Ghostly Satellite Image Captures The Arctic ‘Losing Its Soul’

Atlas Obscura - Gemma Tarlach

In the aftermath of an extreme melt event, what do scientists see in the Greenland Ice Sheet’s swirls of white, blue, and ominous gray? 

In a satellite image of the Greenland Ice Sheet's southwestern corner, captured on August 21, 2021, pale blue meltwater streams across ice or collects in slushy depressions. The deeper blue areas are meltwater lakes with depths up to about 30 feet. European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery

“We started hearing a noise, like breaking, or coins falling,” says Marco Tedesco, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

He makes a loud, sustained crunching sound, recreating what he and his team heard, years earlier, while doing fieldwork on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Below the surface of the ice near where they were standing, a flood had begun. “The water below starts to move but you still have snow on top,” Tedesco says of the phenomenon. As the flowing water gains momentum, overlying snow and ice give way and reveal a meltwater stream or river.

What Tedesco describes is a small-scale seasonal melt event, one of many that occur every summer at the lower-elevation edges of the Greenland Ice Sheet, an expanse of more than 650,000 square miles that’s second only to the Antarctic Ice Sheet in size. This year, however, things were different.

Following a mid-August heatwave that led to the first-ever recorded rainfall at Summit Camp, at the ice sheet’s highest point, torrents of meltwater streamed across its surface. Climatologists recorded daily melt rates seven times higher than normal.

In the satellite image above of the southwestern corner of the ice sheet, captured on August 21, pale blue water carves extensive channels around islands of bright white ice, or collects in slushy depressions. The left side of the image is darker and, like storm clouds on the horizon, it’s a warning of what’s to come.

The Greenland Ice Sheet, like the rest of the Arctic, is trapped in a feedback loop caused by climate change: As more ice melts, it creates conditions for even faster, more extreme melt events.

“Summer melt is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

“The Arctic is losing its soul,” says Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “The Arctic in so many ways is defined by its snow and ice, in all its forms.”

He adds that, while meltwater runoff at lower elevations is a natural process that has been happening each summer for millennia, “what the image really conveys is how that process of summer melt is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

University of Lincoln climate scientist Edward Hanna says the “quite dramatic” surface meltwater shown in the image is a scene that’s likely to be repeated because “Greenland is breaching a crucial tipping point driven by human-induced climate change.”

For Serreze, who has been studying the Arctic since 1982, the dramatic events in Greenland aren’t a surprise. “We have long known the Arctic would be the place raising the red flags first, and that’s exactly what has happened,” he says.

But it’s still a shock. “To see a rain event at the top of the Greenland Ice Sheet?” He shakes his head in disbelief.

Each summer, meltwater around the edges of the ice sheet carves channels as it travels to the sea, as shown in this 2017 image. The process has been accelerating for decades. Martin Zwick/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Tedesco, author of The Hidden Life of Ice: Dispatches from a Disappearing World, sees something else in both the Summit Camp rain event and the stunning satellite image taken the following week: opportunity.

“To me, it’s really important that we had an unprecedented rain event, to show that these things can happen,” says Tedesco. The Summit Camp rain may help bring wider recognition of something he and his colleagues have known for years.

“These events are strongly connected to the changes we’re imposing on the planet,” says Tedesco, calling Earth “a thermodynamic system so delicate, but powerful.”

Thanks to the satellite image’s “fantastic” quality, Tedesco says, “you can really see the story that’s going on here,” including extensive meltwater ponding on the right side that’s “very likely slush.”

Researchers working on the Greenland Ice Sheet have observed meltwater streams and even rivers forming along its lower-elevation edges in summer months, though the intensity of the activity is increasing. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The left side of the satellite image, Tedesco says, sits close to Greenland’s western coast, and is colored by rock, dust, and other particles deposited by wind, as well as bacteria and other microorganisms. Its darker color accelerates melting because of a phenomenon known as ice-albedo feedback.

“Albedo is a fancy word for how reflective the surface is,” says Serreze. As highly reflective snow and ice melt, the darker surface exposed—rock, open water, or older ice, depending on the location—absorbs more of the sun’s energy and spurs even more intense melting.

“We’re seeing this across the Arctic as we’re losing the sea ice cover and we’re losing the snow cover,” he says.

