Climate Point: Siberian ground temps top 118, and a new group of blue whales is found

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. From Palm Springs, California, I'm Janet Wilson.

We live on an incredibly diverse planet, but the hits from global warming and other messes we've created just keep on coming. Twisters are surging outside Tornado Alley. Siberian ground temperatures topped 118 degrees recently. And even desert plants ��� famous for tolerance of torrid landscapes — are dying at an alarming rate due to rising temperatures and less rain, as I reported this week.

Using more than three decades of satellite data, UC Irvine scientists found a nearly 40% decline in native vegetation across 5,000 square miles of California's Sonoran desert, from the Mexican border to below Palm Springs. 

Some scientists say hardy desert plants can survive warming temperatures and regrow with a good annual rainfall, but the authors said the area they studied definitively shows the opposite.

"They are not somehow super adapted to be able to withstand the effects of climate change," said co-author James Randerson, a UC Irvine biogeochemist.

Here are other stories that may be of interest:

MUST-READ STORIES

Twisted. Tornadoes wreaked havoc in Chicago suburbs, Indiana and elsewhere this week, and Alabama was hit by twisters and Tropical Storm Collette. A USA Today investigation has found deadly twisters are striking the South more frequently and during more months of the year. They doubled over the past 20 years in Alabama and Kentucky alone. While improved reporting technology accounts for some of it, researchers say atmospheric signals point to climate change, too, though work remains to nail down the connection. Check out this stunning graphic explainer, related stories on slow warning systems and more.

Deep down. Tucked on the dark, vast ocean floor are deposits of cobalt, tellurium and other minerals crucial to renewable technology. But mining the word's seas for this treasure would come at a price, and there's scant regulation to control the huge domain, known simply as "the Area."  Elizabeth Kolbert reports for The New Yorker.

POLITICAL CLIMATE

Inching forward. Dozens of Republican members of Congress have signed on to a Conservative Climate Caucus launched Wednesday by Rep. John Curtis of Utah, as the party moves away from explicitly denying climate change is occurring. Rachel Frazin with The Hill and Lisa Friedman at The New York Times report. 

Fresh energy. A coal-state Republican and a centrist Democrat will pitch a compromise alternative to one of President Joe Biden’s signature proposals to address climate change, per Josh Siegel with Washington Examiner. GOP Rep. David McKinley of West Virginia and Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon are introducing legislation later this week, called the Clean Energy Future through Innovation Act, to impose a clean electricity standard requiring utilities to slash emissions 80% by 2050. Biden’s clean electricity standard would mandate 100% carbon-free power by 2035.

Trade you. As private land and water supply run dry across the West, developers are seeking federal approvals to swap currently protected but buildable parcels for remote parcels that could be declared wilderness instead. Sam Metz with Associated Press fills us in. 

ENERGY CLEAN AND DIRTY

Deepwater horizons. Gulf of Mexico oil companies and officials in Gulf states are claiming marine production is cleaner and produces fewer greenhouse gases than onshore fracking. Rebecca Leber with Vox pulls the pieces together in a look at "the weird argument that offshore oil is good for the environment, debunked."

Homemade. Tesla's Model 3, built in Fremont, California, on Wednesday became the first all-electric car to take the top spot in cars.com's American-Made Index (AMI) index, which “ranks new vehicles that contribute most to the U.S. economy” based on U.S. factory jobs, manufacturing plants and sourcing of parts. 

"Tesla is the only major automaker to claim 100% domestic production for all cars it sells in the U.S., well above the industry’s roughly 52% average for the 2021 model year," Kelsey Mays, assistant managing editor at cars.com, told USA TODAY's Keira Wingate.

Ford, with its Flat Rock, Michigan factory, wins the No. 2 spot with its Mustang, down from last year, when its Ford Ranger took No. 1, which is now at No. 28. General Motors had the most models on this year's list, 19 in total.

GLOBAL HOT TAKES

Barrier. UN officials say the Great Barrier Reef should be included on a list of world heritage in danger, and rejected Australian officials' pushback.

Ecocide. Legal experts from around the world want ecocide to be made an international crime alongside violations like war crimes and genocide. 

Bad news. Millions of people will face hunger, drought and disease unless global warming is slowed, according to a draft UN climate report, which warns while life on Earth can survive drastic climate shifts, humans won't.

GRAPHIC DETAILS

I first heard about the threat to permafrost back in 2006, when to my surprise, I was able to reach a scientist on his cell phone in northern Siberia the day that research Russian and U.S. scientists worked on together was published. They laid out the perils of a thawing permafrost unleashing huge amounts of methane, but noted that there was time to reduce global emissions and forestall the threat.

Fast forward 17 years. We haven't slashed emissions and the premises of this research and other findings appear to be coming true, in not good ways. On the first day of summer, EU satellites recorded ground temperatures of 118 degrees Farenheit in Siberia, and air temps were plenty warm too, as Gizmodo Earther's Isaac Schultz and Mic's AJ Dellinger explain.

AND ANOTHER THING

Singing the blues. Blue whales are some of the world's biggest animals, but they're also some of the hardest to find. Not only were they nearly wiped out by whaling for their oil, they're also naturally reclusive and can cover vast areas of ocean. But via nuclear weapons testing microphones, Australian scientists say they've discovered a new population of pygmy blue whales in the Indian Ocean. It was the whales' powerful singing — recorded by the underwater bomb detectors — that gave them away. Wonder what they're singing now.

That's it for now. Have a whale of a week. You can follow me on Twitter @janetwilson66 or sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.