Helpless Captives in a Land That Spring Forgot
Welcome to a “Land That Spring Forgot”. This is starting to feel like bad reality television; an experiment gone awry. Instead of daffodils and chirping robins, let’s keep the perpetual snow globe going an extra couple of months to see what happens! “Big Brother”, with ice scrapers and Prozac. “Survivor Minnesota”, with no parting gifts.
I’m hearing stories of snowbirds in Arizona and Florida refusing to return to Minnesota until it finally greens up, around the 4th of July.
Showers are possible later today, with heavier rain Friday. NOAA data shows 16-19 inches of frost in the ground. With frozen ground rain will a). melt snow and b). runoff into streets, creating pond-size puddles later in the week.
There’s growing paranoia, bordering on panic, around a changeover to snow Friday night and Saturday. Speculating inch-amounts 2-3 days before a storm is futile, even irresponsible – but a few more inches of slush may fall; even a plowable snowfall for parts of Minnesota.
That’s on top of the 10.3 inches of snow that’s fallen in April. Hey models show 60s in late April!
Uh huh.
Praying the NAM Verifies. Not sure I can take a foot of snow in the Twin Cities early in the weekend (and based on the comments I’m receiving, most of them unprintable, I’m not alone). NAM keeps the axis of heaviest snow over central Minnesota, with very plowable amounts from Alexandria to St. Cloud, a near-miss for MSP. Map: NOAA and pivotalweather.com.
Activate the National Guard. Here is the 00z run of NOAA’s GFS model, which shows the band of plowable snow pushing into the Twin Cities. And no, I’m not predicting 7-8″ snow, not yet anyway. I want to see a few more runs and see if there’s continuity from run to run, if most of the models (including ECMWF) converge on a similar solution. Central Minnesota seems to stand the best chance of shriek-worthy snow amounts, but MSP is not out of the woods just yet.
Holy Frost Depth! 35″ of frost still in the ground in Bloomer, Wisconsin? Wow. The frost depth in the Twin Cities ranges from 16-19″, which may be problematic if we do see heavy rain Friday. None of that water will be able to soak into the soil – it will run off, increasing the potential for ponding and even some minor flooding. Frost data: NOAA.
A Crippled Spring. Kind of takes you back to 2013, when April brought nearly 19″ of snow to the Twin Cities. The upcoming weekend will be 20-25F colder than average before some recovery next week, based on ECMWF guidance. Graph: WeatherBell.
National Weather Service Replacing Alaska Jobs with Automated Stations. The Anchorage Daily News reports: “The Trump administration is replacing human operators with million-dollar Finland-made machines at weather stations around Alaska. The National Weather Service said it will eventually save money and argues that no employees will be lost. Employee advocates say the technology misses out on key human observations that are important to national weather forecasting and Alaskan flight planning, and that the administration is being disingenuous about the jobs they are taking away from Alaskans. The National Weather Service plans to install the Finnish “Autosonde” stations to release weather balloons and collect data, beginning in the Southeast community of Annette next month, and ending with eight communities later in Nome, in August 2019. Each costs roughly $1.2 million to install…”
Photo credit: “Meteorological technician Willy Tcheripanoff releases a helium-filled weather balloon to gather temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind speed and direction over the Bering Sea in 2004. This balloon rose 110,000 feet before it burst.” (Doug O’Harra / ADN archives).
Taming the Mighty Mississippi May Have Caused Bigger Floods. A story at Scientific American caught my eye. The Bernoulli Principle in action, I’m afraid: “…Now a new study raises the possibility much of the effort humans have put into trying to control the mighty river has paradoxically made its large floods more destructive. The magnitude of so-called 100-year floods—massive inundations defined as having a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year—has increased 20 percent in the past five centuries on the lower Mississippi, researchers reported this month in Nature. The bulk of the increase has been in the last 150 years, when human engineering of the river has been most intense. “We’ve channelized the river, we’ve straightened it,” says Samuel Muñoz, lead author of the new study and an assistant professor of marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern University. “We’ve made the gradient steeper, and we’ve encased the river in concrete mats and lined it with levees...”
