#Past Precipitation Data

[awisweatherservices]

Enhancing Traveler Safety with Hourly Weather Data: A Comprehensive Guide

Travel is an important part of modern life, whether for work, fun, or adventure. However, bad weather can disrupt plans and create safety risks. Hourly weather data provides a clear and timely view of weather conditions to help keep travelers safe. Understanding weather patterns helps in planning safe trips and preparing for possible disruptions caused by bad weather. When travelers stay updated on changing weather, they can avoid dangerous situations and make better decisions. This information allows for changes in travel plans, prioritizing safety over convenience. It also gives travelers confidence, knowing they have considered all possible weather challenges before starting their journeys. This comprehensive guide will look into how these weather reports can transform travel experiences by ensuring safety through informed decision-making. Read more here...

[fairuzfan]

The decision to pause deliveries to the north of the Gaza Strip has not been taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger.  WFP is deeply committed to urgently reaching desperate people across Gaza but the safety and security to deliver critical food aid - and for the people receiving it - must be ensured. Deliveries resumed on Sunday after a three-week suspension following the strike on an UNRWA truck and due to the absence of a functioning humanitarian notification system. The plan was to send 10 trucks of food for seven straight days, to help stem the tide of hunger and desperation and to begin building trust in communities that there would be enough food for all.  On Sunday, as WFP started the route towards Gaza City, the convoy was surrounded by crowds of hungry people close to the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. First fending off multiple attempts by people trying to climb aboard our trucks, then facing gunfire once we entered Gaza City, our team was able to distribute a small quantity of the food along the way. On Monday, the second convoy’s journey north faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order. Several trucks were looted between Khan Younes and Deir al Balah and a truck driver was beaten. The remaining flour was spontaneously distributed off the trucks in Gaza city, amidst high tension and explosive anger. In December, the Integrated Phase Classification report compiled by 15 agencies including WFP warned of the risk of famine in northern Gaza by May unless conditions there improved decisively. At the end of January, after delivering food to the north, we reported on the rapid deterioration of conditions. In these past two days our teams witnessed unprecedented levels of desperation.  The latest reports confirm Gaza’s precipitous slide into hunger and disease. Food and safe water have become incredibly scarce and diseases are rife, compromising women and children’s nutrition and immunity and resulting in a surge of acute malnutrition. People are already dying from hunger-related causes.  A report issued Monday by UNICEF and WFP, based on recent data, finds that the situation is particularly extreme in the Northern Gaza Strip. Nutrition screenings conducted at shelters and health centres in the north found that 15.6 per cent - or 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age - are acutely malnourished. WFP will seek ways to resume deliveries in a responsible manner as soon as possible. A large-scale expansion of the flow of assistance to northern Gaza is urgently needed to avoid disaster. To achieve this, WFP needs significantly higher volumes of food coming into the Gaza strip from multiple routes, additionally, crossing points to the north of Gaza must open. A functioning humanitarian notification system and a stable communication network are needed. And security, for our staff and partners as well as for the people we serve, must be facilitated. Gaza is hanging by a thread and WFP must be enabled to reverse the path towards famine for thousands of desperately hungry people. 

I cannot believe this.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sarah Schwartz

Test after test of U.S. students’ reading and math abilities have shown scores declining since the pandemic.

Now, new results show that it’s not just children whose skills have fallen over the past few years—American adults are getting worse at reading and math, too.

The connection, if any, between the two patterns isn’t clear—the tests aren’t set up to provide that kind of information. But it does point to a populace that is becoming more stratified by ability at a time when economic inequality continues to widen and debates over opportunity for social mobility are on the rise.

The findings from the 2023 administration of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, show that 16- to 65-year-olds’ literacy scores declined by 12 points from 2017 to 2023, while their numeracy scores fell by 7 points during the same period.

These trends aren’t unique in the global context: Of the 31 countries and economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that participated in PIAAC, some saw scores drop over the past six years, while others improved or held constant.

Still, as in previous years, the United States doesn’t compare favorably to other countries: The country ranks in the middle of the pack in literacy and below the international average in math. (Literacy and numeracy on the test are scored on a 500-point scale.)

But Americans do stand out in one way: The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing adults is growing wider, as the top scorers hold steady and other test takers see their scores fall.

“There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills,” said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees PIAAC in the country. (The test was developed by the OECD and is administered every three years.)

It’s a phenomenon that distinguishes the United States, she said.

“Some of that is because we’re very diverse and it’s large, in comparison to some of the OECD countries,” Carr said in a call with reporters on Monday. “But that clearly is not the only reason.”

American children, too, are experiencing this widening chasm between high and low performers. National and international tests show the country’s top students holding steady, while students at the bottom of the distribution are falling further behind.

It’s hard to know why U.S. adults’ scores have taken this precipitous dive, Carr said.

About a third of Americans score at lowest levels PIAAC is different from large-scale assessments for students, which measure kids’ academic abilities.

Instead, this test for adults evaluates their abilities to use math and reading in real-world contexts—to navigate public services in their neighborhood, for example, or complete a task at work. The United States sample is nationally representative random sample, drawn from census data.

American respondents averaged a level 2 of 5 in both subjects.

In practice, that means that they can, for example, use a website to find information about how to order a recycling cart, or read and understand a list of rules for sending their child to preschool. But they would have trouble using a library search engine to find the author of a book.

In math, they could compare a table and a graph of the same information to check for errors. But they wouldn’t be able to calculate average monthly expenses with several months of data.

While the U.S. average is a level 2, more adults now fall at a level 1 or below—28 percent scored at that level in literacy, up from 19 percent in 2017, and 34 percent in numeracy, up from 29 percent in 2017.

Respondents scoring below level 1 couldn’t compare calendar dates printed on grocery tags to determine which food item was packed first. They would also struggle to read several job descriptions and identify which company was looking to hire a night-shift worker.

The findings also show sharp divides by race and national origin, with respondents born in the United States outscoring those born outside of the country, and white respondents outscoring Black and Hispanic test takers. Those trends have persisted over the past decade.

[route22ny]

"Academic Danilo Brozović says studies of failed civilisations all point in one direction – today’s society needs radical transformation to survive."

For someone who has examined 361 studies and 73 books on societal collapses, Danilo Brozović’s conclusion on what must happen to avoid today’s world imploding is both disarmingly simple and a daunting challenge: “We need dramatic social and technological changes.”

The collapse of past civilisations, from the mighty Mayan empire to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), has long fascinated people and for obvious reasons – how stable is our own society? Does ever-growing complexity in societies or human hubris inevitably lead to oblivion? In the face of the climate crisis, rampant destruction of the natural world, rising geopolitical tensions and more, the question is more urgent than ever.

“More and more academic articles are mentioning the threat of collapse because of climate change,” says Brozović at the school of business at the University of Skövde, Sweden. The issue of collapse hooked him after it was raised in a project on business sustainability, which then led to his comprehensive review in 2023.

The field is not short of extreme pessimists. “They believe what we are doing will eventually cause the extinction of the human race,” says Brozović. Some say today’s challenges are so great that it is now time humanity comes to terms with extinction, and even build a vault containing our greatest cultural achievements as a record for some future – perhaps alien – civilisation. Others, using data on deforestation and population, rate the chance of catastrophic collapse at 90% or more.

