Sea Level Rise Is Worse Than Thought, New Research Shows

Sea levels are actually higher than thought because of a 
mismatch in research assumptions. Predictions for the
effects of sea levels due to climate change 
will need to be adjusted. 

Sea level rise, one of the most expensive symptoms of climate change might well be worse than feared, new research shows. 

The problem is that sea levels are already higher than we thought because of mistaken research assumptions. 

According to USA Today:

"The new research, published March 4, in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature, found that more than 90% of the existing sea-level studies use a reference sea level that is lower than the actual sea level along the coast. That means already dire projections about sea level rise might be underestimating the risk." 

Those studies underestimated baseline coastal water heights by an average of about a foot. Researchers studied hundreds of scientific studies and hazard assessments to arrive at this conclusion. The cause, according to the Associated Press, is a mismatch between the way sea and land altitudes are measured. 

Study co-author Philip Minderhoud, a hydrogeology professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said a "methodological blind spot" between the different ways those two things are measured. 

Many studies assume sea levels without waves or currents, when the reality at the water's edge is of oceans constantly roiled bye wind, tides, currents, changing temperatures and things like El Nino, Minderhoud said, as the AP reported. 

 The AP continues:

"Adjusting to a more accurate coastal height baseline means that if seas rise by a little more than 3 feet - as some studies suggest will happen by the end of the century - waters could inundate up to 37%k more land and threaten 77 million to 132 million more people, the study said."

As you can see, this means mitigation plans for future sea level increases are obsolete before they're even needed. 

Some scientists say the study might be exaggerating the problem, but even so, this is just yet another complication as worsening effects of climate change loom. 

Also, more recent sea level studies are taking into account the discrepancy, so chances are future warnings about sea level rise will be more accurate.  

Cold Waves And Poor Economy Risks Having People Freezing In The Dark

Utility shutoffs are increasing across the United States
as cold winter weather settles in. Skyrocketing
costs are to blame. 

people In many areas from the Northern Plains to New England, it's been cold lately. 

Also, despite Donald Trump's boasting and bloviating,  the economy isn't great. Inflation still lurks. There's job losses. Cutbacks in federal aid.  For some, that means deciding whether to eat or have electricity.  

Per the Washington Post:

"Soaring electricity prices are triggering a wave of power shutoffs nationwide, leaving more Americans in the dark as unpaid bills pile up. Although there is no national count of electricity shutoffs, data from select utilities in 11 states show that disconnections have risen in at least eight of them since last year, according to figures compiled by the Washington Post and the National Assistance Directors Association. In some areas, such as New York City, the surge has been dramatic -with residential shutoffs in August up fivefold from a year ago, utility filings show." 

CBS News estimates nearly one in 20 U.S. households are behind on utility bills. 

This comes as bitter cold temperatures have made an early and intense appearance in many parts of the nation. That's especially true in New England and around the Great Lakes, where temperatures so far this month have been running around 10 degrees colder than normal. 

Will these electricity shutoffs literally put people at risk of freezing to death in their own homes? It depends on where they live. Per CBS News;

"Most states have some sort of safeguard against utility shutoffs when the temperatures dips below a certain level, but not all. States without cold weather protection include Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, according to the Energy Justice Lab, a joint project of Indiana University and the University of Pennsylvania."

Wait, what? Alaska and North Dakota, probably the nation's two coldest states, have no winter protection for those having trouble paying electric bills?

I notice some pushback in some of those states in which utilities can be shut off in the winter for nonpayment. Earlier this month, an advocacy group called The Leave The Heat On Collective demonstrated in Kentucky's Capitol and asked Gov. Any Beshear to put a utility disconnection moratorium  in place.  

Overall, inflation in electric bills have varied, but on average Americans are paying about 11 percent more than they were at the beginning of the year. This, on top of wildly overpriced housing costs are taking a toll.

