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Some reading for the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers”

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Author Topic: Some reading for the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers”  (Read 35897 times)
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #1000 on: November 14, 2017, 06:45:49 pm »

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« Reply #1001 on: November 14, 2017, 06:46:44 pm »


CLICK HERE and learn something.
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« Reply #1002 on: November 14, 2017, 06:47:06 pm »

The loony left excuse of "fake scientists" is pure bullshit. Key sceptical scientists are highly credentialed experts in their field.
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« Reply #1003 on: November 14, 2017, 06:47:45 pm »


from STUFF/Fairfax NZ....

Insurers warn climate change will hit policy
prices and make some properties uninsurable


By GED CANN | 3:35PM - Sunday, 12 November 2017

Otaki resident Tanja Gerritsen, pictured with daughter Kate Osborne, sits on sandbags which permanently decorate her backyard. — Photograph: Maarten Holl.
Otaki resident Tanja Gerritsen, pictured with daughter Kate Osborne, sits on sandbags
which permanently decorate her backyard. — Photograph: Maarten Holl.


HOMEOWNERS could find their insurance price doubling or their homes become uninsurable as climate change takes hold.

Bryce Davies, general manager corporate relations for insurance giant IAG, says the shift towards evaluating properties for their individual climate-change risk has already began, meaning homeowners with properties in flood plains and beachfronts could expect increases.

In the past risks were calculated across communities, with relative hazards spread across many households, meaning insurance costs were effectively lower for those most exposed.

“We know it's going to rain more in some places, we know there will be flooding in some locations, we know the sea level is going to rise and places are going to get drier — those all have impacts on the things that we insure.”

“If they get worse the cost to recover gets higher and therefore the premiums people pay will go up,” Davies said.

“As these things become more certain, our appetite to offer insurance reduces. We insure people against risks — not certainties.”


Bryce Davies, general manager corporate relations at IAG.
Bryce Davies, general manager corporate relations at IAG.

Davies said there were moral considerations to be addressed, because a totally individual risk-based approach risked making insurance unaffordable for some homeowners, leaving them vulnerable.

Tanja Gerritsen's Otaki home has been flooded three times in the past two years, with the latest event after a one-in-eight-year flood of the Otaki River on February 3rd.

After that flood, the Rangiuru Road resident chose not to notify her insurer for fear her premiums would skyrocket or that she'd be declined.

“I thought if I rung again they wouldn't insure me. The third time it was just the garage and the bedroom and I just ripped the carpet up myself and saved as much as I could.”


Firemen inspect Tanja Gerritsen homes after a flood at her home in the past two years.
Firemen inspect Tanja Gerritsen homes after a flood at her home in the past two years.

Gerritsen said the prospect of her home being uninsurable was “terrifying”.

“It would mean my house becomes un-sellable, and that's all my equity in my house gone. That's my retirement funding as well.”

Davies said the majority of properties currently were insurable, but exceptions were emerging.

“On the foreshore of Haumoana [Hawke's Bay] when, the waves are coming into the lounge, that's a very obvious example of where we possibly don't insure people,” he said.

“There are some locations where we just ask more questions, because we want to understand the risk more, and sometimes we will tailor what we offer to people because of that risk.”


The day after ex-tropical Cyclone Pam passed by Hawke's Bay, coastal areas like Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton copped a battering. — Photograph: Clinton Llewellyn.
The day after ex-tropical Cyclone Pam passed by Hawke's Bay, coastal areas like Haumoana,
Te Awanga and Clifton copped a battering. — Photograph: Clinton Llewellyn.


Changes to insurance contracts would be gradual and localised, but would happen.

Reports from former environment commissioner Jan Wright had helped inform IAG's approach, Davies said, including a report released in March last year which estimated a 50cm high-tide rise would affect 9,000 homes and an additional 4,000 buildings.

A separate Ministry for the Environment report estimated $19b of property was threatened by increased flooding and coastal erosion.

