2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #41

Story of the week

For the third week in a row our Story of the Week involves hurricanes, most recently Hurricane Milton which led a brief life distinguished by explosive intensification, placing it as the Gulf of Mexico's most energetic late-season storm on record. The word cloud here captures the flavor of the past week's journalistic preoccupation with this storm as a feature related to and at least partially dependent on human-caused climate change. 

Thanks to our increasing the efficiency of Earth's insulating blanket of greenhouse gases, we're having an affect on all features of the weather we experience. Unless we're to be mystified, surprised and needlessly harmed by bad weather we've added to our annual odds, it's important that we be able to distinguish our effects on the geophysics we experience as rain, wind, and the other features of our restless atmosphere that we call "weather." Fortunately there's an outfit doing exactly that, an initiative called World Weather Attribution (WWA). While the center of mass of WWA is academic in nature, the organization flips the usual sequence of publication; WWA analyses frequently feature as peer-reviewed publications in major academic journals, but their initial reporting is released as rapidly as possible, for the beneifit of ephemeral public attention. 

Too late to make it into our collection of articles this week, WWA provided a detailed briefing on how Hurricane Milton was "upgraded" by our accidental tampering with our climate. In brief and as synopsized by Yale Climate Connections, here's what we know about Milton's juicing:

World Weather Attribution’s analysis found that storms with Milton’s wind speeds have become approximately 40% more frequent and the winds associated with storms of similar rarity have become nearly 11 mph (5 m/s) higher (an increase of about 10%) because of the 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3°F) of global warming since preindustrial times. Thus, without climate change, Milton would have hit Florida as a Cat 2 with 110 mph winds instead of a Cat 3 with 120 mph winds.

Bold ours. No analogy is perfect, but we all know that if we turn up the burner beneath a pot of soup the soup will seethe more vigorously. Similarly and unsurprisingly, as we turn up the temperature of the Earth we inhabit it follows that certain features of our atmosphere will tend to behave more kinetically, including hurricanes. We've followed hurricanes Helene and Milton and both followed this simple logic. In Helene's case we saw ample evidence not only of surprising intensification but also the effects of the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship, whereby slightly warmer air can carry and later dump disproportionately larger amounts of moisture.

The larger story of Milton is that of violent weather inhabiting expanded brackets we ourselves have set. Is there a conclusion to this narrative? Perhaps it's that we should try to narrow the span of those brackets back to "normal" variations.

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before October 6

• Greening of Antarctica Is Another Sign of Significant Climate Shift on the Frozen Continent, Science, Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn. "New research documents accelerating plant growth on the Antarctic Peninsula and nearby islands."
• Why Hurricane Helene Could Finally Change the Conversation Around Climate Change The massive personal and economic toll of unexpected inland, Science, Inside Climate News, Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth. "The massive personal and economic toll of unexpected inland flooding may represent a turning point."
• The UK coal-fired power station that became a giant battery, Future, BBC News, Michael Marshall. "With the closure of the last coal-fired power station in the UK, it raises questions about how old fossil fuel infrastructure can be repurposed. One option is to use them to store energy from renewables."
• Hurricane Helene Prompts Questions About Raising Animals in Increasingly Vulnerable Places, Science, Inside Climate News, Georgina Gustin. "Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock are growing. So are climate-fueled storms that pummel the industry."
• Will carbon capture help the UK tackle climate change?, Climate & Science, BBC News, Mark Poynting & Justin Rowlatt.
• Hurricane Helene is a humanitarian crisis – and a climate disaster, Comment os Free, The Guardian,, Opinion by Rebecca Solnit. "Behind the violence of extreme weather is that of the fossil fuel industry, and Americans are suffering for it"
• A warmer, sicker world': Mosquitoes carrying deadly diseases are on an unstoppable march across the US, BBC Future, David Cox. "malaria and dengue are gaining new ground in the US. The mosquitoes that carry these diseases are thriving in a warming world."

October 6

• The Climate Action We Need, The Atlantic, Todd Stern. The 2015 Paris Agreement was a landmark, but countries need to raise their ambition again to complete the transition away from fossil fuels.
• Cold extremes do in fact decrease under global warming, RealClimate, Gavin Schmidt.
• 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. A listing of 30 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, September 29, 2024 thru Sat, October 5, 2024.

