ClimateChangeFork

(Source: Accomsure)

The last two blogs focused on the money that we need to spend now to try to mitigate the increasing impacts of climate change on all of us. The example that I used was the recent devastating impacts of the fires in Maui, Hawaii, and the factors that could have lessened the damage, namely: water availability and burying power lines. In the meantime, hurricane Idalia hit Florida hard and hurricane Lee strengthened in the Atlantic to become a category 5, with a track that includes some probability that it will hit my home (NYC).

At the same time, I got an email from a reader (Erika Reid) of my recent blogs, asking me to focus on insurance policies. I responded that this was exactly my plan. It turns out that she is an “influencer” for considering the impacts of disasters on insurance companies. Below is a brief excerpt of what her site has to say about the impact of climate change. I emphasized the most dramatic sentence because it illustrates just how big the effects of the problem are:

As the effects of climate change have worsened, insurance companies have responded by increasing the cost of coverage — or pulling out of markets entirely. Farmers Insurance, the nation’s seventh largest auto coverage provider, announced in July that it will no longer offer policies in Florida. The insurer cited the financial risk of hurricanes as a significant reason. Farmers’ decision affects roughly 100,000 people, according to CNN.

As the warming climate exacerbates wildfires, floods and other natural disasters, car insurance companies are likely to see a greater number of comprehensive claims. Car insurance will get even more expensive, and more companies may follow Farmers’ lead. The insurance providers that remain on the market would have an incentive to charge more in higher-risk areas.

“Unless we have more auto insurers competing, the general auto insurance premiums will stay higher for a long time,” Yao said.

I wrote about the impacts of climate change on insurance policies in previous blogs. Put “insurance” into the search box and you will get several entries. One example is titled “We Are Not Prophets II – Back to Deniers and Skeptics and Forward to Insurance” (August 20, 2012). I opened that blog with a citation from my book that applies just as well today as it did more than 10 years ago:

Can we insure the survival of the planet as a habitable environment? If the answer is yes, then who will pay the premium?  If climate-change is just a big catastrophic event, then the mechanism of financial preparation should not be much different than the insurance of present catastrophic events. The trouble is that we are not very good at insuring catastrophic events. The present situation of flood insurance is a good example. In the United Kingdom, flood insurance is provided by private insurance, but in the United States it comes through a federally backed insurance system. In France and Spain flood insurance is bundled with other natural perils into a national pooling arrangement, and in Holland it is completely unavailable. The insurance industry is heavily involved in the debate on climate change. “Climate Change is a clear business opportunity for the insurance industry,” declared Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan, at the Geneva Association meeting in Kyoto on 29 May 2009 [The Geneva Reports, www.genevaassociation.org, “The Insurance Industry and Climate Change – Contributions to the Global Debate”, No. 2, July 2009].

This is what is happening today:

From devastating hurricanes and wildfires to catastrophic floods and tornadoes, natural disasters are increasing in frequency and cost. According to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), over the past ten years, 152 disasters caused at least $1 billion dollars of damage per occurrence. This puts the total cost of billion-dollar disasters to more than $1.1 trillion over the past ten years. Climate change plays a major role in the frequency and intensity of severe weather. In addition to factors like insufficient building codes, increased population in vulnerable areas and inflation, the death tolls and financial cost of extreme storms may continue to rise every year. Homeowners bear the brunt of the financial burden and need to have adequate insurance coverage or risk paying out of pocket to rebuild their homes.

Major insurers say they will stop covering damage caused by hurricanes, wind, and hail for property along coastlines and in wildfire country. Again, I have emphasized the sentences that describe the biggest impacts:

In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most.

At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events and raise monthly premiums and deductibles.

Major insurers say they will cut out damage caused by hurricanes, wind and hail from policies underwriting property along coastlines and in wildfire country, according to a voluntary survey conducted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state officials who regulate rates and policy forms.

Insurance providers are also more willing to drop existing policies in some locales as they become more vulnerable to natural disasters. Most home insurance coverages are annual terms, so providers are not bound to them for more than one year.

Examples of this year’s impacts on states and companies can be found below :

• State Farmand Allstate, two of the nation’s largest insurance companies, have stopped selling property insurance to new customers in California.
• Farmers, another huge insurer, announced it will no longer offer any new property coverage in the state of Florida. American International Group, or AIG, said it will no longer insure houses along the Florida coastline. Homeowners insurance rates in the Sunshine State are four times the national average, because national insurers have largely opted out of the market, leaving coverage to regional and local insurers that are teetering on the brink of insolvency.
• A fifth of homeowners insurance policyholders in Louisiana have had their provider cancel their policy, according to a 2023 survey by LSU.

What’s driving this upheaval? Climate change. Extreme weather, including devastating California wildfires and costly Gulf coast hurricanes, are forcing insurers to reassess their risk tolerance.

And many are simply deciding the increased risk of extreme weather combined with rising construction costs due to inflation make offering insurance in at least some locations untenable.

The problem isn’t confined just to coastal areas of the country. As Steve Bowen, chief science officer at global reinsurance broker Gallagher Re told Axios last month, “this is a 50-state problem as insurers are being forced to re-assess their risk tolerance as climate change leads to more common and severe extreme weather events.

Believe it or not, we could be facing a future where certain parts of the country are literally uninsurable or where insurance is affordable only for the wealthy.

