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☆ 'River in the sky' forces thousands to evacuate as floods hit California, leaving 2 dead
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Bethany Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A "river in the sky" has poured down on California, causing flooding. Thousands are under evacuation orders as another storm is set to come on Monday. First responders and the California National Guard had to save over 50 people overnight from the water overnight, AP reports. Approximately 15 million people are under flood watches in California and Nevada as a second "river in the sky" approaches, CNN reports. They added that it "won't take long once the steady heavy rain gets started for flooding impacts to resume."

☆ I tried 4 of the best AI productivity tools for a week to make my job easier, but they just made my life harder
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Labor experts agree that AI tools can make workers more productive. Insider's Aaron Mok tested 4 AI tools for a week to see if they can boost productivity. Many experts agree that AI tools can boost productivity, and people have already used ChatGPT and other AI tools to generate articles, write code, and produce real estate listings in attempts to save time. We wanted to put some of these AI productivity tools to the test. AI tools will not do your job, but they can make it easier if you spend time learning how to use themAfter playing with these tools for a week, I realized that there's a learning curve.

☆ Climate change is making plane turbulence worse, and it could make flights bumpier and more expensive
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Crystal Raypole | Jessica Orwig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Experts believe severe turbulence may increase in years to come as patterns of severe weather continue around the globe. But pilots also have to contend with clear-air turbulence, which is turbulence that has no visible cause. Weather researchers further predict clear-air turbulence will double by 2050, with severe turbulence increasing the most. "The highest altitude flights over the North Atlantic will encounter the most significant increase in severe turbulence," Bennett said. Only 1% of the atmosphere has moderately severe turbulence, and a few tenths of a percent have severe turbulence," she said.

☆ Floods and high winds hit Mozambique as record-breaking cyclone Freddy nears
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MAPUTO, March 11 (Reuters) - Cyclone Freddy was settling off the coast of Mozambique on Saturday, bringing flooding and high winds to Quelimane two weeks after killing at least 27 people in southern Africa when it first made landfall last month. After swirling for 34 days straight, the weather system is likely to have broken the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone. The cyclone is slow-moving, which meteorological experts say means it will pick up more moisture off the sea, bringing heavy rainfall. More than 171,000 people were affected after the cyclone swept through southern Mozambique last month, bringing heavy rains and floods that damaged crops and destroyed houses, with OCHA putting its death toll at 27 so far -- 10 in Mozambique and 17 in Madagascar. More than half a million people are at risk in Mozambique this time, especially around in Zambezia, Tete, Sofala and Nampula and Zambezia provinces.

☆ California Prepares for More Winter Storms, Floods After Weeks of Heavy Snow
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Gareth Vipers | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

An atmospheric river threatens to bring heavy rain and flooding across parts of California, a state that is reeling from weeks of record snowfall that left some residents trapped in their homes. Gavin Newsom requested federal support Thursday as forecasters warned of severe and widespread flash flooding across the state lasting into the weekend.

☆ California Battered by New Winter Storm After Weeks of Heavy Snow
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Suryatapa Bhattacharya | Gareth Vipers | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A large winter storm brought rain and flooding across parts of California, a state already reeling from weeks of record snowfall that left some residents trapped in their homes. Central California bore the brunt of the storm, known as an atmospheric river, early Friday afternoon and residents in parts of San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties were under evacuation orders or warnings.

☆ Nor’easter to Batter East Coast With Snow and Rain as Atmospheric River Pummels California
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Alyssa Lukpat | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Snow in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., on Sunday as California braces for another atmospheric river. Two storms were poised to strike the East and West coasts on Monday, forecasters said, bringing a nor’easter from New York to Maine and yet another atmospheric river to California. Parts of the Northeast, which have had a mild winter, are expected to get heavy rain and snow, forecasters said. Along the Pacific Coast, another atmospheric river was set to add to the dizzying tally of storms this winter that have caused historic flooding and near-record rainfall. The National Weather Service warned it could be difficult to commute in some places.

[1/3] A truck drives through a flooded road after an atmospheric river storm system in Hayward, California, U.S. March 10, 2023. As much as 5 inches (13 cm) of rain has already fallen in some spots across the county, with some seeing as much as 7 inches. U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday declared an emergency in California, ordering federal assistance to help local, tribal and state officials respond to the severe weather. The heavy rains in northern and central California raised concerns that melting snow from a spate of blizzards in mid-elevation mountains could add to runoff and cause flooding downstream. Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Editing by Rosalba O'BrienOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ California flood watch issued as next atmospheric river looms
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LOS ANGELES, March 9 (Reuters) - Flood watch notices were posted across northern and central California for Thursday ahead of an atmospheric river storm expected to douse much of the state with heavy rain, including mountain areas still buried from a near-record snowfall. But smaller, waterfront communities along several major rivers and their tributaries also braced for the possibility of overflowing streams swollen by heavy showers and runoff of melting snow. Elsewhere, the NWS issued "prepare now" alerts for residents along the Big Sur, Carmel, Salinas and Pajaro rivers. "It's really a combination of all this heavy rainfall coming and also rapidly melting snow." The looming deluge follows a three-week barrage of nine atmospheric river storms that struck California in late December through mid-January, triggering widespread flooding as well as hundreds of mudslides, rockfalls and sinkholes across the state.

