aads

Moonlight over Black Waterfall, Iceland

Svartifoss under moonlight in iceland by Grafixart Sam.

Grafixart Sam submitted this photo of Svartifoss (the Black Waterfall) on August 31, 2018. This glorious waterfall is located in Iceland’s Vatnajökull National Park, on Iceland’s south coast. It drops 65 feet (20 meters) and got its name because the cliff from which it falls is made of hexagonal black basalt columns, of a type found elsewhere in Iceland.

Here’s a great description of hiking to Svartifoss

Thank you, Grafixart Sam!

Svartifoss – the Black Waterfall – takes its name from the black basalt columns in the cliff from which it drops. Photo via GlacierGuides.

Bottom line: Photo of Svartifoss, in Iceland, under moonlight.



from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2C7Ac1n

Svartifoss under moonlight in iceland by Grafixart Sam.

Grafixart Sam submitted this photo of Svartifoss (the Black Waterfall) on August 31, 2018. This glorious waterfall is located in Iceland’s Vatnajökull National Park, on Iceland’s south coast. It drops 65 feet (20 meters) and got its name because the cliff from which it falls is made of hexagonal black basalt columns, of a type found elsewhere in Iceland.

Here’s a great description of hiking to Svartifoss

Thank you, Grafixart Sam!

Svartifoss – the Black Waterfall – takes its name from the black basalt columns in the cliff from which it drops. Photo via GlacierGuides.

Bottom line: Photo of Svartifoss, in Iceland, under moonlight.



from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2C7Ac1n

Moon moves through Taurus the Bull

The next few early mornings – September 2 to 4, 2018 – look for the moon sweeping through the constellation Taurus the Bull. This is one of our sky’s most prominent constellations, an easy one to identify, even from small cities. If you’re a night owl, you might spot the moon and constellation Taurus above your eastern horizon before your bedtime.

But the view of the moon and Taurus is best before dawn, when they’ll be highest in the sky.

Let the moon guide your eye to the constellation Taurus’ two major signposts, the bright star Aldebaran in the V-shaped Face of the Bull and the tiny, dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters.

Looking at dusk? Catch Venus, Jupiter and Arcturus

Although the moon will move out of Taurus after several more days, and will leave the morning sky in about a week, you can always use Orion’s Belt to star-hop to the star Aldebaran and the Pleiades cluster.

The three stars of Orion’s Belt always point to the star Aldebaran and the Pleiades star cluster. Image via Janne/Flickr.

From around the world on the morning of September 2, note that the lit side of the waning moon is pointing eastward, or in the direction of Aldebaran. Relative to the backdrop stars of the zodiac, the moon travels 1/2 degree (its own angular diameter) eastward per hour, or about 13 degrees (26 moon diameters) eastward per day. That’s because the moon, in its orbit, goes full circle in front of the constellations of the zodiac every month.

The feature sky chart above shows the sky scene for mid-northern North American latitudes. At this same time and date in the world’s Eastern Hemisphere, you’ll find the moon somewhat offset toward the previous date. In fact, as seen from Moscow, Russia, the moon will be pretty much due north of Aldebaran in the September 3 predawn/dawn sky.

The moon will occult – cover over – Aldebaran in the northernmost regions of the globe on September 3, 2018. This will be the final occultation in a series of 49 monthly occultations of Aldebaran that started on January 29, 2015.

From here on out, from everywhere worldwide, the moon will swing to the north of Aldebaran every month for nearly 15 years, or until the next series of 48 monthly occultations begins on August 18, 2033, and concludes on February 23, 2037.

Orion’s Belt, at the lower left, always points in the direction of the constellation Taurus the Bull. The star Aldebaran resides to the south of the ecliptic and the Pleiades star cluster to the north of the ecliptic.

Bottom line: Let the moon be your guide to the constellation Taurus the Bull in early September, 2018. Then use Orion’s Belt to locate Taurus when the moon moves away.



from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2ougX8w

The next few early mornings – September 2 to 4, 2018 – look for the moon sweeping through the constellation Taurus the Bull. This is one of our sky’s most prominent constellations, an easy one to identify, even from small cities. If you’re a night owl, you might spot the moon and constellation Taurus above your eastern horizon before your bedtime.

But the view of the moon and Taurus is best before dawn, when they’ll be highest in the sky.

Let the moon guide your eye to the constellation Taurus’ two major signposts, the bright star Aldebaran in the V-shaped Face of the Bull and the tiny, dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters.

Looking at dusk? Catch Venus, Jupiter and Arcturus

Although the moon will move out of Taurus after several more days, and will leave the morning sky in about a week, you can always use Orion’s Belt to star-hop to the star Aldebaran and the Pleiades cluster.

The three stars of Orion’s Belt always point to the star Aldebaran and the Pleiades star cluster. Image via Janne/Flickr.

From around the world on the morning of September 2, note that the lit side of the waning moon is pointing eastward, or in the direction of Aldebaran. Relative to the backdrop stars of the zodiac, the moon travels 1/2 degree (its own angular diameter) eastward per hour, or about 13 degrees (26 moon diameters) eastward per day. That’s because the moon, in its orbit, goes full circle in front of the constellations of the zodiac every month.

The feature sky chart above shows the sky scene for mid-northern North American latitudes. At this same time and date in the world’s Eastern Hemisphere, you’ll find the moon somewhat offset toward the previous date. In fact, as seen from Moscow, Russia, the moon will be pretty much due north of Aldebaran in the September 3 predawn/dawn sky.

The moon will occult – cover over – Aldebaran in the northernmost regions of the globe on September 3, 2018. This will be the final occultation in a series of 49 monthly occultations of Aldebaran that started on January 29, 2015.

From here on out, from everywhere worldwide, the moon will swing to the north of Aldebaran every month for nearly 15 years, or until the next series of 48 monthly occultations begins on August 18, 2033, and concludes on February 23, 2037.

Orion’s Belt, at the lower left, always points in the direction of the constellation Taurus the Bull. The star Aldebaran resides to the south of the ecliptic and the Pleiades star cluster to the north of the ecliptic.

