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2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Posted on 24 June 2017 by John Hartz

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick

From heatwaves to hurricanes, floods to famine: seven climate change hotspots

Global warming will not affect everyone equally. Here we look at seven key regions to see how each is tackling the consequences of climate change

Mapping Climate Hotspots

Mapping the world’s climate hot spots and identifying where the impacts will be the greatest is increasingly important for governments and those who need to prioritise resources. Photograph: Stephane Mahe/Reuters

It could have been the edge of the Sahara or even Death Valley, but it was the remains of a large orchard in the hills above the city of Murcia in southern Spain last year. The soil had broken down into fine white, lifeless sand, and a landscape of rock and dying orange and lemon trees stretched into the distance.

A long drought, the second in a few years, had devastated the harvest after city authorities had restricted water supplies and farmers were protesting in the street. It was a foretaste of what may happen if temperatures in the Mediterranean basin continue to rise and desertification grows.

All round the world, farmers, city authorities and scientists have observed changing patterns of rainfall, temperature rises and floods. Fifteen of the 16 hottest years have been recorded since 2000. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions steadily climb. Oceans are warming and glaciers, ice caps and sea ice are melting faster than expected. Meanwhile, heat and rainfall records tumble.

The evidence for the onset of climate change is compelling. But who and where is it hitting the hardest? How fast will it come to Africa, or the US? What will be its impact on tropical cities, forests or farming? On the poor, or the old? When it comes to details, much is uncertain.

From heatwaves to hurricanes, floods to famine: seven climate change hotspots by John Vidal, Guardian, June 23, 2017


Links posted on Facebook

Sun June 18 2017

Mon June 19 2017

Tue June 20 2017

Wed June 21 2017

Thu June 22 2017

Fri June 23 2017

Sat June 24 2017

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Comments

Comments 1 to 4:

  1. The link to "Deadly heatwaves could endanger 74% of mankind by 2100, study says" isn't working for me.  It leads to a 'forbidden' page.  I got the article separately through a google search.

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    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Link fixed. Thanks for bringing this glitch to our attention.

  2. Regarding John Vidals very good article he says "Whether it’s faster than average warming, more vulnerable than average populations, or more severe than average drought, floods and storms, it’s clear that some places are being hit harder than others ... But the bottom line is that climate hotspots intersect, and nowhere will we escape the changes taking place. What happens in the Amazon affects West Africa....."

    This physical process is of course already happening, and will continute to happen, and is predicted to accelerate. At precisedly the same time, the world is globalising and becoming ever more inter linked and inter dependent, by free trade, tourism, immigration and international agreements and alliances. It is process is sometimes criticised, but appears inevitable and largely desirable. Therefore severe economic problems and social problems in certain countries caused by climate change, will become eveyones problems.

    As some countries are hit harder by climate change, this inevitably affects their economies and internal political stability, etc. This then effects other countries, on trade and economic levels, and all these things are now in a delicate balance. We saw how the financial crash in america rapidly spread globally. Of course global political and economic systems develop some resilency, but there are limits and problems in such systems adapting to fast rates of change generated for whatever reason.

    Climate change will also create a refugee problem and this will also become an ethical and moral concern and hard to ignore because in a globalising, inter linked world there are all sorts of consequences if you ignore problems.

    In a globalising world it will herefore becomes much harder for individual nation states to insultate themselves. Climate problems are going to become everyones problems, not just on the physical affects, but through economic and political and humanitarian levels as well. It's utterly inevitable, and retreat into isolationism is not a viable option.

    Quantifying and predicting this is all but impossible, but it looks like a distinctly damaging problem, and  I'm reminded of an old saying "prevention is better than cure".

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  3. For Sat June 24, the link for 'The World is Burning' by IPS News Desk goes to an article 'The 1C milestone' by '...and then there's Physics'.

    The National Geographic article 'Antarctica Is Melting, and Giant Ice Cracks Are Just the Start' is really well-written and informative.  Highly recommend.

    0 0
    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Link fixed. Thanks.

  4. New news report in the NYTimes.

    Carbon in Atmosphere Is Rising, Even as Emissions Stabilize

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