Texas – Page 5 – Desdemona Despair

Spatial cumulative extents of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. (A) Cumulative NESDIS anomaly daily composites integrated from 20 April 2010 to 21 July 2010. Daily fishing closures are marked with gray lines; the cumulative fishing closure area is marked with a thick dashed yellow line. The black star represents the location of the DWH blowout. (B) Cumulative value of daily average oil concentrations (ppb), integrated across the same time span as (A) and across water depths. Vertical depth layers are 0 to 1 m, 1 to 20 m, and in 20-m increments down to 2500 m. Sediment and water samples with higher-than-background concentration are marked in bright green and dark blue circles, respectively. Red crosses in (B) represent approximate locations of DWH-related oil detections reported in previous studies. Daily fishery closures are marked with black polygons; the cumulative fishery closure area is marked with a dashed thick polygon. AB, Apalachee Bay; DP, Deep Plume; EFS, East Florida Shelf; FK, Florida Keys; LC, Loop Current System; TXS, Texas Shores; WFS, West Florida Shelf. (C) Categorization of the modeled oil spill are as follows: (i) nontoxic, PAH concentrations above background level and smaller than 0.5 and 1 ppb at the surface (depth, 0 to 1 m) and in the water column (depth, >1 m), respectively; (ii) toxic-to-biota and invisible, PAH concentrations 0.5 to 17 ppb at the surface and above 1 ppb in the water column; and (iii) toxic and visible, PAH concentrations above 17 ppb. In (C), categories were computed according to maximal concentrations across time. (D) Duration of toxic concentrations across the domain. (E) LC50 of 12 experiments examining the photoinduced toxicity to blue crab (31), fiddler crab (33), mahi mahi (29, 30), red drum (32), and speckled sea trout (32) (for more details, see table S2). (F) The spatial extent of the toxic concentrations from (E); color codes in (F) are according to bar colors in (E), representing concentrations exceeding LC50. In (F), toxic PAH of 0.5 ppb was concentrations were considered for surface waters only (depth, 0 to 1 m). Graphic: Berenshtein, et al., 2020 / Science Advances

February 17, 2020

The toxic reach of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was much larger and deadlier than previous estimates – “Large areas of the Gulf of Mexico were exposed to invisible and toxic oil that extended beyond the boundaries of the satellite footprint and the fishery closures”

By Darryl Fears 12 February 2020 (The Washington Post) – The spread of oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was far worse than previously believed, new research has found. As the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history approaches its 10th anniversary in April, a study by two University of Miami researchers […]

Satellite view of tropospheric NO2 VCDs over the Permian basin for August 2018, seen from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) aboard NASA and ESA satellites. OMI has a ground pixel size of 13 x 24 km2 and was gridded onto a 0.07 by 0.07 degrees latitude/longitude grid. TROPOMI has a footprint of 3.5 x 7 km2 and was averaged onto a 0.02 by 0.02 degrees latitude/longitude grid. The increased spatial resolution of the TROPOMI measurements is clearly visible. The red outline denotes the area used for the multivariate regression fits. Graphic: Dix, et al., 2020 / Geophysical Research Letters

February 5, 2020

Air pollution from oil and gas production sites visible from space – U.S. and European satellites help scientists measure nitrogen dioxide from drilling, production, and flaring

15 January 2020 (CIRES) – Oil and gas production has doubled in some parts of the United States in the last two years, and scientists can use satellites to see impacts of that trend: a significant increase in the release of the lung-irritating air pollutant nitrogen dioxide, for example, and a more-than-doubling of the amount […]

Extreme weather events across the world caused more than $100 billion worth of damage in 2019. The most financially costly disasters were wildfires in California, which caused $25 billion in damage, followed by Typhoon Hagibis in Japan ($15 billion) and floods in the American mid-west ($12.5 billion) and China ($12 billion). The events with the greatest loss of life were floods in Northern India which killed 1,900 and Cyclone Idai which killed 1,300. Data: Christian Aid. Graphic: The Guardian

December 31, 2019

15 climate disasters of 2019 that cost more than $1 billion – “It is no wonder youth around the world are taking to the streets to demand that we write a different story towards a better future”

