Lethal Heating: 08/29/21

29/08/2021

(AU ABC) BOM Forecasts A Warm, Wet Spring For Australia's East

ABC Weather - Ben Deacon

Spring is set to be a warm, wet affair, the BOM says. (Supplied: Jenita Enevoldsen)

Key Points

Spring rainfall is likely to be above average in much of the east
Maximum temperatures are likely to be above average for the northern tropics and far south-east
Large parts of the eastern tropical Indian Ocean are warmer than average

Spring is set to be wet and warm in eastern Australia, according to the Bureau of Meteorology's seasonal outlook.

"Virtually all of eastern Australia is looking wet," the BOM's head of operational climate services Andrew Watkins said.

"With a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, we've got warm ocean temperatures near Western Australia, and that's pumping a lot more cloud and moisture across the continent and giving wetter than average conditions."

Above average rainfall is predicted throughout spring for the eastern two thirds of the country. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

That is despite the ENSO climate driver being in neither a La Niña state (which would favour rain) nor an El Niño state (which would favour drought).

"We have some signs that we could be heading towards La Niña, though the forecasting models have been backing off a little bit of late," Dr Watkins said.

"That said, we do have warm water to the north of Australia and slightly cooler water off South America.

"Typically, even if we don't get to La Niña levels, that would help enhance rainfall in parts of eastern Australia."

The major climate drivers over the Pacific Ocean are in neutral. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

Warmer nights on the way

Maximum temperatures through spring are likely to be above average for the northern tropics and the far south-east, while below average daytime temperatures are more likely for other areas of southern Australia and up into southern Queensland.

Maximum temperatures in spring are predicted to be higher than average across the north and the far south. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

At night, above average minimum temperatures for September to November are very likely for almost all of Australia, except for the southern part of Western Australia.

The soggy spring follows on from a wet winter in much of the country, particularly in south-west Western Australia.

Overnight temperatures are expected to be higher than average across almost all of the country. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

"Nationally, we've seen the wettest winter since 2016," Dr Watkins said.

"In the south-west, they've had a good old-fashioned winter with a continuing series of cold fronts bringing pretty consistent rainfall, particularly during June and July.

"That's keeping things fairly wet in those areas and the crops are going gangbusters."

It's shaping up to be a wet spring. (Supplied: Mat Brown)

Warm winter despite rain, snow

Across tropical Northern Australia, it has been very warm through winter, with Darwin having its earliest 35-degree day on record.

"Australia's average winter temperature is also expected to be one of the 10 warmest on record — as much as it hasn't felt it at times, particularly in the south," Dr Watkins said.

Typically during a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, Australia sees cooler than average temperatures, but the BOM says Australia's temperature and rainfall variability are also influenced by global warming.

A negative phase of the IOD can increase rainfall across parts of Australia. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

Australia's climate has warmed by 1.44 degrees Celsius between 1910 and 2019 and southern Australia has seen a reduction of 10-20 per cent in cool season (April-October) rainfall over the last few decades.

Despite the warm winter, alpine regions have had a close-to-average snow season, with snow depths at the benchmark Spencers Creek gauge peaking at 183.6 centimetres on of July 29, slightly below the long-term maximum snow depth of about 195cm.

"Not a bad ski season if you can get there," Dr Watkins said.

"It's fairly typical for a negative Indian Ocean Dipole.

"But also, we've had negative Southern Annular Mode at times, so our weather systems have been that bit further north more generally, and that does typically give you more snow cover."

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(BBC) Madagascar On The Brink Of Climate Change-Induced Famine

BBC - Andrew Harding

At least half a million children under the age of five are in danger of being acutely malnourished, the UN says. WFP/Tsiory Andriantsoarana

Madagascar is on the brink of experiencing the world's first "climate change famine", according to the United Nations, which says tens of thousands of people are already suffering "catastrophic" levels of hunger and food insecurity after four years without rain.

The drought - the worst in four decades - has devastated isolated farming communities in the south of the country, leaving families to scavenge for insects to survive.

"These are famine-like conditions and they're being driven by climate not conflict," said the UN World Food Programme's Shelley Thakral.

The UN estimates that 30,000 people are currently experiencing the highest internationally recognised level of food insecurity - level five - and there are concerns the number affected could rise sharply as Madagascar enters the traditional "lean season" before harvest.

"This is unprecedented. These people have done nothing to contribute to climate change. They don't burn fossil fuels… and yet they are bearing the brunt of climate change," said Ms Thakral.

In the remote village of Fandiova, in Amboasary district, families recently showed a visiting WFP team the locusts that they were eating.

Crops have failed and now people are relying on insects and cactus leaves for food. WFP/Tsiory Andriantsoarana

"I clean the insects as best I can but there's almost no water," said Tamaria, a mother of four, who goes by one name.

"My children and I have been eating this every day now for eight months because we have nothing else to eat and no rain to allow us to harvest what we have sown," she added.

"Today we have absolutely nothing to eat except cactus leaves," said Bole, a mother of three, sitting on the dry earth.

She said her husband had recently died of hunger, as had a neighbour, leaving her with two more children to feed.

"What can I say? Our life is all about looking for cactus leaves, again and again, to survive."

Improve water management

Although Madagascar experiences frequent droughts and is often affected by the change in weather patterns caused by El Niño, experts believe climate change can be directly linked to the current crisis.

"With the latest IPCC report we saw that Madagascar has observed an increase in aridity. And that is expected to increase if climate change continues.