Florida’s Cities Are Experiencing Shorter, More Intense Wet Seasons. Here’s a clip from a story at UPI: “…In other words, the urban areas experience the same amount of rainfall as the rural areas but in a shorter amount of time. Therefore, the hourly rain rate is stronger in urban regions,” Misra said. “This suggests that urban areas are receiving the rainfall in shorter, more intense bursts — particularly during the summer months.” The findings support previous research efforts that have shown the size and shape of cities — their layout, or urban footprint, and their skyline — can affect regional climate patterns…”
A Simmering El Nino? It’s much too early to say with any accuracy, but it’s not hard to believe that the current La Nina (cool) phase may swing to an El Nino (warm) phase later this year. If (and it’s a big if) this actually happens the odds of next winter being relatively mild just went up.
Should We Be Concerned About “WinterKill”? Here’s an excerpt of a timely story at Patch.com: “Cold, long winters with lots of snowfall (sound familiar?) can lead to fish die-offs. It’s been happening throughout the Minnesota this year, in lakes near Brainerd, Hinckley and in the Twin Cities. “While seeing lots of dead fish can be disconcerting, we remind people that winterkill is normal and happens every year to some extent,” Neil Vanderbosch, DNR fisheries program consultant, said in a statement. Once a lake is capped with ice, the amount of dissolved oxygen present in a lake depends on how much oxygen is produced by aquatic plants…”
Weatherwise, It’s Already Been a Disastrous Start to the Year in the U.S. USA Today has the story: “Weatherwise, it’s already been a disastrous start to the year in the U.S., even before the tornado season ramps up and long before any direct hits from hurricanes. In just the first three months of year, the U.S. has endured three separate weather disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Friday. The events included a severe storm outbreak in the Southeast in March and two winter storms in the central and eastern U.S. in January and March. At $1.8 billion in damages, the costliest event so far was the nor’easter that walloped the Northeast on March 1-3, killing 9 people. The damage from the storm was due to high winds, heavy snow and coastal erosion, NOAA said...”
Photo credit: “This photo provided by Johnny Tribble shows a damaged house after a tornado, Tribble said, passed the area in Ardmore, Ala., Monday.” (Photo: Johnny Tribble, AP).
Severe Weather Awareness Week. I know there’s a disconnect talking about lightning safety tips with slush in your yard and more snow possible this weekend, but it won’t be long before the sirens are wailing. Again, I have a hunch we’ll go from a shoe-full of slush to severe storm warnings in the span of a day or two.
Is It Safe to Talk On Your Cell Phone During a Thunderstorm? Safer than using a landline, I suspect. AccuWeather has the story: “…The first thing that people should understand is that nothing really attracts lightning, but lightning does follow wires and fences and things of that nature. So if you’re on a cell phone, you’re not any more likely to be struck by lightning than when you’re not on that cell phone,” said John Jensenius, lightning safety specialist for the National Weather Service. “The key is, though, that you want to be in safe place so that you’re not struck by lightning whether you’re carrying a cell phone or not,” said Jensenius. “It’s the place you’re located that is more of a concern than anything else. If you’re near a cell phone tower, that’s bad because lightning will come and hit the cell phone tower,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski…”
Tim Samaras Became a TV Star Driving Into Tornadoes; a Dallas Writer Explains What Happened Next. Check out a book review at Dallas News: “…In this new biography, Dallas-based writer Brantley Hargrove explores Samaras’s rise to storm-chasing legend. Many of the details are familiar to anyone who follows the field: How Samaras became entranced with tornadoes while watching The Wizard of Oz as a kid. How he first joined and then clashed with academic scientists, who deployed storm-chasing fleets in direct competition with Samaras’s small team. How he began selling dramatic tornado videos to help finance his shoestring operation. But Hargrove finds fresh stories to tell. With access to Samaras’s family, he illuminates the personal demands of storm-chasing — including how Samaras’s wife dealt with his dangerous work, and questioned whether he should be taking his sons along for the ride...”
Image credit: “The Man Who Caught the Storm, by Brantley Hargrove. (Simon and Schuster).
Why Weather Forecasters Still Struggle to Get the Big Storms Right. Because the forecast is rarely black or white, but some nebulous shade of gray. Here’s an excerpt from Madison.com: “…Why does the European do so well, compared to its American counterpart? For one, it’s run on a more powerful supercomputer. Two, it has a more sophisticated mathematical system to handle the “initial conditions” of the atmosphere. And three, it’s been developed and refined at an institute whose singular focus is on medium-range weather prediction. In the U.S., the medium-range American model is part of a suite of several models, including several short-range prediction systems that run as frequently as every hour. The time, intellectual focus and costs are shared among as many as four or five different types of models...”