Bottom line: Let the moon be your guide to the constellation Taurus the Bull in early September, 2018. Then use Orion’s Belt to locate Taurus when the moon moves away.



from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2ougX8w

News digest – blood cancer immunotherapy, energy drink ban, ‘no-deal’ Brexit plans and our Annual Review

Immune cells

Engineered cell therapy given initial ‘no’ for NHS in England

A ‘promising’ immunotherapy has been provisionally rejected as a treatment for some types of aggressive lymphoma by health regulators in England. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence said the treatment was too expensive and not enough was known about how it compared to standard chemotherapy treatment. The decision will be reviewed later this year. The Express and our News Report have the story.

Government could ban energy drink sales to children

The prime minister has proposed banning the sale of energy drinks to children in England, amid health fears. Research suggests that children in the UK consume more energy drinks than children in most other European countries, and the drinks have been linked to obesity, tooth decay and hyperactivity. The Government will now consult on how to implement the ban, and what age it should apply to. BBC News and The Guardian have more.

Genetic ‘weather forecast’ could help predict if bowel cancer will return

Scientists have developed a computer model that can help to track how cancer evolves using tumour DNA in blood samples, reports Forbes. They plan to use this information to predict when a tumour might stop responding to treatment. In early tests involving people with advanced bowel cancer, the model picked up DNA changes that indicated treatment had stopped working earlier than scans would in three quarters of patients.

Waiting times for NHS tests in Scotland continue to rise

The number of Scottish NHS patients waiting longer than the 6-week target for key medical tests has continued to increase. The target applies to tests like MRI and CT scans, endoscopies and colonoscopies, which are often used to diagnose cancer. BBC News covered the new NHS figures, which show that around 8 in 10 patients were seen within 6 weeks between March and June this year, compared with 9 in 10 patients in 2016.

Potential impact of the Government’s ‘no-deal’ Brexit plans discussed

The first in a series of plans for how the Government would respond to a ‘no-deal’ Brexit were published last week. And according to the pro-EU campaign group Scientists for EU, UK scientists risk losing access to the majority of EU research funding if the Government fails to reach a deal. BBC News has more.

And in another Brexit story, the Government’s plans to stockpile medicines in the event of no-deal Brexit could cost up to £2 billion, warned the pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain. The Guardian has the details.

We also blogged about what the Government’s no-deal Brexit plans could mean for cancer treatment, care and research.

And finally

We published our 2017/18 Annual Review this week. From developing an ‘intelligent knife’ for cancer surgery to discovering better treatments for children with brain tumours, it’s packed with our research highlights from the year. We also spoke with our outgoing Chief Executive, Sir Harpal Kumar, about how the world of cancer research has changed since he joined the charity.

Katie 



from Cancer Research UK – Science blog https://ift.tt/2ouyygy
Immune cells

Engineered cell therapy given initial ‘no’ for NHS in England

A ‘promising’ immunotherapy has been provisionally rejected as a treatment for some types of aggressive lymphoma by health regulators in England. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence said the treatment was too expensive and not enough was known about how it compared to standard chemotherapy treatment. The decision will be reviewed later this year. The Express and our News Report have the story.

Government could ban energy drink sales to children

The prime minister has proposed banning the sale of energy drinks to children in England, amid health fears. Research suggests that children in the UK consume more energy drinks than children in most other European countries, and the drinks have been linked to obesity, tooth decay and hyperactivity. The Government will now consult on how to implement the ban, and what age it should apply to. BBC News and The Guardian have more.

Genetic ‘weather forecast’ could help predict if bowel cancer will return

Scientists have developed a computer model that can help to track how cancer evolves using tumour DNA in blood samples, reports Forbes. They plan to use this information to predict when a tumour might stop responding to treatment. In early tests involving people with advanced bowel cancer, the model picked up DNA changes that indicated treatment had stopped working earlier than scans would in three quarters of patients.

Waiting times for NHS tests in Scotland continue to rise

The number of Scottish NHS patients waiting longer than the 6-week target for key medical tests has continued to increase. The target applies to tests like MRI and CT scans, endoscopies and colonoscopies, which are often used to diagnose cancer. BBC News covered the new NHS figures, which show that around 8 in 10 patients were seen within 6 weeks between March and June this year, compared with 9 in 10 patients in 2016.

Potential impact of the Government’s ‘no-deal’ Brexit plans discussed

The first in a series of plans for how the Government would respond to a ‘no-deal’ Brexit were published last week. And according to the pro-EU campaign group Scientists for EU, UK scientists risk losing access to the majority of EU research funding if the Government fails to reach a deal. BBC News has more.

And in another Brexit story, the Government’s plans to stockpile medicines in the event of no-deal Brexit could cost up to £2 billion, warned the pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain. The Guardian has the details.

We also blogged about what the Government’s no-deal Brexit plans could mean for cancer treatment, care and research.

And finally

We published our 2017/18 Annual Review this week. From developing an ‘intelligent knife’ for cancer surgery to discovering better treatments for children with brain tumours, it’s packed with our research highlights from the year. We also spoke with our outgoing Chief Executive, Sir Harpal Kumar, about how the world of cancer research has changed since he joined the charity.

Katie 



from Cancer Research UK – Science blog https://ift.tt/2ouyygy

Unprecedented summer heat in Europe ‘every other year’ under 1.5C of warming

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief.  Dr Andrew King is a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne and Dr Markus Donat is a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales

As summer gets underway in the northern hemisphere, much of Europe has already been basking in temperatures of 30C and beyond.

But while the summer sun sends many flocking to the beach, with it comes the threat of heatwaves and their potentially deadly impacts. Tens of thousands of people across Europe died in heatwaves in 2003 and 2010, for example, while the “Lucifer” heatwave last year fanned forest fires and nearly halved agricultural output in some countries.

With international ambition to limit global temperature rise to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels now enshrined in the Paris Agreement, we have examined what impact that warming could have on European summer temperatures.

Our results, published today in Nature Climate Change, find that more than 100 million Europeans will typically see summer heat that exceeds anything in the 1950-2017 observed record every other year under 1.5C of warming – or in two of every three years under 2C.

Human influence on European climate

There has been a substantial amount of work showing that recent heatwaves and hot summers in Europe have been strongly influenced by human-caused climate change.

This includes the very first “event attribution” study that made a direct connection between human-caused climate change and Europe’s record hot summer of 2003. As a densely populated continent, recent hot summers and heatwaves have hit Europe with spikes in mortality rates.

Europe is also a particularly good location to study the implications of the Paris Agreement limits because it has among the longest and highest quality climate data in the world. This means we have a better understanding of what past summers in Europe have been like and we can evaluate our climate model simulations with a higher degree of confidence, relative to other regions of the world.

In our study, we looked at the hottest average summer temperatures across Europe since 1950 and found that for most of the continent these occurred in 2003, 2006 or 2010. There are exceptions, of course. For example, in Central England the hottest summer remains 1976.

You can see this in the graphic below, which maps the decade of the hottest summer across Europe. The darker the shading, the more recently the record occurred.

Map showing decade of warmest summer on record (since 1950). The darker shading shows more recent decades. Source: King et al. (2018)

Map showing decade of warmest summer on record (since 1950). The darker shading shows more recent decades. Source: King et al. (2018)

Using the historical record hot summer between 1950 and 2017 in each location in Europe as a benchmark, we then examined the likelihood of a summer exceeding that record in model simulations. We assessed four different scenarios: a world without climate change, the world of today’s climate, a 1.5C warmer world and a 2C warmer world.

Consistent with previous studies, which have examined specific heat events in Europe like those in 2003 and 2010, we found that the likelihood of recording a new hottest summer today is higher than in a world without human-induced climate change.

Similarly, when we extend our analysis to the 1.5C and 2C world simulations, we find a continued increase in the likelihood of historically unprecedented hot summers at individual locations across all of Europe.

The impact on humans

Our next step was to estimate how many people would be exposed to historically unprecedented summer average temperatures in each of our four model worlds. For this analysis we kept population levels the same (at the 2010 level), rather than factoring in historical changes or future forecasts.

We found systematic increases in the number of people in Europe projected to experience unprecedented summer heat.

In a typical summer in the current climate, we would expect that 45 million Europeans would experience summer temperatures above the existing record for their location. However, in an average summer in a 1.5C world, we project that 90 million Europeans – about 11% of the continent’s population – would experience a summer warmer than any in recorded history. In a 2C world this figure would almost double again to 163 million Europeans (20% of the population).

We also find that the possibility of very high population exposure to historically unprecedented hot summers increases dramatically from the world of today to a 1.5C world or a 2C world.

The table below shows the likelihood of seeing a summer where 100-400 million Europeans experience a record summer in each of the four model worlds. You can see that more than 100 million Europeans (top row) will typically see unprecedented summer heat every other year under 1.5C of warming – or in two of every three years under 2C.

And while there is a negligible likelihood of seeing a summer where more than 400 million Europeans (bottom row) experience a new record hot summer under pre-industrial conditions or in the current climate. Yet in a 2C world, we project this would happen roughly every seven years.

The table shows the likelihood in a given year of a summer where more than 100, 200, 300 and 400 million people experience a summer beyond the observed record. Numbers in parentheses show 90% confidence intervals and redder colours indicate increased likelihood. Source: King et al. (2018)

The table shows the likelihood in a given year of a summer where more than 100, 200, 300 and 400 million people experience a summer beyond the observed record. Numbers in parentheses show 90% confidence intervals and redder colours indicate increased likelihood. Source: King et al. (2018)

Benefits of climate action

Our analysis illustrates that in a 2C world Europeans would experience more frequent and intense heat extremes than in a 1.5C world.

Despite the fact that restricting global warming would benefit the world’s poorest more than others, our study shows that for Europe specifically, taking stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions need not be a purely selfless act. The countries and peoples of Europe, especially those in southern Europe which have borne the brunt of recent heatwaves and hot summers, would benefit from reduced exposure to heat extremes if the 1.5C Paris limit is met as opposed to the 2C global warming limit.

European emissions pledges are currently rated as inadequate in reaching either the 1.5C or 2C Paris targets. Our study strongly supports progressively more ambitious reductions to be proposed at the periodic stocktakes, the first of which will probably be in 2023.

While European countries are taking stronger action to curb emissions compared to many other developed nations, it is in Europe’s own interests to maintain and strengthen these pledges.

King, A. D. et al. (2018) Reduced Heat Exposure by Limiting Global Warming to 1.5C, Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0191-0



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2wuDlmo

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief.  Dr Andrew King is a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne and Dr Markus Donat is a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales

As summer gets underway in the northern hemisphere, much of Europe has already been basking in temperatures of 30C and beyond.

But while the summer sun sends many flocking to the beach, with it comes the threat of heatwaves and their potentially deadly impacts. Tens of thousands of people across Europe died in heatwaves in 2003 and 2010, for example, while the “Lucifer” heatwave last year fanned forest fires and nearly halved agricultural output in some countries.

With international ambition to limit global temperature rise to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels now enshrined in the Paris Agreement, we have examined what impact that warming could have on European summer temperatures.

Our results, published today in Nature Climate Change, find that more than 100 million Europeans will typically see summer heat that exceeds anything in the 1950-2017 observed record every other year under 1.5C of warming – or in two of every three years under 2C.

Human influence on European climate

There has been a substantial amount of work showing that recent heatwaves and hot summers in Europe have been strongly influenced by human-caused climate change.

This includes the very first “event attribution” study that made a direct connection between human-caused climate change and Europe’s record hot summer of 2003. As a densely populated continent, recent hot summers and heatwaves have hit Europe with spikes in mortality rates.

Europe is also a particularly good location to study the implications of the Paris Agreement limits because it has among the longest and highest quality climate data in the world. This means we have a better understanding of what past summers in Europe have been like and we can evaluate our climate model simulations with a higher degree of confidence, relative to other regions of the world.

