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What World Under Climate Change

Free episodes:

While the California Drought is complicated, it is postulated that it is aggravated by the Warming. The loss of the aquifers in California is permanent. Once lost, once the land subsides, there is no recovery from that.

California Sinking Faster Than Thought, Aquifers Could Permanently Shrink

by Tia Ghose, Senior Writer | August 21, 2015
LINK: California Sinking Faster Than Thought, Aquifers Could Permanently Shrink
TEXT: "California is sinking even faster than scientists had thought, new NASA satellite imagery shows. Some areas of the Golden State are sinking more than 2 inches (5.1 centimeters) per month, the imagery reveals. Though the sinking, called subsidence, has long been a problem in California, the rate is accelerating because the state's extreme drought is fueling voracious groundwater pumping. "Because of increased pumping, groundwater levels are reaching record lows — up to 100 feet (30 meters) lower than previous records," Mark Cowin, director of California's Department of Water Resources, said in a statement. "As extensive groundwater pumping continues, the land is sinking more rapidly, and this puts nearby infrastructure at greater risk of costly damage." [It's Raining Spiders! The Weirdest Effects of California's Drought]

"What's more, this furious groundwater pumping could have long-term consequences. If the land shrinks too much, and for too long, it can permanently lose its ability to store groundwater, the researchers said.

"The state's sinking isn't new: California has long suffered from subsidence, and some parts are now a few dozen feet lower than they were in 1925, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

"But the state's worst drought on record — 97 percent of the state is facing moderate to exceptional drought — has only accelerated the trend. To quantify this accelerated sinking, researchers at the Department of Water Resources and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, compared satellite imagery of California over time. Thanks to images taken from both satellites and airplanes using a remote-sensing technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), which uses radar to measure elevation differences, researchers can now map changes in the surface height of the ground with incredible precision. For the current study, the team stitched together imagery from Japan's satellite-based Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar and Canada's Earth Observation satellite Radarsat-2, as well as NASA's airplane-based Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar.

"Certain hotspots are shrinking at an astonishing rate — regions of the Tulare Basin, which includes Fresno, sank 13 inches (33 cm) in just eight months, they found. The Sacramento Valley is sinking about 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) per month. And the California Aqueduct — an intricatenetwork of pipes, canals and tunnels that funnels water from high in the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern and central California to Southern California — has sunk 12.5 inches (32 cm), and most of that was just in the past four months, according to the new study.

"The unquenchable thirst for groundwater in certain regions is largely aresult of agriculture: Most of the state's agricultural production resides in the fast-sinking regions around some of the state's most endangered river systems — the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. As the heat and lack of rainfall have depleted surface-water supplies, farmers have turned to groundwater to keep their crops afloat.

"Subsidence isn't just an aesthetic problem; bridges and highways can sink and crack in dangerous ways, and flood-control structures can be compromised. In the San Joaquin Valley, the sinking Earth has destroyed the outer shell around thousands of privately drilled wells. "Groundwater acts as a savings account to provide supplies during drought, but the NASA report shows the consequences of excessive withdrawals as we head into the fifth year of historic drought," Corwin said. "We will work together with counties, local water districts, and affected communities to identify ways to slow the rate of subsidence and protect vital infrastructure such as canals, pumping stations, bridges and wells." "
 
6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change
by Laura Poppick, Live Science Contributor | August 05, 2013
LINK: 6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change
TEXT: "Along with its anxiety-inducing effects, climate change also offers an interesting opportunity to consider fascinating, interconnected processes on Earth. The smallest to the largest components of the planet – from bacteria to volcanoes – all somehow feel the effects of a changing climate. Here are six of the most unexpected ways climate change impacts Earth.

"Desert bacteria dies
"Desert soil may appear desolate and void of life, but it actually teems with bacteria. Bacterial colonies can grow so thick that they form sturdy layers called biocrusts that stabilize soil against erosion.

"A study of these biocrusts across deserts in the United States showed that different types of desert bacteria thrive in different temperature regimes. Some prefer the sweltering heat of Arizona and New Mexico, while others fare better in the cooler climate of southern Oregon and Utah. As temperatures become more erratic with climate change, desert bacteria may struggle to adapt, leaving desert soil more prone to erosion.

"Volcanic eruptions explode
"As glacial meltwater floods into oceans and the global sea level rises with climate change, the distribution of weight on the Earth's crust will shift from land to sea.

"This shift in weight distribution could cause volcanoes to erupt more often, some studies suggest. Evidence of this phenomenon has been detected in the rock record, with remnants of more abundant volcanic eruptions correlating with periods of glacial melt at several points in Earth history. Humans in the 21st century probably won't experience this shift, however, since this effect seems to lag by up to about 2,500 years.

"Oceans darken
"Climate change will increase precipitation in some regions of the world, resulting in stronger-flowing rivers. Stronger river currents stir up more silt and debris, which all eventually flows into the ocean and makes the ocean more opaque. Regions along the coast of Norway have already experienced increasingly darker and murkier ocean water with increased precipitation and snow melt in recent decades. Some researchers have speculated that the murkiness is responsible for changes in regional ecosystems, including a spike in jellyfish populations.

"Allergies worsen
"As climate change causes springtime to spring out earlier in the year, sneeze-inducing pollen will ride the airwaves that much earlier in the year as well. This will increase the overall pollen load each year, and could make people's allergies worse. Some temperature and precipitation models have shown that pollen levels could more than double by the year 2040.

"Ant invasions slow
"Pheidole megacephala, also known as the big-headed ant, is one of the top 100 most invasive species on Earth. Hoards of these insects thrive in South America, Australia and Africa, and their voracious populations spread rapidly. As invasive animals, they steal habitat and resources from native species, disrupting regional ecosystems and jeopardizing biodiversity. They have even been known to hunt bird hatchlings.

"Researchers have estimated that 18.5 percent of the land on Earth currently supports the big-headed ant. But as temperatures shift in the coming decades, the habitat range of these cold-blooded animals will likely shrink substantially. Some climate models suggest that the ant's range will decrease by one-fifth by the year 2080. How native insects will respond to these changes, however, remains unclear.

"Sunlight floods polar seafloor
"As sea ice melts, more sunlight will bathe shallow coastal regions around the poles. Seafloor communities of worms, sponges, and other invertebrates accustomed to existing in darkness will begin to experience longer periods of sunlight each summer. Recent research has shown that this shift could significantly alter these communities, by allowing seaweeds and other marine plant-life to smother invertebrates. This transition from invertebrate-dominated communities to algae-dominated communities has already been observed in pockets of both the Arctic and Antarctic coastlines, and could significantly decrease biodiversity in these regions."
 
Why Climate Change Is a Threat to Human Rights | Mary Robinson | TED Talks
TEXT: "Published on Oct 14, 2015: Climate change is unfair. While rich countries can fight against rising oceans and dying farm fields, poor people around the world are already having their lives upended — and their human rights threatened — by killer storms, starvation and the loss of their own lands. Mary Robinson asks us to join the movement for worldwide climate justice."
 
"When 9 million people lose their livelihood, a nation starts to break down."

Soil Not Oil Conference ~ Dr. Vandana Shiva Keynote Speaker

TEXT: "Published on Sep 13, 2015: Keynote Speech by Dr. Vandana Shiva at the Soil Not Oil International Conference Practicing Sustainable Agriculture to Restore Ecosystems and Mitigate Climate Change was held on September 4th & 5th, 2015 at the Memorial Civic Center Complex of Richmond California.

"Inspired by Dr. Vandana Shiva’s book, Soil Not Oil, the 2015 Soil Not Oil Conference examined the crisis on food security while highlighting the implications of oil-based agro-chemicals and fossil fuels in soil depletion and climate change. The first edition of this conference focused on educating, through national and international experiences, about the multiple problems and possible practical solutions that surround the profound consequences resulting from synthetic enhanced agriculture in industrialized nations.

"The conference organizer, Soil Not Oil Coalition, is a cross-sector, multi-level and inter-ethnic alliance of over 50 organizations, scientists, farmers, businesses and individuals coordinated by the Biosafety Alliance."
 
For those who can follow the details and the complexity of this science.

Gavin Schmidt: The emergent patterns of climate change

TEXT: "Published on May 1, 2014: You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing. In this illuminating talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the endlessly complex interactions of small-scale environmental events."
 
South Carolina's Catastrophic Floods Caused By One of the Most Prolific Rainfall Events in Modern U.S. History
Nick Wiltgen Published: October 8, 2015
LINK: South Carolina's Catastrophic Floods Caused By One of the Most Prolific Rainfall Events in Modern U.S. History - wunderground.com
TEXT: "The catastrophic floods striking South Carolina will go down in the history books, not only because of the lives they've taken or the destruction they've wrought, but also because of the sheer amount of rainfall. By the time the last raindrop is counted, the October 2015 storm will go down as one of the most prolific rainfall events in the modern history of the United States.

