Were F%$#ed

Today in anthropogenic climate change, we have the Hoover Dam on the verge of being unable to generate power, and methane emissions are jumping in Siberia.

Not good.

From the rim of Lake Powell, you can’t see the danger line. There isn’t a flashing gauge or a chart on the canyon wall that warns visitors when one of the most important machines in America begins to fail. There’s only an invisible number: 3,490 feet above sea level.

Engineers call it “minimum power pool.” Above that elevation, Lake Powell can still push water through Glen Canyon Dam’s massive penstocks, spin its turbines, and send electricity across the Southwest with no trouble. Below it, the dam loses the function that helped justify its existence. The river still wants to move, but the machine starts running out of ways to move it.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the international date line:

Methane emissions from Siberia have more than doubled over the past decade, according to new research co-led by scientists at the University of Edinburgh’s National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO).

The study, initiated as a collaborative project with researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences during their stay at the University of Edinburgh, reveals that rapid warming, alongside increasing wildfires and shifting wetland activity, is driving a sharp rise in methane emissions from the vast permafrost regions of northern Russia. The findings raise concerns that these accelerating emissions could undermine effects to meet global climate targets.

Major rise in potent greenhouse gas

The international research team, including NCEO scientists based at the University of Edinburgh, analysed satellite and atmospheric data spanning 2010 to 2023. They found that methane emissions across Siberia have been rising by around 5% per year, with emissions during the summer growing season now more than twice as high as in 2010.

Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, trapping significantly more heat than carbon dioxide over short timescales, and is a major contributor to global warming.

 Things are going to hell even faster than the most pessimistic climate experts have predicted.