Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts

Washington Post misses another prime opportunity to report on climate change

The July 21 Washington Post contained an article written by reporter Martin Weil called Record nightly warmth followed last week's daily heat.  It was a pretty long article that discussed how the daily highs in the 90's each day were made more unbearable by the fact that the nights did not cool off below 80 degrees for several nights in a row.
"There’s a way of coping with day after day of temperatures in the 90s, besides staying in the shade, wearing loose clothing and drinking lots of water. It is to go home, let the sun set and feel the swelter subside.
But that traditional method of riding out a heat wave has not been particularly effective in recent days for those living close to the Washington area’s urban core near Reagan National Airport, where the National Weather Service takes the city’s temperature.
It has been hot during the day, yes. Saturday, with a high of 94, was the sixth consecutive day on which Washington’s official temperature was well above 90. But even beyond each day’s heat and humidity, Washington’s weather woes were made all the worse by how warm it remained at night."
This was the perfect set up to discuss how increased greenhouse gases increase the moisture content of the air, both of which serve to keep it warmer at night (and in winters).  But nothing.  Not a single word.

One would hope that this clear connection of dots between local weather conditions and the consistency of those conditions with anthropogenic global warming would be a key point made in an article like this.  Seems almost like negligence.

Climate Change Gets Personal - My Sister's House is Lost in Black Forest Fire

For 20 years I have worked on the issue of climate change--mostly from the angle of energy efficiency.  I understand the severity of the crisis and the need for fast and significant action.  But it's been a bit abstract from a personal standpoint.  I was not one of the 20 million Pakistanis dislocated by the flooding there in 2010.  I don't live in parts of New Jersey or New York that were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy.

But now it's different. 
Last year the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs destroyed 346 homes.  The most destructive day of that fire occurred when Colorado Springs experienced its first 100-degree temperature in recorded history.  And there had been a 3-year drought at that point.  My brother is a firefighter in Colorado Springs, and he worked on the fire.

State of Folly 3 - How Michael Crichton was wrong: Humans insignificant?

This is the third in a series of posts related to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which I just read this summer. [previous posts here and here]

On p. 709, one of Crichton's key characters, John Kenner, who he presents as the level-headed, intelligent understander of all things climate, says, after describing the ordinary violence of the earth's weather:
The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide.  For these same apes to imagine they can stabilize this atmosphere is arrogant beyond belief.  They can't control the climate.
Yet we know that to be undeniably false.  We are, in fact, already controlling the climate.  We've raised it a degree or so Celsius in the last 100 years.  "Unequivocally" according to the best climate science on the planet.  We may not be "controlling" it very well--more like sending it out of control.  The point he was trying to make is that humans are just too small to make any difference to the enormity of the earth's systems.  Wrong.

Comparing Bike Traffic on the Custis Trail - New Data Loggers Provide Great Data

Since the fall of 2009, Arlington County has been automatically collecting data from dedicated bike and pedestrian counters.  The counter on the Custis Trail at the top of the Rosslyn hill near mile post 3.5 (map) has collected the most data--tracking at 15 minute intervals continuously for more than 15 months.  Data has also been collected from the other counter that is located on the Four-Mile Run Trail east of Shirlington near the new I-395 underpass.  I will analyze other data form these counters in future blogs.  Arlington is continuing to add more counters, which will allow for very rich and useful data.

Bike Arlington reported on the CommuterPage blog that data from these counters will be available online with graphing tools allowing one to do their own analysis.

For my first analysis, I compare bike traffic on the trail between 2009 and 2010 (click for larger version).

I compared 5 weeks starting at the first of November through the first week of December.  For the graph, I aligned the days of the week (so 2010 actually starts on Sunday, October 31).  Total ridership over the 5-week period was:
  • 2009 - 24,015
  • 2010 - 26,714 (+11.2%)
That's a pretty good bump for one year.  However, it turns out that 2009 had a lot more rain.  Thanks to David Patton, Transportation Planner for Arlington County, who created an initial chart superimposing rain with ridership for November 2009, I took his idea a little further.  The chart above shows days with rain as darker bars.  2009 had 13 days of significant rain and 3 days with tiny rain.  2010, however, had only 5 days with significant rain and another 7 with a tiny bit of rain.  I do not know what time of day the rain occurred.  So it's hard to know if the increase from '09 to '10 was due to weather, other factors or an actual increase in ridership in general.  On my next post I am going to attempt to remove that variable to see what happens.

Monday What's on the Web: National Geographic Environment Blog

Each Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.
---------------------------------------

National Geographic is known for many things: great photography, a high quality monthly magazine, adventure, amazing documentaries and more.  They have also been reporting on climate change for several years, helping to sound the alarm regarding the seriousness of the threat of climate disruption.

They also have a very extensive blog, covering a wide range of topics.  Among the topics they cover are environment and, to a lesser degree, energy.

Recent posts in this category include:
and one of my favorites, because of its clear way of explaining a major concept:
It's always a pleasure to visit National Geographic's web site.  Here's one more reason to spend some time there.