In our study, we looked at the hottest average summer temperatures across Europe since 1950 and found that for most of the continent these occurred in 2003, 2006 or 2010. There are exceptions, of course. For example, in Central England the hottest summer remains 1976.

You can see this in the graphic below, which maps the decade of the hottest summer across Europe. The darker the shading, the more recently the record occurred.

Map showing decade of warmest summer on record (since 1950). The darker shading shows more recent decades. Source: King et al. (2018)

Map showing decade of warmest summer on record (since 1950). The darker shading shows more recent decades. Source: King et al. (2018)

Using the historical record hot summer between 1950 and 2017 in each location in Europe as a benchmark, we then examined the likelihood of a summer exceeding that record in model simulations. We assessed four different scenarios: a world without climate change, the world of today’s climate, a 1.5C warmer world and a 2C warmer world.

Consistent with previous studies, which have examined specific heat events in Europe like those in 2003 and 2010, we found that the likelihood of recording a new hottest summer today is higher than in a world without human-induced climate change.

Similarly, when we extend our analysis to the 1.5C and 2C world simulations, we find a continued increase in the likelihood of historically unprecedented hot summers at individual locations across all of Europe.

The impact on humans

Our next step was to estimate how many people would be exposed to historically unprecedented summer average temperatures in each of our four model worlds. For this analysis we kept population levels the same (at the 2010 level), rather than factoring in historical changes or future forecasts.

We found systematic increases in the number of people in Europe projected to experience unprecedented summer heat.

In a typical summer in the current climate, we would expect that 45 million Europeans would experience summer temperatures above the existing record for their location. However, in an average summer in a 1.5C world, we project that 90 million Europeans – about 11% of the continent’s population – would experience a summer warmer than any in recorded history. In a 2C world this figure would almost double again to 163 million Europeans (20% of the population).

We also find that the possibility of very high population exposure to historically unprecedented hot summers increases dramatically from the world of today to a 1.5C world or a 2C world.

The table below shows the likelihood of seeing a summer where 100-400 million Europeans experience a record summer in each of the four model worlds. You can see that more than 100 million Europeans (top row) will typically see unprecedented summer heat every other year under 1.5C of warming – or in two of every three years under 2C.

And while there is a negligible likelihood of seeing a summer where more than 400 million Europeans (bottom row) experience a new record hot summer under pre-industrial conditions or in the current climate. Yet in a 2C world, we project this would happen roughly every seven years.

The table shows the likelihood in a given year of a summer where more than 100, 200, 300 and 400 million people experience a summer beyond the observed record. Numbers in parentheses show 90% confidence intervals and redder colours indicate increased likelihood. Source: King et al. (2018)

The table shows the likelihood in a given year of a summer where more than 100, 200, 300 and 400 million people experience a summer beyond the observed record. Numbers in parentheses show 90% confidence intervals and redder colours indicate increased likelihood. Source: King et al. (2018)

Benefits of climate action

Our analysis illustrates that in a 2C world Europeans would experience more frequent and intense heat extremes than in a 1.5C world.

Despite the fact that restricting global warming would benefit the world’s poorest more than others, our study shows that for Europe specifically, taking stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions need not be a purely selfless act. The countries and peoples of Europe, especially those in southern Europe which have borne the brunt of recent heatwaves and hot summers, would benefit from reduced exposure to heat extremes if the 1.5C Paris limit is met as opposed to the 2C global warming limit.

European emissions pledges are currently rated as inadequate in reaching either the 1.5C or 2C Paris targets. Our study strongly supports progressively more ambitious reductions to be proposed at the periodic stocktakes, the first of which will probably be in 2023.

While European countries are taking stronger action to curb emissions compared to many other developed nations, it is in Europe’s own interests to maintain and strengthen these pledges.

King, A. D. et al. (2018) Reduced Heat Exposure by Limiting Global Warming to 1.5C, Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0191-0



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2wuDlmo

Global warming is intensifying El Niño weather

As humans put more and more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the Earth warms. And the warming is causing changes that might surprise us. Not only is the warming causing long-term trends in heat, sea level rise, ice loss, etc.; it’s also making our weather more variable. It’s making otherwise natural cycles of weather more powerful.

Perhaps the most important natural fluctuation in the Earth’s climate is the El Niño process. El Niño refers to a short-term period of warm ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, basically stretching from South America towards Australia. When an El Niño happens, that region is warmer than usual. If the counterpart La Niña occurs, the region is colder than usual. Often times, neither an El Niño or La Niña is present and the waters are a normal temperature. This would be called a “neutral” state.

The ocean waters switch back and forth between El Niño and La Niña every few years. Not regularly, like a pendulum, but there is a pattern of oscillation. And regardless of which part of the cycle we are in (El Niño or La Niña), there are consequences for weather around the world. For instance, during an El Niño, we typically see cooler and wetter weather in the southern United States while it is hotter and drier in South America and Australia.

It’s really important to be able to predict El Niño/La Niña cycles in advance. It’s also important to be able to understand how these cycles will change in a warming planet. Fortunately, a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters helps answer that question. The authors include Dr. John Fasullo from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and his colleagues.

El Niño cycles have been known for a long time. Their influence around the world has also been known for almost 100 years. It was in the 1920s that the impact of El Niño on places as far away as the Indian Ocean were identified. Having observed the effects of El Niño for a century, scientists had the perspective to understand something might be changing. 

For example, in 2009–2010, intense drought and heat waves gripped the Amazon region – far greater than expected based on the moderate El Niño at the time. In addition, from 2010 to 2011, severe drought and heat waves hit the southern USA, coinciding with a La Niña event. Other extreme weather in the US, Australia, Central and Southern America, and Asia stronger than would be expected from El Niño’s historical behavior have raised concerns that our El Niño weather may be becoming “supercharged.”