☆ Rice into low-carbon plastic: bringing hope to a struggling Fukushima town
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Elaine Lies | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Last November, Tokyo-based firm Biomass Resin opened a factory in Namie to turn locally-grown rice into pellets. "Even now, we can't sell it as Fukushima rice. The same wave slammed into the nuclear plant, setting off meltdowns and explosions. "Namie was hit by four disasters - the quake, the tsunami, the reactor accident and then rumours about radiation danger," said Takemitsu Imazu, president of Biomass Resin Fukushima. The plastic isn't biodegradable, Imazu said, but using rice cuts the petroleum products involved - and growing more rice in Namie reduces overall atmospheric CO2.

☆ Biden's budget proposal calls for boosting climate resilience funding
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

President Joe Biden's budget proposal for 2024 includes billions of dollars spread across federal agencies to combat climate change, with a bulk of investment going towards boosting disaster resilience and conservation, cutting pollution and advancing clean energy technologies. Among the most ambitious of Biden's funding requests is the roughly $24 billion to help build communities' resilience to climate-related disasters including floods, wildfires, storms, extreme heat and drought. The proposal also comes as the White House continues to implement provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate bill ever passed by Congress. The spending is spread across agencies tasked with combatting climate change, advancing climate resilience and bolstering clean energy technologies. The White House proposes $16.5 billion to support climate science and clean energy innovation, with more than $5.1 billion to fund research on climate adaptation and resilience across agencies like NASA and the Interior Department.

A series of atmospheric rivers are bringing widespread heavy rainfall to California, and the latest was forecasted to arrive Thursday and continue into Friday. Atmospheric rivers are essentially moisture streams in the sky, which can often be seen from space as narrow bands stretching from the West Coast out across the Atlantic. This one is what’s known as a “pineapple express” because of its origins near Hawaii. CANADA UNITED STATES PACIFIC OCEAN MEXICO CANADA UNITED STATES PACIFIC OCEAN MEXICO CANADA UNITED STATES PACIFIC OCEAN MEXICOAs these long, thin storm systems stretch across the ocean and hit land, they often bring extensive amounts of precipitation in the form of rain and snow. Use the map below to see the latest precipitation forecasts for locations across the West Coast.

☆ Fact Check-NOAA graphic does not show public threat from ‘deadly plume’ after Ohio train derailment
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Weeks after the crash, a tweet sharing the NOAA graphic said: “This is how far the deadly plume from East Palestine, OH had traveled by Feb. 8. The image shows the “vertical distribution of air movement” away from the train derailment incident, Alison Gillespie, a NOAA spokesperson, told Reuters via email. “The concentration of pollution decreases dramatically as you go downwind,” which she said is not seen in the graphic shared online. The Feb. 24 NOAA post acknowledged that the graphic was removed from the original article, then restored unchanged, without explaining the removal. A NOAA graphic shared on social media shows a simulation of generic particle dispersion vertically into the atmosphere following an Ohio train derailment and fire but does not indicate air pollution levels or the risk they posed.

☆ Colorful, 24-legged predators could save marine ecosystems on the West Coast
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Kelp forests, one of the most diverse ocean ecosystems, are dying along North America's West Coast. A new study says recovering sunflower sea star populations could save the forests. The sea stars are voracious predators that feed on urchins and help keep the ecosystem in balance. The authors of a new paper suggest the loss of the sunflower sea stars is to blame. Meet the sunflower sea stars that scientists say could save them.

☆ Ghostly photos from NASA's Curiosity rover reveal beautiful, unusual clouds and the first sun rays ever spotted on Mars
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Grace Eliza Goodwin | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars captured one of the first clear images of a Martian sunset. The sun rays over Mars illuminated a bank of clouds that NASA says could be made of dry ice. The rover also snapped a picture of an iridescent cloud, shaped like a feather. The rover also snapped an image of a feather-shaped iridescent cloud hanging over Mars that also appears to glow pink, green, and blue. The rover also captured this feather-shaped iridescent cloud over Mars.

☆ Storms bolster California snowpack, ease drought
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Sharon Bernstein | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The snowpack is considered California's largest reservoir, and is vital to fill streams and lakes as it slowly melts. The record precipitation and accompanying powerful storms in December and February have also dramatically lessened California's ongoing drought, a team of U.S. government agencies said this week. By contrast, just three months ago the entire state was considered to be experiencing drought conditions. California has cycled through four periods of drought since 2000, making less water available to irrigate crops and sustain wildlife along with meeting the needs of the state's 40 million residents. Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ The US military set off its largest nuclear explosion in testing 69 years ago, but scientists had no idea the blast would be that big
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Dozens of nuclear tests were carried out by the US in the Pacific between 1946 and 1958. The largest of these was the detonation of the Castle Bravo device on March 1, 1954. It was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima during World War II. Castle Bravo was a real 'eyeopener'Despite the devastation caused by Castle Bravo, the US military continued to conducting nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. The US, UK, and Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which barred nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater.