Monday What's on the Web: Ricky Rood's blog on Wunderground

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.
----------------------------
 I previously featured Dr. Jeff Masters in my Monday What's on the Web series.  This week I feature his colleague, Ricky Rood. Dr. Masters focuses quite a bit on severe weather: hurricanes and the like.  Ricky Rood, however, focuses his posts almost entirely on climate change, and he's been doing it quite effectively since 2007.  Dr. Rood is a professor at the University of Michigan, teaching about climate change and its interaction with all aspects of society (bio).

His posts are thoughtful and thorough and lend a lot to the discussion.  Recently he posted a 4-part series that included the question "What to do?" in each one.
I highly recommend this series of articles along with Dr. Rood's blog in its entirety.

Monday What's on the Web: Jeff Masters

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.
----------------------------
There is no better source for the latest on weather developments worldwide than Jeff Master's Wunderblog on the Weather Underground site.  He provides tremendous detail regarding tropical storms, heat waves, droughts and extreme weather of all kinds.

Last week on August 27 he reported the opening of both the Northwest and Northeast passages while also comprehensively covering all the hurricane, tropical storm and tropical storm precursor weather everywhere in the world.  It's from his blog that I learned 17 countries broke all time temperature records so far in 2010 (the 17 countries is a record)

His understanding of both weather and climate is impressive, and he is good at debunking poorly constructed climate skeptic arguments.  Here's a great quote from the same August 27 posting:

"Diminishing the importance of Arctic sea ice loss by calling attention to Antarctic sea ice gain is like telling someone to ignore the fire smoldering in their attic, and instead go appreciate the coolness of the basement, because there is no fire there. Planet Earth's attic is on fire. This fire is almost certain to grow much worse. When the summertime Arctic sea ice starts melting completely a few years or decades hence, the Arctic will warm rapidly, potentially leading to large releases of methane gas stored in permafrost and in undersea "methane ice" deposits. Methane is 20 - 25 times more potent than CO2 at warming the climate, meaning that the fire in Earth's attic will inexorably spread to the rest of the globe. To deny that the fire exists, or that the fire is natural, or that the fire is too expensive to fight are all falsehoods. This fire requires our immediate and urgent attention. Volunteer efforts to fight the fire by burning less coal, oil, and gas are laudable, but insufficient. It's like trying to fight a 3-alarm blaze with a garden hose."

His readership is enormous.  His posts receives thousands of comments every day.

Is the Future Here Now?

Weather and climate are not the same.  Sometimes people--skeptics and warmists alike--use the weather to "prove" the existence or non-existence of global warming.  That's hard to do, because extreme weather events--although they are affected by climate change--can happen anyway.  So if 1000-year floods start happening every 10 years, we know there are more of them due to climate change.  We don't know, however, which ones they are in particular.  Likewise with stronger hurricanes.  Climate is changing the intensity of tropical storm, making them stronger in general.  However, we can't say that any particular storm was different--just that the average intensity is stronger.

Scientists have been predicting significant changes in weather and other indicators as our globe gets warmer.  Things like more frequent droughts and heat waves, stronger storms, more precipitation in more severe events, larger and more wildfires, longer wildfire seasons, diseases and pests that expand their ranges and on and on.  There are plenty of books and articles with these scenarios.  (BTW - I recommend Joe Romm's Hell and High Water.)

Ten years ago these scenarios were presented as what the world would be like towards the end of the 21st century.  Unfortunately, it appears that the future is now.  To whit:



  • Seventy-five countries have set all-time high temperature records just in the last ten years.  That's five times the number that set all-time cold records.

    • Russia's devastating 2010 heat wave is the "hell" that Joe Romm writes about.  It's exactly the kind of scenario painted by climate change scientists: unbearable sustained heat, thousands of deaths, lung-choking pollution, unstoppable wildfires.
    • Pakistan's flooding of 2010 is the "high water" Joe Romm warns about.  Unprecedented rainfalls never experienced in recorded history killing thousands and causing billions of dollars in damage.  More ominously, the floods are having a negative political influence, helping the Taliban raise its influence in this unstable country (and nuclear armed, to boot).  This is the sort of "threat multiplier" climate change causes that our military has been warning about.
    • Large parts of Australia, particularly southeast Australia and Tasmania, have been in drought for thirteen years.  At some point one should stop using the word drought and just call it desert.
    • Locally in the DC area, this summer has been much hotter than usual, with a record-setting number of days above 90 degrees.  Global warming?  We can't know for certain if that's what is causing this heat, but the "loaded dice" of climate tell us that before long, DC will be like Atlanta.  And we're starting to get a taste of what it's like.
    • Pine beetles in the US and Canadian west have completely devastated millions of acres of pine forests--probably permanently.  In the past, these beetles were controlled by cold in the winter.  Now that the winters are not as cold, they are rampaging out of control, with no way to stop them.
    The examples of severe weather and changing climate are everywhere.  This handful of examples is a tiny sample.  Many advocates for action feel that it will take a crisis to get people to act.  This summer feels like a crisis already, but certainly our political leaders don't feel much inclination to act.  Sad.

