Nature Climate Change The overall loss of ice from the Greenland ice sheet — alongside increasing precipitation, ice flow discharge and meltwater runoff — will lead to at least 274 mm in sea-level rise, regardless of future climate warming projections, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change. The glaciologist team setting up an automatic weather station on the snowy surface above the snow line during the melt season. Credit: The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS Greenland’s ice budget deficit emerged after the 1980s when it began losing more ice, due to surface melt runoff and ice flow discharge, than it gained in the accumulation of precipitation. However, despite its importance to future sea-level rise, the ability to accurately predict Greenland’s response to climate change is hindered by the imprecise measurements of land, atmosphere and ocean boundaries in current models. Professor Jason Box taking ice samples standing on exposed ice below the snow

Nature Declining sea ice in the Arctic may contribute to increased wildfire activity in the western United States, suggests a modelling study published in Nature Communications . The finding demonstrates the influence that human-induced climate change can have on extreme weather events in the region. Wildfires in the western US (& Canada) have become more frequent and severe in recent years. Although there is some evidence that Arctic sea ice declines can influence extreme weather conditions in temperate and subtropical regions, the impact on wildfires has been unclear. Yufei Zou, Hailong Wang and colleagues combined data on wildfire incidence, sea ice concentrations and weather conditions over the past 40 years and conducted model simulations to investigate the relationship between these factors.  The authors identified an association between declining Arctic sea ice concentrations from July to October and the increasing probability of large wildfires in the western US during the

I wr o te  this le t ter a couple of years ago about a road construction project past my door. I realize it was a "minority" if not an "oddball" position to be taking. Now that our world is descending, and n o t  s o  sl o wl y  an y m o re,  i n t o  a k i nd  o f Hell  o n ear t h, w i t h w i ldf i re sm o ke  i ns i n u a t i ng  i self  i n  y o u r l u ngs and m i ne, h o w  o ddball  do I seem now? See "c o mmen t s," at b ottom .                                               ======= If ever there was an example of just how numb we are to the planetary crisis we are now in, it’s surely playing out in plain sight right here, right now, in Shoal Lake. As many of my neighbours will already know, big dump trucks have been lumbering by on the street in front of our homes for about a week now. Beginning before dawn, they sometimes approach a steady stream that lasts all day until about dusk.  The mine supplying the raw product has been expanding for years

Monash University - Science Daily The Sparks fire during an historic heatwave in BC, Canada. A BC Wildfire Service photo June 20-21. The world's largest study of global climate related mortality found deaths related to hot temperatures increased in all regions from 2000 to 2019, indicating that global warming due to climate change will make this mortality figure worse in the future. The international research team looked at mortality and temperature data across the world.    Story here.

 

Reuters Unseasonal weather on the Canadian prairies in recent years has left vast amounts of food crops in the fields, unharvested over winter. A PinP photo. Scientists warn of risks of ignoring issue as COVID measures cuts climate funding. Story here.

by Larry Powell An Australian sun, shrouded in bushfire smoke. A public domain photo. As Kermit the frog famously said, “It isn’t easy being green.” And, in a world which is, by necessity, now consumed in the battle against a pandemic, it’s even harder. It’s almost as if that other “existential threat,” manmade climate change, has been forgotten, even tho it never really received the attention it deserved in the first place!   It’s both encouraging and bewildering to watch just how this latest, terrible and unprecedented chapter in our history, is playing out;   E ncouraging because so many of us are actually heeding the advice of our best minds in epidemiology by hand-washing, physical-distancing and self-isolating. This is surely saving countless lives from the deadly maw of the “Covid beast.” By contrast, our climatologists - who’ve been warning us for a generation that our planet is on a dangerous trajectory toward “hothouse Earth” if we don’t eliminate or drasticall

NATURE The amount of CO 2  released into the end-Triassic atmosphere from volcanic eruptions was likely comparable to the projected total amount of anthropogenic (manmade) CO 2  that will be emitted during the 21 st  century. The findings are published in  Nature Communications . Such large volumes of volcanic CO 2  likely contributed to end-Triassic global warming, sea level rise, and ocean acidification. The end-Triassic extinction (approximately 201 million years ago) resulted in the demise of large proportions of all marine and terrestrial species. It is thought that this extinction was caused by dramatic climate change and rising sea levels which, are known to have occurred at that time. Volcanic CO 2  released during the large volume Central Atlantic Magmatic Province eruptions has been considered as an important contributor to the process, but this is debated. Manfredo Capriolo and colleagues found evidence of abundant CO 2  in basaltic rocks from the end-Triassic Ce

ScienceNews Map: Distribution of Rangifer tarandus (Caribou/Reindeer) TBjornstad Newly-recorded oral histories of the Tsaatan people help researchers document climate change.  Story here.  

Phys Org It's feared that a changing climate may be providing improved conditions for the mosquito which spreads the zika virus, sometimes responsible for severe brain conditions in infants like this. Climate change will damage the health of an entire generation unless there are immediate cuts to fossil fuel emissions, from a rise in deadly infectious diseases to surging malnutrition, experts warned Thursday. Story here.

--> by Larry Powell This is the Ashcroft Reserve fire in BC in 2017. That was the worst year ever for wildfires in that province - until this year!  Photo by Shawn Cahill. As I write this, human bodies incinerated beyond recognition, are being pulled from the ruins of wildfires in California. More than a thousand people are either missing or confirmed dead, with property damage set to top several billions of dollars. Smoke from the fires has now enveloped San Francisco. President Trump blames "poor forest management,"and, after first threatening to withhold it, finally grants emergency aid. His critics take him to task for his lack of empathy for the victims. After visiting the fire zones, he continues, disgracefully, to deny the role manmade climate change is surely playing here. But what's worse, his absence of a heart (which has been evident for some time), or his actual  policies  which have shown him to be