October 7

• Hurricane Milton reaches Category 4 strength days before it's poised to hit Florida, Weather, NPR News, Rachel Treisman.
• Warming world, deadly problem: Heat-related deaths are surging, Health, Yale Climate Connections, Osha Davidson. Lede: "The rate of heat-related deaths in the U.S. rose 117% in the last seven years, research finds."
• We’re Not Prepared for What Hurricane Milton Might Be About to Do to Tampa Bay, Technology, Slate, Eric Holthaus. "It’s been over a century since the region had a direct hit from a major hurricane."
• Guest post: Heat stress thresholds are not designed for vulnerable groups, Guest Post, Carbon Brief , Dr Chloe Brimicombe, Clara Heil & Dr Jakob Eggeling Guest Post, Carbon Brief, Oct 7, 2024.
• Climate warning as world’s rivers dry up at fastest rate for 30 years, Environment, The Guardian, Helena Horton. "World Meteorological Organization says water is ‘canary in the coalmine of climate change’ and calls for urgent action"
• How Hurricane Milton exploded into a terrifying Category 5 storm in just hours, Climate, Vox, Benji Jones. "The rare storm’s hyperexplosive growth, explained."

October 8

• Earth`s `vital signs` show humanity`s future in balance, say climate experts, The Guardian, Damian Carrington. Record emissions, temperatures and population mean more scientists are looking into possibility of societal collapse, report says
• Hurricane Helene brews up storm of online falsehoods and threats, Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), ISD Team.
• Hurricane and storm surge warnings for much of Florida for extremely dangerous Hurricane Milton, Eye on the Storm, Jeff Masters & Bob Henson. "If you receive evacuation orders from local authorities, follow them."
• Unprecedented peril: disaster lies ahead as we track towards 2.7°C of warming this century, Environment & Energy, The Conversation US, Thomas Newsome & William Ripple.

October 9

• Scientists have said that we can cool the planet back down. Now they’re not sure it will be so easy., Climate, New York Times, Shannon Osaka. "It might be possible to 'overshoot' and then return to our climate targets. But some changes will be irreversible."
• Climate change made Hurricane Helene and other 2024 disasters more damaging, scientists find, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Dana Nuccitelli. "Rising global temperatures are amplifying deadly extreme weather events."
• Hurricane Milton Will Be Bad. The Next One Might Be Even Worse. Prepare for Category 6 storms., Intelligencer, New York Magazine, Jeff Wise.
• Meteorologists battle flood of misinformation as they report on Milton, Climate, Washington Post, Maham Javaid & Kim Bellware. Scientists say their efforts to inform the public about the threat of catastrophic storms are being hampered by 'buffoonery' on social media.
• The Gulf of Mexico is almost as warm as a bath, and it`s stirring up monster storms, The Verge - Science Posts, Justine Calma. Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene fed off unusually warm waters.
• Earth’s wildlife populations have disappeared at a ‘catastrophic’ rate in the past half-century, new analysis says, Climate, Washington post, Frances Vinall & Allyson Chiu. "The Living Planet Index tracks thousands of vertebrate species globally and found the worst declines were in Latin America and the Caribbean."
• The shady origins of the climate haven myth, Climate, Vox , Adam Clark Estes . "How the media, city mayors, and the real estate industry filled us with false hope."
• Hurricane Milton Is Terrifying, and It Is Just the Start, Opinion, New York Times, Guest Essay by Porter Fox.

October 10

• The First Gas Utility Sued for Climate Deception, DeSmog, Emily Sanders, ExxonKnews. Multnomah County, Oregon, says NW Natural “engaged in an enterprise of misrepresentation” about its products’ harm to the climate.
• New study blows hole in “transition fuel” claim of fossil gas backers, Energy, Climate Home News, Joe Lo . "The study found that, for Europe and China, importing US-produced LNG is worse for the climate than using local coal"
• Despite solar surge, world off track for COP28 renewable energy target, Energy, Climate Home News, Mateo Civillini. "Current plans will only deliver half of the growth needed to hit a global target of tripling renewables by 2030, IRENA warns"

October 11

• PONIT and PLAAT: The FLICC poster now also available in Russian and Romanian, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler.
• What It`s Like To Live Through A Climate-Induced Hurricane, CleanTechnica, Carolyn Fortuna.

October 12

• Rising disaster costs leave U.S. confronting fiscal risks of climate change, Business, Washington Post, Tony Romm. "As storms, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather events strike with greater frequency and intensity, repairing and rebuilding has grown more costly, too."
• Fact brief - Is more CO2 a good thing because it`s plant food?, Skeptical Science, Sue Bin Park.
• California Tries ‘Trump-Proofing’ Its Climate Policies, Climate, New York Times, Coral Davenport. "A second Trump administration would be expected to shred climate polices. California officials are devising ways to insulate its environmental regulations."