El Diablo's Weird Weather To Bring Floods to Lower Mississippi Valley.

AGW + El Niño → El Diablo (first coined by Andy Lee Robinson, here).

It should be common knowledge now what an El Niño is.

And as everyone ought to know but most deny -- AGW is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, sending excess Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate of 3 ppm per year.  We don't need to use fossil fuels, of course. Wind, solar, hydro can Carbon-free substitutes for electricity-generation fossil fuels, usually coal and natural gas. It'll be a long and difficult transition requiring heroic efforts to get off of our dependency on fossil fuels, but it's doable so long as there is the political will to do it. Plus, they need subsidies, of course. But then again, fossil fuels are also being subsidized, at a rate of $5 Trillion a year.

And a tip o' the hat to Robertscribbler - I stole the following paragraph from him! ;^)

To be very clear, though, we have replacements for fossil fuels now already. And there are vast political and economic forces that are still arrayed against them despite the obvious proof of the old fuel’s terribly destructive nature occurring in these freak weather and climate events now, globally, on a nearly daily basis. So it’s not just a new energy source that is needed, we have some of those already. And it’s not just an obvious crisis that’s affecting people everywhere. It’s the fall of an old, powerful, and now very destructive order that is necessary. An order that is pervasive and influential as any that has ever existed.

And as long as this old order continues not lead, not follow refuse to get out of the way, and propagandize and bamboozle the public, we will continue to burn fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow, until economic reality -- that is, the bottom line -- intervenes and makes it too expensive to profitably extract or mine fossil fuels and sell it at a price the end consumer can afford.

And so long as we burn fossil fuels, we will continue to increase the Carbon Dioxide content in the Atmosphere, and continue to contribute to and aggravate Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). And with AGW comes weird weather, which will get weirder and weirder, and worse and worse, until the climate restabil-izes.

And speaking of weird weather: the floods in the Mississippi, as well in other rivers such as the Ohio and the Arkansas, are going to endure a spell.

Long-duration Mississippi River Flood event underway

Terry Pinder, Daily Kos
30 December 2015

Heavy rains from Christmas week have drained into the Mississippi, forcing it to rise substantially.  This is a significant Mississippi River flood from about St. Louis southward.

This flood will last well into January.

This is just the Mississippi. The Ohio and the Arkansas, both of which empty into the Mississippi, are also both in flood, cresting not until early next week.

Jeff Masters writes:

On January 20, the flood crest is expected to arrive in New Orleans, bringing the Mississippi River to its 17-foot flood stage in the city, just 3 feet below the tops of the levees. In past years, though, when the river has been forecast to rise to 17 feet in the city, the Army Corps of Engineers has opened up the Bonnet Carre Spillway in St. Charles Parish, which diverts water into Lake Pontchartrain and keeps the river from reaching flood stage in New Orleans. The Corps may also be forced to open the Morganza Floodway in Pointe Coupee Parish, which would divert water down the Atchafalaya River.... The Corps also has the option of increasing the flow of Mississippi River water into the Atchafalaya at the Old River Control Structure in Concordia Parish

The Army Corp actually does know what level of flood will destroy Old River Control, wash Morgan City (which sits at the mouth of the Atchafalaya) into the Gulf and leave Baton Rouge and New Orleans on a fetid, salty swamp arm. You can read about it here.  Luckily this flood, this time, does not appear to be the one.

I have concerns that this will not be the end of it. The atmosphere is giving signs that it will shift in the next couple weeks—the Great Pacific Warm Blob that killed so much sea life and influenced much of the weather for the last couple years across North America is finally dead and El Niño is locked in.  It is going to get wet in southern California and the Southwest---and points east.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/30/1464743/-Long-duration-Mississippi-River-Flood-event-underway

Typical El Niño effects. Source: srh.noaa.gov.

Points East, meaning: the Great Plains, Texas and Dixieland. Well during an El Nino event, the US Gulf Coast and Southeast are supposed to be cool and wet. Until last night, it's been mostly warm and wet. Now for a short while at least, it's going to be cold and wet like a dog's nose. :^(

It's Happening!

Climate change is paying no attention to Peak Oil -- other than respond positively (read: negatively, for us humans and all other creatures) -- as the present production peak, which may be followed by yet another, higher peak when Iran's oil production comes on line to the market, will spew more CO2 than ever into the atmosphere, assuming the demand that has been destroyed is resurrected. Otherwise the glut of oil will just pile up in storage. But eventually it will be burnt; it's a question of when. The added carbon dioxide, along with the beginning of the failure of so many carbon sinks, has will help the atmospheric carbon dioxide increase to accelerate, as it just did this past year: 4 ppm year-over-year.

Non-tropical Cyclone Frank. Current Pressure 928 mb.
This storm is the size of Europe and is as strong as a major hurricane.
Source: dtlange at Robertscribbler.

Anyway, one of the responses is this wicked non-tropical cyclone the size of Europe in the North Atlantic that has bombed out to 928 mb -- Major Hurricane strength, bringing rain and above-freezing temperatures (34 degrees F = 1 C last night) to the North Pole. Robertscribbler, now the bard of climate change reporters, has this to say:

Warm Storm Brings Rain Over Arctic Sea Ice in Winter

By Robertscribbler, 29 December 2015

The Starks were wrong. Winter isn’t coming. It’s dying.

As The Atlantic so aptly notes, the hottest year in the global climate record is ending with a Storm that will Unfreeze the North Pole. A warm storm that is now predicted to bring never-before-seen above freezing temperatures in the range of 32 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit for the highest Latitude in the Northern Hemisphere by afternoon tomorrow. A storm expected to dump six inches of rain and bring 80 mile per hour winds to a Northern England already suffering the worst flooding events in all of its long history. A storm that will rage ashore in Iceland packing 90-100 mile per hour winds and hurl both heavy rains and snows across that volcanic isle.

The impacts of this storm, which the UK Met Office is now calling Frank, could well be tremendous. Cumbria in Northern England may be set to experience yet another ‘worst flood on record’ — one of three occurring just this month. And the 920 mb range central low of this sprawling system is forecast to rip through the heart of Iceland itself. But the more visible risk of damages to England and Iceland may well pale in comparison to the quiet, yet drastic impacts taking place in the far north. 

As the first front of warm air proceeded over the ice pack to the north of Svalbard, the rains fell through 35-40 degree (F) air temperatures. It splattered upon Arctic Ocean ice that rarely even sees rain during summer-time. Its soft pitter-patter a whisper that may well be the sound to mark the end of a geological age.

What does the beginning of the end of Winter sound like? It’s the soft splash of rain over Arctic Ocean sea ice during what should be its coldest season.

http://robertscribbler.com/2015/12/29/warm-storm-brings-rain-over-arctic-sea-ice-in-winter/

What will Russia do when they can no longer depend on General Winter to kick hordes of invading armies out, like they've had for so long, at least since Napoleon's time.

