By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. Originally published at at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here. Originally published at DownWithTyranny
Temperatures over the Arctic ocean are as much as 50 degrees F (30 Celsius) above normal. It’s above freezing in places that are normally 20 below zero in degrees F. Arctic sea ice collapse on the Atlantic side has allowed warm storms to penetrate the central Arctic. This extreme heat is destabilizing the northern hemisphere’s atmospheric circulation all the way up to the top of the stratosphere. (Full-size image here.)
No, this is not a Season of Merry and Bright post, despite the phrase “North Pole” in the headline. It’s a climate post, to keep you up on the news.
Nick Visser writing at the Huffington Post:
North Pole Forecast To Be 50 Degrees Warmer Than Normal This Week
For the second year in a row, the Arctic is way hotter than it’s supposed to be.
Temperatures in the Arctic are predicted to soar nearly 50 degrees above normal on Thursday [December 22] in a pre-Christmas heat wave that will bring the frozen tundra scarily close to the melting point.
It’s the second year in a row the North Pole ― now in perpetual darkness after saying goodbye to the sun in late October ― has seen abnormally high temperatures around the Christmas holiday. It’s also the second time this year. In November, temperatures in the region skyrocketed 36 degrees above normal.
The weather forecast adds to a string of climate change-related indicators setting off serious warning bells in 2016. Polar sea ice is at record lows, and during last month’s heat wave, the region lost 19,000 square miles of it in just five days. The National Snow and Ice Data Center called the melt an “almost unprecedented occurrence.”
And it’s not just the North Pole: “The World Meteorological Organization has said it expects 2016 likely will surpass last year as the hottest year in recorded history.”
Changes in the Jet Stream
If you’re thinking, “Well, we don’t live in the Arctic, so it doesn’t affect us … yet,” you’d be wrong. All of these changes to atmospheric temperature in the Arctic are affecting global air circulation, including the jet stream.
From a highly technical post at Daily Kos by “FishOutOfWater,” a geochemist by profession (emphasis mine):
The lack of sea ice has dramatically affected the northern hemisphere’s atmospheric circulation for months. The heat this fall has formed a warm dome over the Arctic ocean and provided moisture for deep, early Siberian snow. A record deep Siberian snow pack for October pushed south of normal developing a deep pool of cold air over central Siberia.
The much larger than normal temperature contrasts (gradients) across Central Eurasia have intensified the polar jet stream across Asia and the north Pacific Ocean. This is a predicted consequence of intense early snowfall in Siberia associated with warm water entering the Arctic seas. This fall has had all time record minimum sea ice extent in the seas north of Eurasia and this unprecedented weather pattern is the atmospheric response to these warm waters so deep into the Arctic.
Intense atmospheric waves, associated with intense storms have whipped across both the Pacific and Atlantic. When intense storms approached the Arctic from both the Pacific and Atlantic in late October the stratospheric polar vortex was pinched from both sides, a 2 wave pattern, and split in two.
This stratospheric polar vortex split is unprecedented for so early in the Arctic winter season as far as I know. The stratospheric polar vortex is now unstable and may undergo a major midwinter warming in the next ten days [posted in mid-November]. It may be the earliest major midwinter warming ever seen.
More about the “polar vortex” and the jet stream:
When the vortex of the arctic is strong it is well defined, there is a single vortex and the arctic air is well contained; when weaker, which it generally is, it will break into two or more vortices; when very weak, the flow of arctic air becomes more disorganized and masses of cold arctic air can push equatorward, bringing with it a rapid and sharp temperature drop….
When the polar vortex is weak, high pressure zones of the mid latitudes may push poleward, moving the polar vortex, jet stream, and polar front equatorward. The jet stream is seen to “buckle” and deviate south. This rapidly brings cold dry air into contact with the warm, moist air of the mid latitudes, resulting in a rapid and dramatic change of weather known as a “cold snap”.[3]
This is what happens when the jet stream is destabilized and wanders (“meanders”) due to a weak Arctic polar vortex.
