This morning, at 10:53 AM local time in Tokyo, the temperature was a sweltering 95.2 F (35.1 C) and climbing…
For six days running thermometers in that city have been above 95 degrees F (35 C). That’s the longest unbroken string of 95 degree + highs Japan’s capital has experienced since record-keeping began 140 years ago in 1875. In other words, parts of Japan are experiencing never-seen-before heat.
All told, recent days have seen fully 25 percent of Japan’s cities and towns hit temperatures above 95 F. It’s a heat that sinks bone deep. That gets into the blood. That makes it hard to keep going outdoors. A heat that causes injury and, sometimes, death. And over this summer more than 35,000 people have been hospitalized throughout Japan due to heat injury. Of those, more than 850 have remained hospitalized for three weeks or more. And from this grim tally 55 have now lost their lives.
Hot Ocean Waters Breed Heat Domes
The record hot air temperatures have come on due to a combination of factors. First, the ocean around Japan is abnormally warm. Recently, near-Japan sea surface temperatures have ranged from 2-5 degrees Celsius above established averages. That’s excessively hot water, especially when one considers that El Nino will typically draw the warm waters south and eastward. But this year is not at all typical with unusual-to-record heat now ranging much of the Pacific Ocean basin.
(Extreme sea surface temperatures and a heat dome high pressure system are setting the stage for record heatwaves and tragic heat injuries in Japan. Ocean temperatures in the region have ranged up to 5-6 C above average for this time of year. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)
Near Japan, the added ocean warmth lends both heat and humidity to the air about the archipelago land mass. A combination that can push wet bulb readings into ranges that are ever more difficult for human bodies to manage.
Concordant with the exceptionally hot waters surrounding Japan is a heavy heat dome high pressure system dominating the atmosphere above it. This heat dome, as with many weather systems under the regime of human-caused climate change, has been doggedly persistent. Setting up an excessively long-lasting period of record heat that has now continued off and on for weeks.
Multiple Heatwave Mass Casualty Events for Record Hot 2015
Japan joins India, Pakistan, and the Persian Gulf Region as locations experiencing heat capable of producing mass casualty events this year. In India, more than 3,000 lost their lives due to high heat and humidity during late May and early June. In Pakistan, more than 1,500 died due to the heat even as hospitals were overwhelmed by related injuries. And in Iran last week, wet bulb temperatures rocketed to a stunning 34.7 C.
Under human-forced climate change it’s a sad fact that heatwaves proliferate. We are now four times more likely to experience a heatwave on any part of the globe than we were back during the 1880s. Before our fossil fuel burning warmed the global climate by 1 degree Celsius. And as maximum temperatures and humidity push toward and past the wet bulb limit of 35 C, we are unfortunately likely to see more and more of these heatwave mass casualty events.
Links:
Tokyo Endures Longest Heatwave Ever Recorded
Hothouse Claims Lives in India
It Felt Like 165 Degrees in Iran Today
Hat tip to Colorado Bob
entropicman
/ August 6, 2015The “sceptics” will argue that there is no proof that these individual events are linked to climate change.
How should we go about demonstrating a link before one of these regions, probably Nothern India, becomes seasonally uninhabitable?
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robertscribbler
/ August 6, 2015There’s an irrefutable link between increased heat waves and global warming. It’s the easiest extreme weather link to prove. The deniers are imbeciles worthy of ridicule and derision. The conversation right now shouldn’t be about convincing those buffoons, it should be about convincing everyone else to ignore their twattle.
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entropicman
/ August 6, 2015Sorry. I have been spending a lot of time arguing with “sceptics” lately. It has lead me to forget how peripheral they have become.
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robertscribbler
/ August 6, 2015Even the ‘scientists’ deniers cite can’t keep track of basic facts. A recent radio interviewer asked me a question based on Singer’s false statement that solar activity was growing stronger. This, after we just had the weakest solar cycle in the satellite record. These guys can’t even keep track of basic observation much less their long tail of abjectly false statements.
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Mblanc
/ August 6, 2015Its a bit like dominoes, with a sequence of records heading eastbound around the globe.
Western Europe at the start of July, then Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, India and Pakistan, and finally Japan.
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robertscribbler
/ August 6, 2015They’re lighting off like fireworks all over. One right after another right after another. And July globally was no slacker at +0.73 to +0.8 C above twentieth Century averages.
