Climate Point: Are you bone dry or drenched? Here's how climate change adds to summer misery

USA TODAY: Bone dry or drenched? How climate change adds to summer misery

Thursday, August 26

One of many cars wrecked in abrupt mid-July floods, at a scrapyard in Germany

Bone dry or drenched? How climate change adds to summer misery

Plus: Tribes' sacred places are still threatened, partly due to a Pope's decree in 1493

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I'm Janet Wilson from Palm Springs, California. For as long as we humans can remember, planet Earth has been a largely well-contained system: frozen at both ends, tropical and muggy in the middle, and full of temperate zones in between where our ilk can best survive.

But evidence continues to pour in showing how we've upended that system, at our own peril. This summer, we're feeling the types of impacts that will worsen for decades.

Just in the past seven days, it rained on Greenland's ice cap for the first time in recorded history; 22 people died in torrential floods in Tennessee, including baby twins swept from their father's arms; record-setting precipitation fell in New York City and monsoons blew floodgates off their hinges on stretches of President Donald Trump's border wall.

Devastating wildfires roared toward Lake Tahoe and California officials mandated more water restrictions due to "climate change-induced drought" saying "the drinking water supply for 25 million Californians and irrigation for over three million acres of farmland could be at significant risk within the next year."

Not every catastrophe is studied to document climate change's fingerprints, just as not every rainstorm is studied for ties to jet streams. But the basic facts of climate science are clear: as industrial greenhouse gases overheat our atmosphere (that thin layer that makes life possible), extreme weather and disasters are becoming the norm.

You may well know all this, but if a family member or pal is asking, here's why: Warmer temperatures increase evaporation, meaning heavier moisture in clouds, dumping more rain faster and amplifying cyclones. Hotter weather also means less snowpack and earlier snowmelt, spawning longer, more intense dry seasons. Less moisture in flammable grasses and trees increases severe wildfire risk. As polar ice sheets and glaciers melt, sea levels rise.

So if your part of the planet once had "100-year" floods or wildfires, you could start to see them every year or two. If hurricanes or high tides sometimes threaten your neighborhood, they'll blow and surge more often, and likely be more powerful. Droughts become mega-droughts and heatwaves grow hotter and spread wider.

There are lots of resources on these variables, this week including a gorgeous package of maps and expert explanations by The New York Times' Aatish Bhatia and Nadja Popovich. And in Boston, WBUR's Miriam Wasser has a great feature explaining the dynamics of climate change, hurricanes and heavy rain.

Despite all this, oil giants and others continue to produce and pump dangerous greenhouse gases skyward. So buckle up, we're in for a bumpy ride.

Here are other stories that may be of interest.

Blue-Green Algae or pond scum, cyanobacteria harmful algae.

Alexlky/Getty Images/iStockphoto

MUST-READ STORIES

Deadly blooms. Toxic algae is again growing in popular vacation spots across the U.S., including Lake Champlain in Vermont and beaches in Rhode Island and Ohio. In California, authorities are investigating whether it killed one family . University of Southern California expert Dr. David Caron said "many water bodies around the country ... are reaching a tipping point."

Running dry. "In the exhausted middle of California. ... so many wells on the farms ... were coming up dry that he was running out of parts to fix them. In this latest round of western drought, desperate voices were calling him at six in the morning and again at midnight."

Mark Arax's latest missive on water in the Central Valley, where farmers have withstood five droughts since the 1970s by over-pumping, is written for The Atlantic through the eyes of a neighbor and friend who repairs their equipment. Well worth the read.

Smoke gets in your eyes. Smoke from faraway wildfires may be unhealthier than if it comes from blazes in your own backyard. Initial studies of ozone and particulate in affected Colorado areas have shown that long-range smoke may be more toxic, and, since its smoky smell disappears, that it is sneakier. Mark Jaffe from the Colorado Sun fills us in.

Rescue cow and flowers at Michael Shank's southern Vermont farm and animal sanctuary.

Michael Shank

HOT TAKES

Hard on the heifers. For dairy cows, where there's smoke, there's less milk. Scientists in Idaho are finding that wildfire smoke dampens milk production and coincides with increased risk of disease and even death in the ungulates, which can't escape to air-conditioned indoor air. Kylie Mohr has the story for High County News.

Forests in flames. Offsets go up in smoke, as trees "set aside" to store carbon instead burn, sendng it skyward.

See you in September. House approves $3.5T budget outline, setting up clash royale between Dems and GOP this fall.

Thumbs up. Most Americans back Biden's infrastructure plan.

Hawaii officials at ground blessing for giant new battery storage plant. August 2021

Julian Spector / Canary Media

ENERGY CLEAN AND DIRTY

"Pacemaker for the grid." When Hawaii's last remaining coal plant ceases operations on the island of Oahu in 2022, the state will turn to a giant battery to ensure the electric grid keeps functioning smoothly. While it won't generate power, it is designed to store much of the island's solar and other renewable power. The ground was blessed for the project this week, as Julian Spector reports for Canary Media. There have been complications: Regulators have expressed concerns that the battery will be charged with electricity from oil-fired power plants, not renewable resources, as Stewart Yerton explains for Civil Beat.

Buckeye bonanza. In Ohio, First Solar has broken ground on a $680 million, 3.3-gigawatt solar facility that the company says will be the largest of its kind outside of China.

Too gassy. Gas fired power projects in Thailand and South Africa could be affected by a shift in U.S. development finance policy to back clean energy over fossil fuels, writes Chloe Farand with Climate Home News

Bye bye. Nigeria pledges to end dangerous gas flaring by 2030, per new climate plan.

The Blythe intaglios were created on the desert floor hundreds if not thousands of years ago by native people for an unknown reason. The tribes view this land as sacred and want to preserve it for future generations. The one on the left appears to be a human figure while the one on the right appears to be an animal.

Michael Chow, Thomas Hawthorne/The Republic

AND ANOTHER THING.

Profane. Sacred rivers, waterfalls, and land features used as worship sites by Native Americans for millennia are still at risk of being mined, bulldozed or otherwise destroyed, partly due to a Pope's decree in 1493 that gave Christians domain over "heathen" lands. That doctrine, overlaid with loophole-laden federal regulations, means wild animals often have more legal protection than indigenous people, Debra Utacia Krol reports for the Arizona Republic.

That's all for this week. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me @janetwilson66. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.