Davies sits on the government's Climate Change Adaptation Technical Working Group.

Speaking at a recent Climate Change and Business conference, Davies said climate changes impact was already inevitable, even if greenhouse gas emissions were cut rapidly.

“We know that there's another 30 centimetres of sea level rise to come,” he said.


Onlookers above Westmorland were moved on by police as flames leapt out of a large pine plantation behind Worsleys Road properties consumed by the huge fire on the Port Hills. — Photograph: Joseph Johnson.
Onlookers above Westmorland were moved on by police as flames leapt out of a large pine
plantation behind Worsleys Road properties consumed by the huge fire on the Port Hills.
 — Photograph: Joseph Johnson.


This year is already the most expensive year on record for insurance claims related to significant weather events, according to the Insurance Council.

Chief executive Tim Grafton said 2017 had been marred by the Port Hills fires in February, the Tasman tempest flooding in March and the remnants of two cyclones in April, which triggered Edgecumbe's flooding and evacuation.

“These large-scale events combined with other flooding in most other months of the year brings the total for significant weather events for 2017 to $230 million, which now surpasses the year of the Wahine storm in 1968.”


__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Climate change predicted to take big toll on Kiwis' mental and physical health

 • Some New Zealand climate change impacts may already be irreversible


https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/98797867
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« Reply #1004 on: November 14, 2017, 06:52:08 pm »

Corporate whores who mindlessly run to be seen fawning before the alter of political correctness shouldn't be seen as oracles of rationality.
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« Reply #1005 on: November 14, 2017, 06:52:41 pm »


from STUFF/Fairfax NZ....

Insurance likely to become a problem for
homes on the edge of Wellington Harbour


By NICHOLAS BOYACK | 2:24PM - Monday, 13 November 2017

Days Bay resident Sarah Gilbert checks out the weather in a 2013 storm. Katherine Mansfield's holiday beach house was badly damaged during the storm. Getting insurance could become a major problem for residents of the Lower Hutt suburb of Eastbourne.
Days Bay resident Sarah Gilbert checks out the weather in a 2013 storm.
Katherine Mansfield's holiday beach house was badly damaged during
the storm. Getting insurance could become a major problem for
residents of the Lower Hutt suburb of Eastbourne.


OBTAINING INSURANCE is likely to become increasingly difficult for home-owners in the Lower Hutt suburb of Eastbourne, with Wellington Harbour rising due to climate change.

Insurer IAG this week said in future  properties  would be assessed in terms of their individual climate change risk.

Beach-front properties at risk of flooding should expect to see their premiums rise, the company warned.

Eastbourne Community Board chair Virginia Horrocks said a resident recently contacted her after an insurance company declined to insure her house.

It is a situation she predicted that would only become more common.


Debris covered the footpath and road at York Bay, after a storm in July. — Photograph: Kevin Stent.
Debris covered the footpath and road at York Bay, after a storm in July.
 — Photograph: Kevin Stent.


Horrocks, who stood for the Greens in Hutt South, is on a council advisory group looking at climate change. Next year, she is planning meetings with local residents to look at the impact on individual bays.

Lowry Bay was likely to have the biggest problem. Residents already  had to deal with debris and waves on the road in storms, and Horrocks said the situation could only get worse.

Lowry Bay Residents Association President David Miller  wrote to the Hutt City Council in July calling for action.

“This specific concern has arisen as a result of the last storm in which at several points along the Eastern bays, particularly in Lowry Bay, waves were quite deep across the road, stones and logs washed around and accumulated on the road, and debris from the waves travelled up to 18 metres into residential properties.”

Miller acknowledged that finding a solution was likely to be technically difficult.

“However, we think it is time that the Hutt City Council began considering options with a view to implementing a long-term and effective road and property protection solution.”


Waves breaking over the road in Lowry Bay. — Photograph: Nicholas Boyack.
Waves breaking over the road in Lowry Bay. — Photograph: Nicholas Boyack.