☆ Whales are turning up dead on beaches — and our online shopping addiction is partly to blame
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Nearly two dozen whales have washed up dead along the East Coast in recent months. Scientists blame it on climate change sending whales into the path of cargo ships. The surge in online shopping means ships are bigger and more plentiful than ever before. Two whales that washed up dead along the Atlantic Coast this month were determined to have been struck by vessels, USA Today reported. A year ago, scientists began calling for cargo ships to start rerouting in order to protect endangered blue whales that live off the coast of Sri Lanka.

☆ Reflecting sunlight to cool the Earth must be studied before climate change gets much worse, urges group of 60 scientists
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Greenhouse gas emissions must be immediately and urgently reduced, as that's the only permanent way to limit global warming. "Even with aggressive action to reduce GHG emissions it is increasingly unlikely that climate warming will remain below 1.5-2°C in the near term," the scientists wrote. "Aerosols from human activities are currently estimated to be offsetting about a third of greenhouse gas climate warming," the scientists wrote. Cirrus cloud thinning, CCT, which involves putting aerosols into cirrus clouds to reduce the amount of infrared radiation that the Earth retains. In some cases, they might be less harmful if used in some combination, the scientists wrote.

☆ Peter Doig’s Art of Getting Lost
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Tobias Grey | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

The artist Peter Doig, born in Edinburgh in 1959, has led a peripatetic existence, living and working in Trinidad, Montreal, London and New York. He secured his early reputation in the 1990s with a series of large-scale landscape paintings full of atmospheric foreboding. One of these, “Swamped” (1990), set an auction record for the artist in November 2021, when it was sold at Christie’s New York for $39.9 million. Mr. Doig, 63, can take years to finish one of his distinctive figurative paintings. “Peter Doig,” a show of 12 new paintings and 20 works on paper that opened at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London earlier this month, provided him with just such a challenge.

☆ Thousands without power as California storms bring rain, snow and cold
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Sharon Bernstein | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/5] The Los Angeles river during a rare cold winter storm in the Los Angeles area, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 24, 2023. REUTERS/Aude GuerrucciFeb 25 (Reuters) - Nearly 85,000 households and businesses were without power in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, as storms continued to pummel parts of California, bringing snow to higher elevations and dumping rain and hail in the flatlands. In Southern California, "this is a rare case of a cold, significant storm event," Jackson said. On Saturday, scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms were expected to bring rain, hail and a mixture of snow and moisture called "graupel" to the area, the National Weather Service said. Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Sandra MalerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Analysis: How North Korea could use a Pacific 'firing range' to perfect its missiles
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Josh Smith | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) on Monday, after firing a massive Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Saturday. So far North Korea has fired three variants of the Hwasong-12 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. "As soon as it is out of range, or if it crosses below the horizon, North Korea will be blind." Schiller said he is not aware of any tracking vessels that North Korea positions along the flight path, and for now it doesn't have data relay satellites. If those two conditions are met, then North Korea will have fully demonstrated its deterrence capability against the United States, he said.

☆ Carbon-related tech raised a record-breaking $4.2 billion in 2022 as VCs poured into direct air capture and carbon accounting startups despite wider slowdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Emissions removal and management startups raised $4.2 billion last year, up from $3.6 billion in 2021. Carbon-related startups raked in $4.2 billion from venture capitalists globally last year across 204 deals, according to a new report from PitchBook. PitchBook's carbon tech categorization also includes fintech and analytics companies such as Coatue-backed carbon accounting firm Sweep. "We can't contain the climate crisis to an acceptable degree of global heating without actively addressing carbon capture and sequestration." While carbon tech is defying the wider venture-capital slowdown, which has seen valuations and deal counts plummet in the face of the war in Ukraine and fears of recession, the wider carbon and emissions tech category has remained flat.

☆ Mysterious object destroyed by a $400,000 Sidewinder missile may have been a $12 hobby group balloon
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The mysterious objects shot down over the US may have been hobbyist or weather balloons. One balloonist club believes its $12 balloon may have been among the objects destroyed. The club said that it had been tracking the course of its silver pico balloon. A pico balloon can cost anywhere from $12 to $180. And they're going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down," Ron Meadows, whose California company designs pico balloons told Aviation Week.

Houseboats on Lake Oroville during a drought in Oroville, California, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. Lake Oroville, California's second-largest reservoir, has experienced a dramatic rise in water levels after a series of atmospheric river storms in January triggered widespread flooding while boosting the Sierra Nevada snowpack and the state's drought-stricken reservoirs. Previous record-low water levels at Oroville were triggered by drought conditions exacerbated by climate change. While California consistently experiences drought, climate change has fueled especially high temperatures and dry soil that have significantly reduced water runoff into the reservoirs. Photos taken in 2021 and 2023 show how much more full Oroville is following the January storms:

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