2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #31

Posted on 6 August 2017 by John Hartz

Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Graphic of the Week... SkS Spotlights... Video of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... 97 Hours of Consensus...

Story of the Week...

More Hot Days Are Coming With Climate Change. Our Choices Will Decide How Many

Summer still has a month to go, but extreme heat has been a major storyline through June and July. Sweltering temperatures have grounded planes, sparked wildfires and set records from coast-to-coast.

These stories are becoming annual rites of passage as the world warms. And the number of hot days is projected to increase in the coming decades.

Climate Central has developed a new web-interactive tool that brings the reality of future heat to hometowns across the U.S. Simply enter the name of your city, town or hamlet — or any place in the Lower 48 that piques your curiosity — to see how the number of days above summer temperature thresholds will change throughout the rest of the century. The interactive also shows how reducing greenhouse gas emissions can help reduce the heat.

More Hot Days Are Coming With Climate Change. Our Choices Will Decide How Many, Research Report by Climate Central, Aug 3, 2017

Toon of the Week...

Quote of the Week...

Europe's death toll from weather disasters could rise 50-fold by the end of this century, with extreme heat alone killing more than 150,000 people a year by 2100 if nothing is done to curb the effects of climate change, scientists said on Friday.

In a study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, the scientists said their findings showed climate change placing a rapidly increasing burden on society, with two in three people in Europe likely to be affected if greenhouse gas emissions and extreme weather events are not controlled.

The predictions, based on an assumption of no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and no improvement in policies to reduce the impact of extreme climatic events, show European weather-related deaths rising from 3,000 a year between 1981 and 2010 to 152,000 a year between 2071 and 2100.

"Climate change is one of the biggest global threats to human health of the 21st century, and its peril to society will be increasingly connected to weather-driven hazards," said Giovanni Forzieri of the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Italy, who co-led the study.

He said that "unless global warming is curbed as a matter of urgency", some 350 million Europeans could be exposed to harmful climate extremes on an annual basis by the end of the century.

Extreme weather seen killing 152,000 Europeans a year by 2100 by Kate Kelland, Reuters, Aug 4, 2017

Graphic of the Week...

A History of Global Warming, In Just 35 Seconds

Last year, there was the temperature spiral. This year, it’s the temperature circle that’s making the trend of global warming crystal clear.

A new video shows the rhythm of global warming for countries around the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Bars representing each country’s annual average temperature anomaly pulse up and down. It's like watching a heartbeat on a monitor.

SkS Spotlights...

The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) is a leading European not-for-profit organisation addressing how the environment affects health in the European Union (EU). We demonstrate how policy changes can help protect health and enhance people’s quality of life.

With the support of more than 75 member organisations, HEAL brings independent expertise and evidence from the health community to different decision-making processes. Our broad alliance represents health professionals, not-for-profit health insurers, doctors, nurses, cancer and asthma groups, citizens, women’s groups, youth groups, environmental NGOs, scientists and public health institutes Members include international and Europe-wide organisations as well as national and local groups in 25 countries both within EU member states and the wider European region, as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO).



HEAL is independent of any political party or commercial interest. The alliance receives funding from the European Union, governments and private foundations as well as through membership contributions. We do not accept funding from sources with commercial interests.



Beginning in 2003 as the environmental ‘wing’ of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), HEAL was created to bring the health voice to the centre of a wide spectrum of EU environmental policies, and to integrate environmental concerns in public health decisions.



Learn more about what we do.

Video of the Week...

Science Isn't Really a Method—It's Your Brain Celebrating Danger and Uncertainty

Science Isn't Really a Method—It's Your Brain Celebrating Danger and Uncertainty by Beau Lotto, Big Think/You Tube, Aug 5, 2017

Coming Soon on SkS...

Problems for oil (Riduna)

(Riduna) Why the 97% climate consensus is important (Dana, John Cook, Sander van der Linden, Ed Maibach, Tony Lieserowitz)

(Dana, John Cook, Sander van der Linden, Ed Maibach, Tony Lieserowitz) ClimateChats: Climate Pictures (Adam Levy)

(Adam Levy) Guest Post (John Abraham)

(John Abraham) SkS Resources - Easy to remember Short URLs (Baerbel)

(Baerbel) 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #32 (John Hartz)

(John Hartz) 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Waming Digest #32 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week...

Climate Feedback Reviews...

Climate Feedback asked its network of scientists to review the 0p-ed, Climate Change Isn’t the End of the World by David Henderson & John Cochrane, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2017

Five scientists analyzed the article and estimated its overall scientific credibility to be ‘low’ to 'very low'.

A majority of reviewers tagged the article as: Biased, Misleading.

Review Summary

This Wall Street Journal commentary by David Henderson and John Cochrane argues that the world would be better off adapting to climate change than eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions that cause warming. Scientists who reviewed this article found that it does so by ignoring most climate impacts apart from estimates of Gross Domestic Product change, by using only the most optimistic estimates of this economic loss, and by focusing on adaptation possibilities in high-income nations like the United States.

Climate change could have a much larger economic impact, along with impacts on the spread of human disease, food security, extreme weather, and marine ecosystems, for example.

Wall Street Journal op-ed on economic consequences of climate change found naive by scientists, Climate Feedback, Aug 2, 2017

SkS Week in Review...

97 Hours of Consensus...

Joanna Haigh's bio page

Quote derived with author's permission from:

"Carbon dioxide has probably not been this high in the atmosphere for 3 million years. We understand the greenhouse effect, so what more information do people want?"

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