In July, council policy manager Wendy Moore told councillors that climate change and the resulting rise in sea level, would have a major impact on Hutt City.

It was time to stop talking and instead focus on finding ways to mitigate the impact, she said in a memo.

“The level of uncertainty about the speed of climate change and sea level rise has resulted in people using this uncertainty as a reason for inaction. The longer the climate discourse is caught up in arguing about uncertainty, the less likely it is that the required actions will take place.”

Climate change sceptics had successfully spread doubt, she said.

“This means it is difficult for councils to achieve a level of community consensus on how to approach the risk and resilience issues associated with climate change and sea level rise.”


High tide at Point Howard in a recent storm.
High tide at Point Howard in a recent storm.

The council is appointing a senior manager who will be responsible for long-term climate change planning.

Insurance companies  were already reluctant to provide cover in low lying areas such as Eastbourne and Petone, which faced the threat of rising sea levels and tsunamis, Moore said.

Former community board chair and civil engineer Derek Wilshere​ has been observing coastal changes in Eastbourne since 1949. He worked for the regional council as a flood consultant and said the rise in sea level was already having a major impact.

Although the road was under threat, he predicted it would be 50 years before houses are threatened.


In December 2015 the Parliamentary commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright released a report Preparing New Zealand for Rising Seas. It predicted an increase in sea level of 20-35cm by 2050 for Wellington Harbour.

Preparing New Zealand for rising seas: Certainty and Uncertainty

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Insurers warning to householders on climate change

 • 25,000 Christchurch homes could be swamped by sea

 • Taking steps to save the planet


https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/98815753
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« Reply #1006 on: November 14, 2017, 06:58:39 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Fossil fuel emissions will reach an all-time high in 2017,
scientists say — dashing hopes of progress


Scientists thought global carbon emissions had flatlined. No such luck.

By CHRIS MOONEY | 3:30AM EST - Monday, November 13, 2017

Visitors walk past a sphere featuring national flags at India's pavilion last week during the COP23 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany. — Photograph: Patrik Stollarz/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
Visitors walk past a sphere featuring national flags at India's pavilion last week during the COP23 U.N. Climate Change Conference
in Bonn, Germany. — Photograph: Patrik Stollarz/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


GLOBAL CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS are projected to rise again in 2017, climate scientists reported on Monday, a troubling development for the environment and a major disappointment for those who had hoped emissions of the climate change-causing gas had at last peaked.

The emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial uses are projected to rise by up to 2 percent in 2017, as well as to rise again in 2018, the scientists told a group of international officials gathered for a United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany.

Despite global economic growth, total emissions held level from 2014 to 2016 at about 36 billion tons per year, stoking hope among many climate change advocates that emissions had reached an all-time high point and would subsequently begin to decline. But that was not to be, the new analysis suggests.

“The temporary hiatus appears to have ended in 2017,” wrote Stanford University's Rob Jackson, who along with colleagues at the Global Carbon Project tracked 2017 emissions to date and projected them forward. “Economic projections suggest further emissions growth in 2018 is likely.”

The renewed rise is a troubling development for the global effort to keep atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases below the levels needed to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. The more we emit now, scientists say, the more severe cuts will have to be later. That's because of the very long atmospheric lifetime of carbon dioxide, which means we can only emit a fixed amount in total if we want to stay within key climate goals.

“It's sort of, lose one year now, you have to pick up five years later,” said Glen Peters, one of the study's co-authors and a researcher at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo.

Emissions are forecast to reach around 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning and industrial activity in 2017, said the group, which published the results in the journal Environmental Research Letters and more detailed findings in Earth System Science Data Discussions. The renewed increase is driven largely by more fossil fuel burning in China and many other nations.

“We've been lucky in the last three years with emissions being flat without any real policy driving it,” Peters said. “If we want to ensure that emissions remain flat we have to put policies in place … and the second step is to start to drive emissions down.”




