{"id":58621,"date":"2021-07-16T06:15:25","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T11:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58621"},"modified":"2021-07-16T06:15:25","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T11:15:25","slug":"when-climate-breakdown-goes-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58621","title":{"rendered":"When climate breakdown goes nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"block-ecologist-page-title\" class=\"block block-core block-page-title-block\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"title page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theecologist.org\/2021\/jul\/14\/when-climate-breakdown-goes-nuclear\"><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">When climate breakdown goes nuclear<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"block-ecologist-content\" class=\"block block-system block-system-main-block\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<article class=\"node node--type-article node--view-mode-full clearfix\" role=\"article\">\n<div class=\"node__content clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-teaser-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<article class=\"media media--type-image media--view-mode-default\">\n<div class=\"blazy blazy--field blazy--field-image blazy--field-image--default field field--name-field-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item blazy--on blazy--first\" data-blazy=\"\">\n<div class=\"media media--bundle--image media--blazy media--image is-b-loaded\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"media__image media__element b-lazy b-loaded\" title=\"Barakah\" src=\"https:\/\/theecologist.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/inline_l\/public\/2020-01\/1487px-barakah_nuclear_power_plant.jpg?itok=FO_Z2C3X\" alt=\"Barakah\" width=\"1000\" height=\"613\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-source field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item\">Wikipedia<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-teaser-text field--type-string-long field--label-hidden field__item\"><strong>Nuclear is on the front-line of climate change \u2013 and not in a good way.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-paragraphs field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item\">\n<div class=\"paragraph paragraph--type--text paragraph--view-mode--default\">\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-text field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">Climate models have run hot in the last year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">As\u00a0<\/span>knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">-rate evolves, it\u2019s become clear that\u00a0<\/span>sea-level rise is significantly faster than previously\u00a0thought\u00a0\u2013 which means\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">more frequent and destructive storm, storm surge, severe precipitation, and\u00a0<\/span>flood<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">ing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">With\u00a0<\/span>extreme event<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">s<\/span>\u00a0that are rare today<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0becoming\u00a0<\/span>the norm\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">in the future, existing\u00a0<\/span>risk mitigation measures<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0become increasingly\u00a0<\/span>obsolete<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">.\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">The corollary to this analysis is that\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">present and planned coastal and inland nuclear\u00a0installations<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0will be at significant risk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Coastal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">In other words, nuclear\u2019s sustainable electricity claim sits in the context of a much larger picture &#8211; that coastal and inland nuclear will be one of the first, and most significant, casualties to ramping climate impact.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As the world\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">heats<\/span>, ice stored at the poles and in glaciers melt and sea levels rise.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">With a r<\/span>ecent NASA\u00a0study based on 25 years of satellite dat<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">a finding that g<\/span>lobal sea<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">&#8211;<\/span>level rise has been accelerating rather than increasing steadily<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">, t<\/span>he Arctic is melting so rapidly that it<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">\u2019<\/span>s now 20 percent\u00a0thinner than a decade ago, weakening a major source of the planet\u2019s coolin<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">g.\u00a0<\/span>[1]<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">Meanwhile, s<\/span>atellite data shows the Greenland\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">I<\/span>ce\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">S<\/span>heet has lost a record amount of ice in 2019<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0 &#8211;\u00a0<\/span>equivalent to a million tons per minute<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">With t<\/span>he climate crisis heating the Arctic at double the rate in lower latitudes, the ice cap is\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">currently\u00a0<\/span>the biggest single contributor to sea-level rise,\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">and\u00a0<\/span>already imperils coasts\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">and coastal populations<\/span>.\u00a0[2]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Model<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">This is all the more concerning since very recent research reports<\/span>\u00a0new early-warning signals indicating that the central-western part of the Greenland Ice Sheet\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\">is undergoing\u00a0<\/span>a critical transition.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When climate breakdown goes nuclear Wikipedia Nuclear is on the front-line of climate change \u2013 and not in a good way. Climate models have run hot in the last year.\u00a0 As\u00a0knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt-rate evolves, it\u2019s become clear that\u00a0sea-level rise is significantly faster than previously\u00a0thought\u00a0\u2013 which means\u00a0more frequent and destructive storm, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,7],"tags":[141,31451,3423,579,580,25919],"class_list":["post-58621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-climate-change","tag-dr-paul-dorfman","tag-nuclear-meltdown","tag-nuclear-power","tag-nuclear-radiation","tag-the-ecologist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58622,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58621\/revisions\/58622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}