It’s beyond doubt that changes in the jet stream are changing our weather. And a “meandering jet stream” is more and more in our future, perhaps a permanent addition. Welcome to the anteroom of the Palace of Climate Chaos.
Is it an emergency yet? (Click the link for something you can do about it.)
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Trump will fix it.
Trump can’t do nothing about it…he can’t make you use your car or fill up at Exxon
I believe that was irony.
Putin caused it
It’s one of those moments when you go, what the hell are we doing to this planet?
Trump I bet knows that global warming is happening. He has just used his base as a cynical political strategy.
Likewise, Clinton is more of a “soft denialism”, but nothing would have happened.
… May our kids forgive us.
It’s 60 degrees right now, 2AM Dec 27th, in Philadelphia. My wife is taking my grand daughter to Disney on Ice today. Nice weather for a trip to the ice show. High for the next 7 days, almost 50 degrees everyday. This is neo-winter weather.
All that hot water at the ocean surface near the north pole can mean only one thing: The ocean is cooling fast.
I’d need to see more data on that. The world climate is not a zero sum game. The solar radiations are constantly pumping new “heat” into the terrestrial atmosphere and aquasphere. Some of the terrestrial heat radiates off into space. The balance of the heat distribution is only one part of what we’re worrying about. The loss of the reflective capacity of the Arctic ice and snow cover does allow the underlying, newly exposed liquid water to absorb more of the solar radiative “heat.” “Heat” is thus added to the total “heat budget” of the terrestrial surface.
Millions of years ago, the world climate was up to twenty degrees F hotter than today. Life appears to have survived this, and gone on to dominate the planet’s surface. Who says it cannot happen again?
Read: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been
20 million years ago there were no humans. It’s likely some life on earth will survive even with ramped up heating. But can humans? Are we so arrogant, do we feel so entitled, that we insist on continuing to live by wasting and destroying rather than changing course, innovating so that we live by care and regeneration?
No. Humans are not and never were. Moderndustrial Civilization humans may well be. But Moderndustrial Civilization and Humans are two different things.
So . . . is there anything Humans can do about that?
Things will go on regardless of what we do to the planet. Life will survive. Our beach houses, cities, and many of the poor who live in the world’s flood zones, will not
That seems like a comforting thought people tell themselves to make themselves feel better. Human beings can’t really destroy all life on earth (maybe all life) can they? But it’s not necessarily true.
Is there really any known cap on runaway warming should it happen? Isn’t it possible Earth becomes the new Venus (and how much life is there there? not human life, life period). And then there are all the nuclear reactors …
Don’t forget the two biggest nuclear reactors we have to deal with, the Sun and the Earth. You are swimming in an ocean of radiation.
and shedding it all over the place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14
Goodness! Who finds that thought comforting? It means wars over scarcity. It means massive human suffering. It means my children growing up in a world that is actively trying to kill them. It means impossible declines in standard of living. FWIW, it is not true that life on earth = humanity. I have no doubt that when we do something so dumb as to kill ourselves other species will exist and perhaps even thrive on the planet.
As for your nuclear reactors comment, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’d need to explain your specific concern more clearly.
I can only speak for self, but my concern is how many reactors are close to oceans? Plenty I can think of in the USA.
Better start moving all that radioactive fuel to higher ground?
/s
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-earth-a-giant-nuclear-reactor.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-sun-a-nuclear-reactor
If human civilization were to collapse everything would end. Every nuclear reactor will melt down. Life on this planet would have trouble adapting to that much nuclear radiation in the environment.
We might get foot-long hummingbirds and other adapters once the gigantic club mosses, ferns, horsetails, and other plant life pump out higher quantities of O2 in response to new normal CO2 levels …. so there’s that …
note to self : run down to wallyworld and purchase a really BIG feeder ! …
… Of course humans will have ‘reverted’, by then, to the size of a small ‘shrew-like’ demorat … ‘;O
As regards the effect of Arctic warming on the Polar Jet Stream and weather in N. America, I recommend Dr. Jennifer Francis’ video on Arctic Amplification . I believe that ongoing changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns are very difficult to model – so as regards such responses to climate change, the likely outcome appears to be surprise.
