Beyond the threat to democracy, the T-Rump is also a total threat to all of humanity — report of a new poll at EurekaAlert yesterday shows 56-percent of US adults believe the top issue we’re facing today is climate change, and per politics, ‘62-percent say they are willing to vote for a candidate because of his or her position on climate change.’
Hear that presidential-office seekers? We wonder at the Democrat debate tonight and at what level, if at all, the forum will focus on the giant onrushing problem that’s climate change. A natural subject for Democrats to use against asshole T-Rump, the last debate two weeks ago carried some good discussion on our warming planet, though, the session in October had zero environmental talk.
When are Democrats going to get their shit together, the Iowa fiasco was just Monday, and the real action starts this coming Tuesday with the New Hampshire primary, so the clock is quickly ticking away.
And with our our only livable planet, its clock is ticking, too, but in a horror-disaster-movie clip.
18.3°C! – new highest temperature recorded for continental #Antarctica, yesterday at Esperanza Base, the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 63°23?S; previous record was 17.5°C in 2015 also at Esperanza @SMN_Argentina; records began at the station in 1961, pic Nestor Franco pic.twitter.com/1qhbv0rDQj
— The Antarctic Report (@AntarcticReport) February 7, 2020
Details via Vox this afternoon:
Antarctica just recorded its hottest temperature on record: 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3°C).
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that Esperanza, Argentina’s research base on the Trinity Peninsula (the section closest to South America), detected the balmy temperature spike on Thursday.
The previous record, 63.5 degrees, was set in 2015.
“The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional ‘foehn’ event over the area: a rapid warming of air coming down a slope/mountain,” said Randall Cerveny, WMO’s weather and climate extremes rapporteur, in a statement.
It’s currently summer in the southern hemisphere, and even icy Antarctica starts to warm up as it receives uninterrupted sunlight through the season.
However, temperatures usually don’t get much higher than 50 degrees.
On this rapidly warming planet of ours, the polar regions are heating up faster than the rest.
Earth has warmed up by just over 1.8 degrees on average since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began spewing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
But the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 5.4 degrees in just the last 50 years.
That rising heat is particularly worrying because it’s fueling loss in the world’s largest reservoir of ice: the Antarctic ice sheets.
If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by 190 feet.
It’s hard to know exactly how much Antarctica’s ice is contributing to global sea-level rise right now, but several estimates show that this ice could add upward of 16 inches of sea-level rise by the end of the century based on current rates.
The latest science also shows an acceleration in ice melt.
Between 1979 and 2017, the annual rate of ice loss increased sixfold.
This cold freshwater flowing into the ocean in turn is influencing weather patterns around the world in ways that scientists are still trying to understand.
Last month, 50-year-old climate activist Lewis Pugh swam in a river formed beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet to highlight the impacts of warming.
Satellites this week have also detected new cracks in glaciers in Antarctica.
“Pine Island glacier, like its neighbouring Thwaites Glacier, has been dramatically losing ice over the last 25 years,” according to the WMO.
The opposite end of the world is also warming rapidly.
In 2018, the Arctic experienced its heat wave in winter for the third year in a row.
Together, these events show that a lot more heat and change are in store for the coolest parts of the world.
Dressing for regional weather is also changing: ‘Prof Nerilie Abram, a climate scientist at the Australian National University, has carried out research at James Ross Island at the northern tip of the peninsula.
“It’s an area that’s warming very quickly,” she said, adding it can occasionally be warm enough to wear a T-shirt.’
And on we go…
(Illustration by Handoko Tjung, found here.