Weird Weather 2016: Year Of Melting Ice, Monster Storms And Australia's Big Wet

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

If Santa really lived at the North Pole his sleigh would run the risk of falling through the ice this week, empty or fully laden.
Temperatures in the high Arctic will approach melting point on Thursday, including near the North Pole, a massive 30 degrees or more above average for this time of the year.

The state of our climate in 2016
Australia is already experiencing an increase in extreme conditions from climate change – and it's projected to get worse.

Wide departures from temperature norms – usually on the warm side – have been a feature for a long while in the Arctic but this year's extremes qualify the region as home to probably this year's world's weirdest weather.
The polar extremes are part of what is highly likely to be declared as the hottest year in records going back to the 1880s. And so, with 2016 eclipsing both 2015 and 2014, the world would have set a new high mark for three years in a row.

At risk: shrinking Arctic ice is bad news for polar bears - and the planet. 

Here are some of this year's outstanding weather and climate events:

Extreme ice melt
This week's bizarre temperature forecasts for the North Pole have been a regular – if usually less extreme – feature of 2016 for the Arctic.
Many northerly regions, such as in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, were 20 degrees above normal for the first half of November, for instance.
(See below for the coming abnormal heat over the North Pole, via The Washington Post.)

As a result of warmer air and sea temperatures than normal, Arctic sea ice was 17.7 per cent below the 1981-2010 average in November, and the smallest extent for the month since the satellite era began in 1979, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says.
Less sea ice means that there will be less reflection of solar radiation when the sun returns to the far north, and therefore, more heat being absorbed by the now exposed oceans.
A similar retreat of sea ice is underway at the other end of the planet.
Last month, the extent of the Antarctic sea ice was 11.1 per cent below the 1981-2010 average, also the lowest for this time of year in 37 years of records.
The Antarctic story, though, is more complex given the impact of the great southern continent on the climate, with wind strengths one factor in shifting sea-ice totals.
Still, the spring sea-ice melt in the south is running about two weeks earlier than average and one week earlier the previous rapid melt, Blair Trewin, senior climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said.

Early storms
Tropical cyclones had an unusually early start for the year, with Hurricane Pali becoming the earliest such storm on record for the central Pacific basin when it formed on January 11.
Only two other January cyclones had formed in the basin since 1949 data began, Weather.com said.
Two days later, on January 13, Hurricane Alex formed in the North Atlantic, the first such storm for the month in that basin since 1938, the NOAA, said.
Later in January, the north-eastern US copped Winter Storm Jonas, which dumped 70 centimetres (27.5 inches) of snow on New York City, the most since records began in 1868, NOAA said.
Scientists have drawn links between the loss of Arctic sea ice (see above) and longer winters across eastern North America as the polar vortex zone of frigid air encircling the Arctic weakens and buckles, sending ice blasts far to the south.

Coral bleaching could have been worse

Coral bleaching caused by extreme warmth at Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Climate Council

El  Nino events in the Pacific typically produce unusually warm sea-surface temperatures, which, when overlaid on the background heating from climate change, push coral beyond key tolerance thresholds.
For the Great Barrier Reef, the extreme warmth resulted in its worst bleaching event, with more than 22 per cent of the corals dying. Many other reefs around the world also suffered bleaching.
Tourism authorities and governments were relieved that the impacts were mostly confined to the northern reefs away from the more accessible corals near Cairns and further to the south.
In fact, they have a monster storm to thank for that, with the powerful category-5 Cyclone Winston moving over southern Queensland after devastating Fiji and Tonga with its 285km/h winds in February.
The storm worked to cool the waters of the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef long enough and just in time, to prevent worse coral mortality.

Extreme heat records

Death Valley National Park in California is one of the world's hottest spots. Photo: Alamy

Global warming sceptics like to highlight long-standing heat records. But hot-day records are in fact falling much faster than cold day ones.
In Australia since 2000, for instance, a record hot day is now occurring 12 times faster than record cold days. During the first half of the 20th century, the ratio was roughly one-to-one, the Bureau of Meteorology says.
In 2016, though, the world has also had some bouts of remarkable daily heat, including the 54 degrees recorded in Mitribah, Kuwait, on July 16.
According to the Weather Underground blog, it was the hottest on record outside Death Valley in California.
The latter, at the aptly named Furnace Creek Ranch, was 56.7 degrees, recorded on July 10, 1913, although historians debate that high mark.
Other extreme heat in 2016 included 51 degrees recorded in Phalodi, Rajasthan, in India on May 19, making it the hottest day of record for that country.
The previous record of 50.6 degrees was set in May 1886, although a similar and perhaps more reliable reading was also recorded in 1956, the website said.
Among the year's most significant heatwaves was one that swept across southern Africa in January, Dr Trewin said. Temperatures reached 43 degrees in Pretoria and 39 degrees in Johannesburg, both cities located more than 1000 metres above sea level, and breaking previous records by about 3 degrees.
"They are very high temperatures for such high locations," Dr Trewin said.