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015– A signature carbon based thermal nightmare.
cci-reanalyzer
SST Anomalies Aug 6
N.PAC at +92 C
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015Correction for senior moment RUSH TO TYPE: . SST + .92 C or POINT NINE TWO degrees.
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015Who knows — it just may get to 92 NINETY TWO F… YUK!
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robertscribbler
/ August 6, 2015Add +0.45 to the global average from climate reanalyzer to get into the vs 20th century average range. Equatorial Pacific at +0.82 is quite strong as well. We have the longest running period of + 1 C in all niño cells and it’s still going.
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015Yes, I think we are still in the early stages of this thermal cycle.
Probably quite a few surprises are in store for us.
Keep up the good work.
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James Burton
/ August 7, 2015Look at waters North West Greenland! And off of central Siberia’s coasts! Arctic seas with record heat loads. If this heat filters down to the methane?
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015We’re at 1840 in the global atmospheric peak average now. It’s a new record as we near September.
The heat at the surface will be pushed to the bottom as the ice expands over top come winter. So we’ll be looking for high Arctic readings come November through January.
Will have to see if the ramp keeps steepening this year. If so, another sign of trouble.
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015– Ah, language — our audible information glyphs. We must nourish it to keep it viable.
Most of the main women in my life have been linguists, or students of.
Me, I’m just a nosy, and observant field naturalist. I struggle to use a lexicon that’s relevant to the current situations that are in flux.
Personally, I think that the first word ever uttered or grunted, and with good reason, is FIRE! Or, HOT!
– From Japan in the weather.com article in this RS post: “Tokyo Endures”:
In Japan, a day with temperatures reaching or exceeding 35 C (95 F) is known as a mōshobi, written as 猛暑日 and meaning “extremely hot day.” It’s likely no coincidence that the first character of that term is also the first character of Japan’s highest category of typhoon – mōretsu, written as 猛烈 and meaning “violent.”
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015– Speak of 猛暑日and 猛烈.
Typhoon Soudelor May Be Strongest Taiwan Landfall In 3 Years; China, Japan’s Ryukyu Islands Also Threatened
Published Aug 6 2015 06:38 PM EDT
weather.com
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015– PDX 1600 HOURS PDT
Taiwan’s air temp forecast Taiwan time:
82 °F 84 °F 84 °F 85 °F 85 °F 86 °F (12 PM)
http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/taiwan/taipei
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015– One more before I take a nap:
– The jet steam in the N Hemisphere:
cci-reanalyzer 0806
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GarryRogers
/ August 6, 2015Reblogged this on GarryRogers Nature Conservation and Science Fiction (#EcoSciFi) and commented:
And why the sea is boiling hot–do skeptics not ask?
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dtlange
/ August 6, 2015Robert,
I remember ( in S. Calif.) waiting for the north fetch swells generated from storms in the Gulf of Alaska. The jet stream was robust. The waves always came.
The north shore of Hawaii would get them in full force.
These days, I see quite a few storms and hurricanes wandering up from the more equatorial south — with the north shores getting the wrap around wind generated surf. These should have much shorter fetch.
Has this been a trend? Another sign of CC? Does the North Shore still get its usual swells?
There sure hasn’t been a lot of hard and fast action in the Gulf of Alaska these days.
Just a thought.
OUT
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robertscribbler
/ August 6, 2015The storms have been bottled up in the Bering, DT. Stifled before they get to the Gulf of Alaska or driven north into Alaska itself. Damn. Never thought about the surf. I bet they’re rather peeved. Will check further. Thanks for the thoughts, my friend.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015Okay, so jellies and algae are doing well. Is there any life form doing well that eats algae and is eaten by jellies? C’mon, we need to put an ecosystem together here!
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rustj2015
/ August 7, 2015Would these be condiments on the soylent green?
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015I hear lionfish are tasty, but they are predatory, and cannabilistic. All that and spines too. Nothing seems to be much interested in them. They could be commensal with the jellies and the algae, but this ecosystem is still missing a key member. I am ruling out anything with shells.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015A hotter world supports a lot of ancient microbes. These microbes tend to be toxic to more complex life forms. So, yeah, there’s an ecosystem. But not a pleasant one.
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DrFog
/ August 7, 2015When there is a heat wave going on in the Middle East I have a feeling that things must be really, really bad.
