Climate

A man trying to keep cool sat in the fountain at Washington Square Park last August in New York. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Even with aggressive reductions in carbon emissions, extreme heat is going to get worse, a new study has found.

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Nature - Global risk of deadly heat

huffingtonpost.com - by Chris D'Angelo - June 22, 2017

If humans fail to drastically cut carbon emissions, 3 in 4 people on the planet could be exposed to deadly heat waves by the end of the century, a new study has found. 

And even if countries take action to reverse climate change with aggressive emissions reductions, up to 48 percent of the global population will be plagued by at least 20 days of lethal heat per year by 2100. 

Camilo Mora, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of geography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told HuffPost that our “assault on the planet has been so massive” that we’ve left ourselves without a good option.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Many died in their cars as they fled from huge blaze amid severe heatwave on Iberian peninsula 

Flames engulf a highway in Pedrógão - Photograph: Paulo Cunha/EPA

theguardian.com - by Sam Jones - June 18, 2017

At least 60 people have been killed in huge forest fires in central Portugal, many dying in their cars as they tried to flee the flames . . .

 . . . Several hundred firefighters and 160 vehicles were dispatched late on Saturday to tackle the fire, which broke out in the municipality of Pedrógão Grande before spreading fast . . . 

 . . . The Iberian peninsular is sweltering under a severe heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 40C (104F) in some regions.

About 60 forest fires took hold across Portugal on Saturday night, with 1,700 firefighters battling to put them out.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES WITHIN THE LINKS BELOW . . . 

CLICK HERE - Portugal Fires Kill More Than 60, Including Drivers Trapped in Cars

An iceberg lies in the Ross Sea with Mount Erebus in the background near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in November 2016. (AFP/Getty Images)

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Nature Communications - January 2016 extensive summer melt in West Antarctica favoured by strong El Niño

washingtonpost.com - by Chris Mooney - June 15, 2017

Scientists have documented a recent, massive melt event on the surface of highly vulnerable West Antarctica that, they fear, could be a harbinger of future events as the planet continues to warm.

In the Antarctic summer of 2016, the surface of the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest floating ice platform on Earth, developed a sheet of meltwater that lasted for as long as 15 days in some places. The total area affected by melt was 300,000 square miles, or larger than the state of Texas, the scientists report.

That’s bad news because surface meltin g could work hand in hand with an already documented trend of ocean-driven melting to compromise West Antarctica, which contains over 10 feet of potential sea level rise.

A coal-fired power station in Mount Storm, W.Va., in January. The coal industry played an instrumental role in efforts to unwind the Obama administration’s climate policies. Credit Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

nytimes.com - by Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton - June 3, 2017

The Republican Party’s fast journey from debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist is a story of big political money, Democratic hubris in the Obama years and a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf, favoring extreme positions and uncompromising rhetoric over cooperation and conciliation . . .

<In 2008 Senator John McCain, who had just secured the Republican nomination for President, sounded the alarm on global warming.>

 . . . Since Mr. McCain ran for president on climate credentials that were stronger than his opponent Barack Obama’s, the scientific evidence linking greenhouse gases from fossil fuels to the dangerous warming of the planet has grown stronger.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)