Super Storms

The Second Great Dying: The Earth has lost 4/5s of Fresh Water and 7/10s of Wildlife Species’ Populations in 50 Years

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 2022 Living Planet report is out and it does not bring good news. Since 1970, the scientists find that the population of fresh water species has plunged by 83%, and the population of wildlife species over all has fallen 69%. The researchers found a virtual extinction-level loss in Latin […]

Climate Crisis

Ray of Hope: Florida’s Solar-Powered Babcock Ranch Handily survived Hurricane Ian

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Babcock Ranch, Florida, in the southwest of the state, was planned in 2005 as a 17,000 acre community. It had as goals conservation and sustainability. The town was built to withstand the hurricanes that sweep over Florida with ever more frequency and fierceness. And, lo and behold, it was able […]

Climate Crisis

Hurricane Ian capped 2 Weeks of extreme Storms around the Globe: How Climate Change fuels Tropical Cyclones

The Conversation

By Mathew Barlow, UMass Lowel and Suzana J. Camargo, Columbia University | When Hurricane Ian hit Florida, it was one of the United States’ most powerful hurricanes on record, and it followed a two-week string of massive, devastating storms around the world. A few days earlier in the Philippines, Typhoon Noru gave new meaning to […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Damage: Nord Stream Pipeline Leaks “a super-emitter event of unimaginable proportions”

Clean Energy Wire

By Carolina Kyllmann | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Leaking methane from the damaged Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines is likely to lead to “significant climate damage”, Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has said. According to calculations by the agency, the leaks in the pipelines connecting Russia with Germany that were found […]

Climate Crisis

Dear Gov. DeSantis: Ian isn’t a once-in-500-years Flooding event, it is the New Normal, and Your Policies are helping Cause it

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has abruptly been handed an honest-to-God crisis that may distract him from his usual antics of trolling Venezuelan asylum-seekers, firing elected prosecutors who disagree with him on coerced childbirth, and firing scientists who wouldn’t manipulate state COVID statistics for him. DeSantis called Hurricane Ian a once-in-a-500-year […]

Climate Crisis

Scientists Conclude Climate Change Contributed to 1/3 of Pakistan being Under Water; Calls for Debt Relief

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The massive monsoon floods that affected 33 million people in Pakistan, destroyed 1.3 million homes, turned the southern province of Sindh temporarily into a new inland sea nearly 70 miles across, and killed off 80% of the country’s livestock was in part fueled by the human-caused climate emergency. So argues […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Emergency: Typhoon Merbok, fueled by unusually warm Pacific Ocean, pounded Alaska’s vulnerable coastal Communities at a critical Time

The Conversation

By Rick Thoman, University of Alaska Fairbanks | – The powerful remnants of Typhoon Merbok pounded Alaska’s western coast on Sept. 17, 2022, pushing homes off their foundations and tearing apart protective berms as water flooded communities. Storms aren’t unusual here, but Merbok built up over unusually warm water. Its waves reached 50 feet over […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis and the Age of the Super-Typhoon: Storms batter, flood Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Japan and Shanghai

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A mere category 1 hurricane dumped so much water on Puerto Rico so quickly that one of its rivers has swollen to 25 feet above normal, even more than it rose during Hurricane Maria in 2017, which was a Category 5 hurricane. The island is beset by flash floods, and […]

Climate Crisis

2022’s supercharged Summer of Climate Extremes from Pakistan to USA: How global warming and La Niña fueled Unprecedented Disasters

The Conversation

By Kevin Trenberth, University of Auckland | – There’s an old joke about the fellow who has his left foot in a bucket of ice water and the right in a bucket of hot water, so that his overall temperature is average. That seemed to apply to the climate during 2022’s northern summer of extremes. […]