Strongest storm

Typhoon Meranti had one-minute sustained winds reaching 305km/h . Photo: Weather Channel

Whether known as Typhoon Meranti or Ferdie, this tropical cyclone was the most powerful in 2016 when it emerged in September.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Centre estimated the storm had one-minute sustained winds reaching 305km/h at its peak as it crossed the Philippines island of Itbayat. More than 10,000 people were affected.
It was still powerful when it reached the Chinese mainland, becoming the most powerful storm to hit Fujian province in at least 67 years when standard records began, Agence France Presse reported.
Hurricane Matthew was another significant storm, leaving at least 550 dead in the Caribbean nation of Haiti, before causing widespread flooding along the US south-eastern states in October.
Typhoon Lionrock at the end of August was also a major event, described as the worst natural disaster for North Korea in that state's history.

Big wet
As in every year, there were more than a few candidates for large-scale flood events.
The US provided several, including severe floods in May in Texas, and the widespread heavy falls along the eastern seaboard in September when Hurricane Hermine became the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida in 11 years and then hugged the coast as it moved northwards.
The most costly floods, though, probably came in the Yangtze River region of China, where sustained rains caused a damage bill of more than $10 billion and left hundreds dead.
Central and western Europe also saw big floods in Paris in June.
Australia, though, warrants a mention because of the share scale and sustained nature of much of the rainfall.
It was officially Australia's second-wettest winter, but taking the five months from May, the big wet was even more notable, especially for the eastern half of the country which had record rain.
(See chart below of how much of Australia had very much above or record levels of rain for May-September.)

Awaiting some wet relief are regions that were hard hit by drought during the El Nino of 2015-2016.
These include south-east Asia and southern Africa. While the latter region has had reasonable summer rains recently, the region has a long way to go before the dry years of 2014-15 and 2015-16 are made up, Dr Trewin said.
One positive in 2016 was a good monsoon in the sub-continent after a couple dry years.

Hottest month

Surfers out early at Tamarama on a hot December day. Photo: Jessica Hromas

From a climate point of view July is typically the hottest month of the year. Temperatures over land fluctuate more than over water, and during northern summers more land is facing the sun than in southern summers so the mercury is higher than in January.
And so, with the lingering effects of the El Nino, this past July was the hottest month recorded, according to NOAA.
Average temperatures were 16.67 degrees across the planet that month, beating the previous July – then a record – by 0.06 degrees.
The biggest departure from the norm, though, came earlier in 2016. March was 1.23 degrees higher than the 20th century average, pipping the previous month for the record.
Of the 15 warmest monthly anomalies for global temperatures, all but one of them – January 2007 – have occurred since the start of 2015, NOAA says.
And if you were wondering when the last below-average month was globally, you have to go back to December 1984. Assuming December 2016 doesn't freeze over in the next week, the tally of above-average months in a row will be 384 by year's end.

Hottest year
With so many warm months in both 2016 and 2015, this year is likely to only just edge out last year as the hottest on record.
Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, tells Fairfax Media this year will come in at about 0.14 degrees warmer than 2015.
NOAA, which includes less of the exceptional warming in the Arctic than NASA, will probably report a narrower margin of about 0.04 degrees, he estimates.

IMAGE

While both years were boosted by an El Nino, a weather pattern in the Pacific that results in less heat being absorbed into the ocean compared with neutral years.
That said, it is notable that both 2015 and 2016 will be about one-third of a degree warmer than the year of the biggest El Nino event on record, which sharply lifted temperatures in 1998. (See NOAA chart below.)

Britain's Met Office this week estimated temperatures will ease back in 2017 as any lingering El Nino boost dissipates.
Still, next year is likely to come in as third warmest, underscoring the warming trend in the climate as greenhouse gas concentrations climb ever higher.
And there will be more extreme weather events to come.

Links

• 'Remarkable year': What's behind the record low sea ice in Antarctica
• Review of Jan. 2016 blizzard preliminary snow totals validates DC measurement
• Polar vortex shifting due to climate change, extending winter, study finds
• 'Time to act': Damage to Great Barrier Reef worse than thought, surveys find
• Eastern Hemisphere's All-Time Temperature Record: Kuwait Fries in 54°C (129.2°F) Heat
• Global Analysis - July 2016
• 2017 to be third hottest year on record, scientists say

Climate Change News That Stuck With Us in 2016

New York Times

As the year ends, The New York Times asked reporters who have focused on climate change, global warming and the environment to choose the news they reported on that was the most memorable. These are their selections, ranging from sea level rise to the phenomenon of "rolling coal" to local actions to confront a warming planet.

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From One Hottest Year Into the Next

Clockwise from top left: flooding in Alexandria, Va., in June; a house raised on temporary supports in Norfolk, Va.; flooding in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in May; drought conditions at Lake Purdy in Alabama in October. Credit Clockwise from top left: Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times; Eliot Dudik for The New York Times; Eranga Jayawardena, via Associated Press; Brynn Anderson, via Associated Press

The year in climate news began with a theme that is growing familiar: word that 2015 had been the warmest year on record, just beating out 2014.