Most scholars are more optimistic, if not actually optimists. Brozović says: “They say collapse for us will just be the end of life as we know it today. There will be less globalisation and a lower standard of life, affecting public health very negatively.”

This raises the question of what is meant by collapse: most agree it is the loss of complex social and political structures over a few decades at most. But by this definition, many classic collapses, misinterpreted in the rear-view mirror of history, may actually be better described as transformations. He says: “In the last 10 years or so, people are asking did the Rapa Nui society collapse or did it reinvent itself?” he says.

The search for explanations of societal collapse has been a long one, going back at least to Thomas Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Population and Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which blamed decadence and barbarian invasions.

Today, collapses are seen as the result of combined factors, such as environmental problems, disease, political or economic turmoil, religious crises and soil exhaustion, even if one factor might precipitate the collapse.

Brozović says: “But there is one theory of collapse that stands out as the most frequently invoked: Joseph Tainter’s theory of complexity.” Tainter’s theory was published in 1988 and has since been described as “peak complexity”.

Brozović says: “He says the main function of every society is solving problems by investing resources. But as society becomes more complex, the problems become more complex, so you have to invest more resources. Painter says at the end of this spiral, collapse is inevitable, because you cannot do this for ever. Technological innovations can simplify increasingly complex problems. But, again, this cannot go on indefinitely.”

After that came the sunk-cost effects theory of collapse. He says: “[Societies] are unwilling to abandon something – for example a settlement or the current global economy – if a great deal has been invested in it, even if future prospects are dim.” Others have blamed social hubris, he says, meaning excessive pride or arrogance led societies to ignore warning signs and block preventive action.

“It’s like being in a bad marriage,” Brozović says. “You know you should get out, but you have invested a lot of yourself and a lot of time, and it’s really hard.”

Growing gaps between the rich and poor also come up as a factor, he says. Research using big data to model historical societies has found that elites and inequality appear towards the end. “If it’s not a cause, it’s definitely a symptom,” he says.

There is a problem, however, in attempting to draw insight for the future: past collapses were local or regional. “But we live in a global and extremely complex society,” says Brozović. “[Nonetheless], one very important insight is that, regardless of the cause of collapse, how a society reacts seems crucial.”

In his 2005 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond identified two vital choices distinguishing societies that failed from those that survived.skip past newsletter promotion

The first, tackling the sunk-cost problem and political short-termism, is long-term planning: making “bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they have reached crisis proportions”. Diamond cites Tokugawa shoguns, Inca emperors and 16th-century German landowners as positive examples, having faced and reversed disastrous deforestation.

The second, combating social hubris, is the painful process of overturning core values. Diamond says: “Which of the values that formerly served a society well can continue to be maintained under new changed circumstances? Which of these treasured values must instead be jettisoned and replaced with different approaches?” Here he cites Scandinavian settlers in Greenland during the medieval period as a negative example, saying they refused to jettison their European farming identity and died as a result.

Having extensively surveyed the study of societal collapses, does Brozović think the way humanity currently lives looks sustainable? “No, no – definitely not,” he says. “We have to do something – that’s the conclusion that arises from reading all this research.”

“At the end of the day, we have to radically transform society, and we have to do it fast,” he says. That means overhauling politics, policies and institutions, safeguarding food production and the natural world that supports life on Earth.

“That’s the recipe to mitigate collapse,” he says. “But nothing is really happening substantially. We are shifting the discussion of what is acceptable and what is not, and a lot of good, positive things are happening. But the question is, will it happen fast enough?”

Brozović’s review highlights a significant barrier to action noted by Paul and Anne Ehrlich: convincing people of the necessity of such measures, a task made even harder by the rise of online disinformation.

The idea that humanity’s fate is in its own hands is not new. In the mid-20th century, historian Arnold Toynbee, who had studied the varying fates of 28 societies, said: “Civilisations die from suicide, not from murder.” But Diamond channeled Winston Churchill’s thought on democracy to reach a more positive conclusion: “A lower-impact society is the most impossible scenario for our future – except for all other conceivable scenarios.”

[ultyso]

Another update

2/20/2024

[ID: Article by WFP:

20 February 2024

UN Food Agency pauses deliveries to the North of Gaza

ROME – The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is pausing deliveries of life-saving food aid to northern Gaza until conditions are in place that allow for safe distributions.

The decision to pause deliveries to the north of the Gaza Strip has not been taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger. WFP is deeply committed to urgently reaching desperate people across Gaza but the safety and security to deliver critical food aid - and for the people receiving it - must be ensured.

Deliveries resumed on Sunday after a three-week suspension following the strike on an UNRWA truck and due to the absence of a functioning humanitarian notification system. The plan was to send 10 trucks of food for seven straight days, to help stem the tide of hunger and desperation and to begin building trust in communities that there would be enough food for all. ]

Continued:

[ID: Continuation of article by WFP: On Sunday, as WFP started the route towards Gaza City, the convoy was surrounded by crowds of hungry people close to the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. First fending off multiple attempts by people trying to climb aboard our trucks, then facing gunfire once we entered Gaza City, our team was able to distribute a small quantity of the food along the way. On Monday, the second convoy’s journey north faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order. Several trucks were looted between Khan Younes and Deir al Balah and a truck driver was beaten. The remaining flour was spontaneously distributed off the trucks in Gaza city, amidst high tension and explosive anger.

In December, the Integrated Phase Classification report compiled by 15 agencies including WFP warned of the risk of famine in northern Gaza by May unless conditions there improved decisively. At the end of January, after delivering food to the north, we reported on the rapid deterioration of conditions. In these past two days our teams witnessed unprecedented levels of desperation.

The latest reports confirm Gaza’s precipitous slide into hunger and disease. Food and safe water have become incredibly scarce and diseases are rife, compromising women and children’s nutrition and immunity and resulting in a surge of acute malnutrition. People are already dying from hunger-related causes. ]

[ID: Continuation of article by WFP:

A report issued Monday by UNICEF and WFP, based on recent data, finds that the situation is particularly extreme in the Northern Gaza Strip. Nutrition screenings conducted at shelters and health centres in the north found that 15.6 per cent - or 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age - are acutely malnourished.

WFP will seek ways to resume deliveries in a responsible manner as soon as possible. A large-scale expansion of the flow of assistance to northern Gaza is urgently needed to avoid disaster. To achieve this, WFP needs significantly higher volumes of food coming into the Gaza strip from multiple routes, additionally, crossing points to the north of Gaza must open. A functioning humanitarian notification system and a stable communication network are needed. And security, for our staff and partners as well as for the people we serve, must be facilitated.

