A Sept. 7, 2017, satellite image from NOAA shows the eye of Hurricane Irma, left, just north of the island of Hispaniola, with Hurricane Jose, right, in the Atlantic Ocean. Six major hurricanes formed in the Atlantic in 2017, including Harvey, Irma and Maria.  (Photo: AP)

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Dominant effect of relative tropical Atlantic warming on major hurricane occurrence

usatoday.com - by Doyle Rice - September 27, 2018

The catastrophic 2017 hurricane season – which included such monsters as Harvey, Irma and Maria – was fueled in part by unusually warm ocean water, a new study suggests.

And because of human-caused global warming, the study said similar favorable conditions for fierce hurricanes will be present in the years and decades to come . . .

 . . . "We show that the increase in 2017 major hurricanes was not primarily caused by La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, but mainly by pronounced warm sea surface conditions in the tropical North Atlantic," the study said.

New solar flow battery with a 14.1 percent efficiency. Photo: David Tenenbaum, UW-Madison

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Chem - 14.1% Efficient Monolithically Integrated Solar Flow Battery

theverge.com - by Angela Chen - September 27, 2018

Solar energy is becoming more and more popular as prices drop, yet a home powered by the Sun isn’t free from the grid because solar panels don’t store energy for later. Now, researchers have refined a device that can both harvest and store solar energy, and they hope it will one day bring electricity to rural and underdeveloped areas.

The problem of energy storage has led to many creative solutions, like giant batteries. For a paper published today in the journal Chem, scientists trying to improve the solar cells themselves developed an integrated battery that works in three different ways.

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Image via Upworthy

CLICK HERE - The GrowHaus

upworthy.com - by Sam Dylan Finch - August 31, 2018

How do you get healthy food on the table when you can't find any?

This is a question that Ortilia Lujan Flores had grappled with many times before.

She wanted affordable, nutritious food, but lived in a neighborhood that didn’t have an accessible grocery store.

Flores couldn't drive, which limited the few food options she had. "There was nowhere to go," she explains.

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submitted by Albert Gomez - Surfrider Foundation South Florida - Blue Water Task Force - September 20, 2018

September 12th-15th, 2018 - Test Results

This video highlights the results of water sampling throughout Miami-Dade County beaches between September 12th-15th, 2018. At the time, there were an unprecedented 8 beach closures in Miami-Dade county due to enterococcus blooms from fecal matter.

https://youtu.be/PMsaR2jf45o

https://www.surfrider.org/blue-water-task-force

Purdue researcher Jialiang Tang helped resolve charging issues in sodium-ion batteries that have prevented the technology from advancing to industry testing and use. Credit: Purdue University Marketing and Media

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Ultrasound-assisted synthesis of sodium powder as electrode additive to improve cycling performance of sodium-ion batteries

phys.org - by Kayla Wiles - September 19, 2018

Most of today's batteries are made up of rare lithium mined from the mountains of South America. If the world depletes this source, then battery production could stagnate.

Sodium is a very cheap and earth-abundant alternative to using lithium-ion batteries that is also known to turn purple and combust if exposed to water—even just water in the air.

Solar installers could make a better business case for panels bundled with heat pumps and other electric devices that offset natural-gas use, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute. Here, Luminalt solar installer Pam Quan moves a solar panel during an installation on the roof of a home on May 9, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

CLICK HERE - REPORT - Rocky Mountain Institute - The Economics of Electrifying Buildings

forbes.com - by Jeff McMahon - September 2, 2018

Solar installers could offer rooftop customers even more savings by bundling solar panels with heat pumps and other electric appliances, according to a recent study by the Rocky Mountain Institute.

RMI studied the carbon benefits and financial costs  of electrification of home heating in four U.S. cities. The carbon reductions were pronounced in three of the four. The financial costs were harder to overcome—unless the electricity comes not from the grid, but from the rooftop.

washingtonpost.com - by Brian McNoldy and Jason Samenow - September 9, 2018

 . . . “There is an increasing risk of two life-threatening impacts from Florence: Storm surge at the coast and freshwater flooding from a prolonged heavy rainfall event inland,” the National Hurricane Center wrote Sunday . . . We are particularly concerned about the rainfall potential in the Mid-Atlantic. Models have come into agreement that a northward turn before reaching the United States is unlikely and that a building high-pressure zone north of the storm will cause it to slow or stall once it reaches the coast or shortly thereafter.