The immediate cause in both cases was a powerful climate pattern, known as El Niño, in which the tropical Pacific Ocean poured an enormous amount of heat into the global atmosphere, disrupting weather patterns on every continent. But scientists said the back-to- back heat records would not have occurred without an underlying trend of global warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

That physical reality does not seem to be making much of an impression in the United States Congress, where a large number of lawmakers continue to claim that the warming trend is somehow not real, or is even the product of a global scientific hoax. But in the real world, the effects are starting to be felt as never before. As land ice melts the world over and heat absorption causes ocean water to expand, the sea level is rising. Coastal communities from Norfolk, Va., to Miami are being forced to reckon with the consequences.

A small detail: Tidal flooding is becoming so common that towns are posting "No Wake" signs on the streets, where vehicles driving a little too fast through a foot or two of seawater can send damaging waves crashing against nearby property.

The extreme burst of global temperature records waned late in the year as the cooler La Niña weather pattern replaced El Niño in the tropical Pacific. But even so, the World Meteorological Organization predicted in November that 2016 would most likely beat 2015 to become the record-warmest year, the first time such a global temperature record will have been set three years in a row. — Justin Gillis

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Countering Denial by Being Nice

Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. Credit Lexey Swall for The New York Times

How do you talk about climate change during a presidential administration that denies it's happening?

President-elect Donald J. Trump has called climate change a hoax, and he has declared he will try to reverse the Obama administration's environmental efforts on matters ranging from the 2015 Paris climate agreement to the landmark Clean Power Plan, intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But while administrations change, one thing appears to be stable: Most Americans already know that climate change is real and that human activity since the Industrial Age is the major cause. Polls by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that more than half of those surveyed said that global warming is real, and only one in five disagree. But these same surveys show that Americans tend to rank the issue rather low in their priorities of urgent need for action.

The question for those trying to fight climate change, then, is how best to build on the degree of agreement that already exists and to encourage action by governments, businesses and individuals. For a very long time, these issues have been hashed out in fiery arguments between those who deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate science and those who try to explain the science and the reasons for strong measures. I dealt with that important question in an article about Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University who uses a gentle approach to reach the large number of Americans who are in the potentially persuadable middle. There is room for every kind of discourse, from raucous to gentle, when it comes to telling Americans about warming. But I came away from that piece with a thought that initially seemed banal, but ended up feeling profound: niceness works. — John Schwartz

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Local Responses to a Changing Global Climate

A house with solar panels in Ashton Hayes, England. Credit Elizabeth Dalziel for The New York Times

Most people who think that climate change is really happening also acknowledge that humans have caused it. But getting people to actually do something about it may be the next phase in the battle to prevent catastrophic warming.

Over the course of the last year, I've spoken with people in different communities around the world who are trying to do what they can to make a difference, even if they can't see the effects.

In a small village in the English countryside, residents have been working for 10 years to make their community carbon neutral — they've insulated their homes, hung laundry out to dry and installed solar panels. Part of their success has been in their approach: This should be fun, and it should involve all of us, because all of us stand to benefit from staving off the worst effects of climate change.

They have tried to connect the global problem of climate change to normal life, because it's not always about the melting polar ice caps or apocalyptic drought. Yes, climate change is about those things, but it is also about the ways that life in the 21st century makes most people, especially those in the developed world, part of the problem.

How are your own habits connected to larger environmental problems? How much power are you still using even when you've switched off your devices? How many plastic bottles of water do you drink every week, and how does that affect the environment and other people around you?

In the wake of the Paris agreement, most countries are involved in the fight against climate change. And while governments and power companies may make the most difference, what the rest of us — all seven billion of us — are doing matters, too. — Tatiana Schlossberg

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Engines of Environmental Backlash

An Illini State Pullers event at the McHenry County Fair in August in Woodstock, Ill. Credit David Kasnic for The New York Times

If there is one phenomenon that epitomizes the contempt for regulations — particularly those designed to protect the environment — among some Americans, it might be "rolling coal."

It's a fad among some diesel truck owners who soup up their engines and remove their emissions controls to belch black smoke at pedestrians, cyclists and even unsuspecting Prius drivers.

And depending on whom you ask, the fad is a juvenile prank, a health hazard, a stand against rampant environmentalism or a brazen show of American freedom. I've seen rolling coal called the "open carry" of the anti-environmentalism movement.

"Why don't you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country. I will continue to roll coal anytime I feel like and fog your stupid eco-cars," one angry Illinois voter wrote to a local state representative who has proposed a $5,000 fine on anyone who removes or alters emissions equipment.

At its core, rolling coal seems to me to be a symptom of a backlash against the notion that we should seek to minimize the human footprint on earth, for the sake of the environment.

It is not the only such act. Since 2007, activists have drawn attention to the environment with a call to switch off appliances worldwide during an annual Earth Hour. But since 2009, the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute — home base of Myron Ebell, who Trump tapped for the transition at the Environmental Protection Agency — has countered with Human Achievement Hour, a call to spend that same hour keeping things on in defense of humankind's "basic human right to use energy."

Still, rolling coal goes too far even for some at the institute. Coal rollers who use their trucks for harassment, as opposed to celebration, "aren't being rebellious," said Michelle Minton, who is a fellow there. "They are just being jerks." — Hiroko Tabuchi

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A Costly Effort to Make Coal Cleaner 

The Kemper County coal power plant in Mississippi. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times

In  the deeply poor, rural county of Kemper, Mississippi, there is a project to build a first-of-its-kind power plant using technology that has been heralded as the answer to many of our climate change woes.