This last sentence summarizes the issue. Many of the worsening impacts of climate change are taking place in Republican-governed states in the Southeast US such as Florida, Texas, and the Carolinas. Florida is compensating for the destructive impacts of hurricanes with what some of the media call a “hurricane tax”:

In Florida, it won’t just be those with homes and businesses hit directly by Hurricane Idalia who might be stuck picking up the pieces. Thanks to a broken home insurance market, a particularly bad hurricane could spread financial fallout throughout the state, leaving residents from Pensacola to Key West stuck paying repair bills for years.

Beset by hurricanes made more severe and more frequent by climate change, as well as rampant fraud and tides of frivolous lawsuits, dozens of insurers in the state have closed up shop or stopped selling new home insurance policies in the state in recent years. (Farmers became the most recent big insurer to pull out of the state last month). Residents have increasingly turned to Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, a public entity established by the Florida government as the state’s so-called “insurer of last resort” for people unable to find affordable rates from private insurers. For more and more residents, though, Citizens is becoming the first and only option, especially for those with coastal homes at particular risk from hurricanes. In 2019, Citizens had about 400,000 home insurance policies on its books; today, it has more than 1.3 million, about twice as many as the state’s next-largest insurer.

Yet, the Republican governors of these states and the Republican party still refuse to acknowledge our collective culpability and our ability to mitigate future climate change-driven disasters. One example of this reasoning is a fictional scenario outlined in the WSJ. They refuse to acknowledge that human culpability does not manifest itself in the variability of the weather (hot vs. cold) but, instead, by amplifying the frequency and intensity of extreme events. It’s the victims of these events who need insurance.

The next blog will focus on the role of the federal government in mitigating the impacts of climate disasters.

Figure 1 – The price of water in some of the world’s largest cities (Source: Municipal water utilities, Oxford Analytica)

Figure 1, above, shows what seems to be the random distribution of the price of water in some of the largest cities from developed, developing, and intermediate-income countries. All of these cities are either located on the shore of an ocean or surround a large river that is directly connected to an ocean. Yet, the water pricing that its citizens enjoy seems random.

The most devastating disaster many of us are focusing on these days is the August 8^th, climate-related wildfire destruction of Lahaina in Maui, Hawaii. As of yesterday, the death toll had reached 115, with 388 still unaccounted for. The sorrow is now being converted into anger that the destruction was a consequence of a predictable disaster that we have no idea how to handle. As one NYT article put it, “Maui Knew Dangerous Wildfires Had Become Inevitable. It Still Wasn’t Ready.” Furthermore, many of us think that now, this kind of disaster can happen everywhere, and we’d better take some lessons from it to minimize the impact.

The Maui disaster comes in the midst of record-breaking global heatwaves that the NYT describes in the following way (Extreme Weather Hits Around the World as Global Temperatures Rise):

Not all of the extreme weather events can be immediately attributed to climate change. But they reflect the hazards that much of the world needs to prepare for as El Niño, a natural weather pattern that can play out over several years, aggravates the weather extremes fueled by the burning of fossil fuels.

My “cherry-picked” comment is to emphasize the words “immediately attributed.” I will expand on this in a future blog. I will also try to expand in a future blog on what we know about the anthropogenic (human-caused) impacts of El Niño.

Two of my favorite reporters from The New York Times comment on these developments, and others, in their recent dialogue (Opinion: These Aren’t the Darkest Years in American History, but They Are Among the Weirdest). Their emphasis, like most of the rest of the press and the social networks, is on the accumulating issues with ex-president Trump and his wishes to be president again. But before going there, they start with their take on Maui and Lahaina. I have “cherry-picked” a few paragraphs from their dialogue:

Gail Collins: Maui is going to be hard for any of us to forget. Or, in some cases, forgive. There are certainly a heck of a lot of serious questions about whether the folks who were supposed to be responsible did their jobs.

Bret: There’s a story in The Wall Street Journal that made me want to scream. It seems Hawaiian Electric knew four years ago that it needed to do more to keep power lines from emitting sparks, but it invested only $245,000 to try to do something about it. The state and private owners let old dams fall into disrepair and then allowed for them to be destroyed rather than restoring them, leading to less stored water and more dry land. And then there was the emergency chief who decided not to sound warning sirens. At least he had the good sense to resign.

Gail: But let’s look at the way bigger issue, Bret. The weather’s been awful in all sorts of scary ways this summer, all around the planet. Pretty clear it’s because of global warming. You ready to rally around a big push toward environmental revolution?

Bret: I’m opposed on principle to all big revolutions, Gail, beginning with the French. But I am in favor of 10,000 evolutions to deal with the climate. In Maui’s case, a push for more solar power plus reforestation of grasslands could have made a difference in managing the fire. I also think simple solutions can do a lot to help — like getting the federal government to finance states and utilities to cover the costs of burying power lines.

Gail: Yep. Plus some more effortful projects to address climate change, like President Biden’s crusade to promote electric cars and an evolution away from coal and oil for heat.

Bret: The more I read about the vast mineral inputs for electric cars — about 900 pounds of nickel, aluminum, cobalt and other minerals per car battery — the more I wonder about their wisdom. If you don’t believe me, just read Mr. Bean! (Or at least Rowan Atkinson, who studied electrical engineering at Oxford before his career took a … turn.) He made a solid environmental case in The Guardian for keeping your old gas-burning car instead of switching to electric. But I’m a big believer in adopting next-gen nuclear power to produce a larger share of our electric power needs. And I’m with you on moving away from coal.

