“We came as close as one can to demonstrating a direct link between climate change and a large family of extreme recent weather events.” — Michael Mann
*****
The Earth is warming, the weather is growing more extreme, and from the observational perspective, it appears that the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream has undergone some seriously disturbing changes. Over the past five years, this subject has been one that’s spurred heated debate among scientists, meteorologists, and global climate and weather watchers. Now, a new model study finds that it’s likely that the Jet Stream is being significantly altered by human-forced climate change and that this alteration is helping to drive extreme weather events like the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Pakistan flood and Russian heat wave, the 2011 Texas heat wave and recent floods in Europe.
(More extreme variation in upper level wind speeds is an upshot of polar warming during boreal summer. The result is that risks of severe heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods increases as the Earth warms. Image source: Michael Mann, Penn State.)
From the study:
… our analysis of both historical model simulations and observational surface temperature data, strongly suggests that anthropogenic warming is impacting the zonal mean temperature profile in a manner conducive to wave resonance and a consequent increase in persistent weather extremes in the boreal summer.
What this means is that the new study provides still more evidence that the Jet Stream’s north to south variance is increasing during summer. As a result, it is enabling powerful heat domes to form in regions where winds run from south to north. In regions where the upper level winds run from north to south, it creates cooler zones in which powerful storms can flood large swaths of countryside. In other words, increasingly juxtapposed zones of extreme temperature anomalies and higher atmospheric instability and moisture loading tend to form more and more often. And this results in weather patterns that we have never really seen before.
(An Inconvenient Sequel is a call for action on climate change like we’ve never seen before. And the imperative to act on climate is now stronger than it ever was.)
The fact that the Mann study uses observational and model assessments to find that such changes are likely to very likely now being caused by human-forced warming and related polar amplification is a highly significant scientific finding. It adds one more attribution tie to the extreme weather events that we’ve been seeing with increasing frequency. A tie directly to global warming. And it does so through model studies that identify the underlying physical mechanisms at work. It’s a pivotal moment in the atmospheric sciences. And everyone needs to sit up and pay attention.
Credits:
Hat tip to Colorado Bob
Hat tip to Cate
Scientific hat tip to Dr Michael Mann
(Please support publicly-funded, non-special interest based science that is now under assault by the climate change denying Trump Administration)
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017Good , the Cat 6 people are about to be over run by trolls. They change their whole thing Monday . I am asking the all the interesting people to come here .
You will be very busy.
robertscribbler
/ March 30, 2017Thanks, Bob. Been really kicking some serious troll butt here lately :). I hope the Cat 6 moderators step it up a bit. The trolls bring traffic, but it’s a Faustian bargain and the very valuable site is much better off without them.
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017It will be worth it . The thread will grow.
robertscribbler
/ March 30, 2017🙂 Gotta say I really appreciate you helping to hold the ship down. It’s an amazingly tough bit of work.
climatehawk1
/ March 30, 2017Tweet scheduled.
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017I am stuck on the the 7 percent law …………………..
Quoting 5. islander101010:
reports of widespread flooding eastern australia due to debbie. she was loaded with precip. a heavy one.
39 inches in 48 hours near landfall .
CBS reported our current system rained 9 inches in Louisiana yesterday.
The 7 percent law ain’t a hoax.
I have noticed over the years that when the deniers do, or say something really stupid, my Google news feed is full of “hoax reports” of an octopus being found in parking garages in Miami Beach, or hail stones the size of baseballs eating car windshields around Dallas. ( The cloud tops with this one were 40,000 to 50,000 feet this week )
One grows numb to the daily “tick-tock” , but having watched all this from an “observed event” point of view since B-17 broke off Antarctica , 17 years ago . I can say that the 7 percent law has us well, and truly by the short and curlies. I once set out to make list of this for one year , knowing that “extreme precpitation events” are one of the keystone predictions of the hypothesis. That year , a weak hurricane dumped 8 inches of rain in one hour in Vera Cruz.
But nothing touched this –
The Swat Valley –
I never saw a number on just how bad the rainfall was there , until this story from the Guardian . ” It was raining so hard, you couldn’t see a man standing in front of you ” …………..
” In more than 60 hours of non-stop torrential rainfall, the floods washed all that away. The north-west normally receives 500mm (20in) of rain in the month of July; over one five-day period 5,000mm fell. “It was incredible,” said Sameenullah Afridi, a local United Nations official. ”
That’s 196.8 inches of rain , 16 feet .