Peters said the 2017 number would be a record high for emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial uses (such as cement), although carbon emissions from deforestation and land-use changes were actually higher in 2015.

The scientists also acknowledge some uncertainty in their estimate, meaning that the 2017 emissions rise could be as low as 1 percent or as high as 3 percent.

All in all, the finding is bad news for global climate policy. The Paris agreement, now supported by every nation except for the United States, aims to limit the warming of the planet to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, and to try to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

But this requires emissions not just to stay flat but to go down — rapidly.

“The 2017 emissions data make it crystal clear that urgent and very serious emissions reductions are needed to stop global warming below 2°C, as was unanimously agreed in Paris,” Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said in an email. Rahmstorf was not involved with the current work.

Rahmstorf said there are currently about 600 billion remaining tons of carbon dioxide that can be emitted if the world is to have a good chance of keeping warming considerably below 2 degrees Celsius, and with some 40 billion tons of emissions each year, that leaves just 15 years.

“If we start to ramp down emissions from now on we can stretch this budget to last us about 30 years,” he said. “With every year that we wait we will have to stop using fossil energy even earlier.”

The rise of global emissions projected for the year 2017 in the current research is attributable to multiple causes.

In particular, China's emissions were projected to increase by 3.5 percent in 2017 as the country consumed more of all three of the top fossil fuels — coal, natural gas and oil. China is the single largest emitting country.

India, which has been experiencing rapid emissions growth, will pull back to 2 percent growth in 2017 because of economic contraction, the research suggests. Emissions from the United States and European Union are projected to decline 0.4 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively. But emissions for the rest of the globe — which, in total, are even larger than China's — will rise by close to 2 percent, according to the projection.




If the increase continues, what many hoped was a plateau in emissions seen from 2014 to 2016 could come to look more like a pause.

During that era, many cited a broad “decoupling” of economic growth and emissions growth, thanks in part to greater energy efficiency and renewable energy. And there's no denying that renewables are continuing to grow around the world – making it hard to know quite what to make of the current emissions rise.

“It's too early to say whether it's a long-term trend, or just a one-off little blip,” Peters said.

The new results reinforce just how much of the globe's emissions trajectory depends on China, its largest emitter. China took a number of steps to cut back coal emissions in the past three years, notes Joanna Lewis, a Georgetown University professor who studies energy trends in the country. This led to less coal use in the electricity and industrial sectors.

“What is less clear is whether these trends can continue,” Lewis said by email. “Reduced plant operation and closures around the country are putting huge pressures on local governments to deal with slowing economic growth and unemployment. Overcapacity in these sectors, and particularly an overbuild of coal plants, means there is pressure to increase coal electricity production, which is often done through the curtailment of renewables. As a result, China's long term CO² emissions trends are unclear at best.”

While 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry represent the lion's share of the globe's emissions, there are also several billion tons of carbon dioxide each year from deforestation and other changes in how humans use land. When it comes to global tree loss, there are also worrying signs that it is not abating as hoped.

There are also rising emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is a stronger and faster warming agent, although not nearly as long-lived in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. There is still a debate over where the methane growth is coming from, but much of it could be from animal agriculture.

The new findings will be immediately relevant to the proceedings in Bonn, since one part of the agenda involves laying the groundwork for a “facilitative dialogue” to take place next year, in which countries will take a hard look at where their emissions are, and where they need to be, to live up to the Paris goals.

Higher emissions will, in this context, inevitably mean deeper cuts will be required of participating nations — even as deadlines for avoiding the most severe effects of global warming draw near.


