Graph of the Day – Page 16 – Desdemona Despair

People watch the sunset as the smoke from wildfires is visible in Toronto on 28 June 2023. Photo: Chris Young / AP

July 2, 2023

Canada marks worst wildfire season on record in 2023 – Wildfires have burned 19.5 million acres across Canada this year so far

By Somayeh Malekian, Emma Ogao, and Victoria Beaule 1 July 2023 LONDON (ABC News) – Canada’s wildfire season is now the worst ever recorded as the country has exceeded the largest area ever burned in a year, totaling more than 19.5 million acres so far. There are at least 500 active fires burning around the […]

Global Negative Experience Index, 2006-2022. As it does every year, Gallup asked adults in 142 countries and areas in 2022 if they had five different negative experiences on the day before the survey -- and then compiled the results into an index. Higher scores on the Negative Experience Index indicate that more of the population is experiencing these negative emotions. In 2022, about four in 10 adults worldwide said they experienced a lot of worry (41%) or stress (40%), and nearly one in three experienced a lot of physical pain (32%). More than one in four experienced sadness (27%), and slightly fewer experienced anger (23%). Worry, stress and sadness remained near their record highs set in 2021, although each declined one percentage point in 2022. The percentage of adults worldwide who experienced physical pain increased one point, while the percentage who experienced anger remained at 23% for the second year in a row. Graphic: Gallup

July 2, 2023

Global rise in unhappiness leveled off in 2022 – Worry, stress, and sadness remained near their record highs set in 2021

By Julie Ray 27 June 2023 WASHINGTON, D.C. (Gallup) – Emotionally, the world was no worse off in 2022 than it was in 2021, but it is still in a heightened negative state, according to Gallup’s latest annual global update on the negative and positive experiences that people have daily. The well-documented global rise in negative emotions such as […]

A car moves through a neighborhood in West Austin that lost power on 18 February 2021 during blackouts that left millions of Texans without power or heat following a devastating winter storm. Photo: Jordan Vonderhaar / The Texas Tribune

July 2, 2023

Texas power struggle: How the top wind power state in the U.S. turned against renewable energy – State lawmakers push bills to support fossil fuel-burning power plants and restrict renewable energy development – “Right now, the wind blows strongly against renewables, and that’s where we are”

By Emily Foxhall, Kai Elwood-dieu, and Zach Despart 25 May 2023 (Texas Tribune) – State Rep. Jared Patterson disagreed with his Republican colleague that Texas should keep supporting the booming renewable energy industry here. Rep. John Smithee was arguing on the House floor in early May that certain solar and wind farms should be eligible […]

(a) Individual contributors to the polar motion (PM) excitation trend. (b) Sum of PM excitation trend contributors with (solid blue) and without (dashed blue) groundwater depletion. Red arrow is the observed PM excitation. Graphic: Seo, et al., 2023 / Geophysical Research Letters

July 2, 2023

Humans have pumped so much groundwater that we’ve nudged the earth’s spin – “As a resident of Earth and a father, I’m concerned and surprised to see that pumping groundwater is another source of sea-level rise”

WASHINGTON, 15 June 2023 (AGO) – By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, AGU’s journal for short-format, high-impact research with […]

Seasonal managed honeybee colony loss rates in the United States across years 2008-2023 (A), and by operation type (B-D): backyard (managing up to 50 colonies), sideline (managing 51-500), and commercial (managing >500 colonies) beekeepers. The loss rate was calculated as the total number of colonies lost divided by the number of colonies at risk during the season. Colonies at risk were composed of living colonies at the start of a period, as well as new colonies made or acquired, while excluding colonies sold or parted with. Annual loss covers the whole period from one 1 April to the next 1 April (in red); summer (1 April – 1 October, in yellow); winter (1 October – 1 April, in blue). Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval obtained from a bootstrap resampling of the data (n-out-of-n, 1000 rep). Graphic: Bee Informed Partnership

June 30, 2023

Nearly half of U.S. honeybee colonies died in the 2022-2023 season – “This is a very troubling loss number when we barely manage sufficient colonies to meet pollination demands in the U.S.”

