[GWSG] PM 2.5; global dimming; Trump confused?; 20m/year displaced; FL above water; the long view; old models accurate; FL Keys retreat

[Tilley, Al]

1. PM 2.5 is a fine particulate air pollutant from burning fossil fuels and from forest fires which can cause serious health problems even from short exposure. It is responsible for 3.7 million premature deaths a year. The Trump administrations is moving severely to limit scientific study of this or any other public health menace. Thanks to Ed Brock for the news. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27112019/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-hospital-increase-underlying-kidney-skin-blood-illness



2. As we cease burning fossil fuels we will release less particulates to the atmosphere. Since particulates promote cloud formation, they cool the earth; the effect is called global dimming. Their absence will allow faster heating. A new measurement indicates that the cooling effect is twice as large as we had thought. https://phys.org/news/2019-12-cooling-role-particulate-earth-stronger.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter



3. In some of Trump’s comments he doesn’t indicate that he understands what the climate crisis is, much less what is causing it. He confuses climate issues with the concerns of popular 1970s environmentalism: general air pollution and the ozone hole. Some right-wing propaganda attempts to confuse people in this way. It is not clear whether Trump is a propagandist or among the propagandized.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/03/its-possible-that-trump-doesnt-actually-know-what-climate-change-is/?utm_campaign=Carbon%20Brief%20Daily%20Briefing&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter



4. Over the last decade, the climate crisis has driven 20 million people a year from their homes globally. Coincidentally, that is about the population of Florida. Asia is currently the most affected continent.   https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-refugees-oxfam-2641492689.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1



5. The Lake Wales Ridge of central Florida has stayed above water for about two million years.  https://news.wjct.org/post/climate-change-once-flooded-florida-and-could-again



6. A couple of short videos help us begin to comprehend a perspective of climate changes which can produce effects lasting for hundreds of thousands of years—perhaps longer than our species has been around. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, PETM, about 56 million years ago, provides the closest historical analogue to the changes we are working in our climate system. https://climatecrocks.com/2019/12/03/the-petm-traces-of-past-warming/



7. Early climate models from the 1970s through 2001 have been surprisingly accurate in predicting the heating which has occurred since then. For 10 of the 14 models studied, “there was no statistically significant difference between their output and historic observations.” The study encourages trust in the forecasts of current models.  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming



8. Officials in the Florida Keys are beginning to face the necessity of retreat before sea level rise. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/climate/florida-keys-climate-change.html

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