Of course, Eurasia is not the only place affected by all this weird weather caused by El Nino and a meandering Jet Stream. The Christmas Weekend Storm of the Four Seasons over the US midsection is sending an immense amount of floodwater down Midwestern watercourses into the Mississppi River, flooding lots of floodplains as it goes.

When the water reaches New Orleans about the time of the Martin Luther King holiday. On its way there, it will pass the Old River Control Structure, which keeps the Mississippi from escaping down the Atchafalaya and which almost failed in the 1973 spring flood, and put it to the second worst flood level ever. And although they do not yet anticipate it, the Army Corps of Engineers might open up the Bonnet Carre Spillway and the Morganza Spillway to relieve pressure on this structure and the floodwalls and embankment levees in front of New Orleans.

And this is just two of the many, many meterological phenomena (weather events) which attest to climate change, like the changing intensity of rainfall over England, whose North is badly flooded now: that global warming is happening just as the climate scientists in the past predicted it would. 

Why COP 21 Is a Fraud... Last Part.

Well I've exposited why COP 21 is a fraud, and let John Michael Greer have his say, mainly because it's targets for emissions curbs are non-binding, because there is no commitment to not continue using fossil fuels, and because countries are going ahead with fossil fuel reserve exploitation and other fossil fuel energy projects anyway. Another reason comes from an old study: that the present (2005 = +/-376 ppmV) overburden of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere will break the 2.0 degrees C (3.6 F) limit anyway.

 

Atmospheric CO2 is rising around 1.9 ppm per year, up from a pre-industrial level of 280 ppm by volume.
Source: Wikimedia Commons via Tom Murphy, Do the Math.

 

On avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system: Formidable challenges ahead.

V. Ramanathan and Y. Feng
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego

Edited by William C. Clark
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved July 24, 2008

Abstract:

The observed increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) since the preindustrial era has most likely committed the world to a warming of 2.4°C (1.4°C to 4.3°C) above the preindustrial surface temperatures. The committed warming is inferred from the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates of the greenhouse forcing and climate sensitivity. The estimated warming of 2.4°C is the equilibrium warming above preindustrial temperatures that the world will observe even if GHG concentrations are held fixed at their 2005 concentration levels but without any other anthropogenic forcing such as the cooling effect of aerosols. The range of 1.4°C to 4.3°C in the committed warming overlaps and surpasses the currently perceived threshold range of 1°C to 3°C for dangerous anthropogenic interference with many of the climate-tipping elements such as the summer arctic sea ice, Himalayan–Tibetan glaciers, and the Greenland Ice Sheet. IPCC models suggest that ≈25% (0.6°C) of the committed warming has been realized as of now. About 90% or more of the rest of the committed warming of 1.6°C will unfold during the 21st century, determined by the rate of the unmasking of the aerosol cooling effect by air pollution abatement laws and by the rate of release of the GHGs-forcing stored in the oceans. The accompanying sea-level rise can continue for more than several centuries. Lastly, even the most aggressive CO₂ mitigation steps as envisioned now can only limit further additions to the committed warming, but not reduce the already committed GHGs warming of 2.4°C.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/16/0803838105.abstract

I repeat the finding of the above study, that with the 2005 Atmospheric content of about 376 ppmV CO2, there is already 2.4 C (4.3 F) degrees of global warming baked in the cake. We've gone through about half that now.

And even what global warming we've passed through so far appears to be just too much to avoid global weirding and dangerous climate change, what with the Christmas weekend storms (with tornadoes) that left so much rain on the Mid-South and Great Plains that the Mississippi will be experiencing historic levels of flooding over the next few weeks. The place to watch may not St. Louis, or New Orleans, but the Old River Control Structure that keeps the Mississippi from escaping down the Atchafalaya River. That structure almost failed in the famous 1973 floods. Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground reports that the NWS River Forecast Center predicts that "the Mississippi River would crest at Red River Landing, where the Old River Control Structure is located, on January 19. The predicted crest of 62.5' is just 0.9' below the all-time record crest of 63.39' set on May 18, 2011."

The global weirding we've experienced so far has wrecked the climates of the Arctic, as Robertscribbler reports:

Record Hot Arctic: NOAA’s 2015 Report Card Shows Signs of Failing Climates

by Robertscribbler,  21 December 2015

In NOAA’s most recent annual Arctic Report Card, the records just keep falling as the litany of global warming related events appearing throughout the far north continued to crop up with ever-more dizzying frequency...

NOAA’s Arctic report is a stark expose of the state of the Arctic climate. What we view now is a system undergoing a rapid and dynamic transition from its previously stable state to something that is entirely new and alien to human civilization.

The 12 month period of October 2014 to September 2015 was the hottest one year time-frame since record keeping began for the Arctic back in 1900. As a result of these record warm temperatures, Arctic sea ice during the Winter hit its lowest maximum extent ever seen. Summer sea ice extent was likewise greatly reduced hitting its 4th lowest extent ever recorded. Old, thick sea ice which represented 20 percent of the ice pack in 1985, has precipitously declined to a mere 3 percent of the ice pack today. Snow cover also took a hit, declining to its second lowest extent on record during 2015 and striking a range of 50 percent below the typical average for the month.

Overall warming of the Arctic is at a much more rapid pace than the rest of the world. This accelerated pace of warming is due, in large part, to loss of snow and sea ice reflectivity during the Spring and Summer months. As a result, more heat is absorbed into dark land and ocean surfaces — a heat that is retained throughout the Arctic over longer and longer periods. And, though NOAA doesn’t report it in the above video, overall higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses like methane and CO2 in or near the Arctic region also contribute to a higher rate of warming (see NOAA’s ESRL figures). In a world that is now rapidly proceeding beyond the 400 ppm CO2 and 485 ppm CO2e threshold, this is exactly the kind of Northern Hemisphere polar amplification we would expect to see.

http://robertscribbler.com/2015/12/21/record-hot-arctic-noaas-2015-report-card-shows-signs-of-failing-climates/
 

And this record hot Arctic, acting in concert with El Nino and The Blob (record warm water and high pressure air out in the Pacific), is spawning a wicked frontal system possessing multiple lows, hurricane-force winds and an area the size of small continents (examples.: Europe, Australia). This system is just one of the first h'ors d'oeuvres in the just-commencing multiple course meal of dangerous climate change that Jim Hansen called The Storms of My Grandchildren. I do not expect these storms to cease until the overheating of the planet finally reaches an equilibrium a thousand years from now.

