Day: October 14, 2022

Cybersecurity experts say that the October 10 attack on at least 14 U.S. airport websites, including those in Los Angeles and Chicago, appears to be the work of the Russian hacking group Killnet. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the disruptions were a minor inconvenience for airline passengers, but experts say they highlight a major threat.
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Young researchers and students are competing in a disaster challenge at a natural hazards forum in the Australian city of Brisbane.

The government-funded organization Natural Hazards Research Australia has said more Australians “than ever before are exposed to the damage and destruction of floods, bushfires, cyclones, heatwaves and storms.”

It reported that Australia has experienced 28 disasters that have cost more than $630 million, and 16 of these have occurred since 2000.

Experts have said that research is essential to improve Australia’s readiness for natural calamities.

At the inaugural Natural Hazards Research Forum in Brisbane, young researchers have been asked to solve a key conundrum in preparing communities for floods, fires and storms; how can disaster authorities get potentially life-saving advice to the “unengaged, the moving,” such as tourists or “the hard to reach”?

The winning entry aims to reach international tourists through Wi-Fi — essentially captive portals that compel visitors in flood or fires zones, for example, to watch a survival video before they can log onto the Internet at hotels, cafes or other destinations.

Mark Owens from the Country Fire Authority, an emergency service in the Australians state of Victoria, told VOA that the videos would be tailored for various locations and seasons.

“Making sure the message we actually get to them will actually change their behavior but also get them to do that for the future again and again, and that is why the videos will be tailored and changed seasonally, or, you know, if there is a La Niña coming through again,” he said. “So, you know, it might then really focus on floods for a big period of time instead of bushfire.”

Parts of Victoria state are currently facing one of the biggest floods in decades.

There have been rescues and evacuations along the Maribyrnong River in the city of Melbourne.

Thousands of people are also under evacuation orders for flooding in the states of New South Wales and Tasmania.

Two climatic phenomena — La Niña and the Indian Ocean Dipole — are fueling the flooding. Both occur naturally and are influenced by warmer ocean temperatures.  They are dumping above-average rainfall across much of Australia, and experts say they are being super-charged by climate change.

Sydney is having its wettest year on record. More than 2 meters of rain have fallen on Australia’s biggest city, breaking the previous record set in 1950.
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Europe faces a higher-than-usual chance of a cold blast of weather before the end of the year, but the winter overall is likely to be warmer than average, the continent’s long-range weather forecaster said Thursday.

Temperatures this winter will be crucial for homeowners worried about the record cost of heating their homes, and for European policymakers seeking to avoid energy rationing because of reductions in Russian gas supplies.

“We see the winter as being warmer than usual,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service that produces seasonal forecasts for the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

“Nevertheless, there is a still a significant chance of a block situation, which can lead to cold temperatures and low wind over Europe,” he told AFP as the service issued a monthly update to its forecasts.

A so-called block or blocking pattern in the winter can bring stable, often wind-free weather accompanied by freezing temperatures.

“This was looking more likely in November, but there now looks like a pronounced probability of a cold outbreak in December,” Buontempo added.

The ECMWF produces weather modelling with data from a range of national weather services around Europe.

Its forecasts are based on indicators such as ocean and atmospheric temperatures, as well as wind speeds in the stratosphere, but do not have the accuracy of short-range reports.

The models provide the “best information possible, to give a hint, to guide our decisions,” Buontempo said.

The European winter was expected to be warmer than usual because of the La Nina global weather phenomenon, which is related to cooling surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.

“We know that in a La Nina year, the latter part of the European winter tends to favor westerly winds, so warm and wet,” Buontempo said.

The agency will update its winter season forecast next month when it will have greater confidence because “all the drivers for the winter will be more active,” he said.

Independent energy experts expect Europe to be able to withstand Russia’s gas cuts this winter, providing temperatures stay in line with or above the long-term average.

Governments have almost filled their strategic gas reserves and consumers are being urged to reduce their consumption.

The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based energy consultancy, believes that temperatures about 10% below average over the winter would put strain on the European gas system.

It has also said a late cold spell, when gas stocks are expected to be low, could be the “Achilles heel of European gas supply security.” 
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The Antarctic ozone hole last week peaked at a moderately large size for the third straight year — bigger than North America — but experts say it’s still generally shrinking despite recent blips because of high altitude cold weather.

The ozone hole hit its peak size of more than 26.4 million square kilometers on October 5, the largest it has been since 2015, according to NASA. Scientists say because of cooler than normal temperatures over the southern polar regions at 12-20 kilometers high, where the ozone hole is, conditions are ripe for ozone-munching chlorine chemicals.

“The overall trend is improvement. It’s a little worse this year because it was a little colder this year,” said NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Chief Earth Scientist Paul Newman, who tracks ozone depletion. “All the data says that ozone is on the mend.”

Just looking at the maximum ozone hole size, especially in October, can be misleading, said top ozone scientist Susan Solomon of MIT.

“Ozone depletion starts LATER and takes LONGER to get to the maximum hole and the holes are typically shallower” in September, which is the key month to look at ozone recovery, not October, Solomon said Thursday in an email.

Chlorine and bromine chemicals high in the atmosphere eat at Earth’s protective ozone layer. Cold weather creates clouds that release the chemicals, Newman said. More cold means more clouds and a bigger ozone hole.

Climate change science says that heat-trapping carbon from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas makes Earth’s surface warmer, but the upper stratosphere, above the heat-trapping, gets cooler, Newman said. However, the ozone hole is slightly lower than the region thought to be cooled by climate change, he said. Other scientists and research do connect cooling in the area to climate change.

“The fact that the stratosphere is showing signs of cooling due to climate change is a concern,” said University of Leeds atmospheric scientist Martyn Chipperfield. The worry is that climate change and efforts to reduce the ozone hole become intertwined.

Decades ago, atmospheric chemists noticed that chlorine and bromine was increasing in the atmosphere, warning of massive crop damage, food shortages and huge increases in skin cancer if something wasn’t done. In 1987, the world agreed to a landmark treaty, the Montreal Protocol, that banned ozone-munching chemicals, often hailed as an environmental success story.

It’s a slow process because one of the chief ozone-munching chemicals, CFC11, can stay in the atmosphere for decades, Newman said. Studies also show that CFC11 levels going into the air were rising a few years ago with scientists suspecting factories in China.

Chlorine levels are down almost 30% compared to their peak 20 years ago, Newman said. If these cool temperatures had occurred with chlorine levels of the year 2000 “it would have been a very, very large hole, much, much bigger than it is now.”

It’s the third straight year of an ozone hole peaking at more than 24.8 million square kilometers, which Solomon called very unusual and worthy of extra study.

University of Colorado’s Brian Toon points to large fires in Australia and injection of massive amounts of water from January’s undersea volcano eruption as new phenomena that could be having impacts.
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