Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[viper37]

During the annual World Summit in Vienna, Lower Austria's governor Johanna Milk-Leiter (ÖVP) was asked what people could do against climate change in their daily lives. She said, "It starts with simple things, like clothing. You don't need 10 ball gowns, 3 are plenty." (She later apologized, saying that while she stands by the core of her message - more sustainable fashion/clothing decisions, considering keeping clothes for longer etc. - the chosen example may have come across as aloof or out of touch.)

She's a governor. If she wasn't wearing a ball gown to public reception, she would be instantly criticized by all the medias. :roll:

So, yeah, she's right.

[Syt]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/04/spain-and-portugal-suffering-driest-climate-for-1200-years-research-shows

Spain and Portugal suffering driest climate for 1,200 years, research shows

Effects of human-caused global heating are blocking vital winter rains, with severe implications for farming and tourism

Spain and Portugal are suffering their driest climate for at least 1,200 years, according to research, with severe implications for both food production and tourism.

Most rain on the Iberian peninsula falls in winter as wet, low-pressure systems blow in from the Atlantic. But a high-pressure system off the coast, called the Azores high, can block the wet weather fronts.

The researchers found that winters featuring "extremely large" Azores highs have increased dramatically from one winter in 10 before 1850 to one in four since 1980. These extremes also push the wet weather northwards, making downpours in the northern UK and Scandinavia more likely.

The scientists said the more frequent large Azores highs could only have been caused by the climate crisis, caused by humanity's carbon emissions.

"The number of extremely large Azores highs in the last 100 years is really unprecedented when you look at the previous 1,000 years," said Dr Caroline Ummenhofer, at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, and part of the research team.

"That has big implications because an extremely large Azores high means relatively dry conditions for the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterranean," she said. "We could also conclusively link this increase to anthropogenic emissions."

The Iberian peninsula has been hit by increasing heatwaves and droughts in recent years and this year May was the hottest on record in Spain. Forest fires that killed dozens of people in the region in 2017 followed a heatwave made 10 times more likely by the climate crisis, while the Tagus River, the longest in the region, is at risk of drying up completely, according to environmentalists.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, analysed weather data stretching back to 1850 and computer models replicating the climate back to AD850. It found that, before 1850 and the start of significant human greenhouse gas emissions, extremely large Azores highs occurred once every 10 years on average.

From 1850 to 1980, the frequency was once every seven years, but after 1980 this rose to every four years. Data showed that extremely large Azores highs slash average monthly rainfall in winter by about a third. Further data from chemical analysis of stalagmites in caves in Portugal show that low rainfall correlates closely with large Azores highs.

The computer simulations of the climate of the past millennium cover a period up to 2005. But other studies covering later years are consistent with new findings and the Azores high is expected to continue to expand, further increasing drought on the Iberian peninsula, until global carbon emissions are cut to net zero.

"[Our findings] have big implications for the water resources that are available for agriculture and other water intensive industries or for tourism," said Ummenhofer. "It doesn't bode well." Spain was the second most popular country for overseas tourists in 2019, hosting 84 million visitors.

Spain also is the world's biggest producer of olives and a major source of grapes, oranges, tomatoes and other produce. But rainfall has been declining by 5-10mm a year since 1950, with a further 10-20% drop in winter rains anticipated by the end of the century.

Other research has projected a 30% decline in olive production in southern Spain production by 2100 and a fall in grape-growing regions across the Iberian peninsula of 25% to 99% by 2050 due to severe water shortages. Research in 2021 also linked the Azores high to the summer monsoon in India.

[Josquius]

I become increasingly convinced the end goal in many ways resembles the 1930s with regards to life style - cars for the rich and those who really love cars, vans for businesses, everyone else relies on public transport, bikes or walks.

The trouble is getting from the stage we are now where many peoples lives are built around the unsustainable late 20th century car focused life.

Petrol prices going up is good and should do the trick but it's hard to get people to admit that maybe the car is the problem rather than the price.

[The Larch]

Spain and Portugal suffering driest climate for 1,200 years, research shows

Can confirm that this year is being as described, even in places that weren't like that in normal years. I live in what is possibly the wettest region in the country, and we've had an extremely dry winter and spring, with only a fraction of the regular rainfall. At the same time, other parts of the coutnry got traditional summer events like short term heat waves or forest fires much earlier than usual. I was in Seville in mid May and the temperatures we had wouldn't have been out of place in the middle of the summer. Regarding wildfires, I really fear for this summer, as everything is in place for a really bad season of them.

