Floods, Fires, and Heat Domes (the climate change thread) (Part 1)

germany is suddenly almost oversaturated after years of drought; my home-bundesland for instance has its wettest winter ever.

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Interesting (though not really surprising) recent analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau about the correlation of income inequality with vulnerability to disasters. (Not just climate change, but I’m not sure where else to put this.)

Community Resilience Estimates Show That 23.4% of People in Counties With High Income Inequality Are Socially Vulnerable to Disasters

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Flood warning

Iltalehti writes that there is a flood warning in place in three regions of southern and southeastern Finland.

The combination of heavy rain and melting snow can lead to flash floods in some areas, IL notes, especially if drains become clogged.

There is also a warning for pedestrians in southern and central parts of the country: pavements on Friday will be very slippery because of the water on ice covered surfaces.

The outlook for Friday suggests rain showers for the south and west, while sleet and snow is set to fall in the east and north. Temperatures across the country during the day will hover around zero degrees Celsius, according to IL.

pavements on Friday will be very slippery because of the water on ice covered surfaces.

Walking to work today was not fun.


This pic is from last sunday. Similar to today. That gravel was under the ice.

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ETA:

Another pollution related one:

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Also Texas

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Tornadoes in February are totally normal, right?

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I guess they will be? aaand thats a new record.

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Why not? I mean, “it can’t get worse” is always, always wrong. It’s just a question of how wrong.

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The West Odessa volunteer fire department said in a post on Facebook that fires in Hutchinson county had overnight grown to 1.1m acres. “This is now both the largest and most destructive fire in Texas history,” the department wrote on Facebook. “It is also the second largest wildfire in US history.”

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yep, scared me months ago. now acceptance sets in. and that kinda scares me even more.

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Across the unusually warm Atlantic, in Cambridge, England, Rob Larter, a marine scientist who tracks polar ice levels, is equally perplexed.

“It’s quite scary, partly because I’m not hearing any scientists that have a convincing explanation of why it is we’ve got such a departure,” he said.

thats bullshit; they really dont want to talk about probable areosol termination shock (hansen et al, 2023), because that would lead to potential solar radiation management as a “solution”:

ah, at least the NYT mentions it;

One surprising factor may be a reduction in pollution in the area. In 2020, a new rule went into effect that limited the amount of sulfur dioxide contained in the fuel used by container ships. That has reduced the amount of particulate matter in the air, which let in more solar radiation and contributed to global warming

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… gee who could they mean :roll_eyes:

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Climate change, in this case the rising ocean levels, will also expose nuclear waste buried on the shot sites in the Pacific.

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there is no “transition”, clean energy just comes on top of the consumption, which rises rapidly thanks to such bullshit like “ai” and crypto. datacenters everywhere.

Microsoft operates more than 300 data centers around the world, and in 2021 declared itself “on pace to build between 50 and 100 new datacenters each year for the foreseeable future.”

oh, and the fossil-fuel-industry isnt to blame, oh no sir!

The world isn’t on track to meet its climate goals — and it’s the public’s fault, a leading oil company CEO told journalists.

Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Darren Woods told editors from Fortune that the world has “waited too long” to begin investing in a broader suite of technologies to slow planetary heating,

In his comments Tuesday, Woods argued the “dirty secret” is that customers weren’t willing to pay for the added cost of cleaner fossil fuels

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For The First Time, Rich Countries Now Get Half Their Electricity From Zero-Carbon Energy

Global emissions of planet-heating gas hit a record high last year, the International Energy Agency announced Friday.
But the rich economies cumulatively responsible for much of the carbon in the atmosphere saw their average emissions drop down to 1973 levels, driven largely by a transition away from fossil fuel power plants.

For the first time in history, zero-carbon sources of energy generated half the total electricity in the world’s advanced economies, according to new data from the Paris-based energy watchdog.

Renewables like wind and solar accounted for an “unprecedented” 34% share of power generation. Nuclear power, which a separate IEA report last month forecast would hit record global production next year, made up the rest. Nearly two-thirds of the decline came from the electricity sector.

Emissions fell even as the overall gross domestic product of the world’s advanced economies grew by nearly 2%, making 2023’s drop in greenhouse gas the largest percentage decrease outside of an economic recession.

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