Tag Archives: Weather

NASA: Monster El Nino + Climate Change Means ‘Not Normal’ Winter is On the Way

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Thanks again Robert for an excellent review of conditions.

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“Over North America, this winter will definitely not be normal. However, the climatic events of the past decade make ‘normal’ difficult to define.”  — Bill Patzert, climatologist at NASA’s JPL speaking in Earth Observatory today.

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It’s official, as of this Monday’s weekly NOAA ENSO report, a still growing 2015 El Nino had taken yet one more step into monster event territory. Hitting a +1.5 C sea surface temperature anomaly in the benchmark Nino 3.4 zone over the period of July through September even as weekly values rocketed to an amazing +2.4 C above average, the 2015 El Nino heightened yet again — making a substantial jump in overall ocean heat content. But according to a recent report out of NASA’s Earth Observatory, it appears we’re just beginning to see the full potential of this thing.

As Big or Bigger in Ocean Heat Content Than 1997-1998

For…

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Record-Breaking Wildfires, Greenland Melting and Earth’s Hottest Month Ever

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Humans have some advantages over other animal species, but like the animals, we can’t control our urge to reproduce and our desire for the security of material wealth. Sentient but not sapient, sensitive but not wise, our advantages have let us to eliminate competition, disease, and danger. Thus, nothing can stop our booming population and our world-destroying “environmental footprint.”  (ACD = anthropogenic climate disruption)

Exposing the Big Game's avatarExposing the Big Game

The following article from Truthout.org covers all that I was going to go over in Part 2 of Global Warming: the Future is Now, so here’s this instead:

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Dahr Jamail | The World on Fire:

The US is now officially in the worst wildfire season in its history, as almost 7.5 million acres across the country have burned up since spring.

Articles about ACD’s impacts are now being published in more mainstream outlets, carrying titles that include verbiage like “the point of no return,” and it is high time for that, given what we are witnessing.

A recently published study by the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Reliance revealed that “major shocks” to worldwide food production will become at least three times more likely within the next 25 years due to increasingly extreme weather events generated by ACD. One of the coauthors of the report…

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Monster El Nino Hurls Record Barrage of Hurricanes at Hot Blob, Sets Sights on Drought-Ravaged California

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“The Hot Blob in the Northeastern Pacific held its own for quite some time. But it now faces the assault of a barrage of tropical cyclones spat from the maw of a monster El Nino that is now tracking its way toward the strongest such event on record. If this keeps up, the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge warding storms off the US West Coast will be besieged by increasingly powerful cyclonic systems. The Ekman pumping from such storms will cool the ocean surface at its periphery and expanding toward its heart, eventually crushing the ocean impetus for ridge formation. The continuation of such a pattern could then kick Bjerknes feedback into higher gear — opening wide the door for powerful storms striking the US West Coast this Fall and Winter.”

A Record-Shattering Barrage of Pacific Cyclones

“Late during the evening of August 29th of 2015 something odd happened. For the first time in the history of modern meteorological record keeping, three category four typhoons simultaneously churned their way northward through the Pacific Ocean. These massive and powerful storms, just one category shy of the strongest typhoons we have a measure for, were hurled out of a region of extremely hot sea surface temperatures near the Equator. A zone, that for late August was also hitting record hot levels amidst a building Monster El Nino. And never before in modern memory had so many storms of such high intensity filled Pacific Ocean waters.” robertscribbler.com

GR:  California storms may replace drought this fall.  Not end drought; replace it with another form of catastrophe–floods.  Here in central Arizona, I feel an urge to replace that faulty gutter.

July’s stupefying heat indexes in southwest Iran. #Auspol #ClimateChange 

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Stepping outside during the summer often leads to an immediate groan, as if you suddenly found yourself stuck in a sauna. But for people living in southwest Iran along the Persian Gulf, conditions in late July went beyond the level of usual summer whining: on July 30-31, staying outside for a prolonged period could have led to heat stroke and death.

Summer temperatures in Iran can routinely top 100°F, but 100°+ temperatures were not what made this event so remarkable and so potentially dangerous. The event was not the “dry heat” that people in the United States associate with the desert Southwest. Instead, the scorching temperatures were accompanied by extremely humid conditions, which give the human body even less ability to cool itself off.
In the coastal city of Bandar Mahshahr on July 30 at 2:30pm and 4:30pm local time, the temperature reached 113°F and 111°F. The dew point temperatures (the temperatures to which the atmosphere would need to cool to trigger condensation of the water vapor in the air) were 86°F and 88°F, respectively. At 3:30PM, the dew point reached 90°F! For reference, here in the United States, a summer day with temperatures in the mid 90s and a dew point in the mid 70s would feel highly uncomfortable. A dew point higher than the upper 80s is, simply put, ridiculous—even for the Persian Gulf.  Sourced through Scoop.it from: jpratt27.wordpress.com

Hothouse Mass Casualties Strike Egypt, Heatwave Hospitalizes Thousands in Japan

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#Global Warming–#Weather Extremes

Back in May, official temperatures soared to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) as humidity levels spiked in Cairo, Egypt. The early high heat and humidity sparked anxiety among residents worrying over the coming summer. Public complaints about official temperatures being lower than actual measures were widespread among a populace vulnerable to heat exposure in a notoriously hot region of the world suffering the ongoing impacts of human-forced warming. The below video captures some of the sentiment of a few months ago, when concern that record global temperatures in the range of 1 degree Celsius above 1880s averages might result in harm to Egypt’s populace was widespread and growing.”   Sourced through Scoop.it from: robertscribbler.com GR:  This summer’s deaths are sad harbingers of escalating weather extremes as the planet warms and ocean evaporation increases.  Urban heat islands intensify the extremes.  This bad for humans, pets, and factory-farmed animals, but for now, wild animals outside cities will not suffer as much.  Of course, other human impacts are killing wild animals and plants.  Increased transpiration during heat waves will hurry our innocent fellow creatures along the road to extinction.

How This Year’s El Niño Compares to the Past

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“It was the winter of 1997-1998 when the granddaddy of El Niños—the one by which all other El Niños are judged—vaulted the climate term to household name status. It had such a noticeable impact on U.S. weather that it appeared everywhere from news coverage of mudslides in Southern California to Chris Farley’s legendary sketch on “Saturday Night Live.” Basically, it was the “polar vortex” of the late ‘90s.

“January and February 1998 were the wettest and warmest first two months to a year for the contiguous U.S. in the 104-year record at that time, according to NOAA. The position of the jet stream meant that some northern states saw temperatures up to 15 degrees above normal and both the Southeast and Southern California were awash in a series of storms.” –Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.scientificamerican.com

GR:  This year’s El Nino is going to be as strong or stronger than 97-98. Strong El Ninos can produce strong weather events. But when, where, and even if are all uncertain.