• Chris Mooney reports on science and the environment for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • As Syria embraces Paris climate deal, it's the United States against the world

 • The world shrugs at Trump as global climate meeting begins in Bonn

 • Scientists may have found a solution to the atmosphere's methane mystery


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/11/13/fossil-fuel-emissions-projected-to-reach-an-all-time-high-in-2017-dashing-hopes-of-progress
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« Reply #1007 on: November 14, 2017, 07:13:38 pm »

An all time high...pushing human produced co2 to a whopping .0012% of the total atmosphere 😁
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« Reply #1008 on: November 14, 2017, 07:15:45 pm »

That's roughly one thousandth of one percent of the atmosphere 😁
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« Reply #1009 on: November 14, 2017, 07:18:19 pm »

In the cult of climate change, every unprecedented instance of bad weather is a portent of their coming Climate Apocalypse
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« Reply #1010 on: November 14, 2017, 07:20:24 pm »

Correction: In the cult of climate change, every unremarkable instance of bad weather is a portent of their coming Climate Apocalypse
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« Reply #1011 on: November 14, 2017, 07:25:30 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Thousands of scientists issue bleak ‘second notice’ to humanity

In 1992, scientists warned humanity about a host of impending ecological disasters.
A quarter-century later, most of them have gotten worse.


By SARAH KAPLAN | 3:14PM EST - Monday, November 13, 2017

Planet Earth. — Photograph: NASA.
Planet Earth. — Photograph: NASA.

IN LATE 1992, 1,700 scientists from around the world issued a dire “warning to humanity”. They said humans had pushed Earth's ecosystems to their breaking point and were well on the way to ruining the planet. The letter listed environmental impacts like they were biblical plagues — stratospheric ozone depletion, air and water pollution, the collapse of fisheries and loss of soil productivity, deforestation, species loss and catastrophic global climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

“If not checked,” wrote the scientists, led by particle physicist and Union of Concerned Scientists co-founder Henry Kendall, “many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.”

But things were only going to get worse.

To mark the letter's 25th anniversary, researchers have issued a bracing follow-up. In a communique published on Monday in the journal BioScience, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries assess the world's latest responses to various environmental threats. Once again, they find us sorely wanting.

“Humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse,” they write.

This letter, spearheaded by Oregon State University ecologist William Ripple, serves as a “second notice,” the authors say: “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory.”

Global climate change sits atop the new letter's list of planetary threats. Global average temperatures have risen by more than half a degree Celsius since 1992, and annual carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 62 percent.

But it's far from the only problem people face. Access to fresh water has declined, as has the amount of forestland and the number of wild-caught fish (a marker of the health of global fisheries). The number of ocean dead zones has increased. The human population grew by a whopping 2 billion, while the populations of all other mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish have declined by nearly 30 percent.

The lone bright spot exists way up in the stratosphere, where the hole in the planet's protective ozone layer has shrunk to its smallest size since 1988. Scientists credit that progress to the phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons — chemicals once used in refrigerators, air conditioners and aerosol cans that trigger reactions in the atmosphere to break down ozone.

“The rapid global decline in ozone depleting substances shows that we can make positive change when we act decisively,” the letter says.

The authors offer 13 suggestions for reining in our impact on the planet, including establishing nature reserves, reducing food waste, developing green technologies and establishing economic incentives to  shift patterns of consumption.

To this end, Ripple and his colleagues have formed a new organization, the Alliance of World Scientists, aimed at providing a science-based perspective on issues affecting the well-being of people and the planet.

“Scientists are in the business of analyzing data and looking at the long-term consequences,” Ripple said in a release. “Those who signed this second warning aren't just raising a false alarm. They are acknowledging the obvious signs that we are heading down an unsustainable path. We are hoping that our paper will ignite a widespread public debate about the global environment and climate.”


• Sarah Kaplan is a reporter for Speaking of Science at The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Trump's top environmental pick says she has ‘many questions’ about climate change


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/11/13/thousands-of-scientists-issue-bleak-second-notice-to-humanity
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« Reply #1012 on: November 14, 2017, 07:26:57 pm »




BTW.....I got to post message #1,000 in this thread!!  Grin


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« Reply #1013 on: November 14, 2017, 07:55:23 pm »

Mass hysteria and political stupidity  drives the climate cult. Hundreds (if not thousands) of highly credentialed scientists agree....we don't know how sensitive the climate is to human produced co2.
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« Reply #1014 on: November 14, 2017, 08:01:38 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Climate change upped the odds of Harvey's extreme rains, study finds

It could be the first of many studies of climate change and the extreme 2017 hurricane season.

