06/01/2022

(AU The Guardian) La Niña Weather Pattern Keeps Temperatures In Australia Down But 2021 Still Hotter Than Average

The Guardian - 

One of the warmest La Niña years on record continues long-term heating being driven by climate change, climatologist says
Weather data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows 2021 was ‘a signature La Niña over Australia’, climatologist Neil Plummer says. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Australia’s 2021 was its coolest year since 2012, but still half a degree hotter than average according to data from the Bureau of Meteorology. A dominant La Niña weather pattern kept temperatures lower than in recent years and total rainfall across the country was only slightly higher than average.

Across the bureau’s temperature records going back to 1910, 2021 was the 17th hottest, with the national temperature 0.56C warmer than the average between 1961 and 1990.

Australia has not had a year where the temperature was below the long-term average since 2000. The hottest year on record is 2019, which was 1.51C above average.

The data shows 2021 was the 28th wettest year nationwide since 1900 with a total of 507mm – only slightly above the annual average of 466mm. The wettest year on record remains 1974, when the bureau’s records show 760mm fell.

Neil Plummer, a climatologist and consultant at Monash University’s climate change communication research hub, said 2021 had been a “signature La Niña” year.

“We get a lot of stronger south-easterly winds flowing in to tropical areas and we get more convection and more high clouds and more rainfall in northern and eastern Australia.

“That’s what we’ve seen since the back end of 2020. This is a signature La Niña over Australia.”

New South Wales and the ACT had the coolest year since 1996, with the overall temperature only 0.15C above average.

NSW recorded its wettest November since at least 1900, and 2021 was its sixth wettest year on record.

A pedestrian crosses the street in the Sydney CBD. NSW recorded its wettest November since at least 1900, and 2021 was its sixth wettest year on record. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

In Victoria, the average temperature was the lowest since 2004, but still 0.26C above average. Rainfall was 36mm above the state’s annual average of 663mm. Queensland’s statewide temperature was 1C above average, making it the coolest year since 2012. Rainfall was also slightly above average.

Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and South Australia were all slightly warmer than average. The only state and territory to record below average rainfall was South Australia, which dipped below its average by just 4mm.

The bureau declared the La Niña in November. Plummer, a former head of climate services at the bureau, said 2021 was one of the warmest La Niña years on record and continued the long-term heating being driven by climate change.

“There’s a very clear warming trend in Australia,” he said. “There is no doubt that the climate risks are continuing to build.

“Even though this 0.56C [above average] in 2021 is less than we’ve seen for a decade, that’s still giving us an almost straight line warming trend since 1950.

“It is remarkable that we no longer see strong negative temperature anomalies. I wouldn’t say they’ve disappeared, but it’s going to be increasingly hard to get them.”

The bureau will release more information about the climate of 2021 later this week.

Last month the bureau’s climate outlook for the next three months said there was an increased chance of “unusually high minimum temperatures” for January to March over much of the country.

Rainfall was likely to be above average for eastern Australia, with northern Queensland and coastal NSW in particular having a very wet January to March.

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(WIRED) To Fight Climate Change, First You Need To Measure It

WIRED - Rachael Pells 

Scientists at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory are using monitoring equipment to track our impact on the planet more accurately than ever before.

Photograph: J.L. Lee/NIST

From devastating wildfires to polar bears clinging to melting ice floes, there’s no shortage of shocking images to illustrate the need for action on climate change. But collecting reliable data to track the rate of change—and help determine how to tackle it—is much less straightforward.

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, South West London, are using precise monitoring equipment to measure pollutants and track our impact on the planet more accurately than ever before.

The lab's latest tool is Boreas, a laser spectrometer designed to collect and analyze methane—a greenhouse gas emitted by dozens of human activities, from agriculture to burning fuel. At an unassuming telecommunications tower in Heathfield, Surrey, Boreas works 24 hours a day in all weather conditions to sample large volumes of air.

The machine uses a length of tubing filled with fine plastic beads, which is then cooled to -160 degrees Celsius, allowing researchers back at NPL headquarters to cryogenically separate the methane particles from oxygen and nitrogen, which freeze at much lower temperatures.

The aim is to determine the relative concentration of different methane molecules and gain a better understanding of where the pollutants are coming from, explains Emmal Safi, a higher research scientist at NPL. “While previous devices have been able to measure methane concentrations, that data alone doesn’t tell us much about what the source of methane is,” she says.

Methane is a molecule composed of one carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms (its chemical formula is CH4). There are, however, different types of methane in the air, called methane isotopologues. “Different processes make methane with very small differences in the relative amount of each isotopologue, so the relative proportion of each can be used as a signature to determine its source,” says Safi.

So far, the readings are showing researchers what they’d expected: “We are seeing methane that has the signature of the northern hemisphere background—relatively clean air from the Atlantic—and some local agricultural sources,” says Chris Rennick, also a higher research scientist on the Boreas team. “It depends on the direction of the wind on any given day.

What makes Boreas unique is its potential: In the future, NPL hopes to build more devices like it and deploy them to different regions, including the Arctic, where potentially large amounts of methane could be trapped in permafrost.

“We’re using the data from our Heathfield lab to contribute to the UK’s methane emissions estimates,” Rennick explains. “However, there are many other networks in many other countries which would also benefit from the measurements that Boreas can make—this would allow the instrument to help reduce global methane emissions.”

