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Drought

Unprecedented Drought Projections: Significantly Worse Than in the Last 1,000 Years in the American Southwest and Central Plains

By Drought

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific organization that produces the academic journal Science, has just begun a new open publishing journal; Science Advances (no paywall!). Their first issue includes a paper titled: Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains. Produced by researchers…

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Worst Drought in 1,000 Years Could Begin in Eight Years by Bruce Melton

By Drought, Truthout.org

Published on Truthout.org February 21, 2013: Beginning in just eight years, we could see permanent climate conditions across the North American Southwest that are comparable to the worst megadrought in 1,000 years. The latest research from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University published in December 2012 has some truly astounding news. The megadroughts referred…

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Welcome to Climate Change Texas Part 3: Have we crossed a threshold?

By Agriculture, Deniers and Delayers, Drought, Extreme Weather, in-depth and Popular Press, rainfall, Temperature

The Texas Forest Service tells us that a half billion trees have died. The first of this series of droughts in 2005/6 was just classified as extreme. The last two have been one category worse than extreme — the exceptional category. The last 12 months were drier than the worst 12 months of the great…

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Welcome to Climate Change Texas Part 1: What Can Be Done About Climate Change in Texas?

By Abrupt changes, Agriculture, alternatives, Climate Catastrophes, Deniers and Delayers, Drought, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, rainfall, Solutions

As I have been saying in the first two installments of this series, climate change is already much more extreme than most scientists have been predicting. This is mainly because the majority of predictions are based on the “most likely” emissions scenario and because we have not reduced our emissions like climate scientists told us…

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Welcome to Climate Change Texas Part 2: Drought and wildfires

By Abrupt changes, Drought, Extreme Weather, in-depth and Popular Press, rainfall

AUSTIN — If this is not climate change, then this is exactly what climate change will be in as little as a decade. What has been happening in Texas, with these unprecedented (in time frames that matter) droughts and wildfires, is exactly what the climate scientists have been warning us about for over 20 years….

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A Half Billion Trees May Have Been Killed by Drought in Texas

By Drought

Update: The final count is 301 million, right in the middle of the 100 to 500 million estimate. See October 24, 2012 discussion https://climatediscovery.org/final-count-for-2011-drought-tree-kill-in-texas/ In a preliminary report, the Texas Forest Service says that 100 million to 500 million trees have been killed across Texas. A more detailed evaluation is due out in the spring….

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IPCC Special Report SREX, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation

By Drought

A classic report, full of conservative information created by committee. Not that the IPCC does not represent the best science that we have. It’s just that these guys do things by enormous committees and compromise is the standard operating procedure when creating policy, or anything really, by committee. So what does this report mean? Honestly,…

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Climate change will alter forests in the U.S. Southeast, ecologist says But she can’t really tell because drought killed half of her study trees.

By Drought

I just ran across this in the Athens paper (Georgia). I recognized the researcher, but have not had the time to chase down the article that the Athens paper, uh, failed to mention in their reporting…  But the title says it all anyway. The Athens reporter did say that this researcher says “Forests in Georgia…

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Welcome to Climate Change

By Drought

  This is an article that I wrote for the Sierra Club Central Texas Chapter newsletter; the Austin Sierran. If this is not climate change, then this is exactly what climate change will be in as little as a decade. What has been happening in Texas, with these unprecedented (in time frames that matter) droughts…

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Unprecedented–In Time Frames that Matter:

By Drought

Whenever we have an extreme weather event, whether it be unprecedented in the historic record or not, the climate unchangers come out of the woodwork. They are at the ready with their cries of, “It’s not unprecedented!” All the while, they appear to not be listening to what the scientists have to say. They are…

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Rain! sort-of…

By Drought

247 of  Texas’ 254 counties are under Texas Forest Service burn bans. In Austin we have only had 50% of our normal annual rainfall (9 inches behind) and we are about 60 percent behind for the last 10 months. We have had 36, 100-degree days so far this year and our normal is 12 days…

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