Global warming may have already passed irreversible tipping point

[Rasulis]

Capitalism strikes again. How dare these insurance companies profiteer and/or make sensible adjustments given the scientific realities of the kinds of costs they're looking at potentially having to cover in the coming years.

Sucks that it hits poor folks the hardest and they're the ones who are already going to get thunderfucked by all this.

The problem is that most private insurance companies are not willing to sell flood insurance in certain states. Which left most people in those states with the insurance of last resort - the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). FEMA just updated their rating system which drives the price of flood insurance in certain areas way up.

EXPLAINER: Flood insurance revamp aims for fairer rates

A revamped U.S. flood insurance program going into effect this month will charge rates the federal government says better reflect a home’s risk, a change that could mean higher premiums for coastal mansions and -- for the first time -- reduced rates for others.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says its new formula means owners of lower-cost homes will no longer be subsidizing the flood risk for pricier, waterfront properties.

“This is about fairness,” says Craig Fugate, former FEMA administrator under President Barack Obama. “People should be paying what their risk is.”

Some will go down. Most will remain the same. The ones in high-risk area will see big jump. Could be as much as tenfold. Although the cap is now lower.

But the total cost for a single-family homeowner can no longer exceed $12,125, a cap that could bring relief to some. Previously, the highest premium was $45,925.

[Paranoid Android]

Anecdotally where I live we had almost record snowfalls and much needed for oncoming spring and summer. We are already in almost drought conditions already. We are in fire danger zones already. Last year as I posted we had warnings of the frickin Mississippi River at record low levels.

This randomly came across my YouTube algo. I don't live in AZ.



Arizona water tables are almost non-existent I guess so halt on new homes is one stop-gap they are resorting too I guess.

[Milchshake]

Sorry Jake. But State Farm the largest insureer in California. Is no longer issuing new policies for homeowners.

• Home costs and values are too high. Thanks NIMBYs.
• New Housing is pushing out into higher wildfire risk areas. NIMBYs and CLimate Change Holding hands.

I wonder if rich Boomers that bought/gifted housing for their kids will also foot the bill for insurance. yikes!


I remember watching how insurance money spawned all these McMansions after the Oakland Hill Fires. Thinking this doesnt seem sustainable.
Also how devastating the Fire Event was in SimCity 2000. Since the lead designer lived through the Oakland Hill Fires.

[Rasulis]

Sorry Jake. But State Farm the largest insureer in California. Is no longer issuing new policies for homeowners.

• Home costs and values are too high. Thanks NIMBYs.
• New Housing is pushing out into higher wildfire risk areas. NIMBYs and CLimate Change Holding hands.

I wonder if rich Boomers that bought/gifted housing for their kids will also foot the bill for insurance. yikes!


I remember watching how insurance money spawned all these McMansions after the Oakland Hill Fires. Thinking this doesnt seem sustainable.
Also how devastating the Fire Event was in SimCity 2000. Since the lead designer lived through the Oakland Hill Fires.

Our previous home in San Diego was built adjacent to the Cleveland National Forest. Even with outdoor fire suppressant system, the last 4 years we kept getting dropped by insurance companies because of wildfire hazard. That was one of the factors why we moved to an urban core area like Sunset District in San Francisco.

- - - Updated - - -

Anecdotally where I live we had almost record snowfalls and much needed for oncoming spring and summer. We are already in almost drought conditions already. We are in fire danger zones already. Last year as I posted we had warnings of the frickin Mississippi River at record low levels.

This randomly came across my YouTube algo. I don't live in AZ.

Arizona water tables are almost non-existent I guess so halt on new homes is one stop-gap they are resorting too I guess.

Arizona priority is messed up. Around 78% percent of AZ water usage is for agriculture. The largest crop by acreage and by water usage is alfalfa. Granted that Alfalfa is healthy for you. I love adding alfalfa in my salad. However, 90% of AZ alfalfa crops is either sent to SA or used for animal feed.

[Paranoid Android]

Arizona priority is messed up. Around 78% percent of AZ water usage is for agriculture. The largest crop by acreage and by water usage is alfalfa. Granted that Alfalfa is healthy for you. I love adding alfalfa in my salad. However, 90% of AZ alfalfa crops is either sent to SA or used for animal feed.

Yes I know about agriculture usage and Alfalfa in particular. Maybe having one of the most water demanding crops in the desert is not optimal. The Saudi thing has many merits but its for many it's climate denial and trying to push the blame.

Once more having a water demanding crop that another nation controls is not a great idea.

[Rasulis]

The last wet season not only refilled all of CA reservoirs, it also refilled CA groundwater aquifers. Basically, any aquifers 100 feet or less in depth, west of mountain range and along the delta are near or at historical full. That's with only 50% or less of the snowpack melted. This year, we expect snowfall melting all the way through September.