To see if something new was happening, the authors of this paper looked at the relationship between regional climate and the El Niño/La Niña status in climate model simulations of the past and future. They found an intensification of El Niño/La Niña impacts in a warmer climate, especially for land regions in North America and Australia. Changes between El Niño/La Niña in other areas, like South America, were less clear. The intensification of weather was more prevalent over land regions.

So, what does this mean? It means if you live in an area that is affected by an El Niño or La Niña, the effect is likely becoming magnified by climate change. For instance, consider California. There, El Niño brings cool temperatures with rains; La Niña brings heat and dry weather. Future El Niños will make flooding more likely while future La Niñas will bring more drought and intensified wildfire seasons.

Unsurprisingly, we’re already seeing these effects, with record wildfires in California fueled by hot and dry weather. We are now emerging from a weak La Niña, so we would expect only a modest increase in heat and dryness in California. But the supercharging of the La Niña connection is likely making things worse. We would have California wildfires without human-caused global warming, but they wouldn’t be this bad.

Dr. Fasullo nicely summarized the findings of the paper:

Click here to read the rest



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2PoGyLh

As humans put more and more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the Earth warms. And the warming is causing changes that might surprise us. Not only is the warming causing long-term trends in heat, sea level rise, ice loss, etc.; it’s also making our weather more variable. It’s making otherwise natural cycles of weather more powerful.

Perhaps the most important natural fluctuation in the Earth’s climate is the El Niño process. El Niño refers to a short-term period of warm ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, basically stretching from South America towards Australia. When an El Niño happens, that region is warmer than usual. If the counterpart La Niña occurs, the region is colder than usual. Often times, neither an El Niño or La Niña is present and the waters are a normal temperature. This would be called a “neutral” state.

The ocean waters switch back and forth between El Niño and La Niña every few years. Not regularly, like a pendulum, but there is a pattern of oscillation. And regardless of which part of the cycle we are in (El Niño or La Niña), there are consequences for weather around the world. For instance, during an El Niño, we typically see cooler and wetter weather in the southern United States while it is hotter and drier in South America and Australia.

It’s really important to be able to predict El Niño/La Niña cycles in advance. It’s also important to be able to understand how these cycles will change in a warming planet. Fortunately, a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters helps answer that question. The authors include Dr. John Fasullo from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and his colleagues.

El Niño cycles have been known for a long time. Their influence around the world has also been known for almost 100 years. It was in the 1920s that the impact of El Niño on places as far away as the Indian Ocean were identified. Having observed the effects of El Niño for a century, scientists had the perspective to understand something might be changing. 

For example, in 2009–2010, intense drought and heat waves gripped the Amazon region – far greater than expected based on the moderate El Niño at the time. In addition, from 2010 to 2011, severe drought and heat waves hit the southern USA, coinciding with a La Niña event. Other extreme weather in the US, Australia, Central and Southern America, and Asia stronger than would be expected from El Niño’s historical behavior have raised concerns that our El Niño weather may be becoming “supercharged.”

To see if something new was happening, the authors of this paper looked at the relationship between regional climate and the El Niño/La Niña status in climate model simulations of the past and future. They found an intensification of El Niño/La Niña impacts in a warmer climate, especially for land regions in North America and Australia. Changes between El Niño/La Niña in other areas, like South America, were less clear. The intensification of weather was more prevalent over land regions.

So, what does this mean? It means if you live in an area that is affected by an El Niño or La Niña, the effect is likely becoming magnified by climate change. For instance, consider California. There, El Niño brings cool temperatures with rains; La Niña brings heat and dry weather. Future El Niños will make flooding more likely while future La Niñas will bring more drought and intensified wildfire seasons.

Unsurprisingly, we’re already seeing these effects, with record wildfires in California fueled by hot and dry weather. We are now emerging from a weak La Niña, so we would expect only a modest increase in heat and dryness in California. But the supercharging of the La Niña connection is likely making things worse. We would have California wildfires without human-caused global warming, but they wouldn’t be this bad.

Dr. Fasullo nicely summarized the findings of the paper:

Click here to read the rest



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2PoGyLh

The silver lining of fake news

This is a re-post from ClimateSight

What exciting times we live in! The UK is stockpiling food and medicine as it charges willingly into a catastrophe of its own choosing. The next Australian prime minister is likely to be a man who has committed crimes against humanity. And America has descended so far into dystopia that it can’t even be summed up in one pithy sentence.

I spend a lot of time wondering how future generations will look back upon this period in history. Will there be memorial museums on Nauru and at the US-Mexican border, pledging Never Again? Will the UK’s years in the European Union be heralded as a golden age for the country? And what will the history books say about Donald Trump?

When I imagine these future historians, giving their seminars and writing their books and assigning their students essays, there is one overarching theme I’m sure they will focus on. One puzzling phenomenon is at the root of so much of the madness we face today. Our future historian might title such a seminar “Widespread public rejection of facts in the early 21st century”. Or, if you wish to be so crass, “Fake News”. A distrust of experts, and of the very idea of facts, now permeates almost every part of public life – from science to economics to medicine to politics.

Climate change used to be the sole target of this. I’ve been wrestling with fake news on climate change for more than ten years now. And I used to get so frustrated, because my friends and family would read dodgy articles in respectable newspapers written by fossil fuel executives and believe them. Or at least, consider them. Reasonable people heard debate on this issue and assumed there must be some merit to it. “Both sides of the climate change debate have good points to make,” they would reasonably say.

It’s different now. Denialism has spread into so many topics, and received so much attention, that reasonable people are now well aware of its existence. “You guys, did you know that there are people who don’t believe in facts?!” is the gist of so many dinner conversations around the world these days. And the exhausted climate scientists sit back, twirl their spaghetti around their fork, and say “Yes, yes we know. So you’ve finally caught on.”

This is the weird silver lining of fake news: reasonable people now take climate change more seriously. When they read bogus stories about global cooling and natural cycles and scientific conspiracies, they just say “Aha! These are the people who don’t believe in facts.” It’s like the dystopia of 2018 has inoculated many of us against denialism. More and more people now understand and accept the science of climate change, even while those who don’t grow louder and more desperate. Climate change deniers still exist, but it seems that their audience is shrinking.