Actually, no. Here’s a web article that discusses the warming of the oceans:
https://skepticalscience.com/The-Deep-Ocean-Warms-When-Global-Surface-Temperatures-Stall–.html
31 degrees here in Castle Rock, WA state–colder than a witches butt at a barbecue in Texas. We even had snow for several days. Great.
DUspose it’s due to the slight tilt of the earth that happens every so often?
Stop with the “climate change” nonsense……unless of course you benefit from a grant from the US government to promote it!!
Climate changes every day. We are at the end of an ice age NOW as in right now at this time in our lives.
Oh sweet. Pagan food based trolling.
I’m a ‘catastrophist’ in my beliefs concerning climate changes.
For that subject, see Randall Carlsons blog; http://sacredgeometryinternational.com/climate-change-a-catastrophists-perspective
I’ll guess that your experiences with the Wicca Cook Out were in the Austin area. There, at least, we can all get naked and dance widdershins around the oak tree while the sacrificial bull roasts over the coals.
Oh please, do take your climate denialism and regurgitate it somewhere else. Yes, one day’s, one week’s or even one month’s figures for temperatures, rainfalls or barometric pressure is the weather. But when you have repeated extremes and records being broken, that’s not just the weather. It is climate.
To give you some facts, I am currently sitting under 1042mb http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/surface-pressure/#?tab=surfacePressureColour&fcTime=1482408000 which looks to me like the highest pressure ever recorded in mainland England https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atmospheric_pressure_records_in_Europe#United_Kingdom_monthly_maximum_figures_for_atmospheric_pressure
Even if not, this is extreme atmospheric conditions by any standard here.
Air travel will be hit by freezing fog. It was down to 20 degrees F (I think, for the benefit of non-metrified US readers, it said minus 5.5 Celsius at the local met office weather station) and according to the long range forecast, this blocking high will be set in for weeks pushing up energy demand and usage. These are real-world costs.
One of the striking things about climate change is how unpredictable local effects may be, and this sort of extreme high pressure zone is a good example. A few years back I read in New Scientist an interview with one of the worlds top climate modellers who was very critical of attempts to make country level predictions of climate change. To summarise his arguments, he was saying that while global models have become very good, attempts to extrapolate from those models to a regional level were, in his view, pushing the data to levels beyond what the models could do. But national governments were pressurising their met offices to give them some type of indication of what to expect.
I had an experience of what this means a couple of years ago at a talk given by engineers about the implication of climate change. They were saying ‘we are assuming a 30% increase in intense flood events, and we are building this into our design parameters’. I asked where this 30% figure came from, and they just said ‘the Met Office’. I strongly suspect the figure was plucked out of the air as a best guess, but had become somehow solemnised into a sort of mantra for engineers to use.
At the time, this seemed reasonable – Ireland had had a couple of very wet winters with higher than usual floods. However, this year we’ve had a very dry autumn and winter. So much so that, believe it or not, we are on the verge of a drought order in Dublin as reservoirs have not recharged as expected. If the remainder of the winter stays dry and cold, there could be very real problems next summer. And that could require billions in expenditure to address.
The point is that the only certainty about climate change is that we will have some very nasty and unexpected surprises. The rapid melt of the Arctic, with consequence intense cold and dry snaps in lower latitudes is just one potentially unexpected result. This may be a pattern, or it may be just a short term impact of instability. At this stage, nobody knows, and thats the most worrying thing.