The unfortunate thing about both reporters waving their favorite remedies for climate change is that those have very little to do with the direct consequences of what happened in Lahaina and other similar impacts of the destructive forces that climate change brings us. When a disaster like this strikes, an often immediate reaction is to search for culprits to blame. Hanging wires from electric utilities are common candidates (see the situations in destructive fires in California (November 26, 2019). In Maui, it got worse because the fire hydrants turned out to be dry – there was no water to fight the flames. It turns out that this situation had been predicted and could have been remedied by creating water storage facilities to be reserved for that purpose as insurance. This was not done because of fear that it would impact agriculture.

Water stress and hanging utility wires have become connected to the loss of control of wildfires. To make sure that such issues are not repeated, we will all need to pay more for both utilities. This blog focuses on water. Next week’s blog will focus on hanging wires.

I addressed climate-change-triggered water stress in earlier blogs, emphasizing the local aspect of water stress. After all, in a world where 70% of the surface is covered by oceans, we cannot claim to be lacking water (reminder – Maui and all Hawaiian Islands are surrounded by the Pacific Ocean). What we can have is stress related to freshwater availability and the shifts and changes in intensity of the water cycle.

Here, in the context of the water issues in Maui, I will focus on the important role that agriculture plays in water use and how the pricing of water varies across the planet.

Figure 2 shows global water use by sector. Agriculture is in the lead. However, the percentage of water use in agriculture is not equally distributed.

Figure 2 – Global water use by sector (Source: OECD)

Figure 3 shows the global distribution. Developing countries bear most of the heaviest use. A good place to start revisiting the issue is in the March 4, 2014 blog, where I describe the holistic effort that Israel is putting into addressing the issue.

Figure 3 – Agricultural share of water withdrawals, 2019 (Source: Our World in Data)

The Israeli effort is focused on recycling water locally and desalination of sea water. These processes cost money and access to sea water. Hawaii is a state of the US, the largest rich country in the world, surrounded by the water of the Pacific Ocean. If one of our states could not be prepared for such water stress, who could? Figure 4 shows that a significant fraction of the world is desperately lacking access to safe water.

Figure 4 – Global access to safe water (Source: Circle of Blue)

In an earlier blog (July 4, 2023), I showed what another state in the US, Arizona, is doing to prepare: it’s coming to an agreement with Mexico and Israel to construct a desalination plant in Mexico. The idea is to serve Arizona and limit new construction in selected areas until the water situation improves. The poor countries, such as those in Africa, don’t have that option. If the rich countries refuse to help them secure access to safe water, they may refuse to cooperate in climate change mitigation. This could mean refusing to cooperate in global efforts to lessen the probability that what just happened to Lahaina will engulf the whole planet.

The details of our trip to Darwin were outlined in the first blog that I wrote and posted three days after our return (July 25th). I wrote that “the main driving force that led us to take the trip was the family trip to Melbourne.”

My Australian family started with my cousin (his father and mine were brothers), who is eight years older than me, also born in Warsaw, Poland. In that blog I also included a reference to a recent interview that he gave about his life in Warsaw during the war. In the meantime, I have found an older reference that includes a short summary of the life that he had built in Australia.

I came to Australia with the knowledge that during our stay in Melbourne, we would encounter social occasions where we’d be invited to settings that would include family members that have no idea about the relationship of my family with my cousin’s family. So, I decided to bring my family tree with me. The direct descendants of my cousin are familiar with the connection mainly because this was not our first visit to Melbourne and a few of them also visited us in the US. But family trees are open-ended documents that constantly change with time. The changes are “small” when children are born but the changes can be very large with marriages, because full new family trees are incorporated as a result of a single new marriage link. Aside from the people directly involved, chances are that members of the two families know very little about each other. Indeed, my “prediction” was confirmed at a family event that one of my cousin’s daughters arranged that included her direct family, my cousin, my wife and the mother-in-law of my cousin’s daughter. My wife and I had never met the mother-in-law, so I was glad that I had brought my family tree with me to start a lovely conversation.

I also had an ulterior motive for bringing my family tree to Australia and writing about it in this blog.

I mentioned before that my cousin’s early background has important similarities to mine. We were both in Warsaw at the start of the German invasion of Poland that started WWII and the resulting Holocaust. The difference was that at that point he was 8 years old, and I was 3 months old. This fixes my age above the life expectancy of every country in the world. (Japan holds the record – 82). I still teach, write, and travel but I am fully aware of my limited prospects. So, I am always on the lookout for younger relatives who can take over the administration of my family tree. The Holocaust made sure that, together with the more normal dynamics of family trees such as marriages and births, my tree turns out to be global. The Australian branch is an important offshoot of this tree. In addition to Australia, my tree has major branches in France, US, and Israel. I felt (and still feel) that an important part of my job is to try to ensure continuation of the data-gathering beyond my life span. I feel that with electronic communications in our possession, the dream that all humanity will be part of the same tree is not totally outlandish and that it can contribute to a feeling that all of us are parts of the same family and thus responsible for each other.

The current “record keeper” of the biggest family tree is the Oxford University Big Data Institute with 27 million people. This database is based on genomic research that promises to extend history beyond the written record to include genomic records and thus unify our academic definitions of history with archeology, anthropology and other disciplines that deal with our past. Genomic sequencing is fast becoming part of our “reading skills” and life itself is being redefined, in one sense, as a genomic writing ability. My dream is to try to redirect this to fortify our collective chance of survival. I fully realize that this is a dream that most probably will not materialize. This outlook is fed by my observation that my younger generations are fully occupied with their own dreams for their future and that “collective” dreams are not a priority for them.