WaPo again: 

"Nearly 1 in 20 households, or about 14 million Americans, were so behind on utility debt that it was reported to collections agencies or in arrears as of June, according to an analysis by the Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers, a nonprofit that advocates for consumers. Meanwhile, the average overdue balance of $789 has risen 32 percent since 2022," 

 One good thing is that so far, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, is still assisting people. Trump hasn't gotten rid of it quite yet, but I'm sure that day will come. Distribution for the funds was disrupted or delayed because of the now-ended government shutdown.

The $3.6 billion in aid was released November 28 instead of the usual schedule of early November because the shutdown didn't end until November 12. 

To Nobody's Surprise, Drought Gets Much Worse In Vermont/New England

The U.S. Drought Monitor, updated this 
morning, shows worsening conditions in 
Vermont. A new sliver of extreme
drought (red shading) has popped
up in the Connecticut River Valley.
Darker orange is severe drought and
lighter orange is moderate drought. 

 The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, hot off the press this morning, confirms the depressing news:  

The drought in Vermont and in much of the rest of New England continues to get worse. 

It hasn't rained since the last weekly report came out, so the news isn't surprising. But it underscores how bad things are getting. 

All of Vermont except the extreme south and extreme northwest is now in severe drought, according to the weekly monitor.  

Last week, 59 percent of the state was in severe drought with the rest being in moderate drought. This morning's report shows 78 percent of the Green Mountain State in severe drought. 

A small area of extreme drought that was confined to a limited portion of western New Hampshire last week has expanded. 

A sliver of the central Connecticut River Valley in Vermont between about Windsor and Newbury is now considered to be in extreme drought. 

The expanded area of extreme drought also now extends across central New Hampshire into southwest Maine. New Hampshire is arguably the hardest hit state so far in this Northeast drought. Around 73 percent of the Granite State is in at least severe drought, up from 52 percent last week. And 23 percent of  New Hampshire is in extreme drought, up from just 7 percent last week. 

Drought is expanding in northern New York, too. It covers all of eastern parts of that state along the Vermont border and is extending into the Adirondacks and parts of the St. Lawrence Valley. 

Actually, despite a few wet areas, the continental U.S. is getting drier. Last week, about 36 percent of the nation was in drought. This week, it's 41 percent. 

THE FORECAST

Very low water levels along the Lamoille River in 
Jeffersonville, Vermont Tuesday. 

Things continue to look grim in terms of rainfall around Vermont. I suppose the next week will be wetter than the one we just had. 

Only because most of us didn't get a drop of rain in the past seven days, and there's actually chances for sprinkles over the next week.  

Sprinkles aren't going to cut it, so the drought will continue to worsen. 

It means wells will continue to go dry, water in rivers and lakes will continue to recede from in some cases already record low levels.  At least six river gauges in Vermont were recording record low levels on Tuesday. 

And the fire danger will continue to rise. 

After the widely scattered sprinkles that might or might not hit tonight, that's it for rain until at least next Tuesday. 

I continue to be unimpressed with the forecast for next week and its rain chances. A storm that will be cut off from the main jet stream looks like it might get suppressed to our south. That would mean yet another system that promised to provide a little rain could just miss us entirely around next Tuesday or Wednesday. 

Sound familiar?

Other potential weather fronts coming after that look like they might be under-perform as well. Long range forecasts taking us into the beginning of October also paint a dry picture for Vermont and surrounding areas.

This drought has gotten incredibly frustrating, persistent, damaging and depressing.  I honestly wonder when it will even really rain again.  

Confirmed: NOAA Reports Vermont, Two Other States Had Driest August On Record

Charlotte Beach along Lake Champlain this past Sunday
showing remarkably low levels due to our ongoing drought.

Vermont was one of three states in a broad area of super dry summer weather than endured their driest August in at least 131 years. 

The news comes from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) which releases monthly reports on the previous month's United States climate data, and that of the whole world.

Kentucky and Ohio were the other two states besides Vermont that had their driest August. Ten other states A broad area stretching from Missouri to Maine had one of their top ten driest Augusts in those 131 years of record.

