North America – Page 9 – Desdemona Despair

Electric vehicles charging in Victorville, California, 11 March 2024. In California, electric vehicles could soon account for 10 percent of peak power demand. Photo: Lauren Justice / The New York Times

April 28, 2024

A new surge in power use is threatening U.S. climate goals – “I can’t recall the last time I was so alarmed about the country’s energy trajectory”

By Brad Plumer 17 March 2024 (The New York Times) – Something unusual is happening in America. Demand for electricity, which has stayed largely flat for two decades, has begun to surge. Over the past year, electric utilities have nearly doubled their forecasts of how much additional power they’ll need by 2028 as they confront […]

(a) Maps of the Pacific Northwest U.S. showing the median annual flight hours between November 1st and January 31st for Historical, and near-future, mid-future, and distant-future time frames for two RCPs, (b) elevations with Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges marked, (c) Map of the continental United States with highlighted study area (grey). The historical panel of ‘a’ marks two locations in Washington State, Omak, and Richland, which are referenced in the text. Note that the elevation data is not used in any analysis and is provided solely for visual context. Graphic: Rajagopalan, et al., 2024 / Nature Scientific Reports

April 28, 2024

Western honeybee colonies at risk of collapse, WSU study finds – “They’re really the glue in our ecosystems. And you never notice the glue — until it stops working.”

By Conrad Swanson 1 April 2024 (The Seattle Times) – One of nature’s most important keystone species is working itself to death. Colonies of honeybees — crucial pollinators for a wide variety of plants and cash crops — are at risk of collapse because of climate change, a recent study by scientists at Washington State University and […]

A wildfire rages in Texas on 27 February 2024. Photo: Greenville Fire-Rescue / Reuters

February 28, 2024

Historic Texas wildfire consumes more than 500,000 acres as blaze rages on

By Gloria Oladipo 28 February 2024 (The Guardian) – A historic wildfire in Texas continued to rage on Wednesday morning as firefighters work to contain the flames and survey damage. The Smokehouse Creek fire, the second largest wildfire in Texas to date, has consumed more than 500,000 acres in Texas’s Panhandle area since it ignited on Monday. […]

Map showing notable economic loss events due to natural and climate disasters in 2023. Global economic losses in 2023 were higher than the 21st century average. Economic losses from global natural disasters in 2023 are estimated at $380 billion, above long-term and short-term averages, after adjusting historical losses to today’s values using the U.S. Consumer Price Index. All continents recorded remarkable natural disaster events in 2023 and multiple countries faced the most significant disasters in their modern histories. The global map shows event and peril patterns that contributed to the overall economic losses in 2023. The largest loss driver was earthquake, yet this was largely caused by a handful of events, notably the earthquake sequence in Turkey and Syria. Severe convective storms came second, with the largest individual losses concentrated in the United States and Europe. Graphic: Aon

February 19, 2024

Aon: Number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023 highest on record – Severe convective storms were the most damaging peril for insurers

LONDON, 23 January 2024 (Aon) – Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm, today published its 2024 Climate and Catastrophe Insight report, which identifies global natural disaster and climate trends to help make better decisions to manage volatility and enhance global resilience. The report reveals that the 398 global natural disaster events caused a $380 billion (2022: $355 billion) […]

Prentice Sinclair Smith a friend of home owner Dion Peronneau says she was awoken by the sound of cracking around 4 a.m. early morning Monday, as mudflow forced its way into her home in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles, Tuesday, 6 February 2024. One of the wettest storms in Southern California history unleashed more than 300 mudslides in the Los Angeles area after dumping more than half of the city’s seasonal rainfall in just two days, and officials warned Tuesday that the threat hadn’t passed yet. Photo: Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo

February 8, 2024

Record rainfall, triple-digit winds, hundreds of mudslides. Here’s California’s storm by the numbers

LOS ANGELES, 6 February 2024 (AP) – The slow-moving atmospheric river still battering California on Tuesday unleashed record rainfall, triple-digit winds and hundreds of mudslides. Here is the historic storm by the numbers: Downtown Los Angeles In just three days, downtown Los Angeles got soaked by more than 8 inches (20.3 cm) of rain — more than half […]

Great Lakes average ice cover, 1973-2023. The black line at the bottom shows the 2023-2024 season’s ice cover to January 1st. At the beginning of January 2024, the Great Lakes had the smallest amount of ice cover on New Year’s Day in at least the previous 50 years. Graphic: NOAA

January 7, 2024

Great Lakes start 2024 with smallest amount of ice in at least 50 years – “There’s a clear trend, and ice cover in the Great Lakes is decreasing”

By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff 2 January 2024 (The Washington Post) – The Great Lakes had the smallest amount of ice cover this New Year’s Day in at least the past 50 years and are on track to see less than the seasonal average this winter, according to government data. The decline comes during a five-decade drop […]

Sean de Guzman, the manager of the California department of water resources snow surveys and water supply forecasting unit, and his team measure snowpack in January 2024. Photo: Andrew Nixon / California department of water resources

January 7, 2024

California snowpack lowest in decade despite hope with December 2023 storms – “In some places there is literally no measurable snow on the ground at all”

By Gabrielle Canon 4 January 2024 (The Guardian) – In the first snow survey of the season, California came up short – just 25% of the historical average – despite a spate of strong storms that caused flooding and landslides along the coast in late December. On Tuesday, officials measured a depth of just 7.5in at a […]

2023 had the warmest December on record for Sea-Tac, Olympia, and Quillayute, with mean daily average temperatures of 45.5°F (7.5°C) in Seattle and Olympia, and 48.0°F (8.9°C) in Quillayute. Graphic: NWS Seattle

January 4, 2024

Seattle set record-high December temperatures in 2023, following global trend – “It is unlikely that this would reverse anytime soon, unless there’s very, very drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”

By Lauren Girgis 4 January 2024 (Seattle Times) – If you like the snow, this unusually warm winter likely isn’t for you. Snow levels this season have been “marginal, to say the least,” said Rune Harkestad, president of Kittitas County’s Kongsberger Ski Club, based east of Snoqualmie Pass. December did bring a fair share of […]

Percentage of documented and undocumented mines, by country. More than half of the global mining areas (56 percent) visible from satellite images have no production information available listed in a global compilation from the S&P Capital IQ Pro database. The total worldwide mining land use for mining in 120,000 km2, with 67,000 km2 undocumented. Graphic: Nature

January 3, 2024

Impacts for half of the world’s mining areas are undocumented – 56 percent of global mining areas visible from satellite images have no production information available

By Victor Maus and Tim T. Werner 3 January 2024 (Nature) – Mining is a crucial industry — from iron and copper to gravel and sand, we depend on it for the basic building blocks of the modern world. It is a fast changing sector, as the clean energy transition and digitalization boost demand for […]

Crews use specialized vehicles to move man-made snow over trails at the Battle Creek Regional Park in St. Paul, Minnesota. The record warm and snowless winter of 2023-2024 has disrupted life in Minnesota. Photo: Rob Adams / The Wall Street Journal

January 2, 2024

Record warm and snowless winter disrupts life in Minnesota – “People are bored”

By Melanie Evans 1 January 2024 (The Wall Street Journal) – For Minnesotan Tara Young, the perfect beach conditions are when the water is, well, extra stimulating. She prefers the middle of winter, when most mornings she treks off to soak in a nearby frigid lake. The 38-year-old enjoys her chilly pastime so much she […]