"Rainfall totals from the early October storm have shattered or jeopardized countless records in South Carolina.

  • The official statewide 24-hour rainfall record was exceeded in several locations; an official determination may take months to complete.
  • The unofficial state record for 5-day total rainfall, which had stood for 107 years, has been surpassed at more than a dozen reporting sites.
  • The rainfall exceeded that of any tropical cyclone in South Carolina history.
  • Seven sites with more than 50 years of data achieved their wettest Octobers on record.
  • The October monthly precipitation record for any location in the state has likely been broken.
"Data are still being assimilated into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's database, but here is how the Carolinas flood disaster stacks up in various categories." [see linked article for full text]
 
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Area leaders fail to take serious action in face of rising threats from above and below
By Doug Pardue and Tony Bartelme Published Oct 10 2015, edited Oct 12, 2015
LINK: Area leaders fail to take serious action in face of rising threats from above and below
TEXT: "The storm flew in from the ocean like an invading force, picking up fuel in the warmth of the Gulf Stream, then zeroing in on the South Carolina coast. The skies over Charleston darkened; the tides swelled. And then the clouds, laden with moisture, released their loads, one rain bomb after another, turning streets into rivers, turning swaths of South Carolina into disaster areas. Welcome to the present, welcome to the future." [see linked article for full text]

 
Excellent interactive graphic of sea level rise in Charleston Harbor within linked article.

Rising tide: Charting 93 years of sea level in Charleston Harbor

LINK
: Rising tide: Charting 93 years of sea level in Charleston Harbor
TEXT: "If you've driven anywhere near the coast this week, you've probably noticed the tidal flooding. Some of the blame lies with the Moon: since it orbits the Earth in an elliptical pattern, its distance from us varies over time. When the moon is closest to Earth, like it was earlier this week, tides are usually higher. Another factor is onshore winds pushing more water toward the coast. But this week's flooding isn't just a fluke—rising sea levels over the past century make flooding events like this more likely to occur.

"The chart below shows the mean sea level in Charleston Harbor, averaged by month over the last 93 years. The dashed line shows a yearly average. According to these data, which are recorded by NOAA, the mean sea level has increased by about 0.36 meters (or about 1 foot 2 inches) since 1922. (Correction: an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the increase was 0.53 meters, it is actually 0.36 meters)

"There are several reasons why levels tend to be highest in the fall, but it's difficult to determine exact causes. Factors that contribute are: winds, water temperature, ocean currents, and river outflow."
 
The rainforests hold the key to taming El Niño's destruction:
Healthy forests protect our climate and moderate our weather. As the ‘Godzilla’ El Niño builds in the weeks ahead of Paris talks, it is a timely warning that deforestation is partly to blame for its impacts
By Deborah Lawrence Published Friday 16 October 2015 Last modified on Friday 16 October 2015

LINK: The rainforests hold the key to taming El Niño's destruction
TEXT: "This year’s El Niño, the ocean-traveling climate cycle notorious for throwing the weather off kilter, is nicknamed “Godzilla”. While it is projected to deliver plenty of rain to some parts of the world, including drought-parched California, it is already causing dangerously dry conditions in the tropics. Papua New Guinea, for example, is experiencing its worst drought in decades, which spells doom for coffee and food crops.


Analyses from Noaa and Nasa confirm that El Niño is strengthening and that it looks a lot like the strong event that occurred in 1997–98. Photograph: Noaa/Nasa

"The last time El Niño was this intense, in 1997, five million hectares of rainforest went up in smoke in Indonesia at a time when rain usually falls in sheets. The forest fires generated gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 13-40% of the world’s fossil fuel emissions at the time. The resulting haze, which spanned an area from northern Australia to the Philippines to Sri Lanka, caused widespread health problems and grounded airplanes. With six of Indonesia’s provinces on high alert and fires raging, this year could be just as bad. Already, over 25 million Indonesians have suffered from the fires.

"Standing, healthy forests, the Earth’s “sweat glands”, pump moisture into the atmosphere, providing the globe with its greatest defense against droughts, forest fires and other weather-related disasters. Without this buffer, we’re more exposed and vulnerable to the whims of extreme weather.

"To maintain an effective buffer, it is imperative that global efforts to protect forests are accelerated. Tropical forests are important climate bulwarks, and the impact of cutting them down packs a wallop beyond the release of the vast stores of carbon they hold. Tearing down forests also changes the earth’s surface, triggering major shifts in rainfall and increases in temperature worldwide that can be just as disruptive to the climate and weather as those caused by carbon pollution.

"One of the most ambitious forest commitments to date, last year’s New York Declaration on Forests, recognizes the “double whammy” impact of deforestation on the climate and weather. This agreement among corporations, governments, NGOs and indigenous groups to end deforestation by 2030 includes a call to restore and regrow forests in addition to protecting already-standing forests.

"Planting forests eventually stores carbon. But it takes an agonizingly slow 50-100 years or more for new forests to absorb the amount of carbon released when a tropical forest is cleared and burned. It is far more effective to prevent the forests from falling in the first place. But planted forests can provide a different, underappreciated benefit to the world’s climate and weather – and they do so more quickly than they recover carbon or the plant and animal life they once held.

"Within a decade, most planted forests in tropical regions develop a closed canopy, as branches from one tree touch those of the next. At this stage of growth, they transform substantial amounts of water in the soil – which they reach via roots far deeper than found in crops or grasses – into moisture in the air, which cools the atmosphere above and the area around them. This process also generates moist conditions and rainfall locally and in the surrounding region.

"It also generates the mass movement of air and conditions in the upper atmosphere that ultimately influence rainfall and temperature, both close by and far away. When forests are standing, they give us our climate and they can help protect us against a changing climate.

"But when forests are cut down, these systems are disrupted. Changes in circulation due to tropical deforestation ultimately hit the upper atmosphere, where they cause ripples, or teleconnections, that flow outward in various directions, similar to the way in which an underwater earthquake can create a tsunami. The atmosphere connects climate in one place to climate in the rest of the world.

"Deforestation across the tropics, therefore, might alter growing conditions in agricultural areas in south-east Asia, South America and Africa, and as far away as the US Midwest, Europe and China. This means that cutting down forests could imperil the world’s breadbaskets, even those thousands of miles away from the tropical forest belt – with dire implications for the ever-increasing demands on the world’s food supply.

"As the Godzilla El Niño bears down and the climate talks in Paris heat up, remember that deforestation is partly to blame for its impacts. Deforestationworsens droughts, making El Niño more damaging than it would otherwise be. Healthy forests protect our climate and moderate our weather.

"The international community assembling in Paris in December cannot keep global warming below 2C without both protecting the world’s remaining tropical forests and restoring vast areas of tropical forest that have already been lost. If we do not ensure the future of our forests, this year’s Godzilla El Niño may prove to be a puny harbinger of the monsters to come."
 
Solar Power Lights the Way to a Cleaner Economy in Chile
The South American country is relying on solar to forge a more competitive economy
By Ines Perez and ClimateWire | October 8, 2015
LINK: Solar Power Lights the Way to a Cleaner Economy in Chile
TEXT: "CALAMA, Chile—About 765 miles north of Santiago in the Atacama Desert, the Gabriela Mistral recreational center emerges as an unexpected touch of modernity among the sandy-colored mountains. Down a path of crushed stone leading to the cafeteria, the site is peppered with circle-shaped patterns made up of bluish-green rocks—a telltale sign of the presence of copper oxide.

"Since opening in 2009, the striking installations at the Gabriela Mistral mine—or Minera Gaby—have been a source of praise for their innovative approach to mining and community development. More recently, Gaby has drawn the attention of scholars and government officials as an unconventional yet practical example of how climate-change-related measures are not only necessary, but also can be economically convenient.

"In 2013, CODELCO inaugurated what was then the world’s largest thermosolar plant, Pampa Elvira Solar, to provide Minera Gaby renewable energy for its operations. With 2,620 glass and aluminum collectors arranged in the shape of CODELCO’s corporate logo—a large Venus symbol, the alchemical symbol for copper—the plant delivers 85 percent of the power needed for the hydrometallurgical process used to produce copper.

"As a result, the mine not only cut back its diesel costs, but it started producing “greener,” premium-quality copper cathodes that are competitive in more aggressive carbon emission reduction-prone markets, such as Europe. “We are at a crucial point in the division,” explained Alan Brell Salgado, representative of CODELCO’s Gabriela Mistral division. “Our carbon footprint is a very important topic for us, as we are taking the steps to obtain our certification and negotiating with the European market, which is stricter than the Chinese.”

