East Coast Heat Wave Preview Of New Normal

Readers of my posts should know by now I have been moving away from using certain language when discussing climate change effects.  That language includes talking about effects in the far-off future and the uncertainty involved with climate projections (even though they do exist).  This transition has happened rapidly as I have read hundred of journal articles detailing the latest science assessments as well as seminal reports like the IPCC’s in 2007.  Generally speaking, the American public has no idea what is about to hit them.  A solid percentage think climate change is occurring and our species is now the dominant forcing mechanism.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is far too few Americans realize how quickly conditions are changing and what those changing conditions mean for their future.

An article came out today putting some pieces together that I want to comment on.  The article covers the topic of a new paper being published in Climatic Change Letters by a Standford group.  It deals with projections of summer conditions around the globe, using the current heat wave affecting a good portion of the country as context.  That’s not to say this heat wave can be directly and completely attributed to climate change, but that conditions are primed for heat waves like this to occur with climate change affecting baseline conditions.  Unsurprisingly, the group found (among other things) the following:

The Stanford study’s lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, sought to determine when the current hottest temperatures would become “the new normal.” He says, “According to our projections, large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that, by the middle of this century, even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years.”

Read that again.  The coolest summers in 40 years will be hotter than anything we’ve experienced since the 1960s.  That projection is in line with the findings of numerous other studies: future decades are likelier to be hotter than preceding decades for a long time to come.  Folks across the East Coast and South are experiencing now what will be a typical summer soon.  And what we considered to be summer will have to be revised: the climate doesn’t care about arbitrary astronomical designations of seasons.  An increase in the number of days with 90F+ daily highs occurring in May and April will occur.  The number of days with 100F+ will also increase.  Of more worry is the number of nights with higher minimum temperatures than ever before.

What effects will these higher temperatures have?  Plenty.

[H]eat waves in 2003 killed an estimated 35,000 people in Europe. Last year, a record heat wave in Russia killed 700 people per day. As for agriculture, new research reveals that global warming has hindered crop yields. Higher temperatures cause dehydration and prevent pollination, resulting in a rise in food prices. Other studies suggest that warmer winters keep pests alive longer, allowing them to carry plant diseases, and greenhouse gases affect a plant’s structure, reducing its protection abilities.

Colorado knows all about the problems of warmer winters, as we’ve witnessed millions of acres of forest fall prey to pine beetles, whose offspring are surviving winters that no longer experience 30F below zero temperatures for extended periods.  And contrary to what science-haters say, plants have an optimal range of temperatures, CO2 concentrations, and other environmental conditions.  If they had paid attention to science in school, they might be able to deduce that they already live in their optimal range because of evolutionary processes.  The critical point is those ranges aren’t very large for most plants.  A small numeric change in one or more of those environmental conditions puts plants under tremendous strain.  It doesn’t take much to push them over the edge and get them to experience dramatically slower growth rates.  In short, more CO2 does not equal faster plant growth.

Another projection cited in the article is worthy of further discussion.

U.N. predictions suggest that there may be 50 million environmental refugees by 2020.

That is an interesting projection since:

This past year alone, natural disasters displaced 42 million people, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The way I read those two sentences is the following: either 8 million more people need to be displaced to hit the U.N. prediction (which shouldn’t be difficult to do in 9 years’ time) or 50 million people need to be displaced in a single year (which shouldn’t be much more difficult than it was to displace 42 million people last year).  My point is that the U.N. needs to take a hard, honest look at the latest science and reissue their prediction, because it already seems out-of-date one decade early.

Scientists and government planners announced in May that heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and deadly droughts signal a “new normal” of extreme U.S. weather events influenced by climate change.

How many looming threats and even visible evidence are needed before serious action is taken to fight global warming?

We might want to start paying attention.  The following list contains weather disasters that have costs exceeding $1 Billion – just so far in 2011:

1. 2011 Groundhog Day’s blizzard ($1- $4 billion)
2. April 3 -5 Southeast U.S. severe weather outbreak ($2 billion)
3. April 8 – 11 severe weather outbreak ($2.25 billion)
4. April 25 – 28 super tornado outbreak ($3.5 – $6 billion)
5. Mississippi River flood of 2011 ($9 billion)
6. Texas drought ($1.2 billion)
7. Joplin tornado ($1 – $3 billion)

That’s the fastest that 7 $1 Billion weather disasters have occurred after Jan. 1, in case you were wondering.  I wrote many times in the past couple of years that we couldn’t afford to continue ignoring climate change.  It’s far more expensive to keep burning fossil fuels and living inefficiently than it is to change our habits while we still have the luxury of time to do so.  Moving forward, we are now faced with the dual challenges of changing our habits while simultaneously reacting to the weather disasters we brought on ourselves.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

State of the Poles – June 2011: Arctic Near Record Low; Antarctic Normal

The state of global polar sea ice area at the beginning of June 2011 remains poor: well below climatological conditions (1979-2009) continue to persist.