Hurricane Hype Needs to End, Especially for Houston. Houston Press has the Op-Ed: “…Houston is affected by tropical weather nearly every year. But, in terms of major storms or devastation, we have only seen that a handful of times in the last 50 years. Hurricane Alicia (1983), Tropical Storm Allison (2001), Hurricane Ike (2008) and Hurricane Harvey (2017) are most notable among them. It can be scary, but so were the Tax Day Floods or the Memorial Day Floods. Weather in Houston is what it is, there is no need to make it worse by scaring ourselves. It’s why we have local resources like Space City Weather and great meteorological organizations like the people at Colorado State to rely on for accurate and reasoned information. Stick with the rational information and ignore the hype. Oh, and go ahead and plan for hurricane season like you do every year because it will be here before you know it…”
Photo credit: “Nerves are frayed enough thanks to memories like this one. The last thing we need are headlines overhyping early-season hurricane forecasting.” Photo by Meagan Flynn.
Forecasters Are Warning This Year’s Hurricane Season Will Be Worse Than Usual. A weak La Nina or ENSO-neutral pattern may (emphasis on the word may) favor lighter winds high above the tropics and more hurricanes, but confidence levels this far out are low. TIME.com explains: “…This year’s hurricane season is shaping to be another big one with a greater than 60% chance of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coastline, according to a new forecast from top meteorologists. Researchers at Colorado State University estimate that seven hurricanes and 14 named storms will form during this year’s Atlantic hurricane season with the intensity of the season slightly above the average from recent decades. An above-average hurricane season this year would follow devastation wrecked by a series of 12 named storms in 2017. More than 100 people died as a result of major storms last year and the events caused an estimated $200 billion in damage, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…”
We’re Not Ready for Hurricane Season, and It’s 6 Weeks Away. Eric Holthaus takes a look a preparation in a story at Grist: “…Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico are still recovering from last year’s devastating hurricane season, the most destructive in U.S. history. And it looks like another rough hurricane season is just eight weeks away. Forecasters at Colorado State University released their “extended range” pre-season hurricane forecast on Thursday, and it’s not pretty. The combination of a weak La Niña in the Pacific Ocean and warmer than average waters in the Atlantic Ocean means this year’s hurricane season is likely to be slightly more active than normal, with a greater than average chance of major storms hitting the U.S. mainland, Caribbean islands, and Central America. These early forecasts (sponsored in part by a few insurance companies) have shown decent skill in predicting whether a season is going to be more or less active...”
Hurricane Lee file image: NOAA.
Hurricane Maria Storm Report. Here is NOAA NHC’s evaluation of the major hurricane that ravaged Puerto Rico with Category 4 force winds.
Renewables: Headlines and links via Climate Nexus: “There’s new evidence that fossil fuels are getting crushed in the ongoing energy battle against renewables (Business Insider), Global renewable energy capacity increased 167 gigawatts in 2017, reached 2,179 gigawatts.” (CleanTechnica) Wind forecast: doubling global capacity by 2027 will be a breeze (Greentech Media), To see offshore wind energy’s future, look on shore – in Massachusetts (InsideClimate News), Trump aide endorses wind turbines, not oil rigs, as future of the East Coast (NorthJersey.com).
Oil Spill Now Larger Than Paris Ravages Indonesian Island, 5 Dead. EcoWatch has the latest: “An oil spill in Borneo that began over the past weekend has now spread across an area greater than the city of Paris and is heading out to the open ocean, the Indonesian government said. The spill, first reported on March 31, stems from a pipeline operated by state-owned oil firm Pertamina in the city of Balikpapan, in East Kalimantan province. A report released April 4 by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry said the slick was spreading out from Balikpapan Bay and into the Strait of Makassar, covering some 130 square kilometers (50 square miles). Pertamina, which for days had denied responsibility for the disaster, finally admitted on April 4 that one of its pipes used for transporting crude oil was the source of the slick...”
Photo credit: Xinhua.