"In the wake of declining demand from China, the world’s largest copper market, the opportunities of a new market opening up send a strong signal to the mining sector. The industry has now found an unusual ally in nonconventional renewables. In Chile’s case, the economic benefits of going green have also been heightened by a recent push from the presidency to meet the country’s greenhouse gas emissions targets. “This administration, [Michelle] Bachelet’s administration, is really prioritizing climate change in a way that no other previous administration has done, including her first administration,” said Amanda Maxwell, Latin America project director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit international environmental advocacy group based in New York City.

"But the shift to a cleaner, more sustainable energy sector is easier said than done here. “A lot of people would agree that Chile doesn’t have an energy generation problem, they have an energy transmission problem going forward,” Maxwell said, referring to an aging and inefficient electric grid. “I think people are starting to think about the depth of the changes that will be needed in order to allow renewables to really participate on an even playing field.” Advocates say it’s slowly beginning to pay off.

"Developing a ‘third way’ of climate politics
"Chile may not be the kind of country that comes to mind when discussing the future of climate change. Its annual emissions are 40 times smaller than China’s and 30 times smaller than the output of India. Its economy, while long the strongest in Latin America, does not make the country a global powerhouse of political influence. Still, Chile is beginning to play a pivotal role on the global stage.

"Chile’s share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions amounts only to 0.28 percent. But per-capita emissions have been on the rise over the last two decades. According to the country’s latest emissions report, emissions have increased by 83.5 percent since 1990. That makes it the second-largest per-capita climate polluter in Latin America, behind Venezuela, with an average of 5.3 tons per person. As the country continues to develop, these numbers are expected to grow.

"After a contentious 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark—which ended without a binding treaty after bitter battles between nations—Chile put its eggs in a new basket. It participated in the formation of a group called the Cartagena Dialogue, an informal space for countries committed to a low-carbon economy to work on a legally binding regime in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It also became a member of the National Alliance of Latin America and Caribbean Communities (NAILACC), which promotes the need for nations to take part in climate mitigation actions. “What I think is really great about Chile, and its partners in [NAILACC], as well, is that they are saying, ‘Climate change is a problem, but we need to develop. We are willing to make a transformation to low-carbon economies, but we need support,’” said Guy Edwards, research fellow at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and co-director of the Climate and Development Lab at Brown University. “And I think this line of discussion, especially in the U.N. climate talks, is seen as a third way,” he said.

"At the U.N. climate summit in New York in September 2014, Bachelet reiterated the country’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and set an international precedent by announcing public consultations for Chile’s contributions to a new climate agreement that is expected to be signed in Paris at the end of this year.

"The final target submitted to the United Nations at the end of September ultimately was less ambitious than some of the draft options that the Chilean government had circulated. The goal aims for a 30 percent cut in carbon intensity by 2030 based on 2007 levels. That target is unconditional, but Chile said it could go even further with financial assistance. At the same time, it pledged to reforest 100,000 hectares of forest.

"In a blog post, the NRDC called the unilateral goal a “safe, conservative bet which Chile can meet and certainly exceed,” and called on Chile to meet the more ambitious end of its target. Still, the group and others said the energy conversation happening in Chile, particularly its call for public consultations, is a big step. “I think Chile’s efforts are blurring the lines between domestic and foreign policy, and how climate change is an issue for both arenas to tackle simultaneously,” said Edwards. “As we gear up for Paris, the [NAILACC] countries are going to be potentially key partners to be pushing for a higher-ambition agreement.”

"Institutionalizing climate action at home
"Chile’s climate diplomacy spurs changes at home. In 2008, Chile launched its first National Climate Change Action Plan, for the period from 2008 to 2014, to gather information on what was happening in the country, identify the baselines for emissions cuts and measure other key variables. But the biggest change came in 2010, when the Ministry of Environment was finally created, according to Paola Vasconi, a climate change specialist and coordinator of political affairs at Adapt-Chile. “Chile was one of the last Latin American countries to create a ministry of environment,” Vasconi explained. “In a way, the creation of the ministry helped institutionalize climate change at a national level.”

"Since then, the ministry has launched several projects, in collaboration with other ministries, to define and promote the government’s climate agenda. In 2011, it launched its Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios program, or MAPS Chile, to determine the baseline for the country’s greenhouse gas emissions under business-as-usual conditions from 2007 to 2030. Those projections on how the Chilean economy would evolve without any efforts to reduce its greenhouse gases are expected to help define different mitigation measures and possible scenarios.

"Officials have also been working on an update to the National Climate Change Action Plan, for the period from 2016 to 2021, oriented to the implementation and funding of mitigation and adaptation actions contemplated in Chile’s intended nationally determined contributions. The ministry also recently launched a project to determine how much the government has been indirectly spending on climate-change-related measures, as well as one to standardize the way companies calculate their carbon footprint.

"Most importantly, because of the presidency’s explicit support, other ministries have also been taking on a more active role on climate change, Vasconi said. Progress began with the energy sector.

"Unlocking green investments in a free-market economy
"With the creation of the Ministry of Energy, also in 2010, the government launched an aggressive campaign to restructure the energy sector and define its agenda. The ministry recently submitted to the Chilean Congress legislation aimed at tackling energy efficiency.

"Perhaps the most significant change occurred in 2014 with the modification of the bidding process for power generation projects. The reform split the hours of generation between day and night shifts, finally unlocking investments in solar. The country also introduced a carbon tax on generation and vehicle emissions, its top two emitting sectors. “What Chile did was create an environment that enables green investments,” said Marcelo Mena-Carrasco, undersecretary of environment. Specifically, the tax on power generation includes a fixed cost of $5 per ton of carbon dioxide, plus a variable tax based on the pollution and environmental damage to the community where the plant is located. “The second tax to power generation has a strong market signal effect, because you are adding the cost of negative externalities to the electricity generation,” he explained. This, according to Mena-Carrasco, levels the field between renewables and conventional generation in terms of operational costs.

"From his office at the Ministry of Environment’s building, near the Palacio de La Moneda—the seat of the president—in Santiago, Mena-Carrasco has become a key advocate within the government for cross-ministry climate action. He has had to learn to navigate the murky waters of bureaucracy to sell the ministry’s mitigation and adaptation initiatives. “In a free-market economy, it makes sense to a lot of people when you say that not having a green tax is a hidden subsidy, and that’s something that at least resonates among the more conservative economists,” Mena-Carrasco said.

"As the agency works on its new energy policy, Energía 2050, there is growing evidence that climate actions can mesh with the country’s development goals. Targets like a 30 percent reduction in energy costs by the end of the current administration, 20 percent in savings on energy consumption through energy efficiency and a goal to achieve 20 percent generation from nonconventional renewables by 2025 are already being implemented to make Chile more competitive, Mena-Carrasco explained. They are also vital to Chile’s climate policy.

"Will Chile’s grid stand in the way of its own progress?
"After a timid start, the approval of the “Law 20/25” in 2013—which set a target of 20 percent nonconventional renewable energy (NCRE) generation by 2025—triggered a boom in NCRE, according to data from the Chilean Association of Renewable Energy (ACERA).

"In 2014, NCRE practically doubled its installed capacity in December 2013, reaching 2,097 megawatts by December 2014. By May 2015, installed capacity reached 2,270 MW, with an additional 2,000 MW reported in construction. Experts say these statistics point to an estimated investment of $4 billion a year in NCRE, between 2014 and 2015 alone. “Recent studies show that Chile has an estimated potential of more than 1.8 million MW in NCRE projects, including solar technology PV [photovoltaics], CSP [concentrated solar power], wind, mini-hydro, biogas/biomass, geothermal and marine,” said Carlos Finat, executive director at ACERA. “This potential supports that in a reasonable time, by 2050, for example, the country could have an energy matrix based 100 percent on renewable energy, both conventional and unconventional,” he said. But that reinforces the need to update Chile’s electrical grid.

"After the grid’s privatization in the 1980s, new transmission lines were built catering to specific projects -- particularly energy-hungry mines in the north. Meanwhile, cities were electrified almost as an afterthought. This led to an inflexible energy matrix, with serious shortcomings in transmission and little consideration for renewables. These are expensive issues.

"In April, the government approved an expansion plan that calls for the construction of a transmission line that would connect Chile’s Central Interconnected System grid and northern Interconnected System of Norte Grande grid, and bring the clean energy in the north to the rest of the country. According to the National Energy Commission, the interconnection project has an estimated cost of $1 billion. And this is just one of the projects under construction.

"A glassy economic oasis in the desert
"Despite the cost, the value of solar power remains a bargain. Chile produces about a third of the world’s copper, and mining is by far the sector with the biggest demand of energy, representing almost 30 percent of total energy consumption. That number is expected to double by 2025, according to recent reports.“The mining process itself uses a lot of electricity, but it also uses a lot of heat,” explained Cesar Belaunde, project manager at Energía Llaima, the company that owns and operates the Pampa Elvira thermosolar plant for Minera Gaby.

