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☆ Something Was Messing With Earth’s Axis. The Answer Has to Do With Us.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Around the turn of the millennium, Earth’s spin started going off-kilter, and nobody could quite say why. For decades, scientists had been watching the average position of our planet’s rotational axis, the imaginary rod around which it turns, gently wander south, away from the geographic North Pole and toward Canada. Suddenly, though, it made a sharp turn and started heading east. Accelerated melting of the polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers had changed the way mass was distributed around the planet enough to influence its spin. Now, some of the same scientists have identified another factor that’s had the same kind of effect: colossal quantities of water pumped out of the ground for crops and households.

Persons: that’s Locations: Canada

☆ Intensifying Rains Pose Hidden Flood Risks Across the U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As climate change intensifies severe rainstorms, the infrastructure protecting millions of Americans from flooding faces growing risk of failures, according to new calculations of expected precipitation in every county and locality across the contiguous United States. The calculations suggest that one in nine residents of the lower 48 states, largely in populous regions including the Mid-Atlantic and the Texas Gulf Coast, is at significant risk of downpours that deliver at least 50 percent more rain per hour than local pipes, channels and culverts might be designed to drain. “The data is startling, and it should be a wake-up call,” said Chad Berginnis, the executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, a nonprofit organization focused on flood risk. The new rain estimates, issued on Monday by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit research group in New York, carry worrying implications for homeowners, too: They indicate that 12.6 million properties nationwide face significant flood risks despite not being required by the federal government to buy flood insurance.

Persons: ”, Chad Berginnis Organizations: Texas Gulf, Association of, First Street Foundation Locations: United States, New York

☆ Here’s How Much Hotter Than Normal This June Has Been
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Elena Shao | Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

64° F June 11, 2023 62° 2022 60° 1979-2021 58° Global Daily Average Air Temperatures 56° 54° 52° 50° Jan. 1 Mar. “We’re putting heat into the system — through climate change, through the greenhouse effect — and that heat is going to manifest. NOAA last month said there was a 40 percent chance that this year’s hurricane season would be near normal. But it also assigned 30 percent probabilities to the season’s being above or below normal. There’s another factor that could also have made the world hotter recently, though it’s not clear how much.

Persons: ” Rick Spinrad, “, Spinrad, El Niño, it’s, Daniel L, Swain, Dr, ” Organizations: University of Maine, National Centers for, National Oceanic, Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, University of California Locations: Canada, United States, Siberia, Antarctica, El, Pacific, Tonga, Los Angeles

☆ It’s Called the Grand Canyon, Not the Eternal Canyon
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When I was there with the scientists, we talked about this human dent, but we also talked a lot about geology. About how mundane, ever-churning forces like plate tectonics, weather and gravity, when applied over long enough time scales, can cause colossal changes to landscapes and rocks. At any point in time, the world we see is somewhere in between being created and being destroyed. The Grand Canyon as we know it is pretty young by geologic standards, only about six million years old. You can read my full article from the canyon here.

Persons: you’re, they’re Locations: Colorado

☆ The Grand Canyon, a Cathedral to Time, Is Losing Its River
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Raymond Zhong | Elena Shao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +19 min

And yet, the Grand Canyon remains yoked to the present in one key respect. The Colorado River, whose wild energy incised the canyon over millions of years, is in crisis. Down beneath the tourist lodges and shops selling keychains and incense, past windswept arroyos and brown valleys speckled with agave, juniper and sagebrush, the rocks of the Grand Canyon seem untethered from time. The Grand Canyon is a planetary spectacle like none other — one that also happens to host a river that 40 million people rely on for water and power. At Mile 0 of the Grand Canyon, the river is running at around 7,000 cubic feet per second, rising toward 9,000 — not the lowest flows on record, but far from the highest.

Persons: windswept, Davis, John Weisheit, ”, “, Mead Hoover, Powell, Daniel Ostrowski, Victor R, Baker, . Baker, Lake Powell, Dr, Ed Keable, wouldn’t, Jack Schmidt, Schmidt, ’, Alma Wilcox, “ There’s, we’ve, Nicholas Pinter Organizations: Rockies, York Times, University of California, Utah Glen, Lake, Mead, Recreation, Hualapai, CALIF, ARIZ . Utah Glen, Lake Mead, Area, Forest Utah, Engineers, University of Arizona, of Reclamation, National Park Service, Center, Colorado River Studies, Utah State University Locations: Colorado, The Colorado, North America, Utah, Powell, Lake Mead, Arizona, . UTAH COLO, N.M, ARIZ . Utah, Mead, NEV . UTAH COLO, Glen, ARIZ, Hopi, Nevada, Lake Powell, Arizona , California , Nevada, Mexico, Davis, Little Colorado, tamarisk, gesturing