Boreas is one of dozens of unique pieces of equipment measuring pollutants at NPL. One of the most historically significant is the Kibble Balance, a set of high-precision scales developed in the 1970s to compare electrical and mechanical power. Fifty years on, the device is used to weigh individual air particles to determine methane concentrations.

The key role of researchers such as those working on Boreas is not to conduct climate research, however, or even to present evidence of climate change itself. They are metrologists by trade—there to study and monitor the science of measurement to keep the science as accurate as possible.

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In doing so, metrologists act as the gatekeepers to “absolute truth” as Richard Barker, head of energy and environment at NPL, describes it. “Scientific measurement is the discipline trying to get as close to the truth as possible,” he explains. “What we do is figure out how close are we to that?”

If that sounds philosophical, it is. Most of us will never question why a gram is a gram or a kilometer is a kilometer. But for metrologists like Barker, the accuracy of these measurements is an ever-evolving conversation. When world leaders met in Glasgow to discuss climate action at COP26, Barker was there too, making the case for greater accuracy in scientific measurement.

Historically, NPL has been responsible for calibrating the way we measure and determining the terms with which we do so—grams, meters, seconds, and so on. More recently, the lab has named greenhouse gas emissions measurement as one of its key focus areas.

The move came from a growing realization that predictions about the rate of climate change were being made purely on statistical modeling, with no indication of certainty. “Just look at the magnitude of the questions that we're asking and the scale of investment that governments and industry are going to have to make to address climate change—we are talking trillions of dollars,” Barker says. “It raises this question of how close to the truth are we?”

While scientists can take a measurement such as sea temperature and recognize an increase, the variability caused by external factors and unreliability of instruments used means that it typically takes 20 years for a trend like rising sea temperatures to be agreed upon as fact—which doesn’t leave much time for nations to meet net zero targets.

Barker has an even bigger idea up his sleeve: Through the European Space Agency’s Truths Mission, the NPL plans to send reference equipment into space to allow satellite measurements to be recalibrated in orbit. The hope is that the mission will create a tenfold improvement in the accuracy of environmental observation data.

Ultimately, scientists will no longer have to wait so long to make forecasts or determine a trend in temperature changes—which could have a major impact on the pace of climate action. “Metrology is largely invisible, but it’s integral to all that scientists do,” Barker says.

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(Japan Times) Climate Change Is Also A Very Real Public Health Emergency

Japan Times - Cesar Chelala

People of all ages are at risk from global warming, particularly those with underlying health conditions

A person poses for a photo next to a thermometer in Death Valley, California, on July 11. | REUTERS

Several U.N. reports on climate change have warned the world of the dramatic consequences that could befall the environment, the planet and human survival if increasing global warming trends continue.

As stated in an editorial in the medical journal The Lancet, “Acting on the climate crisis is a clear, yet still neglected, priority for public health.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2020 was Earth’s second hottest for the past 140 years. Furthermore, 19 of the warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. The impact of these increasing global warming trends has been considerable on people of all ages, particularly the most vulnerable and those with underlying health conditions.

The estimated annual deaths attributed to climate change by the World Health Organization totaled around 150,000. Between the years 2030 to 2050, this number could rise to as high as 250,000 deaths. Most of those fatalities will result from heat stress, malnutrition, malaria and intestinal and respiratory infections, particularly in children from developing countries.

Climate change impacts negatively on social and environmental determinants of health such as clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food and safe shelter. The direct costs of failing health conditions caused or worsened as a result of climate change is estimated by the WHO at $2 billion to $4 billion by 2030.

It is possible that climate change may bring some benefits, such as fewer deaths during winter in some climates, as well as increased food production in areas free from the rigors of cold weather. However, some assessments of the consequences of global warming show that most of them will be negative.

The WHO reports that globally the number of weather-related natural disasters has more than tripled since the 1960s. Natural disasters force people to move, which increases the likelihood of negative health effects from communicable diseases, mental health disorders and other ailments.

Ever more frequent heat waves increases the likelihood of illnesses and hospitalizations. In July, temperatures in California’s Death Valley hit above 54 degrees Celsius (130 degrees Fahrenheit), nearly beating the 56.6 record set in 1913. A study commissioned by the American Association of Retired Persons concluded that hospital admissions and emergency-room visits for kidney failure, urinary tract infections and other health problems increase significantly for older adults during heat waves.

Extremely high temperatures increase ground-level ozone concentrations that can lead to serious respiratory diseases such as asthma, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Global warming also increases the number of infectious diseases carried by ticks, mosquitoes and other insects.

Rising sea levels and floods not only destroy homes, they can also wreak havoc on medical facilities and other health and social services. Flooding contaminates freshwater supplies, thus increasing the risk of water-borne diseases.

The tremendous challenge of climate change demands proper government policies to lower reliance on fossil fuels. The policies that must be implemented are known; what is necessary is the political will to put them into action. While most world leaders might recognize climate threats to people’s health, their current actions are deeply insufficient, states The Lancet medical journal.

It is necessary to increase individual resilience and be ready to face adverse events by boosting personal preparedness, strengthening social and family connections, and creating and/or strengthening supportive mental health environments.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that only by acting as a community can we solve global threats.

Climate change will not only affect our health and quality of life; it threatens our survival.

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