‘Pretty dang close to full’: Bay Area groundwater back to pre-drought levels after massive winter storms

The unseen bounty is dramatic, and rebuts a common misperception among many Californians that groundwater always takes years to recover, or is all so hopelessly overdrawn it can never be restored. While that is true in some heavily pumped farm areas in the Central Valley, experts say, water agencies in the Bay Area that have carefully managed groundwater supplies for decades saw the payoff this winter.

Groundwater provides 40% of the water supply for 2 million people in Santa Clara County. Following more than a dozen major atmospheric river storms this winter, the main water table in the county has risen 35 feet since last June — and is up 51 feet since the most extreme part of the drought in September 2021 — returning to pre-drought levels. The county’s main groundwater basin is now about 90% full.

“All the rain certainly helped,” said Vanessa de la Piedra, groundwater unit manager at the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “We definitely saw big increases throughout the county.”

Readings taken two weeks ago show that groundwater is just 64 feet below the surface at the district’s main monitoring well in San Jose near the corner of Hamilton and Leigh avenues. That’s the highest level ever recorded since readings began there in 1936.

Similar rebounds have occurred in wells in Sunnyvale, Milpitas and Morgan Hill, where the main index well came up 50 feet since September of 2021 and is now at its highest level in five years.

A similar trend has unfolded at the Alameda County Water District, which provides water to 345,000 people in Fremont, Newark and Union City.

There, the water table has risen 13 feet since Dec. 31 at the Niles Cone Groundwater Basin, which provides 40% of the district’s supplies.

“It’s pretty dang close to full now,” said Ed Stevenson, general manager for the district.

“We consider groundwater to be our most important supply because it is under local control,” he said. “It’s good the state’s reservoirs are brimming full right now. That’s fantastic. But the local groundwater is key to us.”

The district diverts water from Alameda Creek into old gravel pits at Quarry Lakes park in Fremont. The dozen or so pits, where gravel was taken to help build the transcontinental railroad, act as natural percolation ponds, allowing water to gradually seep back into the ground.

In Livermore and Pleasanton, the water table has risen between 30 and 80 feet, and groundwater basins are full, said Sal Seguro, a civil engineer with the Zone 7 Water Agency, which supplies water to 265,000 people in the area.

The agency is taking water it purchases from the State Water Project and using it to recharge aquifers that were drawn down during the drought, he said.

“Districts are trying to sock away as much as they can while they have it,” he said. “Especially after the drought.”

In Santa Clara County, there is three times as much water storage underground as the county’s 10 reservoirs can hold when full. That underground water isn’t sitting in giant open caverns, however. It is filling the spaces between millions of tons of sand and gravel. Groundwater projects are often cheaper than constructing new reservoirs and have less controversy than building new dams on rivers.

But because of geology or historical practice, some large Bay Area water providers don’t have much groundwater, including the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s Hetch Hetchy project and the East Bay Municipal Utility District.

It will be a while, experts say, before the full impact of this year’s historically wet winter is known on groundwater supplies across the state. Many well operators only report water levels to the state twice a year.

Now the bad part.

But some clues are emerging. Of 3,400 wells monitored by the State Department of Water Resources where measurements were taken this spring, 35% showed groundwater increases of at least 5 feet — however, 59% showed no change and 6% showed a decrease when compared with levels a year ago.

Many of the places showing the most improvement are along the coast, in the Bay Area or in the Sacramento Valley. The San Joaquin Valley has many of the wells showing continued decreases.

Geology can make a big difference. Places with groundwater only 25 feet to 100 feet below the surface recharge more quickly in wet years from rain, and water seeping from below creeks and rivers, experts say. Some areas in the Central Valley have groundwater 500 feet or deeper. They also have thick clay layers that make it more difficult to recharge over short time periods.

“If you break the state up into areas where you have shallower aquifers, like in the Coast Range, you are going to see quicker response,” said Tim Parker, a veteran hydrologist and president of Parker Groundwater in Sacramento. “But in the southern part of the Central Valley, the San Joaquin Valley, the water levels are still quite low. A lot of them are at historic lows.”

Decades of relentless overpumping by farmers have created a crisis in some parts of the San Joaquin Valley.

- - - Updated - - -

Apparently, the weight of the Sierra snowpack adds to Central Valley ground settlement.

Scientists have long suspected that the weight of snow and ice in nearby mountains could throw off groundwater assessments tied to elevation changes in California’s Central Valley, but they lacked a way to quantify the effect. A new study demonstrates a solution.

[Paranoid Android]

Climate study says it’s too late to save summer Arctic sea ice

Incredible. Yahoo below adds some more context which is important.

The projection is 10 years faster in 2030's instead of 2040's.

Decreased ice cover has serious impacts over time on weather, people and ecosystems -- not just within the region, but globally.

"It can accelerate global warming by melting permafrost laden with greenhouse gases, and sea level rise by melting the Greenland ice sheet," lead author Seung-Ki Min, a researcher at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea, told AFP.