The vast Greenland Ice Sheet is second only to Antarctica’s in size, and is experiencing unprecedented stress. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

There’s an unexpected wrinkle revealed in the darker portion of the satellite image, however. Tedesco has studied this particular part of the ice sheet; because of the underlying topography and other factors, he and many colleagues believe that at least some of the material staining the ice was originally deposited elsewhere on the sheet, long ago.

“People think this stuff could have been buried in the ice in other places and, with the flow of the ice and increased melting, it’s now exposed,” he says, noting the idea remains largely unstudied. For him, the possibility of ancient material returning to the surface is poignant.

“This image is basically a time machine,” he says, studying the swirls and ripples of white, blue, and gray on his computer monitor with a pensive expression.

“You have, on the right, the future: a patchy, wet, slushy ice sheet. You have in the middle the present, which is basically your ice now, frozen. And you have a very deep past on the left, which is also driving the future because, of course, the darker it is, the more it absorbs sunlight and the faster it melts.”

Links

• (ABC) No Scientific Consensus Yet On Whether Warming Arctic May Lead To More Extreme Weather
• (UK AZoCleantech) Sea Ice In Arctic Coastal Regions Are Thinning Faster Than Previously Thought
• 7 Graphics That Show Why The Arctic Is In Trouble
• The Arctic Hasn’t Been This Warm For 3 Million Years – And That Foreshadows Big Changes For The Rest Of The Planet
• Melting Antarctic Ice Will Raise Sea Level By 2.5 Metres – Even If Paris Climate Goals Are Met, Study Finds
• The Tipping Points At The Heart Of The Climate Crisis
• Land In Russia’s Arctic Blows ‘Like a Bottle Of Champagne’
• 28 Trillion Ton Ice Melt Spells Danger For Sea Level Rise, Climate Change

(USA The Hill) Too Hot For Climate Change: Limiting Population Growth

The Hill - Joseph Chamie

© istock

Author Joseph Chamie is an international consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, "Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters."

Limiting population growth appears simply too hot to handle for many who are concerned about climate change, global warming, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.

Whether it’s in Washington, D.C., Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, Paris, Tokyo, or the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, limiting population growth is not part of climate change negotiations. 

With the world now approaching 8 billion human inhabitants, limiting the demographic growth of nations is not only ignored, but many countries continue to push for the interminable growth of their populations.

The latest landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a devastating future for the world. Recently the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that climate change is a “code red for humanity” and the alarm bells, which have been ringing for years, are deafening.

And in addition to droughts, floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, water scarcity, wildfires, air pollution and other climate-induced changes, the hottest month for the planet in 142 years of recorded measurement was July 2021. Nevertheless, governments and others continue to maintain a solid green light for the growth of their populations.

Some have made the claim that the climate emergency is a result of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and not population growth. However, a universal agreement exists that birds, fish, insects, other wildlife, and plant life on the planet are not responsible for burning fossil fuels and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Logically then, it seems reasonable to conclude, as the IPCC has done, that human populations are responsible for burning fossil fuels and the increases in greenhouse gas emissions. It also seems reasonable to conclude that while certainly not the entire solution, limiting the growth of populations would make it easier to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, cut greenhouse gas emissions and address other environmental concerns. 

Despite widespread recognition that humans are “unequivocally” to blame for climate change, limiting the growth of populations is largely taboo and, with few exceptions, remains off the table during negotiations of climate change, global warming, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. 

In 1988, when the IPCC, James Hanson and others warned the world about greenhouse emissions, climate change, rising sea levels and biodiversity threats, the world population was 5 billion.

Today, approximately a generation later, the world population has reached nearly 8 billion. Also over that period, the populations of today’s top three contributors to greenhouse emissions, China, the United States and India, increased by 27, 35 and 66 percent, respectively. 

In both developed and developing countries continue to adopt policies, establish measures, and promote messages encouraging the growth of their populations. Most aim to raise low birth rates, but also, in some cases, increase immigration levels.  

For example, China, with a population of 1.4 billion and a fertility rate of 1.3 births per woman, recently introduced a three-child policy with supporting measures directed at raising the country’s birth rate and avoiding population slowdowns.

In addition to China, more than 50 countries have policies to increase their fertility rates, including Australia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey.

