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?…
First published on The Rag Blog, November 5, 2012. Climate change plain and simple: Arctic Sea ice melt caused Superstorm Sandy. And things are starting to get crazy with this ongoing string of extreme and unprecedented weather events. Complete Article
Research from last March tells us that Superstorm Sandy was directly caused by climate change. I won’t bore you with more quotes from Governors Cuomo or Christie, or the latest “speculation” in the media about whether or not Superstorm Sandy was or was not “influenced” by climate change. I’ll not repeat the list of stunning…
In the twelve months prior to April 16, high temperature records outnumbered low temperature records 3 to 1. James Hansen told the U.S. Senate in 1988 that “it is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.” After all of the recent unprecedented…
It is not because of increased population and it is not because of increased observation. Think that our growing population is enduring increasing impacts from severe weather and you would be correct. But adjusting extreme weather events for what the scientists call “population bias” is nothing new. What is new is the amount of…
How Many Unprecedented Historic Weather Records Have to be Broken for Climate Change to Get Some Respect? The Science of Early Spring So far in 2012 in Austin we have had bout the same amount of rain than we did in the 12-month period that marked the drought that peaked last summer (the deepest 12-month…
March 3, 2012: — How many more people will have to die in these unprecedented outbreaks before the delayers get it? It’s hard to say. By all (media) accounts, these outbreaks are not as bad as in the past. We have inflation and more people to increase the chance of damage and death. The D&D…
(This article is an expansion of and provides technical backup for Bruce Melton’s three-part series, “Welcome to Climate Change in Texas,” published in December 2011 and January 2012 on The Rag Blog.) Read More — Extra: Welcome to Climate Change Texas: The Worst-Case Scenario is Happening (expansion and backup) Part…
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…
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….
Widespread one foot totals, even more widespread 2 foot totals, with peaks up to 32 inches fell in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Eleven dead, 3 million without power. Heavy wet snow with leaves still on the trees. NJ Conn and New York – states of Emergency. The storm blanketed states from Virginia to Maine and its…
2011 represents the highest damage cost-to-date in the U.S. for any year since 1980 when we began tracking Billion-dollar disasters. Economic damage costs to date in the US approach $32 Billion. The damage cost-to-date in the U.S. from natural disasters is typically less than $6 Billion, from the usual combination of winter storms, crops losses…
A phone conference and press release about climate change induced extreme weather, by the Union of Concerned Scientists, brings to light what climate scientists have been telling us for decades. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969,…