Link
Here’s the whole thing…………………….
The Extreme Rain Events of 2010
By Colorado Bob
Here’s the key idea behind this new world , heat is looking a condenser. As It rises on water molecules of our ever hotter oceans , it does not care where that condenser is . Whether rushing to the poles , the top of the Hindu Kush , or 50,000 feet over Dallas. Once it finds that condenser , it drops it’s water taxi. And gravity takes over.
This is why old people don’t die in Fla. in the summer. We call it air conditioning. And water drips out of these machines.
robertscribbler
/ March 30, 2017Cate
/ March 30, 2017I watched it in disbelief. All I could think of was the inquisition of Galileo.
Genomik
/ March 31, 2017Mann IS the Man! SuperEarthMann, man! GO MANN! 🙂
miles h
/ March 30, 2017read this earlier…. plankton and algal blooms in the arctic due to thinning ice. seems it could be good for the animals in increased food supplies to the food chain… or may also increase albedo due to colouring of ice?…. or…. well…. unforeseen consequences? who knows. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-sea-ice-melts-climate-change-global-warming-area-green-a7656876.html
robertscribbler
/ March 30, 2017Increases ocean acidification, increases ocean dead zones, reduces ice albedo = bad.
Robert A. Vella
/ March 30, 2017Reblogged this on The Secular Jurist and commented:
“What this means is that the new study provides still more evidence that the Jet Stream’s north to south variance is increasing during summer. As a result, it is enabling powerful heat domes to form in regions where winds run from south to north. In regions where the upper level winds run from north to south, it creates cooler zones in which powerful storms can flood large swaths of countryside. In other words, increasingly juxtapposed zones of extreme temperature anomalies and higher atmospheric instability and moisture loading tend to form more and more often. And this results in weather patterns that we have never really seen before.”
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017The Arctic is not the Antarctic .
In the south , algae lives on the underside of the ice , and it is key to the life cycle of krill. Which is the keystone to the higher animals.
This new greening of Arctic sea ice idea. Is real crap shoot.
We just didn’t change the Arctic , we car bombed it.
robertscribbler
/ March 30, 2017Yeah. Fossil fuel burning really did screw things up there.
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017We are car bombing the Arctic.
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017RS
That’s your a title for you .
We are car bombing the Arctic.
robertscribbler
/ March 30, 2017That’s a good one. Will see if I can use it at some point soon if it’s OK with you, Bob.
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017I am lost old fool .
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017The “science advances one funeral at a time” quote has been attributed to Niels Bohr.
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017Tonight let us Madonna .
An entire idea one of the richest , most powerful women the world has ever seen.
I love this idea.
coloradobob
/ March 30, 2017The End of the World. .
A better way to say it , The End of our World,
Ryan in New England
/ March 30, 2017This is really significant news. Everyone who’s old enough can remember that the weather used to be different. The seasons have blended together, with pretty much any weather possible at any time of year. More extreme events and wild swings from cold to hot. It’s terrible news to know we’ve altered the once reliable and relatively stable weather of the Northern Hemisphere, but good to have confirmation of what I’ve suspected for a few years now.
robertscribbler
/ March 30, 2017Thanks for the thoughts, Ryan.
Putin serving as a mouth-piece for the climate change denial he helped elect to the U.S. Presidency:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/putin-says-climate-change-not-caused-by-emissions-163229399.html
To Putin, we say:
Wilson McKenna
/ March 31, 2017Not coincidental timing I don’t think on Putin chiming in on denial about human induced emissions, as he is working in concert with Trump his buddy. Also important to continue to sell as much Russian oil as possible to make the oligarchs richer than they already are.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017I agree. It jibes with an apparent set of active measures to suppress or confuse climate change discussion in social media.
climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ March 31, 2017+1. Terrific that AFP ran the story with little or no commentary on Putin being full of crap.
Robert E Prue
/ March 30, 2017I’ve worked at the local nursing home here for 24 years. Over the years quite a few residents have mentioned how the weather has changed. Winter’s not like it was. This is how the dirty thirties started. When I first started working there, I didn’t pay much attention to it. I am now.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Thank you for your kind work, Robert. And thank you for sharing your thoughts here.
climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ March 31, 2017Glad they are talking about it, anyway. Denier voices would be popular there, so lots of BS to cut through.