"Covering almost 970,000 square feet of dry, rough terrain, Pampa Elvira stands out as a glassy oasis at the driest place on Earth. With the highest solar radiation in the world concentrated in the Atacama Desert, its collectors feed the mine more than enough heat necessary for the copper extraction process known as electrowinning.

"An acid solution rich in copper called an electrolyte is heated to 47 degrees Celsius and pumped to a tank with insoluble lead plates and stainless-steel sheets. A direct current is then applied between the lead plates and stainless steel, causing the copper ions in the electrolyte solution to attach themselves onto the sheets. Thus obtaining the copper cathodes. “Electrolytic copper is one of the purest coppers that can be obtained with the processes we have in Chile,” said Belaunde. And now, with thermosolar, it’s also a bit greener.

"The benefits of using thermosolar power in mining processes are many. In the case of Minera Gaby, for example, the 39,300-square-meter solar plant can substitute about 80 percent of the fossil fuel used to heat the electrolyte solution with thermosolar power, saving up to 6,500 tons of diesel a year. By burning less diesel, Minera Gaby has also cut back its CO2 emissions by nearly 15,000 tons a year. More importantly, “you get premium copper,” Belaunde added.

"Can greening the copper mines green the country?
"China’s economic deceleration, and the consistent drop in international copper prices, has led private mining companies in Chile to reduce their investments in new projects. As the Financial Times pointed out in April, this has left CODELCO with the burden of keeping up Chile’s share of the world market.

"Earlier this year, the corporation raised $4 billion to finance new structural projects, spanning through 2025. According to Brell Salgado, now is as good a time as any to innovate and look for alternatives that would make the business much more sustainable and more resilient to the fluctuations in China’s demand for copper. “The vision at the division today is that we are looking at a completely different scenario than we had yesterday. Today, we are betting to play in another league with copper of better quality, more efficient and more cost effective that will allow us to be more competitive and environmentally friendly,” Brell Salgado said. But this change in attitude didn’t happen overnight. “It took us 11 years to convince CODELCO of doing it,” said Roberto Roman, solar energy expert and associate professor at the University of Chile. “But it’s finally catching on.”

"According to Belaunde, Energía Llaima recently closed a deal with Minera Zaldívar—an open-pit copper mine in the Antofagasta region owned and operated by Barrick Gold Corp.—to install and operate a large thermosolar plant. There are currently only three thermosolar plants in Chile operating in copper mines; the fourth one will be in Zaldívar. “I think there is an opportunity to take leadership in the particular topic of solar energy and mining,” said Roman. The model being implemented at Minera Gaby is evidence that climate change initiatives, such as pushing for cleaner energy, can have multiple economic benefits beyond reducing emissions. Market-wise, it’s smart business.

"Chile has a long road ahead to solidify its climate change policy beyond the walls of the Ministry of Environment. As many civil society groups and officials point out, without a proper climate change law, it will be hard to steer powerful ministries like Finance and Economy away from their “business as usual”-oriented ways to a low-carbon future. But the fact that a conservative sector such as mining, famously resistant to change, has found a way to make the green business work for it shows a promising start. “I think there is a huge opportunity in this regard, and many people are beginning to see it that way,” Roman said. “They realize that it is not a business issue of one mine, two mines, but a change in how you are going to do things, and that opens up opportunities that would be a shame for the country to lose out on.” "
 
A Mysterious Epidemic Plaguing Central America May Be Linked To Climate Change:
"If it turns out that heat stress is causing kidney disease, it may be relevant throughout the world."
Lila ShapiroSenior Staff Reporter, The Huffington Post Posted: 10/16/2015

LINK: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...reen&section=green&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000044
TEXT: "A mysterious disease has been sweeping through the sugar cane fields of Central America, with more than 20,000 laborers dying from it over the past decade. As of 2012, it had killed the husbands of more than 100 women of the 250 families living on one island in Nicaragua, giving rise to the grim nickname “Island of the Widows.” “Chronic Kidney Disease of nontraditional causes,” as researchers have called the condition, attacks the kidneys and prevents the body from eliminating waste and excess fluid. As the name suggests, no one really knows what causes it. A new report, however, shows that researchers may be getting closer to an answer. And there are signs that a solution, too, could be close at hand.

"Some studying the epidemic have wondered if toxins like pesticides or heavy metals may be making the workers sick, but Richard Johnson, a kidney specialist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, had a different theory. About four years ago, when Johnson first heard about the deaths in Central America, he wondered if chronic dehydration might be a factor. Laboring in the sugar fields is hard, hot work, and there's been increasing evidence that dehydration may cause kidney damage. During the harvest season, sugar cane workers toil in extreme heat for long hours, and they don’t necessarily have access to fresh water.

"The research Johnson and his team conducted in Nicaragua and El Salvador, published last week, confirmed at least part of his theory. They found that the laborers suffered serious dehydration on a daily basis, and routinely worked in conditions exceeding the recommended heat standards of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This research could also help answer another question Johnson has been pondering: Could the 20,000 people who died in Central America be victims of the first epidemic caused by global warming? “We’ve been worried that climate change could have big health effects,” he told The Huffington Post. “If it turns out that heat stress is causing kidney disease, it may be relevant throughout the world, particularly in hot areas.”

"As Johnson laid out in his paper in the American Journal of Kidney Disease, temperatures have been rising in El Salvador since 1980, as have the number of extremely hot days. That, along with a growing global water shortage, suggests the epidemic in Central America could occur elsewhere around the world. In fact, a similar outbreak of chronic kidney disease has already been observed among workers in the rice paddies of northern Sri Lanka. “We’re beginning to think that this might be a lot more common than we think,” he said. “As populations expand and you have areas that are arid or with drought, it’s going to be one of the major issues moving forward.”

"One group is trying to make a difference. In recent months, Jason Glaser, co-founder of the La Isla Foundation, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to addressing the epidemic, has met with officials from the United States, Guatemalan, Costa Rican and Mexican governments.

"This summer, Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera announced a national regulation to limit heat stress and dehydration among manual laborers -- the first time that a government has framed the fight to curb kidney disease by focusing on those factors. The new regulation will require companies that employ laborers in tropical conditions to provide their workers with water, rest and shade.

"Glaser’s group has worked alongside OSHA, which has a number of projects in Latin America, to develop a program that addresses the disease through a multi-pronged effort involving research and policy recommendations. So far, the results have been promising: Kidney function appears to be stabilizing among the workers, he said, and their productivity has gone up by 40 percent.

"Perhaps that last statistic explains why companies are beginning to come around, too. When Glaser first began to fight the epidemic, almost every company he contacted refused to address the problem. But now, he says, nearly 20 percent of sugar cane companies are taking measures to help prevent chronic dehydration, and more companies appear to be on the verge of change. “It’s an excellent start,” he said. “Because before, it was zero.”

"Johnson’s paper follows on earlier research suggesting a link between kidney ailments and climate change. Last year, a study for the Urologic Diseases in America Project examining instances of kidney stones in five major cities showed that as temperatures rose, so did the risk of kidney stones. Ultimately, Glaser said, the next step will be to mechanize the sugar cane industry. “If left unchecked, this disease will bankrupt these countries," he said. "We can prevent it with better work solutions, but mechanization is probably the best way to help it."

"Of course, mechanization could bring with it a new set of problems -- not least of which would be widespread unemployment among the sugar cane workers. “If you do this sloppily, you replace one thing with another, which is all these out-of-work men in the middle of the drug war,” said Glaser. “So that is the responsibility now on my shoulders.” "
 
Why the Earth’s past has scientists so worried about the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation
By Chris Mooney October 12, 2015
LINK: "Why the Earth’s past has scientists so worried about the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation
TEXT: "In the last month, there’s been much attention to a cool patch in the North Atlantic Ocean, where record cold temperatures over the past eight months present a stark contrast to a globe that is experiencing record warmth. And although there is certainly no consensus on the matter yet, some scientists think this pattern may be a sign of one long-feared consequence of climate change — a slowing of North Atlantic ocean circulation, due to a freshening of surface waters.

"The cause, goes the thinking, would be the rapidly melting Greenland ice sheet, whose large freshwater flows may weaken ocean “overturning” by reducing the density of cold surface waters (colder, salty water is denser). If cold, salty waters don’t sink in the North Atlantic and flow back southward toward Antarctica at depth, then warm surface waters won’t flow northward to take their place. The result could be a significant change to northern hemisphere climate, as less ocean-borne heat reaches higher latitudes.

"Now, two new studies just out in Nature Geosciencehelp to underscore why scientists have a good reason to think this sort of thing can happen — namely, because it appears to have happened in the Earth’s distant past. And not just once but on multiple occasions.

"For a long time scientists have been trying to figure out a funny thing about glacial periods of Earth’s history. These periods are not, you see, uniformly cold. Rather, they show an alternation between so-called stadials — long periods featuring quite cold temperatures — and interstadials, which are relatively rapidly occurring warmer periods during glacials. So what causes this oscillation in glacial temperatures?