Apple Now Runs on 100% Renewable Energy, And Here’s How it Got There. Fast Company has details: “You have to see Apple’s Reno, Nevada, data center from the inside to truly understand how huge it is. It’s made up of five long white buildings sitting side by side on a dry scrubby landscape just off I-80, and the corridor that connects them through the middle is a quarter-mile long. On either side are big, dark rooms–more than 50 of them–filled with more than 200,000 identical servers, tiny lights winking in the dark from their front panels. This is where Siri lives. And iCloud. And Apple Music. And Apple Pay. Powering all these machines, and keeping them cool, takes a lot of power–constant, uninterrupted, redundant power. At the Reno data center, that means 100% green power from three different Apple solar farms…”
Photo credit: “Apple Park’s enormous roof is covered with solar panels.” [Photo: Carlos Chavarria]
Solar Power Investment Outstripped Coal, Gas and Nuclear Combined in 2017. Here’s a clip from an update at Forbes: “More money was invested in solar power in 2017 than in coal, gas and nuclear power combined, according to a new report for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The report says that global investment in solar rose 18% to $160.8 billion, driven by the Chinese market, which was responsible for more than half of the world’s 98GW of new solar capacity. Solar power made up 57% of last year’s total for all renewables (excluding large hydro) of $279.8 billion, and it towered above new investment in coal and gas generation capacity, at an estimated $103 billion…”
Image credit: U.S. Department of Energy.
Why are Electric Cars So Much Harder to Build Than Reusable Rockets? Quartz has an interesting take on SpaceX vs. Tesla; here’s an excerpt: “…The world makes very few rockets, and it makes a lot of cars. In 2017, there were 90 orbital rocket launches in the world; SpaceX was responsible for 18. The same year, global carmakers built 73 million cars; Tesla made about 100,000. Tesla, rather than entering a stagnant market, entered one of the most competitive on earth, facing off not only against domestic competitors like Ford and GM, but also global giants like Volkswagen, Toyota, and Hyundai that have spent decades developing ultra-efficient plants that make 5,000 cars or more each week. Tesla’s growing pains have lately focused on the challenge of catching up to these automated mass-production systems; Tesla is currently churning out 2,200 Model 3 sedans a week with significant back-orders to fulfill…”
Image credit: “Making it look easy.” (SpaceX).
Internet’s Oldest White Supremacist Site Going Broke. The Daily Beast reports: “One of the internet’s oldest white supremacist websites is on the brink of financial ruin, its owners say. Stormfront.org has been an internet hate hub since it launched in 1996. Its owner, former Ku Klux Klan leader Don Black, said last week that donations had plummeted and that the site was scaling back operations. But longtime Stormfront posters suggested Black’s wife had been paying the bills, and that she was finally checking out...”
Photo illustration: Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast.
Here’s the AI Documentary Elon Musk Thinks is Essential Viewing. I had a chance to watch this last weekend and it is, in fact, essential viewing. Big Think has the links and story: “…Forgive me for saying it at the beginning of a tech article, but Elon Musk is a massive hipster in that if he’s really into something, he’s going to broadcast it. And it’s absolutely going to catch on with the rest of the world. On his Twitter account on Thursday evening, he blasted a documentary he is both in and thinks is accurate. Want to watch it? Click here. The documentary – Do you trust this computer – is particularly relevant given Facebook’s ongoing Cambridge Analytica scandal. With so much data being pumped into companies like Google and Facebook, the world has to wonder just what those companies are doing with that information. Elon’s tweet even goes as far to say “Nothing will affect the future of humanity more than digital super intelligence.” So should we be scared?...”