Greenland's kilometres-thick blanket of ice contains enough frozen water to lift oceans six metres.

By contrast, melting sea ice has no discernible impact on sea levels because the ice is already in ocean water, like ice cubes in a glass.

But it does feed into a vicious circle of warming.

- Three times faster -

About 90 percent of the Sun's energy that hits white sea ice is reflected back into space.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/arctic-co...002528215.html

The repercussions mentioned above is serious. Releasing of more green house gases and now no way of stopping this through just less fossil fuel consumption. The reflection of ice or lack of which will increase temperature, once more nothing can be done unless we make a giant reflector. Then yes rising ocean levels, which effect ocean streams also effecting weather patterns and climate.



Ironically as is happening now with ice melt us human idiots will find more opportunities to drill.

[Milchshake]

Canada is ablaze. Surprised there arn't more angry Canadians aboot.



Unsual amount of fire activity in eastern provinces as well.



Affecting air quality in NYC now.



Prayers for those people. But every time this happens, I have to bust out the video from the day the Blood Sun rose on my homies in the Tenderloin and West Oakland.

[Paranoid Android]

Climate Deniers are going to say its a reach but the fires in Canada right now affected by climate change will easily have a multi-billion dollar price tag to the damage. Yes, here in Mmmerica all the news is about the smoke on the east coast. This example of people with health problems, business, travel, etc will likely be in the billion(s). Yet part of the conservative speak is its going to cost money.

Sometimes using money and fixing a problem early save you money in the long end.

[Rasulis]

The wildfires in Canada are awful. On the other hand, times like these also show the solidarity among the western countries.

There are 900 US firefighters in Canada now, with 300 more incoming. A 100 from South Africa with another 100 more incoming. A couple of hundreds from Australia and New Zealand. Mexico already sent 434. Firefighting helicopters and bombers from US and CA Forest Service are also in Canada. Including the 2 Super Scoopers that California leased from Quebec last year.

[Shadowferal]

Affecting air quality in NYC now.

Looks almost like Philadelphia area. Under a "code red "

[Edge-]

I look forward to solving this problem by commercializing clean air and selling it at your local convenience mart.

[The Stormbringer]

Climate Deniers are going to say its a reach but the fires in Canada right now affected by climate change will easily have a multi-billion dollar price tag to the damage. Yes, here in Mmmerica all the news is about the smoke on the east coast. This example of people with health problems, business, travel, etc will likely be in the billion(s). Yet part of the conservative speak is its going to cost money.

Sometimes using money and fixing a problem early save you money in the long end.

But think of the short term profits! What will our shareholders say if we aren't pulling in record profits year after year after year?! Are you... saying we should use some of those profits for long term problems instead of shelling out massive bonuses? Urgh, I think I puked in my mouth a little. /CSuiteMindset

I wonder if we're going to get to the point where we just... don't pay to fix the damage. We just start leaving things destroyed, abandon entire areas, and shrug our shoulders because someone, somewhere, thought it wasn't worth the expense... despite the fact that we could've prevented it for a fraction of the cost years or decades earlier, but didn't.

[Shadowferal]

I look forward to solving this problem by commercializing clean air and selling it at your local convenience mart.

Too late!

[Edge-]

Too late!

As long as we get Spaceballs the Flame Thrower I think this is a fair deal.

[Rasulis]

Coincidence?

A ‘once-in-200 years’ heat wave caught Southeast Asia off guard. Climate change will make them more common

Thailand is just shy of 115F at 114F. Imagine Phoenix level heat with Florida level humidity.

[Edge-]

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ransition-loan

Might help if governments giving loans or other funding for companies to support green energy expansions or transitions, if they actually had to spend it on that and not expanding fossil fuel operations. While also reducing their investment in renewables.

[Endus]

Canada is ablaze. Surprised there arn't more angry Canadians aboot.

I'm just outside Ottawa, we're not close to any current threats but the air quality is so abysmally poor right now, everything smells like smoke. Closest fire's more than 100km away.

[Zantos]

The wildfires in Canada are awful. On the other hand, times like these also show the solidarity among the western countries.

There are 900 US firefighters in Canada now, with 300 more incoming. A 100 from South Africa with another 100 more incoming. A couple of hundreds from Australia and New Zealand. Mexico already sent 434. Firefighting helicopters and bombers from US and CA Forest Service are also in Canada. Including the 2 Super Scoopers that California leased from Quebec last year.

Sadly I see this as something that shouldn't be happening. I would think solidarity would look more like trying to find solutions and then applying them to the climate change danger. Im glad for the firefighters that are going to help. Its just devastating that this is going to keep happening until some serious changes start to go into effect.

[Muzjhath]

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ransition-loan

Might help if governments giving loans or other funding for companies to support green energy expansions or transitions, if they actually had to spend it on that and not expanding fossil fuel operations. While also reducing their investment in renewables.

The company ought to be fined double the amount.
I doubt it'll happen.