(Of course, this doesn’t mean we’re actually doing anything about climate change.)

***

PS I am now Twittering, for those of you who are so inclined.



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2wuDjeg

This is a re-post from ClimateSight

What exciting times we live in! The UK is stockpiling food and medicine as it charges willingly into a catastrophe of its own choosing. The next Australian prime minister is likely to be a man who has committed crimes against humanity. And America has descended so far into dystopia that it can’t even be summed up in one pithy sentence.

I spend a lot of time wondering how future generations will look back upon this period in history. Will there be memorial museums on Nauru and at the US-Mexican border, pledging Never Again? Will the UK’s years in the European Union be heralded as a golden age for the country? And what will the history books say about Donald Trump?

When I imagine these future historians, giving their seminars and writing their books and assigning their students essays, there is one overarching theme I’m sure they will focus on. One puzzling phenomenon is at the root of so much of the madness we face today. Our future historian might title such a seminar “Widespread public rejection of facts in the early 21st century”. Or, if you wish to be so crass, “Fake News”. A distrust of experts, and of the very idea of facts, now permeates almost every part of public life – from science to economics to medicine to politics.

Climate change used to be the sole target of this. I’ve been wrestling with fake news on climate change for more than ten years now. And I used to get so frustrated, because my friends and family would read dodgy articles in respectable newspapers written by fossil fuel executives and believe them. Or at least, consider them. Reasonable people heard debate on this issue and assumed there must be some merit to it. “Both sides of the climate change debate have good points to make,” they would reasonably say.

It’s different now. Denialism has spread into so many topics, and received so much attention, that reasonable people are now well aware of its existence. “You guys, did you know that there are people who don’t believe in facts?!” is the gist of so many dinner conversations around the world these days. And the exhausted climate scientists sit back, twirl their spaghetti around their fork, and say “Yes, yes we know. So you’ve finally caught on.”

This is the weird silver lining of fake news: reasonable people now take climate change more seriously. When they read bogus stories about global cooling and natural cycles and scientific conspiracies, they just say “Aha! These are the people who don’t believe in facts.” It’s like the dystopia of 2018 has inoculated many of us against denialism. More and more people now understand and accept the science of climate change, even while those who don’t grow louder and more desperate. Climate change deniers still exist, but it seems that their audience is shrinking.

(Of course, this doesn’t mean we’re actually doing anything about climate change.)

***

PS I am now Twittering, for those of you who are so inclined.



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2wuDjeg

New research, August 20-26, 2018

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

Climate change

Effect of coupled global climate models sea surface temperature biases on simulated climate of the western United States (open access)

Temperature, precipitation, wind

Global bimodal precipitation seasonality: A systematic overview

Spatiotemporal variations of annual shallow soil temperature on the Tibetan Plateau during 1983–2013

Lake surface water temperature change over the Tibetan Plateau from 2001–2015: A sensitive indicator of the warming climate

Estimating changes in temperature distributions in a large ensemble of climate simulations using quantile regression

Surface air temperature variability over the Arabian Peninsula and its links to circulation patterns

Urbanization effects on changes in the observed air temperatures during 1977–2014 in China

Annual cycle of temperature trends in Europe, 1961–2000

Analyses of the oceanic heat content during 1980–2014 and satellite‐era cyclones over Bay of Bengal

Extreme events

Collective resources in the repopulation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

A review of cyclone track shifts over the Great Lakes of North America: implications for storm surges

Investigating relationships between Australian flooding and large‐scale climate indices and possible mechanism

Impacts of climate variability and change on seasonal drought characteristics of Pakistan

Observed trends and future projections of extreme heat events in Sonora, Mexico

Conditions associated with rain field size for tropical cyclones landfalling over the Eastern United States

Forcings and feedbacks

Accounting for Changing Temperature Patterns Increases Historical Estimates of Climate Sensitivity

A new perspective on solar dimming over the Tibetan Plateau

The impacts of atmospheric and surface parameters on long-term variations in the planetary albedo

Assessment of aerosol–cloud–radiation correlations in satellite observations, climate models and reanalysis (open access)

The cloud-free global energy balance and inferred cloud radiative effects: an assessment based on direct observations and climate models (open access)

Sources of uncertainty in the meridional pattern of climate change

Decoding Hosing and Heating Effects on Global Temperature and Meridional Circulations in a Warming Climate

Cryosphere

Climate response to the meltwater runoff from Greenland ice sheet: evolving sensitivity to discharging locations

Fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice extent: comparing observations and climate models (open access)

Theoretical study of ice cover phenology at large freshwater lakes based on SMOS MIRAS data (open access)

Salinity Control of Thermal Evolution of Late Summer Melt Ponds on Arctic Sea Ice

Hydrosphere 

Response of subtropical stationary waves and hydrological extremes to climate warming in boreal summer

Climatological and hydrological patterns and verified trends in precipitation and streamflow in the basins of Brazilian hydroelectric plants

Global implications of 1.5 °C and 2 °C warmer worlds on extreme river flows (open access)

Impact of climate variation on hydrometeorology in Iran

Atmospheric and oceanic circulation

Potential influence of the Atlantic Multi‐decadal Oscillation in modulating the biennial relationship between Indian and Australian summer monsoons

Ocean circulation reduces the Hadley cell response to increased greenhouse gases

ENSO's Changing Influence on Temperature, Precipitation, and Wildfire In a Warming Climate

Carbon and nitrogen cycles

The response of the marine nitrogen cycle to ocean acidification

Pathway-dependent fate of permafrost region carbon (open access)

Spatial and temporal variability of pCO2, carbon fluxes and saturation state on the West Florida Shelf

Analyzing temporo-spatial changes and the distribution of the CO2 concentration in Australia from 2009 to 2016 by greenhouse gas monitoring satellites

Carbon storage potential in degraded forests of Kalimantan, Indonesia (open access)

Climate change impacts 

Mankind

Long-Term Study of a Hantavirus Reservoir Population in an Urban Protected Area, Argentina