27 December 2019 (Christian Aid) – Extreme weather, driven by climate change, hit every populated continent in 2019, killing, injuring and displacing millions and causing billions of dollars of economic damage, according to a new report by Christian Aid. […] Counting the Cost 2019: a year of climate breakdown identifies 15 of the most destructive droughts, […]

Small area income and poverty estimates (SAIPE), 2007-2018. Data: U.S. Census Bureau Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program. Graphic: U.S. Census Bureau

December 29, 2019

Poverty grew in one-third of U.S. counties despite strong national economy

By Tim Henderson 19 December 2019 (Pew) – Despite an economic recovery that lifted people out of poverty in most areas of the country, poverty increased in at least one county in every state between 2016 and 2018. The poverty rate grew in 30% of counties between 2016 and 2018, according to a Stateline analysis of U.S. Census […]

Oil production from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, 2012-2019. New drilling in Eagle Ford only replaces production declines from old wells. Data: BloombergNEF. Graphic: Bloomberg

December 7, 2019

Faded Texas oil field offers austerity lesson for U.S. shale – “There’s an inflection point coming here because production growth is going to slow down massively”

By Kevin Crowley 2 December 2019 (Bloomberg) – At EOG Resources Inc.’s Francisco lease in the heart of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, a half dozen cows laze in the shade of a tree next to black oil-storage tanks. A small flare burns atop a steel pylon, like a memorial to the boom […]

Comparison of weekly U.S. Drought Monitor for 30 July 2019 and 1 October 2019 shows the rapid progression of drought across the south-central and southeast U.S. Graph: National Drought Mitigation Center

November 5, 2019

October 2019: A month of extreme weather for the U.S. – “This early-October heat wave appears to the most intense and anomalous on record for such a large region of the U.S.”

By Christopher C. Burt 1 November 2019 (Weather Underground) – October is a month of transition weatherwise for the contiguous U.S. Some years it is a gentle transition from early fall to late fall, and some years an extreme transition from late summer to early winter—as has been the case this year. In fact, it […]

November 4, 2019

“Big Short” investor David Burt’s new bet: Global warming will bust the housing market – “You end up with a very scary looking situation”

By Geoff Dembicki 1 November 2019 (Vice) – In 2007, almost no one would admit what became obvious in hindsight: The housing market was on the brink of collapse and would take a good chunk of the U.S. economy along with it. Lenders were getting rich, giving home loans to people who couldn’t afford them, investment banks […]

$Total fossil fuel financing by investment banks in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The financing has been led by the Wall Street giant JPMorgan Chase, which has provided $75 billion (£61 billion) to companies expanding in sectors such as fracking and Arctic oil and gas exploration. Graphic: RAN$

October 18, 2019

Top investment banks provide $713 billion to expand fossil fuel industry since Paris climate change agreement – “We can all sit around pointing fingers at each other, but that doesn’t help solve what is a really complex and multifaceted problem”

By Patrick Greenfield 13 October 2019 (The Guardian) – The world’s largest investment banks have provided more than $700 billion of financing for the fossil fuel companies most aggressively expanding in new coal, oil and gas projects since the Paris climate change agreement, figures show. The financing has been led by the Wall Street giant […]

Statewide rankings for average temperature and precipitation for September 2019 compared to each September since records began in 1895. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

October 16, 2019

September 2019 hottest on record globally, second hottest in U.S. history – All-time record for 12-month rainfall in U.S.

5 October 2019 (Copernicus Climate Change Service) – In Europe, temperatures were above average over most of the continent, especially in the south and south-east. Below-average temperatures occurred over much of Norway and Sweden, and over the far east of the continent. Globally September 2019 was 0.57°C warmer than the average September from 1981-2010, making […]

Adult obesity in the U.S. by state in 2018, with top ten states highlighted. Graphic: Trust for Americas Health

September 15, 2019

U.S. obesity rates hit historic highs in 2018 – Nine states reach adult obesity rates of 35 percent or more – “These latest data shout that our national obesity crisis is getting worse”

WASHINGTON, DC, 12 September 2019 (Trust for America’s Health) – Nine U.S. states had adult obesity rates above 35 percent in 2018, up from seven states at that level in 2017, an historic level of obesity in the U.S., according to the 16th annual State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America report [pdf] released today by the […]