A poster child for the promise of so-called clean coal, the troubled plant has occupied a central role in the Obama administration's plans to counter climate change. The technology the plant is supposed to showcase is also at the center of President-elect Trump's vision for many of our energy and environmental challenges.

Producing roughly 45 percent of the emissions that cause climate change, coal is a dirty fuel source. Yet the world still relies on it for power. The Kemper project was supposed to provide a model for a new version of carbon-capture technology that could be replicated around the world.

But the Kemper power plant is more than two years past deadline and more than $4 billion over budget. The plant's owner faces credit downgrades, multiple lawsuits and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The investigation of this project unveiled an almost Shakespearean tale. In one arc we followed the prevailing public perception of the project as it shifted from hope to skepticism. In another arc we saw an engineer's personal journey from project pitchman to plant whistle-blower. Along the way, we watched a steady upward creep in the project's cost, shifting explanations the company and regulators gave for delays, and a growing intensity in the warnings from workers on site.

It all added up to more questions than answers: Did the plant's owner intentionally mislead the public, investors and regulators about the cost and timetable of the project? Why have 23 of the poorest counties in the country been saddled with costs connected to the most expensive power plant in American history? Can clean coal be replicated and built affordably and quickly enough to make it worth the investment? These questions remain. — Ian Urbina

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California's Drought Is Not Over

Erin Stacy was among the scientists measuring the snowpack in Yosemite in California in April. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Parts of California were relatively wet last winter, leading to a much larger snowpack in the Sierra Nevada than the year before, along with rising optimism that the state might eventually see an end to severe drought conditions that have lingered for four years.

But when I visited Yosemite National Park in April for an article about the snowpack, high spring temperatures were already melting it quickly. And there were other worrisome signs of the effects of climate change — more rain and less snow at higher elevations.

Since then, California has seen some improvement. Only 21 percent of the state is in "exceptional" drought, down from 45 percent a year ago, as reported by the U.S. Drought Monitor, and there are even areas in the northwestern part of the state that are drought free.

But California is still in the grip of a prolonged drought, and the outlook — for the state and more broadly for the Southwest — is not promising. Forecasters say that in the short term, drier conditions may return this winter because of the weather phenomenon called La Niña. But it is the long-term situation that should be sobering for anyone who lives, or is thinking of living, in the region. Scientists say climate change has increased the risk of megadroughts, long dry periods that could make the current drought seem mild by comparison. — Henry Fountain

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Climate Change and NASA's Mission on Earth

Participants during NASA's Icescape mission in the Arctic Ocean in 2011. Credit NASA/Reuters

It  is not easy to find out what's happening in the Arctic Ocean. If you have a few months to spare, you can board an icebreaker and chug across a small section of the sea, taking measurements. Alternatively, you can pore through the images of the North Pole that have been captured by satellites over the past few decades.

Those images tell a startling story. While month-to-month measurements can be jumpy, the overall trend has been clearly heading down. Last month, satellites measured the lowest extent of Arctic sea ice for November since satellites started keeping records in 1979.

Global warming is a driving force behind this change. As we pump more carbon into the atmosphere, scientists warn that the Arctic will lose even more ice. In a matter of decades, scientists estimated this year, the Arctic Ocean may become ice-free in the summer.

The disappearance of Arctic ice is already having a huge impact on the ocean's ecosystem. In November, a team of scientists published a new analysis of satellite data, finding that the ocean has been increasing its production of algae by some 47 percent since 1997. Scientists suspect that the size and timing of this bloom is altering the entire Arctic food web, and they're now gathering data to find out what exactly is happening.

This study was carried out as part of NASA's Earth Science program, using data largely supplied by NASA's satellites. Shortly after the it was published, reports came out that President-elect Trump's advisers are pushing to shut down NASA's study of our own planet.

If we let our Earth-monitoring satellites wink out, the planet will not stop changing. The only thing that will change is our own ability to understand the Earth. — Carl Zimmer

Links

• Polar Bears' Path to Decline Runs Through Alaskan Village 
• As Trump Signals Climate Action Pullback, Local Leaders Push Forward 
• Visualizing the Invisible Drivers of Climate Change 
• Feeling a Chill? Blame the Polar Vortex. And Global Warming.