Vermont in August had on average 1.43 inches of rain in August.  The only other year that even comes close to the record dryness was 1957, with 1.56 inches. 

For comparison, the wettest August was 2011, with an average Vermont rainfall of 10.08 inches. That was the year Tropical Storm Irene hit the state, causing one of the worst floods in Vermont history.

As we well know, a flash drought developed in Vermont during August and has been intensifying this month.  A new weekly U.S. Drought Monitor due out Thursday morning will give us an idea of how much worse it has gotten in the past rainless week. 

It wasn't just us, of course. Which such a large area experiencing a dry August saw drought start, expand and intensify. Those areas include the lower Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, and of course much of the Northeast. 

August for the nation as a whole was on the dry side, coming in  at the 23rd driest out of the past 131 years. . The only notably wet state was Georgia, which had its tenth wettest August. 

The only other states that came in wetter than average were California, Nevada, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota.

The nation as a whole had its 27th warmest August out of the past 131 years. Six western states plus Florida had one of their top ten hottest Augusts on record. 

Both North and South Carolina had one of their top 10 coolest Augusts. A few counties in the Piedmont regions of those states had their coolest-ever August. In the age of climate change, it's become increasingly rare to see any region have a record cool month, but it still happens once in awhile. 

DROUGHT BRINGS ODD TEMPERATURES

Back here in the Northeast, including here in Vermont, droughts -  especially in the summer -  tend to bring above normal daytime temperatures and cooler nighttime lows. The air is dry, and the ground can't really add moisture to the atmosphere. 

So it becomes sort of desert-like. During the day, the sun doesn't use its energy on evaporation, because there's little to evaporate. So all that energy goes into boosting afternoon high temperatures. At night, moisture isn't around, so all the sun's heat radiates to space. 

Also, during droughts, there's no storms around to keep things cloudy. Cloudy skies would have brought cooler days and warmer nights. 

The lack of moisture and clouds in meant Vermont had its 20th warmest average daily high temperature and its 38th coolest overnight lows during August. This pattern was repeated throughout the Northeast and Ohio Valley. 

It's also continuing into September as the drought rolls on. Burlington has yet to see a daytime high under 70 degrees this month, which is odd for this late in the season. But most nights have cooled into the upper 40s and low 50s, and it's been even cooler than that away from Lake Champlain. 

VERMONT DROUGHT UPDATE

The situation obviously continues to worsen here in the Green Mountain State as we keep going day after day without rain. 

Some rivers, like the Otter Creek, are at record low levels. Parts of the Lamoille River near Jeffersonville, the East Branch of the Passumpsic at East Haven and the Clyde River at Newport are at their lowest levels on record for mid-September.

Virtually all other rivers and streams in Vermont are close to record lows.  I'll have more news on the drought's effects around here in a post coming soon. 

The weather forecast continues to be discouraging, with no change from the predictions I've been mentioning the past few days.

It was sunny, warm and dry Monday. It will be warm and dry today, tomorrow and Thursday. A decaying storm along the North Carolina/Virginia coastline might throw some clouds our way tomorrow, but, alas, no rain. 

The skies will clear out Thursday, and we'll have a brief excursion into summertime weather, with many of us reaching the low 80s.

You'd want sharp cold fronts this time of year to bring rain. We've got a pretty strong one coming Thursday night or very early Friday, but, again, it will have no rain with it this time, aside from a low risk of sprinkles in a couple spots. 

We'll have a brief cool down Friday and Saturday with highs only in the 60s. We'll have to be on the lookout for some areas of frost early Saturday morning. It will then turn warm again for a few days. 

Our next shot at rain still looks like it will come around September 25 or 26.  It's way too soon to know whether it will turn out to be any kind of real rain or another whiff with sprinkles or nothing. Some computer models give us some moderate rain, while others indicate practically nothing at all. 

We'll wait and see on that, Meanwhile, keep doing your rain dances. And do it with gusto.  

Arctic Now Becoming Emitter Of Carbon Dioxide, That Dreaded Greenhouse Gas

In this photo from U.S. Bureau of Land Management,
permafrost, which has been increasingly thawing in
the Arctic, erodes into the Beaufort Sea.