By Seth Borenstein 22 June 2023 WASHINGTON (AP) – America’s honeybee hives just staggered through the second highest death rate on record, with beekeepers losing nearly half of their managed colonies, an annual bee survey found. But using costly and Herculean measures to create new colonies, beekeepers are somehow keeping afloat. Thursday’s University of Maryland […]

Map showing the heat index in the United States for 30 June 2023. Graphic: The Washington Post

June 30, 2023

Solar power bails out Texas grid during major heat wave – “This is what’s happening with 1 degree Celsius of global average warming. And we’re on track for 3 degrees.”

30 June 2023 (Reuters) – The Texas power grid comfortably met record demand during this week’s heat wave with abundant power supply from wind and solar plants, data from the grid operator showed. The Texas grid is a focus in the United States whenever it is tested by extreme weather after a catastrophic failure in […]

Graphic showing the years in which the gender gap will be closed in various world regions, as measured in the year 2023. In Latin America, the gap is estimated to close in 53 years. In East Asia and the Pacific, the gap is estimated to close in 189 years. Graphic: World Economic Forum

June 27, 2023

It could take 131 years for the world to close the gender gap – “Not only are millions of women and girls losing out on economic access and opportunity, but these reversals also have wide-ranging consequences for the global economy”

By Alicia Wallace 20 June 2023 Minneapolis (CNN) – Progress on achieving global gender equality is languishing. A new report from the World Economic Forum estimates that women won’t attain parity with men for another 131 years. In other words, not until 2154. The overall gender gap — a measurement of equality across the realms of the economy, politics, […]

Prof. Michael E. Mann posted this map of wind speeds at at 500 hPa on 20 June 2023. He commented, “I'm honestly at a loss to even characterize the current large-scale planetary wave pattern. Frankly, it looks like a Van Gogh.” Data from https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/equirectangular. Graphic: earth.nullschool.net

June 27, 2023

“Insane”, “Astonishing” jet stream leaves scientists “at a loss” for words

By Peter Sinclair 21 June 2023 (Climate Crocks) – It just keeps on coming. [more] “Insane”, “Astonishing” Jet Stream Leaves Scientists “At a Loss” for Words

On 27 June 2023, Texas once again braced for a record spike in electricity demand as 110F heat spurred air-conditioning usage. An early heat wave gripped the second most-populous US state, buckling highways, stressing oil refineries and pushing up natural gas prices. At least two deaths were attributed to the searing temperatures and it was only expected to get hotter as the week wears on. It was not a new problem for Texas: The Lone Star State broke power-demand records 11 times in the summer of 2022. Graphic: Bloomberg

June 27, 2023

Texas power demand again forecast to peak amid Summer 2023 heat wave – “Texas is running about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it did during the 20th century”

26 June 2023 (Reuters) – Texas’ power grid operator on Monday again projected electricity use would break records this week as homes and business cranked up air conditioning amid soaring temperatures. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the grid for more than 26 million customers representing about 90% of the state’s power […]

Time series of summer forest fire burned area and spring to summer (April to October) maximum near surface temperature 1971-2021 in California; (B) observed versus out-of-sample 10-fold predicted changes in BA. Vertical gray lines indicate 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles of 10,000 different predictions. Colors indicate the decade of each sample. The Inset shows a map of California with the domain of interest shaded in gray. Turcu, et al., 2023 / PNAS

June 18, 2023

Global warming at the center of recent California wildfires – “We show that nearly all of the observed increase in burned area in California over the past half-century is attributable to human-caused climate change”

By Anne M. Stark 12 June 2023 (LLNL) – Summer wildfire seasons in California routinely break records. The average summer burn area in forests in northern and central portions of the state have increased fivefold between 1996 and 2021 compared to between 1971 and 1995. Although the drivers of increased temperature and dryness are known, […]