The Guardian View On Climate Change Action: Don’t Delay

The Guardian - Editorial

Arctic temperatures have been 20C above normal. The ice cap is shrinking. And Trump and Putin may see it as an advantage

A fisherman drives a boat near the Arctic Circle in Ilulissat, Greenland. 'Sea ice has shrunk to levels that scientists describe as 'off the scale'. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Temperatures in the Arctic in the last two months have hit more than 20C above normal for the time of year. Temperatures that unusual in the UK and Europe would produce 45C summers. As a result, sea ice has shrunk to levels that scientists describe as "off the scale". Mapping the changes to the extent of sea ice over the last 40 years confirms that: on a graph, the lines are clustered together like threads in a hank of silk, warming and cooling in line with each other – until this year. This year's line drops down like a thin thread dangling into the void.
Extrapolating data from a single year must be done with caution. When El Niño boosted global temperatures to make 1998 the hottest year on record, a position it held until 2014, deniers claimed that this showed that global warming had "paused". In fact, several years after 1998 came within 0.3C of the record. The rise of a huge 20C over normal in the Arctic, the region that acts as one of the most important regulators in the global climate system, means that all expectations must now be rewritten.
Arctic snow and ice reflect heat back into space – the albedo effect. When there is less ice, less sunlight is reflected and the sea, newly exposed, absorbs more heat, which melts more ice, and so on in a cycle. This is of vital importance: it could represent a tipping point, beyond which the Arctic ice cap, by some projections, might soon disappear altogether in summer. This is not the only crucial climate role the Arctic plays. Sea and air currents swirling over and under the ice cool the globe and affect weather systems on the other side of the world, sometimes in ways that are still not fully understood.

Arctic sea ice extent shrank to its second lowest record this year, and is unusually low this winter. Guardian graphic Source: National Snow & Ice Data Center

Arctic sea ice has recovered in extent from previous lows. But that does not tell the whole story. When temperatures are less volatile, sea ice forms in layers over multiple years to a thick and solid mass. Ice that forms under this year's conditions is likely to be thinner and less stable than what it replaces, more vulnerable to another year's warming and less effective as a temperature regulator. For these reasons, the current drastic melting of the Arctic cannot be regarded merely as an outlier. While the effects of an ice-free Arctic on global weather systems are still in the realm of known unknowns, it is a known known that they will be disruptive. The current Arctic temperature and sea ice charts look like the beginning of a whole new trend, one that could change the global climate system for ever.
The imperative for action is therefore overwhelming. Reducing carbon dioxide is vital, and it is encouraging that annual emissions have been flat for three years. But now it is necessary to move further, faster. Some experts advocate cutting the amount of black, unburnt carbon – soot – as a matter of urgency. Much of this soot is borne by air currents to the Arctic, depositing it on pristine snow that turns black, and so more heat-absorbent. Some measures to stop soot, like capping coal-fired power stations and banning agricultural burning, are relatively easy. Others – cleaner vehicles and spreading the use of solar cookers in developing countries – might take longer.

Getting rid of potent hydrofluorocarbon gases, commonly used in refrigeration, has the broad backing of governments and industry, and will buy time. Methane, often a byproduct of fossil fuel exploration, should be used as an energy source, or at least flared, which is less harmful. Cutting these "short-lived climate pollutants" could prevent 0.5C of warming over the next 30 years, the research suggests. These are opportunities that must be taken; they are necessary, though not sufficient. So governments should also convene an Arctic council to explore other ways of protecting the region.
Driving progress demands just the kind of leadership that looks very much to have disappeared from the global scene. Vladimir Putin's Russia has been laying claim to vast Arctic areas, anticipating the realms of new possibility for commerce – new shipping lanes, cutting thousands of miles from current journeys – as well as oil and gas exploration that an ice-free Arctic would open up. For Donald Trump, such an unfrozen Arctic might allow the US to control key shipping routes, and find new oilfields and gas fields. Mr Trump's choice of Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon Mobil and cheerleader for Mr Putin, as secretary of state is deeply worrying. Two friendly world leaders facing one an other across a vanishing Arctic ice cap. The thawing of the cold war is no longer a metaphor.

Links

• Arctic ice melt 'already affecting weather patterns where you live right now'
• 'Extraordinarily hot' Arctic temperatures alarm scientists
• Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level
• Record-breaking temperatures 'have robbed the Arctic of its winter'

El Niño On A Warming Planet May Have Sparked The Zika Epidemic, Scientists Report

Washington Post - Chelsea Harvey

A female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of acquiring blood from a human host. (James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP)