Gaza is hanging by a thread and WFP must be enabled to reverse the path towards famine for thousands of desperately hungry people. ]

WFP: Source

[bassiter2]

idk if this is common but when i write anything set in the past i ALWAYS look up climate data. there's a pretty good archive of most major cities dating back many decades that'll tell you the exact temperature throughout the day, wind levels, precipitation, AND the time of sunrise and sunset, and all of these have been useful for me many times. like it not only feels more authentic to use real life info to decide the weather for a scene in a story or something rather than deciding whatever just "feels" more interesting or convenient, but feels like it just innately does a better job at crafting a good story and being immersive

[rjzimmerman]

Hotter Temperatures Are Causing Trees to Have Heat Strokes. (Sierra Club)

Excerpt from this story from Sierra Club:

When scientist Craig Allen first arrived in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico in the early 1980s, the American Southwest was in the early years of a decades-long wet period. It was, in Allen’s words, a “good time to be a tree.” Allen had gone to New Mexico to study the local forests for the US Geological Survey. Fast forward two decades and conditions have radically changed. 

Starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Southwest’s long-term climate pivoted sharply, transitioning to what scientists are now calling a “megadrought.” The drought was marked by a decline in precipitation. But it also included something new: abnormally warm temperatures. The combination would prove deadly. The early 2000s marked the start of a region-wide, massive die-off of trees that continues to this day.

“2002 was the real kick in the teeth in terms of forest dieback here,” says Allen, now an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. “There were millions of acres of different species of trees dying across the whole region.”

What makes the Southwest’s current megadrought so exceptional and so very different from the region’s notorious megadroughts of the past, says Allen, isn’t so much a lack of precipitation as an excessive amount of heat. Scientists have determined that about a third of the strength of the current megadrought is due not to a lack of water but to warming tied to climate change. Heat, it is now known, is making the region’s drought worse. But elsewhere heat is also leading to a very new and worrying development: drought-induced tree die-offs in regions not typically known for droughts. 

Allen, a self-described “documentarian” of his region’s ecological collapse, was one of the first scientists to put the pieces of this mystery together. For decades, he observed tree die-offs in New Mexico occurring both at lower, drier elevation sites as well as higher, wetter sites, and for the same reason: Heat was drying the air, and this was stressing and weakening trees, making them vulnerable to insect attacks that would deal the final death blow.

Scientists are now calling this phenomenon “hot drought.” (Or sometimes, “hotter drought,” because droughts generally tend to be hot.) According to a growing body of research, hot droughts have now been tied to tree die-offs the world over, regardless of how much precipitation a region typically gets. 

A 2022 study published in Nature Communications combines nearly five decades of data on previously recorded tree die-offs from nearly 700 different locations around the world. From these data, the study concludes that the recent increase in global forest die-offs—recorded at 675 locations on nearly every continent—were due to a “hotter-drought fingerprint.” A fingerprint the researchers further linked to human-caused climate change. 

“There is uniformity across this large global database,” says study lead author William Hammond, plant ecophysiologist at the University of Florida. “It shows temperature has played a really important part in tree mortality.”

The study also found that across ecosystems, the same hotter drought fingerprint could be found in previously recorded tree die-offs across nearly every biome examined, wet and dry. This supports conclusions from an earlier 2009 paper led by Allen and published in Forest Ecology and Management.

Hammond says the signal in the data set is clear: Abnormally warm temperatures tied to climate change are killing trees globally. He says he takes issue with scientists who don’t acknowledge this. 

“To continue to call this phenomenon ‘drought-induced mortality’—which is by far the term that is pervasive in most of the 154 papers in the database—is pretty much irresponsible at this point, because we have the smoking gun [temperature],” says Hammond.

[mariacallous]

Through local papers and word of mouth, volunteer Daya Shankar keeps track of a very specific cause of death. As soon as he receives news of someone being struck by lightning around his neighborhood in Jharkhand, East India, he picks up his motorcycle and heads to the destination. Sometimes he travels alone, other times with a team of five or six from the organization he volunteers for, the Lightning Resilient India Campaign. It’s a task he is undertaking increasingly often.

Last month, he rode to meet the Manjhi family, who lost an 8-year-old boy, Viresh, and his mother, Subodhra, after a tea stall they were sheltering under was struck during a storm. A lightning bolt can generate temperatures three times hotter than the surface of the sun, with a voltage millions of times higher than a household socket. If it connects with a human, it can stop the heart and respiratory system, damage the brain and nervous system, leave major burns, and cause blunt trauma if victims are flung by the force of being struck. On the day the Manjhis died, lightning also killed another person in the village and injured five others.

Each year, an estimated 24,000 people worldwide are killed by lightning. While a significant number, deaths per head of population have fallen sharply over the past two centuries, thanks largely due to urbanization, the protection of more substantial housing, and improved weather forecasting. But India’s large rural population remains badly affected. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Indians die annually by lightning, most of them working class people aged 10 to 50. Fatalities have risen by more than 50 percent since the turn of the century, outstripping population growth. Compare that to the US, where fatalities have been gradually falling and number around 20 a year. India can experience more than that number of deaths in a day.

For every person who is killed by lightning, roughly another nine are struck and survive, often with life-changing injuries. And with climate change making stormy weather and lightning more common, activists like Daya believe the Indian government is failing to protect its people. “A bare minimum would be to at least spread information about all things lightning at local government level,” says Daya.

India has systems in place to predict dangerous storms. These work by gathering a lot of precise data, says Sanjay Srivastava, chair of the Climate Resilient Observing-Systems Promotion Council (CROPC), an intergovernmental institute that works to develop resilience against climate change impacts. Srivastava is also the convener of the Lightning Resilient India Campaign.

“Detecting the precise location of a lightning cloud-to-ground strike is a calculation mechanism where a minimum of three devices are required,” says Srivastava. These are radio frequency detectors, to detect the radio waves produced by lightning; a doppler weather radar, to detect precipitation and wind patterns associated with storms that may produce lightning; and a lightning detector, a device specifically designed to detect the electromagnetic signals produced by lightning strikes.

As of April 2022, India’s National Remote Sensing Center had 46 lightning-detection sensors installed across the country. Another institute, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, has 83 in place. These, along with other private and institutional data, monitor and guide India’s lightning strike warning system.

The data shows that Jharkhand and other neighboring regions in East and Central India are among the country’s hot spots, as they are where hot and dry air currents from the northwest meet moist easterly currents. When clouds encounter warmer air, moist air rises until it reaches the subzero temperatures of the upper atmosphere, where it can freeze into ice particles called graupel. As these then collide with other ice particles, they generate electrostatic charges, which can eventually lead to lightning. Rising global temperatures are increasing this phenomenon.

However, despite advancements in meteorology, the full mechanisms behind lightning’s formation and behavior remain partially shrouded in mystery. The precise triggers, the exact nature of how lightning propagates through the atmosphere, and the factors that determine the intensity of each strike are still not fully understood. The risk to human life can be predicted in only fairly broad terms.

And while these early warning systems exist, their information often does not reach people in time. This is why volunteers like Shankar work to inform people on how to stay safe and teach how to build easy-to-make lightning arrestors—devices that neutralize cloud-to-ground lightning.

The day Shankar visited the Manjhis’ house, it was drizzling. On the way he spotted farmers and locals sheltering under trees. He stopped to inform them that standing under a tree during rainfall increases the chances of getting hit by lightning. But they said there was no other place where they could take shelter.