Facebook’s Surveillance is Nothing Compared to Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. It almost makes you want to unplug – but connected life is so damn convenient! Here’s a clip from The Guardian: “…The thing is, Facebook isn’t the only company that amasses troves of data about people and leaves it vulnerable to exploitation and misuse. As of last year, Congress extended the same data-gathering practices of tech companies like Google and Facebook to internet providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. Because service providers serve as gatekeepers to the entire internet, they can collect far more information about us, and leave us with far less power to opt out of that process. This means that the risks of allowing our internet providers to collect and monetise the same type of user data that Facebook collects – and the potential that such data will therefore be misused – are much, much worse. Your internet provider doesn’t just know what you do on Facebook – it sees all the sites you visit and how much time you spend there…”
Of All the Organs, This One Suffers Most From a Poor Diet. Here’s an excerpt from MBGhealth: “…It’s a simple and irrefutable premise: The brain receives nourishment strictly through the foods we eat every single day. Of all the organs in our body, the brain is the one most easily damaged by a poor diet. From its very architecture to its ability to perform, every aspect of the brain calls for proper food. Day after day, the foods we eat are broken down into nutrients, taken up into the bloodstream, and carried up into the brain. Once there, they replenish depleted storage, activate cellular reactions, and finally, become the very fabric of our brains…”
Worst Flu Season on Record for Minnesota. Bring Me The News has the sordid details: “Winter is over in Minnesota (lol) and officials are taking stock of what has been a record bad flu season. The latest figures from the Minnesota Department of Health show that there have been 6,030 hospitalizations as a result of the flu between the start of the season and the end of March. That makes it the highest amount of hospitalizations in a single flu season since the current records started being taken in 2008, thanks to a predominant strain that the flu vaccination wasn’t particularly effective against. There have been five pediatric deaths so far this season linked to flu…”
In Spite of Lousy Weather, Twin Cities Makes U.S. News Rankings of Best Places to Live. Patch.com has the highlights: “Affordability, the availability of jobs and quality of life are all things people consider when deciding where to move. U.S. News & World Report’s 2018 Best Places to Live in the United States shows people are moving to the South, Western states and the Midwest. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro came in at ninth place in the ranking of the country’s 125 largest metropolitan areas. Austin, Texas, was named the No. 1 best place to live for the second consecutive year. Colorado Springs, Colorado, took the No. 2 spot, bumping Denver, Colorado, to No. 3, and Des Moines, Iowa, came in at No. 4. Fayetteville, Arkansas, came in at No. 5 for the second year in a row. Rounding out the top 10 were Portland, Oregon; Huntsville, Alabama; Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Seattle, Washington...”
File image: Midwest Energy News.
It’s Best Not to Make Bomb-Jokes at the Airport. Bleacher Report has the story: “Green Bay Packers wide receiver Trevor Davis was reportedly arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport Sunday after jokingly telling an attendant at the Hawaiian Airlines ticket counter he had smuggled in a bomb while being asked security questions, according to Stella Chan of CNN. Chan spoke with LAX Police public information officer Robert Pedregon, who stated that Davis “was at the Hawaiian Airlines counter with a female companion Sunday morning answering a series of typical questions asked of all travelers.” While answering those questions, Davis and the companion were asked if they had any knives or explosives. Davis then “turned to his companion and said to her ‘Yes, did you pack the explosives?’…”
Photo credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports.
2″ snow on the ground Tuesday at MSP.
41 F. high temperature yesterday in the Twin Cities.
55 F. average high on April 10.
53 F. maximum temperature on April 10, 2017.
April 11, 1929: An intense downpour occurs in Lynd, Minnesota (near Marshall), where 5.27 inches of rain would fall in 24 hours.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy, rain showers arrive PM hours. Winds: E 8-13. High: 43
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Rain showers likely. Low: 35
THURSDAY: More clouds than sun, not bad. Winds: NW 5-10. High: near 50
FRIDAY: A cold rain mixes with snow late. Winds: E 10-20. Wake-up: 36. High: near 40
SATURDAY: Wet snow, few inches of slush? Winds: NE 10-20. Wake-up: 30. High: 34
SUNDAY: Light snow or flurries. Sloppy travel. Winds: NE 10-20. Wake-up: 27. High: 35
MONDAY: Flurries taper, risk of seeing the sun. Winds: NW 7-12. Wake-up: 25. High: 42
TUESDAY: Peeks of sun, snow melts rapidly. Winds: E 5-10. Wake-up: 29. High: 44
Climate Stories…
Analysis: How Much ‘Carbon Budget’ is Left to Limit Global Warming to 1.5C? Carbon Brief has the story: “In 2015, by signing up to the Paris Agreement on climate change, nearly every country pledged to keep global temperatures “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels and to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C”. Limiting warming to 1.5C requires strictly limiting the total amount of carbon emissions between now and the end of the century. However, there is more than one way to calculate this allowable amount of additional emissions, known as the “carbon budget”. While calculations based on Earth System Models (ESMs, see below) used in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report suggest that we have only a few years left at our current rate of emissions before we blow the 1.5C carbon budget, some recent studies have suggested that the remaining carbon budget is much larger…”
Image credit: “Climate models project 21st century global temperatures.” Credit: Alex Kekesi / NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
Shell Grappled With Climate Change 20 Years Ago, Documents Show. Scientific American has the article: “Two decades ago, a group of researchers envisioned a violent storm ripping through the East Coast with such force that it would transform young people into climate activists, spark lawsuits and cause government leaders to turn on fossil fuel companies. They were only off by two years. They also worked for Shell Oil Co. In 1998, Shell researchers wrote an internal memo about future scenarios that could harm their business. They determined that “only a crisis can lead to a large-scale change in this world,” according to the memo, recently uncovered by De Correspondent with a trove of company documents...”
