Articles include: Silent calamity: The health impacts of wildfire smoke; White House adviser and environmental justice advocate Catherine Coleman Flowers; Climate change increases renters’ risks; Why are there so many Atlantic named storms? Five possible explanations; Heavier downpours strain septic systems in some rural areas; Devastating disease in dolphins linked to extreme downpours, researcher says; Santa Fe women built homemade air purifiers to help protect people from wildfire smoke; Hundreds of coastal airports at risk from flooding, sea-level rise, study finds; Historic Portsmouth Village under threat from hurricanes and rising seas.
Category: Sea Level Rise
Global warming is causing the oceans to heat up and expand, and ice to melt, so current land-based ice is melting, raising the levels of the oceans and flooding coastlines.
Study: A 20-Foot Sea Wall? Miami Faces the Hard Choices of Climate Change.
New York Times: A 20-Foot Sea Wall? Miami Faces the Hard Choices of Climate Change. A proposal to construct barriers for storm surge protection has forced South Floridians to reckon with the many environmental challenges they face.
Three years ago, not long after Hurricane Irma left parts of Miami underwater, the federal government embarked on a study to find a way to protect the vulnerable South Florida coast from deadly and destructive storm surge.
Already, no one likes the answer.
Build a wall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed in its first draft of the study, now under review. Six miles of it, in fact, mostly inland, running parallel to the coast through neighborhoods — except for a one-mile stretch right on Biscayne Bay, past the gleaming sky-rises of Brickell, the city’s financial district.
Study: Melting ice in Antarctica could trigger chain reactions, bringing monsoon rains to the ice cap
In an ever-warming climate, ripple effects or chain reactions could lead to altered weather patterns across the globe thanks to a melting Antarctic ice sheet, a new study says.
The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that as Earth continues to heat up, the land underneath the Antarctic ice sheet will become more exposed. As a result of that process, wind patterns will shift, and rainfall will increase over Antarctica, which could trigger processes that speed up ice loss.
“We found that ice sheet retreat exposing previously ice-covered land led to big increases in rainfall, which through a feedback mechanism dramatically warms the ocean,” Catherine Bradshaw, senior scientist at the UK Met Office and lecturer at the University of Exeter told CNN.
Yale Climate Connections, May 7, 2021
Articles include: ‘Which climate change jobs will be in high demand in the future?’; Most newspaper editorials mum on Biden 50% by 2030 pledge; Revitalized U.S. urgency on climate change and national security; Empire State Realty Trust agrees to buy 300 million kilowatt hours of wind energy; Affordable housing could be hit hard as sea levels rise; Environmental engineer launches group for Latinos in sustainability; New tool called ‘Vulcan’ could help cities better estimate their carbon dioxide emissions; Women scientists launch ‘Science Moms,’ a climate campaign aimed at mothers.
Study: Emissions Cuts Could Drop the Impact of Melting Ice on Oceans by Half
New York Times: Emissions Cuts Could Drop the Impact of Melting Ice on Oceans by Half. A new study said that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could reduce sea level rise from melting ice sheets from about 10 inches to about five by 2100.
Scientists on Wednesday reported another reason the world should sharply rein in global warming: doing so would likely cut in half the current projected amount of sea level rise from the melting of ice this century.
In a study that averaged results of hundreds of computer simulations from research teams around the world, the scientists said that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could reduce sea level rise from melting glaciers and the vast Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from about 10 inches to about five by 2100.
Studies: NY Times Climate FWD: May 5, 2021
Yale Climate Connections, April 30, 2021
Articles include: Major parties’ climate programs are miles apart; With seas rising, stalled research budgets must also rise; Cities’ notable efforts on climate change; Citrus farming and geothermal energy; Sea-level rise could submerge fiber optic cables, a key component of internet infrastructure; Air pollution from fossil fuels caused 8.7 million premature deaths in 2018, study finds [No study link]; Four electric cargo cycles deliver packages in Miami.
The Daily Climate, April 28, 2021
Articles include: lumber shortage; disabilities and natural disasters; California wildfire season; Study: cut methane emissions quickly; flooding in Michigan; climate vote in Senate; Study: poor communities affected by climate change; low carbon fuel standard; money to modernize grid; Fukushima; Ford making electric vehicles; Study: sea level rise and budgets.
Yale Climate Connection, April 27, 2021
Articles include: Report: All new cars and trucks in U.S. could be electric by 2035; How to prepare your coastal property for sea-level rise and weather extremes; Wildfires can contaminate outdoor marijuana crops; tool: Earth is getting a digital twin; How New York’s Javits Center slashed energy consumption by 26%.
Is Your Home At Risk From Climate Change? Here’s How To Know
NPR: Is Your Home At Risk From Climate Change? Here’s How To Know.
When you decide where to live, there are a lot of factors that you probably consider. The risk of a flood or wildfire should be one of them.
More than 10 million apartments and houses have a substantial risk of flooding in the next 30 years — from sea level rise and storm surge along the coasts, and heavy rain and river flooding inland. More than 40 million Americans live in high-risk fire zones, including suburbs that are far away from forests or grasslands.
And yet, in most parts of the country, it is easy to move into a flood or fire-prone building and not even know you’re in harm’s way. Landlords and sellers often aren’t required to disclose information about past disasters or future risk, even if the building has burned or flooded in the past. The information that tenants and buyers do receive often comes too late, or can be confusing or misleading.