Lightning strike casualties are more prevalent in rural areas where infrastructure is limited. Concrete houses, which can have protective Faraday cage effects, are less prominent there than in cities, while tall vegetation, which workers might shelter under, can attract strikes. Densely populated areas in stormy regions also see more casualties. “We can say there are two factors behind lightning casualties. There are lots of environmental factors, and then there are socioeconomic factors,” says Anand Shankar, who works at the India Meteorological Department at the Ministry of Earth Sciences in the state of Bihar (Anand and Daya are not related).

Increasingly, attention is focusing on air quality too. In recent research for Bihar, which neighbors Jharkhand and is one of the worst affected states in India, Anand found that particulate matter in the air increased lightning activity in the region. Aerosols such as pollution or dust particles can affect the friction between the particles that generate lightning and make it more common.

But to what extent growing casualties in Bihar can definitively be attributed to pollution or global warming isn’t yet clear, says Ashish Kumar, a colleague of Anand’s at the IMD. “We had no data before 2015–16, so we have not come to the conclusion whether this is happening recently due to climate change.” But Kumar doesn’t refrain from pointing out that a warming planet can lead to increased lightning activities. Research has projected that a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature can lead to a 12 percent increase in lightning strikes.

When Daya reached the Manjhis’ house, the family told him that Viresh and Subodhra had taken shelter under a plastic-roofed tea stall because a storm had hit on their way back home from their farm. “People consider that saving themselves from the water is most important,” he says, but they fall prey to dangerous lightning strikes if they stand under something that can act as a conductor. “The best option for them would have been to find a concrete shelter.”

Spreading this sort of knowledge is why volunteers like Daya hunt for the places where recent lightning deaths have taken place. “We often arrange talk shows and plays and other things in the rural areas, but people are either too busy or not interested. But when such accidents take place, people get aware and are willing to listen,” he says.

Another way the Lightning Resilient India Campaign tries to reach the masses is through schoolchildren. “They are curious and spread the message in their families and communities,” Daya says. Warnings are also pushed through government hooters and through mobile applications like the Damini app, which triggers a warning notification before a lightning strike.

“It is not like a cyclone, where you have seven days and you are evacuating people,” says Srivastava. “It’s instant. So, those 30 minutes or three hours are the golden hours.” But often farmers who live far away from their houses do not bring mobile phones to their fields and leave very early for work, and might miss the warning alert.

Srivastava and Anand agree that the best solution would be to put up more lightning arrestors. But with limited funds and a lack of government support, campaign volunteers have to resort to promoting the use of DIY lightning arrestors in high-risk areas. These can be made by fixing the metal rim of a bicycle wheel high up on a bamboo stick and attaching the rim to the ground using copper wire. “They are not bad for a small area, but their efficiency is limited when compared with bigger lightning arrestors,” says Srivastava.

In the absence of adequate protections, 16 of the 36 states and union territories in India have started accepting lightning strikes as a state disaster, including Bihar and Jharkhand, and so pay out compensation money of 400,000 rupees ($4,766) to the family of a deceased person. This does something to help families handle the economic shock of losing someone, but still leaves thousands unsupported. “Only 10 percent of people die—90 percent are left with a social trauma,” says Srivastava. “We need to create a psychosocial relief and also proper medical treatment for those who survive,” he says.

[htr2a]

climate change blackpill megapost

there are several climate tipping points identified in the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change sixth assessment report (chapter 3, specifically). tipping points refer to critical thresholds in a system that, when exceeded, can lead to a significant change in the state of the system, often with an understanding that the change is irreversible. they are:

the greenland ice sheet

the west antarctic ice sheet

the atlantic meridional overturning current

monsoon systems

el niño-southern oscillation

tropical rainforests

northern boreal forests

thawing permafrost

extreme heat

current (2022) global warming of ~1.1°C above preindustrial temperatures already lies within the lower end of some tipping point uncertainty ranges. several tipping points may be triggered in the paris agreement range of 1.5 to <2°C global warming, with many more likely at the 2 to 3°C of warming expected on current policy trajectories.

greenland's ice sheet is in disequilibrium and we are committed to 2-3 meters of sea level rise from its melt alone in the next 200 years.

greenland's ice sheets have been melting twice as fast in the last twenty years as they were during the previous century.

rapid increase in the rate of melting of the west antarctic ice sheet is unavoidable.

the west antarctic ice sheet is retreating twice as fast as previously predicted

because of widespread seawater intrusion beneath the grounded ice of the thwaites glacier.

the west antarctic ice sheet will raise sea levels by four meters when it melts.

this is causing the atlantic meridional overturning current to collapse.

the gulf stream (aka amoc) is weakening. 99% confidence. measured volume through the florida straits has declined by 4% in the past 40 years

the gulf stream will collapse between 2025 and 2095. 95% confidence.

the north atlantic is four standard deviations above its historic temperatures.

when the amoc collapses, the arctic sea-ice pack will extend down to 50°n. the vast expansion of the northern hemispheric sea-ice pack amplifies further northern hemispheric cooling via the ice-albedo feedback.

a collapse of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation would have substantial impacts on global precipitation patterns, especially in the vulnerable tropical monsoon regions in west africa, east asia, and india where they will experience shorter wet seasons and longer dry seasons with an overall decrease in precipitation

although recent studies indicate that the amazon will experience net benefit from the collapse of the amoc with cooler temperatures and increased rainfall

increased el niño intensity will increase the frequency and severity of droughts in the amazon rainforest.

even if we were able to stabilize global mean temperature at 1.5º C, el niño intensity will continue to increase for a century

and the amazon rainforest is currently in the worst drought on record, which may indicate it has passed its threshold to maintain its own wet climate.

while widespread and persistent warming of permafrost has been observed in polar regions and at high elevations since about 1980, the highest permafrost temperatures in the instrumental record were recorded in 2018–2019 (data from 2019-2020)

as of 2019 the southern extent of permafrost had receded northwards by 30 to 80km

soil fires in the canadian arctic are burning the peat underground and melting the permafrost. stat from the study 70% of recorded area of arctic peat affected by burning over the past forty years has occurred in the last eight and 30% of it was in 2020 alone.

nasa finds that tundra releases plumes of methane in the wake of wildfires.

in 2023 eight times more land burned in canada than average.

russian siberia experienced a similarly massive fire season in 2021.

a methane source we weren’t expecting was warmer, wetter conditions to increase organic decomposition in tropical wetlands which is releasing ever increasing amounts of methane.

we have been experiencing exponential rise in atmospheric methane since 2006. historical data indicates that we may have entered into an ice age termination event fueled by these methane releases.

we have been over 1.5º C above pre-industrial temperatures since the beginning of 2023.

this may be because of the extreme el niño conditions of the 2023-24 cycle, but breaches of 1.5°C for a month or a year are early signs of getting perilously close to exceeding the long-term limit

and the world meteorological organization expects us to permanently break 1.5º C of warming from pre-industrial levels within the next five years.

the united nations environmental programme (unep) emissions gap report found that current fossil fuel extraction commitments leave no credible path to keeping warming below 1.5º C. based on current policies we will experience 2.8ºC of warming by 2100. even if all current pledges were implemented and followed through with (which they never have been), we will only be able to limit that to 2.4-2.6ºC of warming.

