NASA developed the new tool together with researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with the team drawing on data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On (GRACE-FO) satellites. Launched last year, these spacecraft circle the Earth to map its gravitational field, and by detecting variations in that gravitational field, can reveal the shifting of mass, such as the global flow of water and ice.
The GRACE-FO observations were mixed with computer models that simulate water and energy cycles to spit out time-varying maps of water distribution at different depths. This includes the moisture of the soil at the surface, root zone soil moisture that takes up the top 3 feet of soil, and shallow groundwater, with the water distribution presented in the form of weekly global maps.

Global Maps of Dryness Help Prepare for Water Use Around Globe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IJOYhYibeQ


NASA's first global groundwater maps reveal drought in remote areas
https://newatlas.com/environment/nasa-global-groundwater-map-drought/

In an obscure corner of the American physical oil market, crude prices have turned negative -- producers are actually paying consumers to take away the black stuff.
The first crude stream to turn upside down was Wyoming Asphalt Sour, a dense oil used mostly to produce paving bitumen. Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., a trading house, bid negative 19 cents per barrel in mid-March for the crude, effectively asking producers to pay for the luxury of getting rid of their output.

https://www.bloomberg.com/...020-03-27/one-corner-of-u-s-oil-market-has-already-seen-negative-prices

World Meteorological Organization
30 min ·
TAKE TWO
Some parts of the observing system are already affected. Most notably the significant decrease in air traffic has had a clear impact. In-flight measurements of ambient temperature and wind speed and direction are a very important source of information for both weather prediction and climate monitoring.
Commercial airliners contribute to the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay programme (AMDAR), which uses onboard sensors, computers and communications systems to collect, process, format and transmit meteorological observations to ground stations via satellite or radio links.
In some parts of the world, in particular over Europe, the decrease in the number of measurements over the last couple of weeks has been dramatic. (see chart below provided by EUMETNET).
The AMDAR observing system has traditionally produced over 700 000 high-quality observations per day of air temperature and wind speed and direction, together with the required positional and temporal information, and with an increasing number of humidity and turbulence measurements being made.

A lot of people have an “Oh, shit” moment with climate change — something that wakes them up to the scale and severity of the crisis. What was your moment?
I think it happened in two phases. The first moment happened at Standing Rock. I was there with native communities and leaders. It was their land, secured via treaty with the United States, that we decided to violate because a fossil-fuel company had essentially purchased our politics. Just standing there, [seeing] people organized against these massive tanks, these armed guards. [But] it wasn’t the U.S. military that people were standing up against; it was a militarized corporation — a fossil-fuel corporation. That, to me, was the “Oh, shit” moment in terms of what it’s actually going to take — because it’s not just about the science, it’s about the systems that protect all of the power that goes into defying the science.

But in terms of the cost and the scale, the second “Oh, shit” moment happened with Hurricane Maria the following year. I lost my grandfather in the aftermath of Maria.

https://www.rollingstone.com/...res/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-on-how-to-build-a-green-new-deal-965807

YMLADRIS: U.S. to Announce Rollback of Auto Pollution Rules, a Key Effort to Fight Climate Change

A good year for solar: Agrivoltaics in vineyards – pv magazine International
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/03/31/a-good-year-for-solar-agrivoltaics-in-vineyards/

Out of 1,000m² of vines planted with [the] black grenache [red wine grape], 600m² were covered by our dynamic agrivoltaic system,” the Sun’Agri spokesperson said. The 280 panels used have a generation capacity of 84 kW, were placed at a height of 4.2m and can be moved in real time using an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm the French agrivoltaic specialist has been developing for more than a decade.

The algorithm is said to be able to determine the ideal tilt of the panels according to the sunshine and water requirements of viticulture, growth model of the crop, soil quality and weather conditions. “Artificial intelligence is programmed to favor the growth of the plant,” said the Sun’Agri representative. “In the event of extreme climatic hazards – drought, heatwave, hail, frost, heavy rain etc – the AI ​​controls the panels to protect the crops.”

Conventional wisdom holds that rising living standards are fueled by oil. What if that’s wrong?
Researchers found that recent improvements in life expectancy are only weakly coupled to increases in carbon emissions

Koronavirus: noční můra globalizovaného světa – A2larm
https://a2larm.cz/2020/04/koronavirus-nocni-mura-globalizovaneho-sveta/

Cassandra's Legacy: The March of the Holobionts: Why Gaia is one of us
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-march-of-holobionts-why-gaia-is-one.html?m=1

there is the related concept of "holobiont" -- a term originally invented by Lynn Margulis, the co-discoverer, with James Lovelock, of the idea of "Gaia" as a homeostatic planetary system. Once you learn what a holobiont is, your view of the world changes completely. The evolutionary unit of the ecosystem is not the organism, but the holobiont: an ensemble of creatures that cooperate with each other without sharing the same genetic code as multicellular organisms do: a tree is an organism, a forest is a holobiont. The forest holobiont includes not just trees, but all the animals together with the microbiome of fungi, bacteria, archaea, viruses, and everything.

That opens up a whole new evolutionary frontier: multicellular organisms transmit genetic information by the complex process of sexual reproduction followed by competitive selection. Holobionts do something similar, but they don't have a genome that they pass to their descendants by sexual transmission, they have a hologenome that successful holobionts can transmit using different strategies. And that answers a difficult question: who is Gaia, exactly? You guessed it, the Queen of Heaven and Earth is a holobiont! As a Goddess, She may not be benevolent and merciful, surely not all-powerful, but she does what she can. She is one of us.

TADEAS: (kinda related)

The Corona Crisis is Not a Black Swan: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Universa Inv. & NYU Tandon)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tb2pXXUSzmI