Mark in OZ
/ March 30, 2017Couple of Edward Abbey (isms)
1) “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
which leads (naturally) to:
2) “Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017I like.
Robert E Prue
/ March 31, 2017Would like to mention, after no rain for about 9 weeks, it finally rained here Tuesday and Wednesday! My rain gauge measured a bit over 4 inches. Won’t have to worry about wildfires for awhile.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Record warm Gulf Stream is fueling into the storm pattern. The rain and storms that have come are notably back to intense. Worth noting that New Mexico is now suffering from flash drought. Both extremes of the hydrological scale represented — as we would tend to see with climate change.
Judith
/ March 31, 2017In my part of NM we have had an unusually wet season so far. Everything is blooming like mad.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Trend identified both by the U.S. Drought Monitor and by state and local media: http://krqe.com/2017/03/29/new-mexico-hit-by-flash-drought-weather-phenomenon/
Northeast and central parts hit mostly by the present drying:
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
West and SW of the state appear to not have yet been involved.
Robert E Prue
/ March 31, 2017Yeah. Probably start having torrential rains. Same pattern as last year. Too warm and dry late winter then spring and summer way above normal rain. Weather has been weird, even for Kansas. Night time temperatures been really warmer than seasonal.
Andy_in_SD
/ March 31, 2017Thanks for posting that trailer. I very much look forward to the movie, more so than ever now.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Gore has become very inspired and animated. He was once so mild-mannered. But he realizes how much is at stake and that it’s time to fight like hell.
Exposing the Big Game
/ March 31, 2017Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
Andy_in_SD
/ March 31, 2017Disappearing Zooplankton Could Collapse Arctic Food Chain
https://www.newsdeeply.com/arctic/articles/2017/03/29/on-thin-ice-disappearing-zooplankton-could-collapse-arctic-food-chain
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017It’s the velocity of changes. The life forms just can’t keep up.
Andy_in_SD
/ March 31, 2017Canada’s Melting Ice Caps Are a Big Driver of Rising Sea Levels
The Queen Elizabeth Islands’ glaciers – forming the third biggest contributor to sea-level rise after Antarctica and Greenland – are melting at a dramatically increasing rate. Journal author Romain Millan explains why it started happening in 2005.
https://www.newsdeeply.com/arctic/community/2017/03/09/canadas-melting-ice-caps-are-a-big-driver-of-rising-sea-levels
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Thanks for this, Andy.
Rosemary Lowe
/ March 31, 2017Except for blogs like this, most humans are not capable of understanding, or wanting to understand the ramifications of what we have done to Planet Earth. In the southwest the growing season is about a month earlier now. We have noticed that few, if any, cumulus congestus clouds rarely form here these days, which used to turn into the billowing cumulonimbus clouds, bringing us wonderful thunderstorms. Most of the cloud formations look very strange, and usually dissipate with the very strong, erratic winds we have most days.
Even here at 7,000+ ft. we are now seeing more desert- type plants, including more cacti each year. Very little rain. Unfortunately, livestock grazing continues, mostly unabated, which exacerbates the desertification process, despite the livestock industry’s claims of so-called “green ranching.” Nothing much is green anymore.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-southwest
http://www.foranimals.org
Ryan in New England
/ March 31, 2017Here in CT the seasons have been changing quite dramatically (and that’s really saying something because New England is known for its wild swings in temps/weather). And one thing I’ve noticed (albeit anecdotally) is that we’ve been having lots of days that are very windy and unsettled. I notice this more than most because I’m a carpenter who builds houses so I’m outside all day everyday, and many steps in the building process can be affected adversely by the wind (lifting walls, sheeting roofs, applying Tyvek, etc). For the first time EVER (and my boss has been doing this for 40 years) we had to end the day early because of excessive winds. And it seems like every day has some very strong and persistent winds.
labtekjen
/ March 31, 2017Ryan… we were just discussing this in our abode two days ago! My person works in the tree business and like yourself endures the weather all day. He has been amazed at the increase in wind.
climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ March 31, 2017Agree. I’ve been noticing the extra wind here in east central Vermont as well. Not unusual to have 3-4 windy days in a row, 7 or 10 is something else.