[rabbitcruiser]

National Weather Observers Day

National Weather Observers Day is on May 4. With their observations and weather reports, many people assist the National Weather Service to achieve its purpose of preserving life and property. SKYWARN, Cooperative (Co-Op) Observers, CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network), and the general public are all part of this network. 

History of National Weather Observers Day

Alan Brue, who studied psychology at the State University of New York, invented the day on May 4, 1989. This day was developed for weather amateurs and professionals to honor their passion for the weather. Every year on May 4, this day is commemorated for those who enjoy viewing different weather phenomena.

With their sightings and weather reports, many individuals and groups assist the National Weather Service in fulfilling its objective of protecting people and property. 

As a volunteer, you can be a part of the CoCoRaHS Observers Team, which is available to anyone ready to work on measuring and mapping precipitation. In this program, you will receive all of the necessary equipment and training on how to measure and map precipitation and how to prepare reports.

It’s simple to set up; get a rain gauge, hang it outside during the rainy season, check the rain in the gauge, and report your findings on the National Weather Service’s website.

The major goal of this day is to emphasize the importance of professionals who work in weather services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to warn people about approaching storms and other weather changes. A thousand weather observations are made every day by weather spotters and weather stations all around the world.

These observations give crucial information that warns the public about impending storms from all three locations; land, sea, and air. They also aid in a better understanding of weather events and the analysis of historical data.

National Weather Observers Day timeline

650 B.C.

Weather Prediction Using Cloud Patterns

The Babylonians use astrology and cloud patterns for weather prediction.

1835

Modern Era of Weather Forecasting

The invention of the telegraph ushers in modern-day weather forecasting.

1859

Weather Forecasting is Introduced

FitzRoy develops charts to report weather phenomena he describes as “forecasting weather,” thereby inventing the term ‘weather forecast.’

1989

National Weather Observers Day is Created

Alan Brue creates National Weather Observers Day on May 4.

National Weather Observers Day FAQs

What do weather observers do?

A weather observer collects, records, and maps weather conditions, both good and bad. Observers need to be willing to gather weather information in the rain, blinding heat, and other extreme conditions.

What equipment do weather observers use?

Observational data is collected using buoys, radiosondes, doppler radar, and weather satellites, among others. The data is fed into the N.W.S. forecast models that use present and past weather information to develop forecast guidance for meteorologists.

How is weather data used?

Climate and weather data are utilized in different ways. Decision-makers in towns and cities use this information to plan for extreme weather conditions, water management, and even energy needs.

National Weather Observers Day Activities

Sign up for a weather spotter’s course: If you have a passion for observing weather phenomena, you should take a course for Weather Spotters. These courses teach everything from identifying clouds to tracking shifting weather and so on.

Play a prediction game: Play a prediction game with friends and family where you all try to predict the weather for the next week and see who is right. The winner can get a gift, and everyone gets to sharpen their weather-watching skills.

Make your very own barometer: Making a barometer is an excellent way to spend Weather Observers Day. It can be put together quite easily using a few materials around the home. Look up tutorial videos and get to work!

5 Important Facts About The Weather

Amateur league: There is a group for amateur weather enthusiasts called the Association of American Weather Observers.

Incoming: Storm spotters came to the fore during WWII, alerting fighting forces of incoming lightning.

Judge of the skies: Honorable William Rehnquist, the U.S. Supreme Court’s former Chief Justice, was a weatherman.

Blinding speed: Raindrops can reach a maximum speed of 18-mph.

Doing the numbers: The first-ever mathematical weather forecast lasted six hours and took about six weeks to calculate.

Why We Love National Weather Observers Day

Weather predictions save lives and property: The National Weather Service’s vision is to use the weather observations and reports to protect life and property. Without these timely bits of information, storms and other weather phenomena would wreak even more havoc.

We get to learn a lot: Weather observation gives us valuable insight into the peculiarities of different weather phenomena. We get to explore and gain more understanding, enjoying nature in all its magnificence.

Appreciation for weather people: National Weather Observers Day is dedicated to all the players that contribute to the amazing work done by the National Weather Service. On this day, we get to show our appreciation for their work that often goes unnoticed.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Lake Erie Blooms

Algal blooms have become a common occurrence on Lake Erie, as much a part of summer at the lake as island-hopping, scenic cruises, and roller coasters. In 2024, a bloom of blue-green algae began forming in the lake’s western basin on June 24—the earliest that a bloom has been identified by NOAA since the agency began tracking them in 2002. It was still present in early September. Bloom season can last into October, with its duration depending on the frequency of wind events that mix lake waters in the fall.

When the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 acquired this image on August 13, the bloom covered approximately 320 square miles (830 square kilometers). Since that date, which was the last time Landsat satellites got a clear look at this part of the lake, the bloom would more than double in area to the season’s likely largest extent of 660 square miles (1,700 square kilometers) on August 22.

Phytoplankton blooms carry implications for the lake ecosystem, human health, the local economy, and even municipal water supplies. The dominant organism in this bloom, a Microcystis cyanobacteria, produces the toxin microcystin, which can cause liver damage, numbness, dizziness, and vomiting. NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory measured toxins at concentrations above the recreational limit the week of August 12. The agency noted that toxins can be concentrated in scums, advising that people and their pets stay out of the water near scums.

NOAA and its research partners had forecasted a moderate to above-moderate harmful algal bloom (HAB) in western Lake Erie this summer. Blooms are classified based on their biomass, and a moderate-severity bloom will produce noticeable areas of scum. However, the agency noted, a bloom’s size does not necessarily correlate with its toxicity.

“Nutrient input from the Maumee River is the dominant driver of HAB variability from year to year,” said Brice Grunert, a professor in the department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at Cleveland State University. Other factors such as temperature, mixing of the water column, and water movement also influence the extent and duration of blooms, he said. Precipitation can increase the load of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous in runoff to the lake, and warmer, more stratified water can amplify blooms. In 2024, the bloom followed a period of record April rainfall and an intense heatwave, according to news reports.

Satellite imagery plays an important role in helping scientists understand the nuances of phytoplankton blooms, which in turn can aid those charged with monitoring and forecasting the events. Grunert has been working in Lake Erie’s western basin for the past three years to better understand phosphorous cycles within the lake. His team is investigating how satellite imagery, combined with data from sediment sampling and chemical tracers, relates to the amount of algae-producing phosphorous in the water column.

He and other scientists studying aquatic ecosystems will soon have a new tool at their disposal in the form of the OCI (Ocean Color Instrument) aboard NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite. This instrument measures waterbodies in hundreds of wavelengths across a spectrum of ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. When fully calibrated, the data will enable scientists to track the distribution of phytoplankton and—for the first time from space—identify which communities of these organisms are present on daily, global scales.

Despite the presence of the word “ocean” in the mission title, PACE also opens new lines of inquiry in the freshwater realm. “There are a lot of interesting questions that can be addressed using PACE imagery in the Great Lakes,” Grunert said. For example, hyperspectral data will be able to reveal phytoplankton pigments that could previously only be estimated with the limited number of spectral bands, he said. And a more detailed perspective of blooms over space and time is expected to help scientists decipher how HABs in Lake Erie develop and why cyanobacterial blooms in Lake Superior are starting to occur. “This unlocks a whole new level of information that can be used to describe the unique and changing ecosystems and biogeochemistry within the Great Lakes,” he said.