 

Warm Arctic Storm To Hurl Hurricane Force Winds at UK and Iceland, Push Temps to 36-72+ Degrees (F) Above Normal at North Pole

by Robertscribbler, 27 December 2015

We’ve probably never seen weather like what’s being predicted for a vast region stretching from the North Atlantic to the North Pole and on into the broader Arctic this coming week. But it’s all in the forecast — an Icelandic low that’s stronger than most hurricanes featuring a wind field stretching over hundreds and hundreds of miles. One that taps warm tropical air and hurls it all the way to the North Pole and beyond during Winter time. And it all just reeks of a human-forced warming of the Earth’s climate…

 

Sunday afternoon, a powerful, hurricane force low pressure system was in the process of rounding the southern tip of Greenland. This burly 960 mb beast roared out of an increasingly unstable Baffin Bay on Christmas. As it rounded Greenland and entered the North Atlantic, it pulled behind it a thousand-mile-wide gale force wind field even as it lashed the tip of Greenland with Hurricane force gusts. To its east, the storm now links with three other lows. Lows that are, even now, drawing south-to-north winds up from a region just west of Gibraltar, on past the UK, up beyond Iceland, over Svalbard, and into the Arctic Ocean itself.

 

GFS forecasts predict a storm bombing out between 920 and 930 mb over Iceland by Wednesday. It’s a storm that could rival some of the strongest such systems ever recorded for the North Atlantic. But this storm’s influence is unique in its potential to shove an unprecedented amount of warm air into the Arctic. A warm storm for the Arctic Winter time.

 

Over the next few days these three lows are predicted to combine into a storm the likes of which the far North Atlantic rarely ever sees. This storm is expected to center over Iceland. But it will have far-reaching impacts ranging from the UK and on north to the pole itself. As the lows combine, GFS predicts them to bomb out into an unprecedentedly deep low featuring 920 to 930 mb (and possibly lower) minimum central pressures by this coming Wednesday. These pressures are comparable to the very extreme storm systems that raged through the North Atlantic during the Winter of 2013. Systems that featured minimum pressures in the range of 928 to 930 mb.

 

It’s worth noting that the lowest pressure ever recorded for the North Atlantic occurred in the much further southward forming Hurricane Wilma at 882 mb.

 

By early Wednesday, temperatures at the North Pole are expected to exceed 1 degree Celsius readings. Such temperatures are in the range of more than 40 degrees Celsius (72 degrees Fahrenheit) above average.

 

http://robertscribbler.com/2015/12/27/warm-arctic-storm-to-hurl-hurricane-force-winds-at-uk-and-iceland-push-temps-to-72-degrees-f-above-normal-at-north-pole/

And it's not just storms we have to worry about. It's also wicked bad droughts, like the one California recently experienced for the past four years -- and is still experiencing to some degree and in some areas.

A study was made for California’s millions of trees and it looks like the drought stress on them has been extremely bad: bad enough to cause about half of them to be so water stressed that they’ll die if the drought comes back.

California’s Future Is in the Hands of Its Dying Trees

Newsweek – By Zoë Schlanger 29 December 2015

The past four years of punishing drought have badly hurt California’s forests. Rain was scarce, the days were too hot, and this year’s wildfire season was the worst anyone has seen in years, burning up nearly 10 million acres across the West. For the first time, a team of researchers has measured the severity of the blow the drought dealt the trees, uncovering potential future destruction in the process. The resulting paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a rich visual testament to just how much California needs its trees and how close the state is to losing 58 million of them.

A team at the Carnegie Institution for Science, led by ecologist Greg Asner, used a laser-guided imaging tool, more properly referred to as high-fidelity imaging spectroscopy (HiFIS), mounted on a plane to sweep over California, taking snapshots that revealed how much water content the forest canopy had lost over time. In these images, the trees that appear red and orange are severely depleted of water. Light trees, in shades of tan, are trees under “drought stress” resulting from this past year’s dry season. The trees colored in blue are “doing OK,” Asner says.

In total, the team found that up to 58 million large trees, shown in red, have been heavily impacted by the drought. If the drought recurs, or if the El Niño keeps the heat turned up in the region, Asner says these trees will likely die. New tree growth would also be suppressed, leaving room for shrublands or grasslands to take over, destroying the current ecosystem of plants and animals entirely. That poses a host of new questions for wildlife management and conservation. “For example,” Asner says, “if we’re going to lose habitat, what does that mean for bear populations?”

http://news.yahoo.com/californias-future-hands-dying-trees-161512163.html

Of course, it's not just California. As Colorado Bob said to me today, Every tree everywhere is under attack. All over the world.

And this, at only half of the 2.4 degree Celsius temperature rise (+4.3 F) that we've already baked into the cake of Anthropogenic Global Warming. And Peak Oil won't reduce it, not one iota!

Dios mío! El cambio climático!

"My God! The Climate Change!," exclaimed a Shorecrest (Miami) resident in Spanish to Ms. Nicole Hernandez Hammer with the Union of Concerned Scientists one day this past October, about a month past the blood Supermoon in September. That day, like on other days with high-tide inundations before it, the water was coming out of the storm drains and into the street -- even out of the ground and onto the front lawns of people's houses,  I have a friend in Oakland Park who used to live in Shorecrest -- NE 84th Street to be exact. And now the Miami metropolitan area, in fact the whole of South Florida, will have to be abandoned in about two decades due to sea-level rise. In fact, there may be divestment in Shorecrest already -- there is a vacant lot at the corner of NE 79th Street and 10th Avenue, where a multifamily or commercial building once stood.

At the same time, Florida Governor Rick Scott denies there is any climate change happening and has even instructed the engineers, researchers and scientists under the state's employ or contract to not mention the term "climate change" or even sea level rise, but instead, if they must mention anything of the sort, couch them in more innocuous terms like "nusiance flooding" for tidal inundations from sea-level rise. You can't make this stuff up! When such flooding occurs, the irony, as Al Gore said at the time, "is just excruciatingly painful."

And you can't build embankments in Miami to keep out the sea... all the bedrock is porous limestone!

The Siege of Miami

Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker.  

The city of Miami Beach floods on such a predictable basis that if, out of curiosity or sheer perversity, a person wants to she can plan a visit to coincide with an inundation. Knowing the tides would be high around the time of the “super blood moon,” in late September, I arranged to meet up with Hal Wanless, the chairman of the University of Miami’s geological-sciences department. Wanless, who is seventy-three, has spent nearly half a century studying how South Florida came into being. From this, he’s concluded that much of the region may have less than half a century more to go. 