By CHRIS MOONEY | 4:28PM EST - Monday, November 13, 2017

Rescue boats fill a flooded street as victims are evacuated from Harvey's rising waters August 28th in Houston. — Photograph: David J. Phillip/Associated Press.
Rescue boats fill a flooded street as victims are evacuated from Harvey's rising waters on August 28th in Houston.
 — Photograph: David J. Phillip/Associated Press.


THE EXTREME RAINS that inundated the Houston area during Hurricane Harvey were made more likely by climate change, a new study suggests, adding that such extreme flooding events will only become more frequent as the globe continues to warm.

“I guess what I was hoping to achieve was a little bit of a public service,” said MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel, who published the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. “There are folks down in Texas who are having to rebuild infrastructure, and I think they need to have some idea of what kind of event they're building for.”

In the wake of Harvey, many researchers pointed out that a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor and that, as a result, a warmer planet should see more extreme rains. But Emanuel's study goes beyond this general statement to support the idea that the specific risk of such an extreme rain event is already rising because of how humans have changed the planet.

Via climate modeling, Emanuel generated 3,700 computerized storms for each of three separate models that situated the storms in the climates of the years from 1980 to 2016. All of the storms were in the vicinity of Houston or other Texas areas. He examined how often, in his models, there would be about 20 inches of rain in one of these events.

Harvey produced closer to 33 inches over Houston. But in the tests under the 1980 to 2016 conditions, getting 20 inches of rain was rare in the extreme.

“By the standards of the average climate during 1981-2000, Harvey's rainfall in Houston was ‘biblical’ in the sense that it likely occurred around once since the Old Testament was written,” wrote Emanuel, adding that in the much larger area of Texas, such rains did occur once every 100 years.

Then Emanuel performed a similar analysis, this time in the projected climates of the years 2080 to 2100, assuming the climate changes in some of the more severe ways scientists suggest it could.

The odds, accordingly, shifted toward a much greater likelihood of such events by 2100. Harvey's rains in Houston became a once-in-100-years event (rather than a once-in-2,000-years event), and for Texas as a whole, the odds increased from once in 100 years to once every 5½.

This also meant, Emanuel calculated, that Harvey was probably more likely in 2017 than in the era from 1981 to 2000. In 2017, Harvey would be a once-in-325-years event. For Texas as a whole, in 2017 it would be a once-in-16-years event.

“It was a very unusual event,” Emanuel said. “Less unlikely than it might have been 30 years ago, but even now very unusual.”

Emanuel conceded that precisely why the simulations changed the odds with greater global warming wasn't clear — whether it had something to do with more water vapor or other storm characteristics. “This is left to future work,” he wrote.

Several researchers praised the study, including Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate expert at Stanford University who has focused on the science of attributing extreme events to climate change.

“Harvey was a complex event with lots of contributing ingredients. This study breaks new ground by isolating the role that global warming played in upping the odds that a storm like Harvey produces very heavy rainfall,” he said.

“The 20-fold future increase in the probability of Harvey-level rainfall points toward a markedly increasing vulnerability of Gulf Coast communities — one that they are not well prepared to adjust to,” added Greg Holland, a hurricane scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Shane Hubbard, a researcher at the Space Science and Engineering Center of the University of Wisconsin–Madison who has also studied the odds of Harvey's rains, did question some aspects of the presentation.

He suggested that Harvey was such an extreme event — producing as much rainfall as three prior Texas flood disasters combined — that Emanuel's approach of looking at rainfall at a single point “does not accurately represent what happened during Harvey.”