Meanwhile, the official Met Office in Spain has just announced that July 2015 was not only the hottest July since reliable records began (1920) but also the hottest month ever:
http://www.aemet.es/es/noticias/2015/08/climticojulio2015
My translation of the initial paragraph after “Temperaturas”:
“July was extremely hot, with an average temperature over Spain of 26.5º C, a value that exceeds in 2.5º C the average for July (reference period: 1981-2010). It was also the hottest July in the historical time series (dating back to 1920), furthermore, it has even exceeded the previous monthly average absolute maximum temperature, set in August 2003 with 26.2ºC.”
Not only are heat records being broken but it also appears that the frequency of these events are also increasing.
Scientists have been warning about this for decades but almost nothing seems to be done as economics always takes precedence. As such, things can only get worse, very depressing.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015It’s not economics. It’s the wealth and power of one industry. One industry.
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DrFog
/ August 7, 2015Yes, I know, but the fossil fuel industry directly and indirectly still represent a huge, huge part of the current economics system.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015It’s nowhere near as important as they claim it is. More a curse than anything else.
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Andy in SD
/ August 7, 201535C to 39C where my parent live in Central Europe.
Previous post you did on Algae (very good read on something we’ve been watching this summer) made me think for a moment….
What the consequences would be if Lake Powell and/or Lake Mead develop this condition….
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015Yeah. If this stuff hits the southwest it’s a bad, bad world of hurt for that region.
Those are some amazing numbers for Central Europe… Heat waves around the world this year are just nuts.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015The drought monitor keeps predicting a coolish summer for my part of the world (SE NM). Highs from 100 on up predicted for most of the rest of the month. 107 the last few days. Oops.
I look at the winter forecast for above average precipitation and below average temps and wonder if they have the slightest idea. You make an interesting point about what happens if the ridge fails to yield. More of the same, which would be all right here but countdown to São Paulo in a number of parts of the USA SW.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015The cool forecast for central US is a cut off trough pattern that backs in from Canada. It’s not what you’d expect for a strong El Niño year.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Record-breaking polar bear spurs climate change concerns
Thursday, August 6, 2015, 11:59 AM – A hungry and skinny polar bear in Norway is raising concerns about climate change after it broke the record for the longest underwater dive with a remarkable time of three minutes and 10 seconds.
The bear smashed a previous record of 72 seconds. It swam 45 to 50 metres without coming up for air in an effort to stalk three bearded seals. The event was recently published in the journal Polar Biology, highlighting the desperate measures polar bears must take to survive and the link between climate change and melting sea ice.
These pictures will make you sick
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015The new face of climate change
Credit :
Arctic guide Rinie van Meurs.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015This bear picture as gotten to me. And not one person as commented on it And I’ve been spreading . A lion takes 40 hours to die, this is taking the entire melt season of 2015.
This whole mess has finally crushed my heart.
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Andy in SD
/ August 7, 2015That thing is starving to death
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Matt
/ August 7, 2015I have been arguing all day, with denier hacks on a thread in the local rag about polar bears. Their smug arrogance sickens me to the core, apparently the polar bears population is exploding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Been waiting all day for their evidence, but apparently personal insults pass for science these days!
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015Oh, sure. Like the walrus population is exploding. Funny how when you destroy most of the habitat, the remaining numbers congregate.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 7, 2015Bob, so agree.
That bear is a walking dead bear and looks so pitiful, it is heartwrenching to see and that is just one that we see.
I noted on a right wing rag in the comments the usual scum were commenting on the bear being able to dive for such a distance and time as evidence that the bears are doing ok and will thrive. Where are their eyes and their souls. ?
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015there are more images like these. I cannot see how they can survive unless somehow they migrate south and hybridize with other bears. Large nonhuman mammals are overall in dire straits.
People have been getting yelled about for being angry about Cecil the lion, as if we should never care about any nonhuman life. Everybody counts or nobody counts.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015It’s the face of ecocide. We’ve turned the Arctic into a barren land for polar bears. For the creatures most well adapted to live there. You remove a creature’s environment, it’s like taking away their homes. We’ve made them all orphans. Same thing with NE Pacific for sea life. It’s not isolated. It’s not something we can pretend isn’t happening. We do this to ourselves in the end.
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Eric Thurston
/ August 7, 2015As if we needed more pictures to make us sick… there is the woman who ‘bagged’ a giraffe.
http://peakwatch.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452403c69e201b7c7ba5e90970b-pi
She should be made to eat her kill.
