In 1834 and 1850, two European scientists (Clausius and Clapeyron) developed scientific principles that told us that warmer air holds more water. In the 1960s and 70s the computer models that first simulated our climate showed that more atmospheric CO2 would increase Earth’s temperature, relative humidity, and total precipitation because of the Clausius–Clapeyron principles. In the…
The driver of our climate system has changed in the last two decades from one that is controlled by annual emissions, to one that is controlled by already emitted CO2. This means that previous strategies to control annual emissions are no longer meaningful and we must now turn our attention to the already emitted climate…
Increasing extreme storms are a big deal. Our civil infrastructure design is based on our old climate. Meteorologist across the country have been evaluating the historic record to see exactly how much change has already taken place. Climate modeling is still advancing towards being able to robustly understand exactly how much the most extreme storms will increase in the…
An article from the Associated Press (AP) by Bajak and Borenstein on May 18 tells us that: “Extreme downpours have doubled in frequency over the past three decades.” This is a tall statement with serious implications. The alarming nature of this statement is the reason that the Climate Change Now Initiative exists (of which I…
Already, with just a single degree Fahrenheit of warming, the most extreme rain events have increased 40 percent across the Central U.S. including Texas. It’s not just our imaginations; it’s not natural cycles. Interestingly, some of it may be caused, or enhanced by, agricultural practices. Groisman et al. emphasizes that their work did not evaluate…
A 500-year storm today is the same as a 500-year storm in the past. It rains 8 inches in 6 hours. In our old climate, every year there is a 0.2 percent chance of a 500-year storm occurring. For a betting person the odds are 1:500. Projections are that by mid century 100-year events will…
Work from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Zurich, Switzerland has found that about 18% of moderate daily precipitation extremes and about 75% of moderate daily hot extremes, that are currently occurring over land, are attributable to warming. An ensemble of the latest models was used to try and average the individual modeling from…
From the National Snow and Ice Date Center: “Air temperatures reached record high levels at two Antarctic stations last week, setting a new mark for the warmest conditions ever measured anywhere on the continent. On March 23, at Argentina’s base Marambio, a temperature of 17.4° Celsius (63.3° Fahrenheit) was reached, surpassing a previous record set…
From the abstract: “A devastating societal and economic toll on the central United States, contributing to dozens of fatalities and causing billions of dollars in damage. As a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture (the Clausius–Clapeyron relation), a pronounced increase in intense rainfall events is included in models of future climate. Therefore, it is crucial to examine whether the magnitude…
Varying reports reveal that “tens of thousands” of individuals died in Europe in the 2003 heat wave with 15,000 in France alone. Reporting today still use the inaccurate estimates from the day. The European Union sponsored a study that laid to rest the speculation but this study’s results are so astonishing the numbers are still…
Earth has warmed about 0.9 degrees C on average and the Arctic on average has warmed two to three times as much as the average. Daily temperature variation and annual temperature variation make a difference. Climate scientists have been warming us for over a generation that climate change would mean greater insect infestations on a…
This study uses 1,008 survey participants to evaluate where extra effort should be applied to leverage increasing awareness in climate issues after extreme weather events. Extreme weather has already increased because of warming in some circumstances (including cold weather extremes) and experiencing extreme weather increases climate change awareness of individuals. This work suggest using extreme…
The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the global average, Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere snow cover are decreasing faster than the models project, more frequent extreme weather events are occurring and more frequent severe winters are occurring too. Three potential drivers of these events are: changes in storm tracks, the…
First published on Truthout.org This article reports on a National Research Council literature review of why and how warming in the Arctic and arctic amplification is creating what appears to be more extreme winter weather in the U.S. Northeast and Northern Europe.
Over the mid Northern Mid- and High Latitudes minimum temperatures will increases more than maximum temperatures. In other words, if it warms ten degrees in the daytime on average, it will only warm twenty degrees at night, on average across the globe at these latitudes. What he basically found was that that cold periods are…
Screen et al., Amplified mid-latitude planetary waves favour particular regional weather extremes, Nature Climate Change, June 22, 2014. Recent publications tell us that a warmer planet will have more cold extremes over high latitudes and a little south of there (the Great Lakes and northward in the US). This is because of Polar Amplification where…
The polar jet stream normally runs around the roof of the world like the Siberian express. It spins around the top of the world and keeps Arctic cold bottled up and has been called the “polar vortex” ever since we have understood how different facets of Earth’s jet streams influence global weather. There is one…
In the long-term, extreme weather will certainly become more extreme, with hotter heat waves and less intense cold waves, more intense precipitation events and longer drought. But in the short-term (40 years or less) things may reverse regionally or they may increase even more dramatically than the long-term rate suggests. This new modeling work shows…
Arctic Amplification means more energy in the Arctic. It’s warmer there now so there is more energy there. The “amplification” part of Arctic Amplification refers to how the Arctic, which is warming at twice or more the rate of the rest of the world, reacts with the rest of world. The global air currents that…
One last time: We do not have to have statistical certainty to be certain that Sandy was caused by climate change. When climate scientists have been warning us for twenty years that superstorms like this would happen as our planet warms—and it happens—how big of a fool do those deniers and delayers think we are?…
