This is What Global Warming Looks Like

July 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Climate Progress has a mini celebration that major media outlets are finally beginning to connect the wildfire-windstorm-drought dots and call it climate change. Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, talks with Judy Woodruff on The News Hour.

Even the Drudge Report featured this AP article by Seth Borenstein:

So far this year, more than 2.1 million acres have burned in wildfires, more than 113 million people in the U.S. were in areas under extreme heat advisories last Friday, two-thirds of the country is experiencing drought, and earlier in June, deluges flooded Minnesota and Florida.

“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level,” said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. “The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfire. This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about.”

“What we’re seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like,” said Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer. “It looks like heat. It looks like fires. It looks like this kind of environmental disasters.”

Oppenheimer said that on Thursday. That was before the East Coast was hit with triple-digit temperatures and before a derecho — an unusually strong, long-lived and large straight-line wind storm — blew through Chicago to Washington. The storm and its aftermath killed more than 20 people and left millions without electricity. Experts say it had energy readings five times that of normal thunderstorms.

Then there’s this:

 

AND, Colorado has been burning up, which we have all been watching with suspended breath,  while Russia, terrorized in 2010 by raging fires, is battling some 600 fires this month, which have already burned more acres in the east than those in the west two years ago.

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Dought In Texas — $280 Million a Year from Lost Shade Trees

February 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Texas is heading the way of the Sahara.  Even with recent rains, the drought has been so long and so fierce that the shape of life is in full shift.  This from StateImpact, a project of Texas NPR

A new study from the Texas Forest Service has bad news about the trees in your neighborhood. They estimate that 5.6 million trees in the urban areas of Texas –  those leafy providers of shade around your home and dotting your parks – are now dead. This number could be up to ten percent of the urban trees in Texas. (A separate study late last year of forest trees in non-urban areas said that 500 million of those could be dead due to the drought.)

… removing the dead trees (a safety hazard) will be costly, with an estimate of $560 million. The Forest Service also says the lost economic benefit of the trees (in the form of energy lost because the trees are no longer cooling homes, cleaning air and water, and keeping property values higher) is $280 million a year.

 

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Food, Floods and Drought

February 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Krugman looks at Egypt, food prices and the fast changing world climate:

We’re in the midst of a global food crisis — the second in three years. World food prices hit a record in January, driven by huge increases in the prices of wheat, corn, sugar and oils. These soaring prices have had only a modest effect on U.S. inflation, which is still low by historical standards, but they’re having a brutal impact on the world’s poor, who spend much if not most of their income on basic foodstuffs…

While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate — which means that the current food price surge may be just the beginning.

The question then becomes, what’s behind all this extreme weather?

To some extent we’re seeing the results of a natural phenomenon, La Niña — a periodic event in which water in the equatorial Pacific becomes cooler than normal. And La Niña events have historically been associated with global food crises, including the crisis of 2007-8.

But that’s not the whole story. Don’t let the snow fool you: globally, 2010 was tied with 2005 for warmest year on record, even though we were at a solar minimum and La Niña was a cooling factor in the second half of the year. Temperature records were set not just in Russia but in no fewer than 19 countries, covering a fifth of the world’s land area. And both droughts and floods are natural consequences of a warming world: droughts because it’s hotter, floods because warm oceans release more water vapor.

Read all

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Another Day Another Record

September 28, 2010 by Leave a Comment

113º!


California’s blistering fall heat wave sent temperatures to an all-time record high of 113 degrees Monday in downtown Los Angeles … breaking the old all-time record of 112 degrees set on June 26, 1990, said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard. Temperature records for downtown date to 1877.

The historic mark was part of an onslaught of temperatures well over 100 degrees in many cities ranging from Anaheim, home of Disneyland, to San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz and Salinas on the usually balmy Central Coast. Many records were set or tied.
Heat Records

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And surely, you haven’t forgotten this:

Scientists track sharp drop in oldest, thickest Arctic sea ice

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While the drought in the American Southwest isn’t news exactly being reminded of something so long known it’s been forgotten can be the biggest news of all.

Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the[Colorado]  river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands.

For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin’s water system — irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the Sonoran Desert, and lawns and golf courses from Las Vegas to Los Angeles — could drop below a crucial demarcation line of 1,075 feet.

… Adding to water managers’ unease, scientists predict that prolonged droughts will be more frequent in decades to come as the Southwest’s climate warms. As Lake Mead’s level drops, Hoover Dam’s capacity to generate electricity, which, like the Colorado River water, is sent around the Southwest, diminishes with it. If Lake Mead levels fall to 1,050 feet, it may be impossible to use the dam’s turbines, and the flow of electricity could cease.

“if the river flow continues downward and we can’t build back up supply, Las Vegas is in big trouble,” …

NY Times: Southwest Water

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Drought in the Amazon

September 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

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Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, and the entire eastern region of the state are suffering the worst drought in more than a century. A government scientist who calls it an “atypical” drought says it is chiefly caused by warmer ocean temperatures.

Scientist Carlos Nobre, of the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), said, “When it comes to the Rio Negro, in Manaus, this drought has no parallel in the last 103 years. That is, since 1902, when the level of the Rio Negro began to be measured,” he said.