"A leading theory is that this all has something to do with changes in the circulation of the oceans. The idea is that large flows of ice into the ocean in the North Atlantic cause freshening at the surface. This could then weaken Atlantic ocean circulation, lessen northward heat transport, and ultimately cause a cold period — another stadial.

"The first study in Nature Geoscience seems to confirm as much by looking at a deep sea core from the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of South America in waters that aren’t far from the beginning of the Southern Ocean and, then, Antarctica. The research, led by Julia Gottschalk of the University of Cambridge in collaboration with other researchers from Cambridge, the United States, Australia and France, finds “a very tight link between abrupt changes in the ocean circulation, and these events, these transitions between cold climate states and warm climate states during the last glacial period,” as Gottschalk puts it. But how could the researchers know this from a single cylinder of mud extracted from more than two miles beneath the ocean?

"The trick, Gottschalk says, is that the core was taken from a region where very different water masses, characteristic of the North and South Atlantic, meet. “The waters formed in the north are preserving, so they’re less corrosive,” Gottschalk says. “And the waters from the south are more corrosive because they have more CO2, more acid basically.” And these water characteristics have an effect on the dissolution of the shells of tiny microorganisms called foraminifera, which fall to the seafloor and become part of the core sample that the scientists examined.

"Thus, by examining these shells, the researchers were able to tell when the area was bathing in waters that had traveled southward from the North Atlantic — so-called North Atlantic Deep Water, a key part of the overturning circulation — and when that circulation was weaker and South Atlantic waters occupied the area instead. The results, Gottschalk says, are something that scientists studying glacial changes and their causes have lacked — namely, “a clear deep ocean record that really shows these abrupt changes in ocean circulation.”

"Indeed, the record showed that during “nearly every” warm or interstadial period, deep water from the North Atlantic made its way southward toward Antarctica — precisely what you would expect if overturning ocean circulation increased in the North Atlantic, snapping back from a more slowed-down state. “Our core site is really very sensitive to these ocean circulation changes, and we could really draw this conclusion that abrupt climate change in the past is really closely coupled to changes in the overturning, or to deepwater mass formation,” Gottschalk says.

"More specifically, Gottschalk says, the last 115,000 years featured some 25 abrupt cold-to-warm shifts in the North Atlantic. And “at least during the last 70,000 years these climate shifts were in some way or the other tightly linked with significant changes of the deep Atlantic ocean circulation, in particular with deep water circulating from the North to the South Atlantic.”

"The second study, meanwhile, seeks to explain the Younger Dryas, a cold period that began abruptly 12,900 years ago, as the planet was actually coming out of a glacial period and entering the present interglacial. Suddenly, though, temperatures swung back and became quite cold again for more than a thousand years, leading glaciers and ice sheets to rebuild. And once again, a change in Atlantic ocean circulation has long been a leading suspect in causing this dramatic, sudden event. “The start of the Younger Dryas was in a couple of years, really five years or so,” says Hans Renssen of VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands, who led the research, along with scientists from Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland.

"Using climate change models, the researchers tried to reproduce the cooling of the Younger Dryas period. And they found that simulating a full shutdown of the Atlantic’s overturning circulation actually made things too cold — but combining together a more moderate ocean circulation slowdown (losing about half of its force) with a concurrent reduction in solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface and a change in atmospheric circulation patterns did a very good job of simulating the cool down.

"Slowing the Atlantic ocean’s circulation thus “plays an important role, but it’s not the only mechanism,” Renssen says. When it comes to modern day implications of the research, however, “it shows that climate is sensitive to changes in the freshwater balance of the ocean,” Renssen says. “So I would not expect a Younger Dryas, or a thousand year-long cold period, but I think there’s still a serious risk of the ocean circulation to weaken, and even abruptly.”

"Granted, it’s important to distinguish between past periods, like the Younger Dryas, and where we are today. For the Younger Dryas, the trigger event is thought to be a gigantic freshwater flow from the huge Lake Agassiz, which had been previously hemmed in by the Laurentide Ice Sheet — a vast ice sheet that covered much of North America during the last glacial period. But neither Lake Agassiz nor the Laurentide Ice Sheet exists today. So whatever they did in the past could be quite different from the effects of large ice loss from Greenland in the present.

"The gist of the new research, then, is that the idea of abrupt climate changes brought on by ocean circulation changes is very much alive and well in climate change research. Whether what we’re currently seeing matches what happened in the past is another matter — but the past certainly gives ample reason for concern."
 

January–August 2015 blended land and sea surface temperature percentiles. (NOAA)
 
Why some scientists are worried about a surprisingly cold ‘blob’ in the North Atlantic Ocean
By Chris Mooney September 24, 2015
LINK: Why some scientists are worried about a surprisingly cold ‘blob’ in the North Atlantic Ocean
TEXT: "It is, for our home planet, an extremely warm year. Indeed, last week we learned from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the first eight months of 2015 were the hottest such stretch yet recorded for the globe’s surface land and oceans, based on temperature records going back to 1880. It’s just the latest evidence that we are, indeed, on course for a record-breaking warm year in 2015.

"Yet, if you look closely, there’s one part of the planet that is bucking the trend. In the North Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and Iceland, the ocean surface has seen very cold temperatures for the past eight months. What’s up with that?

"First of all, it’s no error. I checked with Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, who confirmed what the map above suggests — some parts of the North Atlantic Ocean saw record cold in the past eight months. As Arndt put it by email: For the grid boxes in darkest blue, they had their coldest Jan-Aug on record, and in order for a grid box to be “eligible” for that map, it needs at least 80 years of Jan-Aug values on the record. Those grid boxes encompass the region from “20W to 40W and from 55N to 60N,” Arndt explained.

"And there’s not much reason to doubt the measurements — the region is very well sampled. “It’s pretty densely populated by buoys, and at least parts of that region are really active shipping lanes, so there’s quite a lot of observations in the area,” Arndt said. “So I think it’s pretty robust analysis.” Thus, the record seems to be a meaningful one — and there is a much larger surrounding area that, although not absolutely the coldest it has been on record, is also unusually cold.

"At this point, it’s time to ask what the heck is going on here. And while there may not yet be any scientific consensus on the matter, at least some scientists suspect that the cooling seen in these maps is no fluke but, rather, part of a process that has been long feared by climate researchers — the slowing of Atlantic Ocean circulation.

"In March, several top climate scientists, including Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Michael Mann of Penn State, published a paper in Nature Climate Change suggesting that the gigantic ocean current known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is weakening. It’s sometimes confused with the “Gulf Stream,” but, in fact, that’s just a southern branch of it.

"The current is driven by differences in the temperature and salinity of ocean water (for a more thorough explanation, see here). In essence, cold salty water in the North Atlantic sinks because it is more dense, and warmer water from farther south moves northward to take its place, carrying tremendous heat energy along the way. But a large injection of cold, fresh water can, theoretically, mess it all up — preventing the sinking that would otherwise occur and, thus, weakening the circulation.

"In the Nature Climate Change paper, the researchers suggested that this source of freshwater is the melting of Greenland, which is now losing more than a hundred billion tons of ice each year.

"I asked Mann and Rahmstorf to comment on the blue spot on the map above by e-mail. Here’s what Mann had to say:

I was formerly somewhat skeptical about the notion that the ocean “conveyor belt” circulation pattern could weaken abruptly in response to global warming. Yet this now appears to be underway, as we showed in a recent article, and as we now appear to be witnessing before our very eyes in the form of an anomalous blob of cold water in the sup-polar North Atlantic.

"Rahmstorf also commented as follows:

The fact that a record-hot planet Earth coincides with a record-cold northern Atlantic is quite stunning. There is strong evidence — not just from our study — that this is a consequence of the long-term decline of the Gulf Stream System, i.e. the Atlantic ocean’s overturning circulation AMOC, in response to global warming.

"I also asked Rahmstorf whether, if his thinking is right, we should expect this cold patch to become a permanent feature of temperature maps, even as the world continues to warm. His answer was complex, but not anything that gives you much reassurance:

The short term variations will at some point also go the other way again, so I don’t expect the subpolar Atlantic to remain at record cold permanently. But I do expect the AMOC to decline further in the coming decades. The accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet will continue to contribute to this decline by diluting the ocean waters.

"Granted, it’s not clear that all climate scientists agree with this interpretation of what’s happening in the North Atlantic — but clearly some important ones do, and they have published their conclusions in an influential journal. The longer the situation continues, the more it is likely to attract attention. But it has already been around for a while. “It’s been really persistent over the last year and a half or so,” NOAA’s Arndt says.

"Indeed, I spoke with Rahmstorf previously about the cold patch in the North Atlantic in March, when his study came out — and when a NOAA temperature chart for December 2014 through February 2015 also showed record cold in this area. As Rahmstorf wrote back then, “The North Atlantic between Newfoundland and Ireland is practically the only region of the world that has defied global warming and even cooled.” Since then, the trend appears to have only continued.

