18 August 2016, New Internationalist, Climate change and colonial history make a toxic combination. New research points to a powerful link between climate change and armed conflict. It also finds that countries that are ethnically mixed are more likely to experience this kind of conflict. But their results may actually tell us more about the consequences of colonialism than ethnic diversity. This new research joins a raft of existing research on climate change and conflict – often reaching competing conclusions. What is the link between climate change and conflict? This isn’t an issue that can be solved with one study. There are in fact hundreds of studies looking at this issue. And they don’t all reach the same conclusion. Some studies do show that climate impacts lead to increased violence. But some studies find that there was actually no connection at all. Being hit by a disaster or climate change impacts didn’t make any difference to levels of violence. Some studies even found the opposite. Climate change impacts actually reduced some kinds of violence. So what happens when we look at all this research as a whole? Yes, some of the studies point in different directions. But what about when we consider all the research together? Does it point to powerful climate – conflict connection, or not? It still isn’t clear. Read More here
Tag Archives: Extreme Events
16 August 2016, Yale Climate Connections, TV Meteorologists Seen Warming to Climate Science. This month’s video reports on a continuing evolution in recent years in TV weathercasters’ willingness to put their forecasts in the context of a warming climate. is month’s “This is Not Cool” Yale Climate Connections video reports several leading TV weathercasters’ views on discussing climate in the context of weather forecasting. 
Through their own words in a series of in-person and Skype interviews, plus clips from some recent broadcasts on extreme weather events, independent videographer Peter Sinclair’s video describes the rapidly evolving perspectives: prominent national and local broadcast meteorologists saying they now see it as their responsibility to keep certain weather events in the context of the changing climate. The TV weathercasters featured in the video relate how their views on the science of climate change have evolved in recent years. “I think you’re seeing more and more TV meteorologists understand that responsibility,” says Washington Post meteorologist Jason Samenow. Raleigh, N.C., WRAL-TV meteorologist Greg Fishel points to TV weathercasters being a principal link between the science community and the public, placing a “tremendous responsibility to make sure that we are not letting any ideology into our science reporting, that we are dealing with facts and relaying them as accurately as we can to the public.” Phoenix ABC 15 chief meteorologist Amber Sullins points to “a definite increase in the amount of extreme heat just in my life time there in the City of Phoenix.”“It’s irresponsible if you don’t put the current weather trends into some sort of climate context,” Samenow says. “There are some people who don’t want to hear about that, but you’re not telling the entire story if you just report the weather and you don’t explain how this weather fits into changes which are happening.” Read More here
15 August 2016, Washington Post, What we can say about the Louisiana floods and climate change. Here we are again, with a flood event upending the lives of large numbers of Americans and making everybody wonder about the role of climate change. In this case, it’s the stunning, multiday flooding in southern Louisiana that hit after a low pressure system combined with record amounts of atmospheric water vapor, dumping more than two feet of rainfall over three days in some places. At least 11 people were killed, and thousands have had to leave their homes.On Monday, climate researchers and weather experts were in what’s by now a familiar posture — explaining that, no, this event wasn’t “caused” by climate change, but then again, it’s precisely the sort of event that you’d expect to see more of on a warming planet. “Climate change has already been shown to increase the amounts of rain falling in the most intense events across many parts of the world, and extreme rainfall events like this week’s Louisiana storm are expected [to] grow increasingly common in the coming years,” wrote the Weather Underground’s Bob Henson and Jeff Masters. [‘The worst situation I’ve ever been through.’ Six killed, thousands displaced during historic Louisiana flooding] “Louisiana is always at risk of floods, naturally, but climate change is exacerbating that risk, weighting the dice against us,” Katharine Hayhoe, a climate researcher at Texas Tech University, told The Washington Post. “How long will it be until we finally recognize that the dice are loaded?” The easiest link between climate change and extreme weather events involves heat waves, arecent study by the National Academy of Sciences found. This makes sense: A warming planet overall breaks warm-temperature records more frequently than cold-temperature records and sets the stage for lengthier, or stronger, bouts of extreme heat. Read More here
13 August 2016, Pacific Standard, America’s Latest 500-Year Rainstorm Is Underway Right Now in Louisiana. Observers are calling the record floods a “classic signal of climate change” — and high-resolution models predict another one to two feet of rain by Saturday evening. By mid-morning on Friday, more than a foot of rain had fallen near Kentwood, Louisiana, in just a 12-hour stretch — a downpour with an estimated likelihood of just once every 500 years, and roughly three months’ worth of rainfall during a typical hurricane season. It’s the latest in a string of exceptionally rare rainstorms that are stretching the definition of “extreme” weather. It’s exactly the sort of rainstorm that’s occurring more frequently as the planet warms. In response to the ongoing heavy rains, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards. declared a statewide state of emergency on Friday, and local governments aredistributing sandbags, conducting water rescues, and facilitating evacuations. The New Orleans Times-Picayune is maintaining a live blog of the latest developments. The Tickfaw River north of New Orleans soared 18 feet in about 12 hours to a new record crest on Friday morning, beating the water level of April 1983, and five feet higher than the high-water mark during Hurricane Isaac in 2012, the last hurricane to make landfall in Louisiana. Read More here