A sprinkle of exception to this pessimism came from my Australian family.

The youngest son of my Australian cousin likes to travel, both professionally and as a tourist . In one of his trips that followed a trip with his father to Poland to share my cousin’s early past, he “discovered” Wysokie Mazowieckie (WM) and the efforts that some people (local and foreign) are making to resurrect the Jewish cemetery there.

A few years after that “discovery,” my wife and I took a trip to WM and met Karol Glebocki, the teacher that, with his students, became central to this effort. Figure 1 shows both of us with the tombstone of Aaron Avigdor Tomkiewicz (AAT), a man who already was the oldest ancestor in my family tree.

Figure 1 – Karol Glebocki and me near the gravestone of Aaron Avigdor Tomkiewicz in the newly restored Jewish cemetery in Wysokie Mazowieckie.

I didn’t start my family tree with the visit to WM. I started it a few years earlier, driven by a similar motive that drives me now in my search to move the effort to a younger generation. My uncle (younger brother of my mother) was with us through our Holocaust experiences but decided to settle in France and start his own “branch” there. At the time, he was the guy that was left with the most detailed memory of our past. I decided to construct the tree based on input from him. My objective was not to find my origin but just to be able to connect as many surviving members of my family as possible. For many years, to my knowledge, I was the only one in my family to administer the data. Two questions remained unanswered. AAT was listed with two wives. I was sure that he was not a bigamist, but I had no idea about the details. I knew of a French family that hosted me during the Israeli Independence war, but I knew nothing about the details of the links. Both questions got answered when I was able to link with David Askienazy from Paris. He is much younger than me and much more active and productive in assembling his family tree (listed in “My Heritage”). After our contact, my family tree grew considerably. The last major development went back to WM and a connection with Aaron Rotenberg, through the Jewish Record Indexing – Poland, with detailed data search in WM. I haven’t yet analyzed all the new data that he supplied me. My present family tree contains 352 members!

The “normal” dynamics of a family tree can be demonstrated with very recent developments that took place this year:

Over three months ago, a first granddaughter was born to my French cousin. We had the opportunity to enjoy the three generations on Zoom.

Natalie Leventhal,the grandmother of my wife’s two nieces, will celebrate her 100 birthday. I will bring the family tree with me to Connecticut, where she lives, so the younger generation will be able to take over administration of that branch.

Toward the end of this month, my wife and I will travel to Washington, DC to attend a Holocaust meeting and stay with my American cousin. We will bring the family tree with us.

The “ultimate” impact on my family tree took place few days after our return from Australia. I got an email from Matt Rozell (see below) saying that he found, in the US archive, a short movie clip taken by American soldiers that unquestionably describes our liberation by the American army on April 13, 1945 near the German town of Farsleben.

You can watch the clip-on YouTube.

After 78 years, this was a sensational find. Social networks were full of feedback and all the Israeli papers that I have access to, both in English and Hebrew, mentioned it. I got emails both from Israel and the US asking me if this was “my” train. It was. The Jerusalem Post, an Israeli, English language paper, probably had the fullest history of the event.

A short description taken from the article is below:

Never-before-seen footage of Holocaust survivors being liberated by US Army soldiers during the last stretch of World War II has been unearthed at the United States National Archives, according to a Wednesday report by the Independent.

On Friday, April 13th, 1945, soldiers from Tanks 12 and 13 from the US Army’s 743rd Tank Battalion led by a scouting jeep liberated a train transport with thousands of Holocaust victims who had left the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp one week before and were bound for Theresienstadt.

First, I started to do what many survivors of this event do – try to find myself or my family there. (My mother and her younger brother were also there.) A 78-year gap is no help. So, I tried to do better. I went through my mother’s small Bergen-Belsen book, whose title, translated into English, reads, “There was Life Even There” (it is shown in Figure 2), to look for a description of the event as written shortly after our liberation. Here’s her description of the liberation as written close to the end of the book:

On the 13th of April we stop next to a copse. The trees are humming, the birds are twittering, a light breeze wrinkles the surface of the river. Someone says we’re not far from Magdeburg. Pilsudski was imprisoned in Magdeburg, wasn’t he? They’re shooting at us from the planes. The Germans are shooting at us from the copse. I can’t see much from under my pillow. Mulek went on reconnaissance. When he came back he said they’d fished our Auslander documents out of the river. It turns out that our Palestinian certificates had arrived from Switzerland in February. That Kastner chap didn’t forget afterall! Why did the Germans throw the documents into the water? What will happen to us?

There are corpses lying on both sides of the train. The engine driver has made off on the locomotive. So we’re on a train with no locomotive and a German crew who beat us, spit at us and curse us in the intervals between shooting. They have an order to finish us off and throw our bodies into the Elbe, just like they’ve done with tens of thousands of concentration camp victims in the last few months. Is it now? Maybe they’ll wait another hour or two.

A handful of human spectres made it from the train to a town nearby and begged some food from the Germans. “They were completely normal, like they weren’t Germans at all,” says someone with surprise. Stas and Hela went too and got a chicken and a few potatoes in return for my broken gold watch. What luck! Renia cleans the chicken and cooks it on a Primus borrowed from the Czechs. Slawcia advises us to add what’s left of the dried potatoes. There’ll be more that way. The whole compartment participates in the feast without paying any attention to the shots and ceaseless cannonade whose threatening sounds are coming from afar, from near, no matter where from. We eat. Will they make it in time? Won’t they? “How did you get hold of so many potatoes?”

