.  “A new report warns that wetlands are disappearing three times faster than the world’s forests, with serious consequences for all life on earth.”  This review has an outline of the nature of those risks, affecting immediate human welfare and losses of biodiversity.  “Scientists say without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity, because the air people breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat ultimately rely on biodiversity in its many forms.”  This is a trend that can be stopped, and probably will, but requires purposeful deliberation that for now is missing.
—–

Is there any possibility of a sudden broad, massive change in human behavior, that would meet the task at hand?  It would probably take something really bad, in the way of extreme weather events, to touch that off.  Have things been bad enough in 2018?  An Australian professor comes up with an interesting answer:  “Encouragingly, there may be a historical (and largely unknown) precedent for tackling climate change: Victoria London’s handling of the “Great Stink”, where growth had turned the River Thames into an open sewer.”  https://theconversation.com/will-2018-be-the-year-of-climate-action-victorian-londons-great-stink-sewer-crisis-might-tell-us-102114

The low point for summer sea ice extent in the Arctic has now been passed.  The past year has had its bad moments but the final month of thawing was more benign, no worse than the average for this decade.  This year’s melt featured an unusual thinning of some of the thickest part of the ice pack that sits just north of Greenland.
–This link has charts of sea ice extent in both polar regions:
Carl

This entry was posted in Daily Climate Letters. Bookmark the permalink.