In  a world characterized by rising temperatures, deforestation and other human influences on the environment, the spread of infectious disease is a hot topic. Many recent studies suggest that environmental changes can affect the transmission of everything from malaria to the Zika virus — and it’s increasingly important to understand these links, scientists say.
This week, a new study has provided new evidence that environmental changes can increase the threat of disease. It concludes that unusually warm temperatures caused by 2015’s severe El Niño event — probably compounded by ongoing climate change — may have aided in the rapid spread of the Zika virus in South America that year. And while there are many complex factors at play in the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, the study may help scientists better prepare for the kinds of future effects we might see in our warming world.
“The start of the mission was simple — trying to address where the risk will be, where is it going to move next, where could Zika happen on the planet on a global scale,” said Cyril Caminade, a research fellow at the University of Liverpool and the new study’s lead author. To that end, the authors designed a study that would help them determine how climatic changes have impacted the mosquito-borne transmission of Zika.
There are two main species of mosquito known to carry the Zika virus — Aedes aegypti, or the yellow fever mosquito, which is widespread in the tropics; and Aedes albopictus, or the Asian tiger mosquito, which lives in both tropical and temperate regions of the world. Scientists also believe Zika can be sexually transmitted, but the new study focused only on mosquito transmission.
For the study, the researchers collected published information on the distribution of these two mosquito species and how temperature variations can affect them. Studies suggest, for instance, that up to a certain point, rising temperatures can cause mosquitoes to bite more frequently. The researchers also collected global historical climate data from the past few decades and used all the information to build a model of Zika transmission worldwide.
The model produced an unusually high disease transmission potential in the tropics for the year 2015, including in Colombia and Brazil, the countries hit hardest by Zika. Similar results occurred between 1997 and 1998, one of the only other times on record to experience such a brutal El Niño event.
“[O]ur model indicates that the 2015 El Niño event, superimposed on the long-term global warming trend, has had an important amplification effect,” the researchers note in the paper.
The model also helped the researchers identify the ideal seasonal climate conditions for Zika transmission around the world. In South America, for instance, the model suggests that the potential for transmission should peak in the winter and spring.
In the southeastern U.S., on the other hand, summer is ideal. In fact, the model suggests this region has a high potential for disease transmission during this time, due partly to the high temperatures and partly to the fact that both mosquito species are found there.
That said, reports of Zika have been limited in the U.S. so far — and this speaks to the complexity of vector-borne disease transmission, Caminade said. Climate can certainly play a significant role in setting up the right conditions for an outbreak, but epidemics also depend on many other factors, including population density, access to healthcare and the use of pesticides and other anti-mosquito interventions in any given location. Some of these factors — which were not accounted for in the new study — can probably explain why there hasn’t been much Zika transmission in the U.S. so far.
Caminade also pointed out that after a population has been exposed to a mosquito-borne disease like Zika, a phenomenon called “herd immunity” often occurs — this happens when so many people have already been exposed, and developed an immunity, that there aren’t enough new people left to infect to continue the epidemic. This is the probably part of the reason we didn’t see Zika epidemics in other tropical parts of the world in 2015, despite the new study’s results. And some experts have suggested that herd immunity will likely cause the current situation in South America to burn itself out within a few more years.
But Caminade cautions that there’s still the potential for Zika outbreaks in other parts of the world where the conditions are right, including the United States and even southern Europe. The result would likely be milder than what’s been experienced in South America in the past year, but there’s “still risk,” he said.
According to Caminade, one of the study’s major takeaway points is that extreme climate conditions can lead to all kinds of unusual events — droughts, floods and wildfires are only a few examples — and disease outbreak is just one more potential disaster scientists should be looking out for when these conditions occur.
And such events may only be exacerbated by future climate change. Some studies have suggested that the kinds of “monster” El Niño events seen in 1997 and 2015 may be more likely in a warmer world, Caminade pointed out. But he added that scientists wishing to make more precise predictions about the future spread of disease must take a wide variety of factors into account — climate is just one of them.
“I won’t overplay the role of climate for the future,” he said. “It’s still a disease, and there are still parameters which are going to be very important.”

Links

• Global risk model for vector-borne transmission of Zika virus reveals the role of El Niño 2015
• Health Impacts of Climate Change
• Climate change and health
• The Silent Killer: Climate Change and the Health Impacts of Extreme Heat

India Announces Plan To Step Away From Coal, Casting Doubt On Approved Queensland Adani Mine

ABC News - Stephen Long

Key points: The plan says no need for additional coal fired energy capacity in next decade Six-fold rise in energy from renewable sources key part of national electricity plan Josh Frydenberg said the Adani mine had to go ahead because India desperately needed it for energy

India has released a new power plan promoting a dramatic increase in renewable energy and raising doubts about the Indian-owned Adani Group's massive coal mine in Queensland.
The new national electricity plan says India will not need any additional coal-fired energy capacity in the next decade.
India's Energy Minister Piyush Goyal alluded to a renewables pivot when he spoke to Four Corners last year.
"I hope in the years to come we can see an explosion of renewable energy on the back of cheaper storage," Mr Goyal said.
Tim Buckley from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analytics told AM the development was bad news for the Australian coal industry.
"They [India] say that they have 50 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants under construction already, so it's far better to complete those than write them off as stranded assets," he said.
"But no new coal-fired plants in India in the next decade."
Mr Buckley said the plan had left the Adani proposal "totally stranded".

"It is a white elephant, and it is six years past it's use by date," he said.

However, Adani rejects Mr Buckley's argument, saying it needs to coal for itself.
"What happens to the market has no implication for Adani because we are supplying our own power stations with our own coal," an Adani spokesman told the ABC.

Plans to fund billion-dollar railway to mine

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Despite these doubts, the Australian Government plans to give a $1 billion subsidised loan to Adani to build a railway to the planned mine.
When the then Minister for Resources Josh Frydenberg approved the Adani mine in north Queensland 14 months ago, he argued it had to go ahead because India desperately needed it for energy.
"I think there is a strong moral case here, it will help lift hundreds and millions of people out of energy poverty, not just in India but right across the world," Mr Frydenberg said.
Mr Buckley said the International Energy Agency (IEA) had forecast that hundreds of gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants would be built in India in the next few decades.
"The Indian Energy Ministry is saying that is absolutely wrong," he said.
"He instead articulates a plan that involves building 215 gigawatts of renewable energy, building another 20 gigawatts of hydro, building five gigawatts of nuclear, building a bit more gas, and dramatically elevating the importance of energy efficiency and grid efficiency in order to diversify India rapidly away from coal."