Still, looking toward the future, Hubbard found the research helpful.

“This work suggests that with landfalling hurricanes, the amounts of precipitation will dramatically increase, meaning the risk to populations along streams and rivers will also dramatically increase. Hurricanes are not a single hazard, but multiple hazards,” he added.

The new study will probably be followed by many others on the link between the devastating 2017 hurricane season and climate change.

“I think humans have changed the odds quite a bit,” Emanuel said.


• Chris Mooney reports on science and the environment at The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/11/13/climate-change-upped-the-odds-of-harveys-extreme-rains-study-finds
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« Reply #1015 on: November 14, 2017, 08:17:52 pm »

Get with the programme. Climate cultist models continue to get things wrong.
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« Reply #1016 on: November 14, 2017, 08:20:46 pm »

97% of ice core, weather balloon and satelite observations agree. Climate change cultists don't know their arses from their elbows.
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« Reply #1017 on: November 14, 2017, 08:36:23 pm »


from The Dominion Post....

Need for change reaches high-water mark

EDITORIAL | 5:00AM - Tuesday, 14 November 2017

Coastal flooding and tidal surges are expected to be more frequent and fierce in the decades ahead, undermining the foothold of many coast communities.
Coastal flooding and tidal surges are expected to be more frequent and fierce in the
decades ahead, undermining the foothold of many coast communities.


YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED: The tides and times are a-changing; they have brought us to a crossroads.

That, in a nutshell, was the message from IAG insurance spokesman Bryce Davies, when asked about the possible impacts of climate change for both homeowner and insurer in this country.

It is the clearest signal yet, if indeed one were needed, that climate change is REAL (sorry, President Trump) and is going to have an increasingly significant impact, not only on insurance premiums but the very existence of some communities hugging the lines of coast and river of New Zealand.

If the changing climate has brought us to a crossroads, the paths extending from that point are less certain. Like the many tributaries that feed a great river they are numerous and varying in significance and influence.

Will the rise of sea levels and associated insurance premiums mean even more Kiwis locked out of ownership along the coast? Will ratepayers have to fork out even more on expensive stopbanks and flood-protection works? Will there ever be enough money to secure vulnerable regions?

Davies suggests another even more dramatic impact: the possibility that whole communities could become uninsurable no-go zones.

That, surely, must have crossed the minds of Tanja Gerritsen and many others around the nation.

The Ōtaki River has flooded her home three times in the past two years. She's terrified that her insurer will say enough is enough, it's time to move on. Judging by what Davies is saying, it looks they are seriously considering it.

If those warnings seem a little beyond the high-water mark, they merely echo similar concerns expressed two years ago by Jan Wright, the then Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.


Aerial photos of Lismore showing flooding from the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie.
Aerial photos of Lismore showing flooding from the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie.

In her report, Preparing New Zealand for Rising Seas, she observed that about 9,000 homes around the country lie less than 50 centimetres above spring high tide levels.

“This is more than the number of homes that were red-zoned after the Christchurch earthquakes.”

In another comparison with the devastating tremors, she highlights the folly of building on land known to be at risk of liquefaction.

“We should see allowing new subdivisions on vulnerable coastal land as equally foolish.”

As worrying as that may sound, it could be the easier part of preparing New Zealand for the rising tide of climate change; it merely acknowledges that some areas may not be fit for homes yet to be built. Forewarned is forearmed these days in the purchase of coastal property.

The truly tricky and potentially painful part will be identifying existing communities at the greatest risk and the solutions to ensure their survival.

As Wright points out, one of the options may be “the uprooting of entire communities and the associated financial cost”. And “the highest costs will come from large scale managed retreat”.

Much of that cost will be borne by those people living on the coast, but just as insurance premiums can be a rising tide that has an impact on everyone, the “financial cost” of climate change is also likely to pull all into its growing catchment.

That, like climate change, is a certainty.