We had breakfast at a greasy spoon not far from Wanless’s office, then set off across the MacArthur Causeway. (Out-of-towners often assume that Miami Beach is part of Miami, but it’s situated on a separate island, a few miles off the coast.) It was a hot, breathless day, with a brilliant blue sky. Wanless turned onto a side street, and soon we were confronting a pond-sized puddle. Water gushed down the road and into an underground garage. We stopped in front of a four-story apartment building, which was surrounded by a groomed lawn. Water seemed to be bubbling out of the turf. Wanless took off his shoes and socks and pulled on a pair of polypropylene booties. As he stepped out of the car, a woman rushed over. She asked if he worked for the city. He said he did not, an answer that seemed to disappoint but not deter her. She gestured at a palm tree that was sticking out of the drowned grass.

“Look at our yard, at the landscaping,” she said. “That palm tree was super-expensive.” She went on, “It’s crazy—this is saltwater.” 

“Welcome to rising sea levels,” Wanless told her. 

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels could rise by more than three feet by the end of this century. The United States Army Corps of Engineers projects that they could rise by as much as five feet; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts up to six and a half feet. According to Wanless, all these projections are probably low. In his office, Wanless keeps a jar of meltwater he collected from the Greenland ice sheet. He likes to point out that there is plenty more where that came from. 

“Many geologists, we’re looking at the possibility of a ten-to-thirty-foot range by the end of the century,” he told me. 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/the-siege-of-miami

I went to the University of Miami back in the day. And about two decades from now -- it is laible to look like this: six feet of sea level rise flooding a considerable amount of land, with a lot of campus buildings having "wet feet." A lot of Miami-Dade County -- not to mention Broward -- will be a lot worse off, requiring complete evacuations and wholesale abandonments of all but the highest areas.

A lot of this "nusiance flooding" is being caused by the backing-up of the Gulf Stream due to meltwater pulses from Greenland. The Sea Level in Miami is rising at an inch a year due to this.  But Miami is not the only place that's getting flooded -- strong storms caused by the temperature gradient between the warm middle North Atlantic and the cold waters around Greenland are pummelling the UK.

Floods of a biblical proportion leave cities, towns and villages under water

Robin McKie The Guardian

It was the day the floodwaters inexorably advanced across the Pennines, leaving much of the north of England sodden and beleaguered. From Greater Manchester in the north-west to parts of North Yorkshire some 50 miles to the east, Boxing Day 2015 will be remembered as the day the rains came. 

In Todmorden, in West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley, Rebecca Marshall was last night facing the grim prospect of having to abandon her home as the floodwaters slowly rose around her house. The incessant rains had left the little town cut off after all the roads in and out were flooded. 

By late afternoon the waters were “inches” from the top of the local defence wall and Marshall was stuck inside her home without electricity. Then floodwaters started to rise through her floorboards. “At the moment in our house it’s ankle-deep,” she said. 

“There’s about three feet of water outside our door. With no electricity we will have to move out. However, I don’t think we can get out of the town. All the roads in and out of Todmorden have been closed. Fortunately we have had friends and family turn up from all over the place offering to help.”  

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/floods-of-a-biblical-proportion-leave-cities-towns-and-villages-under-water/ar-BBnWzK7

It got so bad in the city of York, that the authorities had to raise flood barriers.

York's Fight Against Flooding As Barrier Raised

Sky News

Thousands of homes are being evacuated in York, since the flood barrier protecting the town was lifted last night. 

The Environment Agency said it was forced to lift the Foss flood barrier after water entered the building, putting pumps in danger of failing due to electrical problems. 

If the barrier became stuck in the 'down' position, it would not have been able to discharge water into the River Ouse. 

So the agency made the decision to lift it, warning residents in the city centre to move valuables to upper floors and prepare to leave their homes.  

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/yorks-fight-against-flooding-as-barrier-raised/ar-BBnX0le

The flooding is so bad in Midland and Northern England, that bridges could collapse, taking the structures built thereon (it's a European habit before the twentieth century) with them. And there's a "hurricane" still to come.

And the Mississippi River will reach flood stage at New Orleans around Martin Luther King Day due to all the recent rains in the Great Plains and the Midwest and Mid-South. Let's hope the levees hold.

These events, and others like them, shows that adapting to climate change is not going to merely cost chump change. A lot or resources, including energy resources, will have to go into this. Has anyone figured that peak oil, and peak coal and gas, may restrict the availability of these resources?

And it looks like Nature had already opened her Pandora’s Box.

October 2015 temps of 1.28 C above 1880s levels…. That’s 64% of the allotted 2 C target. Worse when you compare it to the newly-agreed 1.5 C target from the COP21 conference.

[December 2014 through November 2015 temps of] 1.06 C Above 1880: Climate Year 2015 Shatters All Previous Records For Hottest Ever.

Robertscribbler 14 December 2015

We knew it was going to be a record breaker. We knew that atmospheric greenhouse gasses in the range of 400 parts per million CO2 and 485 parts per million CO2e, when combined with one of the top three strongest El Ninos in the Pacific, would result in new all-time global record high temperatures. But what we didn’t know was how substantial the jump would ultimately be.

 

Today, the numbers were made public by NASA. And I hate to say it, but it’s a real doozy. Overall, according to NASA, Climate Year 2015 — the 12 month period from December of 2014 through November of 2015 — was 0.84 C hotter than NASA’s 20th Century Baseline. That’s 0.11 C hotter than previous hottest year 2014 and a full 0.21 C hotter than climate change deniers’ favorite cherry — 1998. In other words past record hot years are being left in the dust as the world is heating up to ever more dangerously warm global temperatures.

(Image source: NASA GISS.)

In any case, the current NASA Graph above is going to need some serious adjusting as the new global average for climate year 2015 is simply off the top of the chart. A new jump that gives lie to the increasingly obvious fake claim made by climate change deniers over the past two years that global warming somehow ‘paused.’

 

But aside from reality once again making the fossil fuel cheerleaders of the world (aka climate change deniers) look increasingly imbecilic, 2015’s new temperature increase is a visible sign of increasing climate danger. This year’s 0.84 C temperature departure above NASA’s 20th Century baseline is 1.06 C hotter than 1880s values. It’s a number just 0.44 C (or two more strong El Ninos) away from crossing the very dangerous 1.5 C threshold that nations of the world recently pledged to attempt to avoid at the Paris Climate Summit. It’s also a number more than halfway toward hitting the catastrophic 2 C warming threshold. Perhaps more ominously, Monthly temperature departures in October of 2015 hit a range of 1.06 C above the 20th Century baseline and 1.28 C above 1880s averages — shorter term ranges that are already coming close to testing the 1.5 C threshold.

http://robertscribbler.com/2015/12/14/1-06-c-above-1880-climate-year-2015-shatters-all-previous-records-for-hottest-ever-recorded/?replytocom=60338#respond

And just how much of a percentage of 1.5 C of the COP21's agreed-to global warming target is 1.28 C above 1880s levels is? About 85%. Forget waiting for peak oil, peak natural gas and peak coal to occur if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change and even more bizarre global weirding -- business as usual warped by fossil fuel extraction peaks and declines will still yield an atmospheric CO2 content of about 550 ppm (CO2e would be worse), yielding an ECS temperature rise of 3 C and an ESS rise of 6 C over the space of a thousand years. In geological time, that means Near Term Human Extinction.

