Research continues to investigate the behavior of components of the climate system in the real world as well as the virtual. With more and better data from the real world, the virtual climate system becomes more accurate.
Real-world Arctic methane plumes rising from the Arctic seafloor have been confirmed. These are worrisome because of their large capacity to further force climate change. Methane is 20 times as effective as carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the climate system. Up until recently, methane has been stored quite effectively in the Arctic due to the cold temperatures. Since the Arctic has warmed twice as much as the rest of the globe in the past 100 years, those methane stores are thawing and releasing their methane back to the ocean and atmosphere.
Is it any wonder the American car industry (at least the “Big 3) finds itself on the brink of collapse? Their executives have made bad business decisions for decades, after which the American government has been forced to step in and help them clean up their mess. American auto corporations want to continue their failed business models — this time by arguing to the EPA that a weak, national greenhouse gas standard needs to be implemented instead of having California and 13 other states implement standards that are more stringent. It is foolhardy to try to dictate the world’s 7th largest economy what they can and cannot implement. Especially in a country that supposedly values the ability of states to implement policies that are more stringent than those at the national level. Especially when those same auto corporations have no problems meeting foreign countries’ standards regarding vehicle safety and performance.
Their argument that having more than one regulation to follow is too onerous is pathetic. The market is speaking: Californians are pressuring their elected officials to introduce policies to keep themselves healthier and safer. If the auto corporations can’t meet those standards, they won’t be able to sell anything in California eventually. It’s their decision. Californians shouldn’t be forced to accept a dirtier and more dangerous environment just because some executives and shareholders are greedy. Either the market is “free” as many pro-corporatists like to argue or it isn’t.
A simple solution would be to manufacture vehicles that met California’s standards, since they would be more stringent. Then they wouldn’t be kept out of any market. But the standards aren’t the real issue here – profit is. Manufacturers want to hoard profit again (if they ever get profitable). They’ll do what they’ve done in the past 50 years: fight every regulation and policy that takes a penny away from them. Unless it’s nationalized health care. They’ll fight that even though it’s absolutely killing their bottom line. Like I asked above: is it any wonder the industry is on the brink of collapse? Either today’s manufacturers get their act together and meet today’s market requirements or they fail and tomorrow’s manufacturers will do it for them.
Kudos to President Obama for asking the EPA to look at the California GHG regulations again. It wasn’t done appropriately under the Bush “administration”. It will be done so now.
I wanted to write a post about some datasets that encompass 2008 to put my recent discussions and future posts on climate in perspective. First up, the World Meteorological Organization’s global temperature dataset. In a preliminary report issued on 16 Dec, 2008′s global mean temperature was 14.3 °C, making it the 10th warmest year on record going back to 1850. Despite a lingering La Nina, which is characterized by cooler than normal temperatures, 2008 was warmer than the 1990′s average temperature. It was almost as warm as 1997, in the runup to the strongest El Nino on record. It was only 0.2 °C cooler than the 1998 record temperature anomaly. Those 10 warmest years on record? All have occurred since 1997.
The November combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.06 degrees F (0.59 degree C) above the 20th century mean of 55.2 degrees F (12.9 degrees C).
Separately, the November 2008 global land surface temperature was fourth warmest on record and was 2.11 degrees F (1.17 degrees C) above the 20th century mean of 42.6 degrees F (5.9 degrees C).
How much did the La Nina affect global temperatures? According to NASA, the 2008 meteorological year (Dec 2007 – Nov 2008) was the coolest year since 2000, yet was still the 9th warmest on record (dating back to 1880). So the coolest year since 2000 is a good thing, right? Well, until the La Nina subsides. 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 were as anomalously warm as the record 1998 year, which had an extreme El Nino event. How anomalously warm will the next El Nino year be?
More importantly, the trend in the Met Office/WMO and the NASA data continue to show a large and rapidly increasing warm anomaly. Of particuar worry is the very large warm anomaly found over the Antarctic peninsula and eastern Russia. The former has seen massive ice sheet calving episodes in recent years and increased ice flow toward the ocean from land as a result. The latter has seen increasing emissions of methane as the permafrost thaws. The former will lead to rising sea levels if trends don’t change. The latter will release a greenhouse gas 20x as effective as CO2 is in energy absorption. There is a lot of methane trapped in the permafrost. Thawing the permafrost could initiate a positive feedback loop in which even more methane is released from the ground, which would warm the region and the globe even more.
The above temperature record also occurred in a period of low solar activity, which many climate change deniers claim is the most important factor driving our climate. Most climatologists acknowledge the sun’s activity as being one input into our climate system, but also recognize that human forcing has likely become a more important climate driver.
Bertha was a tropical cyclone for 17 days (July 3-20), making it the longest-lived July storm on record in the Atlantic Basin.
Fay is the only storm on record to make landfall four times in the state of Florida, and to prompt tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings for the state’s entire coastline (at various times during its August lifespan).
Paloma, reaching Category 4 status with top winds of 145 mph, is the second strongest November hurricane on record behind Lenny in 1999 with top winds of 155 mph).
More items of interest:
Overall, the season is tied as the fourth most active in terms of named storms (16) and major hurricanes (five), and is tied as the fifth most active in terms of hurricanes (eight) since 1944, which was the first year aircraft missions flew into tropical storms and hurricanes.
For the first time on record, six consecutive tropical cyclones (Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike) made landfall on the U.S. mainland and a record three major hurricanes (Gustav, Ike and Paloma) struck Cuba. This is also the first Atlantic season to have a major hurricane (Category 3) form in five consecutive months (July: Bertha, August: Gustav, September: Ike, October: Omar, November: Paloma).