Suddenly the first American soldier appears. How inconspicuous he is! Behind him there’s a group of others. One of our wheeler dealers has already recognized the friend of a friend in America. The American soldier waves his hand. His trousers are creased. We’re free.

We’re saved. Stas throws himself to the ground and cries. Others are crying, laughing, kissing. I don’t feel like crying. I feel stupid, totally empty inside. So this is the way the war has finished for us? Without pathos. Without drama. An American soldier with creased trousers and now it’s the end after so many years. So many ages.

Magdeburg is taken and the 9th American Army has taken us into its possession. Bobus proudly brings me a rucksack containing a dirty towel and a jagged comb. The children kick the Germans, take their guns away, their bikes and rucksacks.

The adults are too weak to take revenge. They don’t feel triumphant. In fact they don’t feel anything. They throw a guard to the ground. “Kneel,” they shout. They torment him, but without conviction, as if it were a duty, mildly. They’re still completely bewildered. They don’t know what to do with him, with themselves. But yesterday this selfsame guard was hitting women in the face when they begged him for a few rusks. Except what will it achieve? The Americans offer cigarettes, hand out bars of chocolate. “Aren’t you happy?” they ask. Are we happy? We don’t dare ask ourselves that question. Mother, father, Piotr, Witek, Helenka … We’ve survived and what now? “Won’t we need these potatoes anymore?” we ask the Americans uneasily.

The girls are flirting with the soldiers. Singing. Conversations. The Americans photograph the specter-train from all sides, and us, the specters from the train. We must light a fire and boil a few potatoes. I must wash Bobus and put him to sleep. Mrs M. shrieks at the top of her voice. Her husband has just died this minute. He was already a free man. She’s left with four children just when the war has finished. A huge blonde in an American uniform brings a bottle of wine to the compartment. Do I want some silk stockings? Would I go for a walk with him? He fought for me after all. He fought. I’m as light and empty as a soap bubble. My head’s spinning from the wine. From the freedom which has arrived too late for happiness. “My little one didn’t live to see the day,” says Sonia and cries. For joy?

Next day we leave the train. They take us to beautiful Hillersleben, they’ve previously thrown the Germans out. We become “Displaced Persons of the World.”

Figure 2

You have here what you need to compare my mother’s description of our liberation with that of some of the liberators. Not surprisingly, they are not the same. They are two different perspectives. To my knowledge, this is one of the few opportunities that exists to read these views. For that, I thank Matt Rozell and my mother.

The first of my blogs that describe Matt Rozell’s continuous efforts to get the liberators and survivors together was written two months after I started this blog (June 4, 2012). An important follow up came when, jointly with the people of Farlsleben, a monument was erected there that was shown in the April 12, 2022 blog. A photograph of Matt Rozell that commemorates the D-Day anniversary is shown in the June 11, 2019 blog (the guy on my left without glasses).

It is obvious (at least to me) that without this event “my” family tree wouldn’t even exist.

Figure 1
NT State Population (Source: https://images.app.goo.gl/mVia9Q8aQhxrdgsF8)

The details of our trip to Darwin were outlined in the first blog that I wrote in this series, that was posted three days after our return (July 25) and I’ll focus this blog on our Darwin trip and its environs. About 5 days were spent in an organized tour in the National Parks around Darwin, a map of which was included in that blog. They include Kakadu National Park, Litchfield National Park, and the Katherine Gorges.

Figures 1 and 2 provide a general picture. Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory (NT). It is not a State because even the population of tiny Tasmania (that is a state) exceeds it by a factor of 2. Half of the population of NT is around Darwin; even with that, Darwin counts as a small city. Figure 2 indicates that at least in the dry season (see last week’s blog), the city and the parks around it are significant tourist draws. Indeed, walking around the city leaves the impression of a crowded place. Most of this blog will focus on a few photographs that we took during the visit.

Figure 2
Australian tourist attractions (Source: https://www.worldmap1.com/australia-tourism-map)

Before shifting to the photographs, here are a few words (and sites) about the weather and about Kakadu National Park:

The Weather (Source: https://www.australia.com/en-us/facts-and-planning/weather-in-australia/darwin-weather.html):

The wet season (November – April)
The wet season in Darwin is characterized by high humidity, monsoonal rains and storms. Average temperatures range from 24.7 – 32 °C (76.5 – 89.6°F), and humidity can push past 80 per cent. The average annual rainfall is 1727.3 mm (68 inches) and January is the wettest month. Despite this, January and February is considered by many as the most beautiful time of year in the Top End. Sunny days and afternoon storms refresh the landscape, and animals and plants flourish.

October to December is the season of spectacular lightning storms, an event eagerly awaited by locals who watch the show from beachside restaurants and bars.

The dry season (May – October)
The dry season, from May until October, is characterized by warm, dry sunny days and cool nights. Temperatures typically range from 21.6– 31.8°C (70.9 – 89.2°F), and humidity levels are much lower: around 60 – 65 per cent.

Relatively cool weather arrives in May, and until July, nights are crisp with temperatures ranging from 17 – 23 °C (62.6 – 73.4°F). It is also the perfect time to explore the more remote areas of the region that can be off-limits during the wet season.

For contrast, the average annual precipitation in NYC is 46.6 inches (1184 mm).

