Climate Change News
Posted: Thu Feb 29, 2024 3:25 pm
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Massachusetts town grapples with sea rise after sand barrier fails
A $500,000 sand dune collapsed in days after being erected, and residents are looking for help to protect their homes
Erum Salam
Sun 17 Mar 2024 12.00 CET
On the border with New Hampshire and Massachusetts – about 35 miles north of Boston – is Salisbury, a coastal town and popular summer destination for tourists. But for those who live in the town year round, especially those who live on the coastline, life’s not a beach.
Last month, after a series of storms battered the area, local citizens came together to take the necessary steps to protect their homes. Volunteer organization Salisbury Beach Citizens for Change raised more than $500,000 to erect a 15,000-ton sand dune – a formidable barrier that would hopefully protect at least 15 beach houses from destruction.
Or so they thought. The sand dune was completed after one month in early March, but just three days later, the dune – and nearly half a million dollars – was wiped away.
The tragic incident made the project a laughingstock to some and angered others.
But Tom Saab, the president of the organization, doubled down on the dune.
“The dunes we built were sacrificial. They sacrificed themselves to protect the properties. Water didn’t go into people’s living rooms, destroy houses, destroy decks, patios and so on. So the dunes worked,” Saab said. “However, now we’re vulnerable to another nor’easter because we need to somehow replenish what we lost.”
On the Salisbury Beach Citizens for Change’s Facebook page, one person commented on a post about the sand dune debacle: “Your houses sit right on an ever rising and ever violent sea. Do you really think any amount of money will stop what’s inevitable?”
As weather patterns get more extreme and oceans get warmer, sea levels rise due to thermal expansion and weather patterns get more extreme, boosting coastal erosion. This climate crisis is now on the doorstep of Salisbury beach homeowners, as they suffer the consequences of rising sea levels, stronger winds and severe storms in recent months, including two in January.
“It was devastating,” Saab said about the recent storms. “Water went from the ocean into people’s living rooms and kitchens. Patios were destroyed. And at least one home was deemed uninhabitable.”
It’s a problem which Saab said should now officially be the responsibility of the government, as Salisbury is a public state beach and the area is susceptible to nor’easters and hurricanes due to its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. So now his group is pushing for state assistance.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -sand-dune
Exceptionally warm March weather propelled Washington’s cherry blossoms to their second-earliest peak bloom in more than a century of records Sunday, reflecting the growing influence of human-caused climate change on the famed trees.
“PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! Did we say PEAK BLOOM?!,” the National Park Service wrote on X at 4 p.m. Sunday. “The blossoms are opening & putting on a splendid spring spectacle.”
Sunday’s peak bloom at the Tidal Basin tied with 2000 as the second earliest on record; only the March 15, 1990, bloom came sooner in observations that date to 1921. This year’s peak bloom was so early, it preceded the official start of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which runs from March 20 to April 14, and was also ahead of the earliest projections.
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Peak bloom, the last phase of a six-stage bud development cycle, occurs when 70 percent of the cherry trees are flowering. The buds sped through this cycle in just 15 days, faster than any other year in at least the past two decades.
The early bloom fits right into recent trends.
I had to go look at mine, and sure enough, blooms at the top. Mine only ever blooms at the very top, and not a huge number of blooms, but there are a few up there. My Japanese magnolia did something weird this year too. Completely budded out and we were looking forward to a massive number of blooms this year, but the buds fell off and it leafed out without blooming. The one around the corner was beautiful when it bloomed. We haven't had blooms in about 5 years due to our annual February freeze that turns the buds black before they fall off, but that didn't happen this year. My bridal wreath is going nuts with the blooms (early) though and the grandfather's beard is full of sprouts. I love when that one blooms. Fingers crossed I get at least one of my gardenias to bloom this year. We'll get nothing, maybe not even leaves, on the camellia because my husband's idea of "trimming back" is to take a saw after the trunk of a 15' tall camellia to make it about 3' tall. I cried when I pulled up in the driveway and saw the remnants of it by the curb for pickup. We'll give it this year to see if it's completely dead before replacing it.
The only long-term solution the state could provide would be to buy out all the property holders and condemn all the properties.RTH10260 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 2:02 pmIt’s a problem which Saab said should now officially be the responsibility of the government, as Salisbury is a public state beach and the area is susceptible to nor’easters and hurricanes due to its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. So now his group is pushing for state assistance.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -sand-dune
Yup, exactly my thoughts. You gotta move folks.much ado wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 6:34 pmThe only long-term solution the state could provide would be to buy out all the property holders and condemn all the properties.RTH10260 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 2:02 pmIt’s a problem which Saab said should now officially be the responsibility of the government, as Salisbury is a public state beach and the area is susceptible to nor’easters and hurricanes due to its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. So now his group is pushing for state assistance.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -sand-dune
There is no other long-term solution.