It is clear from the words of Davies, Wright and others that another certainty is the need for planning. Lots of it. Now.


https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/98832556
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« Reply #1018 on: November 15, 2017, 07:45:00 pm »


from STUFF/Fairfax NZ....

Human-induced global warming:
Faster than ever and accelerating!


11:00AM - Tuesday, 14 November 2017

Warming exceeded 1°C above mid-nineteenth-century levels in 2017. — Photograph: David Gray.
Warming exceeded 1°C above mid-nineteenth-century levels in 2017.
 — Photograph: David Gray.


HUMAN-INDUCED GLOBAL WARMING is happening faster than ever and accelerating.

And it's increasing at a rate that means there's little time left to achieve goals of the Paris climate agreement, researchers say.

A tool to measure the rate of global warming called the Global Warming Index — developed by an international team led by Victoria University's Professor Dave Frame — showed the acceleration of warming.

Dr Karsten Haustein from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and lead author of a paper on the index said global warming had risen at a rate of 0.16 degrees Celsius per decade over the past 20 years.

“Worryingly, it appears to be accelerating, despite the recent slowdown in carbon dioxide emissions, because of trends in other climate pollutants, notably methane.”


The Global Warming Index is a continuously updated index of human-induced warming.
The Global Warming Index is a continuously updated index of human-induced warming.

The release of methane gas from ruminant livestock — sheep and cattle — amounted to almost a third of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions, and it was the largest contributor, according to Landcare Research.

Methane also accounted for over 40 percent of all emissions in terms of global warming potential, Landcare Research said.

Warming exceeded 1°C above mid-nineteenth-century levels in 2017.

Frame said: “A robust, continuously updated index of human-induced warming — the only component of global temperatures we have any control over — is essential to monitor progress toward meeting temperature goals.”

“We hope the Global Warming Index will provide this essential information to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process.”

“Using our index, as well as ClimateClock.net, in conjunction with carbon budget estimates based on current emissions, the remaining time until we cross the anthropogenic warming target of 1.5°C or 2°C can be monitored continuously.”

Haustein said global temperatures could be pushed up temporarily by El Niño events or down by volcanic eruptions.

“We combine temperature observations with measurements of drivers of climate change to provide an up-to-date estimate of the contribution of human influence to global warming.”

Frame said a consistent measure was important so that when it hit 2°C, it didn't fluctuate based on factors other than human-induced warming.

The index is intended to provide improved scientific context for temperature stabilisation targets, with the potential to reduce climate policy volatility.

The findings were announced in a paper for the Nature research journal Scientific Reports.


THE CLIMATE CLOCK

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Livestock and global warming

 • Climate change to hit insurance

 • NZ to go big on climate change


https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/98851471
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« Reply #1019 on: November 16, 2017, 07:04:30 pm »

Yes your loony left pay wall rags eargerly believe what they want to hear. Just like you do 😁
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« Reply #1020 on: November 16, 2017, 07:07:56 pm »

We now truly live in an idiocracy. The lunatic religion of climate change is exhibit A.
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« Reply #1021 on: November 16, 2017, 07:20:40 pm »

The Paris agreement will cost the world trillions of dollars EVERY YEAR (if promises are kept, which they wont be) and this stupendous waste of money will delay the alleged human caused climate change by a triffling 8 or so years by the end of the century.
THAT IS SIMPLY LUNACY.
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« Reply #1022 on: November 16, 2017, 08:04:54 pm »


The earth is fucked because of greedy, selfish twats such as YOU.
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« Reply #1023 on: November 17, 2017, 07:31:19 pm »

Nah, the poor are being fucked over because of loony left twits and their irrational climate beleifs.
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« Reply #1024 on: November 18, 2017, 09:40:20 am »


Yep....“head in the sand” syndrome is alive & well amongst the selfish & greedy twats in NZ and around the world.





Oooooooooh.....the last post in yet another page in this thread. Time to begin the next page, eh?
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