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Griffin
/ August 7, 2015Robert, I am curious if you have some thoughts on the rather unusual surface wind pattern in the South Atlantic today? It looks like a mess with winds driving directly towards Antarctic shores.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015That’s an Omega block which has been funneling a lot of warmth into the Antarctic Peninsula region and its nearby seas. Huge heat plume there.
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Vic
/ August 7, 2015One and a half billion cows and counting…
“A new chemical food additive has been proven to reduce methane emissions in dairy cattle by 30 per cent, even prompting the animals to gain weight.
In a win-win for the environment and farmers’ bank balances, cattle that emit less methane are more productive and therefore more profitable.”
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Vic
/ August 7, 2015http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-06/dairy-cattle-emissions-methane-environment-gas/6676512
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Vic
/ August 7, 2015Its hard to say whether this is a good thing or not, because if beef gets cheaper more people will eat it.
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dtlange
/ August 7, 2015– The forensic value of the Keeling Curve.
#
– Mother Jones – Apr. 15, 2015
McDonald’s Is 60 Years Old. On Its “Opening Day” It Bragged About Having Served 15 Million Burgers.
… opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, on April 15, 1955…
#
– 1955 CO2 per Keeling Curve: just above 300 ppm.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 201560 years and 100 parts per million later. In the lifetime of my grandfather, still alive, most of the global CO2 accumulation occurred. In one human lifetime what usually takes thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Ruin indeed. It simply must stop.
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dtlange
/ August 7, 2015“60 years and 100 parts per million later. In the lifetime of my grandfather, still alive, most of the global CO2 accumulation occurred.”
Yes, indeed.
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dtlange
/ August 7, 2015Yes, and all those millions of car trips, the FF burned, the asphalt poured, the deaths from air pollution, the acreage of terra firma tilled just to grow cattle feed, the water, etc.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Dear Dr. Rood –
A new op-ed from the Wall Street Journal , this ties into your last 3 posts , nicely . Why ? Because so much of the deni-o-sphere is one op-ed after another. Not papers, not studies, but paid liars writing about papers , studies, and events. And it’s no accident that the Daily Mail and the Wall Street Journal are both owned y News Corp.
As I said before , the Daily Mail is where sewer begins, and after barely cleaning the stink of the sludge it pops out as op-eds in the Wall Street Journal.
They are really scared of the Pope’s move. This op-ed is well written . And it’s title ties into a theme they continue to advance, that climate science is “cult”.
The Religion of Climate Change
Lending the power of the pulpit to the cause of environmental politics.
Link
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Bill H
/ August 7, 2015Bob, a small point, but the Daily Fail isn’t part of the Murdoch stable. It is nevertheless something of which I, as an Englishman, am deeply ashamed.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 7, 2015Yeah Murdochs rag slunk off the scene, these creatures appear to be clones
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts on this. Do you guys think that publically calling out climate change deniers is helpful or just a distraction? My view has tended to be that labeling certain sources as bad actors is the best policy. But I hear a lot of complaints from you guys RE deniers. So if there’s a set of actions you believe would be more effective, I’m all ears.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015What is needed is a massive paradigm shift or three, and there is no time left. Is arguing with idiots and liars the best use of one’s time? Well, the question would be, is it ever effective? And if it’s only effective at a glacial pace, as one plays to the audience, does it make any difference?
These are not easy questions to address. I do see a tendency to focus on the horrors instead on efforts to act in the right ways, and this is hard on a person’s mental health. One only too easily lapses into despair. I would look at people who are most effectively acting for change that can work, can help, and ask myself how they spend their time.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015That’s a tough call for me Miep. My particular talent lies in a combined threat recognition and developing a sense of urgency to act. Depression comes from the opposite, inability, futility, or failure to act.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015It is a mistake to dismiss any approach as futile, when what is needed is a united front of many different approaches, an entire network of them. But not every approach works for everyone, and one that leaves a person overly frustrated and sorrowful, to the point where it’s incapacitating, is futile itself.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015It’s always a good idea to step back from time to time and ask one’s self what one’s efforts are truly accomplishing. At the same time, one of the worst pitfalls of activist movements is the tendency to tell others they are doing it wrong, or that their efforts are pointless. It’s a huge waste of time and a terrible morale killer.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015OK, Miep.