Links

• Adani's mega mine neither financially viable nor justified, says energy analyst
• Adani faces more legal action as traditional owners vow to halt Carmichael coal mine
• 'It's not critical': Adani claim for government loan questioned after company's admission
• 'No 457 visas' for Adani project, Palaszczuk says
• Step through the key events in the planning of Australia's biggest mining project, the Carmichael coal mine in remote central Queensland.
• Queensland-first workforce promised for Carmichael mine

Leonardo Dicaprio: Climate Fight Is US History's 'Biggest Economic Opportunity'

The Guardian - Reuters

Actor and environmental activist tells UN awards ceremony that truth about climate change has spread like ‘wildfire’ despite prominent science deniers

Leonardo Di Caprio received a prize from the UN for his work as a global citizen. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Tackling climate change is the “biggest economic opportunity” in the history of the US no matter who holds political office, the Hollywood star and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio said on Friday.
“There are a few very prominent people that still deny the overwhelming conclusions of the world’s scientists that climate change is largely human-caused and needs immediate urgent attention,” he told a United Nations awards ceremony.
But “the truth” about climate change has spread like “wildfire”, he said.
DiCaprio’s comments, as he received a prize for his work as a global citizen, did not refer to the US president-elect, Donald Trump, by name but were a thinly-veiled reference to his views and nominations of climate sceptics with oil industry ties for cabinet posts.
Earlier this month, 42-year-old DiCaprio and the head of his foundation met Trump and his team, reportedly arguing that support for renewable energy could create millions of jobs.
Trump has suggested climate change is a hoax and raised the possibility of withdrawing US support for a new global accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which most scientists believe are driving up sea levels and causing more droughts and violent storms.
“In less than 100 years of our pollution-based prosperity, we humans have put our entire existence in jeopardy,” said DiCaprio, who released his own documentary, Before the Flood, on the impacts of global warming two months ago.
DiCaprio, who won an Oscar this year for playing a fur trapper battling nature in The Revenant, said his documentary was the most viewed “in history ... [showing] just how much the world cares about the issue of climate change”.
But he said the battle to address it was far from over, calling on the world to implement the Paris agreement on climate change, which came into effect in November, and to “go further”.
People everywhere are acting to curb the damage to humans, nature and wildlife from a warming planet, DiCaprio said – from putting a price on carbon emissions to buying cleaner cars, eating less meat, and businesses vowing to be carbon-neutral.
“To those who may be discouraged by naysayers, let me remind you, the environmental awakening is all over the world and the progress we have made so far … has always been because of people, not governments,” DiCaprio told the United Nations correspondents association event in downtown New York.
DiCaprio, who has worked closely with outgoing UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on climate action, congratulated him for “elevating the significance of climate change to one of fundamental global sustainability and peace”.
Without Ban’s persistence, the world would never have made so much progress on climate change, culminating in the Paris agreement sealed in December 2015, DiCaprio said.
Earlier on Friday, Ban said acting on climate change meant “jobs, growth, cleaner air and better health”, adding that leaders of top companies, governors and mayors understood this.
The Paris agreement was “a precious achievement that we must support and nurture”, he told his final press conference at the United Nations. “There is no turning back.”

Links

• Leonardo DiCaprio meets Trump as climate sceptic nominated
• Analysis Climate change denial in the Trump cabinet: where do his nominees stand?
• Before the Flood: Leonardo DiCaprio hopes his new film will inspire climate action
• After Revenant … Leonardo DiCaprio stars as eco-warrior in climate battle
• Leonardo DiCaprio travels to Sumatra to support rainforest conservation efforts
• Leonardo DiCaprio attacks Republican presidential candidates on climate change
• Leonardo DiCaprio says China can be climate change 'hero'
• How Leonardo DiCaprio became one of the world's top climate change champions 

Australia Leads Way In Fossil Fuel Divestment

Saturday Paper - Bill McKibben

La Trobe University will phase out its investments in listed companies with a strong  involvement in fossil fuels.

It  looks as though 2016 will go down as the year that Western democracies were torn open to reveal the growing disconnect between citizens and governments. A year when many felt trust in government had fallen so low that it was better to try to burn it all down than continue on our current course.
Next month, Donald Trump will become the president of my country. Britain is destined to leave the European Union. In Australia, the political malaise is so strong that no prime minister has made it through a full term in almost 10 years. But even as the major parties scramble to find a popular face to put on their unpopular policies, many voters are abandoning them for the empty promises and scapegoating of far-right populism.

Take note Australian politicians: while you dither, the money is moving out of fossil fuels.

