Thanks to global cooling (not!), the eastern 3/4 of the U.S. was much warmer than normal in July 2011. In fact, Oklahoma set a record for the warmest month of any state in American history: an average of 88.9F. Which kind of makes sense, when you think about it. After all, it was the preeminent expert on climate, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R TB-OK), whose grandchildren built an igloo on the National Mall back in February 2010 – because mocking Al Gore is the top responsibility of a sitting U.S. Senator. Maybe his family should have spent less time making fun of things they can’t or don’t want to understand but more time praying for rain this summer. In the end, the solution is simple: stop polluting heat-trapping gases and the atmosphere will trap less heat! Imagine that!
This track is somewhat unfortunate for most of Texas, since T.S. Don is expected to curve toward the WSW as it continues moving inland over Mexico. The far southern portion of Texas is experiencing drought conditions (see map from yesterday), but they are of lesser magnitude than portions of Texas to the north. Still, rainfall is needed in southern Texas and northern Mexico also. Hopefully T.S. Don will begin shifting conditions in the region. Tropical moisture entering the region can be recycled a number of times as the North American monsoon continues to push storms up from Mexico into the southern U.S.
For those interested in tropical meteorology, another tropical disturbance is moving across the Atlantic, moving west toward the Lesser Antilles. The National Hurricane Center is giving the system a 30% chance of developing into a named storm in the next 48 hours.
A tropical wave that didn’t look terribly impressive as it traversed the Atlantic from Africa to the Caribbean intensified into the 4th named storm of the 2011 season: Tropical Storm Don. Don is a small storm and is being impacted by dry air over the western Gulf of Mexico and northerly wind shear that isn’t allowing for a stacked system to develop.
All in all, that might be the best scenario for Texas, which is suffering through its worst drought in recorded history:
Brought about by climate change and La Nina, a drought of this magnitude can feed on itself by evaporating most of the soil moisture over a large area, thereby reducing the chance of thunderstorms to form and rain to fall. This is where T.S. Don comes in. If it stays on the small and weak side, downpouring rain and wind won’t be factors after landfall. A sizable amount of rain will still likely fall, but hopefully flooding won’t be as much of a problem as it would be if Don were much larger and stronger.
It will take a week or two after projected landfall (this Friday) to ascertain how much of an impact Don has on the Texas Drought.
If you encounter national news with any regularity, you’ve probably heard separate news stories that are very much connected. The first are the record wildfires plaguing Texas – while relatively few in number, the acreage they’ve burned has set a number of records. The wildfires are accompanied by record drought conditions. The extreme drought conditions cover a large majority (73.73%) of Texas as of May 3, 2011, as the figure below from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows. Exceptional drought conditions now affect a whopping 25.96% of Texas. No part of the state is doing better than abnormally dry this week, which is actually somewhat of an improvement over conditions a week ago.
Combine this terrible news with the ongoing saga of record flooding occurring across the middle and southern Mississippi River as well as water sources that feed the river. Depending on the specific location, this is either the highest the river has ever been or comes in at a close 2nd place. Those 2nd place finishes are largely a result of decades of levee construction designed to prevent flooding in population centers. In order to spare those places, planned destruction of levees has taken place in selected locales. The high rivers and flooding are expected to affect the region for weeks to months to come. Look at the before and after picture near Memphis, TN.
These sets of simultaneous disasters have preliminary cost estimates of hundreds of millions of dollars. That figure is likely to rise.
What’s causing these disasters? The effects of the strong La Nina of 2010-2011 that is currently subsiding. These effects are likely to continue for a few more months before conditions return to a more normal state. Underlying the La Nina effects is, of course, global warming. These type of conditions have been projected to occur for years. And now the important part: as bad as things are today, they are only likely to get worse in the years and decades ahead. Precipitation patterns are expected to grow in intensity but fall in frequency. That means fewer days with rain every year, but when the rain does come, it will come hard and fast. Worsening drought conditions are likely to spread across the country’s interior. Those conditions are likely to be interspersed with record rainfall and record flooding.
The science has indicated that these conditions would occur. The only thing that was mis-projected was the timing: these conditions weren’t supposed to occur for another decade or two. These conditions will probably grow less severe in the months ahead. That’s the nature of both the climate system and weather conditions over time. As stated above, the waning La Nina should allow “normal” weather patterns to return by this fall. What won’t go away are the new base conditions from which daily weather and future El Ninos and La Ninas exist. The next flood or drought or wildfire season may not be as bad as this one. In fact, they probably won’t be. But the next 10 or 100 floods, droughts and wildfire seasons are likely to be worse, on average, than this one because of the man-made global warming conditions that continue to worsen because of our decision not to act. Those next sets of disasters will only grow more expensive in terms of lives lost, crops lost, towns affected and ecosystems permanently altered.
The point at which we realize those costs are too high and the cost of taking action on global warming has always been lower will mark a momentous change in our societies. The bad news is that change will not instantly reduce the severity of disasters yet to come – decades’ worth of warming will still exist in the climate system. If you don’t like this drought or this wildfire season or this flooding, the solution is clear: it’s time to stop polluting our planet with man-made greenhouse gases.
If you haven’t heard or read by now, I’m sorry to be the first to let you know: as of early 2011, eastern Colorado is experiencing a severe drought. The mountains and the western slope are doing just fine, thanks to a strong La Nina that has brought above-average precipitation to western Colorado all winter. The eastern plains, however, have received scant precipitation dating back to just after July 4th, 2010. the precipitation that has fallen in the Denver metro area, for example, since that time has been largely confined to singular events followed by weeks of no precipitation. Coyote Gulch has a piece on what this means for the Arkansas Valley farmers.
For the record, as dry as it has been over eastern Colorado for the past 9+ months, Oklahoma and Texas are doing relatively worse. Extreme drought conditions exist over a large part of southern Oklahoma and most of Texas. A portion of Texas near Houston is experiencing Exceptional drought conditions. The same La Nina that has brought near-record snowpack to the Sierra Nevadas and saturated the Pacific Northwest has left the southern U.S. high and dry. That’s not expected to change in the next 3 months as the La Nina slowly weakens and the tropical Pacific returns to neutral conditions.
In the long term, these kinds of events are only going to become more likely and more severe, regardless of the specific strength of a particular La Nina or other short-term climate oscillation. I’m not saying this drought will continue for years to come, but as a result of our climate forcing, the drought dice are being loaded more and more. We will learn what it’s like to hit a 13 or 14 on 2 six-sided die that we’re painting with extra numbers this century. Mankind has never had to deal with the kind of climate extremes that will occur.
The effects of this drought have yet to really be felt. Once they do, we should all ask ourselves how prepared we are to face much more severe droughts in the future.
