Connecting the dots between climate change and extreme weather
Connecting the dots between human-caused climate change and extreme weather events is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. One the one hand, the underlying physics is clear--the huge amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the atmosphere must be already causing significant changes to the weather. But the weather has huge natural variations on its own, without climate change. So, communicators of the links between climate change and extreme weather need to emphasize how climate change shifts the odds. We've loaded the dice towards some types of extreme weather events, by heating the atmosphere to add more heat and moisture. This can bring more extreme weather events like heat waves, heavy downpours, and intense droughts. What's more, the added heat and moisture can change atmospheric circulation patterns, causing meanders in the jet stream capable of bringing longer-lasting periods of extreme weather. As I wrote in my post this January, Where is the climate headed?, "The natural weather rhythms I've grown to used to during my 30 years as a meteorologist have become significantly disrupted over the past few years. Many of Earth's major atmospheric circulation patterns have seen significant shifts and unprecedented behavior; new patterns that were unknown have emerged, and extreme weather events were incredibly intense and numerous during 2010 - 2011. It boggles my mind that in 2011, the U.S. saw 14 - 17 billion-dollar weather disasters, three of which matched or exceeded some of the most iconic and destructive weather events in U.S. history."
Figure 1. Women who work on a tea farm in Assam, India hold up a dot in honor of Climate Impacts Day (May 5, 2012), to urge people to connect the dots between climate change and the threat to their livelihood. Chai is one of the most consumed beverages in India, but a prolonged dry spell and extreme heat has affected tea plantations in Assam and Bengal with production dropping by 60% as compared to the same period in 2011. Image credit: 350.org.
May 5: Climate Impacts Day
On Saturday, May 5 (Cinco de Mayo!), the activist group 350.org, founded by Bill McKibben, is launching a new effort to "connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather." They've declared May 5 Climate Impacts Day, and have coordinated an impressive global effort of nearly 1,000 events in 100 countries to draw attention to the links between climate change and extreme weather. Their new climatedots.org website aims to get people involved to "protest, educate, document and volunteer along with thousands of people around the world to support the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis." Some of the events planned for Saturday: firefighters in New Mexico will hold posters with dots in a forest ravaged by wildfires; divers in the Marshall Islands take a dot underwater to their dying coral reefs; climbers on glaciers in the Alps, Andes, and Sierras will unfurl dots on melting glaciers with the simple message: "Melting"; villagers in Northeastern Kenya will create dots to show how ongoing drought is killing their crops; in San Francisco, California, aerial artist Daniel Dancer and the Center for Biological Diversity will work with hundreds of people to form a giant, moving blue dot to represent the threat of sea level rise and ocean acidification; and city-dwellers in Rio de Janeiro hold dots where mudslides from unusually heavy rains wiped out part of their neighborhood. I think its a great way to draw attention to the links between climate change and extreme weather, since the mainstream media coverage of climate change has been almost nil the past few years. A report by Media Matters for America found out that nightly news coverage about climate change on the major networks decreased 72% between 2009 and 2011. On the Sunday shows, 97% of the stories mentioning climate change were about politics in Washington D.C. or on the campaign trail, not about extreme weather or recent scientific reports. You can check out what Climate Impacts Day events may be happening in your area at the climatedots.org website.
Figure 2. Front Street Bridge on the Susquehanna River in Vestal, NY, immediately following the flood of September 8, 2011. Image credit: USGS, New York. In my post, Tropical Storm Lee's flood in Binghamton: was global warming the final straw? I argue that during September 8, 2011 flood, the Susquehanna River rose twenty feet in 24 hours and topped the flood walls in Binghamton by 8.5 inches, so just a 6% reduction in the flood height would have led to no overtopping of the flood walls and a huge decrease in damage. Extra moisture in the air due to global warming could have easily contributed this 6% of extra flood height.
Also of interest
Anti-coal activists, led by climate scientist Dr. James Hansen of NASA, are acting on Saturday to block Warren Buffett's coal trains in British Columbia from delivering coal to Pacific ports for shipment overseas. Dave Roberts of Grist explains how this may be an effective strategy to reduce coal use, in his post, "Fighting coal export terminals: It matters".
