a blog about the changing world we live in
HELLO! WELCOME TO GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE. This is a blog about the changing world we live in and that world is changing a whole hell of a lot faster than most folks—and most computer models—thought just a few years ago! (Not as if you haven’t been living through it for some time yourself.) [Read more] “introduction to gcc – global climate change”
WAY WAY BACK IN 2004, when wildfires in Alaska burned an area the size of Massachusetts, Michelle Mack wondered just how much carbon had permanently moved from the landscape into the atmosphere. Mack, an ecologist at Northern Arizona University, knew that the carbon dioxide released by these burning trees could further accelerate global warming. [Read more] “alaskan forests come back stronger!”
LET’S PAINT THE SOUTHWEST WHITE! We’ll start with the roofs then move on to driveways and parking lots and eventually the streets, the highways, and everything else. “Scientists look for the Holy Grail” addresses the search for creating a surface that’s cooler to the touch on a hot summer day than the air around it. [Read more] “let’s paint the southwest white!”
WHEN REQUIRED TO POST A PROFILE on the internet, I usually write, “Mystical liberal likes long walks alone at night in the dark in the city in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig.” While this bit of irony works for some readers, others want a little more in terms of personal background information. [Read more] “a little personal background information”
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS is how Professor Rodolfo Dirzo sums up the situation of the plight of insects on the planet Earth in the 21st century. Dirzo is a Bing Professor in environmental science at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. [Read more] “many global insect populations suffering death by a thousand cuts”
NORMALLY, THE ICE IN THE ARCTIC grows in the cold of the winter months and shrinks in the warmth of the rest of the year. But that ain’t happening in the winter of 2020-2021. The article “This Year’s Arctic Sea Ice Is Failing to Form, Raising a Huge Red Flag” tells us that the ice still hasn’t refrozen since last winter. [Read more] “this season’s arctic sea ice ain’t forming”
THE INABILITY OF RUSSIAN FARMERS to provide enough food for the people was a problem under both the Czars and the Soviets and remains a problem today. But the big thaw that global climate change is causing may be “propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order and no country stands to gain more than Russia.” [Read more] “russia could dominate a warming world after the big thaw”
MASSIVE WILDFIRE CLOUDS can be as dangerous as volcanic eruptions in some respects. As wildfires become more common, these clouds are becoming a greater hazard. This is addressed in the article “Towering fire-fueled thunderclouds can spew as many aerosols as volcanic eruptions,” which“As warming worsens wildfires, it may create conditions ripe for stronger pyrocumulonimbus clouds.” [Read more] “wildfire clouds can spew as many aerosols into the atmosphere as a volcanic eruption”
KAYAK VOYAGES TO THE NORTH POLE will soon be on the list of things-to-do for the more adventurous among us. The dynamics of weather itself are changing because of the thawing of the Arctic ice masses and it should probably be the biggest “news story” of our time if we humans paid attention to things that move so slowly. [Read more] “the dynamics of weather itself are changing”
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a blog about what we feared might happen tomorrow but is happening today