    Climate Decade in Review - Post 33: Phoenix Records Highest Overnight Temperature Ever

    July 26, 2006 - Phoenix, Arizona recorded the highest low temperature ever recorded in its history. The low temperature overnight only dropped to 97 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be a record high temperature in many parts of the country.

    One of the indicators that warming temperatures are caused by excess greenhouse gases rather than increased solar radiation is that winter and nighttime temperatures increase more rapidly than summer and daytime temperatures. This has, indeed, been the case over the last few decades. Although this record set in Phoenix cannot be directly attributed to climate change, the likelihood that higher nighttime temperatures in Phoenix and anywhere else increases as more greenhouse gases are added to our atmosphere.

    =================
    This is one in the series of "Decade in Review" posts on this blog that began in January 2010. These posts present climate-change-related events that occurred during the 00's, the warmest decade in recorded history.

    Climate Decade in Review - Post 31: Mumbai Receives Record Rainfall

    July 26, 2005 - Mumbai received 37 inches of rain in 24 hours (and parts of the city even more).

    This is difficult to imagine. Most places don't receive 37 inches of rain in a year. The term "26 July" is now commonly used in Mumbai, and is universally understood to refer to this event and the standstill it brought to the city. More than 1000 people died. This was the 8th heaviest rainfall event ever recorded. The IWRS Newsletter had this description:

    "Never before perhaps had the metropolis experienced anything like it. Suburban trains normally running at intervals of 3 minutes, came to a grinding halt and 150,000 commuters including schoolchildren got instantly stranded at railway stations. Buses were unable to ply and the roads were bursting to capacity with stagnant northbound traffic. Land lines, mobile phone services and power supply went dead in many areas. Highways connecting the city got blocked and the airport had to be closed. The island city was really marooned."

    Weather analyses of the event did not implicate global warming as a factor, and it is generally difficult to attribute any particular weather event directly to global warming. However, the incidence of extreme weather events like this has been growing over the last couple of decades, because warmer global temperatures tend to increase the likelihood of extreme weather. Events of greater rainfall are particularly more likely due to the ability of the atmosphere to hold more water vapor at higher temperatures.
    ====================
    This is one in the series of "Decade in Review" posts on this blog that began in January 2010. These posts present climate-change-related events that occurred during the 00's, the warmest decade in recorded history.

    Climate Decade in Review - Post 22: Australia in Drought for Entirety of the 00's

    2002 to present - Australia has been experiencing a significant drought event that began in 2002, centered in the Southwest part of the continent. The resultant dust storms in Sydney in the fall of 2009 were headline news worldwide, but the impact on agriculture as well as other water restrictions have been felt for several years. Many farmers have found it difficult or impossible to stay in business. Some climate scientists believe that this climatic change may be permanent, making parts of Australia that were previously semi-arid into desert.

    Many scientists link the drought directly to climate change. A study released in early 2010 linked lower rainfall in Australia with higher precipitation in Antarctica. Essentially the precipitation has moved as a result of climatic changes resulting from higher levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

    =================
    This is one in the series of "Decade in Review" posts on this blog that began in January 2010. These posts present climate-change-related events that occurred during the 00's, the warmest decade in recorded history.

    Climate Decade in Review Post 10: Highest Temperature Ever Recorded in Japan

    August 16, 2007 - Japan experienced the highest temperature ever recorded in the country - 40.9 C (105.6 F). This temperature was experienced in Gifu prefecture in central Japan and Saitama prefecture near Tokyo and broke the previous record of 40.8 C set in 1933. The death toll ranged from seven to thirteen persons, varying by news source.

    Heat waves are weather events, and it is difficult to attribute particular weather events to overall global climate change. The likelihood of heat waves and higher temperatures increases as the globe warms, so one would expect that new high temperature records will continue to be broken in ever increasing numbers as the average temperature of the atmosphere continues to increase.

    =================
    This is one in the series of "Climate Decade in Review" posts on this blog that began in January 2010. These posts present climate-change-related events that occurred during the 00's, the warmest decade in recorded history.

    Climate Decade in Review

    Now that the 2000's are finished and we're into the 2010's, we can take a look back at some of the major climate-change-related events of the first decade of the 21st century. Beginning on January 19, I started tweeting "The Climate decade in review" tweets several times a day. Check them out at www.twitter.com/steveoffutt.

    Here on my blog I am going to do the same thing, with one or two key climate-related posts each day, but slightly longer than a tweet. Come back often and enjoy! Here's your first one:
    ====================
    The Climate Decade in Review: August 12, 2003 - France records the highest temperature ever: 111 degrees Fahrenheit. This occurred during the 2003 European heat wave that killed as many as 35,000 people.

    Specific weather events like this are difficult to directly attribute to human-induced global warming, but most experts agree that climate change likely played at least a small role in the heat wave. Even if not, as global warming increases, the likelihood of devastating heat waves such as this one will continue to increase and they will become more common.