The United States, with a population of 333 million and a fertility rate of 1.6 births per woman, is proposing policies to facilitate child-rearing as well as increasing immigration to the levels of the recent past, approximately 1.1 million per year.

With limited future immigration, the size of America’s population is projected to remain largely stabilized over the next 40 years. A stabilized U.S. population would make it far easier to deal with climate change and other critical environmental concerns.

In addition, African countries are expected to contribute 60 percent of world population growth over the next three decades, with a dozen of them projected to have their populations double by midcentury, including Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia and Tanzania.

Increased national efforts and international assistance, in such areas as education, employment, nutrition, health, gender equality and family planning, will be needed to expedite the demographic transition from high to low death and birth rates in sub-Saharan African countries.

It is important to recognize that continued population growth is basically a Ponzi scheme. It is a demographic pyramid strategy for interminable population growth that benefits some people at the expense of human wellbeing and sustainability. Prominent among the factors behind Ponzi demography are the three Ps: profits, power and politics.

Profits from population growth largely benefit businesses and the wealthy while the many costs of demographic growth are socialized and passed on to the public.

Power, governments and others believe, is derived in part from expanding, larger and youthful populations.

Politics lead to partisan calls from political and other leaders for more of us and fewer of others for voting power, leadership authority, ethnic preeminence, sociocultural dominance and economic gain.

Certainly, the findings and recommendations of the IPCC, the Paris Agreement, the International Energy Agency and others need to be seriously considered by governments and the public when dealing with climate change, global warming, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. 

Some of the measures to address those issues include eliminating fossil fuels, shifting to renewables and low-emissions energy, a carbon tax, restoring ecosystems, switching to mostly plant-based diets and adjusting economic growth to reflect the true environmental costs of goods and services. To those measures, limiting the growth of human populations should be added.

The United States, China and India, which together contribute 50 percent of global greenhouse emissions, could provide leadership and be exemplary models for countries worldwide by moving away from the continued growth of their populations. 

Simply stated, while not the entire solution, stabilized and declining national populations across the entire planet will make it far easier for countries to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions as well more effectively address environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, natural resource depletion, and pollution.

Links

• Avoiding A ‘Ghastly Future’: Hard Truths On The State Of The Planet
• Curb Population Growth To Tackle Climate Change: Now That’s A Tough Ask
• The Planet Is Dying Faster Than We Thought
• Worried About Earth’s Future? Well, The Outlook Is Worse Than Even Scientists Can Grasp
• (AU) Bob Brown Is Right – It’s Time Environmentalists Talked About The Population Problem
• More Than 1 Billion People Face Displacement By 2050: Report
• Birth Control And Books Can Slow Down Climate Change
• As Earth’s Population Heads To 10 Billion, Does Anything Australians Do On Climate Change Matter?
• Climate Explained: How Growth In Population And Consumption Drives Planetary Change
• Climate Change Is Likely To Devastate The Global Food Supply. But There's Still Reason To Be Hopeful
• A More Resilient World: The Role Of Population And Family Planning In Sustainable Development

(France 24) Nearly 30% Of 138,000 Assessed Species Face Extinction, Says IUCN Report

France 24 - AFP

A Komodo dragon is seen on Komodo island, Indonesia, April 30 2009. © Dita Alangkara, AP

Nearly 30 percent of the 138,374 species assessed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its survival watchlist are now at risk of vanishing in the wild forever, as the destructive impact of human activity on the natural world deepens.

Trapped on island habitats made smaller by rising seas, Indonesia's Komodo dragons were listed as "endangered" on Saturday, in an update of the wildlife Red List that also warned overfishing threatens nearly two-in-five sharks with extinction.

But the latest update of the Red List for Threatened Species also highlights the potential for restoration, with four commercially fished tuna species pulling back from a slide towards extinction after a decade of efforts to curb overexploitation.

#UPDATE About 28 percent of the 138,000 species assessed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature for its survival watchlist are now at risk of vanishing in the wild, as the destructive impact of human activity on the natural world deepenshttps://t.co/ER9HjjnBD0 pic.twitter.com/4id7b0OKvF

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 4, 2021

The most spectacular recovery was seen in the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which leapt from "endangered" across three categories to the safe zone of "least concern".

