Rising Sea, Collapsing Ice

Articles in Nature Climate Change and The Cryosphere indicate that global sea levels have rising faster than previously thought, and that the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica is thinning from above and below.

Update (May 22):  A study published in Science indicates that glaciers along the southern Antarctic Peninsula coast have been losing about 56 billion tons of ice per year since 2009.  It's being driven by warmer water melting the undersides of ice shelves.

Update (July 10):  Looking at past warm periods, a study published in Science projects a 20 foot sea level rise even if warming is held to 2 degrees Celsius.  The melting will take at least 200 years with a loss of 48,000 square miles of land in the U.S. which is home to 15 percent of the population.

Peak global mean temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide, maximum global mean sea level (GMSL), and source(s) of meltwater.  Light blue shading indicates uncertainty of GMSL maximum. Red pie charts over Greenland and Antarctica denote fraction (not location) of ice retreat

Update (July 20):  A study by lead author James Hansen (not yet peer reviewed) argues that sea level could rise by 10 feet by the end of this century.  Even 2 degrees Celsius of warming is considered "highly dangerous".

Update (July 23):  The study by Hansen, et al is blunt:

There is evidence of ice melt, sea level rise to [plus 5 through 9 meters], and extreme storms in the prior interglacial period that was less than 1 [degree Celsius] warmer than today.

A relatively rapid rise in sea level will be quite destructive.  The timing depends on how fast the rate of melting doubles.

Doubling times of 10, 20 or 40 years yield sea level rise of several meters in 50, 100 or 200 years.

Recent ice sheet melt rates have a doubling time near the lower end of the 10 [to] 40 year range. We conclude that 2 [degree Celsius] global warming above the preindustrial level, which would spur more ice shelf melt, is highly dangerous.

Update (July 27):  More from James Hansen.  I suppose this study deserved its own entry, but it's not in final form.  It suggests sea level rise may be greater and faster than already anticipated.

Update (November 13):  A study published in Science finds that the Zachariae glacier in northeast Greenland is rapidly retreating. By itself, it would contribute one and a half feet of sea level rise.

Update (November 19):  A study by lead author Catherine Ritz published in Nature seems to dispute a large contribution from Antarctica to sea level rise by 2100. A 10 cm contribution is given as the mostly likely outcome.

Update (January 17, 2016):  More about Zachariae and the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream.

Update (July 2, 2017):  An international study finds that the rate of sea level rise has increased from 2.2 millimeters per year in 1993 to 3.3 millimeters per year in 2014. Greenland's contribution to that rate of change increase from 5 percent in 1993 to 25 percent in 2014.

A separate study finds that Greenland's surface melting is driven by decreasing cloud cover more than just rising temperatures.

Simple

I don't recall coming across this quote before.  It seems to be attributed to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez (though it still might not be original) and I'm glad one Presidential candidate has picked up on it.

Nobody who works 40 hours a week should have to live in poverty.

Time to Listen

The death of yet another young, Black man at the hands of the police in Baltimore sparked protests which morphed into riots.  As usual, a heap of unwarranted blame is placed on the victims.

Julia Blount needs to be heard:

This post originally appeared on Julia Blount's Facebook page. 

Dear White America, 

It is somewhat strange to address this to you, given that I strongly identify with many aspects of your culture and am half-white myself. Yet, today is another day you have forced me to decide what race I am — and, as always when you force me — I fall decidedly into “Person of Color.” 

Every comment or post I have read today voicing some version of disdain for the people of Baltimore — “I can’t understand” or “They’re destroying their own community” or “Destruction of Property!” or “Thugs” — tells me that many of you are not listening. I am not asking you to condone or agree with violence. I just need you to listen. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but instead of forming an opinion or drawing a conclusion, please let me tell you what I hear: 

I hear hopelessness
I hear oppression
I hear pain
I hear internalized oppression
I hear despair
I hear anger
I hear poverty 

If you are not listening, not exposing yourself to unfamiliar perspectives, not watching videos, not engaging in conversation, then you are perpetuating white privilege and white supremacy. It is exactly your ability to not hear, to ignore the situation, that is a mark of your privilege. People of color cannot turn away. Race affects our lives every day. We must consider it all the time, not just when it is convenient. 

As a person of color, even if you are privileged your whole life, as I have been, you cannot escape from the shade of your skin. Being a woman defines me; coming from a relatively affluent background defines me; my sexual orientation, my education, my family and my job define me. Other than being a woman, every single one of those distinctions gives me privilege in our society. Yet, even with all that privilege, people still treat me differently 

For most of my childhood, I refused to allow race to be my most defining feature. I actually chose for most of my childhood to refuse race as my most defining feature. But I found that a very hard position to maintain, given the way the world interacts with me and the people I love. Because I have to worry about my brother and my cousins getting stopped by the police. Because people react to my wonderful, kind, intelligent father differently, depending on whether he’s wearing a suit or sweat pants. Race has defined the way I see the world like no other characteristic has.

This can be hard to understand, if you never experienced it firsthand. So again, for just one more moment, reserve your judgments and listen. This is what you might come to realize, if you spent your days in my skin.

In childhood: People regularly ask “What are you” instead of “Who are you?” This will not end, either. In high school, one kid even asks if you are “Mulatto,” which, according to some scholars, originally meant “little mule.”

