Climate Change Will Be an Unavoidable Topic at the DNC

Current conditions: Record rainfall swamped Vienna, Austria, over the weekend • Russia evacuated school children from summer camps in parts of Siberia as wildfires rage • It will be a pleasant 72 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Chicago today for the start of the Democratic National Convention.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Climate advocates will be out in force at the Democratic National Convention

The Democratic National Convention kicks off today in Chicago, where Vice President Kamala Harris will be officially recognized as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee. President Biden and first lady Jill Biden are expected to speak today, former President Barack Obama is scheduled to appear tomorrow, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will take center stage Wednesday to accept the vice-presidential nomination, and Harris will speak on Thursday. The rest of the schedule hasn’t been officially announced, but climate change will be an unavoidable topic. E&E News reported that climate will be a prominent theme on at least one of the event’s four nights, with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan likely to tout the Biden administration’s environmental wins. Climate advocates will be out in force, making the case “for candidates up and down the ballot in November to speak often about the success of the Inflation Reduction Act,” E&E News added. Convention attendees reportedly will receive regular pop-up ads on their devices from the event’s “clean energy sponsor,” Chicago-based Invenergy, about the economic benefits of the solar boom. The event runs through Thursday.

2. Connecticut hit by historic rain and flooding

Heavy rain inundated parts of the East Coast yesterday, triggering catastrophic flash floods and disrupting travel. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for parts of Connecticut, including Fairfield, New Haven, Litchfield and Hartford counties, after about 10 inches of rain fell across the region. Meteorologists called this a one-in-1,000-year event. “This amount of precipitation wasn’t expected by anyone today,” Kyle Pederson, a NWS meteorologist, told The New York Times. Streets and cars were submerged and multiple water rescues had to be carried out.

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Flash flood warnings were issued for Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. In NYC, water poured from the ceiling into Chelsea Market. Amtrak trains were disrupted between New York and Philadelphia, and flights were delayed out of Boston Logan International Airport.

3. Heat illness sickens 100 at Colorado air show

Meanwhile, in Colorado, more than 100 people who attended an air show were treated for heat-related illnesses on Saturday. Temperatures inched toward 100 degrees Fahrenheit at the Pikes Peak Regional Air Show in Colorado Springs, and there was little cloud cover or shade to provide relief. The fire department said most people were treated on-site but 10 were sent to hospitals. At the event’s second day, on Sunday, organizers put in place extra precautions like water stations and shade tents. “No one wants a repeat of Saturday,” said Colorado Springs Sports Corporation spokeswoman Lauren DeMarco. Parts of Colorado have been experiencing near-record high temperatures for August. In Denver, the extreme heat is also making air quality worse. Heat alerts were in place for more than 52 million people across the central Plains and South over the weekend. The heat index could reach 112 degrees today in parts of north Texas.

4. Appeals court scraps some natural gas pipeline safety standards

In case you missed it on Friday, a U.S. appeals court scrapped some of President Biden’s natural gas pipeline safety standards. The rules, put in place by the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said natural gas operators had to repair pipelines showing signs of wear and tear, like corrosion or cracks and dents. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the agency hadn’t adequately analyzed the costs of those repairs or explained why they would be justified, and tossed them out.

5. Hailstone ‘library’ could help improve weather modeling

Researchers have created a “hailstone library” where they are collecting and studying hailstone samples to help inform weather models. The library, located at Australia’s University of Queensland, contains hundreds of samples of hailstones from all over the world to help scientists better understand how things like shape, weight, and size affect the way the stones behave in a storm.

University of Queensland

“The end game is to be able to predict in real-time how big hail will be, and where it will fall,” said Dr. Joshua Soderholm, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow from the University of Queensland’s School of the Environment. “More accurate forecasts would of course warn the public so they can stay safe during hailstorms and mitigate damage. But it could also significantly benefit industries such as insurance, agriculture, and solar farming which are all sensitive to hail.” Heatmap’s Jeva Lange noted back in June that most climate models don’t look specifically at hail trends, but that “it’s been hypothesized that climate change could create larger and more destructive hail in the future.”

THE KICKER

This is the first year since 2011 that tickets for the Burning Man Festival haven’t sold out. Last year’s event was spoiled by heavy rain that flooded the Nevada desert and left stranded attendees to fend for themselves in deep mud.