The species - a mainstay of high-end sushi in Japan - was last assessed in 2011.

"These Red List assessments demonstrate just how closely our lives and livelihoods are intertwined with biodiversity," IUCN Director General Bruno Oberle said in a statement.

'Clarion call'

A key message from the IUCN Congress, taking place in the French city of Marseille, is that disappearing species and the destruction of ecosystems are no less existential threats than global warming.

At the same time, climate change itself is casting a darker shadow than ever before on the futures of many species, particularly endemic animals and plants that live uniquely on small islands or in certain biodiversity hotspots.

Komodo dragons -- the world's largest living lizards -- are found only in the World Heritage-listed Komodo National Park and neighbouring Flores.

The species "is increasingly threatened by the impacts of climate change" said the IUCN: rising sea levels are expected to shrink its tiny habitat at least 30 percent over the next 45 years.

Outside of protected areas, the fearsome throwbacks are also rapidly losing ground as humanity's footprint expands.

"The idea that these prehistoric animals have moved one step closer to extinction due in part to climate change is terrifying," said Andrew Terry, Conservation Director at the Zoological Society of London.

Their decline is a "clarion call for nature to be placed at the heart of all decision making" at crunch UN climate talks in Glasgow, he added.

'An alarming rate'

The most comprehensive survey of sharks and rays ever undertaken, meanwhile, revealed that 37 percent of 1,200 species evaluated are now classified as directly threatened with extinction, falling into one of three categories: "vulnerable," "endangered," or "critically endangered".

That's a third more species at risk than only seven years ago, said Simon Fraser University Professor Nicholas Dulvy, lead author of a study published on Monday underpinning the Red List assessment.

"The conservation status of the group as a whole continues to deteriorate, and overall risk of extinction is rising at an alarming rate," he told AFP.

Five species of sawfish - whose serated snouts get tangled in cast off fishing gear - and the iconic shortfin mako shark are among those most threatened.

Chondrichthyan fish, a group made up mainly of sharks and rays, "are important to ecosystems, economies and cultures," Sonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International and co-author of the upcoming study, told AFP.

"By not sufficiently limiting catch, we're jeopardising ocean health and squandering opportunities for sustainable fishing, tourism, traditions and food security in the long term."

The Food and Agriculture Organization reports some 800,000 tonnes of sharks caught -- intentionally or opportunistically -- each year, but research suggests the true figure is two to four times greater.

Conservation tracker

The IUCN on Saturday also officially launched its "green status" -- the first global standard for assessing species recovery and measuring conservation impacts.

"It makes the invisible work of conservation visible," Molly Grace, a professor at the University of Oxford and Green Status co-chair, said at a press conference on Saturday.

In addition to the ongoing mass extinction happening on Earth thanks to human impact, the planet has seen five mass extinction events before in the last 500 million years pic.twitter.com/a499Oi3RaY

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 4, 2021

The new yardstick measures the extent to which species are depleted or recovered compared to their historical population levels, and assesses the effectiveness of past and potential future conservation actions.

Efforts to halt extensive declines in numbers and diversity of animals and plants have largely failed.

In 2019 the UN's biodiversity experts warned that a million species are on the brink of extinction - raising the spectre that the planet is on the verge of its sixth mass extinction event in 500 million years.

"The red list status shows that we're on the cusp of the sixth extinction event," the IUCN's Head of Red List Unit Craig Hilton-Taylor told AFP.  

"If the trends carry on going upward at that rate, we'll be facing a major crisis soon."

World Conservation Congress

Links

• Holocene extinction - Wikipedia
• Earth Is on the Cusp of the Sixth Mass Extinction. Here’s What Paleontologists Want You to Know
• Sixth Mass Extinction of Wildlife Accelerating- Study 
• Live Science Could climate change make humans go extinct?
• Is Climate Change Causing a Mass Extinction?
• The science behind extinction - Stanford Earth

(UK The Guardian) Doctors Stage XR Die-In Outside JP Morgan Offices In London

The Guardian - Diane Taylor

Sixty medical professionals including nurses hold protest to highlight fossil fuel investments

'A duty of care': medics stage XR die-in outside JP Morgan in London

Sixty doctors, nurses and other health professionals have staged a die-in protest outside JP Morgan’s Canary Wharf headquarters in London to highlight the bank’s investment in fossil fuels.