"So in sum, if Mann and Rahmstorf are right, a slowing of Atlantic Ocean circulation could be beginning, and even leaving a temperature signature for all to see.

"This won’t lead to anything remotely like The Day After Tomorrow (which was indeed based — quite loosely — on precisely this climate scenario). But if the trend continues, there could be many consequences, including rising seas for the U.S. East Coast and, possibly, a difference in temperature overall in the North Atlantic and Europe. So on future climate maps, even as we rack up more hot months and years, we’d better watch the North Atlantic closely."
 
Everything you need to know about the surprisingly cold ‘blob’ in the North Atlantic ocean
By Chris Mooney September 30, 2015

LINK
: Everything you need to know about the surprisingly cold ‘blob’ in the North Atlantic ocean
TEXT: "Last week, I published a story drawing attention to the surprisingly cold anomaly in the North Atlantic Ocean that has emerged recently — featuring record cold temperatures from January through August for a substantial area. This is happening despite the fact that the globe as a whole is likely en route to its warmest year on record.

"I also quoted two prominent researchers who think this pattern reflects a much feared slowdown in Atlantic ocean circulation, a scenario made famous by the film The Day After Tomorrow. Granted, even if they’re right, what’s happening here will be nothing like the movie. At most, the circulation may be slowing, not stopping abruptly. And with a warming globe overall, there will definitely be no new ice age. Still, if the circulation is really slowing we need to weigh what the impacts might be. So let’s probe a little bit deeper here to figure out what’s happening, and what it means.

"What explains the cold blob in the North Atlantic?
Michael Mann of Penn State and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research say that to see a pattern like this, in an otherwise record hot year, is a sign that the Atlantic ocean’s so-called “meridional overturning circulation” or AMOC — which is driven by differences in ocean temperature and salinity in the North Atlantic — may be slowing down.

"Indeed, they say this fits nicely with a study they published earlier this year, which found an “exceptional” slowdown in the circulation over the course of the last century, and suggested that the dramatic melting of Greenland, by injecting large volumes of freshwater into the ocean, may be the cause.

"So are they right? First, let’s consider in more depth what the circulation is and how it works. This figure, courtesy of Rahmstorf, is a big help:

imrs.php

"The Atlantic Conveyor – a Graph of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation by Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Red colors denote surface flows, and blue colors denote deep water flows.
In the Atlantic ocean, warm surface water flows northward off the U.S.’s east coast — a current known as the Gulf Stream — and then continues into the North Atlantic. Here the current branches into different segments and eventually reaches regions where colder, salty water sinks beneath the surface, because of its greater density. It is this sinking that keeps the warmer waters flowing northward — they’re basically filling the gap that’s left behind by the sinking waters.

"The problem is that a freshening of the North Atlantic — due to large amounts of melting from Greenland — might reduce the density of cold surface waters and prevent sinking. And that, in turn, would slow down northward heat transport. That’s what Mann, Rahmstorf, and their colleagues think is happening — and that the “blob” is a telling sign.

"However, this is a vast and complicated system, and not every researcher is yet convinced they’re right about this. The trouble is that in the North Atlantic, much as with the global climate in general, there are human-caused factors, and then there are wobbles in the system that just happen on their own — what researchers often call “natural variability.” In the North Atlantic in particular, variability in surface winds can shape ocean temperatures, and researchers have accordingly identified a variety of different “modes” of variability in the Atlantic involving winds and ocean temperature patterns.

"The disagreement turns on how much weight to give to the different factors in explaining what we’re currently seeing. “My assessment is the component due to natural variability is much larger than what we’re seeing from global warming,” says Tom Delworth, a researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ, at least on the time scale of one or more decades. But Delworth agrees that in the long term, global warming should slow the circulation.

"In particular, Delworth mentioned two related sources of natural variability — the so-called “North Atlantic Oscillation,” which refers to variability in winds and pressures over the Atlantic, and the “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation,” or AMO, which refers to changes in sea-surface temperatures.

"But Mann disagrees that the AMO can account for what we’re seeing right now. Noting that he originally coined the term, he adds by email:

The AMO displays a completely different pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic as my collaborators and I have shown in past work, and the AMO doesn’t exhibit a long-term decline over the past century, which this particular pattern does.

"And another team of researchers also would appear to agree with Mann and Rahmstorf. Last year in Nature Geoscience, Jon Robson and his colleagues from the University of Reading in the UK published research suggesting that deep ocean waters in the Labrador Sea to the southwest of Greenland are becoming less dense, and that this evidence, combined with other measurements, “suggest that a substantial change in the AMOC is unfolding now.”

"Who’s measuring the circulation?
"You might think this could be definitively cleared up by direct oceanic measurements of the gigantic current — but in fact, scientists are only beginning to get a handle on this. One research project, the so-called RAPID program, has been monitoring the ocean circulation at 26.5 degrees north Latitude — a west-to-east line that cuts through Florida — so as to determine the total strength of heat flux northward. This work began in 2004.

"So far, says Meric Srokosz of University of Southampton, who runs the UK side of the program (in collaboration with researchers at the University of Miami and NOAA), RAPID has detected a “slow decline in the circulation over 10 years we have been measuring, and that decline is faster than the climate models predict.”

That includes a very “dramatic” decline from 2009-2010 that was associated with a sudden rise of sea level along the U.S. east coast, Srokosz says. “The ocean has been delivering about 20 percent less heat to the North Atlantic” over the last decade, adds William Johns, an oceanographer at the University of Miami who also collaborates on the RAPID program.

"However, with only about 10 years of data, Srokosz and Johns say they can’t definitively say whether global warming is driving the slowdown or it’s part of a natural cycle — although neither denies a possible climatic role. More RAPID data is about to come in after researchers go out to collect information from the last 18 months from moorings across the ocean. “Whether something dramatic has happened in the circulation this year, we have not recovered the measurements yet,” Srokosz says.

"RAPID monitors the circulation at a latitude line that cuts across Florida, but a new international research program, called O-SNAP (“Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program”) has just begun to monitor it in the chilly North Atlantic, where the current dramatic cooling is actually happening. However, there aren’t any results yet with respect to the strength of the circulation. “We deployed the first instruments in 2014, and the first recovery of part of the array was this summer, in 2015,” says Amy Bower of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the principal researchers with the program. “Literally, the instruments were just pulled out of the water in July.”

"What really happens if the circulation slows down?
"The Day After Tomorrow was based on a sudden Atlantic circulation shutdown scenario, but scientists have long said that nothing like what was depicted in the movie would actually happen. And right now, we’re only talking about a possible slowdown, not a total cessation of the current. “The things that aren’t likely to result are just about anything that’s portrayed in the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, which is really a caricature of the science,” says Mann.

"That said, there would definitely be impacts. Sea level rise along the East Coast of the U.S. would be expected, because the Gulf Stream features warmer waters — which take up more space — on its European side. That keeps sea level higher away from our coast, but if the circulation weakens, the ocean might even out — delivering rising seas to cities like New York and Boston. Indeed, during the sharp circulation slowdown measured in 2009-2010, sea levels suddenly rose 4 inches on the U.S. east coast.

"Major temperature changes in the ocean would also have a dramatic effect on marine life. “This circulation pattern is tied to the productivity of the North Atlantic, one of the most productive regions from a fisheries standpoint,” says Mann. “So if the AMOC were literally to shut down, you could see sharp decreases in marine productivity in this region.” One would also expect changes in weather — one recent climate change modeling study of what would happen with a slowdown of the AMOC found a “strengthening of the North Atlantic storm track.” Less northward heat transport by the ocean could also partly offset the rising temperature trend expected due to global warming. Whether the result would actually be a net cooling is not clear — but it certainly would not be a new ice age. So will it all happen?

"For now, we can only say that there is a mystery to be solved in the form of very cold North Atlantic temperatures — and some strong hypotheses about what the cause might be, with some researchers already directly blaming it on the AMOC, and few seeming to deny that this is at least a possible explanation.

"All eyes now turn to the scientists doing the hard work of taking direct measurements of the circulation, at different points in the Atlantic, on long ocean voyages. Expect a great deal more discussion — and concern — if their results confirm the slowdown that some scientists already think is happening.

"Clarification: An earlier version of this article stated that Rahmstorf, Mann and their colleagues had found a slowdown of the AMOC since the “turn of the century.” The actual finding was of a slowdown across the 20th century, especially since 1970."
 
Much of the above that I have just posted is the debate/discussion going forward among scientists sussing out the situation, as being reported in the serious press. As always in such discussions there are caveats that need to be carefully noted.

There are occasional challenges (here on this and other threads) to 'show' that the predictions made in the past have come to pass. Anyone conversant with the scientific literature (which is the only literature worth being familiar with imo) can identify the predicted scenarios that are playing out (or not) - with all caveats in play.