The health sector’s role in governance of climate change adaptation in Myanmar

The influence of political ideology and socioeconomic vulnerability on perceived health risks of heat waves in the context of climate change

The economic impact of climate risks in China: evidence from 47-sector panel data, 2000–2014

Transitions to freshwater sustainability

Identifying hotspots of land use cover change under socioeconomic and climate change scenarios in Mexico (open access)

Human–environmental drivers and impacts of the globally extreme 2017 Chilean fires

Extremal dependence between temperature and ozone over the continental US (open access)

Crop production losses associated with anthropogenic climate change for 1981–2010 compared with preindustrial levels (open access)

The insight of agricultural adaptation to climate change: a case of rice growers in Eastern Himalaya, India

Predicting future frost damage risk of kiwifruit in Korea under climate change using an integrated modelling approach

Bridging the Gap Between Climate Science and Farmers in Colombia (open access)

Developing a framework to quantify potential Sea level rise-driven environmental losses: A case study in Semarang coastal area, Indonesia (open access)

Sub-national government efforts to activate and motivate local climate change adaptation: Nova Scotia, Canada

Biosphere

Detection of positive gross primary production extremes in terrestrial ecosystems of China during 1982‐2015 and analysis of climate contribution

Tree radial growth is projected to decline in South Asian moist forest trees under climate change

Species‐specific phenological trends in shallow Pampean lakes (Argentina) zooplankton driven by contemporary climate change in the Southern Hemisphere

Untangling methodological and scale considerations in growth and productivity trend estimates of Canada’s forests (open access)

Rainfall-dependent influence of snowfall on species loss (open access)

Can ecosystem functioning be maintained despite climate‐driven shifts in species composition? Insights from novel marine forests (open access)

Mass and Fine Scale Morphological Changes Induced by Changing Seawater pH in the Coccolith Gephyrocapsa oceanica

Influence of winter precipitation on spring phenology in boreal forests

Resilience of tropical tree cover: The roles of climate, fire, and herbivory (open access)

Warming springs and habitat alteration interact to impact timing of breeding and population dynamics in a migratory bird (open access)

Tree water balance drives temperate forest responses to drought

Body size shifts influence effects of increasing temperatures on ectotherm metabolism

Sensitivity of mangrove range limits to climate variability

Soil multifunctionality and drought resistance are determined by plant structural traits in restoring grassland (open access)

Climate–fire interactions constrain potential woody plant cover and stature in North American Great Plains grasslands

Other impacts

Extreme levels of Canadian wildfire smoke in the stratosphere over central Europe on 21–22 August 2017 (open access)

Fire frequency analysis for different climatic stations in Victoria, Australia

Forest Fires Across Italian Regions and Implications for Climate Change: A Panel Data Analysis (open access)

Projected centennial oxygen trends and their attribution to distinct ocean climate forcings

Climate change mitigation

Climate change communication

Global Warming’s “Six Americas Short Survey”: Audience Segmentation of Climate Change Views Using a Four Question Instrument

The IPCC and the new map of science and politics

Relating perceptions of flood risk and coping ability to mitigation behavior in West Africa: Case study of Burkina Faso

Protocols and partnerships for engaging Pacific Island communities in the collection and use of traditional climate knowledge (open access)

Climate Policy

Examining the critical role of institutions and innovations in shaping productive energy policy for Russia 

Emission savings

Spatial greenhouse gas emissions from US county corn production

2010–2016 methane trends over Canada, the United States, and Mexico observed by the GOSAT satellite: contributions from different source sectors (open access) 

Other papers

Other environmental issues

First long-term and near real-time measurement of trace elements in China's urban atmosphere: temporal variability, source apportionment and precipitation effect (open access)

Palaeoclimatology

Climate impact on the development of Pre-Classic Maya civilisation (open access)

Dynamic vegetation simulations of the mid‐Holocene Green Sahara

Carbon cycle dynamics linked with Karoo-Ferrar volcanism and astronomical cycles during Pliensbachian-Toarcian (Early Jurassic)

Influence of Surface Topography on the Critical Carbon Dioxide Level Required for the Formation of a Modern Snowball Earth

Mediterranean winter snowfall variability over the past millennium

On the relationship between coral δ13C and Caribbean climate



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2LKCfYz

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

Climate change

Effect of coupled global climate models sea surface temperature biases on simulated climate of the western United States (open access)

Temperature, precipitation, wind

Global bimodal precipitation seasonality: A systematic overview

Spatiotemporal variations of annual shallow soil temperature on the Tibetan Plateau during 1983–2013

Lake surface water temperature change over the Tibetan Plateau from 2001–2015: A sensitive indicator of the warming climate

Estimating changes in temperature distributions in a large ensemble of climate simulations using quantile regression

Surface air temperature variability over the Arabian Peninsula and its links to circulation patterns

Urbanization effects on changes in the observed air temperatures during 1977–2014 in China

Annual cycle of temperature trends in Europe, 1961–2000

Analyses of the oceanic heat content during 1980–2014 and satellite‐era cyclones over Bay of Bengal

Extreme events

Collective resources in the repopulation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

A review of cyclone track shifts over the Great Lakes of North America: implications for storm surges

Investigating relationships between Australian flooding and large‐scale climate indices and possible mechanism

Impacts of climate variability and change on seasonal drought characteristics of Pakistan

Observed trends and future projections of extreme heat events in Sonora, Mexico

Conditions associated with rain field size for tropical cyclones landfalling over the Eastern United States

Forcings and feedbacks

Accounting for Changing Temperature Patterns Increases Historical Estimates of Climate Sensitivity

A new perspective on solar dimming over the Tibetan Plateau

The impacts of atmospheric and surface parameters on long-term variations in the planetary albedo

Assessment of aerosol–cloud–radiation correlations in satellite observations, climate models and reanalysis (open access)

The cloud-free global energy balance and inferred cloud radiative effects: an assessment based on direct observations and climate models (open access)