"In many ways this can be seen as a very powerful argument for people to change their ways," said Dr Rondro Barimalala, a Madagascan scientist working at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Viewing the same atmospheric data at Santa Barbara University in California, director of the Climate Hazards Center, Chris Funk, confirmed the link with "warming in the atmosphere", and said the Madagascan authorities needed to work to improve water management.

"We think there's a lot that can be done in the short term. We can often forecast when there's going to be above normal rains and farmers can use that information to increase their crop production. We're not powerless in the face of climate change," he added.

Successive droughts have dried out the soil in the south of the country. Ocha/Reuters

The current drought's impact is now being felt in larger towns in southern Madagascar too, with many children forced to beg on the streets for food.

"The prices in the market are going up - three or four times. People are selling their land to get some money to buy food," added Tsina Endor, who works for a charity, Seed, in Tolanaro.

Her colleague, Lomba Hasoavana, said he and many others had taken to sleeping in their cassava fields to try to protect their crops from people desperate for food, but this had become too dangerous.

"You could risk your life. I find it really, really hard because every day I have to think about feeding myself and my family," he said, adding: "Everything is so unpredictable about the weather now. It's a huge, huge question mark - what will happen tomorrow?"

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(Opinion Newsweek) Climate Scientists Feel Your Pain, Dr. Fauci

Newsweek - Michael E. Mann

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on June 30 in Washington, D.C. Al Drago-Pool/Getty

Author

Michael E Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University.
He is author of The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet.

Those of us on the front lines of the climate wars know how it feels.

For decades, we've been under assault by politicians and fossil fuel attack dogs because of the inconvenient nature of our science—science that demonstrates the reality of climate change.

I have received death threats, and endured a multitude of attacks from conservative media outlets, Republican congressmen and attorneys general, all because of the "Hockey Stick" graph my co-authors and I published more than two decades ago.

The Hockey Stick demonstrated the devastating effect burning fossil fuels has on our planet—and therefore threatened those profiting off them. So they sought to discredit my science and me personally, while orchestrating a campaign of vilification against climate scientists like me.

Michael E. Mann's 'hockey stick' graphic. It plots the past millennium's temperature and the influence of humans in the 20th century.

Now, the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, represents a threat to Donald Trump.

Fauci's prescription (and that of the mainstream public health community)—continued social distancing to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic—is undeniably in the best public interest, and the economy cannot recover until the virus is under control.

Yet Trump believes he needs results fast to win re-election, and so he is ignoring Fauci's advice and reopening the economy as the United States surpasses 5 million cases and 160,000 deaths.

It is sadly unsurprising that Fauci, too, has found himself at the receiving end of death threats. It's the logical conclusion of a concerted, months-long disinformation campaign by Trump supported by Republicans and conservative news organizations.

As Steve Schmidt, former presidential campaign co-adviser for the late Senator John McCain, put it: "The injury done to America and the public good by Fox News and a bevy of personalities from Limbaugh to Ingraham...will be felt for many years in this country as we deal with the death and economic damage that didn't have to be."

Fox News and other right-wing media have resorted to orchestrated character attacks against Fauci, simply because he refused to act as a rubber stamp for Trump's most misguided coronavirus policy gambits.

Media Matters described the phenomenon: "Despite his credibility established over decades as a public health official, right-wing media have begun to launch attacks against [him], blaming the medical expert for allegedly harming the economy and undermining President Donald Trump."

Central to the campaign to vilify our leading public health official during a pandemic has been Tucker Carlson. The Fox News host has used his nightly program to denounce Fauci as a "flawed" individual who is "maybe even more off-base than your average epidemiologist."

Carlson complained that Fauci "has become one of the most powerful people in the world" and even claimed he could become a "dictator for the duration of this crisis." One is struck by the ironic mendacity of these accusations, given that they are true for Trump rather than Fauci.

We see other remarkable parallels between the right-wing coronavirus and climate change disinformation campaigns.

Mirroring the "climategate" smear campaign of 2010, wherein fossil fuel interests and their abettors sought to discredit climate scientists by misrepresenting their words and phrases from stolen emails, the Trump administration went so far as to circulate an opposition research document cherry-picking and misrepresenting Fauci's past statements in an effort to discredit him as a scientist and as a messenger.

When it comes to the agenda of inactivism, we once again witness the transition from denial to false solutions, and then, eventually, to "it's good for us."

That took decades with climate deniers, but with coronavirus it happened in a matter of weeks. As former CBS News anchor Dan Rather noted: "After years when we should have learned of the dangers of 'false equivalence,' it baffles me that we are seeing a framing that pits the health of our citizens against some vague notion of getting back to work."

I noted, in turn, that it's "not unlike the false equivalence...that pits the health of our entire planet against some vague notion of economic prosperity."

Those of us on the front lines of the climate battle recognize that the stakes are too high for us to submit to the politically motivated forces of inaction. As I wrote several years ago in The New York Times:

"There is nothing inappropriate at all about drawing on our scientific knowledge to speak out about the very real implications of our research. If scientists choose not to engage in the public debate, we leave a vacuum that will be filled by those whose agenda is one of short-term self-interest. There is a great cost to society if scientists fail to participate in the larger conversation—if we do not do all we can to ensure that the policy debate is informed by an honest assessment of the risks. In fact, it would be an abrogation of our responsibility to society if we remained quiet in the face of such a grave threat."

It's clear that Fauci and other health professionals who continue to speak out, despite the attacks against them, recognize that as well. It is critical that they continue to fight back against the forces of disinformation.

As I recently told CNN's Bill Weir, "If there is a silver lining, it is that the failure of the current administration to respond meaningfully to the pandemic lays bare the deadliness of ideologically motivated science denial. This applies to the even greater crisis of human-caused climate change and the need to treat it as the emergency it is."

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