Florence could sit over some part of the Mid-Atlantic for several days, similar to what Harvey did last year over eastern Texas. It has the potential to dump unthinkable amounts of rain over a large area in the Mid-Atlantic and perhaps into the Northeast. Rainfall could begin Friday or Saturday and continue into the following week. Where exactly the zone of heaviest rain sets up is a big uncertainty. It could reasonably occur anywhere between the mountains and the coast . . . 

The annual king tides are rising in South Florida, causing some flooding in coastal areas.  By Joey Flechas

miamiherald.com - by David Smiley - June 9, 2017

 . . . In order to save Shorecrest, where million-dollar homeowners mingle with middle-class families and blue-collar renters, government officials across the region are now asking whether it ought to be redesigned rather than simply reinforced. Where climate change poster child Miami Beach is investing $500 million in pumps, streets and sea walls in order to fight for every inch of dry land, municipalities on the mainland are exploring what some communities would look like if they were made to accommodate rising seas rather than simply fight them.

One idea likely to be both controversial and expensive: demolishing properties and returning developed areas back to nature.

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theinvadingsea.com - by Sun Sentinel Editorial Board - June 10, 2018

Over sea walls. Up through storm drains. And even into wells needed to keep your faucets flowing.

Sea-level rise isn’t just a flooding threat to South Florida. The invading sea is also seeping in underground and coming for your drinking water.

Decades of too much pumping and draining to provide both drinking water and flood control leave South Florida susceptible to “saltwater intrusion” – when the ocean moves in and contaminates underground freshwater sources.

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Miami Beach is under a storm surge warning. Please stay indoors and avoid driving if possible! https://t.co/WhHzeaoMUD

— City of Miami Beach (@MiamiBeachNews) September 3, 2018

Via City of Miami Beach: Miami Beach is under a storm surge warning. Please stay indoors and avoid driving if possible!

Fish are seen washed ashore after dying in a red tide in Captiva, Florida, on Aug. 3, 2018.Cristobal Herrera / EPA file

Doctors in southwest Florida say they've seen an increase in patients complaining of breathing problems.

nbcnews.com - by Annie Rose Ramos - September 2, 2018

 . . . The red tide . . . poses a health risk to people. The microorganisms emit brevetoxins, which can get blown into the air. When the toxins are breathed in, they constrict passages in the lungs, causing people to cough and have difficulty breathing.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - PNAS - Seroprevalence, risk factor, and spatial analyses of Zika virus infection after the 2016 epidemic in Managua, Nicaragua

sph.berkeley.edu - August 30, 2018

Almost half of the population of Managua, Nicaragua, is infected with Zika virus, according to a study by UC Berkeley School of Public Health researchers. Eva Harris, professor of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at the School of Public Health and director of the UC Berkeley Center for Global Public Health, led the research, which was published August 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Knowing that 50 percent of the population was infected in only a three-month period during the epidemic is important because it means that another epidemic of that size and ferocity in the near future is very unlikely,” says Harris.

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A Princeton glaciologist says a set of mega-engineering projects may be able to stabilize the world’s most dangerous glaciers.

CLICK HERE - West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse – The Fall and Rise of a Paradigm

theatlantic.com - by Robinson Meyer - January 11, 2018

 . . . What if scientists could prevent one catastrophic symptom of climate change—a rapid rise in global sea level, for instance—without messing again with the weather?

Michael Wolovick, a glaciology postdoc at Princeton University, believes it may be possible.

For the past two years, Wolovick has studied whether a set of targeted geo-engineering projects could hold off the worst sea-level rise for centuries, giving people time to adapt to climate change and possibly reverse it.

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As hurricane activity starts to ramp up, Meteorologist Bobby Deskins is tracking a wave in the Windward Islands that's expected to bring heavy rain to the Southeast early next week. USA TODAY

usatoday.com - by Doyle Rice - August 29, 2018

The sleeping giant may be about to awaken.

Hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico is forecast to ramp up over the next couple of weeks. "Weather models have flipped the switch on the Atlantic hurricane season and see multiple areas of development possible, starting mainly this weekend," weather.us meteorologist Ryan Maue said.

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