Countdown to Climate Disaster

I was reading an article that came from the where it took a statement by a junior democratic congressperson and tried to show that it was too draconian and believed by a majority of gullible democrats.

The quote is as follows:

“Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'

Now first of all in common usage a statement like this is clearly not designed as a scientific discussion of the deadline to address climate change. Faced with the impending disaster that will take place and has in fact already started, we need to fix it no matter the cost.

The timeline is meant to connote the urgency of the situation and is in the same format as say a statement like 'the house is on fire and your rearranging the closets?"  

The statement is clear, we need to get our priorities right and not worry about how to pay for it.

We already see effects of climate change in the severe weather, rising sea levels, stronger storms and other related phenomena.  Is 12 years a scientific estimate?

No, the amount of time we have to avert climate disaster is not clear.  

It may already be too late, but we need to start addressing the issue right now, not in 12 years.

The countdown has already started and to try to act like a single quote by a politician means anything at all is simply silly politics.

What matters is the scientific consensus and doing the things we need to do to slow, stop or reverse the damage.

Its beyond politics, but some politicians are so short sighted they just don't seem to care.

The are probably moving to higher ground anyways.

Real Crisis

Forecasts indicate that a spring storm is going to bring significant snow to the middle part of the country.

This is weather, but the intensity of recent storms seems to be increasing.  A weather trend represents climate change.

The storm, named by some Wesley, is another bomb cyclone and will dump significant snow in much of the country.  These are the same areas that were impacted by the last bomb cyclone and which are suffering from floods and the new snow fall will simply exacerbate the problem.

We have seen many trends in weather and no reasonable person doesn't realize that the real crisis we face, worldwide, is climate change caused by or at least contributed to by human activity.

Its already too late to avoid some of the issues but failure to curtail the amount of carbon we release into the atmosphere will lead to even greater issues.

We have probably already altered the interactions that control things like bomb cyclones by warming the waters around the globe.

Maybe the border we should be worried about is the borders between shore and water.  The water is rising and we aren't doing much to stop it.

How About a Big Fan?

Why are we building a wall on the Southern Border when the Polar Vortex just crossed our Northern Border and was responsible for major disruptions and multiple deaths?

At this time of year I would much rather have weather cross into this country over our Southern Border!

I was thinking about how to stop something like these weather events when we get invaded by cold from the north in the winter and various nasty events from the south in the summer.

Why not a wall of border fans?

It wouldn't probably have any impact on the weather but it would make us feel like we were trying and who is going to run thought a bunch of spinning blades to sneak across the border?

They would have to be reversible so we could blow hot or cold, depending.

I suspect it might impact some migratory animals but I'm sure we can deal with that.

Just blow that Polar Vortex back to where it belongs.

Use warm Mexican weather to combat it, could be part of a trade agreement.

Canada could return the favor in the summer.

Since both would benefit, I'm sure they would be happy to finance the fan walls!

It is pretty clearly something that won't actually work, and it would be very expensive to build and maintain, but it isn't the first such proposal!

Certainly seems easier than actually working the underlying issues impacting climate change.

Brrrrr

The weatherman says we are getting another visit from the North Pole and this one isn't bringing any presents.

Forecasts are pretty grim with lows well below zero in some places and wind chill in very negative numbers.

Of course it is the middle of the winter and cold weather is to be expected, but it just seems we are pretty consistently setting records year after year.

If the climate is stable new records would be a fairly rare event, as random fluctuations play out.

My fairly limited understanding based on a little knowledge (dangerous) is that as the earth heats up, we see both long term and short term consequences.

Long term we see oceans rising as global ice melts.  We may also see disruptions in ocean currents as fresh water enters the water changing some of the dynamics.

Shorter term we see impacts on the weather, as there is more energy in the system and this has a tendency to amplify certain events.

Certainly we are having more once in a century typhoons and hurricanes than once in a century would indicate.

The polar vortex forms in the Arctic during the winter and is contained there by things like the jet stream.  In years when the restraints are disrupted it wobbles and we get cold.

It is also likely due to the warming trend in the Arctic itself as warmer surface temperatures disrupt the vortex behavior.

Unfortunately, we are seeing a trend in which this previously rare behavior is increasing as the Earth warms.

It may confuse some of our leaders, but it doesn't contradict Climate Change.  It actually is a symptom to a certain extent.

Bundle up!

Climate

We see the continuing flooding as a result of Hurricane Florence and it is being described as unprecedented and historic.

It is becoming a common refrain after each new historic and unprecedented storm moves through.

Hurricanes have always been violent and dangerous but each year they seem to increase in intensity to some extent.

It isn't a straight line but it seems like a trend as the number of high category hurricanes trends up.

People in the Carolina's are facing devastation even if they live quite a ways inland from the tremendous amount of water carried and dumped by Florence.

Is this a result of Climate Change?  Still not quite enough evidence to say that unequivocally.

Whether you believe in Climate Change or not, wouldn't it be prudent to take action to stop emitting CO2 into the atmosphere?  We already have to some extent and switching to renewable and solar is a growth industry.

It might have some impact on the energy industries but they are already exploring getting into the other technologies.

