Month: September 2021

Coming: Cat 7 Caines?

After reduction to the official measurement height of 10 m, this would still rank as one of the highest surface gusts ever measured in a hurricane. Record: 211 mph, Hurricane Gustav, 2008, Cuba. 2nd place: 186 mph, Long Island Express Hurricane, Blue Hill Observatory, MA, 1938.

According to Sim Aberson of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division, the record for surface winds from dropsondes by the Hurricane Hunters is 248 mph 153 m above the surface in Typhoon Megi (2010); a sonde in Hurricane Felix (2007) reported 219 mph 38 m above the surface.

Originally tweeted by Jeff Masters (@DrJeffMasters) on September 18, 2021.

Michael Mann on MSN.com:

Imagine a world where Category 6 hurricanes threaten the East Coast, with sustained winds of 200 mph and storm surges in the 30-foot range. The devastation would be almost unimaginable — all the glass blown out of high-rise buildings, homes wiped off their foundations, and neighborhoods well inland completely underwater from the storm surge.

In some ways, we don’t have to imagine it — we are already living in a new era of superstorms. Category 5 is what we use to identify the strongest hurricanes on the planet, with sustained winds of 157 miles per hour or more. But some Atlantic hurricanes, such as Dorian in 2019, have had sustained winds in the 185 miles-per-hour range. That’s arguably strong enough to merit a Category 6 designation.Climate change has reached an unprecedented level, with little time to act, a stark new UN report finds

Thanks to human-caused climate change, we are hurtling toward a world where such Category 6 storms may become a familiarity. Estimates are that the maximum wind speeds of Atlantic hurricanes increase about 17 miles per hour per degree Celsius. That’s enough to shift storms a whole category given 1 degree Celsius (approximately 2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, which is what we’ve already seen over the past century.

The calls for adding this next category of storms are growing louder. And I’ve added my voice to them. My own scientific work adds to a growing body of research suggesting that climate change is exacerbating the coastal threat from these storms.Welcome to the Climate Apocalypse. (It will get worse.)

If the concept of a Category 6 storm isn’t scary enough, there may be an even worse future in store if we fail to act on the climate crisis. Picture an EF-5 tornado hundreds of miles wide scouring the landscape. That would be the same as a theoretical Category 7 hurricane packing 220-plus miles-per-hour sustained winds and a 40-foot storm surge that could swamp a coastal metropolis and leave a region uninhabitable for years. The human toll would be unbearable.

Pepsico: Sustainability, Health are “Consumer Trends”

Let the chips fall where they may.

CNBC:

Beyond Meat and PepsiCo announced Tuesday that they’ve formed a joint venture to create, produce and market snacks and drinks with plant-based substitutes.

Shares of Beyond jumped as much as 31% in morning trading on the news, while Pepsi’s stock rose about 1%. The run in Beyond Meat may have been helped by hedge funds rushing to cover their bets against the stock, a trend unfolding in may heavily-shorted names this year. More than 38% of the Beyond Meat shares available for trading are sold short, according to FactSet.

The partnership gives Beyond, a relative newcomer to the food world, a chance to leverage Pepsi’s production and marketing expertise for new products. For its part, Pepsi can deepen its investment in plant-based categories, which are growing increasingly crowded, while working with one of the top creators of meat substitutes.

Beyond Meat controls about 13% of the meat alternatives category in the U.S., according to estimates from Jefferies.

“PepsiCo represents the ideal partner for us in this exciting endeavor, one of global reach and importance,” Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said in a statement.

Operations will be managed through a limited liability corporation called The PLANeT Partnership. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The partnership also helps Pepsi work toward its sustainability goals. Last year, the company signed the United Nations’ pledge, committing to set science-based emissions reduction targets. A 2019 report from the UN found that the food system contributes to 37% of greenhouse-gas emissions. In recent years, Pepsi also has been trying to cut down the amount of sugar in its products and add healthier snacks and drinks to its portfolio.

“Plant-based proteins represent an exciting growth opportunity for us, a new frontier in our efforts to build a more sustainable food system and be a positive force for people and the planet, while meeting consumer demand for an expanded portfolio of more nutritious products,” Ram Krishnan, Pepsi’s Global Chief Commercial Officer, said in a statement. 

JPMorgan analyst Ken Goldman said in a note to clients that he views the partnership as an “incremental positive” for Beyond, but he thinks that the stock move has overshot the actual opportunity.

“We merely question how big the market size is for these products,” Goldman wrote. “Is there a huge, uncounted population clamoring for vegan Doritos? Probably not, in our opinion, and surely not big enough to justify this kind of stock move.”