Sources of uncertainty in the meridional pattern of climate change

Decoding Hosing and Heating Effects on Global Temperature and Meridional Circulations in a Warming Climate

Cryosphere

Climate response to the meltwater runoff from Greenland ice sheet: evolving sensitivity to discharging locations

Fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice extent: comparing observations and climate models (open access)

Theoretical study of ice cover phenology at large freshwater lakes based on SMOS MIRAS data (open access)

Salinity Control of Thermal Evolution of Late Summer Melt Ponds on Arctic Sea Ice

Hydrosphere 

Response of subtropical stationary waves and hydrological extremes to climate warming in boreal summer

Climatological and hydrological patterns and verified trends in precipitation and streamflow in the basins of Brazilian hydroelectric plants

Global implications of 1.5 °C and 2 °C warmer worlds on extreme river flows (open access)

Impact of climate variation on hydrometeorology in Iran

Atmospheric and oceanic circulation

Potential influence of the Atlantic Multi‐decadal Oscillation in modulating the biennial relationship between Indian and Australian summer monsoons

Ocean circulation reduces the Hadley cell response to increased greenhouse gases

ENSO's Changing Influence on Temperature, Precipitation, and Wildfire In a Warming Climate

Carbon and nitrogen cycles

The response of the marine nitrogen cycle to ocean acidification

Pathway-dependent fate of permafrost region carbon (open access)

Spatial and temporal variability of pCO2, carbon fluxes and saturation state on the West Florida Shelf

Analyzing temporo-spatial changes and the distribution of the CO2 concentration in Australia from 2009 to 2016 by greenhouse gas monitoring satellites

Carbon storage potential in degraded forests of Kalimantan, Indonesia (open access)

Climate change impacts 

Mankind

Long-Term Study of a Hantavirus Reservoir Population in an Urban Protected Area, Argentina

The health sector’s role in governance of climate change adaptation in Myanmar

The influence of political ideology and socioeconomic vulnerability on perceived health risks of heat waves in the context of climate change

The economic impact of climate risks in China: evidence from 47-sector panel data, 2000–2014

Transitions to freshwater sustainability

Identifying hotspots of land use cover change under socioeconomic and climate change scenarios in Mexico (open access)

Human–environmental drivers and impacts of the globally extreme 2017 Chilean fires

Extremal dependence between temperature and ozone over the continental US (open access)

Crop production losses associated with anthropogenic climate change for 1981–2010 compared with preindustrial levels (open access)

The insight of agricultural adaptation to climate change: a case of rice growers in Eastern Himalaya, India

Predicting future frost damage risk of kiwifruit in Korea under climate change using an integrated modelling approach

Bridging the Gap Between Climate Science and Farmers in Colombia (open access)

Developing a framework to quantify potential Sea level rise-driven environmental losses: A case study in Semarang coastal area, Indonesia (open access)

Sub-national government efforts to activate and motivate local climate change adaptation: Nova Scotia, Canada

Biosphere

Detection of positive gross primary production extremes in terrestrial ecosystems of China during 1982‐2015 and analysis of climate contribution

Tree radial growth is projected to decline in South Asian moist forest trees under climate change

Species‐specific phenological trends in shallow Pampean lakes (Argentina) zooplankton driven by contemporary climate change in the Southern Hemisphere

Untangling methodological and scale considerations in growth and productivity trend estimates of Canada’s forests (open access)

Rainfall-dependent influence of snowfall on species loss (open access)

Can ecosystem functioning be maintained despite climate‐driven shifts in species composition? Insights from novel marine forests (open access)

Mass and Fine Scale Morphological Changes Induced by Changing Seawater pH in the Coccolith Gephyrocapsa oceanica

Influence of winter precipitation on spring phenology in boreal forests

Resilience of tropical tree cover: The roles of climate, fire, and herbivory (open access)

Warming springs and habitat alteration interact to impact timing of breeding and population dynamics in a migratory bird (open access)

Tree water balance drives temperate forest responses to drought

Body size shifts influence effects of increasing temperatures on ectotherm metabolism

Sensitivity of mangrove range limits to climate variability

Soil multifunctionality and drought resistance are determined by plant structural traits in restoring grassland (open access)

Climate–fire interactions constrain potential woody plant cover and stature in North American Great Plains grasslands

Other impacts

Extreme levels of Canadian wildfire smoke in the stratosphere over central Europe on 21–22 August 2017 (open access)

Fire frequency analysis for different climatic stations in Victoria, Australia

Forest Fires Across Italian Regions and Implications for Climate Change: A Panel Data Analysis (open access)

Projected centennial oxygen trends and their attribution to distinct ocean climate forcings

Climate change mitigation

Climate change communication

Global Warming’s “Six Americas Short Survey”: Audience Segmentation of Climate Change Views Using a Four Question Instrument

The IPCC and the new map of science and politics

Relating perceptions of flood risk and coping ability to mitigation behavior in West Africa: Case study of Burkina Faso

Protocols and partnerships for engaging Pacific Island communities in the collection and use of traditional climate knowledge (open access)

Climate Policy

Examining the critical role of institutions and innovations in shaping productive energy policy for Russia 

Emission savings

Spatial greenhouse gas emissions from US county corn production

2010–2016 methane trends over Canada, the United States, and Mexico observed by the GOSAT satellite: contributions from different source sectors (open access) 

Other papers

Other environmental issues

First long-term and near real-time measurement of trace elements in China's urban atmosphere: temporal variability, source apportionment and precipitation effect (open access)

Palaeoclimatology

Climate impact on the development of Pre-Classic Maya civilisation (open access)

Dynamic vegetation simulations of the mid‐Holocene Green Sahara

Carbon cycle dynamics linked with Karoo-Ferrar volcanism and astronomical cycles during Pliensbachian-Toarcian (Early Jurassic)

Influence of Surface Topography on the Critical Carbon Dioxide Level Required for the Formation of a Modern Snowball Earth

Mediterranean winter snowfall variability over the past millennium

On the relationship between coral δ13C and Caribbean climate



from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2LKCfYz

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