Once upon a time, the Arctic used to be the place where carbon dioxide went to die.  

At least it seemed that way. It would get stored in the permafrost, seemingly locked in that icy prison never to bother us in the atmosphere again. never to bother us in the atmosphere again. 

Back in the day, that didn't matter much anyway.  There wasn't so much carbon dioxide in the air, so no real climate change. At least that's the way it was a century or more ago.

Now, just when we don't need more greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the Arctic is starting to belch it out, according to new information from NOAA. 

 The world has warmed up enough through climate change to alter the ecosystems of the Arctic, and that is prompting that stored carbon in the permafrost to come out of hiding to join the world's hot and getting hotter party. 

The news comes the 2024 Arctic Report Card, researched and written by 97 scientists from 11 countries.

NOAA says

"After storing carbon dioxide in frozen soil for millennia, the Arctic tundra is being transformed by frequent wildfires into an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, which is already absorbing record levels of heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution."

Wildfires in the areas of North America with permafrost have increased in the past couple decades. The report says that since 2003, emissions from polar wildfires averaged 207 million tons of carbon each year. That's more than the annual carbon emissions from nations like Argentina and Austria. 

Arctic wildfires are only a relatively small piece of the problem.  The permafrost is melting more and more, releasing carbon into the air instead of storing it. That's why, for the first time, the Arctic is making the climate change problem worse, not better.

I found a good explanation of this at NPR:

"Twila Moon, lead editor of the Arctic Report Card and  scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, likened permafrost to chicken in the freezer: As long as it stays frozen, microbes stay away.

'Once you have that chicken out of your freezer, it's thawing and all those microbes are getting to work, breaking down the chicken, making it rot,' she said. 'The permafrost is really doing the same thing.'"

There was the tiniest glimmer of good news from Greenland, but it was definitely nothing to get the Champagne and confetti out to party. 

The Greenland Ice sheet mass loss was the lowest since 2013, mostly because it snowed more than usual up there. Still, the ice shoot lost somewhere in the broad range of 22 and 77 billion tons of ice last year. 

That was enough to raise the global sea levels by 0.15 millimeters. Which is too small for anybody to notice. But if you add in all the other sources of sea level rise, and compound them year after year, it starts to make a big difference. 

This report demonstrates that the Arctic has changed much in just a few decades. There's no way it's going to stay as it is  now, either. It's going to get worse.

The Arctic is the fastest warming region of the world.  There's no signs, and no reasons for that warming to slow down as fossil fuel emissions keep cranking.  Since the Arctic is also adding those emissions, if anything, the pace at which the Arctic deteriorates will also increase.  

UN Says 2023 Global Heating Was "Red Alert" But Is the Message Too Doom And Gloom?

"Red Alert."

The UN's World Meteorological Organization called
climate change in 2023 a "red alert" but is dire
messaging the best way to encourage the public
to take action on climate change?

That's the conclusion of the World Meteorological Organization regarding the effects of climate change in 2023. 

The annual WMO Global Climate report is essentially the last word reviewing the crazy weather and climate events of 2023. 

 Records were smashed last year for the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,  land and water temperatures, and the melting of glaciers and sea ice. 

 "'Earth's issuing a distress call,' U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. 'The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.'"

 The Associate Press writes:

"WMO said the impacts of heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.

'This list of record-smashing events is truly distressing, though not a surprise given the steady drumbeat of extreme events over the past year, said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who also wasn't involved in the WMO report.

 'The full cost of climate change accelerated events across sectors and regions has never been calculated in a meaningful way, but the cost to biodiversity and to the quality of future generations is incalculable.'"

Other quick takeaways in the WMO report: 

--- Extreme weather is undermining socio-economic development around the world

--- The cost of climate inaction is higher than the cost of climate action

--- The increasing pace of transitions to renewable energy does provide hope. 