Sea ice in the Arctic continues to track significantly below average, with the 3rd lowest readings for the month in the modern era.  Antarctic sea ice recovered somewhat more quickly to normal conditions than was the case the month before.  Global sea ice area has therefore remained near historical lows for an extended period of time this year.  Within the last month, global sea ice area has finally improved from the 1 million sq. km. deficit from climatological conditions that characterized the first four months of 2011.  To help put this in context, only 2006 and 2007 saw similar conditions.  In 2007, the Arctic (and global) sea ice area fell to its lowest extent in modern history.

Arctic Ice

Portions of the Arctic are warmer places in 2011 than at the same point in 2007.  Warmer water than in past years continues to be transported into the Arctic Ocean at rates that are quickening (more warm water faster – not a good thing for ice survivability).  Weather conditions (local pressure centers, resulting wind patterns, etc.) will have the final influence on what conditions in Sep. 2011 look like.  Updating my guess from last month, I don’t think 2011 will challenge the record low extent of 2007.  I think it is likely that Arctic ice extent will end up in the lowest 3 extents on record.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice extent in May was the 3rd lowest on record.  Averaged over May 2011, Arctic sea ice extent was only 12.79 million sq. km.  Arctic ice in May almost matched the rate of decrease recorded in May 2010, which was the fastest in the past decade.

The change in May ice extent has been measured at -2.4% per decade by the NSIDC.  What that means is as of the end of May 1978, the Arctic had 14 million sq. km. of sea ice while May 2011′s extent was, as stated above, only 12.79 million sq. km.  After posting record low extent values in 2004 and 2006, the past Mays saw a rebound in extent values.  The past three Aprils looked more like the extents of the 1990s.  Alas, 2011 looks a lot more like 2004 than 2010.

Nobel-Prize Winning Economist Rejected By Teabaggers For Federal Reserve Post

The Teabaggers hate everything that isn’t them.  Based in racism, the Teabaggers transcend that disgusting practice.  Case in point: the obstruction of a Nobel Prize-winning economist for the Federal Reserve Board.  Peter Diamond won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on the labor market.  You know – labor – the thing that actually drives the world’s largest economy.  Wages drive demand.  Demand drives the economy – not supply as the Teabaggers zealously cling to.

The obstruction was wrought by one man; one white, upper-class racist Teabagger from Alabama: Sen. Shelby.  He successfully held up the nomination of a Nobel Prize-winning economist because that economist doesn’t agree with with Shelby’s fringe views on how economies work.

I don’t know why Sen. Shelby hates America or Americans. I don’t know why Sen. Shelby thinks that tens of millions of unemployed Americans is good for the economy.  I don’t know why Sen. Shelby decided that he – and he alone – knew more than any other American about economics.  Actually, I do know.  Sen. Shelby wants the Black Man out of the White House.  Anything else, including extending the Great Recession and allowing China to dominate world affairs for the next century, is way down the priority list for Sen. Shelby.  He hates the idea of a black man as President more than he loves his country.

Teabaggers reward failure and punish success.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R TB-CO) Batty About NREL

From the Denver Post (links mine):

Colorado congressman Doug Lamborn is one of nine House members asking that funds be yanked from programs that finance the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden.

[...] because they “have failed to live up to their supposed potential.”

I’ve never been a fan of Lamborn.  Up to this point, I haven’t been much of a critic either since he’s just another example of a privileged white male who thinks the 1650s were the best time in history.  Why waste my time on another idiot Teabagger?  But this request is batshit insane and I won’t ignore it.  Seriously, Rep. Lamborn, what the hell are you thinking?

Actually, I know what Rep. Lamborn is thinking.  He’s thinking of the miniscule campaign contributions that he’ll have to take from the dirty energy corporations to help get him re-elected.  Because $31,750 in his account is worth more to him than 5,500 highly skilled, well-paid Americans or the $714 million boost to Colorado’s economy that NREL provides (yes, he sells out Coloradans for less than a luxury vehicle. awesome.).  As a wild-eyed ideologue, those hard numbers don’t mean a thing.  Because his ideology says he needs to whore himself out to corporations on the cheap.

Rep. Lamborn would rather: wreck the stable climate our species has evolved in; keep Americans deployed across the world ensuring regions remain unstable enough to paradoxically justify their deployment; we remain enslaved to carbon-based power using a system that’s over 100 years old instead of de-centralizing and de-carbonizing.

But if you thought the above quote was lunacy, wait until you read this one:

The letter, written by California U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, says: “We should not follow the president’s poor planning in increasing the funding for these anti-energy boondoggles.”

What in the world is an anti-energy boondoggle?  Perhaps the biggest problem with Republican Teabaggers is because they’ve never been forced to think things through clearly, they live in a world where stringing together talking points sounds good to them.  Built on top of this problem is the corporate stenographer problem: do Yesenia Robles and The Associated Press think simply parroting this insipid quote qualifies as doing their job?  Apparently so.  The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions/occupations?  No, those weren’t boondoggles.  NREL is a boondoggle according to McClintock and dutifully parroted by Robles and the AP.  The ease with which our democracy is subverted is nauseating.