A few years later: Go on a road trip with your mom. Refuse to get out of the car at a gas station in the boondocks, because you are sure the person with the Confederate flag bumper sticker is going to realize your white mother married a black man and hurt her (and you too, being the byproduct of said union). He’s carrying a rifle on a gun rack. Now even more terrifying.

As a teenager: Be the only person of color in the majority of your Advanced Placement classes, even though there are a decent number of brown and black people at your school. For years following 9/11, get “randomly” selected for the additional screening at the airport.

In college: People assume you got into Princeton because of affirmative action. They refuse to believe it could be because you are smart.

In adulthood: Your younger brother has been stopped in his own neighborhood — the neighborhood he has lived in all his life – and asked what he could possibly be doing there.

At your workplace: For two years in a row the NYPD shows up randomly at the school you work at, which has a 100 percent minority student body. The first time the police don’t even tell the school beforehand. The cops just show up early in the morning, set up a metal detector and X-ray scanner, and fill the cafeteria with dozens of policemen. As your young students file in in the morning, the NYPD scans them like they’re going through airport security right after 9/11. They confiscate cellphones, and pat some of students down, particularly the older-looking boys. As you watch this, you feel anger welling up in your chest and almost start to cry. You think, “Why are you treating my kids like criminals?!” Children are in tears. The screenings are not due to any specific threat, but rather as part of a “random screening program” — but one that never seems to make its way to the Upper East Side. White America’s children are told they can go to college, be anything. These students are treated like suspects. And that is exactly what society will tell your children one day, unless something changes.

Today, tomorrow, every day: White people around you refuse to talk about what is happening in this country. The silence is painful to experience.

These are my experiences. They have deeply affected who I am. And I am SO PRIVILEGED. Mine has been a decidedly easy life for a person of color in America. I try to conceptualize what it is like for my students who got wanded by the NYPD, my students who have been stopped and frisked, my students whose parents work multiple jobs, my students on free and reduced-price lunch, my students whom white adults move away from because they look “scary.”

I try, when I can, to listen to them, because only by validating their feelings can we begin to find a way to overcome the challenges they face. That doesn’t mean I let them off easy when they do something wrong. But I try to understand the why.

I don’t need you to validate anyone’s actions, but I need you to validate what black America is feeling. If you cannot understand how experiences like mine or my students’ would lead to hopelessness, pain, anger, and internalized oppression, you are still not listening. So listen. Listen with your heart.

If you got this far, thank you. By reading this, you have shown you are trying. Continue the conversation, ask questions, learn as much as you can, and choose to engage. Only by listening and engaging can we move forward.

Black is Beautiful and Black Lives Matter,

Julia

Weather Extremes

A paper by Erich Fischer and Reto Knutti at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science determines that 75 percent of rare, hot days can be attributed to climate change.

It is the most rare and extreme events for which the largest fraction is anthropogenic, and that contribution increases nonlinearly with further warming.

Fischer explains:

Climate change doesn’t ‘cause’ any single weather event in a deterministic sense. But a warmer and moister atmosphere does clearly favor more frequent hot and wet extremes.

Update (July 17):  Two studies show that climate change is already making extreme weather events worse.

Update (May 30, 2019):  A preliminary count shows 500 tornado observations in the past 30 days.

Bill Bunting, the [U.S. Storm Prediction Center's] chief of forecast operations, told Bloomberg on Wednesday that only four other 30-day periods in the official record — in 2003, 2004, 2008 and 2011 — saw an excess of 500 tornado reports.

Less Education and Less Pay

A report from the Hamilton Project shows that workers will less education lost income between 1990 and 2013.  There is both a shift to lower-paying occupations and downward pressure on pay.

Warmest March

Do I get to start over with a new list of temperature records?  According to NOAA, last month was the warmest March since records began.  It beat the 2010 record for March by 0.05 degrees Celsius.

Update (June 19):  And now the warmest May.  Beating the 2014 record for May by 0.08 degrees Celsius.

Update (July 18):  And now a tie (with 1998) for the warmest June according to NASA.

Update (July 20):  NOAA agrees--June broke last year's record by 0.12 degrees Celsius.  The first six months of 2015 are also the warmest first half year.

Update (August 15):  And now the warmest July. A strong El Nino event is likely to make 2015 the warmest year on record. I'm not sure if this makes last month the warmest ever in weather records.

Update (August 20):  So, yes, last month was the warmest on Earth since records began.  The average of 16.6 degrees Celsius is 0.08 degree warmer than the previous record from July 1998.

Update (September 20):  And now the warmest August. Also the warmest summer.

Update (October 13):  And now the warmest September according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

Update (November 17):  And now the warmest October.  Last month was the largest anomaly of the 1600 month temperature record.

Update (December 16):  And now the warmest November.  Last month was 0.25 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous record.

Update (December 22):  This is what this year looks like compared to the six warmest years.

Good One

This really does sum it up:

Stephen KingVerified account‏@StephenKing

Cruz, Paul and Rubio, all running for President. Hey, I thought I was supposed to write the horror stories.

Update (July 20):  I'm worried this guy won't make it to the first Republican debate.  And I was really looking forward to that fiasco.

Update (February 15, 2016):  Who really scares King?