Kakadu National Park                                                                                                        (Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakadu_National_Park)

Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory, covering an area of 19,804 km² (7,646 sq mi), extending nearly 200 kilometers (124 mi) from north to south and over 100 kilometers (62 mi) from east to west. It is roughly the size of Wales or one-third the size of Tasmania, and is the second-largest national park in Australia, after the Munga-Thirri–Simpson Desert National Park. Most of the region is owned by the Aboriginal traditional owners, who have occupied the land for around 60,000 years and, today, manage the park jointly with Parks Australia. It is highly ecologically and biologically diverse; hosting a wide range of habitats and flora and fauna, Kakadu is fully protected by the EPBC Act. It also includes a rich heritage of Aboriginal rock art, including highly significant sites, such as Ubirr.

All our friends on the tour of the national parks were Australian. We asked the guide if this is the norm. She responded that on the previous tour, there were a few Americans and Canadians. All of us were “traveling to the weather.”  But all of us were aware that these are luxury travels that very few can afford. There is another kind of “weather traveler,” one for people that have no other option. We labeled these as “environmental refugees” and I’ve often written about this topic. (see April 3, 2018, e.g.). Most of us cannot escape the impacts of climate change. Recently, President Biden took some steps that include protections for construction workers, farmers and other laborers who are exposed to sweltering heat. All of us realize that much more needs to be done.

What follows are some pictorial highlights of the trip:

Figure 3
Louise near a Cathedral termite mound in Litchfield National Park

These mounds can last 50-60 years.

Figure 4
Kakadu National Park from above

The main conclusion that I draw from the landscape of Kakadu, is the power of water, with almost no human help or destruction, to enrich the landscape. We were given a warning about the river network: don’t swim in these rivers. The reason is shown in figure 5.

Figure 5
Crocodile ready for a meal in Kakadu National Park

Figure 6
Ancient (≈ 12,500 years) cave drawings by Aboriginals in Kakadu National Park

More about the cave painting can be found here.

Figure 7
Katherine Gorge

We departed from Darwin with a gorgeous sunset as shown in figure 8.

Figure 8
Sunset in Darwin

One of the best opportunities to see the sunset is to walk on one of the beaches in the late afternoon where, twice a week, during the dry season, a sunset market takes place that invites all the attendees to watch the sunset (figure 9) after buying all kinds of stuff.

Figure 9
Observers of the Sunset from Darwin’s Sunset Sunday-Thursday market.

Last week’s blog outlined the reasons why my wife and I decided to take our vacation in Australia. The main reason was to see family in Melbourne and a secondary reason was to try to have a short break from the weather back home. I promise that in this and in following blogs, I will go into some details.

Traveling to visit family is a common activity that many of us do whenever we have the opportunity. I think that documenting changing extended families has the long-term outcome of developing a feeling that all of us belong to the same family and thus willing to take care of each other.

For now, however, this blog will focus on the weather.

Discussing the weather requires some background. Weather and climate are the most important topics of this collection of blogs. However, I never discussed the fundamentals of the driving forces of climate in a way that would  be understandable with no educational prerequisites. I will try to remedy that here with some quoted literature.

I think the best starting point  is the short review by Stevens in Nature Education that references figure 1 and from which I extensively cite below. This review will serve us in this and next week’s blogs. It  describes the background for choosing Darwin as an important component of our Australian vacation and it will also serve as a background for future blogs that will describe the roles that El Niño and La Niña are playing in our present climate.

Figure 1
Solar Interaction with Earth (Source: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/introduction-to-the-basic-drivers-of-climate-13368032/)

Sunlight Intensity Is a Key Component of Climate

Directly or indirectly, the sun provides energy for living organisms, and it drives our planet’s weather and climate patterns. Because Earth is spherical, energy from the sun does not reach all areas with equal strength. Areas that are exposed more directly to the sun’s rays (i.e., those nearest to the Equator) receive greater solar input. In contrast, those in higher latitudes receive sunlight that is spread over a larger area and that has taken a longer path through the atmosphere. As a result, these higher latitudes receive less solar energy (Figure 1).

The sunlight intensity on some parts of the earth significantly varies over the course of the year as the earth changes its orientation in space. Seasonal variation in solar input occurs because the Earth is tilted on its axis by 23.5˚ (Figure 1). As Earth orbits the sun, its orientation to the sun changes. Winter in the northern hemisphere occurs as the northern tip of the planet tilts away from the sun; during this time, the southern hemisphere receives greater solar input and experiences summer. As Earth reaches the opposing point of its orbit and the northern hemisphere becomes angled toward the sun, the seasons reverse. Tropical areas experience relatively minor changes in temperature, and their seasons are characterized by the presence or absence of rain.

Sunlight Intensity Affects Global Winds, Precipitation Patterns, and Ocean Circulation Which Are All Components of Climate

At the Equator, the Earth receives greater exposure to the sun’s rays where both air and extensive bodies of water warm under the influence of the sun. Molecules are more closely packed together when cold than they are when warm, which makes warm air and water less dense than cold air and water. This difference in relative density causes heat to rise.

The warm air that rises in the tropics is wet. Sunlight causes water to evaporate from plants, soils, and bodies of water. These water molecules rise to become part of the air; because the air is warm and less dense, there is sufficient room for water molecules within the air mass. But as the air gains altitude it cools, reducing density and space for water. The water molecules condense to form clouds and eventually fall as precipitation. At the same time as sunlight is driving evaporation and precipitation patterns, it is also creating winds. As warm air moves upward, colder air from neighboring areas rush in to fill the void left behind. Tropical air moves away from the equator and toward the poles. As it travels, it cools, becomes denser, and eventually descends around 30˚ north or south latitude. This dry air mass, having lost its moisture in the tropics, absorbs moisture from the ground, creating arid conditions at these latitudes. Some of the air is drawn back toward the equator, and some is drawn toward the pole as part of a new air mass. At latitudes around 60° north and south, the air again rises, cools and releases precipitation (though less than in the tropics). Some of the cold, dry rising air then flows to the poles, where it absorbs moisture creating the cold climates of the polar regions.