[Pseudo-]Conservative Hubris to Cause a Triple Greek Tragedy.

Around the world, but especially in the White Anglosphere nations and Russia, pseudo-conservative politicians are enacting or trying to enact laws, policies and subsidies that would favor fossil fuel vested interests over renewable energy.  Do they not realize that the fossil fuels will eventually run out, or do they think the Earth is this creamy nougat with unlimited stores of fossil fuel?  If they do realize, do they think that fossil fuel companies will make out like bandits once fossil fuel extraction peaks and declines as they charge whatever the traffic will bear for an increasingly scarce resource?  And do they really think, peak oil or NO peak oil, we can just keep emitting the combustion waste and extraction by-wastes into the atmosphere and environment without setting off a runaway hothouse climate and creating polluted wastelands in the process?  I mean , how foolish can they be?

One country, the United Kingdom, now has a "Conservative" government that thinks the British can switch over from coal to natural gas by fracking the countryside.  A year back or so, there was an unsuccessful fracking play there; the drillers came up with NOTHING.  This may be typical for Britain. So where are they going to get the natural gas from, Russia?

So without further ado, I'll hand this over to Robertscribbler.

Toxic Interests: In Lead-up to Paris Summit, Conservative Politicians Around the World are Fighting to Kill Renewable Energy

http://robertscribbler.com/2015/11/24/toxic-interests-in-lead-up-to-paris-summit-conservative-politicians-around-the-world-are-fighting-to-kill-renewable-energy/

We have seen the enemy and he is us.

‘He,’ in this case, is those among us now fighting an all-out war against government programs aimed at reducing the damage caused by human-forced climate change. And in this present time of ramping climate catastrophe, there is no excuse at all for this morally reprehensible activity. Yet, excuse or no, the foul actions of these shameless ignoramuses continue. For all around the world conservatives (called [neo] liberals in Australia) with ties to fossil fuel based industry continue to scuttle programs that would result in the more rapid adoption of renewable energy systems even as they undermine related initiatives to increase energy efficiency.

At a time when the world faces down a growing climate crisis — one that will have dramatically worsening impacts as the decades progress — these failed and corruption-born policies represent the most abhorrent of political activities. And as the world convenes to consider how best to lessen the danger posed by an unfolding global tragedy, there are many in power who are now actively working to increase that danger.

More than anything else, this corrupt group is fighting to enforce ramping dangers, an ever-broadening harm, and untold future tragedy.

Continues here.

These neo-liberal politicians are leading us into a triple tragedy of economic collapse due to peak oil, fossil fuel exhaustion and demand destruction because of the businesses and consumers taking on too much debt to continue buying the stuff at the same rate as before; of civilizational collapse due to climate change, especially from the global weirding to come such as the storms of our grandchildren; and environmental collapse due to both climate change and fouling the environment with combustion waste and extraction by-wastes.  These pols are not conservative in the LEAST because in the end they will not conserve ANYTHING.  Not even our "non-negotiable" way of life.

The Greeks had a word for this go-ahead-and-ignore-any-warnings attitude: it's called hubris.

Northern and Uplands Permafrost Ready to Dramatically Increase Atmospheric Carbon.

Well it appears that peak oil really is no object -- climate change, a.k.a. global warming, and global weirding, is going to jump the gun what with the wildfires in the taiga and tundra and the immense store of Carbon locked in the permafrosts of the northern and upland regions (ex.: Alaska, Siberia, the Arctic, Tibet) is just about ready to offgas so much carbon into the atmosphere, the CO2 content in the atmosphere could actually triple (400 ppm to 1200 ppm). If that happens, we'll see a hothouse environment in nothing flat!

Hat tips to Colorado Bob, humortra and redskylite over at Robertscribbler.

Fires Rapidly Consume More Forests and Peat in the Arctic

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fires-rapidly-consume-more-forests-and-peat-in-the-arctic/

Third of a four-part series. For the first two parts, click here and here.

Scientists who study fire in the boreal are debating how global warming will affect the fire regimes here. Their work will have global implications. Boreal forests sprawl across circumpolar Canada, Russia, Alaska and Scandinavia, and comprise about 30 percent of global forests. They contain extensive, carbon-rich peatlands that have formed over the past 10,000 years.

The upper 20 feet of these water-logged, oxygen-poor soils contains carbon in the form of partially decayed vegetation. The boreal forests store an estimated 703 gigatons of carbon, almost all of it in the soils, according to a 2009 report.

As it warms, peatlands dry out, leaving them vulnerable to fire. And if fire becomes a larger part of the landscape, these vast stores of carbon could be released to the atmosphere, which could trigger more warming and thus create a feedback loop.

If the warming trend continues, the area burned annually could double by the end of the century, according to Natural Resources Canada, the federal ministry responsible for the management and study of the country’s natural resources, including its forests. Fires, more frequent droughts and insect outbreaks could make Canada’s boreal forests a source of carbon, the federal agency warns.

Permafrost in Tibetan Plateau can be wiped out by temperature rise

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/permafrost-tibetan-plateau-can-be-wiped-out-by-temperature-rise-1529647

Much of the permafrost on the Tibetan plateau will possibly disappear by the end of the century under the present trend of global warming exceeding 2C. Almost 40% of it could be lost in the coming years, a Chinese report has warned, noting that the region has been seeing an average temperature rise of about 0.3C every decade.

The thawing has major implications for the local environment in terms of lake outbursts and landslides, besides contributing to global warming. More than half the plateau is covered in permafrost, with large reserves of carbon dioxide trapped within the frozen soil, the report from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said.

Permafrost: hiding a climate time bomb?

http://phys.org/news/2015-11-permafrost-climate.html

There is twice as much carbon in permafrost than in the atmosphere," said Florent Domine, a researcher with France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

"So if we transformed all the carbon in the permafrost into CO2, we would triple the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that would mean the end of the world as we know it."

It contains an estimated 1.7 trillion tonnes of carbon in the form of frozen organic matter, which escapes as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane as it warms and decomposes.

Study: Alaskan Boreal Forest Fires Release More Carbon than the Trees can Absorb

http://alaska-native-news.com/study-alaskan-boreal-forest-fires-release-more-carbon-than-the-ttrees-can-absorb-20315

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new analysis of fire activity in Alaska’s Yukon Flats finds that so many forest fires are occurring there that the area has become a net exporter of carbon to the atmosphere. This is worrisome, the researchers say, because arctic and subarctic boreal forests like those of the Yukon Flats contain roughly one-third of the Earth’s terrestrial carbon stores.