Syd Bridges
/ April 3, 2017I have worked up at 7700 feet in Colorado for five years. This winter has been extremely windy. Six tent platforms have been flipped and three of them destroyed in three different storms. I saw one platform flipped in the previous five years. One of our trailers was blown off its anchors. The repair man from the rental company told me that they had had far more trailers shifted this year than he had ever seen before. He said that many customers had told him that it was the windiest winter in Colorado in living memory.
DJ
/ March 31, 2017FWIW, in Calgary, AB the published, official climate zone (I’m only aware of this from a gardening perspective – selecting plants hardy enough to tolerate the local climate) has gone from 3A 20 years ago to 4A or 4B (depending on source) now.
In zone 3A you need to expect a minimum winter temp of -40c. In 4B you need to plan for a minimum of -31c. Anecdotally I can say that this is reasonable – 20 years ago we always got a week or 2 of -40 weather. This year it didn’t drop below -30, same last year. But most people don’t notice – everybody now just thinks -26 is ‘really cold’ when 20 years ago -35 was ‘really cold’.
Brian
/ March 31, 2017So true. Due to the mountains, we get those wild swings and Chinooks so you can’t say any one event can be 100% due to AGW, but yeah, winters are nicer than they used to be. The risks are there that you are now seeing stuck jet streams and slow-moving cut-off lows, like what happened in 2013 when a train of thunderstorms caused massive floods in both Calgary ($5B insurance) and Colorado.
earlosatrun
/ March 31, 2017It also used to be a much drier cold in the Alberta winters. I thought the winters of Alberta were the worst on Earth, until I moved to Halifax and experienced a humid winter. That was decades ago. It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity – also applies to the cold.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017It’s true. Even comparing a humid 5 C to a dry -5 C and the humid 5 C feels colder. But that extra humidity actually helps trap more warmth even as it transfers heat to ice and permafrost.
Genomik
/ March 31, 2017I get so frustrated when democrats say the left doesn’t have good candidates. They might be a little boring and logical but if Gore had won the world would be SOOOOOO much better today! I voted for Gore and mostly liked him.
Now he is the sanest voice on Earth and he carries it well.
Can Gore run again?
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017I agree. And the same goes for Hillary. It’s just that the opposition has been so good at making people feel negatively about democratic candidates. The same kind of demonization is now being targeted at Bernie and will be targeted at anyone who becomes a noted leader of dems in the future.
I’m not recriminating, but the best thing we could have done was put Bernie up for VP. I like Kain, but we needed something to unify the party with all the weaponized info coming at us.
climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ March 31, 2017He can definitely run again, no law against it, but I doubt that he will. Personally, I had the impression he didn’t really want to be President, in his heart of hearts, when he ran. MHO.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Maybe. But he seems to just be a pretty mild sort of guy. In my opinion, a reluctant president is far better than someone who just lusts for that power.
Wilson McKenna
/ March 31, 2017With what’s going on with climate change like the changing jet stream while conversely a new president in denial seems like that Seinfeld episode Bizaroworld, with two cafes, two sets of 3 guys that are opposite in personality. In this case we have all the information we need to conclude time is getting short to really do something substantial in regards to how we power the world while conversely the other café is offering denial pie, full steam ahead with coal, the pipeline, and as much FF as the US can muster. Please, someone make it stop. We don’t need Bizaroworld, we need RealityWorld. Face it, accept it and get busy doing as much as possible to avert full on disaster.
Ryan in New England
/ March 31, 2017It’s absolutely nuts that we are doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing. It’s not just that Republicans are wrong, they are about as wrong as it is possible to be. Like you point out, it’s a bizarro world.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017So back in a past life, I used to be a pretty moderate republican. I supported social justice — women’s rights (pro-choice) — and rational gun laws. I believed that markets could be helpful if they were allowed to operate under a reasonable set of rules that were neither too confining nor too liberating. I thought that a strong military could be used as a means to protect liberal democracies around the world and to help liberate people suffering from dictatorship — especially if western institutions could provide means for people to advance themselves and cooperate with liberally minded businesses to do so. I thought of the U.N. as an effective tool for giving the poor and down-trodden a voice in the world and to advance the causes of both freedom and equality. And I thought that most republicans believed in the kind of American exceptionalism that promoted these values, if they might disagree with me on methods.