If one has been following this subject for a while, one is aware of how exceptional the shift has been 'on the ground'. It's no longer 'if ' - it's no longer 'we can change this if...'. We can't. It's now a question of how far and how fast, by when and where. As stated by the scientists, we are looking at 'a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century'. That is a phenomenal range - and if anyone has been doing the reading we know what that means. Earth's average temperature rose by 1 degree in the 20th century. Consider that we were already at a 0.8 degree celsius rise 5 years ago, a mere 10 years into this century. Now we are well past 1 degree heading towards 2 degrees as we speak, and we are only 15 years into this century. While mitigation is starting to happen, it's not happening fast enough for some who will lose their countries and coastlines inevitably. Crops are being disrupted, migrations are taking place, wars are being exacerbated (Syria a case in point) - and some fiddle while Rome burns. JMO - and what I think is unimportant. I am interested in what those with their hands busy with the science say, which is why I am am not interested in on-line discussions by dilettantes (like myself). It's better just to read the primary literature.

In the below quick overview (with details for the US) the
caveat should be noted: "the extent of climate change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change." As always it will be the wealthy and progressive (not meant politically in this instance) areas that will survive the best. And also: "increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others." Note the statements, the maybe's and 'if this continues', etc. I despair regarding how few are able to read the science literature and understand it.

The current and future consequences of global change
LINK: Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet: Effects

TEXT: "Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner. Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

'Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.' - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

"Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gasses produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. According to the IPCC, the extent of climate change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.

"The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global temperatures increase. "Taken as a whole," the IPCC states, "the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time." 1

"Below are some of the impacts that are currently visible throughout the U.S. and will continue to affect these regions, according to the Third National Climate Assessment Report 2, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program:

"Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose growing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

"Northwest. Changes in the timing of streamflow reduce water supplies for competing demands. Sea level rise, erosion, inundation, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread tree die-off.

"Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region’s economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

"Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also exacerbate a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

"Southwest. Increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks, all linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns."
 
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We are in the process of forming our future world. The debate is on.

The Brave New World of Ecomodernism: The Ecomodernist manifesto resembles Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

Published: Tuesday, October 15, 2015
LINK: The Brave New World of Ecomodernism | Josh Halpern
TEXT: "Recently the Guardian has featured a back and forth about Ecomodernism. Ecomodernism holds that not only are humans driving the future of our world, but through technology can decouple our future from natural ecosystems. In this process the world would turn into urban enclaves surrounded by mechanically farmed agricultural lands and islands reserved for nature. It is a vision of naive young urban professionals.

"George Monbiot touched on some of the practical problems of Ecomodernism and this paper published a response from the proponents. In the words of Mark Lynas, one of the authors of their manifesto, the British launch of Ecomodernism turned into “a screw up of epic proportions” used by Owen Patterson to bash environmentalists of all stripes. To date, the discussion about Ecomodernism has been based on considerations of practicality, but there are hidden depths which lead me to oppose this program on all levels.

"When I was young, being civilized by my teachers, there were two dystopian models of instruction used to warn against the future: George Orwell’s 1984, and and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. 1984 is a dark vision of perpetual war and oppression with obvious roots in Stalinism and Nazi Germany, a war just fought and a cold war starting, both with the potential of destroying the world. Marxists, particularly Stalin and Mao discovered industrial marxism and their many attempts to control nature produced only disasters. Their heavy handed attempts to create technology produced contaminated industrial wastelands.

"Brave New World is an exercise in Paradise Engineering and the best illustration we have to the darker implications of the Ecomodernist Manifesto. Ecomodernism revives the faith in technology of the late 19th and early 20th century, an optimism that found expression in our growing ability to shape the world coupled with hubris and belief that nature has nothing necessary to offer us.

"The Ecomodernist Manifesto sees progress as a decoupling humanity from nature using technology as in Huxley’s vision. While one can quibble for or against the specific technologies that the Ecomodernists favor, one should first seriously consider the implications for the organization of society which make the Brave New World a model for how an Ecomodernist society must be organized to function.

"Ecomodernism postulates movement of population to large cities, industrialization of agriculture and the isolation of areas for nature. There is no room for enjoyment of hunting and fishing, botanizing and birdwatching. There is no understanding of the ecological services that nature offers us and without which we could not survive. No backyards to grill in and mow, but all must move into the megopolis. No place for wild pollinators. It is not that we do not know where that vision leads, and we even have examples today of nations that are essentially single cities such as Singapore moving in that direction.

"Huxley’s brave new world was based on genetically engineered social classes with the Alphas at the top and the Deltas and Epsilons at the bottom collecting the garbage and providing other services. Today’s city states and those of the Ecomodernists require vast numbers of Deltas and Epsilons to support the Alphas. They are ancient Greek city states with a small number of citizens benefiting from the labor of a large number of contract workers many on temporary visas. If you are an alpha, it is a good deal, if not, maybe not so much.

"The reliance of the Ecomodernist city state on complex technologies requires strong central control to keep the machine running, leaving little room for individuality. City states may occupy not much land, but they require a great deal of land and resources from that land to provide all that the people living in them need. Urban organization and governance is complex. As a friend points out, the Ecomodern city state requires a social monoculture with no room for dissent and that monoculture is enforced by the power of the state.

"The brave new world of Ecomodernism will be a very uncomfortable fit to many Ecomodernists’ dreams."
 
Meet the ecomodernists: ignorant of history and paradoxically old-fashioned: The people behind a manifesto for solving environmental problems through science and technology are intelligent but wrong on their assumptions about farming and urbanization - George Monbiot
Published: Thursday, September 24, 2015
LINK: Meet the ecomodernists: ignorant of history and paradoxically old-fashioned
TEXT: "Beware of simple solutions to complex problems. That is a crucial lesson from history; a lesson that intelligent people in every age keep failing to learn. On Thursday, a group of people who call themselves Ecomodernists launch their manifesto in the UK. The media loves them, not least because some of what they say chimes with dominant political and economic narratives. So you will doubtless be hearing a lot about them. Their treatises are worth reading. In some important respects they are either right or at least wrong in an interesting way. In other respects … well, I will come to that in a moment.

"With the help of science, technology and development, they maintain, human impacts on the natural world can be decoupled from economic activity. People can “increase their standard of living while doing less damage to the environment.” By intensifying our impacts in some places, other places can be spared. Through reduced population growth, the saturation of demand among prosperous consumers and improved technological efficiency, we can become both rich and green.

"There seems to be some evidence that such transitions could be taking place. In the UK, for example, Chris Goodall, drawing on government figures for raw material consumption, has proposed that we might have reached “peak stuff”. Despite the resumption of economic growth, we appear to be using fewer material goods.

"I don’t dismiss the possibility that this represents a real transition. But in the same period (2000 – 2012), incomes have stagnated while the cost of rents and mortgages has rocketed. Perhaps we simply have less spare money than we had before. If so, we can expect the shift to last for only as long as extreme inequality and an economy dominated by rentiers persist. To judge by the way things are going, this might be quite a long time.

"And even if it is correct, can the living world weather this trajectory? If, as the manifesto anticipates, all the world’s people follow this presumed curve – their consumption rising until it matches ours, before it peaks and falls – the load imposed on the planet’s living systems before the expected transition occurs is likely to be horrendous.

"So far, so interesting. In these respects ecomodernism is challenging, provocative and a useful part of the cut and thrust of environmental debate. But then this polite (if utopian) vision takes a dramatic swerve. It’s not just that economic activity should be decoupled from human impacts. Human beings should be decoupled from the land, through a massive and rapid urbanisation.

"Of course, such processes are happening anyway, but the ecomodernists make it clear that they would wish away almost the entire rural population of the developing world. The US trajectory is the ideal to which they aspire: “Roughly half the US population worked the land in 1880. Today, less than 2 percent does.

"This hope appears to be informed by a crashing misconception. The ecomodernists talk of “unproductive, small-scale farming” and claim that “urbanisation and agricultural intensification go hand in hand.” In other words, they appear to believe that smallholders, working the land in large numbers, produce lower yields than large farms.

"But since Amartya Sen’s groundbreaking work in 1962, hundreds of papers in the academic literature demonstrate the opposite: that there is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the crops they produce. The smaller they are, on average, the greater the yield per hectare.

"The most likely reason appears to be that small farmers and their families apply a lot more labour per hectare than large farmers do. The ecomodernists seem to have confused low labour productivity with low land productivity; a major and highly consequential mistake. From the ecological point of view, the metric that counts is land productivity: the less land you require to produce a given quantity of crops, the better.