Riding that wave is Pauline Hanson, who brought a swag of One Nation senators with her to the Australian parliament – including a climate change denier and conspiracy theorist of an ilk I thought only existed in fossil-fuel-loving America.
But there is a much greater disconnect that is plaguing global democracies, and nowhere more so than in Australia.
More than 75 per cent of Australians believe the climate is changing and the vast majority agree that humans are driving this change. Yet despite this overwhelming consensus, the Australian government is currently the biggest pariah nation in the world when it comes to action on climate change.
This was highlighted at the recent United Nations climate meeting, where Australia faced more questions than any other country on its lack of climate policy and action. Indeed, things look pretty bleak down under: both your federal government and the Queensland Labor government are pushing for Indian company Adani to open the world’s largest coalmine in the Galilee Basin – against the wishes of the land’s traditional owners, who are fighting back in the courts. The federal government is bullying the states to drop renewable energy targets and pressuring them to open up gas exploration on farmland; they are scrapping funding to renewable energy bodies, while pouring money into new fossil fuel ones. On the climate sanity front, it’s not a pretty sight.
It is a sad indictment that your federal government perceives climate change to be an effective wedge to score cheap political points off its opposition. It is a dangerous game in which no one wins.
Indeed, it’s becoming manifestly clear that all of us around the world stand to lose from this retrovision, including such short-sighted politicians as your environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and former prime minister Tony Abbott, who would seemingly see the world burn before they were willing to take genuine climate change action.
Well, the world is burning. As 2016 grinds to a close, we now know it has been the hottest year on record – meaning 16 out of the hottest 17 years on record have happened this century. The Great Barrier Reef is still ghostly white, and a record drought grips much of Australia. The Arctic is experiencing extraordinarily hot sea surface and air temperatures, which are expected to see record lows of sea ice at the North Pole next year.
But as your government sleepwalks, Australians – like growing numbers of people everywhere – are taking effective climate action on a scale not seen anywhere else on the planet.
This week, a new report was released – by global financial outfit Arabella – charting the global trajectory of the fossil fuel divestment movement. Divestment, quite simply, is the opposite of an investment – it means getting rid of stocks, bonds or investment funds that are unethical or morally ambiguous. And the numbers are astonishing: more than 690 institutions representing almost $A7 trillion and countless individuals worldwide now make up the fossil-free movement.
This is all from a small movement that started on United States college campuses barely four years ago. The divestment campaign was initially based on the apartheid divestment campaign, grounded in the moral case. But what we’ve found in four years is that it is now about real money. Take note Australian politicians: while you dither, the money is moving out of fossil fuels.
Indeed, removed from the highly charged and partisan federal space, your local institutions are actively working behind the scenes to strip the fossil fuel industry of its funding and the social licence it needs to operate.
Australia has more divested institutions per capita than any other developed country, and is second only in number of divestments to the US. Of this, 30 local councils have divested from fossil fuels and one in 10 Australians now live in a fossil-free council. These councils range from progressive, inner-city councils such as Moreland and Leichhardt, to former coal towns such as Newcastle, and rural councils such as Mount Alexander and Ballina.
In the mining state of Western Australia, about one-quarter of all residents now live in councils that have divested – that is 2.5 times the national average.
But the fossil-free movement goes beyond councils. Superannuation funds, universities, churches and health institutions have also pledged to shift their investments away from coal, oil and gas.
The campaign for universities to divest is rapidly picking up speed. Already six Australian public universities have divested, with the University of Technology Sydney recently announcing its intention to divest in the new year.
As the intellectual compass of our society, universities are a particularly strong plank of the divestment movement. The ideas and debates that happen within university walls often seep into society and shape the issues of the day. So it makes sense that students and staff are calling on the world’s universities to put their money where their morals are and stop funding an industry that is destroying the climate.
The question they raise is a good one, and one all world governments would do well to consider: How can you purport to care about our future when our own actions and investments are driving the biggest threat to that future? At a time when the Australian government is refusing to take serious climate action, divestment signals a very real way forward.
Take your Big Four banks, for example, who have lent $70 billion to new fossil fuel projects since 2008. They and other global lenders can help decide the future of such projects as the Adani coalmine – a climate time bomb. To go ahead, that mine will almost certainly need funding, and lenders have a choice as to whether to be part of a project that threatens a safe climate future.
This is where the power of divestment is manifest: as more and more institutions move away from banks such as Commonwealth, which has handed $2.2 billion to the fossil fuel industry since publicly committing to align its lending with a 2ºC world, the pressure it places on these institutions will, I believe, make fossil fuels as toxic to investors as tobacco. Add to this the ever-increasing risk of fossil fuels becoming stranded assets.
If your government won’t be accountable on climate, we can force financial institutions to take note. And some already have. The NAB has ruled out funding Adani’s mega coalmine; Australia’s biggest super fund has felt the wind of change and is now offering a “fossil-free option”; La Trobe University and Queensland University of Technology have dumped their investments in the worst coal, oil and gas companies; dozens of local governments have favoured banks that don’t lend to fossil fuels over those that do.
While it’s disheartening to see climate change deniers taking centre stage in the political arena, it’s inspiring to see what people, communities, universities, churches can do on their own. Every day the momentum is growing – politicians must either heed the call or risk becoming irrelevant as the world moves from polluting fossil fuels to the clean energy future.

Links

• Truth about Australia’s coal industry and climate policy
• Josh Frydenberg's approach to environment and energy
• The links between big polluters and politicians
• How the Minerals Council of Australia has govt’s ear on coal
• Australia must join gobal effort to meet climate budget