The creator of wunderground's new Climate Change Center, atmospheric scientist Angela Fritz, has a blog post on Friday's unveiling of the new Heartland Institute billboards linking mass murderers like Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden to belief in global warming. In Heartland's description of the billboard campaign, they say, "The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen." The Heartland Institute neglected to mention that the Pope and the Dalai Lama are prominent advocates of addressing the dangers of human-caused climate change.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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And they(Twaves) usually moisten the environment for future Twaves. What's up Grothar?
Can't wait for the cooldown.
Do you have this link. You can change to vorticity on it and animate it.
Link
Evening, Nigel.
LOL, you are a great climonista. I really like how you edited the graph and cut it in half so as to provide a 1/2 truth consistently. Wow !
Gnight>
Nah, I merely--and quite openly--cropped the CEI graph to highlight the substantial increase in events over the past forty years. Since scientists generally feel 30 years is an adequate amount of time for climate trends to make themselves known (or not), I figured I'd be safe showing 40 plus. No "1/2 truth"; just the latest data.
ha ha ha
Edit: Monsoon trough, my mistake, so it'll be the next Columbian low that'll follow along the ITCZ as usual, still I don't really know about the classification to if this is our first tropical wave of the season, or not, this is not my expertise.
Tropical atlantic
Carib
GOM
..first you make a dark roux..
approx enough for 4 people or 1 cajun..
1 Gal seafood Stock
add 3 Sliced " "Climonista"
..wait, is this FB?
it's frequently used to garnish gin drinks...
Not good to see the GOM shear is much more below average, especially for a year that's expected to be Home grown.
What's up wunderkid...how's the rain over there?
The Gulf is going to give us trouble this year...
Very well aware, been talking non-stop about it so far.
Especially since the Texas drought won't be slaughtering any development of convection in the GoM.
Yeah, not good especially if shear remains generally low in the GOM through much of the hurricane season
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN FORT WORTH HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
NORTHEASTERN MILLS COUNTY IN NORTH CENTRAL TEXAS...
* UNTIL 1000 PM CDT
* AT 934 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS DETECTED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO OVER NORTH
CENTRAL MILLS COUNTY...MOVING EAST AT 25 MPH.
* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...
RURAL EASTERN MILLS COUNTY AT 950 PM CDT
Yes, and don't forget, I saw it first :P
With all the ingredients coming into place, residents in the GOM will have to watch approaching systems very keenly
The most westerly of the three storms S of DFW is now tor warned in Mills County, TX - as seen at comment 375.
well to tell you I missed it all cause I was in Jamaica the last 2 weeks just came back today but luckly when the plane touch down I was greeted with a quick shower
yes I noticed
you always see it first Gro
Now if I could only see my shoes over my stomach.....
So you would have gotten some rain here in Jamaica
well yes I spent most of my time with family in westmorland and negril and we did get some scattered showers and last 2 day I went up to mobay to see my uncle and we did see a good shower on the way so over all yeah saw rain
as of the 00Z surface anly no it is not though it may pop up in the atlantic soon
You just wake up one morning and it is there. Of course once you shake off all the crumbs on your stomach from the eclairs and doughnuts, it becomes more evident.
That is the Colombian Low.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN JUAN PR
1053 PM AST FRI MAY 4 2012
.UPDATE...SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY THAT HAD OCCURRED
ACROSS PUERTO RICO AND MOST OF THE ADJACENT ISLANDS QUICKLY MOVED
OFFSHORE OR DISSIPATED DURING THE LATE EVENING HOURS...LEAVING
VARIABLY CLOUDY TO MOSTLY CLOUDY SKIES AND CALM TO LIGHT AND
VARIABLE WINDS ACROSS THE REGION. SATELLITE WATER VAPOR IMAGERY
AS WELL AS LATEST GFS MODEL GUIDANCE BOTH SUGGESTS THAT BROAD MID
TO UPPER LEVEL TROUGH SUPPORTED BY LOW/LEVEL TROUGH...WILL LINGER
ACROSS THE REGION THROUGH THE WEEKEND AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED. THE
SURFACE TROUGH WILL HOWEVER EXTEND FURTHER NORTHWARDS ACROSS THE
NORTHEAST CARIBBEAN INTO THE ATLANTIC BY SUNDAY. THEREFORE EXPECT
LIGHT AND VARIABLE LOW LEVEL WINDS AT LEAST THROUGH SUNDAY WITH
AND OVERALL CONVECTIVE STEERING FLOW FROM THE WEST. ALTHOUGH...