 The research is reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.

I wouldn't wait for peak oil to correct this problem. The problem is, given the immensity of the scale of the required decarbonization of our living arrangements (especially in transportation in Australia and the USA), how do we accomplish this before it becomes completely unmanageable?

There is twice as much carbon in permafrost than in the atmosphere," said Florent Domine, a researcher with France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
"So if we transformed all the carbon in the permafrost into CO2, we would triple the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that would mean the end of the world as we know it."
Permafrost is perennially frozen ground covering about a quarter of exposed land in the northern hemisphere.
It contains an estimated 1.7 trillion tonnes of carbon in the form of frozen organic matter, which escapes as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane as it warms and decomposes.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-11-permafrost-climate.html#jCp

Why Do Climate Scientists and Activists Ignore Peak Oil?

Why Do Climate Scientists and Activists Ignore Peak Oil? It's not something that should be ignored, but usually is, and sometimes even stridently dismissed. Yes, there have been dire predictions that the oil will run out before, going all the way back to the mid-1800s. But still, having come into a new peak on top of a long plateau, and the fact that oil companies are now looking at Arctic, deep-water and fracking to obtain oil, even extracting it from tar sands (now that's really the dregs!), common sense should tell us that Peak Oil is occurring now, and the extraction rates will decline at some point. Of course, once the decline sets in, there will be quite a large amount on the tail end of oil production, so we're not running out anytime soon, even if the downslope begins tomorrow. Yet usually what we hear from the Climate Change people is the worst case scenario [a] of climate change: RCP 8.5 (a.k.a. A1 F1) of a continuous rise in temperatures and CO2 levels caused by ever increasing burning of fossil fuels under business as usual, warming the planet by at about 3.7 deg C (6.7 deg F) this century. Fortunately, there's apparently not enough fossil fuels to accomplish that, unless the Earth's climate is even more sensitive to levels of Carbon in our atmosphere than is typically thought (3 deg C [5.4 F] for doubling of CO2 levels) due to the cautious conservatism of conclusions by Climate Science in general and also by the IPCC reports.

The Various RCP Global Warming Scenarios
Source: Knutti and Sedlacek (carbonbrief.org)

As the latest Japan Met Agency findings show, so far we are right on schedule! Also confirmed by NASA.

Global Temperature Rise since 1890, according to JMA. 

Global Temperature Rise since 1880, according to NASA.

Now what we are likely to get, even with peak oil happened upon accidently-on-purpose through business as usual, simply will not avoid a climate hot-house... unless we embark on a major effort of decarbonization. So without further adieu I will hand it over to Mr. Theo Kitchener of Shift Magazine, who wrote a timely article, "An Alternative Long Shot".

An Alternative Long Shot

Theo Kitchener, November 16, 2015

This article is an attempt to chart what might happen in terms of climate change, both in terms of science, and particularly the potential politics, if we see a serious financial collapse followed by further contraction due to peaking energy and resources. Despite this being quite a likely scenario, there is barely anything written on the topic.

 

Peak oilers, often end up thinking that we don’t need to worry about climate change because peak energy will take care of it for us. I think this view is strongly mistaken. While it is true that peak energy leads to less emissions than would otherwise be possible,[1] we still end up in the zone of highly likely runaway climate change, and there will still be much that needs doing on an activist front in order to minimise our risk. On the other hand, climate change activists are often blind to the possibility of financial collapse or even peak energy collapse. Accordingly, I think their strategies are based on business as usual continuing, which I don’t think is realistic.

 

Climate change activists tend to already know that their hopes to create a mass movement that will convince governments to act, and act enough, are likely to fail, but it’s a long shot worth fighting for if the current context is all you have to go on. What I’m offering below is simply an alternative long shot, one I think is more likely to succeed, considering it is based more on the short term interests of the population rather than long term interests, which are harder to get people active on.

 

Below is a brief analysis of what financial collapse means for the climate, followed by an analysis of potential political scenarios, and particular detail on what I see as the most likely strategies to create a safe climate. These include a decentralised movement to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations, emphasising a shift to permaculture and appropriate technology, the continuation of the anti-emissions movement, a mass movement mobilising to take what’s left of our industrial capacity out of the hands of elites, and put it into good use drawing down carbon, remediating the planet and providing for our needs. This scenario could definitely be seen as an unlikely long shot; however, considering the situation we find ourselves in, a long shot is much better than no shot.

More here: http://shift-magazine.net/2015/11/16/an-alternative-long-shot/.

Notes

[a] Granted, the linked author who brought this up (Charles C. Mann, "Peak Oil Fantasy", Orion Magazine, comment dated 11 October 2015,) actually brought up two cases where analysts had stated that Peak Oil will ensure that RCP 8.5 will not be reached; but, he goes on to say that "this type of argument, which stems directly from peak-oil beliefs, is anything but an obstacle to controlling climate change."

[1]   See for example http://judithcurry.com/2014/04/22/coal-and-the-ipcc/ and http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4807

Ocean Overheating Causing Beginning of Massive New Coral Bleaching.

This is from Mashable.com via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

The third recorded global coral bleaching event may be underway.

"Coral reefs around the world — from Hawaii to the iconic Great Barrier Reef, eastward all the way to the Bahamas and beyond — are in jeopardy of being severely damaged or even dying because of a dangerous spike in ocean temperatures, scientists say.

"Conditions are so dire that, provided coral bleaching soon spreads from the Florida Keys to the Bahamas, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected to declare as soon as two weeks from now that the third global coral bleaching event is here. There’s already evidence of coral bleaching in three major ocean basins.

“ 'It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck, and we’re waiting for the cars to pile up on this side of the track,' says Mark Eakin, the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, in an interview with Mashable."

http://mashable.com/2015/09/24/third-global-coral-bleaching-event/?utm_source=climatenexus&utm_medium=referral#oFAa_etJzuqD

NOAA to "declare [a bleaching event] as soon as two weeks from now" and "already evidence of coral bleaching in the three major ocean basins" means the current El Nino, as strong and monstrous as it is, cannot cool down the oceans soon enough to avoid this event. The article also states that "many coral reefs expected to perish by the middle of the century if recent trends continue." which means (1) we need Peak Oil on purpose, now, reducing energy use and switching to renewables, and (2) even if we reduce our emissions to zero, the 405 ppm CO₂ and the 480 ppm CO₂e means we will still have these global warming trends continuing for as long as forty years, or more, until the ice, oceans and atmosphere finally reached equilibrium.

There is a new study out that shows information can be extracted from samples of coral reefs to determine what the paleoclimatic record, i.e., the prehistoric climate, was like.