Had we lived in another world, republicans like me would have stayed in the party. We would have celebrated Obamacare as an affirmation that moderate republican policies (as with Massachusetts under Mitt Romney) could help to expand coverage and help the poor. And we would have faced the issue of climate change by understanding that both private action — in the form of responsible businesses working to solve climate change — and public action — in the form of policies aimed at incentivizing both virtuous markets and consumption (efficiencies, renewables, cutting harmful consumption)– were necessary.
These republicans, or those like them, do not exist anymore for all practical purposes. They might be there, but they are very quiet — drowned out by the increasingly extreme and twisted views of the mainstream party. This is fed by a conservative media that panders to the baser instincts of republicans and feeds all of the worst animal spirits (sources like Fox News, Brietbart, Rush, Hannity and others).
But, occasionally, you’ll see the moderates step forward with something rational. Recently, 17 House republicans broke with the party on climate change denial and made this statement:
http://www.ucsusa.org/press/2017/republican-climate-resolution-shows-climate-change-bipartisan-issue#.WN6AEjvyvIU
But when you consider that there are more than 237 republicans in the House, these 17 are a pretty laughably small number. When combined with the 193 Democrats (who, in the vast majority, push for addressing climate change), you end up with 210 House members who are arguably concerned about climate change vs the 220 republicans who are arguably not. In percentage terms, this is a rough 48-52 pro-climate/anti-climate split. There may be more republicans concerned about climate change who are afraid to come forward due to political pressure from the likes of Fox News, Brietbart, or their misinformed republican bases back home.
If so, their broader silence on the issue is deafening. Furthermore, it is in no way close to the 97 to 99 percent (believe that climate change is a problem and is caused by humans) to 3 to 1 percent (who don’t) split among actual scientists (and it should be known that it’s really tough to get such a large group of scientists to agree on anything — they are incentivized to produce novel theories with support based on facts — in other words, if they can factually disrupt established science, they become famous giants in their field). There might be that many scientists that agree on how gravity works, for example.
On climate, the House doesn’t even come close to representing the American public — 63 percent of whom think we should do something about the problem. And, again, the weight of this failure falls on the republicans. And it’s not just that a majority of the republicans have anti-climate views — it’s coming from their leadership. For example, Lamar Smith this week put imminent climate scientist Michael Mann in what amounts to a Kangaroo House hearing that reminded many of the inquisition of Galileo. On the panel were 3 climate change deniers funded by the likes of Heartland. Mann faced off against Lamar Smith who often quoted Breitbart even as he denigrated objective scientific journals. The views of Smith and colleagues were more in line with the democracy-attacker kleptocrat and murderous dictator Vladimir Putin who this week claimed that climate change wasn’t caused by humans (an argument that Heartland and its agents have frequently disseminated). And the intimidation the panel perpetrated against Mann and, by extension, climate scientists across the U.S., sadly resonates with Putin’s tactics.
(After the election, I commented on twitter to George Takei that 17 intelligence agencies has found that Russia had intevened on Trump’s behalf by engaging in an information warfare attack on the U.S. election and that the mainstream media sources like NYT and WaPo were doing the right thing by covering this story. This guy [cloaking himself in the image of Jesus — which is about as amazingly perverse as one can get] responded to my comment by sending this, not so subtle, death threat.)
This is what has happened to the party that I was once a part of. It has been hollowed out to serve as a puppet for all of the worst kinds of anti-democratic activities. To suppress science and to engage in the modern equivalent of book burning by deleting established scientific data from public information service websites. And these dictatorial tendencies are now in the process of ripping the party apart as some of its constituents even seek to defend and cover up an ever more obvious attack on the U.S. election by the Russians and to obstruct an investigation into what appears to be a very obvious collusion by the Trump campaign (or at the very least an opportunistic capitalization by Trump on the active measures used by Russia’s 15,000 information warfare agents against the U.S. to harm and distort the U.S. electorate and electoral process). This is where we are today with regards to republicans — just as a good number of Whigs sympathized with the British during the revolution, the republicans today seem to, in good number, sympathize with Russian oppressors who seek to expand petrostate influence, deny climate change (and its all-too-obvious human source), and crush renewable energy expansion. And their methods of pursuing these goals which are a direct attack on Western democracies (these active measures continue today in the U.S., in France, in Germany, in Britain and in so many other places around the world).