☆ Arctic Summer Could Be Practically Sea-Ice-Free by the 2030s
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The first summer on record that melts practically all of the Arctic’s floating sea ice could occur as early as the 2030s, according to a new scientific study — about a decade sooner than researchers previously predicted. The peer-reviewed findings, published Tuesday, also show that this milestone of climate change could materialize even if nations manage to curb greenhouse gas emissions more decisively than they are currently doing. Earlier projections had found that stronger action to slow global warming might be enough to preserve the summer ice. The latest research suggests that, where Arctic sea ice is concerned, only steep, sharp emissions cuts might be able to reverse the effects of the warming already underway. “We are very quickly about to lose the Arctic summer sea-ice cover, basically independent of what we are doing,” said Dirk Notz, a climate scientist at the University of Hamburg in Germany and one of the new study’s five authors.

Persons: ”, Dirk Notz, “ We’ve Organizations: University of Hamburg Locations: Germany

☆ Climate Change Powered the Mediterranean’s Unusual Heat Wave
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The NewsThe early-season heat wave that broiled parts of Algeria, Morocco, Portugal and Spain last week almost certainly would not have occurred without human-induced climate change, an international team of scientists said in an analysis issued Friday. Mainland Spain set an April record of 101.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 38.8 Celsius, in the southern city of Córdoba. In Morocco, the mercury climbed to more than 106 degrees Fahrenheit in Marrakesh, according to provisional data, very likely smashing that nation’s April record as well. A three-day stretch of such scorching heat in April is already quite rare for the region in the planet’s current climate, with just a 0.25 percent chance of occurring in any given year, according to the new analysis. Because of climate change, last month’s hot spell was at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average than a similarly improbable one would have been in preindustrial times, the scientists found.

☆ Climate Change’s Fingerprints Turn Up in Parched East Africa
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Now we must ensure that the fund is made fit for purpose,” said Harjeet Singh, head of political strategy for Climate Action Network International. There, the drought may have caused 43,000 excess deaths last year, according to estimates issued last month. Scientists know that global warming is increasing the average likelihood and severity of certain kinds of wild weather in many regions. It’s like smoking and cancer: The two are undeniably linked, but not all smokers develop cancer, and not all cancer patients were smokers. To determine the effects of global warming on individual weather episodes, climate researchers use computer simulations to compare the global climate as it really is — with billions of tons of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by humans over decades — and a hypothetical climate without any of those emissions.

☆ Here Are the Places Most at Risk From Record-Shattering Heat
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

They found that regions covering 31 percent of Earth’s land surface experienced heat so extraordinary that, statistically, it shouldn’t have happened. These places, the study argues, are now prepared to some degree for future severe hot spells. According to the study, these include economically developed places like Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, plus the region of China around Beijing. Why this is importantIn 2021, a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest shattered local records by staggering margins. This suggests they could happen again, anywhere, though not all of them will be as off-the-charts as the recent Pacific Northwest one.

☆ NOAA Forecasters See a Respite for California
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The NewsWeather forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday issued their latest outlook for the United States, and there’s at least one piece of hopeful news for a state that has already had a wild year, weather-wise: California. But according to NOAA’s latest forecasts, temperatures for May through July are highly likely to be in line with historical averages across California and Nevada. For May, much of California could even see cooler-than-normal conditions, the agency said. This could mean the snow’s melting would be more gradual than abrupt, more beneficial to water supplies than destructive to homes and farms. “The picture is relatively optimistic compared to what it could be,” said Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, part of the University of California, Berkeley.

☆ The Coming California Megastorm
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-12 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

For their new study, which was published in the journal Science Advances, Dr. Huang and Dr. Swain replayed portions of the 20th and 21st centuries using 40 simulations of the global climate. There are “so many different factors” that make an atmospheric river deadly or benign, Dr. Huang said. Wes Monier, a hydrologist, with a 1997 photo of water rushing through the New Don Pedro Reservoir spillway. Mr. Monier is chief hydrologist for the Turlock Irrigation District, which operates the New Don Pedro Reservoir near Modesto. The Tuolumne River, where the Don Pedro sits, was coming out of its driest four years in a millennium.

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