As for further consequences regarding lower agricultural yields, it's quite disheartening how in some parts our agricultural sector doesn't seem to want to realize that things can't be kept going as usual in the future, and insist on some really water hungry crops being cultivated disregarding the dire situation of water resources in their areas.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKGZdok74f8

Climate protestors shut down Tour de France.

[Valmy]

One would think climate protestors would be in favor of bicycles.

[Admiral Yi]

One would think climate protestors would be in favor of bicycles.

And commuter trains for that matter.  Not sure why they're angry at the NBA.

[Valmy]

Now shutting down F1 races, that would make sense.

[crazy canuck]

Now shutting down F1 races, that would make sense.

There are more cars on the road during the tour than during an F1 race.

[mongers]

I think the current heat emergency will convince a fair few extra people that 'we' are definitely screwing up our shared climate.

[viper37]

ever the optimist?

[Josquius]

I think the current heat emergency will convince a fair few extra people that 'we' are definitely screwing up our shared climate.

you'd hope but Facebook is full of denialist bollocks.
Ranging from attempts at humour about how the weather is just trying to scare us and sunny days used to be heralded as awesome news to back in 75 it was the same and it just happens sometimes.

Even saw one nutter saying the council gritters being out spreading sand was also some corrupt heads in trough scheme as in dubai the roads don't melt

Fucked my plans either way. Was meant to be putting tiles on my roof.

[crazy canuck]

I think the current heat emergency will convince a fair few extra people that 'we' are definitely screwing up our shared climate.

I like your optimism, but the people who don't already understand that we are in a climate emergency are not going to be persuaded by hot weather.

It's going to take consistent messaging in all media.  And that is not going to happen.

When people are told we are quickly running out of time to prevent disaster, there is still a lot of denial.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It appears England is burning up, with typical European ill-preparedness for any form of heat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/18/britain-europe-heatwave-record-temperatures/

U.K. braces for record temperatures as 'heat apocalypse' hits Europe

By Rick Noack and William Booth
Updated July 18, 2022 at 10:50 a.m. EDT|Published July 18, 2022 at 5:02 a.m. EDT

PARIS — Britain is bracing this week for what could be its hottest day ever recorded, while French authorities warned of a "heat apocalypse" and emergency services across Europe confronted spreading wildfires and rising death tolls.

British authorities declared a national emergency and for the first time issued a "red extreme" heat warning for large parts of England, while France's meteorological service placed a stretch of its Atlantic coast under the highest-possible alert level.

Heat records were toppled in several places in France and Britain on Monday. More records could fall later in the day or on Tuesday, with Britain expecting temperatures of up to 106 degrees (41 Celsius) — far above the current record of 101.7 degrees (38.7 Celsius), which was set in 2019. Temperatures in France were expected to top 104 degrees (40 Celsius).

Nikos Christidis, a climate attribution researcher at Britain's weather service, the Met Office, said it reflected scientists' expectation that climate change is making extreme heat events more frequent.

"The chances of seeing 40°C days in the U.K. could be as much as 10 times more likely in the current climate than under a natural climate unaffected by human influence," he said in a statement.

Across Europe, the human toll of the continent's most recent heat wave was becoming increasingly visible Monday. Thousands more people were expected to be evacuated amid rapidly spreading wildfires in Spain, France and Portugal. Authorities warned that the heat would degrade air quality in major urban population centers, and hundreds were feared dead from the high temperatures. Much of Italy's north, which is facing one of its worst droughts in decades, remained under a state of emergency.

In many parts of France and Spain, firefighting services and hospitals were increasingly under strain. France's Interior Ministry announced it would deploy hundreds of additional firefighters to the most severely hit regions, including the popular beaches and vacation spots on the country's west coast. In Spain, authorities said in many places, the available firefighting planes were already working at capacity.

"Full solidarity with firefighters and disaster victims," wrote French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Twitter. Her Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, on Sunday paid tribute on Twitter to a dead emergency service worker.

Hospital unions in France and other countries warned that the heat is putting an additional burden on services that were already dealing with a renewed rise in coronavirus-linked hospitalizations in recent weeks.

Models by Spain's public Carlos III Health Institute estimate that at least 350 people died last week as a result of country's heat — far above the weekly average of about 60 deaths but largely comparable to the toll of similar heat episodes in prior years. The institute reported more than 800 heat-linked deaths last month, when similarly scorching temperatures hit the country and other parts of Europe, with temperatures reaching between 104 and 110 degrees (40 to 43 Celsius).