From Science Daily via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

 Fossil corals have the unique advantage that they can be precisely dated by radiometric uranium-series dating, giving an age scale that can be directly compared to the ice core records.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150924151409.htm

And, now scientists have discovered another effect of global warming which is an amplifying of  semiannual to twice-annual variation in Pacific Ocean sea level, perhaps in both amplitude and frequency, causing South Seas' islands' coral reefs to become exposed to the air and die back as a result.

Also from Science Daily via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

During El Niño, warm water and high sea levels shift eastward, leaving in their wake low sea levels in the western Pacific. Scientists have already shown that this east-west seesaw is often followed six months to a year later by a similar north-south sea level seesaw with water levels dropping by up to one foot (30 cm) in the Southern Hemisphere. Such sea level drops expose shallow marine ecosystems in South Pacific Islands, causing massive coral die-offs with a foul smelling tide called taimasa (pronounced [kai' ma'sa]) by Samoans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925142700.htm

Which means there will be more catastrophic diebacks of the coral reefs. Better start transplanting them now. Peak Oil will not stop this.

End Triassic, End Permian, End Eocene Extinctions Marked by SEVERE C-13 Carbon Release.

This information was posted recently by Leland Palmer at Robertscribbler's latest article, New Study — Risk of Significant Methane Release From East Siberian Arctic Shelf Still Growing:

During previous mass extinction events, carbon isotope excursions consistent with the release of hundreds of billions or trillions of tons of carbon from the methane hydrates occurred. This has happened several times, not just once or twice. 

Generally there is flood basalt activity going on, releasing massive amounts of CO2, much like our current fossil fuel use. But the flood basalt activity generally seems to precede the sharp mass extinction event, sometimes by hundreds of thousands of years, and often seems to go on after the mass extinction event. 

Methane release from the hydrates, triggered by flood basalt release of CO2, is the best mass extinction hypothesis to explain all of the geological evidence, I think. The sudden methane release hypothesis has the most explanatory power, the most predictive ability, and even makes quantitative predictions that turn out to be correct. It is consistent with all the geological evidence. When a new claim is made that contradicts the methane release hypothesis, that claim generally does not hold up, and turns out to be wrong. 

The methane release hypothesis turns out to be a unifying theory – it constitutes a general theory of most or maybe all mass extinctions.

Link: http://robertscribbler.com/2015/09/10/new-study-risk-of-significant-methane-release-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-still-growing/#comment-51528. Nota bene an excellent graphic of the End-Triassic with C-13 content spike consistent with the End-Triassic mass extinction.

Leland Palmer further notes that we don't want an End-Anthropocene extinction either, but with all the fossil fuels we've combusted up so far we just might get it. With 6,800 billion tons of methane clathrates in the Arctic and 1,600 billion tons of Carbon in the Arctic permafrost, I agree.

UPDATE: Mr. Palmer has since posted a graphic of the  negative Carbon Isotope Excursion (CIE) from the End Permian -- the mother of all smelly hothouse extinctions.

Link: http://robertscribbler.com/2015/09/10/new-study-risk-of-significant-methane-release-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-still-growing/#comment-51661

These repeated sudden CIE events, coupled with hyperthermal mass extinction events, are good consistent evidence of methane release from the hydrates. There have been maybe 20 or more of these flood basalt eruption / sudden negative CIE / extinction events, and hundreds of smaller apparent releases, I think. So, maybe our hydrates are less stable than we think.

Considering that the hydrates up in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are already letting loose, I think they are a LOT less stable!

Mega Dust Bowl by 2100. And a Refugee Crisis the World Has Never Seen.

As Joe Romm writes in this here article at Think-Progress, by 2100 continued fossil-fuel combustion will cause vast stretches of North America to become a massive dustbowl. Basically, everything from Panama to the the western and central US, and Canada's breadbasket, will be impossible to live in because of centuries-long drought.

Remember that the Medieval Warming period eventually caused a two-century long drought that killed off the Anastazi Indians' culture. They all had to leave, it was so bad.

SOIL MOISTURE

The darkest areas are equivalent to the 1930s USA Great Plains' dustbowl.

From Joe Romm's article:

"The Syria conflict has triggered the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II,” explains the European Commission. As Climate Progress has been reporting for years, and as a major 2015 study confirmed, “human-caused climate change was a major trigger of Syria’s brutal civil war."

But the unprecedented multi-year drought that preceded the Syrian civil war is mild compared to the multi-decade megadroughts that unrestricted carbon pollution will make commonplace in the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, and Central America, according to many recent studies.

Given the current political debate over immigration policy, it’s worth asking two questions. First: if the United States, through our role as the greatest cumulative carbon polluter in history, plays a central role in rendering large parts of Mexico and Central America virtually uninhabitable, where will the refugees go? And second: will we have some moral obligation to change our immigration policy?

If we don’t take far stronger action on climate change, then here is what a 2015 NASA study projected the normal climate of North America will look like. The darkest areas have soil moisture comparable to that seen during the 1930s Dust Bowl.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/09/08/3699165/refugees-dust-bowl-mexico/

It's been a long time.

I've been busy for quite a while filling paperwork to obtain pro bono legal help solve two real-life financial problems before they blow up in my face. Now that they're done and I will receive an answer in eighteen days, I can add new posts to this blog.

This blog has strayed far from its original intent: the effects of peak oil and related subjects. I've been into the gay marriage fight in California, now surprisingly pleasantly successfully concluded, Bradley now Chelsea Manning's trials, crucifixion for a few years, the Historical Jesus (who?), local things and whatnot. It's time for me to bring this blog back to its original subject.

I may not get to write my own posts for a long time, but I'll keep the blog fed with repostings, usually from the Robertscribbler and Our Finite World blogs. Tomorrow I'll start the reposts. See ya then!

Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay! Part 2

From Robertscribbler's article "Large Methane Plumes Discovered on Laptev Continental Slope Boundary: Evidence of Possible Methane Hydrate Release":

Over the past few years, the Arctic has been experiencing an invasion.

Emerging from the Gulf Stream, a pulse of warmer than normal water propagated north past Iceland and into the Barents Sea. There, it dove beneath the surface fresh water and retreating sea ice, plunging to a depth of around 200-500 meters where it concentrated, lending heat to the entire water column. Taking a right hand turn along the Siberian Continental Shelf, it crossed through the mid water zones of the Kara. Finally, it entered the Laptev and there it abutted against the downward facing slopes of the submarine continental region.

As the water temperatures at these depths warmed, researchers began to wonder if they would trigger the destabilization of methane hydrate stores locked  in deeper waters along the shelf boundary. And, now, a new expedition may have uncovered evidence that just such an event is ongoing.

And here's a photo of methane bubbles bubbling up from the slope itself!

Source: Stockholm University via Robertscribbler.

Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay!

The methanc clathrates under the East Siberian Arctic Continental Shelf (ESAS), its slope into the deep and even under the Permafrost in Siberia are destabilizing. On land, four "sinkholes" with "levees" have formed, explosively like a the champagne under a popped cork, or even with a fiery explosion.

And the Global Warming demons will be singing "Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay!" as they ride up the rising gas bubbles once the clathrates really belch. Probably past 2100, but who knows?

As Robertscribbler reports in his blog article, "Is This the Compost Bomb’s Smoking Gun? Second Mysterious Hole Found in Yamal Russia."

Yamal, Russia — a stretch of tundra flats and peat bogs stretching as far as the eye can see before terminating into the chill waters of the Kara. A rather stark and desolate place, one that was mostly unknown until a massive and strange hole appeared in the earth there last week. Since that time, the strange hole has been the butt of every kind of wild speculation and controversy.

The hole itself was an alien feature. “We haven’t seen anything like this before,” would be an entirely accurate statement. All about the hole was a large pile of debris — overturned earth, huge chunks of soil piled up in a signature very familiar to the ejecta of a meteor impact crater.
Approaching the hole edge, we came to a gradual slope that proceeded downward for about 40 feet at about a 35 degree incline. Along the surface of this incline, both the unfrozen soil cap and the frozen permafrost were visible.

But it wasn’t until we hit the bottom edge of this incline that we encountered the strangest feature of all — a sheer cliff, rounded in a shape like the smooth bore of a gun, and plunging straight down through icy permafrost for about another hundred and twenty feet before revealing a basement cavern slowly filling with melt.

It’s a combination of features that appears to be one half impact crater and one half sink hole.

A poster by the name of Bernard says two more holes have opened up in Siberia: Antipayuta, Taz district, and Nosok, Krasnoyarsk region. For more info, click here, scroll down and click here.

Second Yamal crater.

A "sinkhole" with levees! 

(Source: The Siberian Times via Robertscribbler)

The Top 0.1%, Koch Borthers, and Global Weirding

There's a reason why Peak Oil Is No Object, and why we are at the Fin Des Voies Rapides anyway. But it's taken me a while to get there!

It's because of the already extant overburden of Carbon Dioxide (402 ppm), Methane (1830 ppb), Nitrous Oxide, Ozone, etc. We now are at a global warming of 0.92 C since the 1880s -- 0.76 C since 1950 and 0.80 C since 1750, the dawn of industrialization! And already we are having Global Weirding in the weather!

The driving force behind all this -- and controlling the governments -- are the top 0.1%, particularly those who profit from fossil fuels extraction, prime example being the Koch Brothers. And why this driving force? It's as Dmitry Orlov said, it's due to Moneybag Logic:

This logic says that having more money is always good, having less money is always bad, and that therefore everyone should do everything possible to make sure that there is always more money. If that requires turning the Earth into a polluted, radioactive, lifeless desert, so be it.

So here's a subthread I've taken from RobertScribbler's blog article World In Hot Water: Screaming Sea Surface Temperatures Push Globe To Hottest June Yet, and am reblogging it here.

May this begin a discussion.

Raymond DeBrane  /  July 22, 2014

I think the Koch Brothers and other oil and coal billionaires will have to bargain with the military and pay them huge amounts of cash to secure a place in underground shelters such as DUMBS. I strongly suspect that when TSHTF, those rich guys will be tossed out as human garbage when money becomes worthless and there’s nothing more to be gained by the military by giving them food, water, shelter, etc. Since the military is well armed, I’m fairly sure that the military will shoot them down without care or remorse to save the resources they would consume to use for more deserving people. It will be a just end for them all.
   
Andy (in San Diego)  /  July 23, 2014

The military can now legally operate on domestic soil. Cdn + US govt and military signed an agreement a couple of years ago such that they can operate on each others soil during unrest. All the Kochs (and ilk) need to do is own those that tell the military what to do. They have this covered. Greedy yes, and also quite smart.
   
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

Clever, but not smart. Smart people don’t invest in fossil fuels and suppress the alternatives. The Kochs are two clever chaps who’ve long since lost limbic brain functionality.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

I’d also call them monstrous ignoramuses and lump them in with the villainous personas of our age. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to what’s smart.

In any case, I seriously doubt the Kochs will be able to leverage special military protection, especially when it’s completely obvious to military planners that they’re fighting for the wrong side.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

To this point, you may want to read the book — Soft Apocalypse.
At some point, the military becomes saturated with problems and loses broader functioning. We have 10,000 people fighting fires on the west coast right now. Two brigades worth just to fight fires. How will it look in twenty years? What happens when you’re dealing with mass migration, probably violent unrest, states bordering on collapse, people rioting because their seaside homes were destroyed and there’s no insurance or disaster relief money left, people starving because the Kochs pushed them off food stamps, food riots because the crops failed and people like the Kochs pushed them off food stamps. Who are the people in the military going to sympathize with? The Kochs? You end up with that level of corruption and the whole system collapses pretty quick.

I’m thinking the Kochs have their oxes gored long before that point.
  
Raymond DeBrane  /  July 23, 2014

to Robert,
 I believe, even now, politicians know they are working for the wrong side. Ditto conservative media personalities. As long as the Kochs and other billionaires keep the money flowing to them, they will continue to shill for the wrong side. I think they and the military will take all the money they can get from those guys until things get so out of hand that the banks and the government, and the populace are crippled by financial and environmental collapse, massive gasoline shortages, people out of work that can’t pay for the gas that is available, and not able to pay for food at the grocery store, if it is still available. Then and only then will the Kochs and their ilk become excess baggage, expendable.

If you expect the people in general to come for the Kochs and their ilk, half the country won’t because they are hopelessly brainwashed by conservative media types to be for the policies of the Kochs, and to hate and despise billionaire George Soros, who is fighting the Kochs. Most people I’ve talked to never even heard of the Kochs, and they have no idea of the big picture of what those billionaires are up to and how bad a state the world is in right now because of climate change. Add to that that even people in this blog think that Prof Guy McPherson is wrong about NTE beginning around 2030, and you have people thinking that that can’t happen. It’s too soon. Everybody please Google John Mercer and read about his 1978 prediction about if we keep burning fossil fuels, we will melt the glaciers. As I mentioned previously, he took a lot of flack from his colleagues,, but modern scientists have found him to be a profit.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

Corrupt political systems fail, media systems based on propaganda fail, and, in the end, people come after the Kochs. Absolutely.

In any case, I’m not so cynical as to believe that the Kochs own the system or that the situation is quite so altogether dark. Do the conservatives own the system? They’ve been more and more marginalized despite massive sums of money expended. They wouldn’t work so hard to suppress the vote if elections didn’t matter.