File image: Marco Brindicci, Reuters.
The Sky’s the Limit. My thanks to Stuart Sudak at Southwest Metro Magazine for stopping by for a chat. here’s an excerpt of his recent story: “…I can’t say I celebrate Earth Day, but I certainly acknowledge that we have an obligation as Christians to pay attention and see the world as it is, not as we think it should be,” he says. Douglas knows there is much skepticism among Evangelicals and conservatives on climate change. He at one time was skeptical, too. But, the weather patterns he noticed in the late 1990s and early 2000s swayed him. “A warmer atmosphere holds more water like a sponge sucking up more moisture,” he says. “And when the water comes down, it’s coming down harder and faster and longer. And it isn’t a climate model. It’s based on Doppler [Radar], and it’s based on water in your rain gauge. The rain is falling harder in Minnesota.” Douglas co-wrote in 2016 the book, Caring for Creation: The Evangelical’s Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment with the Rev. Mitch Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN). The book’s goal is to reach out to conservatives with “climate change messaging that resonates,” he says…”
Oil Companies Appear Willing to Do More in Face of Climate Change. Axios explains: “Oil companies of many stripes have gone out of their way to talk about climate change at CERAWeek, the big oil industry conference in Houston — reflecting a significant shift in the industry. Why it matters: Years ago the struggle between climate change activists and oil companies was around the underlying science and getting companies to accept the role that fossil fuels play and that action is necessary. Now the call throughout the oil and gas sector is to become part of the solution. Not everyone is there yet, and even among those who are, the pace required to transition the world’s energy system and to meet global climate targets is simply daunting, a path often often marked by uncertain commercially viability. Yet many large international oil companies are beginning to invest in the transition to a low-carbon future. Smaller oil and gas companies are recognizing the shareholder-driven need to evaluate climate change as a potential risk facing their business…”
Climate Change a Risk to National Security, Retired Navy Officer Says. Actually, Dave Titley is a retired Rear Admiral for the U.S. Navy (and a friend). Here’s an excerpt of an interview he gave to Wisconsin’s Post Crescent: “…A threat has intent. A risk is something that happens. The climate isn’t saying, “How can I set out to screw the United States.” It doesn’t. I tell people: the ice just melts. We’re always dealing with risks. The climate doesn’t have malevolent intent like, arguably, Russia might have toward the U.S. It’s simply changing and if we don’t adjust to that change, like almost anything if you don’t adjust to the change, bad things happen to you. Take a look at the sea level rise in places like Florida. At some point, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, all those places in south Florida basically become unlivable. The long-term property values go to zero. If you look at that happening along the coastlines, that could make the Great Recession look like a cakewalk...”
How a Small Start-Up Firm Wants to Revitalize Climate Change Research. Jason Samenow reports at Capital Weather Gang: “Where the Trump administration sees waste, the small but rapidly expanding Silicon Valley climate services firm Jupiter Intel sees opportunity. Jupiter announced Monday it is launching a community science program to invest in academic climate research, the same kind of research the president’s fiscal 2017 and 2018 budgets placed on the chopping block. In an intriguing demonstration of what may become a more common funding model in coming years, Jupiter named Columbia University as its initial collaborator. Jupiter, which offers tools to help customers manage the risks of climate change, is funding several projects at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, whose research evaluates many of these same risks. The two parties said they believe the collaboration will build a mutually beneficial partnership, while putting society in a better position to deal with the consequences of climate change…”
Which Cities are Most Vulnerable to Climate Change Conflict? Pacific Standard has details: “…Sherri Goodman, a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and the United States’ former deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security, coined the term “threat multiplier” to describe how climate change accelerates security risks. She said water stress is a source of instability around the globe. “When there is a shortage or scarcity of water, it can be used to make people vulnerable and can be used by combatants, terrorists, or others to put innocents in precarious positions for exploitation, to force migration, and to target vulnerable populations,” Goodman said. “You can see that that’s happened now in Yemen. You can see the patterns of prolonged drought in Syria, which forced migration.” Where else could climate change prove especially destabilizing? Experts say the cities below are among those most at risk of climate-related conflict. The good news is that at least two of them are taking measures to prevent it...”
