New Group: Climate Extremes

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/07/2011726114626871696.html

Extreme Weather: The New Normal

Climate experts warn that setting weather records, be they for high or low temperatures, or record amounts of rain or snow as well as record drought, will likely be the new normal.

According to a UN report released July 5, humanity is close to breaching the sustainability of Earth, and needs a technological revolution greater and faster than the industrial revolution in order to avoid "a major planetary catastrophe".

The report said that major investments need to be made in developing, and scaling up, clean energy technologies, sustainable farming and forestry techniques, the climate-proofing of infrastructure, and technologies aimed at waste reduction, in order to shift civilization away from dependence on oil.

"It is rapidly expanding energy use, mainly driven by fossil fuels, that explains why humanity is on the verge of breaching planetary sustainability boundaries through global warming, biodiversity loss, and disturbance of the nitrogen-cycle balance and other measures of the sustainability of the earth's ecosystem," the report, published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said.

The survey says investments of at least $1.1 trillion will need to be made in developing countries to meet increasing food and energy demands. "Business as usual is not an option," says the survey. "An attempt to overcome world poverty through income growth generated by existing 'brown technologies' would exceed the limits of environmental sustainability."

Scientists have been warning for decades that burning fossil fuels increases greenhouse gasses that cause global climate change by altering the Earth's weather patterns.

Drought and famine are afflicting East Africa, where more than 12 million people across the region are struggling for survival amidst the worst drought in 60 years.

A study by the US Geological Survey, published earlier this year, directly linked the increased frequency of drought in East Africa with global climate change.

Meanwhile, this summer in North America has been one of record high temperatures, with more than 1,000 records set or tied in July alone.

Fourteen US states announced last month was in their top-ten hottest Junes on record. A subsequent drought has led to at least 5.8 million acres having burned, also a record for the period and almost twice the normal 10-year average.

In the southern US, more than three-quarters of Texas is suffering from drought amid the worst dry spell in the state for several decades.

At least 22 people have died from the current heat wave, and last week found nearly half of the entire US population (150 million people) under a heat alert.

Nearly 4,000 daily high-temperature records were also broken in June, according to the monthly summary from the National Climatic Data Centre.

In Canada, temperature records were broken in two-dozen cities across Ontario and Quebec recently, including the hottest ever July temperature in Toronto, at 37.9C (100.2F).

"In the US in the last ten years, there have been roughly twice as many high temperature records set as low temperature records, whereas roughly 50 years ago it was about the same, which is what you would expect when the climate is stable," Professor Phillip Duffy, Chief Scientist with Climate Central journalism and research organization, told Al Jazeera, "So we see this change now because the climate is warming up."

More at link

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/27/281085/record-heat-wave-conservative-me...

“U.S. Summer Heat Records Continue Overwhelming Cold Records By Over 8:1.”

It’s a Record-Setting Heat Wave, but the Conservative Media Deny Even That

By Joe Romm on Jul 27, 2011 at 5:31 pm

One way to tell if a nationwide heat wave is truly record-breaking is, well, to look at the total number of records that it breaks. Even better is to compare the high records with the low records, since we have very good historical data and analysis on that — and it covers the whole nation.

Steve Scolnik at Capital Climate analyzed the data from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and found, “U.S. Summer Heat Records Continue Overwhelming Cold Records By Over 8:1.” These large ratios for the summer and the first 23 days of July are a big deal compared to, for instance, the average over the last decade of about 2-to-1 (see “Mother Nature is Just Getting Warmed Up” and below).

But the conservative media can’t even bring themselves to admit that, as Media Matters documents:

“On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh declared that “almost no temperature records were broken” during the recent heat wave and that media outlets who reported on “record-breaking” heat were telling “a bunch of lies” to “advance a political agenda of liberalism.”

Limbaugh’s remarks echo a Newsbusters post in which Noel Sheppard claims that “almost no temperature records were actually broken.” He came to this conclusion by ignoring most of the temperature records. Nevertheless, Sheppard’s claim was picked up not only by Limbaugh but also Fox Nation:

“Record-Breaking Heat Wave Was a Media Myth.”

Citing the NOAA database, Sheppard claims “There were only 34 new all-time daily temperature records set during last week’s ‘record-breaking heat.’ This is out of over 6000 records previously set for each day since such things have been reported.”

Actually, it’s not out of over 6000 records “set for each day,” but out of over 6000 records set for all-time at each location. Sheppard is confusing all-time and daily records.

See, NOAA keeps track of records for different time scales: The daily record compares the temperature on July 24, for instance, to the temperature on every previous July 24; the monthly record compares the temperature on July 24 to the temperature of any day in July of any year; and the all-time record compares the temperature on July 24 to the temperature of any day in any year. On top of that, NOAA provides these records for both the highest maximum temperature and the highest minimum (nighttime) temperature.

Sheppard is reporting the all-time records, describing them as though they are daily records, and ignoring everything else.

Here’s the data (from NOAA) on the number of U.S. records broken or tied in the month of July so far:

All-Time Highest Maximum Temperature: 70
All-Time Highest Minimum Temperature: 175
Monthly Highest Maximum Temperature: 125
Monthly Highest Minimum Temperature: 330
Daily Highest Maximum Temperature: 2,125
Daily Highest Minimum Temperature: 4,787

Downplaying the heat wave, Limbaugh claimed “It does this every year.” Is that true?

Not according to Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Weather Service who told the New York Times that “this is different”:

“One could say, ‘Oh, it’s summer, its late July, it’s hot,’ ” said Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Weather Service. “But this is different.”

According to Mr. Vaccaro, this heat wave is exceptional not only for its strength, but also for its breadth and duration.