Winds are also generated by the rotation of the earth. Unlike the northern and southern direction of the winds described above, there are westward and eastward winds. These winds affect ocean currents. Warm, tropical waters carry heat pole-ward along the east coast of continents; cold water from the poles is forced toward the equator along the west coast. Warm surface currents can carry heat well away from the tropics, bringing temperate climates to areas nearer the poles than the Equator. Deeper currents are driven by a combination of Earth’s rotation and temperature differences between the tropics and the poles. Cold, dense melted water from the icecaps flows underneath warmer surface waters towards the Equator. The combination of wind and ocean currents redistributes heat and moisture across Earth’s surface. Around 60% of the solar energy that reaches the earth is redistributed around the planet by atmospheric circulation and around 40% by ocean currents.

Out of this interplay between our spherical orbiting planet, sun and oceans, global regions rise that divide the year into dry and wet periods.

For so many of us in the developed world, the seasons are defined by temperature. The freshness of spring, the heat of summer, the chill of autumn and the cold of winter. But for the billions of people on our planet that live in the tropics, the seasons are marked by the presence, and absence, of rain. The annual coming of the rains after months of drought, with the renewal of life from the giving water… And then, after months of rain and clouds, the sun reborn into blue skies as the next dry season begins. This is the domain of the tropical wet and dry climates. This is the Tropical Monsoon and the Tropical Savannah.

The global extent of the tropical Monsoon-Savannah wet and dry regions are shown in figure 2 with a short description below:

Figure 2
Tropical Wet and Dry Climate (Source: climatetypesforkids.com)

Tropical Wet and Dry climate is mainly found within the tropics. The tropics are two lines of latitude about 23.5 degrees north and 23.5 degrees south of the Equator. Land in this area receives direct sunlight throughout most of the year. Tropical Wet and Dry is known for its two seasons.

This band is further explained in the NOAA entry.

The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) appears as a band of clouds consisting of showers and occasional thunderstorms that encircles the globe near the equator. The solid band of clouds may extend for many hundreds of miles and is sometimes broken into smaller line segments. Its existence is due to the convergence of the trade winds: winds in the tropics that move predominantly from the east and curve towards the Equator. When the northeast trade winds from the Northern Hemisphere and the southeast winds from the Southern Hemisphere come together, it forces the air up into the atmosphere, forming the ITCZ.

The geographic extent of the ITCZ in Australia (see the previous NOAA citation) is seen in figure 2. The timing of the dry phase (Feb-March –> August-Sep) coincided with our visit. The temperature of this climate band is approximately constant (70 – 87 F (21-30C)) and the dry weather seemed to be the ideal reprieve for tourists coming from the Northern hemisphere.

Figure 3
Mediterranean Climate (Source: http://www.grabovrat.com/mapsViews/mapsViewsMB00.html)

Mediterranean climate is very pleasant climate with warm, dry summers and cool, mild winters. It gets its name from the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the coastal land around the Mediterranean Sea experience this climate. This climate’s most important cause is the large bodies of water near the land around the Mediterranean and is only found along the coast.

I have some experience living with different kinds of wet/dry climate in different locations. It is known as the Mediterranean Climate. The geographic extent and short explanation of that band is shown in Figure 3. As was mentioned in earlier blogs, I grew up in Israel which is part of that climate band and did part of my early academic career at the University of California Berkeley, in the San Francisco Bay area. I remember fondly my Berkeley years (early 1970s.) and the climate there. Many were surprised that there were no conventional seasons there (at least as temperature was concerned). Often, they didn’t like it because they grew up with seasons. The remedy was that they could travel to “extreme” seasons – to mountains looking for “real” winter (snow) and to deserts for “real” summer (cactus trees and sand in the south).

However, recent changes in parts of the region that were covered by the Mediterranean Climate that historically were considered the “Cradle of Civilization” and “Birth of the Agricultural Revolution,” are now going through desertification almost unfit for human habitation. I will follow these developments in future blogs.

The next blog will expand (with some pictures) on finding the weather (and more) in Darwin. I will show that Darwin, in terms of weather, is the “Garden of Eden” for tourists in the dry season. It is something else in its wet season.

This week I am taking a break from the blog, so there will be no post. Please do come back next Tuesday, when I promise to continue our discussions.

Hi, I’m Sonya Landau. I’ve been Micha’s editor for this blog since the beginning, and have contributed a couple of guest blogs over the years regarding Tucson, water, and heat (see the October 9, 2018 and June 22, 2021 posts). Given that his latest topic is Arizona and the conflict between population growth and water scarcity, I agreed to weigh in again here.

Population Growth

Last week, Micha mentioned the population of the Phoenix metro area, which is growing astronomically. According to the Arizona Commerce Authority, as of 2022, the area boasted a population of 5,040,400 and is projected to reach 8,035,300 by 2052. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. I’m a native Arizonan and I love the Sonoran Desert. I also understand the lure of relatively low real estate costs. Still, the idea of so many people moving to a place where it regularly reaches over 110^oF for extended stretches during the summer and which has a history of chronic drought seems especially absurd in the face of climate change, which promises to worsen both the heat and the availability of water. In contrast, the Tucson area is (fortunately) growing slower. In 2022 it had 1,072,300 people and is expected to reach 1,436,500 by 2052. As Micha has mentioned, there is a very real chance in the not-so-distant future that many Arizona residents will become climate refugees seeking shelter in more temperate areas.

