Sunday, July 1, 2012

Historic Heat Wave, Unusual National Storm Raises Climate Change Awareness

A rare "derecho event" storm system that began in the baking Midwest and raced destructively into the East Coast Friday left behind death, property destruction, long-term power losses - - and this conclusion in a Washington Post news story sure to get under the skin of climate change deniers:
This derecho event is likely to go down as not only one of the worst on record in Washington, D.C. but also along its entire path stretching back to northern Indiana.

As the intensity of the heat wave, without reservation, was a key factor in the destructiveness of this derecho event - it raises the question about the possible role of manmade climate warming (from elevated greenhouse concentrations). It’s a complicated, controversial question, but one that scientists will surely grapple with in case studies of this rare, extraordinary event.
I've been posting about these issues since 2008, beginning with information given to Midwestern cities by the Bush-era EPA about the relationship of climate change to storm events and the need for better local planning:
The EPA officials were urging the Midwestern leaders to adapt their planning and spending to more aggressively confront storm water and related services because heavier, intense rains were going to become more frequent.

Part of the message was: forget the notion of the "100-year-storm." They'll come more often than that in the Midwest as the atmosphere warms.
I posted a similar item today on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Purple Wisconsin site.

4 comments:

  1. Al Gore is still right!!!!July 1, 2012 at 1:41 PM

    yes, its hot!! Because we are killing the planet!! Kiliing the planet with fossil fuels and CO2. It’s hotter than it has ever, ever been before!! Because of fossil fuels and CO2!!! Those silly founding fathers thought it was hot in 1776 during the constitutional congress, but it wasn’t hot then; it couldn’t have been hot then because that was before we killed the planet with CO2!! Hot as the 4th of July!!! What a silly phrase!! It couldn’t be hot then because we didn’t have CO2 then!!! It is only hot now!!! Now!! Because of CO2!!! Don’t listen to those lying liars lying about Urban Heat Islands and nonsense about thermometers placed next to the tarmac at airports, and asphalt and concrete!!!! They are all lying!!! Lying because they hate AlGore and the planet!! They hate the planet and want to kill it with CO2!!

    It has never been hotter because of CO2 and now it has been scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt!!! Only paid corporate liars are saying that CO2 isn’t the main source of our climate. They talk about the sun and Milankovitch cycles and inter glacial periods; but they are LYING!!!!
    Lying because they hate AlGore
    And they hate the planet
    Lying liars, lying!!!

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  2. What others say ..July 1, 2012 at 2:35 PM

    " The over-consumption and individual insults to our planet do add up, and the consequences are beginning to show themselves at an alarming rate"

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  3. Time to go back on your meds, Al Gore is Right!!!!!

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  4. RD, do you even knwo what the Milankovich cycle is? Here's a hint: right now, it is driving the planet into the next cool period.

    Unfortunately, CO2 is warming the planet more than the Milankovich cycle is cooling it.

    But keep acting like a middle schooler.

    Keep showing the whole world why nowadays, Republicans are loathed in places like MIT and Caltech.

    ReplyDelete