Shares of PepsiCo are roughly flat over the last year, giving it a market value of $196 billion. The food and beverage giant has seen higher sales during the pandemic, thanks to consumer stockpiling and less exposure to away-from-home occasions than its rival Coca-Cola.

As of Monday’s close, Beyond’s stock has risen more than 32% in the last year, despite the blow to its business by the coronavirus pandemic, which hurt its sales to restaurants. The company has a market value of $9.95 billion.

Late Night Shows Plan “Climate Night”

Late Night shows teaming up for climate coverage on September 22.
Some of them have been doing good work already. Sample from Steven Colbert show above.

New York Times:

Climate change may not be the easiest subject to laugh about, but a group of late-night hosts are teaming up in hopes of raising awareness about the issue and even finding some humor in it.

On Sept. 22, seven of the network and cable late-night shows will take part in Climate Night, during which each of these programs will have a focus on climate change and produce their own original content on the topic.

The shows that plan to participate in Climate Night are “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC; “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show With James Corden” on CBS; “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” on TBS; “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC; and “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” on Comedy Central.

Samantha Bee said in an interview that she could not recall another occasion during her tenure as a late-night host when so many of programs coordinated their efforts like this.

“And really, what’s a more compelling cause to combine forces on than the climate, which we require in order to do our shows?” she said. “We need to not be submerged underwater in order to have successful late-night shows. The need is great.”

The initiative is organized by Steve Bodow, a veteran late-night writer and producer and a former showrunner at “The Daily Show” and Netflix’s “Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj.”

Bodow said in a phone interview that the event was organized to coincide with Climate Week NYC, which begins on Monday, and to call attention to the subject by having these shows focus on it simultaneously.

“Climate change, obviously, is something we’re all dealing with,” he said. “We’re all talking about it. We all need to be talking about it. What if these shows all talked about it at once? It makes a statement that they’re all willing to do this.”

Bodow said that his outreach to the showrunners and producers at these late-night programs was met with a spirit of cooperation, for the most part.

As he explained: “Everyone, before committing, wanted to be assured that, really, we’re all jumping into the pool at the same time? If I jump, you’re not going to be standing at the edge of the pool, laughing at me and I’m all wet?”

Each program, he said, will address climate change in its own segments and its own voice. “Some of the shows will really dive in all the way,” Bodow said. “They may have other ideas they want to do that night. But they’ll be doing some meaningful part of their show, at a minimum, and others will do even more.”

Bodow said his request to each program was: “Please do your show the way that you do your show. The shows have different styles and vibes, and that’s how they’ll approach this. There’s plenty to talk about.”

Bee said that, despite the inherently comedic tone of these late-night shows, they could still offer a constructive platform to address such an ominous topic.

“It’s a really overwhelming conversation to have because so much has to happen, so urgently,” she said. “I do think that we, individually, each do a great job of breaking down stories in ways that are palatable. Comedy is a great delivery system for actual information.”

She added: “And I expect, probably by the end of the show, we will have solved the climate crisis. So that’s exciting.”

Zack Labe on Arctic Extremes

Zachary Labe PhD is a post-doc at Colorado State, focusing on arctic modeling.

His twitter feed @ZLabe is a stream of essential visualizations of climate data.

I actually spoke to Zack in the fall of last year, but his take certainly applies even more to this past summer.

Conservatives Trying to Find Footing on Climate Change

Revealing clip above has equal shares of frustration and satisfaction for climate realists.

On the plus side, uber conservative Bill O’Reilly (now humbled on a much smaller platform, but I’ll use him as an example) now gets that climate change is happening, and humans are responsible. He’s still clinging to the “..But China” rationalizations, and beating up on the “left wing loons” (who, it turns out, have been right all along, but never mind..) He gives a shout-out to the “wind turbines failed in Texas” canard.

The young lady he’s interviewing, while among the new generation of conservatives talking about climate, also seems stuck on the “nuclear and carbon capture” track, although hard to tell if she’s just trying to placate O’Reilly or she really believes it. No mention of solar, wind, batteries. (although Tesla comes up)

You should know that in fact there are conservatives who are working hard in America’s reddest areas to help roll out solar and wind development, and they are having great success. I’ve been doing a lot of work cooperatively with these folks, and these are some of the most productive left-right conversations currently happening in the country.

FWIW, posting for the umpteenth time my video on the Texas Blackouts of last winter. Bookmark for Thanksgiving discussions with Uncle Dittohead and Aunt Teabag.