Connecting the dots between climate change and extreme weather
Connecting the dots between human-caused climate change and extreme weather events is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. One the one hand, the underlying physics is clear--the huge amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the atmosphere must be already causing significant changes to the weather. But the weather has huge natural variations on its own, without climate change. So, communicators of the links between climate change and extreme weather need to emphasize how climate change shifts the odds. We've loaded the dice towards some types of extreme weather events, by heating the atmosphere to add more heat and moisture. This can bring more extreme weather events like heat waves, heavy downpours, and intense droughts. What's more, the added heat and moisture can change atmospheric circulation patterns, causing meanders in the jet stream capable of bringing longer-lasting periods of extreme weather. As I wrote in my post this January, Where is the climate headed?, "The natural weather rhythms I've grown to used to during my 30 years as a meteorologist have become significantly disrupted over the past few years. Many of Earth's major atmospheric circulation patterns have seen significant shifts and unprecedented behavior; new patterns that were unknown have emerged, and extreme weather events were incredibly intense and numerous during 2010 - 2011. It boggles my mind that in 2011, the U.S. saw 14 - 17 billion-dollar weather disasters, three of which matched or exceeded some of the most iconic and destructive weather events in U.S. history."
Figure 1. Women who work on a tea farm in Assam, India hold up a dot in honor of Climate Impacts Day (May 5, 2012), to urge people to connect the dots between climate change and the threat to their livelihood. Chai is one of the most consumed beverages in India, but a prolonged dry spell and extreme heat has affected tea plantations in Assam and Bengal with production dropping by 60% as compared to the same period in 2011. Image credit: 350.org.
May 5: Climate Impacts Day
On Saturday, May 5 (Cinco de Mayo!), the activist group 350.org, founded by Bill McKibben, is launching a new effort to "connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather." They've declared May 5 Climate Impacts Day, and have coordinated an impressive global effort of nearly 1,000 events in 100 countries to draw attention to the links between climate change and extreme weather. Their new climatedots.org website aims to get people involved to "protest, educate, document and volunteer along with thousands of people around the world to support the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis." Some of the events planned for Saturday: firefighters in New Mexico will hold posters with dots in a forest ravaged by wildfires; divers in the Marshall Islands take a dot underwater to their dying coral reefs; climbers on glaciers in the Alps, Andes, and Sierras will unfurl dots on melting glaciers with the simple message: "Melting"; villagers in Northeastern Kenya will create dots to show how ongoing drought is killing their crops; in San Francisco, California, aerial artist Daniel Dancer and the Center for Biological Diversity will work with hundreds of people to form a giant, moving blue dot to represent the threat of sea level rise and ocean acidification; and city-dwellers in Rio de Janeiro hold dots where mudslides from unusually heavy rains wiped out part of their neighborhood. I think its a great way to draw attention to the links between climate change and extreme weather, since the mainstream media coverage of climate change has been almost nil the past few years. A report by Media Matters for America found out that nightly news coverage about climate change on the major networks decreased 72% between 2009 and 2011. On the Sunday shows, 97% of the stories mentioning climate change were about politics in Washington D.C. or on the campaign trail, not about extreme weather or recent scientific reports. You can check out what Climate Impacts Day events may be happening in your area at the climatedots.org website.
Figure 2. Front Street Bridge on the Susquehanna River in Vestal, NY, immediately following the flood of September 8, 2011. Image credit: USGS, New York. In my post, Tropical Storm Lee's flood in Binghamton: was global warming the final straw? I argue that during September 8, 2011 flood, the Susquehanna River rose twenty feet in 24 hours and topped the flood walls in Binghamton by 8.5 inches, so just a 6% reduction in the flood height would have led to no overtopping of the flood walls and a huge decrease in damage. Extra moisture in the air due to global warming could have easily contributed this 6% of extra flood height.
Also of interest
Anti-coal activists, led by climate scientist Dr. James Hansen of NASA, are acting on Saturday to block Warren Buffett's coal trains in British Columbia from delivering coal to Pacific ports for shipment overseas. Dave Roberts of Grist explains how this may be an effective strategy to reduce coal use, in his post, "Fighting coal export terminals: It matters".