This makes me ashamed that I ever voted for a republican. I swore, after the distortions the republican party perpetrated in an attempt to muddy the causes of the Great Recession, that I would never again vote republican. Now, my ire has risen to the point where I view the party as one whose leadership is often an enabler to foreign and corporate oppressors of the American people. Perhaps my opinion of the party could decline further — but only if they went to Russia en masse and trained directly at Putin’s intelligence services schools with the aim to better coordinate their efforts with a malicious foreign power. If outliers to the mainline republicans of today like Joe Scarborough or John McCain or Marco Rubio (who I disagree with in many ways but can still respect for their integrity in holding the values of America dear) did not still exist.
(If you wish, you can copy and paste this statement for dissemination to social media. I just ask that you attribute it to me [I’ve already gotten an implied death threat or two or three or more, so no worries there] and link back to this blog.)
Ryan in New England
/ March 31, 2017Thank you for that wonderful and honest account of your past, Robert. It truly is astonishing what has happened to the Republican party is the span of my lifetime. They have devolved into an irrational, illogical, detached from reality anti-American cult that despises everything that has traditionally made America such a great nation. It’s as if they read 1984 as a how-to manual and agreed to go for it 100%.
climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ March 31, 2017Bare-knuckle capitalism, what the world would be like if Teddy Roosevelt (trust buster) and FDR hadn’t screwed it up for them. They bought us several decades, but now we’re going to have to do the heavy lifting.
Candidates to support:
James Thompson, running in Kansas to replace the new CIA Director, special election April 11.
Jon Ossoff, running in Georgia to replace the new Sec of Health, special election April 18.
Kathryn Allen, running in Utah (very tough) to oust the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz, in 2018.
Kim Weaver, running in Iowa to oust overt racist Steve King in 2018.
If you can chip in $5, please do so. Probably the single most effective thing you can do today to fight climate change.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Thanks for the list. I agree. And yeah, TR and FDR are both persons whom I greatly admire for what they achieved for us. They’re spinning in their graves at this point.
Keith Antonysen
/ March 31, 2017Austraia’s Ambassador to the US; Hockey, suggests people go easy on Trump. Hockey had been Treasurer in the Abbott “government” from 2013. The Abbott extreme “government” were terrible in relation to climate change. A Green politician suggested that extreme weather is associated with use of fossil fuels a few days ago. Cyclone Debbie has done inordinate damage even after scaling down to a Tropical storm, through extreme precipitation. The Green was jumped upon by Turnbull and the Conservative media.
The Turnbull government are promoting the huge Carmichael coal mine and wish to use “clean coal”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/30/joe-hockey-dont-be-too-harsh-on-donald-trump-its-early-days?CMP=soc_567
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017This is a common line used to tamp down rational resistance to political bad actors. ‘Give him a chance.’ Like that worked out the last time we gave one of these nuts a chance… It’s just an appeal to enablement.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Related —
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts testified to Senate Intel Committee on Russian petrostate interference in U.S. election and apparent coordination by Trump campaign yesterday. I think we’ve gotten well past the point of ‘give him a chance.’
Vic
/ March 31, 2017Epic flooding going on in Queensland and New South Wales in the wake of Cyclone Debbie. The Springbrook region, south of the Gold Coast, recorded 789mm of rain overnight.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/31/natural-disaster-zones-declared-in-new-south-wales-in-wake-of-cyclone-debbie
Vic
/ March 31, 2017The flood prone city of Lismore in New South Wales finally completed it’s levee system in 2005 so that once and for all the city would be protected from the ravages of the region’s notoriously high levels of rainfall. But then last night happened…
unnaturalfx
/ March 31, 2017A nice photo mosaic of arctic, life in the arctic : Today, the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, putting tremendous strain on its wildlife and people. There is currently no offshore oil and gas development in America’s Arctic Ocean. And for the sake of our warming world and irreplaceable species, there should never be. http://earthjustice.org/features/photo-essay-arctic?gclid=CjwKEAjw_PfGBRDW_sutqMbQsmMSJAAMpUapJ-aH-4bb2ox3HgRKgrU_T-3kNIqugpbXUtC4UsAr8BoCDlzw_wcB . Lets hope future generations can enjoy the beauty of the arctic . Some amazing pictures here . Enjoy .