The protest on Friday was organised by one of Extinction Rebellion’s groups, Doctors for Extinction Rebellion. The climate activist medics said this was their biggest protest so far and that JP Morgan was the biggest funder of coal, oil and gas extraction.

The demonstration was part of a two-week series of XR protests against organisations supporting fossil fuels.

The medics delivered a letter referring to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and the International Energy Association’s “net zero by 2050” report.

The words “code red” were sprayed on low walls in front of the building with chalk spray as medics called for the bank to stop investing in fossil fuels, the biggest driver of climate change.

They warned the climate emergency and ecological breakdown was driving a public health crisis.

The group called on JP Morgan to fit its pledges to the IEA report and set an absolute emissions target rather than its current carbon intensity target.

Protesters were told they were not allowed on the pavement ‘because it is private property’. Photograph: Gareth Morris

Canary Wharf’s private security guards swiftly removed the protesters who sat or lay on the pavement. The die-in was staged to symbolise the deaths caused by fossil fuel investment.

Dozens of uniformed police observed while the security guards told protesters and observers they were not allowed to stand on the pavement “because it is private property”.

It is the second time this week JP Morgan has been targeted by protesters. On Wednesday eight female activists used hammers and chisels to break two windows at the bank’s Victoria Embankment office in central London.

On Friday, the group of health professionals, who have received public support from the World Health Organization’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the editor of the Lancet, Dr Richard Horton, delivered a letter addressed to JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon.

They read extracts from a report by the Rainforest Action Network that condemns JP Morgan’s targets to tackle the climate emergency as “flatly insufficient”.

Dr Chris Newman, a GP and co-founder of Doctors for Extinction Rebellion, said: “Climate change is at our door, and has entered our hospitals. JP Morgan is risking the lives of vulnerable children around the world, as well as my patients and my family.”

Dr Grace Thompson, a Gloucestershire GP, said: “These people are killing our kids and killing kids in the global south. We just need to stop investing in fossil fuels. JP Morgan need to make their money in a different way.”

Andrew Stevenson, a consultant trauma surgeon from Somerset, said: “It’s beholden on me to act when I see there’s a risk to my patients and to alert others to that damage. The climate crisis is a public health emergency that even with our best efforts will escalate. If we continue to burn fossil fuels we will burn our children’s future and that of our children’s children.”

JP Morgan has been approached for comment.

'A duty of care': medics stage XR die-in outside JP Morgan in London – video 01:37

Links

• (AU) A Coalition Of 29 Health Groups Are Urging Climate Action In Open Letter To Scott Morrison
• (AU) Australian Doctors Accuse Government Of Failing On Climate Change
• (The Guardian) ‘Do Something’: An Intimate Look At The Personal Lives Of Climate Activists
• (AU) Extinction Rebellion Grandparents Fighting For The Future Of Their Grandchildren
• Greta Thunberg Reflects On Living Through Multiple Crises In A 'Post-Truth Society'
• Rupert Murdoch's British Papers Delayed As Climate Protesters Stop The Presses
• (AU) Hundreds Of Children's Shoes Laid Out In Silent Brisbane Climate Protest
• Quiet Australians Decide It Is Time To Speak Up On Climate Change Action
• Climate Change Protest At Bank 'Necessary And Proportional': Swiss Judge
• (AU) Australia Fire Crisis Fuels Protests Calling For Bolder Action On Climate Change

(AU ABC) Australia Records Near-Record Warmth During The Wettest Winter Since 1996

ABC Weather - Ben Deacon

Australia's average winter temperature this year was our fourth hottest winter on record. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

Key Points Australia has recorded its fourth warmest winter on record It was the wettest winter since 1996 The warm temperatures are in line with increased temperatures due to global warming

Australia has just experienced its fourth-hottest winter since 1910, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

"It has been generally warm just about everywhere," said Simon Grainger, a senior climatologist with the BOM.

"In terms of mean temperatures, it's been in the top 10 warmest winters on record for every state and territory except Western Australia."

This comes despite neither of Australia's two main climate drivers, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) strongly favouring above-average temperatures this winter. 

