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Climate Change Working Group

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The mission of this working group is to explore the evidence regarding points of leverage assisting human groups in coping with or reducing the risk of global climate change.

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This working group is focused on issues of Global Climate Change.
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admin Albert Gomez Amanda Cole Anthony ChrisAllen david hastings
fosternt Kathy Gilbeaux Maeryn Obley mashalshah mdmcdonald MDMcDonald_me_com
Nguyen Ninh StarDart

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Grey Swan Hurricanes Pose Future Storm Surge Threat

         

About 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded when Hurricane Katrina's storm surge overwhelmed the city's levees.
Credit: Kelly Garbato/flickr

climatecentral.org - by Andrea Thompson - September 1, 2015

Black swans are catastrophic events that no one sees coming, while “grey swans,” as the are known, are extreme events for which there’s no historical precedent, but that could still potentially be predicted. A new study takes this concept into the realm of weather and climate, finding that global warming might sharply increase the odds of grey swan hurricanes and storm surge over the coming century.

While such tempests would still remain relatively rare, they could pose unrecognized but potentially serious threats to coastal areas like Tampa, Fla., and Dubai, with storm surge totals reaching into the double digits when measured in feet.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Grey swan tropical cyclones

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Greenland's Jakobshavn Glacier Sheds Big Ice Chunk

         

This optical image of Jakobshavn glacier in western Greenland, acquired by Sentinel-2A on 16 August 2015, offers a valuable perspective of the scale of the calving event that took place between 14 and 16 August. The contour indicates the area of ice lost between images acquired on 6 and 16 August.

bbc.com - August 24, 2015

Scientists are studying a big mass of ice that has broken off the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland.

They say the 12.4km sq section is among the largest ever witnessed to come away from the ice stream's calving front.

Satellite imagery suggests the break-up occurred sometime between 13 and 19 August.

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(ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE)

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Cost of Not Acting on Climate Change $44 Trillion: Citi

               

Luiz Filipe Castro | Moment | Getty Images

cnbc.com - by Anmar Frangoul - August 18, 2015

Up to $44 trillion could be going up in smoke if the world does not act on climate change, according to the latest piece of research from U.S. banking giant Citigroup.

The report – Energy Darwinism II: Why a Low Carbon Future Doesn't Have to Cost the Earth -- has forecast that spending on energy will hit around $200 trillion in the next 25 years.

The study then examines two scenarios: one that Citi describe as an "'inaction' on climate change scenario", and another that looks at what could happen if a low carbon, "different energy mix" is pursued.

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CLICK HERE - Energy Darwinism II: Why a Low Carbon Future Doesn't Have to Cost the Earth

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Climate Action Tracker

           

climateactiontracker.org

The "Climate Action Tracker" is an independent science-based assessment, which tracks the emission commitments and actions of countries. The website provides an up-to-date assessment of individual national pledges, targets and INDCs and currently implemented policy to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

CLICK HERE - Climate Action Tracker

CLICK HERE - ABOUT - Climate Action Tracker

CLICK HERE - Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) as Communicated by Parties

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Iran city hits suffocating heat index of 165 degrees, near world record

Chart showing temperature, dew point in index in Bandar Mahshahr over last 36 hours, using National Weather Service heat index value calculations. (Brian McNoldy)

Image: Chart showing temperature, dew point in index in Bandar Mahshahr over last 36 hours, using National Weather Service heat index value calculations. (Brian McNoldy)

washingtonpost.com - July 31st, 2015 - Jason Samenow

Wherever you live or happen to travel to, never complain about the heat and humidity again.

In the city of Bandar Mahshahr (population of about 110,000 as of 2010), the air felt like a searing 165 degrees (74 Celsius) today factoring in the humidity.

Although there are no official records of heat indices, this is second highest level we have ever seen reported.

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Disastrous Sea Level Rise Is an Issue for Today's Public - Not Next Millennium's

             

huffingtonpost.com - by Dr. James Hansen - July 27, 2015

. . . 2°C global warming, rather than being a safe "guardrail," is highly dangerous. . . .

. . . My conclusion, based on the total information available, is that continued high emissions would result in multi-meter sea level rise this century and lock in continued ice sheet disintegration such that building cities or rebuilding cities on coast lines would become foolish. . . .

. . . A startling conclusion of our paper is that effects of freshwater release onto the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic are already underway and 1-2 decades sooner in the real world than in the model (Fig. 2). 

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CLICK HERE - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics - Earth's energy imbalance and implications

CLICK HERE - Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: Evidence from Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern Observations that 2°C Global Warming is Highly Dangerous

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Humanity from Space

pbs.org - July 21, 2015

From the global perspective of space, this 2-hour special reveals the breathtaking extent of our influence, revealing how we’ve transformed our planet and produced an interconnected world of extraordinary complexity.

A journey through 12,000 years, Humanity from Space shows how seemingly small flashes of innovation have changed the course of civilization; innovations that touch all of us today in ways unimaginable to our ancestors. And we’ll gaze into the future at the new challenges we’ll face in order to survive as our global population soars because of our success.

CLICK HERE - PBS - Humanity from Space

CLICK HERE - YouTube - Humanity from Space

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New Study Links Global Warming to Hurricane Sandy and Other Extreme Weather Events

By John Abraham | The Gaurdian | June 22, 2015

Hurricane Sandy article image

The paper finds that global warming is putting extreme weather on steroids 

One of the hottest areas of climate research these days is on the potential connections between human emissions, global warming, and extreme weather. Will global warming make extreme weather more common or less common? More severe or less severe? 

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Surgeon General Calls Climate Change A Serious, Immediate And Global Threat To Human Health

              

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 07: Vivek Murthy, U.S. surgeon general, speaks while participating in a roundtable discussion on the impacts of climate change on public health at Howard University with U.S. President Barack Obama, not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. President Obama is warning that climate change will start affecting Americans health in the near future and he's recruiting top technology companies to help prepare the nation’s health systems. (Photo | Pool via Getty Images)

CLICK HERE - STUDY - EPA - Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action

CLICK HERE - REPORT - The Lancet - Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health

huffingtonpost.com - by Kate Sheppard - June 24, 2015

WASHINGTON -- Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Tuesday that climate change presents a "serious, immediate and global threat to human health," calling the danger a "sobering truth."

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Health and Climate Change: A Call for Immediate Action

submitted by Nguyen Huu Ninh

               

AFP / Dimitar Dilkoff

CLICK HERE - REPORT - The Lancet - Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health

lemonde.fr - by Paul Benkimoun - June 23, 2015

Acting against climate change is both an emergency and the opportunity to achieve the greatest progress for public health in the 21 century. It is in these terms that the Commission’s report Lancet on health and climate change poses the challenge to humanity. Online on Tuesday, June 23 about the British medical weekly site [1,999,011], the document was written by a multidisciplinary European and Chinese academic team.

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(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE - FRENCH)

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