The creator of wunderground's new Climate Change Center, atmospheric scientist Angela Fritz, has a blog post on Friday's unveiling of the new Heartland Institute billboards linking mass murderers like Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden to belief in global warming. In Heartland's description of the billboard campaign, they say, "The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen." The Heartland Institute neglected to mention that the Pope and the Dalai Lama are prominent advocates of addressing the dangers of human-caused climate change.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 — Blog Index
El Nino's coming, for one. This is shown by the consistently above average vertical shear over the tropical Atlantic this year. While this may slacken some before the full onset of El Nino, it will be short-lived, and the general trend will be for increased shear. On top of that, although it has warmed, the eastern Atlantic remains cold, especially relative to recent years. This can be attributed to the strong La Nina over the winter which strengthened the Bermuda-Azores ridge and increased the trade winds over that part of the ocean, creating upwelling. Lastly, vertical instability has been rather low (don't have a link for this one, but can pull it up if you want) across this area, as well.
It's only logical that if the eastern Atlantic is shut down, development will occur farther west, when tropical waves move into more favorable longitudes.
There are still many forms of stigma associated with certain positions/sincerely held beliefs in my area of the south. I'm an atheist and a bisexual, neither of which, particularly when combined, would go over well with 95% of the people here. In fact, although I lack direct evidence, I think the reason one of my coworkers has been treating me poorly is because I told him I was an atheist (I wasn't trying to instigate anything, but we had been talking about religion long before that, and I got fed up with his preaching, no matter how well-intentioned). I've even had family and friends delete me from their Facebook.
Perhaps one day. Just maybe.
I'm so glad not to be sheeple...I just do my thing.
Well said...but I'm from the south...
Is it not better to take the side of caution than ignore it completely? Is it not the wiser decision to heed the warnings? Or is there something else deeper-seated, that we're blocking the chance of catastrophic global change from our minds because we can't imagine a world different than the one we live in today?
The other thing that is seemingly missing from this "discussion" is:
Ok, we know there's something going on. What can we do about it? What are the individual changes we can make that would lead to systemic changes? Even if we can't reverse the tide of change we might be able to reduce it and if it's not happening then we're better for it anyway.
I'm finished.
Normal is what we've built our civilization around. It doesn't take a lot to bring that crashing down.
And what are you basing that on?
had me going.......
I'm sorry dude, but you're clearly out of line here.
This is a blog of weather enthusiasts/volunteers. Scattered among us may be a few certifiable mets, but this is hardly the place to get professional advice on ANY weather events. The blog is not here to serve at your beck and call. If people aren't on, or lurking, feeling lazy/uninterested, or simply don't want to respond then you're not going to get a response.
If you are actually advising event organizers of weather conditions (especially major events), then pay for a professional service to provide real-time weather analysis or at the very least refer to your local NWS office. Going to blogs to get an analysis of a potential weather threat for an event with 100,000 people would be consider gross negligence at best and certainly wouldn't give you a leg to stand on in court if it came to that.
All it takes is a little, pushhhhhhhhh.
Churchill Downs has dozens of meteorologists with teams and with the event checking weather. This was just bordering on silly or intentional.
History and basic economics. Many civilizations have suffered immensely (if not outright collapsed) even from relatively local climate changes.
For example, take a look at the midwest US. This is a major world agricultural region, as it provides the US with a lot of it's produce as well exports. What do you think a 10 year drought would do if one were to strike that region? Not only would it be devastating for the country, it would also lead to significant repercussions globally. We got to see a small demonstration when Russia turned into an oven during that heat wave a couple years ago. Not only did it lead to deaths, fires, and water issues but they had to suspend wheat exports. This drove up prices on the global market which had other effects.
That's just one example of course, but it demonstrates that we really on "normal" conditions to provide for ourselves on the massive scale that we do now. Anything that upsets that will cause repercussions.
As a resident of Janesville I sadly have to agree with this. Although then again I hate Janesville so I'd agree with any put down of this city. You live in Madison?
Doughnuts rule! But they don't deliver. Great! NOW I have a dilemma. Sigh...good mornin' all. :)
Of course it must, because you said so.
The CO2 level has at most increased by 0.005 % of the atmosphere due to humans. Water vapor averages 1.8% of the atmosphere and it is a much more effective heat-trapping gas than CO2. Global temperatures have at best been flat for the last 10 years while CO2 levels have continued to increase. What part of AGW logic am I missing?
Viewing: 401 - 451
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 — Blog Index