A lot of Australia saw above-average average daily temperatures this winter. (Supplied: BOM)

The national mean temperature for winter was 1.18 degrees Celsius above the 1961 to 1990 average — the fourth-warmest on record after 1996, 2009 and 2013.

The most pronounced warmth was in the northern tropics, where maximum temperatures were about 2C above average.

Nights were warm too

The mean minimum temperature was 1.08C above average, the ninth-highest on record, with the most pronounced warmth in the northern tropics, Tasmania and Victoria.

Much of Australia experienced warmer-than-average minimum overnight temperatures this winter. (ABC Open: Chris Ferguson)

Mr Grainger said the warmer nights in the south-east were connected to the region experiencing a wetter winter.

"More clouds and more rain keeps more heat in at night," he said.

'The slow creep'

According to Joelle Gergis from the Australian National University, who was also a lead author of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change report, Australia's near-record warm winter was an example of what she described as "the slow creep of climate change". 

"We pay attention to these really dramatic weather extremes," she said.

"But meanwhile in the background, like a frog in a pot, we are starting to warm Australia in ways that are really fundamentally changing our seasonal variability."

ENSO has been inactive this winter, favouring neither warmer nor cooler conditions. (Supplied: BOM)

Dr Gergis said this winter Australia had not seen the usual drivers that we would expect to be associated with above-average temperatures.

"So this is background warming that is playing out," she said. 

"The IPCC is saying it's virtually certain that we're going to see a decrease in the intensity and frequency of cold extremes throughout the 21st century, all over the world. 

"And that certainly includes Australia where we've already seen the warming up of our winters.

The BOM said Australia's climate has warmed on average by 1.44C since national records began in 1910.

Wettest winter in 25 years, still below average

Rainfall for winter was the highest since 1996, yet was still 5 per cent below the 1961 to 1990 average.

How to plan for flooding

If you could be cut off by floodwaters, make preparations. ABC Emergency has put together a list of things you should do if you are affected. Read more

Mr Grainger said a negative IOD influenced rainfall patterns.

"We did get slightly above-average rainfall over parts of eastern Australia," he said.

"Negative IODs tend to bring increased winter and spring rainfall over eastern southern Australia."

Mr Grainger said the wet weather was greatest in June and July, but less so in August.

"There was a little bit of a weakening in the IOD conditions in August, and certainly compared to 2016, which was one of the strongest negative IODs on record and one of the wettest winters," he said.

"We just haven't seen anything anywhere near as strong nor as wet."

Rainfall for winter was 5 per cent below the 1961–1990 average, but was still the highest since 1996. (Supplied: BOM)

Wet in the south-west

Mr Grainger said the south-west of Western Australia had a "good old-fashioned wet winter" this year, after a string of dry years. 

"July rainfall in the south-west was 50 per cent above the 1961 to 1990 year average," he said.

"And for that part of the country, it was the wettest July since 1996."

A young girl stands in a flooded backyard in Mundaring, WA after big rains in July. (Supplied: Ash Lee)

While July's rain meant the winter rainfall for WA's south-west was slightly above average, that's actually only been the fourth time winter rain in the area has been above average since 2000.

The BOM said there has been a decline of about 16 per cent in April to October rainfall in the south-west of Australia since 1970.

Across the same region, May to July rainfall has seen the largest decrease, by about 20 per cent since 1970.

Links

• Hot and gusty spring arrives, but don't pack away the winter woollies yet
• WA town forced to cart water last year records wettest winter on record
• Experts warn wetter seasons risk grassfires alongside growth
• Climate crisis likely creating extreme winter weather events, says report
• ‘Record-shattering’ heat becoming much more likely, says climate study
• Australia records fourth-warmest winter
• Some properties ‘uninsurable’: Price hikes ahead as Queensland takes the heat
• Climate change blamed for havoc in northeast US floods
• Indigenous Women Vital to Climate Action

(AU RenewEconomy) Australia Sets New Records For Highest Renewables Share And Lowest Coal Output

RenewEconomy - Giles Parkinson

Australia’s clean energy transition continues apace with new records being set for the highest share of renewable energy generation, and the lowest output for coal generators.

The new benchmarks were spotted by analyst Dylan McConnell from the Climate and Energy College, using the data from the OpenNEM resource.