For my part, looking to strategically shift some fire onto bad actors, continue to track threats as they emerge (better to know than to not know in my view), and in particular keep aiming at the fossil fuel industry center of gravity. There are some cracks opening up and they’ll be easier to take advantage of as time goes forward. Considering all the strategic memes started here that have proliferated, I’m not in this place where I feel there’s anything wrong with the approach. I was more so interested in people’s thoughts on the issue of direct confrontation with deniers. Specifically that one particular issue. Not tone, not style, not any of that unrelated stuff.
So no, I wasn’t opening up to broader critiques from members of the activist movement.
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Ryan in New England
/ August 8, 2015I think all deniers should be called out for their lies and exposed as the charlatans they are. Clearly the obfuscation they dole out has an effect in public opinion, since much of the public is unconcerned or unaware of climate change. They need to be made aware of the professional liars and misinformation they spread, and the first step is pointing out the deniers.
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robertscribbler
/ August 8, 2015Good thoughts, Ryan and thank you for your answer. So first identification? How broad, or just the major players?
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James Burton
/ August 7, 2015psychopathic Rupert Murdoch! The power of one man and his media mega machine has done more damage to humanity in the long run than anyone who has ever lived. And, I will stick by that statement! History will judge him the heart of modern evil. Greed and lust for riches over the common humanity and respect for others that mankind needs to survive. This cult of individual rights to spoil the commons is driven by modern economic theory.
At one phase of human development, a person who despoiled the commons, or exhibited too much personal greed, was driven away by the group as a present danger to survival long term. We turned that on it’s head, and allow corporate greed to despoil, ruin, and rape the commons for shareholder returns. Think about that, it is fact.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015What’s most ironic is that this cult of the individual only protects the power of a few such individuals. They are happy to crush all the rest. Anyone not in the money club is considered not an individual and therefore a non-person. That’s the ugliness of it all.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015“At one phase of human development, a person who despoiled the commons, or exhibited too much personal greed, was driven away by the group as a present danger to survival long term. ”
Yes. What is needed is better taboos. Instead, we live in a culture that exalts greed and despoiling and has a nasty Descartian attitude towards the natural world. That’s gotta go, and in fact, it will, because it is simply too toxic to survive. We don’t really have a choice in the long run. It’s a matter of whether we let go of this hubris that we can live without a natural world, that we can keep on making artificial bubbles, endlessly, until there is no natural world left, and that this is some kind of solution.
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redskylite
/ August 7, 2015July 2015’s monthly average CO2 at Mauna Loa is 401.30 ppm (+2.30 over same time last year), see no evidence yet that mankind is making any progress on getting the carbon balance back on target. This from the Smithsonian today….
“A Hotter Climate May Boost Conflict, From Shootings to Wars”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/hotter-climate-may-boost-conflict-shootings-wars-180956180/?no-ist
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015Australia is certainly in reverse at the moment. UK too.
The issue is that even bringing CO2 emission increases to a stop is a big political lift. In 2014 we saw emissions plateau. But that still means +2.2 ppm per year, which is excessive and terrible and just plain horrible. In addition, you have these rumblings in the natural carbon store. So we really, really need to move fast. And that means a huge political fight. A huge fight over how we do things in economics and agriculture as well. But it’s a fight we simply must win.
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redskylite
/ August 7, 2015From Alaska to India, more and more people are noticing the distinct changes to our environment, vested interests cannot sweep it under the carpet anymore.
Alaska: Warming Climate Leaves Alaskans With Fewer Walrus to Hunt
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/warming-temps-push-walrus-north-leave-alaskans-food-32913862
Northern India:Global warming : bears no longer hibernating in Uttarakhand
http://hillpost.in/2015/08/global-warming-bears-no-longer-hibernating-in-uttarakhand/103919/
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Heavy Rain Brings Flooding to Northeast Argentina and Brazil
A front lifting through eastern South America will continue to bring heavy rain and flooding to northeastern Argentina and southeastern Brazil through Monday night.
This slow-moving cold front will continue to produce locally heavy rainfall into Monday night before weakening as it continues north on Tuesday.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/heavy-rain-threatens-uruguay-a/50442896
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015A comment at Dr. Master’s said the bear was photo shopped.
