Situation Report

CLICK HERE - Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) - ipbes.net

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IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Tue, 2019-05-07 08:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux

nationalgeographic.com - by Stephen Leahy - May 6, 2019

The bonds that hold nature together may be at risk of unraveling from deforestation, overfishing, development, and other human activities, a landmark United Nations report warns. Thanks to human pressures, one million species may be pushed to extinction in the next few years, with serious consequences for human beings as well as the rest of life on Earth.

“The evidence is crystal clear: Nature is in trouble. Therefore we are in trouble" . . .

CLICK HERE - UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’

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CLICK HERE - NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER TROPICAL CYCLONE REPORT - HURRICANE FLORENCE (AL062018) - 31 August–17 September 2018 (98 page .PDF report)

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NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER TROPICAL CYCLONE REPORT - HURRICANE FLORENCE (AL062018) - 31 August–17 September 2018

Fri, 2019-05-03 22:03 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Stacy R. Stewart and Robbie Berg - National Hurricane Center - 3 May 2019

Florence was a long-lived, category 4 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) that made landfall along the southeastern coast of North Carolina near the upper end of category 1. Florence caused devastating freshwater flooding across much of the southeastern United States and significant storm surge flooding in portions of eastern North Carolina. Florence resulted in 22 direct deaths and was also associated with 30 indirect fatalities.

CLICK HERE - National Hurricane Center - 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season

CLICK HERE - National Weather Service - Historical Hurricane Florence, September 12-15, 2018

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United States

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Climate

Extreme Weather

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https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=d9ed7904dbec441a9c4dd7b277935fad&entry=1

National Storm Surge Hazard Maps

Tue, 2019-04-30 08:31 — Kathy Gilbeaux

This national depiction of storm surge flooding vulnerability helps people living in hurricane-prone coastal areas along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), Hawaii, and Hispaniola to evaluate their risk to the storm surge hazard. These maps make it clear that storm surge is not just a beachfront problem, with the risk of storm surge extending many miles inland from the immediate coastline in some areas. If you discover via these maps that you live in an area vulnerable to storm surge, find out today if you live in a hurricane storm surge evacuation zone as prescribed by your local emergency management agency. If you do live in such an evacuation zone, decide today where you will go and how you will get there, if and when you're instructed by your emergency manager to evacuate. If you don't live in one of those evacuation zones, then perhaps you can identify someone you care about who does live in an evacuation zone, and you could plan in advance to be their inland evacuation destination – if you live in a structure that is safe from the wind and outside of flood-prone areas.

National Hurricane Center - National Storm Surge Hazard Maps - Version 2
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/nationalsurge/

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Union of Concerned Scientists - Underwater - Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (28 page .PDF document)

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Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018)

Mon, 2019-04-29 10:01 — Kathy Gilbeaux

ucsusa.org - June 2018

Sea levels are rising. Tides are inching higher. High-tide floods are becoming more frequent and reaching farther inland. And hundreds of US coastal communities will soon face chronic, disruptive flooding that directly affects people's homes, lives, and properties.

Yet property values in most coastal real estate markets do not currently reflect this risk. And most homeowners, communities, and investors are not aware of the financial losses they may soon face.

This analysis looks at what's at risk for US coastal real estate from sea level rise—and the challenges and choices we face now and in the decades to come.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements

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Melting Permafrost in Arctic Will Have $70tn Climate Impact – Study

Wed, 2019-04-24 09:17 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Greenhouse gases, which have been frozen below the soil for centuries, have already begun to escape. Photograph: John Mcconnico/AP

Study shows how destabilised natural systems will worsen man-made problem

theguardian.com - by Jonathan Watts - April 23, 2019

The release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost will accelerate global warming and add up to $70tn (£54tn) to the world’s climate bill, according to the most advanced study yet of the economic consequences of a melting Arctic.

If countries fail to improve on their Paris agreement commitments, this feedback mechanism, combined with a loss of heat-deflecting white ice, will cause a near 5% amplification of global warming and its associated costs, says the paper, which was published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - PNAS - Forty-six years of Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance from 1972 to 2018

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Greenland is Melting Even Faster Than Experts Thought, Study Finds

Tue, 2019-04-23 04:56 — Kathy Gilbeaux

cnn.com - by Jen Christensen - April 23, 2019

Climate change is eliminating giant chunks of ice from Greenland at such a speed that the melt has already made a significant contribution to sea level rise, according to a new study. With global warming, the island will lose much more, threatening coastal cities around the world.

Forty percent to 50% of the planet's population is in cities that are vulnerable to sea rise, and the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is bad news for places like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Mumbai.

CLICK HERE - NASA - GRACE-FO - Greenland Ice Loss 2002-2016

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The Mueller Report - Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election

Thu, 2019-04-18 12:05 — Kathy Gilbeaux

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW - Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election
(448 page .PDF report)
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW - U.S. Department of Justice - Special Counsel’s Office
https://www.justice.gov/sco

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Emissions Concerns Arise Over Port Arthur Plant

Wed, 2019-04-10 21:07 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Oxbow Calcining, LLC, plant in Port Arthur operates recently. Photo taken Friday, February1, 2019 Photo by Kim Brent/The Enterprise

beaumontenterprise.com - by Kaitlin Bain - April 8, 2019

. . . Oxbow's Port Arthur calcining plant, on a 112-acre waterfront site near the Sabine Neches Ship Channel, uses petroleum coke, a byproduct from the oil refining process, to create calcined coke, which is then sold to make aluminum, titanium dioxide and other industrial products.

Sulfur dioxide and heat are two byproducts of this process.

Oxbow released more than 11,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the air in 2016, according to calculations by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, making it one of the top 10 emitters of the invisible chemical in the state.

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How Climate Change Is Fuelling the U.S. Border Crisis

Wed, 2019-04-10 10:08 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Outside the small village of Chicua, in the western highlands, in an area affected by extreme-weather events, Ilda Gonzales looks after her daughter.

newyorker.com - by Jonathan Blitzer - Photography by Mauricio Lima - April 3, 2019

. . . In most of the western highlands, the question is no longer whether someone will emigrate but when. “Extreme poverty may be the primary reason people leave,” Edwin Castellanos, a climate scientist at the Universidad del Valle, told me. “But climate change is intensifying all the existing factors” . . . Farming, Castellanos has said, is “a trial-and-error exercise for the modification of the conditions of sowing and harvesting times in the face of a variable environment.” Climate change is outpacing the ability of growers to adapt.