Stephan: It is not just the Himalaya glaciers that are melting. This is melting is going on all over the world. It's not in the news, more people are interested in Meghan and Harry's new house in Montecito, California, but this trend is changing your world very quickly.
Citation: “Ice thickness and volume changes across the Southern Alps, New Zealand, from the little ice age to present” by Jonathan L. Carrivick, William H. M. James, Michael Grimes, Jenna L. Sutherland and Andrew M. Lorrey, 7 August 2020, Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-70276-8
Comparison of Lyell Glacier in 1866 (A) and in 2018 (B). Image A: View from Meins Knob by Julius Haast. 1867. Full citation: (published 1867, painted in 1866): ‘Report on the headwaters of the River Rakaia, with twenty illustrations, a map, and three appendixes. Christchurch, 1867 Haast, Johann Franz Julius von, 1822-1887. View from Meins Knob looking West, the Southern Alps with the Lyell Glacier. Haast family: Collection. Ref: A-149-003. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23228534 Image B: Upper Rakaia catchment looking west toward Lyell Glacier while flying over Meins Knob during the Southern Alps end of summer snowline survey in 2018: Credit: A. Lorrey – NIWA. Credit: Julius Haast and A. Lorrey – NIWA
Glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand have lost more ice mass since pre-industrial times than remains today, according to a new study.
Research led by the University of Leeds, in collaboration with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand, mapped Southern Alps ice loss from the end of the Little Ice Age — roughly 400 years ago — to 2019.
Stephan: All over the earth the temperature is rising, and this melting is going on. You don't hear about it, or read about it, unless you are actively trying to find out about it, but whether humanity acknowledges it or not the earth is changing in the most fundamental ways. In a few decades, nothing will be the same. Nothing you knew in your youth will be as it is becoming. Can you imagine when you lived without a computer, a smartphone, or the internet? Now multiply that a thousandfold; that's how big the change is going to be.
Greenland’s ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests.
Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory spanning 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish glaciers of the snow and ice being lost to summertime melting.
That melting is already causing global seas to rise about a millimeter on average per year. If all of Greenland’s ice goes, the water released would push sea levels up by an average of 6 meters — enough to swamp many coastal cities around the world. This process, however, would take decades.Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.
“Greenland is going to be the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is already pretty much dead at this point,” said glaciologist Ian Howat at Ohio State University. He and his colleagues published the study Thursday in the
Stephan: And the melting ice means rising sea levels, which doesn't just affect the ocean coastlines, the rivers will also be severely altered. While we are dealing with a psychotic incompetent the world is changing faster than anyone imagined possible.
Citation: The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
River avulsions, which occur when a river jumps its course and forms a new channel, will become much more frequent as a result of sea-level rise. Researchers at Caltech found that the intensity of these hazards will depend on the rate of sea-level rise and the sediment load carried by the river.
Even though avulsions are a natural phenomenon, they can turn into catastrophic and deadly flooding disasters. For example, river avulsions caused the 1887 Yellow River floods and the 1931 China floods which collectively killed about six million of people.
“A river avulsion is a catastrophic flood that is also crucial for sustaining coastal land,” said study lead author Austin Chadwick. “But the question is: how will sea-level rise affect these catastrophic floods?”
A 2014 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that the global average sea level could rise by as much as three feet by the end of this century. Scientists have been investigating how this would affect avulsions on deltas where a river meets an ocean or lake.
“Avulsions are the earthquakes of rivers,” said study co-author […]
Stephan: My wife and I live in Washington State and we have been filling out our ballots, which are reliably mailed to us, and then taking them to one of the many ballot boxes scattered around the county. Simple, straightforward, a non-issue. But I know that is not true in much of America and I am very concerned about the explicit and open attempt by Trump and his orcs to rig the election to assure his re-election. I am astonished at how blatant it all is, and how wimpy the Congressional response has been. The Democrats are disappointing, and the Republicans are just... well, just orcs.
To me it cannot be over-emphasized how important it is that everyone who can vote does vote, and this article lays out how to do that and get around Trump and his orcs.
Washington State ballot box
A lot of people have concerns about mail-in voting (is the Postal Service being sabotaged? Will their vote be counted?), and also about the state of American democracy in general.Voting by mail is actually very secure, despite what the President says. However, if people don’t trust that their votes will be counted, that’s a full-blown crisis of democracy. With millions of Americans turning to mail-in voting, many for the first time, because of the coronavirus pandemic, that means doubts about the ability of the USPS to deliver mail equal doubts about the election.Related: What you need to know about voting by mailVote early! On Friday, we learned USPS has notified states that some mail-in ballots are at risk of not being counted.From CNN’s Ellie Kaufman:Multiple states received communications from the USPS general counsel outlining standard mail delivery times and prices leading up to the November election and warning secretaries of state that election laws established by the states would not necessarily guarantee that […]
Nathaniel Rakich and Julia Wolfe, - Fivethirtyeight
Stephan: Here is more voting information, this time state by state. I am hoping that this and the preceding article will give you everything you need to be able to safely vote, and have your vote counted. Whatever your political views, every American should be in support of voting, and having every vote counted. It is the foundation of our democracy.
Click on your state in the map to see a lot of the information you need in order to cast a ballot this fall — by whatever method you choose. This page will be updated on a regular basis with the latest developments. While we’ve made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this information, always double-check with your local election official before acting upon it. Thanks to the pandemic, election laws are constantly changing, and certain voters — like those living overseas or in the armed forces — may be subject to special rules. If you think something is wrong or needs to be updated, please shoot us an email.
Alabama
Registration
Register to vote by Oct. 19. You can register online here.
Voting early
No true early voting, but you can vote absentee in person.
In-person voting
So far, no plans to close polling places have been announced. Remember to bring a photo ID to the polls.