John Allen
/ March 31, 2017Since the first Earth Day in 1970 the predictions are about 30 years sooner than originally predicted. This was the teach in with various presentations and I was in 10th grade. I paid attention because I did care about the environment. Well we Earthlings are now in totally unknown global warming acceleration with an administration with it’s head in the sand, (and elsewhere too). For those interested I recommend the book; “Hyperobjects; Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World” by Timothy Morton. Viewing global warming as an hyperobject is one of the best explanations for how difficult it is to look at the big picture of the totality of the coming calamity. I feel so helpless to do anything to mitigate what’s going on these days. The weather here in the southwest, NM, is getting more extreme; either very dry or monstrous thunderstorms, but usually very dry. The drought is real and there’s just no model to predict what’s ahead for the US or the rest of the world for that matter. The insects have changed over the last 20 years,i.e. no more cicadas, new forms of flies etc. The arctic is rapidly disappearing, wildfires are raging somewhere, the ocean has floating plastic islands and is acidifying, fish are being depleted; yet people in power seem to care not. This blog has some of the best accurate information on the current events of the climate, thank you, Robert. The Ol’ Hippy.
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Thanks so much for the comment and perspective here, John. It’s really tough to keep up these days, especially for those sensitive, generous spirits (like yourself) who are so vital to a healthy society.
June
/ March 31, 2017The comment by the study’s authors that human survival depends on other life on Earth is so important to get people who don’t think climate change is a problem to understand. As urban populations have expanded, many people have lost that sense of connection with the rest of life.
Climate change: global reshuffle of wildlife will have huge impacts on humanity
Mass migration of species to cooler climes has profound implications for society, pushing disease-carrying insects, crop pests and crucial pollinators into new areas, says international team of scientists…
“Human survival, for urban and rural communities, depends on other life on Earth,” the experts write in their analysis published in the journal Science. “Climate change is impelling a universal redistribution of life on Earth.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/30/climate-change-global-reshuffle-of-wildlife-will-have-huge-impacts-on-humanity
unnaturalfx
/ March 31, 2017Species can only migrate so far before there is no where to go , Thanks June .
Keith Antonysen
/ March 31, 2017Heartlands is pushing anti-climate science hard since Trump was elected. They are targeting Science Teachers with their dangerous garbage.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/heartland-institute-climate-pack_us_58db4c63e4b05463706323d4
robertscribbler
/ March 31, 2017Should be illegal. They’re probably doing it now because Trump Admin gives them carte blanche. Whoever said it would be good to have Trump so we could run opposition was seriously delusional.
Christina MacPherson
/ March 31, 2017Reblogged this on nuclear-news.
Blake Richardson
/ April 1, 2017Always enjoy reading your material Robert – thank you. Here in New Zealand we are also seeing the merging of seasons, increasingly mild winters, decreasing snow fall as well as flowers coming in to bloom at odd times with the north of the country getting much much warmer and getting a higher frequency of severe weather events! As you know there is a strong link between anthropogenic emissions and increasing temperatures (particularly in our oceans) – I am a strong believer that climate change is man made and that the need for huge change across nations is critically urgent. One of the biggest things influencing my thinking was the National Geographic documentary series ‘Years of Living Dangerously’ – A real eye opener for me in terms of not only the actual state of the planet but the powerful economic and political challenges that we unfortunately face as well. Great to see high profile movie stars getting involved and doing their bit though – that was promising.
robertscribbler
/ April 1, 2017The level of response is growing, which is encouraging. The politics has just ramped into insanity, though. We’re going through a tight spot at this time where old assumptions are starting to fall apart.
Abel Adamski
/ April 2, 2017Another interesting fact,
http://newatlas.com/swarm-supersonic-plasma-jets-discovered/48633/?li_source=LI&li_medium=default-widget
Supersonic plasma jets discovered in Earth’s upper atmosphere
A few months after spotting a jet stream of molten iron in the Earth’s outer core, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Swarm satellites have found a similar system at work in the upper atmosphere. There, the electrical fields created through solar winds interacting with the planet’s magnetic field have been found to drive supersonic plasma jets, which can heat the ionosphere to temperatures as high as 10,000º C (18,032º F).
Abel Adamski
/ April 3, 2017Consequences unforseen for geoengineering
robertscribbler
/ April 3, 2017Good point.
I kind of think of it in this way — human-forced warming is spinning up the climate extremes. Add in geo-engineering and it throws everything out of whack. It’s like adding turbulence to a jet that’s already losing rivets and joints — likely to result in a tailspin.