In the eastern part of the region, this is the worst drought in the last 50 or 60 years, he estimates. The governor of Amazonas state has declared a crisis due to the drought. Environmental News Service

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Coho Salmon Disappear

January 10, 2009 by Leave a Comment

“The lack of rain this winter has contributed to what fisheries biologists say is, so far, the worst return of coho salmon in the recorded history of Marin County’s Lagunitas Creek watershed, one of California’s most critical ecosystems for the endangered fish.

Only a smattering of coho were spotted and only 20 egg nests, or redds, were seen in the two main tributaries – Lagunitas and San Geronimo creeks – during the annual winter survey of fish, watershed biologists said this week.

The paltry showing of redds represents an 89 percent drop in the number of returning offspring of parents that gave birth in the lush western Marin watershed three years ago. Last year at this time, 148 redds had been counted, then the lowest number in the 14 years that records have been kept…

…the primary cause is the unusually dry weather in Northern California, which has prevented salmon from swimming up the creeks. The rains in December were barely enough to breach sandbars on most beaches, forcing salmon up and down the coast to circle in the open ocean where they are vulnerable to sea lions and other predators.”

Coho Disappear

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California Fire News Improving

July 12, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Buried away in section B of the Chron, after weeks of front page headlines, was the news that the three big fires in California have much quieted.

The Butte fire which threatened Paradise and pushed 6,500 out of their homes has retreated and the people allowed to return. The Big Basin fire in Big Sur is retreated to higher hills after threatening just about everything. Highway One is re-opened. The Tassajara Zen retreat barely escaped with just four out-buildings burned. The Goleta fire has been 80% contained with a few evacuation warnings still in effect.

With all the other chaos in the air, from collapsing mega-banks to agony in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s unlikely that the lessons of these fires will be burned into our collective consciousness. Except for those who were directly affected they will be lost in hazy memory by August. Too bad. As the Continental Army died by the thousands in New York during the summer of 1776, Washington, Greene and others could read the signs: cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness was the order of the day. Without it, the Republic would be lost. We might use the same: clean the air, clean the air, clean the air — of all sorts of impurities but above all CO2, should be the morning motto of everyone who loves the world.

Stiff punishments were handed out for shitting in the trenches. We should do the same.

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Big Sur: A Smoking Ruins

July 4, 2008 by Leave a Comment

More photos of Big Sur. Everybody is on the way out.

The blaze had swept within a half mile of at least one major resort — the Ventana Inn and Spa — by mid-morning, as winds whipped the coast, humidity dropped and the fire grew by more than 8,000 acres overnight.

Fire Map

No commentary jumping out anywhere about the contribution climate change might have in all of this. So let me make sure we know what is known.

From Science Magazine:

“Since 1986, longer, warmer summers have resulted in a fourfold increase of major wildfires and a sixfold increase in the area of forest burned, compared to the period from 1970 to 1986. A similar increase in wildfire activity has been reported in Canada from 1920 to 1999 (5).

Westerling et al. used the most comprehensive data set of wildfire occurrences yet compiled for the western United States to analyze the geographic location, seasonal timing, and regional climatology of the 1166 recorded wildfires with an extent of more than 400 ha. They found that the length of the active wildfire season (when fires are actually burning) in the western United States has increased by 78 days, and that the average burn duration of large fires has increased from 7.5 to 37.1 days. Based on comparisons with climatic indices that use daily weather records to estimate land surface dryness, Westerling et al. attribute this increase in wildfire activity to an increase in spring and summer temperatures by ~0.9°C and a 1- to 4-week earlier melting of mountain snowpacks. Snow-dominated forests at elevations of ~2100 m show the greatest increase in wildfire activity.”

The closing paragraph reads:

“Wildfires add an estimated 3.5 × 1015 g to atmospheric carbon emissions each year, or roughly 40% of fossil fuel carbon emissions (13). If climate change is increasing wildfire, as Westerling et al. suggest, these new sources of carbon emissions will accelerate the buildup of greenhouse gases and could provide a feed-forward acceleration of global warming.”

The full report, in Science, is here.

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More and More Fires in CA

June 22, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Wildfires were scattered around Northern California on Sunday in the heart of wine country and in remote forests, the latest in what has become an unusually destructive year.

State officials said lightning started more than 500 fires during the weekend.

One had spread across 5.5 square miles by early Sunday, after starting Saturday afternoon in Napa County and quickly moving into a mostly rural area of Solano County.

Califire

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More Fires in CA

June 21, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Just when the big Santa Cruz mountain fire died down, another further north started up. When it was under control another near Watsonville began. 500 people evacuated. Highway 5 shut down.

“A series of fires burned 300-500 acres north of Watsonville on Friday afternoon, chasing 400 people from their homes and closing a 5-mile stretch of northbound Highway 1 in a scene that one witness called apocalyptic. ”

Watsonville Fire

And of course, with so many able-bodied off fighting a war, the lack for fighting fires is getting close to pretty damned scary.

The number of employed Forest Service firefighters is 8.5 percent below the 4,432 seasonal workers authorized for Region 5, which includes California, Hawaii and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands, according to Feinstein.

She [Senator Feinstein] also expressed concern that only 186 of the agency’s 276 engines were available to respond to fires and that a new C-130J aircraft will not be available this year for air tanker duty.

The vacancies come at a time when the economic impact of soaring gas prices is being felt throughout the economy, including the firefighting budget. There has been less money available for firefighter training in California, which is facing a budget deficit of some $15 billion.

Hire Everyone Qualified

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