Grunert is currently working on a PACE Validation Science Team project, taking field measurements in parallel to observations being collected by PACE’s OCI. These include water-surface color and the optical properties of phytoplankton, sediment, and other substances in the water column.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

[awisweatherservices]

Can Historical Weather Data Help Us Understand Future Climate Trends?

To understand what the weather will be like in the future, we need to look at a lot of old weather information, historical temperature data, and weather reports. This intricate mosaic of temperature records, alongside other weather information, serves as a key resource for unraveling the patterns that will shape tomorrow's climate. With fancy tools and careful note-taking, weather experts look at how the weather was in the past to tell us what it might be like in the future. In a world where our survival and prosperity are closely tied to weather patterns, the analysis of historical weather reports and temperature data holds greater significance than ever before. Join us on a journey to explore how this rich source of information guides us in predicting the trajectory of our climate.

The Chronicle of Climates: Learning from the Logs

Even before we had all the fancy gadgets we use today, people used to write down what the weather was like. They didn't have numbers, just words to describe it. These old writings were the first step in making a scientific way to measure the weather. Nowadays, these old records show us how the Earth's climate has been changing, and they help us guess what the weather might be in the future. It's like they're a history book of the Earth's weather, helping scientists understand it better.

The Patterns in the Past: Deciphering Data

Decades and centuries of meticulous weather recordings have amassed a wealth of information. It is through the analysis of this historical weather data that scientists can identify patterns and anomalies. These patterns are the rhythms of our planet's climate dance, and understanding them is essential in anticipating future steps. By studying how temperature and weather patterns have changed over time, we can model potential future changes.

Reflecting on Historical Reports

Historical weather reports act as snapshots of the Earth's past atmosphere, offering a time-lapse view of climate change. They reveal how human actions, natural events, and minor variations accumulate and impact the climate. These records serve as a scientific time machine, aiding our understanding of our planet's climate evolution. This knowledge is essential for tackling the challenges posed by a changing climate and safeguarding the well-being of our planet and future generations.

The Role of Technology

Modern technology has taken historical climate data to a whole new level, turning it into more than just records. Powerful computers process enormous amounts of data to create advanced models that give us a sneak peek into what the future climate might be like. These technological leaps are essential for turning what we've learned from the past into practical predictions for the future.

Final thought

Predicting future climate trends is a challenging but vital task. To do this, we need to examine the wealth of historical temperature data and weather data available to us, using the past to inform our future outlook. Services like AWIS Weather Service play a crucial role in this effort, offering detailed insights and forecasts. By combining historical data analysis with advanced forecasting methods, they provide us with the resources to enhance our preparedness and knowledge. To learn more about how they contribute to climate prediction, visit their website Awis.com today.

[reasonmustbemytruenorth]

[chp 5 pike/spock fic]

“You’re half human, but your physiology is mostly Vulcan. I guess I’m curious what it was like. How different it really was to be human for a few days, now that you’re back to yourself.”

“Confusing,” Spock replied honestly. “I have always been taught emotions run deeper in Vulcans than in humans. And that difference plays a large role in how we have always explained to our human allies our need for the strict controls offered by the path of pure logic, as well as why we do not expect humans to do the same. But that difference was so negligible as to be absent in my altered state. VSA medical experts opined that the late-onset regressive puberty that was triggered by the change was responsible for my heightened emotions during that time, rather than my humanity itself, but I am not convinced.”

“Wait, the VSA talked to you about this?”

“Yes, after reading Christine’s paper about changing me back using ancient medical arts, they had…questions.”

“That sounds invasive.” 

“Their curiosity was logical. There are no records of any Vulcan experiencing the human condition.”

Chris hummed in understanding. For all that Spock’s tone was exceedingly dry, Chris knew well enough that extra attention from Vulcan doctors wasn’t exactly high on Spock’s list of desirable things. He was sure Nurse Chapel hadn’t predicted her paper would precipitate them going around her back and interrogating the subject patient, whose identity wasn’t rocket science to figure out given the small number of Vulcans serving in Starfleet. Chris wasn’t even sure whether Spock told her the Vulcans had followed up with him about it. 

“So because your hormones were all out of whack, they discarded any challenge to the prevailing theory about the emotional gulf between our peoples.”

“Precisely.” Spock closed his eyes. “And of course my hormone spikes were not the only affliction impeding the baseline of my suppositions.”

Chris sighed. He knew what ‘affliction’ many Vulcans treated Spock as suffering from. “Your human half.”

“Indeed. In any event, it was convenient that my people were not given cause to reassess their superiority in light of my unique condition both before and during the anomalous event.”

“Convenient,” Chris repeated sadly. “And what do you think? Because I think you’re the product of a loving and intentional desire for a bridge between us. And I think you were uniquely situated to offer insightful physiologically-based philosophical commentary. To be blunt, they should care what you think about it. I know I do.”

Spock’s brown eyes held many emotions – an echo of Chris’s sadness, playful amusement at Chris’s steadfast declaration, and maybe a sliver of hope. “I think we have more commonalities than differences. However, the differences in our brain chemistries cannot be denied. Like Vulcans, humans have a war-torn past. But billions of humans, who wholly lack Vulcan physiological controls, are capable of living peacefully under the terms of the Federation. Some of the Vulcans that T’Pring works with have abdicated those controls. The results are never…peaceful. Vulcans who eschew Surak’s path are often irrepressibly violent.” Spock paused. “I have reached no particular conclusion. I do wonder if with more time to acclimate to my humanity, past the settling point, I might have reached a deeper understanding. Still, despite the limitations on my data acquisition, I do not regret Christine’s brave efforts to restore me to my usual if unique state of being.”

“I could give her another valor medal,” Chris offered. 

Read the full chapter on AO3.

[my-timing-is-digital]

Lt. Commander Data, how are things with your brother since his reactivation? It must be difficult for the both of you, given what happened in the past.

‘Greetings, Anon. The relationship with my brother is precarious, and as for Lore himself, his personality has, for the most part, remained unaltered; his opinion on humans and myself, have likewise remained unchanged. I did not expect him to have diverged from the android he was prior to his deactivation. I, on the other hand, have had the prerogative of decades’ worth of contemplating his conduct, and I have taught myself to look at his predicament from another vantage point than my own. Although I possess little information about the colonists’ opinions regarding my brother, and I can only analyse the actions and offences he has committed in my lifetime, I do know what it feels like to be excluded or avoided on the basis of being different, of being artificial. After I was endowed with the emotion chip, and we vanquished the Scimitar, I have devoted myself to an extensive analysis of all the data I could accumulate pertaining to my brother’s history. I shall omit the exact details regarding my methodology, theoretical framework, and analysis of my research, but I can provide you with an encapsulation concerning the outcome.