Of course, one of the key considerations in the sustainability of this growth is water. Arizona has had laws since 1980 that require developers in cities to prove a 100-year water supply for each new project that does not rely exclusively on groundwater. The goal is to avoid overtaxing and depleting the finite groundwater reserves. Last month, the state halted approval of some of the construction projects near Phoenix because of doubts about water availability. Already approved projects will continue, as will new ones that exclusively use surface or recycled water rather than groundwater.

The Colorado River and Water Rights

Arizona’s other main water source, the Colorado River, has also been in the news lately for its record low levels and the ongoing battle for usage rights between the lower Colorado Basin states: Arizona, California, and Nevada. The original allotments overestimated supply, based on projections made during a period of extremely high flow, and resulted in problems when the water level dropped. Earlier this summer, the states reached an agreement about how the water will be distributed going forward in light of the historic megadrought and expected effects of climate change. Aside from these states, however, there is also the matter of Native American tribal water rights—in this case, those of the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. There has been a long legal battle to secure water for the struggling area, based on the 1868 treaty, which created the reservation with the promise of a “permanent home.” Unfortunately, last month the Supreme Court ruled against the tribe, denying that the US has obligations to provide reliable water sources on reservations.

Agriculture and Virtual Water

The 1980 law that governs water usage in Arizona’s cities is unhelpful when it comes to the resource’s use in other situations. Arizona has an enormous agricultural industry, and there are very few regulations on water use for farming. According to CNN, “In around 80% of the state, Arizona has no laws overseeing how much water corporate megafarms are using, nor is there any way for the state to track it.” In other words, there are virtually no protocols or procedures in place for the state to establish oversight, much less control.

Oddly, many of the crops grown in Arizona are especially thirsty and ill-fitting for a drought-ridden area. Micha has mentioned the concept of virtual water—the amount of water needed to grow a specific thing. That thing could be a single strawberry or almond, whose water intake is easy to track, or it could be something more complicated, like beef. In this instance, you must first calculate not only how much the cow drinks but also aspects such as how much water goes into growing its food (which is often grown elsewhere). The argument is that exporting produce that was grown with a lot of water in a water-insecure area amounts to the theft of critical natural resources. One of the most prominent crops grown in Arizona (and other places like California) is alfalfa, a type of hay that is used precisely for feeding cows and other livestock. It is a lucrative crop but it also requires an immense amount of water.  This is an especially sensitive subject because much of the crop is grown by foreign companies who export it to feed livestock in other countries. Ironically, one of the biggest farm corporations is from Saudi Arabia; it moved to the US because its own country outlawed the growth of such crops in its arid lands. This summer, Arizona officials have started to crack down on these foreign companies by restricting well permits. Additionally, towns and regions across Arizona are debating new regulations on agricultural water practices, including among people who have traditionally balked at governmental oversight.

Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, also introduced a 100-year study of Phoenix’s groundwater. Additionally:

Governor Hobbs announced a $40 million investment of American Rescue Plan Act funds to spur increased water conservation, fund critical water infrastructure, and promote sustainable groundwater management throughout the State. The Arizona Water Resiliency Fund will be administered by the Arizona Department of Water Resources to facilitate sustainable groundwater management through grants and financial support for pressing water resiliency efforts.

This is a continuing conversation that involves both government officials and community leaders/activists. On the latter side, there is a podcast called Thirst Gap, which addresses how people in the Southwest are coping with a decreasing water supply.

Resilience

Clearly, the high-paced growth of Arizona cities—while alarming—does not show the full picture of Arizona’s water woes. Nor does the number of people moving here (especially to Phoenix) seem to be slowing. There are, however, a few steps that can be taken to make growth more sustainable in the desert. Part of that comes back to neighborhood planning and communication of services. Last week, Micha pointed out the precariousness of heat safety here, and what would happen in the event of a power outage. Several organizations—both governmental and nonprofit—have produced guides with strategies for creating resilient cities and neighborhoods. One such guide describes the issue at hand:

Resiliency is a critical characteristic that allows healthy communities to respond to unknown future changes. Social, economic, political, and environmental changes occur frequently in communities and an ability to adapt to these changes is essential to maintain community health.

The guides pay special attention to the dangers of the deadly Arizona heat and how to mitigate and adapt to potential disasters. These measures include public cooling centers, resilience hubs, identification of especially vulnerable groups, community outreach, and the creation of urban forests/green spaces.

I do not know to what extent these measures will have an immediate or lasting effect on water usage/conservation in the state. I’m not convinced that those who are part of the massive population influx are aware of or willing to help confront the problems but there are plenty of groups of local Arizonans that are making a demonstrable difference. I will list several of these below in case you want to know more.

Resources

Awareness Ranch

Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters

The Guardian: Dunbar/Spring urban food forest

Live Well Arizona: Resiliency

Oatman Flats Ranch

Phoenix regenerative agriculture

Physicians for Social Responsibility Arizona: Building Resilient Neighborhoods (BRN) Citizens’ Guide

Planning.org: Urban Heat Resilience

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster

The Urban Farm in Phoenix

US Department of Agriculture: Southwest Watershed Research Center in Tucson

Watershed Management Group