bartleby

Saw this question on reddit, and I thought to ask here, too.

Hiba Baroud, associate professor and associate chair in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Vanderbilt University, explains how flooding stresses dams in a changing climate.

Our proactive efforts are powered by data. We aim to anticipate upcoming disaster requests and the necessary items we’ll need to support. While every disaster is different, we now have a better understanding of which items communities will need most when certain disasters strike, so we work with our relief partners to pre-pack items so they’re ready when they need them.

The risk of natural disasters is everywhere (even in the most resilient places). People will no longer just have to prepare for intensified versions of the natural disasters they know, but they will also have to consider the possibility of new types of disasters — floods, storms, heat waves, droughts, and fires — impacting their community. And since most US insurance companies are backed by international reinsurance companies that cover other parts of the world, homeowners everywhere will pay the price for climate change’s global effects.

It may be the home of Zen, but Japan is one of the most disaster-prone places on the planet. With the increasing threat of a nuclear attack from North Korea, some of Japan's citizens are taking extreme measures to protect their families, prepping for the worst case scenario.

“It’s not just a figment of your imagination, and it’s not because everybody now has a smartphone,” said Jeff Berardelli, the chief meteorologist and climate specialist for WFLA News in Tampa. “We’ve seen an increase in extreme weather. This without a doubt is happening.”

It is likely to get more extreme. This year, a powerful El Niño developing in the Pacific Ocean is poised to unleash additional heat into the atmosphere, fueling yet more severe weather around the globe.

“We are going to see stuff happen this year around Earth that we have not seen in modern history,” Mr. Berardelli said.

The color of the ocean is derived from the materials found in its upper layers. For example, a deep blue sea will have very little life in it, whereas a green color means there are ecosystems there, based on phytoplankton, plant-like microbes which contain chlorophyll. The phytoplankton form the basis of a food web which supports larger organisms such as krill, fish, seabirds and marine mammals.

The prepper subculture has long been associated with the right but, with climate disasters on the rise, shouldn’t we all be thinking about how to better prepare ourselves and our communities?

In fairness, nakakaubos naman ako ng isang buo. Found it on FB.

On Monday, the average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), the highest in the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s data, which goes back to 1979. On Tuesday, it climbed even further, reaching 17.18 degrees Celsius and global temperature remained at this record-high on Wednesday.

The previous record of 16.92 degrees Celsius was set in August 2016.

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that Monday’s and Tuesday’s global temperatures were also records in its data, which dates back to 1940.

While these global temperature records are based on data sets that go back to the mid-20th century, they are almost certainly the warmest the planet has seen over a much longer time period, some scientists say, given what we know from many millennia of climate data extracted from ice cores and coral reefs.

This week’s records are probably the warmest in “at least 100,000 years,” Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, told CNN, calling the records “a huge thing.”

We can expect 2023 to emerge as the warmest year to date. But sea-surface temperatures during El Niño events tend to peak about December and have the greatest influences in the subsequent two months. That sets the stage for 2024 jumping up the staircase to the next level, perhaps to 1.4℃ above pre-industrial levels, with likely daily incursions over 1.5℃.

Once the next La Niña event comes along, there’ll again be a pause in the rise, but values will never quite go back to previous levels.

This is not just about millions of Americans, of course, but billions of people around the globe. Over the weekend, Delhi recorded its wettest July day in 40 years, Beijing residents flocked to underground air raid shelters to escape the heat, and floods carried away cars in Spain.

The planet is entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth, scientists say. Greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, have already heated the Earth by an average of 1.2 degrees Celsius (or 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels. Now a powerful El Niño system in the Pacific Ocean is releasing a torrent of heat into the atmosphere. The warmest days in modern history occurred this month. That all sets the stage for more damaging heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes.

Yesterday, as I spoke with climate scientists for a story about the storm that walloped my house, they all sounded the alarm about what was coming in the months ahead.

“We are going to see stuff happen this year around Earth that we have not seen in modern history,” one meteorologist told me. “It will be astonishing.”