Exactly Plutonium Kun – about the nobody knows. it is only worrying if you think we know what the optimum temperature of the Earth should be. That we will have nasty and unexpected surprises is the human condition. . Notice that the temperature anomaly map is based on averages from 1981 to 2010 from the CFSR One should note from their website in their Details and Caveats: ” There are many reasons why the analyses will differ from observations. For example, you make your temperature observation on a patch of grass and the model is using a forest. (The land surface is suppose to be representative of the average conditions in a 35×35 km grid box.) Yes, grass vs. forest can be a big difference. Another problem is model uses the average height of the grid box. Your measurement will be at a different elevation. An other problem is the model doesn’t know the local orography. You could be on an exposed peak or in a sheltered valley. These features are not resolved within a 35-km grid used by the CFSR model.” I know that just 15 kilometers from my house the temperature can be 15o F different. It is noted that the Cold seems to have moved to Siberia where there are very few weather monitoring stations for a huge area. The anomaly map used is from the same agency NAOO that “refreshed” previous data to make the “pause” go away. Also one must remember that satellite data of the Arctic only starts in 1979,
climatically speaking short time.
On further reflection I remember something Mark Twain said, “”I have suffered a lot of catastrophes in my lifetime, some that even happened.”
http://www.civic-exchange.org/en/events/Climate-Change-and-the-Asian-Monsoon-Impact-and-consequences-for-Asian-civilisation_83#
Actually, some models are pretty good, what they tend to indicate is that local short term changes are hard to predict, but longer term wider changes have been able to predict wide spread events that collapse civilization(archaeological events) or large scale ecological changes, which show the models have repeat-ability. Up til this conference, each of these areas of study have tended to operate in a vacuum.
I’m glad the models are able to predict “archaeological events”. I can do that without a model as we already know the answer. I do have trouble predicting the future. “predictions are hard because, you know, they’re about the future. ” yogi Berra. So what large scale ecological changes have the models predicted that have come true?
Hey, Bob Jones Graduate, show me how you predict the future with out checking your model against past events?
Revelation.
-1000
+1 for your -1000.
gail e: The slight tilt of the Earth that happens every so often?
Are you truly that clueless? Or is it the eggnog?
Please leave this site.
What’s the moderation policy around here?
It’s in breach of it (unsubstantiated commenting that criticizes without offering factual rebuttals or logical analysis and deduction from a clearly expressed point of view) but sometimes it is better to have the stupidity right there in front of you where you can see it and debunk it for what it is.
Me, too. I’m still feeling wary after suffering some baffling Skynet swattings, and then I see this Bozo show up, honking away.
Obviously, gail e, you do not understand the premise of the article which is that a weak north pole airstream has created large pockets of cold air to sweep down south while sending warmer air to the north pole where the “sun don’t shine”.
How is it that ignorance and stubborn belief systems has been allowed to usurp scientific discourse? Have the “Mad Men” come off the rails? I would think that in the dark of winter, which is where the North Pole is right now, a 50 degree deviation in temperature would be an alarming number for anyone. Sadly, our comprehension and understanding of cause and effect is fatally off-kilter; just like our planet?
A victim of the big oil misinformation campaign. The poor dear.
Just remember. The carbon dioxide level is approaching double that of the preindustrial level. The import of this has been understood for 150 years.
Saw this comment late last night before I went to bed. Knew I was in for some good reading in the morning.
Unfortunately, gail e is likely some paid troll who will never return to this comment section. Just a brief hit and run. However, I have one question for gail e: how come all the deniers always allude to some grand conspiracy by thousands of “government” scientists to create faux science around global warming but they never mention the clear conflict of interest of the deniers supported by the oil and gas industry (like Myron Ebell, the non-scinetist who is leading Trump’s EPA transition)?
gail e,
If you are correct, then you have a tremendous contrarian-investing opportunity laid out before you at your feet. Just simply learn what the Warmist Predictions are, and make investments based on those predictions NOT coming true.
For example, Warmists (like me) expecting the sea level to rise? Buy all the land you can in Miami, coastal Louisiana, etc. You’ll make a fortune when the sea level fails to rise.