Coal would probably be hurt but progress causes industries to evolve.

No short term solution is going to immediately reverse the effects of the greenhouse gases we have already spewed into the atmosphere, but that doesn't mean we should keep making it worse.

Water levels are rising, weather is getting more intense and we are contributing to the problem.

Why not become part of the solution?

Hurricanes

It has been a quiet Hurricane season in the Atlantic so far, but that seems to be ending.

Hurricanes are weather and weather over time is climate.  Its always hard to predict the impact of storms although of course the people paid to do so tend to be alarmist, since not warning people is so much worse that warning them too much.

However there are three storms at the same time just like last year on this date.

The first of these seems to be building up strength faster than is normal, unless of course we are dealing with a new normal as oceans get warmer.

It may hit the Carolinas as a category 4 or 5 and if so will be devastating.

Lets hope it weakens although the conditions are fairly ideal for it to get stronger.

The next two are still pretty far away but are notably building up strength faster than the old normal.

The simple fact is that warm equals energy and with the clear evidence of global warming as part of climate change we can watch devastating storms with increasing frequency and coastal flooding or w can do something about it.

We know the current administration isn't concerned apparently.

Weather or Not?

One of the things about science, at least good science, is that it accepts the possibility that new data or new facts might change accepted theories.

Some things are of course much more settled than others, but you will generally never hear scientists say something is 100% certain.

Clearly some science is so well established it approaches that degree of certainty, but a good scientist is always open to the possibility that some new data or event will cause a theory to change.

You see this degree of uncertainty used by some individuals to deny what are probably science facts as "unproven" theory.

We saw this for many years when the tobacco companies tried to argue that they weren't selling cancer sticks.  They knew they were but were able to promote the idea that it was "unproven" science.

Every unbiased experiment and test came to the same result, that smoking was a factor in increased levels of certain cancers but that is only proof beyond a reasonable doubt as opposed to "proven".

As I said most things in science can never be proven but we accept that if every observation shows the same result that it is in fact true.

We see this now with a few people arguing that climate change isn't caused by human activities, and in fairness not all of it is.  What we do know is that human activities, primarily the release of previously trapped carbon into the atmosphere contributes to higher worldwide temperatures.

This greenhouse effect has been tested extensively and al the experiments and calculations show it has that outcome. Is it the only factor? No, the earth has gone through multiple climate cycles over its existence caused by natural factors, but we know that industrial age human behavior has an impact.

Every year we observe weather events that are supposed to be exceedingly rare but are happening fairly frequently.  We see the rise in the oceans and the melt of the polar ice caps proceeding.

Lets suppose for arguments sake that only a small percentage of this is the result of human carbon release. Why wouldn't we stop it anyway?

Is a few dollars saved today worth watching our children being forced to move to higher ground?

The potential future cost of the environmental damage will be astronomical, and like most things early efforts can have significant future benefits.

A single weather event is not climate change.  When weather events form a trend it is.

Energy and Weather

Among the scientific community there is really no legitimate debate about climate change.

The data is clear, there is a warming trend.

There is also almost no debate that human activity in releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere is contributing to this trend.

Sometime we hear people try to argue that there are natural cycles at work, and of course that is true, but in addition to those we have a clear increase in carbon in the atmosphere that is caused by a number of human behaviors.

We really can't do much about the natural cycles but we can alter our behavior.

What is actually happening when we hear about the greenhouse effect caused by this carbon?

Well it creates a reflective barrier which allows solar energy in, but reduces the amount that escapes.

The increased temperatures are causing massive ice melts that in the not so long term are going to flood significant amount of coastline.

Energy also causes weather events.

Now climate and weather are not the same, but they are certainly related.  It may seem counter intuitive that more trapped heat can result if greater blizzards but it does.

The more solar energy we trap the stronger weather systems we create.

Of course ultimately this impacts our climate.

When you read how a particular storm or rainfall was a once in a century event or extremely rare, only to see it repeat well within a century or more than rate, its because our historical data is based on eras when we had less energy.

Their ability to predict frequency of future events is questionable.

That we will see stronger events is though quite predictable,

Weather and Climate

Weather has been a bit strange in the last couple of years but the bigger question concerns changes in climate.

Weather is the way we observe climate most dramatically, but any given day's weather doesn't mean much.

It does mean something when you start to see weather events that are extremely rare start to happen more frequently.

The forces that impact our weather are driven by a series of complex factors and many of these factors are impacted by energy.

More energy in the environment represents more dramatic events.

Of course the vast amount of energy comes from the sun.

The earth is bombarded by solar energy constantly and much of it gets used by living organisms but a certain amount gets reflected away.

The amount retained versus the amount reflected away .depends on many factors, one of which is the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

The more energy we retain, the warmer the earth gets and its a pretty simple equation that converts heat into energy.

So does that explain the recent weather?

Its most likely related but we could have unusual weather and not have climate change.

Unless it persists, meaning we have in fact changed the climate.

To some extent climate is the average of weather.  If we have a lot of unusually hot days, the average daily temperature will change.

The link below details what's happening.  What will happen still depends on us.

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/