 The United Nations' goal of holding the extent of climate change to within 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.  It's unclear whether that goal is even attainable. 

The 13 consecutive months through February averaged a bit more than that 1.5 degree threshold.  El Nino worked in concert with climate change to boost global temperatures to that level. 

As La Nina takes hold as expected later this year, the world will probably cool a tiny bit to a level below that 1.5 degrees. So it's not yet a permanent change. But at the pace we're switching to renewables, it looks like we'll blow past UN goal within a couple decades - so much for that idea

GLOOM/DOOM NOT HELPFUL?

The UN World Meteorological Organization report was released with a serious gloom and doom vibe, but was that really a good idea?   

According to Resilience.org, not really. 

"It turns out that critics are right to worry that doom and gloom can demoralize the public into inaction. We found that this strategy had no effect on policy support or climate beliefs. 

And doom and gloom even backfired when it came to more effortful behavior. When faced with the enormous stakes of the climate crisis, personal actions - and perhaps even policy change  - can seem futile. People withdraw or disengage." 

Doom and gloom messaging is great for social media clicks, the research shows, but not for motivating people.  

Potential audiences and societies in general are complex, so there's no one way to communicate about climate change and what people can do about it.  Different people responded differently to a variety of climate messages. The response varies country to country. 

Resilience.org continues:  "Sadly, we did not find a silver bullet for spurring climate action. But our research found several messages that moved the needle on climate change beliefs and actions. We suspect that similar lessons apply to other issues, from strengthening democracy to public health. In fact, we were recently part of a similar project designed to reduce affective polarization and found that several messages either didn't work or backfired. " 

However, framing messaging through a moral or ethical lens seems to be the most effective. 

1 PM Thursday Update: Severe Storm Threat Grows In Vermont/New York, Watch Issued

Northern and central New York and extreme western
Vermont have been upgraded to "enhanced" risk
of severe storms today. That means numerous
severe storms are likely. Slight risk means
scattered instances of severe weather. 

A severe thunderstorm watch is now in effect for all of Vermont and all of New York except for the extreme west out by Buffalo.   

Moreover, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has increased the alert level for severe thunderstorms from "slight" to "enhanced."  The rest of Vermont is still listed under "slight" risk.

Enhanced risk is level three on a five point scale of thunderstorm risk. It's the first enhanced level we've seen in Vermont this year.  Slight risk means there will likely be scattered instances of severe storms, defined as having winds of greater than 58 mph and/or hail one inch in diameter or bigger.

An enhanced risk means there should be numerous severe thunderstorms. Western Vermont in particular ought to keep an eye on the skies and pay attention to warnings. 

There continues to be a very small, but not zero risk of a tornado in the Champlain Valley or elsewhere in western Vermont. But the main threat is strong straight line winds.

Even though the risk of a tornado is low, it will feel like tornado weather out ahead of the storms in the Champlain Valley this afternoon. South winds will be gusty, possibly reaching as high as 35 mph.  Avoid boating on Lake Champlain today.

Amid the winds, it will continue to get increasingly hot and humid ahead of the storms. 

A severe thunderstorm watch, which we are now under, just means conditions are favorable for bad storms. If you see a severe thunderstorm warning for your area, that means a bad storm is about to hit.

If/when you get a severe thunderstorm warning today, go into a sturdy building and try to stay away from windows. This risk is somewhat higher than the usual hit and miss stuff we get.

As of 1 p.m., the developing line of severe storms was approaching Syracuse and Watertown, New York and was making steady progress east while strengthening. 

FLOODING

Of course, with all this going on, the flooding risk remains. The thinking from this morning so far hasn't changed much. The storms late this afternoon and evening will have the potential to cause renewed flash flooding anywhere in Vermont.

The greatest risk, though is in the southern half of the state. That risk will last well into the night. 

Bottom line: Vermont is about suffer more storm damage, which we surely don't need. The damage we will incur today and tonight will be much, much less than what we went through Monday and Tuesday. 

But every little bit hurts all the more. Stay safe and stay Vermont Strong.