[Update]: I sent the Post article to a friend.  This is part of their reply (I wish I had thought to write it):

Let’ see, where could we begin with NREL’s future impact analogy?…..how about the Internet (NSF), wireless technology (DOE), Polio vaccine (NSF-DHS).

While it’s true that NREL’s potential hasn’t been fully realized as of today, just imagine if we had listened to idiots like Rep. Lamborn in the past.  There are good reasons why 1650 wasn’t such a great time.

Obama’s Bipartisanship & His Judicial Nominees

A question for all the folks who have spent the past 2.5 years telling the rest of us how much of an 11-dimensional chess master Obama is as he carefully steers his agenda: How’s that working out with respect to judicial nominees?

The answer: terribly.

A new report by the Alliance for Justice shows that the GOP’s obstructionism was truly historic — the worst obstructionism any new president faced at any point in American history: [T]he Senate confirmed fewer of [Obama's] district and circuit nominees than every president back to Jimmy Carter, and the lowest percentage of nominees – 58% – than any president in American history at this point in a President’s first term.

If a post-partisan approach to governing was going to work, don’t you think it would have worked by this point in Obama’s Presidency?  Instead, the opposite has occurred: Obama has capitulated on every major issue he promised to pursue on the 2008 campaign trail.  Those he hasn’t capitulated on haven’t even been pursued by the Obama administration.  And he wants 4 more years to do … what exactly?  Keep telling Republican Teabaggers they should work with him because that’s what the American people really want?  What a joke.  The teabaggers want to destroy Obama’s presidency, pure and simple.

To be fair, a fair amount of the blame for this pathetic situation is the lack of leadership from senior Senate Democrats.  They had the opportunity to take care of the unconstitutional actions brought about by the Republican Teabaggers back in January and decided they would rather see record  number of filibuster threats continue instead of upset the comity of the Senate (which doesn’t seem to exist if Teabaggers are filibustering everything in sight instead of participating in legitimate debate, but what do I know).

I’m starting to hear liberal friends try to argue that we have to make sure Obama is elected again in 2012 so he can put a liberal influence on the courts.  Since Republican Teabaggers mastered this concept years ago, they’re not about to allow Obama to derail their project to stuff the benches with right-wing reactionaries which has been largely successful to date.  If a record low number of Obama’s judicial nominees are approved, regardless of the needs of those benches, it really doesn’t matter if he’s re-elected.  He won’t hold the Teabaggers responsible for their intransigence in 2013 any more than he is in 2011.

Moreover, the chance that Obama will be re-elected doesn’t hinge on making a long-term impression on the court system, no matter how important that is.  What will matter is the state of the economy between now and Nov. 2012.  And this is where Obama’s lack of negotiation acumen comes into play.   By continually ceding ground on every issue to date, Obama has ensured that the U.S. economy will remain weak, if not fall into a double-dip recession, until late next year.  He gave the Teabaggers way too much without ensuring he got something worthwhile in return.  That’s going to be his legacy.  Our legacy will be a depressed economy.

2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook

June 1st is the official first day of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season.  What is the expectation for tropical storms in the Atlantic in 2011?  The Climate Prediction Center and the hurricane group at CSU have issued seasonal forecasts that I’ll discuss.

Climate Prediction Center

This outlook reflects an expected set of conditions that is conducive to above-normal Atlantic hurricane activity. These conditions are based on three climate factors:

• The tropical multi-decadal signal, which has contributed to the high-activity era in the Atlantic basin that began in 1995,
• A continuation of above-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea (called the Main Development Region),
• ENSO-neutral conditions most likely (no El Niño or La Niña), with lingering La Niña impacts into the summer.

The conditions expected this year have historically produced some active Atlantic hurricane seasons. Therefore, the 2011 season could see activity comparable to a number of active seasons since 1995. We estimate a 70% probability for each of the following ranges of activity during 2011:

• 12-18 Named Storms,
• 6-10 Hurricanes,
• 3-6 Major Hurricanes

Colorado State University group

• 16 Named Storms,
• 9 Hurricanes,
• 5 Major Hurricanes

The CSU group has plenty of other detailed information regarding potential for landfalling hurricanes along different portions of the U.S. coast (e.g., FL, NC, TX, etc.)

In summary, another above-average season is being projected by the experts.  The long-term average for these phenomena are as follows: 11 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes.

There were 19 named storms, 12 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes in 2010:

Image courtesy of Unisys.

On a related note, MSNBC ran a story this morning discussing the top-5 cities that are overdue for a direct hit by a hurricane.  They are:

• Honolulu, HI
• San Diego, CA
• New York City, NY
• Savannah, GA
• Tampa Bay, FL

Finally, I wanted to point out that an area of disturbed weather currently exists 200 miles east of Jacksonville, FL.  Designated 93-L by the Tropical Prediction Center, it is moving WSW at 20mph.  It will move over Florida this afternoon.  The TPC has given the disturbance a 30% chance of organizing into a Tropical Depression in the next 48 hours.  See Jeff Master’s write-up for more information.