ACTIVITY HAVE TAPERED OFF DURING THE EVENING HOURS...STILL EXPECT
SOME SHOWERS AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS THE REGIONAL WATERS
AND WELL AS OVER PARTS OF THE COASTAL SECTIONS OF THE ISLANDS OVERNIGHT.
ON SATURDAY EXPECT ANOTHER ROUND OF AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING CONVECTION
AS AMPLE AMOUNTS OF MOISTURE AND INSTABILITY WILL LINGER ACROSS THE
REGION THROUGH THE WEEKEND. ANY CONVECTIVE ACTIVITY DURING THE DAYTIME
WILL BE ENHANCED DUE TO FAVORABLE UPPER LEVEL CONDITIONS. THIS WILL
LEAD TO PERIODS OF LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL IN SOME SPOTS ACROSS THE
ISLANDS. RIVERS AND STREAMS CONTINUE TO RUN AT HIGH LEVELS IN SOME
AREAS AND THE SOIL REMAIN FAIRLY SATURATED IN MOST AREAS. THEREFORE
ANY ADDITIONAL RAINFALL OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS WILL QUICKLY LEAD
TO FLASH FLOODING. THE FLASH FLOOD WATCH HAS THEREFORE BEEN EXTENDED
AT LEAST UNTIL SATURDAY AFTERNOON...PENDING FURTHER REVISION DURING
THE OVERNIGHT AND EARLY MORNING HOURS. ONLY MINOR CHANGES MADE TO
THE INHERITED SHORT TERM GRIDS FOR NOW.
Yeah, i'm just woried that there could be a landslide or something
Tropical waves can still ride the ITCZ, but distinguishing them from ordinary perturbations within the near-equatorial trough (ITCZ) can be rather tricky. A south to north wind shift (not necessarily uniform or consistent in structure, since these entities are not well-organized in the low-level cloud field) is typically noted in the lower troposphere in association with easterly waves because of their counterclockwise vorticity signature. Another way to identify them is by their upward vertical circulations; generally speaking, the vertical circulation associated with tropical waves extend upward to around 500 hPa. This differentiates them from the majority of oceanic disturbances, which typically have negligible cyclonic rotation in the middle troposphere.
Lastly, it's important to remember that not all tropical waves share the same characteristics; there exist both positively and negatively-tilted waves. The former have east-to-west circulations, while the latter house west-to-east vorticity signatures. Also, in positively-tilted waves, fair weather precedes the trough/wave axis, while instability/active weather follows it (east side). The opposite is true in negatively-tilted waves.
i can't eat that stuff
i can't even watch other people eat that stuff
makes me gag
i eat only what i need
to keep me alive and healthy
no more or less
was a big guy over 350
use to eat an extra large pizza with everything on it everyday
whenever i dropped by for a visit
if he ordered the food i would have to step outside till after he finished eating
could not watch
mine you i have my one or two slices thats good
but i could not sit and watch the guy eat 12 or 14 slices
he would laugh at me everytime was a good guy just ate too much rest in peace howard
My dad and step mom get home from work everyday and order McDonalds, buy a bag of Doritos, or both. I'm extremely concerned about what they'll look like, externally and internally, in ten years. This doesn't include other "valuable" commodities like ice cream, which they also eat on a regular basis.
Thinking about seriously having a talk with them about this.
High Resolution Rapid Refresh
another interesting side effect of not eating horrible processed garbage - it's better for the world. eat food, mostly plants, not too much. it's easy once you realize that crap isn't food. the more local and less carnivorous your diet, the better you you feel, the healthier you are, and the better for the world.
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