I am crazy about this comment.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015See. That’s what we’re dealing with. Human monsters.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Blodwyn Pig – Ahead Rings Out -1969 Full Album-
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Blodwyn Pig – Dear Jill (Ahead Rings Out, August, 1969)
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Everyone who remembers Blodwyn Pig – Dear Jill , raise your hand. .
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015The blues always saves the pain.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Donald Trump: Fox anchor ‘Megyn [Kelly] behaved very badly’
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015Never hear this before. But that’s some quality blues.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015The Doors – Break on Through (To the Other Side)
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Remember this –
Santana – No one to depend on
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Sorry to be so dark , but everything I know has plunged me into despair. Like I have never seen.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015I don’t know what to say, other than keep on trying to find some kind of useful interaction. A friend of mine told me recently that she doesn’t have a lot of bounce, but that she never stops.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015At some point we all stop. I spent my entire life guttng it up.
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Anne
/ August 7, 2015Bob, your comments are always valued here. You are doing good work.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015You’re one of the best there is, Bob. But fighting in this trench war is as tough as it ever gets. The bastards are by definition merciless. And that’s why we don’t go quietly. Because there is a most essential difference here. One side is benevolent and the other is the worst face humankind has ever shown. And that’s saying something. So despair is understandable. Anguish is understandable. We have to honor that.
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The Virginian
/ August 7, 2015Bob, keep in mind that there are many others who share your feelings but do not post them. It’s a great comfort to see that we’re not alone.
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Maria
/ August 7, 2015Bob, I’m so sorry to hear that you are feeling so hopeless right now. I and many others share your despair about our future. Thanks for naming it so that, indeed, as The Virginian said, you helped us feel less alone. Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise” is coming to mind right now as I write this…
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise
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Maria
/ August 7, 2015Bob, immersing myself in the beauty that we have right now, this moment–which is all we really ever can claim “having”— and photographing it helps soothe. Heading out in a few minutes…
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015“They tried to bury us. They did not know that we were seeds.”
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Maria
/ August 8, 2015Yes.
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dtlange
/ August 7, 2015Hi Bob,
I have an idea of what you are feeling.
I keep going partly because of my character — but also, out of a feeling of ‘survivor guilt’ for those innocent life forms already extinguished.
I feel a strong and strict moral imperative to at least ‘witness’ for them — and try to honor their shortened time on Earth.
Back when I had my SaveTheSky website (web-sight) my banner was a modified Dylan Thomas line of: “Rage. Rage and’ [rail] at the dying of the light (sky).”
My own mortality — and my life is to be judged by the dignity, honesty, compassion, and empathy I carry. But — these feelings must be spoken and acted upon to have any real value.
“I came onto this world kicking and screaming. I plan to go out the same way — kicking and screaming.”
I feel very fortunate in finding all you good people here at RS.
OUT
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Matt
/ August 7, 2015And meanwhile in the land of the totally insane…… this from our beloved PM Abbott, when responding to the Federal Court Decision to reverse the approval for the Adani Coal Mine…””Australian resources can give them electricity and the interesting thing about Australian resources is that invariably they’re much better for the environment than the alternative,” he said. WTF! better than what exactly???? I feel a deep and profound sense of shame being Australian at the moment, my apologies to all for our pathetic excuse for a government. 😦
They will of course re-approve the mine after rigging the process to bypass the court’s decision 😦
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-07/abbott-says-overturning-of-adani-approval-is-dangerous/6680200
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015Cream – Politician
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015Criminal insanity in action. Doesn’t get any more ludicrous, short-sighted, or destructive. The man is walking, talking genocide.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 7, 2015That drongo, can’t even keep his stories straight when bleating about Navy shipbuilding, first SA , then SA and Vic, then when WA was whingeing, oh they will be included too. But all up in the air. The original pronouncement was given a fanfare by Murdoch Media as LNP unpopular in SA and election next year. All the flip flops and flaps that followed were scarcely mentioned in the mushroom farm
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015One more to make us all happy –
Jethro Tull – “Back to the Family”
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015I think I enjoyed all my problems
Where I did not get nothing for free.
Oh, I’m going back to the family —
doing nothing is bothering me.
I’ll get a train back to the city
that soft life is getting me down.
There’s more fun away from the family
get some action when I pull into town.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015I was a huge Jethro Tull fan when I was a teenager. I used to memorize and play the flute solos.
Ian Anderson wrote some seriously strange stuff.
