Lethal Heating: 08/18/18

18/08/2018

Kerala Floods: Death Toll Rises To At Least 324 As Rescue Effort Continues

The Guardian - Michael Safi

220,000 people left homeless and thousands still trapped in southern Indian state after unusually heavy rain

'Please pray for us': Kerala experiences worst monsoon in nearly a century – video report

Pressure intensified on Saturday to save thousands still trapped by devastating floods that have killed more than 300 in the Indian state of Kerala, triggering landslides and sending torrents sweeping through villages in the region’s worst inundation crisis in a century.
Authorities warned of more torrential rain and strong winds over the weekend, as hundreds of troops and local fishermen staged desperate rescue attempts in helicopters and boats across the southern state.
Kerala, popular among international tourists for its tropical hills and beaches, has been battered by record monsoon rainfall this year.
The state is “facing the worst floods in 100 years”, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Twitter, adding that at least 324 lives have been lost so far.
Roads are damaged, mobile phone networks are down, an international airport has been closed and more than 220,000 people have been left homeless after unusually heavy rain in the past nine days.

Casualty numbers are expected to increase further, with thousands more people still stranded. Many have died from being buried in hundreds of landslides set off by the flooding.

Monsoon floods put pressure on Kerala dams

Guardian graphic

Vijayan said the state was experiencing an “extremely grave” crisis, with the highest flood warning in place in 12 of its 14 regions.
“We’re witnessing something that has never happened before in the history of Kerala,” he told reporters.
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was on his way to Kerala last night “to take stock of the flood situation in the state”, he said.
Famed for its tea plantations, beaches and tranquil backwaters, Kerala is frequently saturated during the annual monsoon. But this year’s deluge has swamped at least 20,000 homes and forced people into more than 1,500 relief camps.

People are airlifted to safety. Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters

The toll in Kerala contributed to more than 900 deaths recorded by the Indian home ministry this monsoon season from landslides, flooding and rain.
Rescue workers and members of India’s armed forces have been deployed across the state with fleets of ships and aircraft brought in to save the thousands of people still stranded, many sheltering on their roofs signalling to helicopters for help.

Aerial view shows scale of monsoon flooding in Kerala, India – video

Officials estimated about 6,000 miles (10,000km) of roads had been submerged or buried by landslides and a major international airport in Cochin has been shut until 26 August. Communications networks were also faltering, officials said, making rescue efforts harder to coordinate.
Residents of the state used social media to post desperate appeals for help, sometimes including their GPS coordinates to help guide rescuers.
“My family and neighbouring families are in trouble with flood in Pandanad nakkada area in Alappuzha,” Ajo Varghese said in a viral Facebook post. “No water and food. Not able to communicate from afternoon. Mobile phones are not reachable and switch off. Please help … No rescue is available.”
Another man in the central town of Chengannur posted a video of himself neck-deep in water in his home. “It looks like water is rising to the second floor,” he says. “I hope you can see this. Please pray for us.”

Kerala floods: man, neck-deep in water, appeals for help from inside his house - video

The fate of the man was still unclear on Friday. The state finance minister, Thomas Isaac, tweeted in the afternoon that the last road to Chengannur had washed away before his eyes and the town was cut off.
The water has claimed parts of Cochin, the state’s commercial capital, and was still rising in some areas of the city on Friday, with residents urged to evacuate and guide ropes strung across roads inundated by fast-moving currents.

Soldiers evacuate local residents in Ernakulam. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images

Meteorologists said Kerala had received an average 37.5% more rainfall than usual. The hardest-hit districts such as Idukki in the north received 83.5% excess rain. More than 80 dams across the state had opened their gates to try to ease the crisis, the chief minister said.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

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New Study Reveals Evidence Of How Neolithic People Adapted To Climate Change

Phys.org - University of Bristol

In situ pottery at the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük. Credit: Çatalhöyük Research Project.

Research led by the University of Bristol has uncovered evidence that early farmers were adapting to climate change 8,200 years ago.
The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), centred on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic city settlement of Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia, Turkey which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC.
During the height of the city's occupation a well-documented climate change event 8,200 years ago occurred which resulted in a sudden decrease in global temperatures caused by the release of a huge amount of glacial meltwater from a massive freshwater lake in northern Canada.
Examining the animal bones excavated at the site, scientists concluded that the herders of the city turned towards sheep and goats at this time, as these animals were more drought-resistant than cattle. Study of cut marks on the animal bones informed on butchery practices: the high number of such marks at the time of the climate event showed that the population worked on exploiting any available meat due to food scarcity.
The authors also examined the animal fats surviving in ancient cooking pots. They detected the presence of ruminant carcass fats, consistent with the animal bone assemblage discovered at Çatalhöyük. For the first time, compounds from animal fats detected in pottery were shown to carry evidence for the climate event in their isotopic composition.
Indeed, using the "you are what you eat (and drink)" principle, the scientists deducted that the isotopic information carried in the hydrogen atoms (deuterium to hydrogen ratio) from the animal fats was reflecting that of ancient precipitation. A change in the hydrogen signal was detected in the period corresponding to the climate event, thus suggesting changes in precipitation patterns at the site at that time.
The paper brings together researchers from the University of Bristol's Organic Geochemistry Unit (School of Chemistry) and the Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment (School of Geographical Sciences).
Co-authors of the paper include archaeologists and archaeozoologists involved in the excavations and the study of the pottery and animal bones from the site.
Dr. Mélanie Roffet-Salque, lead author of the paper, said: "Changes in precipitation patterns in the past are traditionally obtained using ocean or lake sediment cores.
"This is the first time that such information is derived from cooking pots. We have used the signal carried by the hydrogen atoms from the animal fats trapped in the pottery vessels after cooking.
"This opens up a completely new avenue of investigation—the reconstruction of past climate at the very location where people lived using pottery."
Co-author, Professor Richard Evershed, added: "It is really significant that the climate models of the event are in complete agreement with the H signals we see in the animal fats preserved in the pots.
"The models point to seasonal changes farmers would have had to adapt to—overall colder temperatures and drier summers—which would have had inevitable impacts on agriculture."