"In areas with little work, low labour productivity isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, as it ensures that large numbers of people are employed, even though the pay is often very poor. So what happens to those who were working in “unproductive, small-scale farming”? The manifesto prescribes the following:

“A growing manufacturing base has long been a crucial way to integrate a large, low skilled population into the formal economy, and increase labour productivity. To grow more food on less land, farming becomes mechanised, relieving agricultural workers of a lifetime of hard physical labour.”

"Former smallholders, in other words, having left the land, will find employment in the formal economy, in urban jobs created by others. But it seldom works like this.

"The economic miracles in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and (with a long delay caused by Mao’s Great Leap Backwards) China were built on the back of land reform, that distributed land formerly owned by a tiny elite to a much wider proportion of the population. In these nations, people used the money they made from farming to diversify into small-scale industry. Their economic transformation was not handed down from on high but built up from below.

"In many other parts of the developing world, rural depopulation has resulted not in a smooth transition to the formal urban economy, but in a highly precarious existence on the economic margins, and a reliance on the informal economy, much of which remains connected to family businesses in the countryside. What the economodernists describe as “relieving agricultural workers of a lifetime of hard physical labour” is experienced by millions as underemployment and desperate insecurity.

"For all its talk of “the liberal principles of democracy, tolerance, and pluralism”, the ecomodernist agenda resonates with a long history of such proposals, from the enclosures in England and the Highland clearances in Scotland, the colonial seizures of land in Kenya and Rhodesia, the Soviet dispossessions and the villagisation in Ethiopia to the current theft of farmland in poor nations by sovereign wealth funds and the rich world’s financiers.

"The ecomodernists are intelligent people, who have a good grasp of technology and certain fields of science, but their apparent ignorance of all that went before and all that lies beyond disturbs me. The poor of the world have long been subject to remote and confident generalisations by intellectuals of this stamp, and have suffered gravely as a result.

"Nor does their claim that mass urbanisation reduces our assault on the natural world necessarily hold up. The manifesto maintains that:

“Cities both drive and symbolise the decoupling of humanity from nature, performing far better than rural economies in providing efficiently for material needs while reducing environmental impacts.”

"A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that in the megacities now swelling across much of the developing world, consumption appears to be higher than average. The 7% of the world’s population living in these places consumes 9% of its electricity and 10% of its petrol and produces nearly 13% of the world’s waste.

"As Mark Bessoudo notes in the magazine Sustainable Building and Design:

“It turns out that while density does equal efficiency, “megacity” does not necessarily equal density. Megacities do encompass those places that we typically associate with dense and culturally vibrant urban centres: New York City, Tokyo, London. But what’s not often taken into account is the fact that to keep them running, these cities also require surrounding areas such as industrial lands, ports, suburbs. In other words, the environmental benefits of a city’s dense urban core can be outweighed by the resource-inefficient, yet essential, areas on its periphery. They are, in fact, two sides of the same coin.”

"It also seems pretty clear that the richer and more urbanised nations become, the less their people care about their environmental impact. The annual Greendex survey shows the people of the poorer nations consistently displaying greater concern about the impacts of their consumption, even though they tend to consume far less than the people of the rich nations.

"A recent YouGov survey reveals that the people of China, Malaysia and Thailand are much less likely to deny the need for action on climate change than the people of the US, UK, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Germany.

"But the problem with ecomodernism runs deeper than this. There is no attempt in the manifesto to interrogate the concept of modernisation, to determine what it means and what it doesn’t, to examine its problems as well as the benefits it delivers. Instead there appears to be a crude and unexplored assumption that people working in the formal, urban economy are modern, while those on the outside are not.

"As Oscar Wilde warned, “nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly”. Their conception of modernisation and modernity is, essentially, a 19th century construct: people like us are modern; people like them are not. Modern is good, unmodern is bad, so they need to be more like us, and we can show them how.

"The closest thing to a definition of modernism they offer is this:

“The long-term evolution of social, economic, political, and technological arrangements in human societies toward vastly improved material well-being, public health, resource productivity, economic integration, shared infrastructure, and personal freedom.”

"Which would all be wonderful, but unfortunately bears little relationship to the real impacts of the processes they wish to accelerate. As Chris Smaje argues, in one of the most interesting essays I have read this year, published on the Dark Mountain website, “modernisation” of the kind they celebrate may have liberated many people from bondage, oppression and hard labour, but it has also subjected many to the same forces.


“A word you won’t find in the Ecomodernist Manifesto is inequality. ... There is no sense that processes of modernisation cause any poverty. ... There’s nothing on uneven development, historical cores and peripheries, proletarianisation, colonial land appropriation and the implications of all this for social equality. The ecomodernist solution to poverty is simply more modernisation.

“... From ancient Mesopotamia to modern China the evidence is clear: development implies underdevelopment, material wealth implies material poverty, freedom implies slavery and so on. These couplets are not two ends of a historical process, with modernisation ringing the death knell for the misery of the past, but contradictions within the modernisation process itself.”

"His second, devastating essay on the unexamined premises of ecomodernism is also worth reading.

"Of course we should make the best possible use of science and technology, and assess our environmental options as empirically as we can. Of course we should embrace what is good and useful and progressive about modernity, however that might be defined. Of course we should challenge and contest the wishful thinking that all too often dominates.

"In this respect the ecomodernists provide a useful service, provoking us to examine our prejudices. But their generalisations, their ignorance of history, their own unexplored prejudices and an astonishing lack of depth all contribute to a worldview that is, paradoxically, nothing if not old-fashioned."
 
An interesting website I have not yet fully explored but I offer it here. Lots of reading. Tons of links.

Global Warming Forecasts | Climate Change
LINK: Global Warming Forecasts | Climate Change Projections | Global Warming Predictions
TEXT: "Global warming forecasts trace their history back to the works of Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius (1890s), American geologist Thomas Chamberlain (1890s) and British engineer Guy S. Callendar (1930s and '40s).

"In the 1950s, after oceanographers Roger Revelle and Hans Suess published research findings concluding that "human beings are now carrying out a large-scale geophysical experiment" by discharging greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Revelle, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, recruited geochemist Charles David Keeling to begin the process of taking long-term measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere.

"When Keeling started taking CO2 measurements at the weather observatory at the top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii and on the continent of Antarctica, he established the baseline for collecting the data that would begin the modern era of global warming forecasting.

"Since Revelle’s and Keeling’s landmark work in the 1950s, global warming forecast research has expanded to develop projections based on concentrations of other greenhouse gases such as methane (the principal component of natural gas), carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide as well as temperature data, precipitation, weather patterns and specific ecosystems.

"Global warming forecasting and research formats, however, have tended to be linear or vertical in nature, i.e., focusing on observations of singular data sets over time such as:

"When Keeling started taking CO2 measurements at the weather observatory at the top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii and on the continent of Antarctica, he established the baseline for collecting the data that would begin the modern era of global warming forecasting.

"Since Revelle’s and Keeling’s landmark work in the 1950s, global warming forecast research has expanded to develop projections based on concentrations of other greenhouse gases such as methane (the principal component of natural gas), carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide as well as temperature data, precipitation, weather patterns and specific ecosystems.

"Global warming forecasting and research formats, however, have tended to be linear or vertical in nature, i.e., focusing on observations of singular data sets over time such as:

"Similarly, projections of climate change impacts have tended to focus on specific sectors such as water resources, energy supplies, energy usage, transportation, human health, food, specific ecosystems, geographic regions, countries and continents.
"Here and on the pages that follow is a look at global warming forecasts from a "confluence forecast" or "convergence forecast" perspective. Rather than the conventional vertical format, we look at multiple converging forecasts presented in a horizontal or more integrated "side-by-side" context.
"Forecasts from 2015 to 2100 are juxtaposed to other same period forecasts to illuminate converging trajectories, potential colliding events,compounding multiple stress events, synergies as well as research, information gaps or gaps in the availability of remedial resources and assets.
"For example:

  • Disease rates, extreme weather events and heat wave forecasts presented alongside forecasts of skilled workforce availability and the capacity to meet demand for health, medical and first-responder emergency services.
  • Projections of hospital and medical personnel shortages occurring concurrently with heat wave induced power outages and water shortages.
  • Water demand strains from droughts occurring simultaneously with wildfire mobilization and suppression efforts that drain water from reservoirs dedicated to meeting fresh drinking water and agriculture requirements.
  • Grid, energy and water infrastructure expansion forecasts juxtaposed to forecasts competing for the availability of sufficient-sized workforce resources for infrastructure construction, repair and maintenance.
  • Food shortages alongside forecasts of feedstocks and raw materials for fertilizers necessary to meet food demands.
  • Critical and raw materials availability forecasts overlaid on projections for clean technology markets and the greenhouse gas control technologies required to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
  • Technology commercialization progress and market penetration forecasts juxtaposed to accelerating climate change impact forecasts.
"Wherever possible this site provides links to original published peer-reviewed research studies as well as news summaries and excerpts to enable users to compare actual study findings to news coverage and reporting of the published studies."​
 
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