The number of fatalities could still rise above the estimates — it sometimes takes days or weeks until authorities have a clear understanding of heat-linked death tolls, which are difficult to estimate in real time.

The U.K. Health Security Agency issued its highest level-four heat alert, warning illness and death could occur "among the fit and healthy." Public health officials predicted that thousands of excess deaths could occur, even as some skeptics considered it hype.

Conservative Party lawmaker John Hayes told the Telegraph newspaper, "this is not a brave new world but a cowardly new world where we live in a country where we are frightened of the heat."

But Britain isn't designed for extreme heat.

Very few homes have air conditioning and instead houses have traditionally been built to retain heat. Maintenance crews were spreading sand on the highways to keep the roads from, yes, melting.

Penny Endersby, the chief operating officer of the Met Office, called the forecast temperatures "absolutely unprecedented."

She acknowledged that while many Britons usually enjoyed a spell of sunny warmth, "this is not that sort of weather," Endersby said. "Our lifestyles and our infrastructure are not adapted to what is coming."

In London, workers wrapped the historic Hammersmith Bridge over the River Thames in silver insulation foil to protect the cast-iron spans from cracking.

Transportation officials advised passengers to stay away and ordered trains to slow down as maintenance crews were on the lookout for steel tracks bending and buckling in the heat.

A Network Rail manager, Jake Kelly, told BBC Radio on Monday morning that the system was under "exceptional stress."

"Our railway is made up of lots of components, many of them metal, which expand in the heat," Kelly said.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan warned riders to avoid all public transit, including the Underground, "unless absolutely necessary." The subway becomes a sauna on hot days. The system, parts of which date to the Victorian Age, has never seen the temperatures like those that are forecast.

In France, national railway operator SNCF similarly urged travelers to carry water bottles and to be prepared for delays.

This heat wave — already one of a series in Europe this year — has revived a debate over how to prepare citizens for the impact of climate change.

While environmental concerns over the use of air conditioning remain widespread in Europe, with as many as 75 percent of all French having no air conditioning, it is increasingly seen as a key tool to protect the most vulnerable groups.

After a heat wave killed an estimated 15,000 people in France in 2003, French nursing homes developed emergency plans. Many of them are now equipped with air-conditioned rooms, additional ventilation, or sprinklers that cool down building facades.

In Paris, city authorities encouraged residents and tourists to use a dedicated website to find 900 "islands of coolness," including city parks, cemeteries, swimming pools and museums. The site also points to dedicated "cooling routes" — for example, streets with lush trees — that connect those spaces. Some buildings are using cool water pipes as a more environmentally-friendly alternative to air conditioning.

Studies suggest that such measures have brought down heat-related mortality since 2003, which has encouraged more adaptation plans in cities like Paris. Over the next few years, the French capital wants to plant tens of thousands of additional trees, amid hopes that they may help to lower air and surface temperatures in cobblestone squares and asphalt roads that trap the heat.

But as climate change progresses, the increasingly brutal heat islands that build up in urban areas could pose risks that may be beyond conventional solutions — even today, the difference in temperatures between Paris and its greener surroundings can at times approach 18 degrees (10 degrees Celsius). People living in poorer areas, who are more likely to live in unrenovated buildings and without easy access to green spaces, are particularly impacted. Many of the elderly residents who died in recent heat waves in France were at home and not in nursing facilities.

In rural areas, heat waves are expected to have an increasingly serious impact on agricultural production. This year, French farmers faced a mix of frost, a record-hot May accompanied by a spring drought, intense hailstorms that brought heavy rain this year, followed by more drought this summer.

"The drought in much of Europe is critical," the European Commission's research branch concluded in a report released on Monday, which warned that "a staggering portion of Europe" — about half of the E.U.'s and U.K.'s territory — is now at risk of drought.

Booth reported from London.

The part about wrapping a bridge in tin foil to prevent it from cracking is kind of shocking.

[Duque de Bragança]

It appears England is burning up, with typical European ill-preparedness for any form of heat.

40°C+ in wet and windy Albion is not any form of heat. A/C in the UK is overkill, most of the time, and going full A/C has its share of drawbacks (not just sore throats in the summer), specially in a time of infectious airborne diseases, not just in the UK.
Also mentioning European ill-preparedness by choosing the most insular and unused to heat at home Brits is weak trolling at best. Tuesday will have record temperates for the UK.
 
Given the drinking habits of Brits in Southern Europe when temperatures reach such heights, this is going to be a couple of busy days for emergency services.

Parks over here close at midnight, instead of the regular 21.30 summer schedule.