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Official Start For Fire Season In Sydney, Most Of NSW, Brought Forward

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Authorities will bring forward the official start to the bushfire danger period to almost the whole of NSW from the start of next month as risks of major blazes intensify.
The NSW Rural Fire Service says a huge swath of the state covering forested areas will their official fire season start from September 1. The regions join 14 local government areas already covered, and will include Sydney and the Illawarra.
Even alpine areas will be included in the move with only fairly barren regions in western NSW excluded, Ben Shepherd, senior RFS spokesman, told Fairfax Media.

An out-of-control fire burns in a national park at Bemboka earlier this week. Photo: Elaine Bateman

The move came as fire crews had another testing day, with 78 grass and bush fires reported including 36 of them yet to be controlled as of late on Friday. Some 750 firefighters were in the field, Inspector Shepherd said.
A helicopter crashed while carrying out water-bombing activities against a fire near Ulladulla on the state's south coast on Friday, killing the pilot.
Saturday looms as another day of elevated fire risk with temperatures climbing into the mid-20s in parts of the state, with 23 degrees forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology for Sydney.
Inspector Shepherd said the day was not expected to create as severe fire danger as Wednesday. Still, winds along the coast could gust above 40 km/h and those in the mountains more than 70 km/h, he said.

Bushfire season has come early this year - with the first total fire bans announced almost two weeks earlier than in any previous year. Photo: Wolter Peeters

The Berejiklian government earlier this month declared the entire state to be in drought, amid record high day-time temperatures for the first seven months of the year, and the least rain since 1965.
RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers earlier this week said authorities were "very concerned about the season".
Inspector Shepherd said moisture indices were showing conditions "are far drier" than the 2001-2002 fire season that was marked by big blazes across the state, including near Sydney.
The official start of the fire season means tighter restrictions for burning off in the open.
Residents, though, should not wait for a date in the calendar to begin their preparations for planning to deal with bushfires, Inspector Shepherd said.
"This weekend is the time to start", he said, adding people should seek to reduce material that could burn from gutters and around their homes, and plan on maintaining those conditions through what could be a long season.
Snow falls have been the best for about 14 years in alpine areas, prompting some resorts to plan to extend their skiing seasons.
Still, grassfires had been ignited in areas up to 1000 metres elevation, so those regions had been added to the early start for the fire season, Inspector Shepherd said.

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Turnbull Ditches Legislation For 26% Emissions Cut To Head Off Backbench Dissent

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Government to set target by regulation in move to defuse internal opposition – and court Labor

Malcolm Turnbull has faced concerted opposition to his energy policies from within his own ranks. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The Turnbull government is preparing to set the emissions reduction target for the national energy guarantee by regulation rather than legislation in a move to court Labor’s support and defuse some internal tensions about enshrining the Paris climate commitments in Australian law.
The government is working up the regulatory option ahead of cabinet deliberations next week – as well as expediting a power price fix linked to the Neg, which will likely involve setting default pricing for electricity consumers and punitive measures to stop big energy companies extracting super profits from their customers.
Some government backbenchers have dug in their heels over legislating the Neg’s emissions reduction 26% target, framing that step as a breach of Australian sovereignty. The change means they will not be asked to endorse the 26% cut in a parliamentary vote as it will be set by regulation.
Guardian Australia understands the option to be put to cabinet next week would involve setting the target by an executive order that cannot be disallowed.
The option under consideration is that the target would be set via the regulation, and if a government wanted to increase it, it would first have to seek advice from the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about the impact of a target increase on electricity prices.
That advice would be made public.
Labor has pressured the government to make it easier for future governments to be able to scale up the Neg’s pollution target beyond the current proposal of a 26% reduction – flagging a desire that it be set by an administrative instrument rather than in legislation, which is harder to change.
The states, who can make or break the Neg through the Coag energy council, have also demanded the target be set in regulation so it can be ratcheted up.
The government has been plunged into a crisis this week, with a group of 10 backbenchers threatening to cross the floor to oppose the Neg. There is also a larger group, including some ministers, concerned that the existing policy won’t drive down power prices.
Current indications suggest the government will need Labor’s backing to get the Neg legislation through the House of Representatives.
Tony Abbott has escalated his public attacks on the policy, while the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has held the line on the Neg but publicly articulated the circumstances in which he would have to resign from the cabinet if he reached a point of irresolvable conflict with the prime minister on the detail.
The current fraught debate shares many of the hallmarks of the Liberal party’s internal convulsion in 2009 in which Abbott took the leadership from Turnbull after a vicious internal fight about his support for emissions trading.
Turnbull loyalist Christopher Pyne sounded a warning shot to restive colleagues during his regular Friday appearance on the Nine Network, criticising Abbott’s supporters for “hyperventilating” over the government’s energy policy.
“We are not on the ropes,” he said in answer to a question about the government’s re-election prospects.
“The polls are about 50-50 and there’s a lot of hyperventilating going on and there’s a few people I think who are trying to put the band back together from the late 2000 and noughties.”
Asked who “they” were, Pyne said: “I think we know who they are.”
The government’s objective in expediting the power price package to accompany the Neg has been to reduce the number of MPs prepared to cross the floor by half.
Senior figures expect Abbott, and possibly a couple of others, to cross the floor regardless of the rework.

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