Anyone who has spent much time around the ocean knows how easily the ocean moves sand. We've seen a large sandy beach turned into bare rock during the winter storms only to have the beach completely restored by the spring. This happens repeatedly. Spending half a million dollars on sand was a stupid waste.
[NOTE IANAGOATS - I am not a gardener or a tree surgeon]sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 5:22 pm We'll get nothing, maybe not even leaves, on the camellia because my husband's idea of "trimming back" is to take a saw after the trunk of a 15' tall camellia to make it about 3' tall. I cried when I pulled up in the driveway and saw the remnants of it by the curb for pickup. We'll give it this year to see if it's completely dead before replacing it.
Scientists confirm record highs for three most important heat-trapping gases
Global concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide climbed to unseen levels in 2023, underlining climate crisis
Oliver Milman
Sat 6 Apr 2024 23.01 CEST
The levels of the three most important heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere reached new record highs again last year, US scientists have confirmed, underlining the escalating challenge posed by the climate crisis.
The global concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important and prevalent of the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, rose to an average of 419 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2023 while methane, a powerful if shorter-lasting greenhouse gas, rose to an average of 1922 parts per billion. Levels of nitrous oxide, the third most significant human-caused warming emission, climbed slightly to 336 parts per billion.
The increases do not quite match the record jumps seen in recent years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), but still represent a major change in the composition of the atmosphere even from just a decade ago.
Through the burning of fossil fuels, animal agriculture and deforestation, the world’s CO2 levels are now more than 50% higher than they were before the era of mass industrialization. Methane, which comes from sources including oil and gas drilling and livestock, has surged even more dramatically in recent years, Noaa said, and now has atmospheric concentrations 160% larger than in pre-industrial times.
Noaa said the onward march of greenhouse gas levels was due to the continued use of fossil fuels, as well as the impact of wildfires, which spew carbon-laden smoke into the air. Nitrous oxide, meanwhile, has risen due to the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer and the intensification of agriculture.
“As these numbers show, we still have a lot of work to do to make meaningful progress in reducing the amount of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere,” said Vanda Grubišić, director of Noaa’s global monitoring laboratory.
The increasing presence of greenhouse gases is spurring a rise in global temperature – last year was the hottest ever measured worldwide – and well as associated impacts such as floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires.
It is also pushing the world into a state not seen since prior to human civilization. Carbon dioxide levels today are now comparable to what they were around 4m years ago, Noaa said, an era when sea were around 75ft higher than they are today, the average temperature was far hotter and large forests occupied areas of the now-frozen Arctic.
Because of a lag between CO2 levels and their impact, as well as the hundreds of years that the emissions remain in the atmosphere, the timescale of the climate crisis is enormous. Scientists have warned that governments need to rapidly slash emissions to net zero, and then start removing carbon from the atmosphere to bring down future temperature increases.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ate-crisis
Climate Defiance @ClimateDefiance wrote: BREAKING: We just shut down a gala honoring U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski is a murderer. She incinerates us to enrich her cronies. As Chevron's top lobbyist gave her an award, we stepped in and stopped the ceremony. Respect us or expect us.
CARACAS, Venezuela — The last of Venezuela’s glaciers has disappeared, scientists say, despite an unusual government effort to save it.
The demise of La Corona, downgraded to an ice field after shrinking from more than 1,100 acres to less than five, makes this South American nation the only one in the Andes range without a glacier — but it’s unlikely to be the last. Scientists, who long predicted the end of La Corona, say warming temperatures will render the entire Northern Andes, which snakes through Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, glacier-free by 2050.
“Our tropical glaciers are disappearing quickly since the Seventies,” said Alejandra Melfo, an astrophysicist at the University of the Andes in Mérida. “Now people are feeling the absence.”
As recently as 40 years ago, Venezuela boasted at least three glaciers, slow-moving masses of ice seen by scientists as sentinels of climate change. Although the country lies in the tropics, its southernmost point less than 50 miles from the equator, it contains the northeastern end of the Andes, with 11 peaks rising past 15,000 feet above sea level.
The trio presided over Sierra Nevada national park in northwestern Venezuela, visible from Mérida. But La Concha (The Conch) disappeared in 1990, and La Columna (The Column) followed in 2017. That left La Corona (The Crown), three miles high on Humboldt Peak, the lone holdout.
In 2020, Melfo and three colleagues reported that La Corona, too, would soon go extinct.