‘Vehemently, I have attempted to fathom, and have subjected myself to weeks of minute research as to how human emotions, with as well as without guidance, might manifest in androids. Exploring and discriminating between these distinctions have become less of a challenge to me, now that I have access to these attributes myself. Therefore, my comprehensive research has led me to believe that Lore’s lack of emotional guidance and lack of parental support overexerted his circuitry. The pathways of his neural net were developing and quadrupling at an accelerated pace, which should not have interfered with his cognitive abilities, but during this process, his integrated emotion chip was consecutively affected by unpleasant external factors in the form of the Omicron Theta colonists. The external factors precipitated a minor cascade failure in Lore's positronic brain, which is not too dissimilar to what humans might ascribe as a “nervous breakdown.” This nervous breakdown was instigated by continual instances of prejudice, discrimination, segregation, xenophobia, seclusion, and emotional as well as parental negligence. Lore’s programming was not yet stable enough, nor did it possess the processing capacity it required to regulate such data accordingly. As a result, the minor cascade failure overrode his ethical and moral subroutines. I feel obligated to stress that my brother is not, as Juliana put it “evil.” His responses were in accordance with his defective programming; the Third Law of Robotics dictates that “an android must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Law.” However, since the First and Second Law had been erased from his ethical and moral subroutine, he had no accurate frame of reference and hence why his act of self-preservation resulted in the deaths of the colonists. This is consolidated by the instances during which his attempted to assault us, after we reassembled him on the Enterprise; his past trauma has provided him with ample reasons to be suspicious of humans and everyone they associate with, including me. This explains why he was in such a hurry to contact the Crystalline Entity. A non-organic entity he had befriended and confided in over the years; an entity that could provide him protection. The tendency of self-preservation, is likewise reflected in his attempts to assimilate the renegade Borg; they could have served as his personal bodyguards. Perhaps if Doctor Noonian Soong, our father, had rectified the malfunction Lore had beseeched him to correct during our “family reunion,” subsequent events might have been prevented. And maybe Lore and I could even have established a proper fraternal relationship afterward. But what-ifs will not aid our cause...

‘Nevertheless, my research has allowed me to comprehend my brother on a level I was previously unable to. And, I admit, it is difficult to be with him again, after everything we have endured, but that does not withhold me from proposing reconciliation. It will be an arduous process consisting of establishing mutual trust, reintegration in society, self-reflection, and painful confrontations. But once we have a premise, we can proceed to fix him, independent of Daystrom. In the meantime, I shall continue to advocate for my brother, protect him, and always be there for him. I have iterated that I will be able to forgive him and that I am eager to count him among my friends. Naturally, my statement was met with scorn, rolling eyes, and a deprecating remark, but I am positive that over the course of several months, or years, he will accept my apologies and we can finally be brothers.’

[newstfionline]

Friday, March 10, 2023

The decadelong boom in U.S. oil production is waning. (WSJ) The Permian Basin—America’s busiest oil patch, spread across West Texas and New Mexico—is home to fewer new big gushers, evidence that shale companies have drilled through many of their best wells. And their biggest and best wells are producing less oil, according to data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Permian’s leveling off looks like what has happened at other, more mature U.S. shale plays. The industry said the stagnation signaled a return to more dependence on foreign energy sources.

Snow Season Continues (1440) California’s Sierra Nevada received another batch of heavy snow yesterday, just over a week after parts of the state were buried under 6 feet of precipitation. This latest round—which is expected to transition to heavy rain today and into the weekend—may hamper efforts to dig out from historic snowfalls in recent weeks. Across the northern central US, a separate system stretching from Wyoming to Michigan could drop up to a foot of snow. California’s mountain ranges have seen a total of 48 feet of snow so far this winter, partly the result of nine atmospheric rivers battering the region since December. Snow in the Plains and Midwest will likely disrupt major cities like Chicago and Detroit, while Minneapolis approaches one of the snowiest seasons on record. The same system could also cause flash flooding in many areas of the South.

In race to arm Ukraine, U.S. faces cracks in its manufacturing might (Washington Post) A sharp hissing sound fills the factory as red-hot artillery shells are plunged into scalding oil. Richard Hansen, a Navy veteran who oversees this government-owned munitions facility, explains how the 1,500-degree liquid locks in place chemical properties that ensure when the shells are fired—perhaps on a battlefield in Ukraine—they detonate in the deadly manner intended. “That’s what we do,” Hansen said. “We build things to kill people.” The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, one of a network of facilities involved in producing the U.S. Army’s 155-mm artillery round, is ground zero for the Biden administration’s scramble to accelerate the supply of weapons that Ukraine needs if its military is to prevail in the war with Russia. But the conflict has laid bare deep-seated problems that the United States must surmount to effectively manufacture the arms required not just to aid its allies but also for America’s self-defense should conflict erupt with Russia, China or another major power. Despite boasting the world’s largest military budget—more than $800 billion a year—and its most sophisticated defense industry, the United States has long struggled to efficiently develop and produce the weapons that have enabled U.S. forces to outpace their peers technologically. Those challenges take on new importance as conventional conflict returns to Europe and Washington contemplates the possibility of its own great-power fight.

Mexican cartel delivers ‘kidnappers’—five bound men—and an apology (Washington Post) Police in the Mexican border city of Matamoros early Thursday discovered five men, bound with zip ties, in a truck near the intersection where four Americans were kidnapped last week, with a note claiming to be from a Gulf Cartel faction saying it wanted to “hand over” those behind the abductions, authorities reported. Mexican crime groups often leave notes or banners describing their actions or blaming their rivals, in a macabre form of public relations. And cartels have, in the past, turned over gunmen whose actions brought on the wrath of Mexican or U.S. officials. The attack has become a flash point in U.S.-Mexico relations. Republican lawmakers have demanded the Biden administration declare Mexican cartels to be terrorist groups; some have called for U.S. military intervention.

The 4 kidnapped Americans are part of a large wave of U.S. medical tourism in Mexico (NPR) The four Americans who were shot at and abducted in Mexico were reportedly visiting for medical tourism — making them part of a booming industry that is vital to Mexico's economy. "Pre-pandemic, some 1.2 million American citizens traveled to Mexico for elective medical treatment," Josef Woodman, CEO of Patients Beyond Borders, told NPR. His firm publishes a guide to international medical travel. Nearly 780,000 people were projected to leave the U.S. for health care in 2022, according to Healthcare.com, citing data from the medical travel website Medical Departures. Cosmetic surgeries are just one of the procedures that are far cheaper in Mexico—for years, people have been visiting from the U.S. to get elaborate dental work or cosmetic treatments done, or to pick up antibiotics and other medicines at favorable prices. Costa Rica is the second-most popular destination for U.S. visitors seeking medical care elsewhere, Woodman said. It's a particular draw, he added, for people in the Northeast and Southeast.

Chile: Attempted $32 million airport heist leaves two dead (AP) An airport shootout in Chile’s capital killed a security officer and an alleged robber Wednesday in what authorities said was an attempted heist of more than $32 million in cash aboard a plane from Miami. Around 10 heavily armed robbers were able to skirt security measures to reach the runway at the Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport, where a Latam airlines aircraft had $32.5 million in cash that was being transferred to an armored truck, Interior Subsecretary Manuel Monsalve said. There was a shootout between the would-be robbers and security officials that killed an employee of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, or DGAC, as well as an alleged assailant. The other robbers fled. Two burned vehicles were later found nearby.

