Arctic heating up could cause “very extreme extremes.” Climate change is causing major planetary atmospheric circulation systems like the jet stream to slow down, stalling summer weather patterns across Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, according to a new analysis. As a result, rains are turning into floods, sunny days into long-lasting heat waves, and dry conditions into wildfires. In the coming decades, this disruption of global atmospheric circulation systems could cause “very extreme extremes,” particularly in major agricultural regions – e360Yale.edu see also Reuters story.
Pages updated this week: Ocean plastic – Wave Power – Coal Ash – Australia – Wind Power-USA
- Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record in phenomenon scientists described as scary – Guardian
- Trump administration hit with 7 major environmental setbacks in court in past week – ThinkProgress
- States greet Trumps new federal restrictions on emissions with lawsuit threats – CBSNews
Climate scientists predict next half-decade will be hotter than expected. Unusually high temperatures are likely to persist for the next five years, according to a new climate prediction model. At the beginning of the 21st century, after decades of rising global temperatures, warming slowed. Scientists dubbed the slowdown the global warming hiatus. Now, however, warming appears to be accelerating once more. Due the low probability of extreme cold events, the new simulations predict higher than normal temperatures of the next five years – SpaceDaily
Monsoon floods in India leaves over a million people in relief camps. More than one million people have packed relief camps to escape devastating monsoon floods that have killed more than 410 people in India’s southwestern state of Kerala. About 50,000 homes have been destroyed, according to one Kerala legislator, and people are flocking to the camps as the scale of the desolation is revealed by receding waters. A total of 1,028,000 people were now recorded in about 3,200 relief camps across the state, a state government spokesman told AFP – SpaceDaily
September Global Climate Action Summit in California. Happening midway between Paris 2015 and 2020, the summit (September 12-14) is timed to provide the confidence to governments to ‘step up’ and trigger this next level of ambition sooner rather than later, saying 2018 must be the beginning of a new phase of action and ambition on climate change. The Summit will underscore the urgency of the threat of climate change by mobilizing the voices and experience of real people, in real communities already facing real and stark threats. It will challenge and channel the energy and idealism of people everywhere to step up and overcome it – GlobalActionClimateSummit
Electric buses are hurting the oil industry. China had about 99% of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17% of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters – the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet. Other cities are taking notice. Paris, London, Mexico City and Los Angeles are among 13 authorities that have committed to only buying zero emissions transport by 2025 – Bloomberg