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Colorado Bob
/ August 7, 2015They never did better than this.
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Miep
/ August 7, 2015“I think I enjoyed all my problems, where I did not get nothing for free” is terrific.
good dog but I loved that band.
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bill shockley
/ August 7, 2015At the risk of getting this song stuck in my head for another 18 months.
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bill shockley
/ August 7, 2015you know the rational segment of the power elite will speak about climate change and do nothing; the irrational segment — the lunatic fringe of the republican party — has just gone insane and pretend climate change just doesn’t exist, and meanwhile nobody is doing anything. If we are going to leave this planet in any kind of habitable form for our children and our grandchildren we are going to have to begin to make massive sacrifices now to carry out massive acts of civil disobedience because if we trust within the system, they’ll kill us.
Youtube: Chris Hedges on Willful Blindness, Climate Corporatism & the Underground Revolt
Published 9/23/2014
Hedges is like Chomsky. The guy has been around and knows what he talks about. Look him up on youtube.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015Hedges and the Pope agree. Time for revolution.
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bill shockley
/ August 7, 2015Smart Pope. I feel really guilty being an American. A stupid American. We are so guilty. We don’t deserve to be saved.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015All life is worthwhile and worth fighting for. And we owe it to ourselves and our children to bring down carbon emissions as rapidly as possible.
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Ryan in New England
/ August 8, 2015Hedges is one of the few writers who has the courage to correctly describe our situation and call out the corrupt politicians for their ignorance, greed and apathy, and the wisdom to do it accurately.
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bill shockley
/ August 8, 2015I’m fascinated by the depth and extent of his scholarship and experience. He’s the whole package. But I’m not sure I would have appreciated or even noticed him without first having been exposed to Chomsky. They are both intense scholars and know history backwards and forwards. And they both have been on the scene of many of the world’s great events and witnessed them firsthand and up close. Chomsky’s cool, scathing outrage was a moral uplift and an education for many years for me. I recommend chomsky.info for anyone who’s feeling down.
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SoMplsboy
/ August 7, 2015Living in oz now and 99 percent here just don’t want to know.so sad they just want to see their house price rise. Our only hope it seems is to wait until crisis level is reached; only then will the brainwashed, propaganda fed masses look up from their consumption stupor and recognise that everything has changed forever. keep in mind the power of decades of fooling messages that are very hard to unwind. It can be done and we don’t have time to waste on morons-accelerate the mission now or failure is assured. many thanks co bob et al. Uncomphagre is in my heart forever and I won’ t go quietly into the night as have kids.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ August 7, 2015Killer heat grows hotter around world: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/killer-heat-grows-hotter-around-the-world/
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Jack Arnold
/ August 7, 2015The nsidc says there was a gain of about 0.5 million sq km of sea ice extent yesterday. Is this possible any other way in a single day in august except for a massive fracturing and spreading out of existing formerly cohesive ice mass?
Or an error in measurement?
Then again I dont really know the difference between extent and area where this is concerned, so… but still seems unprecedented.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
Their sensor broke. This does not jibe with any other observation.
See also:
No rebound here. Just the Beaufort getting massacred.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 7, 2015I note JAXA shows a levelling off of the drop over the last couple of days, wait a few days and see what shows
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015JAXA lost 62,000 square kilometers yesterday. Not really a leveling off. Just a slightly slower rate of extent decline.
CT area at 4th lowest on record.
JAXA extent at 4th lowest on record.
Both showing daily losses.
NSIDC didn’t just jump 0.5 million square kilometers in the graph. It jumped 2.5 million square kilometers + in the base measure which broke the graph. There’s nothing to indicate anything of the sort is happening on the ice in MODIS visible or in any of the other monitors. ie THE SENSOR BROKE.
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dtlange
/ August 7, 2015“… the Beaufort [is] getting massacred.” It sure is.
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Abel Adamski
/ August 7, 2015I noted that, I suspect but will need evidence that it would be the fractured multiseason floes being fragmented and spread along with all the other sea ice by the winds.
Don’t forget sea ice extent is >15% ice in the water
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015See http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent.png
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Abel Adamski
/ August 7, 2015Yours didn’t load for some reason RS.
I have been using this version for years, in its various incarnations
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015Click again.
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robertscribbler
/ August 7, 2015And see http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/arctic_AMSR2_nic.png
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