Climate Change/Global Warming is rapidly killing our planet.

There is almost no mention of climate Change in the MSM and people are not talking about it. Right wingers in Redding, CA are sure there is no connection between Climate Change and the 200K+ acres that are still burning there.

On the other hand, today's New York Times Magazine has a long article on Climate Change that is well worth reading.

The world has warmed more than one degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. The Paris climate agreement — the nonbinding, unenforceable and already unheeded treaty signed on Earth Day in 2016 — hoped to restrict warming to two degrees. The odds of succeeding, according to a recent study based on current emissions trends, are one in 20. If by some miracle we are able to limit warming to two degrees, we will only have to negotiate the extinction of the world’s tropical reefs, sea-level rise of several meters and the abandonment of the Persian Gulf. The climate scientist James Hansen has called two-degree warming “a prescription for long-term disaster.” Long-term disaster is now the best-case scenario. Three-degree warming is a prescription for short-term disaster: forests in the Arctic and the loss of most coastal cities. Robert Watson, a former director of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has argued that three-degree warming is the realistic minimum. Four degrees: Europe in permanent drought; vast areas of China, India and Bangladesh claimed by desert; Polynesia swallowed by the sea; the Colorado River thinned to a trickle; the American Southwest largely uninhabitable. The prospect of a five-degree warming has prompted some of the world’s leading climate scientists to warn of the end of human civilization.
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Like most human questions, the carbon-dioxide question will come down to fear. At some point, the fears of young people will overwhelm the fears of the old. Some time after that, the young will amass enough power to act. It will be too late to avoid some catastrophes, but perhaps not others. Humankind is nothing if not optimistic, even to the point of blindness. We are also an adaptable species. That will help.

The distant perils of climate change are no longer very distant, however. Many have already begun to occur. We are capable of good works, altruism and wisdom, and a growing number of people have devoted their lives to helping civilization avoid the worst. We have a solution in hand: carbon taxes, increased investment in renewable and nuclear energy and decarbonization technology. As Jim Hansen told me, “From a technology and economics standpoint, it is still readily possible to stay under two degrees Celsius.” We can trust the technology and the economics. It’s harder to trust human nature. Keeping the planet to two degrees of warming, let alone 1.5 degrees, would require transformative action. It will take more than good works and voluntary commitments; it will take a revolution. But in order to become a revolutionary, you need first to suffer.

This is remarkable, given that Media Matters just noted that...

Major broadcast TV networks mentioned climate change just one time during two weeks (the first two weeks of July) of heat-wave coverage. ABC, CBS, and NBC aired 127 segments on the recent heat wave and only one noted that climate change is a driver of extreme heat.

Hat tip to Janis for news of extreme heat from down under.

The water temperature in the Tasman Sea is well above normal - a whopping 6degC more than average for the start of December.

The increase has been driven by a La Nina climate system, and scientists say a continued warming of our ocean could permanently damage our fisheries and lead to tropical cyclones.

NIWA climate scientist Nava Fedaeff says, "Warm seas can act like fuel," she says. "If we do get a tropical storm this could add more moisture to the system."

In Japan

The temperature rose to a record 41.1C (106 Fahrenheit) in a city north-west of Tokyo on Monday (in Saitama prefecture )...Central Tokyo reached 39C on Monday, which “feels like” 43C when taking into account other factors such as humidity. Across Japan, dozens of people have died from heat-related conditions over the past two weeks and thousands have been taken to hospital.

In early July, in eastern Canada, more than 90 people are now suspected to have died from the heat wave in Quebec. Recently a number of records were set around the world from Europe to Africa — Taiwan, Algeria, Oman, the Krasnoyarsk region in Russia, the Burbank and Van Nuys airports in CA and in Montreal.

“What’s unusual is the hemispheric scale of the heatwave,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “It’s not just the magnitude in any one location but that high temperatures are being seen over such a large area.”

And there’s more… Temperatures soared into the nineties Fahrenheit north of the Arctic Circle.

Lapland (Sápmi), the region of northern Scandinavia famed for its reindeer and often associated with Christmas. In contrast to that wintry reputation, Sweden is now grappling with an onslaught of wildfires unprecedented in modern times...The heat across Scandinavia is being driven by a large, strong upper-level high parked over the region. The persistent high pressure has also fed unusually warm, dry conditions across the British Islands, where several all-time heat records were broken

The thermohaline circulation, large-scale ocean circulation, is slowing down. Here is a recently published study in the journal Nature. There are many articles, but this one is short and to the point. And it has a great picture of the AMOC (Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, a system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean).

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

has declined in strength by 15 percent since the mid-20th century to a "new record low," the scientists conclude...If the slowdown trend continues, it is expected to drive strong sea-level rise against the Eastern Seaboard. Previous research has already shown that in 2009 to 2010, sea level in the region suddenly shot up five inches, thanks in part to a brief slowdown of the circulation...As for the future, Rahmstorf predicts the circulation will only weaken further as climate change advances. It may not be slow and steady: There is great fear that there may be a "tipping point" where the circulation comes to an abrupt halt.

Here's a video of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation by NASA.

Hat tip to Snoopy for this video of a calving event of an iceberg roughly a third of the length of Manhattan.
[video:https://youtu.be/aHYviGKsn_c]
Another new study addresses sea-level rise following Antarctic ice shelves' collapse...

The break-up of the smaller George VI Ice Shelf would have a much larger impact. The research is published today in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere. Recent, rapid warming in the Antarctic Peninsula is a threat to ice shelves in the region, with Larsen C and George VI considered to have the highest risk of collapse. Because these large ice platforms hold back inland glaciers, the ice carried by these glaciers can flow faster into the sea when the ice shelves collapse, which contributes to sea-level rise. The new study shows that a collapse of Larsen C would result in inland ice discharging about 4 mm to sea level, while the response of glaciers to George VI collapse could contribute over five times more to global sea levels, around 22 mm.

Hat tip to Creosote
Ocean acidification to hit levels not seen in 14 million years.

In their new study, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the researchers set out to reconstruct levels of ocean acidity and atmospheric CO2 levels over the past 22 million years.

They did so by studying the fossils of tiny marine creatures that once lived near the ocean surface, specifically using the chemistry of their shells to monitor the acidity of the seawater in which the creatures lived.

Based on this information, the researchers were able to put their new records of pH and CO2 levels in context of the range of future carbon emission scenarios that are recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

And one last longish video by Paul Beckwith from the U. of Ottawa Laboratory for Paleoclimatology. You gotta love this guy with his three cats explaining the consequences of the melting of the arctic sea ice. He and his little cats too, give a very digestible presentation about Arctic Blue Ocean Event Consequences: Air and Ocean Circulation Changes...

It is becoming common knowledge that we are rapidly heading to complete loss of Arctic sea-ice. Without a course reversal, one eventually gets where one is headed. What will the consequences be, to the Arctic and to the rest of the planet?

Using my three cats as willing(?) helpers, I attempt to explain how the Beaufort Gyre and TransArctic Drift will reverse, monsoonal torrential rains will attack permafrost on land along Arctic coastlines, with severe increases in methane and carbon dioxide releases from this big thaw.

Our world will rapidly change for the worse as Arctic feedbacks accelerate and the jet streams stall out. We will have to relearn how to grow food in new ways and regions as existing farmland becomes subject to droughts and/or switches to torrential rains. Buckle your seatbelts.

Enjoy!