Climate Change | Sea Level Rise | Ocean Acidification
June 20, 2024
![Vintage postcard depicting Summer fun on the beach (uploaded by dan.marv CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/4786817807_71eed4dfe2_k-1.jpg)
This Isn’t Your Grandparents’ Summer Heat – Scientific American
Excerpt:
The face of summer is transforming, as people today face more frequent, longer-lasting and hotter heat waves than they did several decades ago
Children growing up in Philadelphia today experience more than four more heat waves every summer than those who grew up there in the 1960s. Kids in San Francisco today endure nearly seven more heat waves per year than their counterparts in the mid-20th century did. And in New Orleans children are currently subjected to nine more.
Exactly how many heat waves hit any city in a given summer has always been subject to the whims of the weather. But is very clear that—with global warming now heating the world to 1.2 degrees Celsius above its average in the late 19th century—summers are dramatically ramping up. “There’s no question that summers have changed,” says Kristie Ebi, an epidemiologist who specializes in heat-related health risks.
In short: The milder summers of our parents and grandparents are a thing of the past.
Today’s summers on climate change steroids are not just a matter of shirts increasingly clinging to sweat-drenched backs or individuals needing to crank up the air-conditioning more often. They pose a major and deadly public health threat that people, cities and countries are only beginning to grapple with. Record-shattering heat waves last summer—the hottest in the past 2,000 years—underscore the growing danger. Some 2,300 people in the U.S. died from excessive heat during that season, the highest number in 45 years of recorded data, according to a recent Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And some experts say that record only counts a fraction of the true number of heat-related deaths.
This summer is very likely to bring more of the same. Though it is impossible to say where and when any specific extreme heat waves might take shape more than a few days ahead of time, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service’s forecast shows a greater than 50 percent chance of above-normal temperatures across nearly all of the Northern Hemisphere. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also predicts above-normal temperatures for most of the U.S., especially the Southwest and Northeast. The high odds of a hot summer in those areas are primarily based on the long-term global warming trend, notably in the Southwest, says Dan Collins, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. In “this season and that region, the trends are particularly strong,” he says. And these predicted temperatures are measured against a baseline of “normal” readings from 1991–2020—when global warming’s impact was already becoming measurable—meaning this summer is even hotter when compared with those that occurred earlier in the 20th century.
So far these forecasts are proving accurate. A major heat wave developed over the western U.S. early in June, sending temperatures soaring to levels more typical of those later in the season. That same dome of heat had been roasting Mexico since the beginning of May, breaking records and causing howler monkeys and birds to drop from trees after dying of heat stroke and dehydration. A heat dome is bringing potentially record-breaking hot temperatures to the eastern half of the U.S., especially New England, in mid-June. Outside of North America, broad areas of Asia—from Gaza to Bangladesh to the Philippines—sweltered in climate-change-enhanced heat during April and into May. These events show how summer heat is bleeding into spring, as well as into autumn…
More on Climate Change | Sea Level Rise . . .
![Vintage postcard depicting Summer fun on the beach (uploaded by dan.marv CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/4786817807_71eed4dfe2_k-1.jpg)
This Isn’t Your Grandparents’ Summer Heat – Scientific American
The face of summer is transforming, as people today face more frequent, longer-lasting and hotter heat waves than they did several decades ago…
![Exposed septic tank of collapsed house in Rodanthe on evening of February 9, 2022 (Courtesy of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, public domain, via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/51873769729_0b4c9ad598_k.jpg)
A Hidden Threat – the Washington Times
Fast-rising seas could swamp septic systems in parts of the South…
![A close-up view of the rift separating Pine Island Glacier and iceberg B-46, as seen on an Operation IceBridge flight on November 7, 2018 (Courtesy of NASA | Brooke Medley CC BY 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/45802270221_dd69d77f4a_k.jpg)
The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is melting faster than scientists thought – Grist Magazine
Miles of seawater are flowing under Thwaites Glacier, undermining an Antarctic ice sheet and threatening rapid sea level rise….
![The Pine Island Glacier spawned an iceberg over 300 sq km that very quickly shattered into pieces, on February 11, 2020. The Pine Island Glacier, along with its neighbour Thwaites glacier, connect the centre of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with the ocean, and together discharge significant quantities of ice into the ocean (image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, courtesy of the European Space Agency CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/49525854597_8b44fc9632_k.jpg)
In Two New Studies, Scientists See Signs of Fundamental Climate Shifts in Antarctica – Inside Climate News
A steep decline of Antarctic sea ice may mark a long-term transformation in the Southern Ocean, and seawater intrusions beneath the Thwaites Glacier could explain its melting outpacing projections…
![The Climate Strike and March in Pittsburgh, September 24, 2021 (by Mark Dixon CC BY 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/51513867969_a7214ef1b8_k.jpg)
‘The stakes could not be higher’: world is on edge of climate abyss, UN warns – the Guardian
Top climate figures respond to Guardian survey of scientists who expect temperatures to soar, saying leaders must act radically…
![Exxon Station, Rockville, MD (by majunznk CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/33157446100_c403a098be_k.jpg)
Michael Hiltzik : Exxon Mobil is suing its shareholders to silence them about global warming – the Los Angeles Times
You wouldn’t think that Exxon Mobil has to worry much about being harried by a couple of shareholder groups owning a few thousand dollars worth of shares between them — not with its $529-billion market value and its stature as the world’s biggest oil company. But then you might not have factored in the company’s stature as the world’s biggest corporate bully…
![Hackberry Gas Pumps, Route 66, Arizona (by Eric Kilby CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/49143940327_232243e922_k.jpg)
Denial and Deception – Gary Griggs
Earth’s temperature continues to climb to uncharted levels. Two weeks ago, NOAA announced that April was the 11th month in a row that set a new record for the highest monthly temperatures. While there are many enviable records, in sports for example, when it comes to global temperatures, this is not a record anyone wants to own. While 2023 was the hottest year on record since we began tracking temperatures nearly 150 years ago, there is a high probability based on the first four months of this year that 2024 will surpass 2023. Another statistic in which we cannot rejoice…
![Parents Rise Up March and Rally, December 5, 2019 (by Tim Dennell CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/47851020491_556430547e_k.jpg)
We Asked 380 Top Climate Scientists What They Felt About the Future – the Guardian
They are terrified, but determined to keep fighting. Here is what they said…
![Southeastern United States, after winter rains brought sediments from rivers flowing to the East of the Rockies into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast (captured by the VIIRS instrument aboard the NOAA-20 satellite on December 18, 2023, courtesy of NASA/OB.DAAC).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/JPSS1_VIIRS_20231218T190600_southeastern_plumes_sm.png)
Where Seas are Rising at Alarming Speed – the Washington Post
One of the most rapid sea level surges on Earth is besieging the American South, forcing a reckoning for coastal communities across eight U.S. states…At more than a dozen tide gauges spanning from Texas to North Carolina, sea levels are at least 6 inches higher than they were in 2010 — a change similar to what occurred over the previous five decades…