Global Temp Changes

[billvon 2,673]

It has long been understood that changing the climate will change the weather; make things hotter (or colder) and things will change. However, up until recently the understanding was fairly general - hotter temperatures mean generally greater droughts in dry areas (due to faster evaporation from soil) and stronger storms in wet areas (due to faster evaporation from oceans and lakes.)

However, last year was a bit different. Last year there were three extreme weather events that were not just enhanced by climate change - they were extreme enough that scientists can say with great certainty that they would not have occurred without climate change. In other words, natural variability in the climate could not have pushed these to be so far outside norms.

The first was overall average temperature. There is effectively no way for normal climate change mechanisms to push climate change as fast as we've seen between 1850 and 2016.

The second was the deadly Asian heat wave we saw in 2016. Again, could not have happened without the influence of AGW.

The third were ocean hot spots, including areas in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, and off
northern Australia. This led to massive bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef and one of the largest harmful algal blooms ever off the Alaska shore. This warmth “cannot be explained without anthropogenic climate warming.”

So we now have science that shows us that extreme events are indeed occurring due to manmade climate change.

https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/about-ams/news/news-releases/human-influence-on-climate-led-to-several-major-weather-extremes-in-2016/

[wmw999 2,289]

The selling of ideology is such that if with Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity (or both of them) were to go on air and say they were wrong, and that we did appear to be changing the climate, I think the reaction would be either to accuse them of being sellouts, or just ignoring them (as appears to have happened to Glenn Beck).

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Bob_Church 7]

wmw999

The selling of ideology is such that if with Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity (or both of them) were to go on air and say they were wrong, and that we did appear to be changing the climate, I think the reaction would be either to accuse them of being sellouts, or just ignoring them (as appears to have happened to Glenn Beck).

Wendy P.

I think another big factor is time. Once someone mentions a timeline that includes us, as individuals, as long dead before it happens it gets much easier to believe that it's not real or it is but Science will fix it in time or some excuse.

[kallend 1,793]

Ellicott, MD has two "thousand year floods" in two years.

weather.com/safety/floods/news/2018-05-27-maryland-flooding-baltimore-ellicott-city

Meanwhile we are quite likely to break the record high temperature for May in Chicago today.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 1,793]

Arctic sea ice at record low levels continuously this year so far:

nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Bob_Church 7]

Another thing that can be misleading is increases in routes being blocked by ice. It would seem to indicate more ice but what happens is that as the ice gets thinner it's easier for the wind to break it up and pile it in places where it's not usually a problem.

[kallend 1,793]

Antarctic has lost trillions of tons of ice since 1992.

www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0179-y

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,673]

Bad news first, then the good news.

Coal plant desperate for subsidies so they can continue to operate:
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Owners of coal-fired Somerset power plant seek more tax breaks
By Thomas J. Prohaska
June 13, 2018
The Buffalo News

The Somerset Operating Co. power plant wants a $1 million cut in how much it pays to local governments for its coal-fired power plant in the Town of Somerset on the shores of Lake Ontario.

A new payment-in-lieu-of-taxes arrangement, presented Wednesday to the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, would reduce the plant's total bill to $3 million a year in 2019 and 2020. The company's current PILOT s $4.12 million.

The power plant's first PILOT, in 2006, was $17.3 million.

If the new PILOT is approved, the tax on the plant would be 83 percent less than the 2006 amount. The NCIDA has steadily reduced the figure as the plant has been affected by declining electrical prices. . .
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Another coal plant shutting down and converting to solar for economic reasons:
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Major Coal-Fired Power Plant in Washington to Go Solar
By Starre Vartan
Jun. 13, 2018 08:53AM EST
NRDC

It was once Washington state's largest coal pit, a terraced, open-to-the-sky strip mine, five miles from the city of Centralia and halfway between Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Today, the coal beds are quiet and blanketed in green, but an adjacent TransAlta power plant with three tall stacks still churns out electricity the traditional way, with coal now supplied from Wyoming.

Not for much longer. The coal mine closed in 2006—the last of the state's mines to be shuttered—and then in 2011, TransAlta reached a deal with the state to shut down the plant. One burner will go cold in 2020 and the other by 2025. This move is part of Washington's larger plan to get carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. And it should go a long way toward meeting that goal: Today, in a state that relies on hydropower for most of its energy, the Centralia power plant contributes 10 percent of the state's total greenhouse gases—as much as the emissions from 1.75 million cars.

The plant currently also contributes a good deal of electricity, of course. When the Centralia power plant's smokestacks quit spewing in 2025, it will mean a loss of 1,340 megawatts of energy. (Of that, it currently supplies about 380 megawatts to area homes via Puget Sound Energy, or PSE, the largest power supplier in the state.) To help fill that gap, TransAlta is converting about 1,000 acres of its former mine site to a solar farm. In homage to the old pioneer town of Tono that once stood where the mine now craters the earth, Tono Solar will be the land's next incarnation.
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Plans to subsidize coal to save it will likely fail:
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Trump Wants to Bail Out Coal and Nuclear Power. Here’s Why That Will Be Hard.

By BRAD PLUMER and NADJA POPOVICH
JUNE 13, 2018 NYT

In 2010, the United States had 580 coal-fired power plants. They provided 45 percent of the nation’s electricity.

By March 2018, the number of plants had fallen below 350 and coal’s market share had dropped to 30 percent, mostly because of competition from cheap natural gas, state efforts to boost renewables and stricter pollution rules.

At least 40 more coal plants have announced they will close or reduce capacity by 2025, and others may soon follow. President Trump has asked his energy secretary to take emergency measures to avert these retirements.

When Mr. Trump came into office, he vowed to revive America’s coal mining industry by rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations. But coal keeps getting edged out by cheaper and cleaner alternatives. At least 15.4 gigawatts of coal capacity is set to retire this year, one of the biggest years on record, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. And the coal units that are left now operate far less frequently than they used to, replaced by natural gas, wind and solar power.

For many utilities, the decision to abandon coal comes down to simple economics. Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electric utility, recently concluded that it could save $213 million by retiring two of its older coal-fired units a decade ahead of schedule and replacing them with a mix of wind, solar, battery storage and natural gas.

“We built a lot of our coal fleet 40 years ago, and it’s costly to maintain,” said Joshua D. Rhodes, an energy expert at the University of Texas Austin. “Many utilities are now finding that there are plenty of lower-cost options.”
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[DJL 232]

Quote

At least 15.4 gigawatts of coal capacity is set to retire this year, one of the biggest years on record, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Should we start the clock to see how soon Trump takes credit for this?

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher