January 2010: extremes and monthly summary
The globe recorded its fourth warmest January since record keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies rated January 2010 as the 2nd warmest January on record, behind January 2007. January 2010 global ocean temperatures were the 2nd warmest on record, next to 1998. Land temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere were the warmest on record, but in the Northern Hemisphere, they were the 18th warmest. The relatively cool Northern Hemisphere land temperatures may have been due to the well-above average amount of snow on the ground--January 2010 snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere was the 6th highest in the past 44 years. Global satellite-measured temperatures for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the warmest on record in January, according to both the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) and RSS data sets. This was the second time in the past three months that the UAH data set has shown a record high global atmospheric temperature.
Figure 1. Departure of surface temperature from average for January 2010. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center.
A few notable global weather highlights from January 2010:
According to the United Kingdom's Met Office, the U.K. as a whole had its coolest January since 1987 and the eighth coolest January since records began in 1914. Scotland had its coolest January since 1979. During the first two weeks of January, the Irish Republic experienced a spell of extreme cold weather that began in mid-December, resulting in the most extreme cold spell over Ireland since early 1963, according to the Irish Meteorological Service. Most places of the Irish Republic had its coolest January since 1985 and the coolest January since 1963 in the Dublin area.
A rare summer snowfall occurred on January 18th in the town of Bombala, New South Wales, Australia. The town received a light dusting of accumulation, marking the first summer snow in the high terrain of southeast Australia since records began in 1965. The town has an elevation of around 3,000 feet (900 meters) above sea-level. Forecasters said that snow at such low elevations is unusual at any time of year, especially summer. Six days before the snow, temperatures had hit 37°C (99°F) in Bombala.
Eleven inches (28 cm) of snow fell in Seoul, South Korea on the 3rd, marking the greatest snowfall amount for that city since records began in 1937 (Source: BBC).
Central Beijing, China received 3 inches (8 cm) of snow on the 2nd, the most for a single day since January 1951, while suburbs of the city reported 13 inches (33 cm). Over 90 percent of flights at Beijing.s International Airport were affected. On January 6th, temperatures in Beijing dropped to -16.7°C (1.9°F), the lowest minimum temperature in the first ten days of January since 1971.
Figure 2. An unusual sight: Virtually all of Britain was covered by snow on January 7, 2010. Image credit: NASA.
January 2010: near-average temperatures in the U.S.
For the contiguous U.S., the average January temperature was 0.3°F above average, making it the 55th coolest January in the 115-year record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The U.S. has been on quite a roller coaster of temperatures over the past four months--the nation recorded its third coldest October on record, followed by its third warmest November, followed by its 14th coolest December, followed by an average January. The coolest January temperature anomalies were in Florida, which had its 10th coldest such month. The Pacific Northwest was very warm, with Oregon and Washington recording their 4th warmest January on record. Seattle experienced its warmest January since records began in 1891.
Figure 3. Ranking of temperatures by state for January 2010. Florida had its 10th coldest January on record, while Washington and Oregon had their 4th warmest. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center.
U.S. drought
Precipitation across the U.S. was near average in January. Notably, Arizona had its 5th wettest January and New Mexico its 7th wettest. The only state much drier than average was Michigan, which had its 8th driest January. At the end of January, 3% of the contiguous United States was in severe-to-exceptional drought, a decrease of 4% from the previous month. This is the lowest drought footprint for the country since detailed drought statistics began in 1999.
U.S. records
A few notable records set in the U.S. during January 2010, courtesy of the National Climatic Data Center::
All-time low pressure records were set across most of California, Arizona, Nevada, and southern Oregon on January 20 - 21. This was approximately 10 - 15% of the area of the U.S.
Arizona set its all-time 24-hour state snowfall record: 48" at Sunrise Mountain Jan. 21 - 22.
The 50.7 inches (129 cm) that fell in Flagstaff, AZ Jan. 16 - 23 was the third highest five-day total ever recorded there.
Yuma, Arizona's total of 2.44 inches of rain (62 mm) was their 2nd greatest January total ever, narrowly missing the record of 2.49 (63 mm) set in 1949. Their daily total of 1.95 (50 mm) inches on the 21st was the greatest one-day January total ever.
Near Wikieup, AZ, the Big Sandy River crested at 17.9 feet, washing away numerous roads and setting a new all-time record crest, breaking the previous record of 16.4 feet set back in March 1978.
Burlington, VT had its largest single snowstorm on record, 33.1" on Jan. 1 - 3.
Sioux City, IA tied its all-time max snow depth record (28" on Jan. 7).
Beckley, WV had its snowiest January on record (40.9"; old record 37.3" in 1996)
Bellingham, Washington tied its record highest January temperature of 65°F on January 11.
Hondo, Texas tied its record coldest January temperature of 12°F on January 9.
Cotulla la Salle, Texas tied its record coldest January temperature of 16°F on January 9.
Records were broken or tied at Daytona Beach, Orlando, Melbourne, and Vero Beach Florida for the greatest number of consecutive days in which the daily high temperature remained below 60 degrees F (15.5 C). Daytona Beach's string was twelve days.
Jackson, KY and London, KY tied their record for longest streak of consecutive days falling below 32°F (11 days). Pensacola, FL had its 2nd longest such streak (10 days), and Mobile, AL its 3rd longest (10 days).
Key West, FL had its 2nd coldest temperature ever measured, 42°F. The record is 41°F, set in 1981 and 1886.
Moderate El Niño conditions continue
Moderate El Niño conditions continue over the tropical Eastern Pacific. Ocean temperatures in the area 5°N - 5°S, 120°W - 170°W, also called the "Niña 3.4 region", were at 1.2°C above average on February 10, in the middle of the 1.0°C - 1.5°C range for a moderate El Niño, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The strength of El Niño has been roughly constant for the first two weeks of February. A burst of westerly winds that developed near the Date Line in January has pushed eastwards towards South America over the past month, and this should keep the current El Niño at moderate strength well into March. All of the El Niño models forecast that El Niño has peaked and will weaken by summer. Most of the models predict that El Niño conditions will last into early summer, but cross the threshold into neutral territory by the height of hurricane season.
January sea ice extent in the Arctic 4th lowest on record
January 2010 Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent was the 4th lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979. Ice extent was lower than in 2009 and 2008, but greater than in 2005, 2006, and 2007, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The weather pattern over the Arctic in the first half of January 2010 featured a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation (AO). This pattern tends to slow the winds that typically flush large amounts of sea ice out of the Arctic between Greenland and Iceland. In this way, a negative AO could help retain some the second- and third-year ice through the winter, and potentially rebuild some of the older, multi-year ice that has been lost over the past few years. However, the ice pack is the thinnest on record for this time of year, and much above average temperatures this summer would likely cause a new record summertime sea ice loss.
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The Climate Killers
Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers
Top 10 climate change deniers
Sammy Wilson
Northern Ireland environment minister
Václav Klaus
President of Czech Republic
Steve Milloy
Fox News columnist
Prof Pat Michaels
Cato Institute
Christopher Monckton
Former adviser to Margaret Thatcher
Sarah Palin
Governor of Alaska
James Inhofe
Senator for Oklahoma
Melanie Phillips
Daily Mail columnist
Christopher Booker
Sunday Telegraph columnist
David Bellamy
TV presenter
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/06/climate-change-deniers-top-10
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain
We must not be distracted from science's urgent message: we are fuelling dangerous changes in Earth's climate
In the weeks before and after the Copenhagen climate change conference last December, the science of climate change came under harsh attack by critics who contend that climate scientists have deliberately suppressed evidence — and that the science itself is severely flawed. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global group of experts charged with assessing the state of climate science, has been accused of bias.
The global public is disconcerted by these attacks. If experts cannot agree that there is a climate crisis, why should governments spend billions of dollars to address it?
The fact is that the critics — who are few in number but aggressive in their attacks — are deploying tactics that they have honed for more than 25 years. During their long campaign, they have greatly exaggerated scientific disagreements in order to stop action on climate change, with special interests like Exxon Mobil footing the bill.
Many books have recently documented the games played by the climate-change deniers. Merchants of Doubt, a new book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway set for release in mid-2010, will be an authoritative account of their misbehaviour. The authors show that the same group of mischief-makers, given a platform by the free-market ideologues of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, has consistently tried to confuse the public and discredit the scientists whose insights are helping to save the world from unintended environmental harm.
Today's campaigners against action on climate change are in many cases backed by the same lobbies, individuals, and organisations that sided with the tobacco industry to discredit the science linking smoking and lung cancer. Later, they fought the scientific evidence that sulphur oxides from coal-fired power plants were causing "acid rain." Then, when it was discovered that certain chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were causing the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere, the same groups launched a nasty campaign to discredit that science, too.
Later still, the group defended the tobacco giants against charges that second-hand smoke causes cancer and other diseases. And then, starting mainly in the 1980s, this same group took on the battle against climate change.
What is amazing is that, although these attacks on science have been wrong for 30 years, they still sow doubts about established facts. The truth is that there is big money backing the climate-change deniers, whether it is companies that don't want to pay the extra costs of regulation, or free-market ideologues opposed to any government controls.
The latest round of attacks involves two episodes. The first was the hacking of a climate-change research centre in England. The emails that were stolen suggested a lack of forthrightness in the presentation of some climate data. Whatever the details of this specific case, the studies in question represent a tiny fraction of the overwhelming scientific evidence that points to the reality and urgency of man-made climate change.
The second issue was a blatant error concerning glaciers that appeared in a major IPCC report. Here it should be understood that the IPCC issues thousands of pages of text. There are, no doubt, errors in those pages. But errors in the midst of a vast and complex report by the IPCC point to the inevitability of human shortcomings, not to any fundamental flaws in climate science.
When the emails and the IPCC error were brought to light, editorial writers at The Wall Street Journal launched a vicious campaign describing climate science as a hoax and a conspiracy. They claimed that scientists were fabricating evidence in order to obtain government research grants — a ludicrous accusation, I thought at the time, given that the scientists under attack have devoted their lives to finding the truth, and have certainly not become rich relative to their peers in finance and business.
But then I recalled that this line of attack — charging a scientific conspiracy to drum up "business" for science — was almost identical to that used by The Wall Street Journal and others in the past, when they fought controls on tobacco, acid rain, ozone depletion, second-hand smoke, and other dangerous pollutants. In other words, their arguments were systematic and contrived, not at all original to the circumstances.
We are witnessing a predictable process by ideologues and right-wing think tanks and publications to discredit the scientific process. Their arguments have been repeatedly disproved for 30 years — time after time — but their aggressive methods of public propaganda succeed in causing delay and confusion.
Climate change science is a wondrous intellectual activity. Great scientific minds have learned over the course of many decades to "read" the Earth's history, in order to understand how the climate system works. They have deployed brilliant physics, biology, and instrumentation (such as satellites reading detailed features of the Earth's systems) in order to advance our understanding.
And the message is clear: large-scale use of oil, coal, and gas is threatening the biology and chemistry of the planet. We are fuelling dangerous changes in Earth's climate and ocean chemistry, giving rise to extreme storms, droughts, and other hazards that will damage the food supply and the quality of life of the planet.
The IPCC and the climate scientists are telling us a crucial message. We need urgently to transform our energy, transport, food, industrial, and construction systems to reduce the dangerous human impact on the climate. It is our responsibility to listen, to understand the message, and then to act.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/feb/19/climate-change-sceptics-science
CRIMES AND A THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Daily Mangle
— group @ 15 February 2010
Yesterday, the Daily Mail of the UK published a predictably inaccurate article entitled “Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995″.
The title itself is a distortion of what Jones actually said in an interview with the BBC. What Jones actually said is that, while the globe has nominally warmed since 1995, it is difficult to establish the statistical significance of that warming given the short nature of the time interval (1995-present) involved. The warming trend consequently doesn’t quite achieve statistical significance. But it is extremely difficult to establish a statistically significant trend over a time interval as short as 15 years–a point we have made countless times at RealClimate. It is also worth noting that the CRU record indicates slightly less warming than other global temperature estimates such as the GISS record.
The article also incorrectly equates instrumental surface temperature data that Jones and CRU have assembled to estimate the modern surface temperature trends with paleoclimate data used to estimate temperatures in past centuries, falsely asserting that the former “has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’”.
Finally, the article intentionally distorts comments that Jones made about the so-called “Medieval Warm Period”. Jones stated in his BBC interview that “There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia” and that “For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.”
These are statements with which we entirely agree, and they are moreover fully consistent with the conclusions of the most recent IPCC report, and the numerous peer-reviewed publications on this issue since. Those conclusions are that recent Northern Hemisphere warming is likely unprecedented in at least a millennium (at least 1300 years, in fact), and that evidence in the Southern Hemisphere is currently too sparse for confident conclusions. Mann et al in fact drew those same conclusions in their most recent work on this problem (PNAS, 2008).
Unfortunately, these kinds of distortions are all too common in the press nowadays and so we must all be prepared to respond to those journalists and editors who confuse the public with such inaccuracies.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/daily-mangle/
Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers
ExxonMobil cash supported concerted campaign to undermine case for man-made warming
7 Feb. 2010
Stephen McIntyre, who runs climateaudit.org, part of a network of climate change sceptics
An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.
The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.
Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.
Many of these critics have broadcast material from the leaked UEA emails to undermine climate change predictions and to highlight errors in claims that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Professor Phil Jones, who has temporarily stood down as director of UEA's climactic research unit, is reported in today's Sunday Times to have "several times" considered suicide. He also drew parallels between his case and that of Dr David Kelly, found dead in the wake of the row over the alleged "sexing up" of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Professor Jones said he was taking sleeping pills and beta-blockers and had received two death threats in the past week alone.
Climate sceptic bloggers broadcast stories last week casting doubts on scientific data predicting dramatic loss of the Amazon rainforest. All three stories, picked up by mainstream media, questioned the credibility of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the way it does its work. A new attack on climate science, already dubbed "Seagate" by sceptics, relating to claims that more than half the Netherlands is in danger of being submerged under rising sea levels, is likely to be at the centre of the newest skirmish in coming weeks.
The controversies have shaken the IPCC, whose chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was subjected to a series of personal attacks on his reputation and lifestyle last week. A poll this weekend confirmed that public confidence in the climate change consensus has been shaken: one in four Britons – 25 per cent – now say they do not believe in global warming; previously this figure stood at 15 per cent.
Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and former chairman of the IPCC, said yesterday that the backlash is the result of a campaign: "It does appear that there's a concerted effort by a number of sceptics to undermine the credibility of the evidence behind human-induced climate change." He added: "I am sure there are some sceptics who may well be funded by the private sector to try to cast uncertainty."
A complicated web of relationships revolves around a number of right-wing think-tanks around the world that dispute the threats of climate change. ExxonMobil is a key player behind the scenes, having donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past few years to climate change sceptics. The Atlas Foundation, created by the late Sir Anthony Fisher (founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs), received more than $100,000 in 2008 from ExxonMobil, according to the oil company's reports.
Atlas has supported more than 30 other foreign think-tanks that espouse climate change scepticism, and co-sponsored a meeting of the world's leading climate sceptics in New York last March. Called "Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?", it was organised by the Heartland Institute – a group that described the event as "the world's largest-ever gathering of global warming sceptics". The organisation is another right-wing think-tank to have benefited from funding given by ExxonMobil in recent years.
A large British contingent was present at the event, with speakers including Dr Benny Peiser, from Lord Lawson's climate sceptic think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF); the botanist David Bellamy; Julian Morris and Kendra Okonski from the London-based International Policy Network; the weather forecaster Piers Corbyn; Christopher Monckton, a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher; and Professor David Henderson, a member of GWPF's advisory council. Speakers at the event also included two prominent climate bloggers who associate with Paul Dennis, a 54-year-old climate researcher at the University of East Anglia who has been questioned by police investigating the theft of climate data.
In a posting on the blog of the climate sceptic Andrew Montford on Friday, Mr Dennis insisted: "I did not leak any files, data, emails or any other material. I have no idea how the files were released or who was behind it."
But he confirmed that he had been in email contact with Stephen McIntyre, who runs climateaudit.org – a site that was one of the first to receive an anonymous link to the original leaked data from UEA.
Mr Dennis said he emailed Mr McIntyre to alert him to a "departmental email saying that emails and files were hacked" and that "police had copies of my email correspondence with Steve McIntyre and Jeff Id [a pseudonym for the climate sceptic Patrick Condon]. They said it was because I had sent the emails that they were interviewing me."
The UEA researcher also has connections with another prominent sceptic, Anthony Watts, with whom he has posted and who spoke beside Mr McIntyre. Mr Dennis was not available for comment.
Bob Ward, the policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: "A lot of the climate sceptic arguments are being made by people with demonstrable right-wing ideology which is based on opposition to any environmental regulation of the market, and they are clearly being given money that allows them to disseminate their views more widely than would be the case if they didn't have oil company funding."
But Dr Richard North, a climate change sceptic and blogger, rejected claims of a conspiracy as "laughable" and denied having any links to vested interests. "Anybody who knows me knows I'm a loner. Nobody tells me what to do or dictates my agenda."
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/thinktanks-take-oil-money-and-use-it-to-fun d-climate-deniers-1891747.html
Last time carbon dioxide levels were this high: 15 million years ago
You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.
"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said the paper's lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
"Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and geological observations that we now have for the last 20 million years lend strong support to the idea that carbon dioxide is an important agent for driving climate change throughout Earth's history," she said.
By analyzing the chemistry of bubbles of ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists have been able to determine the composition of Earth's atmosphere going back as far as 800,000 years, and they have developed a good understanding of how carbon dioxide levels have varied in the atmosphere since that time. But there has been little agreement before this study on how to reconstruct carbon dioxide levels prior to 800,000 years ago.
Tripati, before joining UCLA's faculty, was part of a research team at England's University of Cambridge that developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past — by studying the ratio of the chemical element boron to calcium in the shells of ancient single-celled marine algae. Tripati has now used this method to determine the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere as far back as 20 million years ago.
"We are able, for the first time, to accurately reproduce the ice-core record for the last 800,000 years — the record of atmospheric C02 based on measurements of carbon dioxide in gas bubbles in ice," Tripati said. "This suggests that the technique we are using is valid.
"We then applied this technique to study the history of carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago to 20 million years ago," she said. "We report evidence for a very close coupling between carbon dioxide levels and climate. When there is evidence for the growth of a large ice sheet on Antarctica or on Greenland or the growth of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, we see evidence for a dramatic change in carbon dioxide levels over the last 20 million years.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/last-time-carbon-dioxide-levels-111074.aspx
Pentagon: “Climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked”
For the first time, the Pentagon’s primary planning document addresses the threat of global warming, noting that it will accelerate instability and conflict around the globe. Former Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) added language requiring the department to consider the effects of climate change on its facilities, capabilities, and missions to the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. The Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review, officially released today, discusses the department’s “strategic approach to climate and energy”:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/01/pentagon-climate-change-energy-security-and-economic-stabilit y-are-inextricably-linked/
Deniergate: Turning the tables on climate sceptics
"Climategate" has put scientists on trial in the court of public opinion. If you believe climate sceptics, a huge body of evidence involving the work of tens of thousands of scientists over more than a century should be thrown out on the basis of the alleged misconduct of a handful of researchers, even though nothing in the hacked emails has been shown to undermine any of the scientific conclusions.
If we are going to judge the truth of claims on the behaviour of those making them, it seems only fair to look at the behaviour of a few of those questioning the scientific consensus. There are many similar examples we did not include. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions about who to trust.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18279-deniergate-turning-the-tables-on-climate-sceptics.html? full=true
THE GREATEST CRIME
Publication of deliberately false climate change data literally ought — i.e., MUST — be treated, not as a peccadillo, but as a Crime Against Humanity.
My remark here is not an expression of an emotion, but of an intellectual and humanitarian reaction of a scientist to falsification of data that could be as bad in its effect as long-term global warming itself, by permitting the latter to thrive, and acquire an egregious and panhumanly disastrous momentum.
If this were World War III such people would be shot, and with far, far greater warrant than even those human catastrophes.
A scientist is a kind of Protective Angel for Humanity. Why? Simply because he lives and breathes for Truth.
——— * ———
As for the falsifiers of data, or criminal social parasites, let me switch from the second to the first of my scientific careers, long ago at M.I.T., where I was — a then VERY rare! — theorist in neuroscience, trying to make sense of the human brain as a whole and all the astonishing behavior and abilities it gives rise to.
A SIDE interest of mine, then and later, was the queer and baffling, and decidedly chilling, phenomenon of the psychopath, a.k.a. sociopath. The essential trait of such people is that have little or no conscience, and yet they can be at the same time profoundly convincing to the layman — i.e., virtually all of us.
The incidence of these curious and horrific people in the body of the whole of humanity is estimated to be of the order of 1/200. This is misleading, however, because the pathology is a matter of degree, or properly illustrated by an intensity-frequency curve.
To put it simply, a psychopath can and does lie without a blink, either external or internal. And often does so for profit or simply out of total indifference to the harm he works upon the innocent and the virtuous.
I have little doubt that the purveyors of purposefully, and dangerously, falsified Global Warming data ARE in many instances psychopaths, whose falsifications tend to put ALL of us at risk.
Even heads of great corporations can be, in various ways and degrees, psychopathic. (Psychopathy probably had some partly useful — personal OR social — function in the long-ago past of Homo sapiens. It is certainly common enough in our politicians nowadays!)
— Patrick Michael Gunkel (Princeton, NJ)
POSTSCRIPT: Two decades ago I was neutral, but skeptical, about global warming. Later I realized that we simply could not tolerate the risks it potentially posed. One does not play games, or take chances, when essentially the whole of civilization and humanity MAY be in peril.
None of us can escape from the need for such caution, and where even the very survival of our species over Eternity may just be confronted with the possibility of extinction through carelessness or ignorance, or a shallow and selfish morality, or ideology or skepticism, or a universal involvement in petty and personal disputes between men fighting in diapers. (Phenomena we have seen often enough in World Wars and in Wars Ancient, but no less pathetic and mindless.)
In short, All of the Future hangs by a single tenuous thread from each and ever Present.
Unrestricted burning of fossil fuels threatens a new wave of die-offs
Marine life face some of the worst impacts. We now know that global warming is “capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas” (see 2009 Nature Geoscience study concludes ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years”).
The acidification of the ocean in particular is a grave threat — for links to primary sources and recent studies, see “Imagine a World without Fish: Deadly ocean acidification — hard to deny, harder to geo-engineer, but not hard to stop” (and below).
A new Nature Geoscience study, “Past constraints on the vulnerability of marine calcifiers to massive carbon dioxide release” (subs. req’d) provides a truly ominous warning. The release from the researchers at the University of Bristol is “Rate of ocean acidification the fastest in 65 million years.”
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/18/ocean-acidification-study-mass-extinction-of-marine-life-natu re-geoscience/
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations during ancient greenhouse climates were similar to those predicted for A.D. 2100
Quantifying atmospheric CO2 concentrations ([CO2]atm) during Earth’s ancient greenhouse episodes is essential for accurately predicting the response of future climate to elevated CO2 levels. Empirical estimates of [CO2]atm during Paleozoic and Mesozoic greenhouse climates are based primarily on the carbon isotope composition of calcium carbonate in fossil soils. We report that greenhouse [CO2]atm have been significantly overestimated because previously assumed soil CO2 concentrations during carbonate formation are too high. More accurate [CO2]atm, resulting from better constraints on soil CO2, indicate that large (1,000s of ppmV) fluctuations in [CO2]atm did not characterize ancient climates and that past greenhouse climates were accompanied by concentrations similar to those projected for A.D. 2100.
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/2/576
The Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! tour kicked off Thursday of last week to amplify the already deafening call for clean energy reform from people all around the country. Sponsored by the Hip Hop Caucus and the Repower America campaign of the Alliance for Climate Protection, the bus tour brings together faith, business, entertainment, and climate leaders in the name of clean energy reform.
The tour started in New Orleans at Tulane University and has already made it through Louisiana and Arkansas. It will continue on through Missouri, Indiana and Ohio this weekend and early next week before culminating in a Capitol Hill press conference in Washington, D.C. Each tour stop includes a unique combination of musical events, community rallies, expert roundtables, tours of clean energy job sites, and political speakers. Speakers and entertainers include performer D. Woods, DJ Biz Markie, actress Gloria Reuben. Political leaders speaking include EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, President of Alliance for Climate Protection Maggie L. Fox, and several others.
Hip Hop Caucus, which was founded on September 11, 2004, is a grassroots non-profit that seeks to harness the power of the hip hop generation to empower youth and combat urban poverty. Its mission is to “foster civic engagement among young people of color on issues of social and economic justice, human rights, the environment, and international peace, so they can attain increased opportunities for themselves and their communities.” The Alliance for Climate Protection is a member of the Clean Energy Works (CEW) coalition; CEW is simultaneously organizing Operation Free: a nationwide bus tour of veterans whose goal is to “secure America with clean energy” in order to protect our national security.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/20/hip-hop-caucus-clean-energy-now-bus-tour/#more-19631
Interesting read from NASA's JPL - 2-18-2010 !
Missing 'Ice Arches' Contributed to 2007 Arctic Ice Loss -from JPL
It's about the imagery on this one and not the title..
Hurricane Season 2010: Tropical Cyclone Gelane (Southern Indian Ocean)
Small and Mighty Cyclone Gelane Reaches Category Four Strength
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2010/h2010_Gelane.html
This one focus on the open seaway.
GFS 06Z Run, 84 hrs 2-23-10 Surface Map
So I read the post and it looks like in just about every place where reliable measures of temperature can be gathered U.S., U.K., Russia, China, Aust.)....it's colder than usual or at least average.
I'm no climatologists, but I also don't start with my conclusion and then fit the data in around it.
Your in the same boat as me.
There's a common thread. The majority of scientists eventually agreed with the peer-reviewed papers (as is the case now) while the opposition would scatter shoot from all over the place and grab onto whatever they could like a drowning man. More importantly, the opposition was not coming from a scientific viewpoint, but from an economic one. Look at who funded & supported the opposition.
CFCs : CFC manufacturers like DuPont
Smoking : Tobacco industry
GW : Fossil fuel industry
They had lots of money and lots of lawyers. It's understandable that these industries fought the science. It was self preservation and it bought them time to adjust their long term business strategies. However, eventually the science won out.
Here's a rough timeline of the "debate."
- GW not happening (back in the 1980s)
- GW not happening, it's heat island effect (1990s)
- GW not happening, it's a problem with the data and or measuring stations (2005-2010)
- GW happening, but it's natural and short term (2005-2010)
- GW happening, but it's solar radience (this was dispelled even before the quiet solar year of 2009, but last year reinforced the incorrect theory of solar radience)
- Finally, attack the messengers. That one has been happening since the beginning, but it's really heating up lately because why? Because the temps are literally heating up.
AOI
AOI
AOI
AOI
Humor in Comments
For 72HRS out at 6AM CST TU 2/23/10:
Says the guy whose entire post is a thinly veiled attack of the messengers....
These are even scarier...
EUROSIP multi-model seasonal forecasts for the period May-June-July for MSLP, Precip, and 2m Temp, in that order:
Another upper level storm system bringing unseasonably cold air coupled with an increase in moisture will bring periods of rain. The rain will mix with and change to snow north of a line from Caldwell to Trinity late Tuesday afternoon. Further south, it will be mainly rain with a transition to rain and snow before ending Tuesday night. Coastal areas will receive a very cold rain. The depth of the cold air is marginal and even a small degree of warming or cooling could have a significant impact on snow amounts.
It looks like the Caribbean season will be open by June, and the Cape Verde season shortly after that. Also expect some tropical storms hitting Africa or Europe.
Well SSTs alone do not guarantee that. Special steering currents are needed to turn a tropical wave back on its native country. Also, if cold waters north of 35N remain cold during the season, then that could hamper a storm reaching Europe with tropical characteristics.
Overall...the pattern is setting up to be an active year in the deep tropical breeding grounds. We will probably see lots of classic, long-track storms, and depending on the steering pattern, some or a lot of these could make it west of 60W and become a problem.
Yes, if Sahel rainfall ends up being normal or above normal, I think we can definitely expect some classic long-track Cape Verde hurricanes this year.
On that note...it looks like we may be preparing to go into a predominantly positive phase of the Sahel rainfall index over the next 30 years.
O o
well........
Places to be at high risk of hurricane impact:
Florida
The Carolinas
Lower Northeast of the US
Cuba
Lesser Antilles
Honduras and Nicaragua
Puerto Rico
Bahamas
Jamaica
Places to be at moderate risk:
Hispanola
Yucatan Peninsula
Gulf Coast
Upper New England
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland
Venezuela
Places unusual for tropical storms to be at a significant risk:
Bermuda
Labrador
Costa Rica and Panama
Brazil and Uruguay (south Atlantic)
Mediterranean coasts (off-basin)
Spain and Portugal
British Isles and France
Scandinavia and Iceland
Southern Greenland
Morocco and Western Sahara
Mauritania and Senegal
Cape Verde and Canary Islands
Azores
Guyana and Suriname
Maine and New Brunswick
Tehuantepec to Campeche region
New Jersey
Georgia state
Chesapeake Bay
California (Pacific)
NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
421 AM EST SAT FEB 20 2010
VALID 12Z SAT FEB 20 2010 - 12Z TUE FEB 23 2010
SOUTHERN ROCKIES/SOUTHERN HIGH PLAINS...
CHANNELED ZONAL FLOW FROM PACIFIC CUTS EASTWARD ACROSS AZ/NM ON
DAY 3...WITH MID-LEVEL SHORTWAVE INTERACTING WITH DEEPENING
UPSLOPE FLOW COMPONENT ALONG TX/NM BORDER. BROAD AXIS OF H85-H7
FRONTOGENESIS WILL BE THE FOCUS FOR SNOWFALL AT LOWER ELEVATIONS
OF TEXAS AND FAR WESTERN OKLAHOMA PANHANDLES AND MUCH OF NEW
MEXICO WITH OROGRAPHICS ASSOCIATED THE THE MID-LEVEL SHORTWAVE
DELIVERING 4-8 INCH SNOWFALLS TO HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF EASTERN
ARIZONA...NEW MEXICO AND SOUTHERN COLORADO. LIGHT OVERRUNNING
PRECIPITATION IN THE FORM OF SNOW ADVECTS INTO NORTH CENTRAL TEXAS
AND SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA LATE MONDAY NIGHT INTO TUESDAY MORNING WITH
1-3 INCHES ANTICIPATED BY DAYBREAK TUESDAY.
Link
It's also still hanging on to the possible TX snow on Tuesday.
The 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season is going to be alot more active than last year. I believe you will see:
13-15 named Tropical Systems
6 Hurricanes
3 CAT 3 or higher storms
Although I am not a meteorologist, I have been following weather for about 41 yrs.
The snow event for 2/23/10 for the Dallas-Ft Worth, TX area has the ability to set an all time season snowfall record. All we need is about 2" and the NCEP/HPC are mentioning 1-3" of snow for this Tuesday :0).
442: I hope you get that snow! And yeah, this hurricane season doesn't look likely to be nearly as inactive as last year... And during this active period I don't think there has been 2 inactive years in a row.
Sorry about being late I got sick but don't worry I'm alot better than yesterday.
I am sure this hurricane season will be a head turner. I think that we will have storm tracks like 2004 and numbers like 2005 the way things are setting up.
So what's your point??????
19 feb 2010
19 feb 2009
After Invest 90C dissipated over the equator yesterday, 94P has really taken over as the main circulation of the area of disturbed weather in the central Pacific. 94P, in the center of the image below, has been gradually organizing overnight, as evidenced by the nice backward "S" shape (backwards because it's the southern hemisphere). This shape is being caused by convective banding which is beginning to take shape nicely on both the north and south sides of the system now. Convection is concentrating well over the center, with a nice little ball that has kept regenerating itself overnight. Outflow continues to look healthy on the equatorial side. The poleward channel is still limited by the upper trough to the south, but has shown some improvement from yesterday.
94P has begun moving ESE in response to a weakness in the subtropical ridge as an upper longwave trough to the southeast stretches out and retrogrades westward. This movement is taking 94P right along the surface trough axis on which it resides, towards the 2nd area of low pressure to the ESE which used to be the dominant circulation 2 days ago. This area is now just a blob of low-level vorticity along the surface trough, and 94P's newfound movement is closing the gap between the two, which can be seen in the animation below. If 94P can easily absorb the energy and assimilate the 2nd low, then it will greatly aid the system's chances of development.
The only real hindering factor environmentally will be wind shear, as the subtropical jet is pressing north all the way to 10S, and could impose strong westerly shear if 94P moves too far south too quickly.
Overall...94P looks the most organized that it has so far, and I expect gradual development to continue over the next 5 days as the system moves slowly east to southeastward.
850mb vorticity for the past 15 hours:
no point.. just thought people would like to lean more
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