They show a new record high share of renewables on Australia’s main grid for a weekday when the combined output of solar, wind and hydro reached 56.2 per cent just before 2pm on Thursday.

This is just short of the 57.1 per cent renewables share reached last Saturday, but the significance is that weekdays generally have higher demand as more industry is operating, so it’s a milestone worth recording.

Source: OpenNEM

Along similar lines, the output of brown coal fell to a weekday low of 2147MW, down 300MW from its previous nadir in August, 2020, although it was also above the weekend low of 1908MW, also set last weekend.

 And the combined output of coal (both the really dirty brown coal generation and the dirty black coal generation) also fell to a new weekday low of 9,937MW, which McConnell notes is a full gigawatt lower than the previous nadir.

Source: OpenNEM

What’s the significance of all this?

They highlight the continuing and accelerating transition from highly polluting “baseload” fossil fuels to cleaner but variable renewable sources such as wind and solar.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has forecast that rooftop solar alone will be meeting up to 76 per cent of demand on Australia’s main grid within five years, which means that coal generators will have to learn to ramp production up or down, or switch off altogether.

Links

• Climate Energy College - University of Melbourne
• Open Platform for National Electricity Market Data (OpenNEM)
• Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)
• Renewables doing heavy lifting in National Electricity Market Clean
• Six ways to invest in renewable energy and support the fight against climate change
• Despite renewables surge Australian energy lags in the dirty dozen
• Regional voters reject gas led recovery, support investment in renewables
• We’re smart enough to solve climate challenge with technologies we already have

(Voice of America) Air Quality, Climate Change Closely Linked

Voice of America - Lisa Schlein

The sun, muted by smoke, is visible in Portland, Ore., Sept. 5, 2017. Dozens of fires across the Western U.S. and Canada blanketed the air with choking smoke from Oregon to Colorado, where health officials issued air quality alerts.

GENEVA - In the first report of its kind, the World Meteorological Organization examines the close link between air quality and climate change and how measures stemming from COVID-19 influenced air quality patterns in 2020.

Government-imposed lockdown measures and travel restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 resulted in a marked improvement in air quality in many parts of the world.

For example, the WMO said Southeast Asia experienced a 40% reduction in air particles in 2020.

However, the chief of the WMO’s Atmospheric Environment Research Division, Oksana Tarasova, said the dramatic fall in emissions of key air pollutants was short-lived.

She said city dwellers who reveled in seeing blue skies during periods of lockdown inactivity, had to again endure living under a pollution cloud once the cars started rolling again.

WMO Chief of atmospheric and environment research division Oksana Tarasova attends a press conference Nov. 25, 2019 in Geneva.

“As soon as mobility has increased, we are back to business as usual," Tarasova said.

"So, those improvements were not very long lasting. And that is why we always stress that the extreme measures which were taken under lockdown is not a substitute for long term policies.”

During this same period, the WMO said extreme weather events fueled by climate and environmental change triggered unprecedented sand and dust storms and wildfires that affected air quality.

In parallel with the human-induced experiment on lockdowns and travel restrictions, Tarasova said those, and other natural phenomena also were controlling air quality around the world.

“There were several very strong events that happened in 2020 related to bio-mass burning where the smoke pollution from this burning bio-mass impacted air quality in large parts of Siberia, the United States," Tarasova said.

"Early in the year, there was an episode in Australia that caused dramatic deterioration of air quality in those parts of the world.”

Smoke from wildfires is seen east of Hobart in the Australian island state of Tasmania Jan. 4, 2013.

The episode Tarasova refers is to Australian wildfires.

The WMO says changes in climate can influence pollution levels directly.

It says the increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves may lead to greater accumulation of pollutants close to the surface. It notes the intense wildfires breaking out in many parts of the world and huge dust and sandstorms also worsen air pollution.

The weather agency warns air pollution has significant impacts on human health. That is borne out by estimates from the latest Global Burden of Disease assessment.

The data show global mortality from pollution nearly doubled from 2.3 million in 1990 to 4.5 million in 2019 — most due to particulate matter.

Links

• Air Quality and Climate Change Research 
• Air Pollution and Climate Change
• Air Quality Explainer - Climate Council
• Air quality improvements from COVID lockdowns confirmed
• The link between climate change and air pollution
• Air pollution and climate change: two sides of the same coin