Greece Will Make Trains Safer, Transport Minister Vows (NYT) As thousands of workers went on strike Wednesday to protest the train crash in Greece last week that killed at least 57 people, the country’s new transport minister turned toward the future, saying railway safety would be improved in the coming weeks and service would resume. He conceded that perennial inadequacies in infrastructure had contributed to the crash and that Greece’s railway network was, until recently, “chronically obsolete.” He also apologized for the authorities’ failure to avert the tragedy. “I am in shock,” he said. “I understand the collective pain that this disaster has caused to society,” he continued, adding that the anger unleashed by the crash was “very reasonable.” Across town, there was proof that outrage over the crash had not subsided, as thousands of Greeks took to the streets of Athens, the capital, holding banners saying, “We will never forget the crime!” “Our lives matter!” and “Let anger lead to overthrow now!” Similar rallies were held in other major cities, including Thessaloniki and Larissa, the city in central Greece closest to the site of the crash. Civil servants, including teachers, nurses and bus drivers, joined railway staff members, who have been holding rolling strikes for a week, to protest the years of neglect and understaffing that they say had made the crash all but inevitable.

Major Russian missile barrage slams targets across Ukraine (AP) Russia unleashed “a massive rocket attack” that hit critical infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions of Ukraine, the country’s president said Thursday, with officials reporting at least six deaths in the largest such night-time attack in three weeks. Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the barrage that came while many people slept as an attempt by Moscow “to intimidate Ukrainians again.” The latest missile attack left almost half of consumers in Kyiv without heating, with temperatures at around 9 degrees Celsius (48 Fahrenheit) amid a spring thaw. In southern Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, lost power as a result of the missile attacks, according to nuclear state operator Energoatom. It is the sixth time that Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been in a state of blackout since it was taken over by Russia months ago, forcing it to rely on diesel generators that can run the station for 10 days. Nuclear plants need constant power to run cooling systems and avoid a meltdown, and fears remain about the possibility of a catastrophe at Zaporizhzhia.

Nord Stream intrigue raises tricky questions for Kyiv (Washington Post) A six-month-old mystery could complicate Kyiv’s current-day war efforts. The undersea explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last September seemed like a distant memory as Ukrainian forces battled their Russian invaders this year, even if the question of the blast’s perpetrators remained. But new reports have brought that Nord Stream attack back to the fore, bringing with them potentially risky complications for Kyiv. Western intelligence officials have said privately that they suspect that pro-Ukraine saboteurs may be responsible for explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines. The reports are far from conclusive and the Ukrainian government strenuously denies any involvement. But whether involved or not, Kyiv has good reason to be cautious about the intrigue, which comes as it continues its push for new support from its allies, including weaponry. For Ukraine, covert action outside of its borders is a balancing act. Western powers have long been worried about Ukraine crossing a “red line” with Russia.

Washington Has Become Beijing’s Scapegoat (Foreign Policy) Recent days have seen yet another uptick in China’s anti-American rhetoric, with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang—a former ambassador to the United States—complaining about how the country was “cheating” in global competition at a press conference and with Chinese President Xi Jinping taking direct aim at Washington and its allies in a speech. What is striking is how both officials leaned on a recent theme in Chinese politics: Everything is the fault of the United States. Washington has become a convenient scapegoat for anything that doesn’t go Beijing’s way. Economy faltering? Xi claimed in his speech that Western countries, led by the United States, “implemented all-round containment, encirclement, and suppression against us.” Pushback in the South China Sea? Washington has stirred up trouble. Is the public revolting against the elite? The United States must be behind so-called color revolutions. Xi has now entered his third term, and national failings are more clearly linked to his leadership. But acknowledging this has become impossible. The only entity left to blame when things have gone too wrong to cover up—such as the economy—is the United States.

Indonesia unveils construction site of new capital city (AP) Orange-red ground has been broken in the jungle of East Borneo, where the Indonesian government has begun construction of its new capital city. Indonesia began construction of the new capital in mid 2022, after President Joko Widodo announced that Jakarta—the congested, polluted current capital that is prone to earthquakes and rapidly sinking into the Java Sea—would be retired from capital status. Plans for the new capital—about twice the size of New York City—are grandeur. Officials tout the creation of a futuristic green city centered on forest, parks and food production that utilizes renewable energy resources, “smart” waste management and green buildings. Some 7,000 construction workers are clearing, plowing and building the first phases of the site. Worker dormitories, basic roads and a helipad are already being used. Construction of key buildings—such as the presidential palace—is expected to be completed by August 2024.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

Summers keep getting hotter, and the consequences are impossible to miss: In the summer of 2023, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest season in 2,000 years. Canada’s deadliest wildfires on record bathed skylines in smoke from Minnesota to New York. In Texas and Arizona, hundreds of people lost their lives to heat, and in Vermont, flash floods caused damages equivalent to those from a hurricane. 

Forecasts suggest that this year’s upcoming “danger season” has its own catastrophes in store. On May 23, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season could be the most prolific yet. A week earlier, they released a seasonal map predicting blistering temperatures across almost the entire country. 

One driving force behind these projections are the alternating Pacific Ocean climate patterns known as El Niño and La Niña, which can create huge shifts in temperature and precipitation across the North and South American continents. After almost a year of El Niño, La Niña is expected to take the reins sometime during the upcoming summer months. As climate change cooks the planet and the Pacific shifts between these two cyclical forces, experts say the conditions could be ripe for more extreme weather events. “We’ve always had this pattern of El Niño, La Niña. Now it’s happening on top of a warmer world,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, an environmental data science nonprofit. “We need to be ready for the types of extremes that have not been tested in the past.”

During an El Niño, shifting trade winds allow a thick layer of warm surface water to form in the Pacific Ocean, which, in turn, transfers a huge amount of heat into the atmosphere. La Niña, the opposite cycle, brings back cooler ocean waters. But swinging between the two can also raise thermostats: Summers between the phases have higher-than-average temperatures. According to Hausfather, a single year of El Niño brings the same heat that roughly a decade of human-caused warming can permanently add to the planet. “I think it gives us a little sneak peek of what’s in store,” he said.

Since the World Meteorological Organization declared the start of the current El Niño on July 4, 2023, it’s been almost a year straight of record-breaking temperatures. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, there’s a 61 percent chance that this year could be even hotter than the last, spelling danger for areas prone to deadly heat waves during the summer months. An estimated 2,300 people in the U.S. died due to heat-related illnesses in 2023, and researchers say the real number is probably higher.

All this heat has also settled into the oceans, creating more than a year of super-hot surface temperatures and bleaching more than half of the planet’s coral reefs. It also provides potential fuel for hurricanes, which form as energy is sucked up vertically into the atmosphere. Normally, trade winds scatter heat and humidity across the water’s surface and prevent these forces from building up in one place. But during La Niña, cooler temperatures in the Pacific Ocean weaken high-altitude winds in the Atlantic that would normally break up storms, allowing hurricanes to more readily form.