Yes, climate change is a plot cooked up by the very powerful scientific community. The weak and powerless oil cartels are helpless to stop them.
Its not the scientific community. Look at the initiator of the IPCC – recently deceased multimilliionaire Maurice Strong. He made his money in oil. Think of what a great control mechanism a carbon footprint will be. Casino finance will make great money if Carbon Credit schemes are enacted. Do you really think Bill Gates and Al Gore and George Soros and the US military and …. will be affected by a carbon footprint control scheme for regular people? The scientific community goes along as the that’s where the money is. I have seen figures of $79 billion dollars since 1989 in research money for AGW or man made climate change (just from the US government) as it is now called and billions continuing every year.. Do these CO2 is a pollutant believers only use online conferences (instead of taking airplanes to pleasant locations) and ride bikes so as to lessen their part in man made emissions?
Hansen raised the same question about cap and trade carbon-emission-permission market schemes. That’s why he supports fee-and-dividend instead.
How many climatologists regard CO2 as a “pollutant”? As against how many of them regard presently emitting amounts as “too much of a good thing”? If one is going to argue “against” climatologists, one should at least argue “against” what they are really saying. Arguing against an imaginary position engineered as the foil you would like to have is like looking for the keys you dropped under the streetlight where the light is good instead of looking in the dark where you dropped them.
About the visible lack of conservation-lifestyling on the part of climatologists and global-dewarming advocates, the Archdruid has raised the same complaint in some of his online articles.
Castle Rock High needs to stop hiring science teachers who graduated from the Ken Ham College of Unintelligent Design or the Oklahoma Institute for Infinite Drilling. Then you might have been taught the difference between “weather” and “climate.”
It sure looks to me like the Northern Hemisphere is already in a one-way feedback loop, which makes total sense given the preponderance of human emission activities of all kinds north of the equator, and typically in the temperate zones. All the major countries and most of the world’s peoples are all directly involved by virtue of latitude and I think we must be close enough in terms of information and study to be able to determine if there’s a distinct Northern phenomenon that could conceivably justify looking at it almost without reference to the global atmosphere/ocean, i.e., how much faster could the North be warming than the rest of the planet if what is happening today is determined to be such a self-reinforcing loop.
It would be extremely useful to know if it matters where the emitters are vis a vis their latitudes. Do we do more damage the further north we emit? Less? Can we buy some time by relocating on a huge scale, or discover an order dictated by science and evidence regarding urgency of shutting down emitters ‘x, y, z’ because they are too far north, even if ‘north’ is Texas?
In case anyone brings up “it will be good for agriculture in Finland” or some such, let me say that soil doesn’t grow on trees, it’s the other way around, and in the vast ’empty’ (they’re not) areas now too cold for the crops that these ‘bring on the heat’ types imagine, you are just plain screwed when it comes to good dirt.
It is imperative that we determine what an accelerated warming means vis a vis methane in the permafrost. I’ve long feared that the ‘consensus’ was tilted in favour of the status quo and that we ran a huge risk of a runaway loop. I don’t know which is more scary: that Trump will destroy the environmental movement because he doesn’t believe any of it, or that he will destroy China or Russia or even both, because he does. I can feel the closing window touching the tops of all of our fingers…
South pole Too. Lots of record breaking melt and serious break-up of the ice sheets. There was even a lengthy period where both poles were melting at the same time. Not good.
A scary thought might also be that Russia welcomes climate change. It might help food production there (until it doesn’t, runaway climate change will run out of their hands as well). But Russia is not likely to turn against fossil fuels, of course the U.S. is a net exporter of them now too.
Russians have stated that Russia does welcome global warming. They think it will turn Siberia into Miami Beach. In fact, it will turn all the best black earth steppelands into Burn Barrels. But let them find out for themselves in the fullness of time.
Us remains a major net importer, 4.71mmb/day, increasing as production declines.
I think the Russians are well aware of the worse than CO2, methane releases that are already taking place in places where the permafrost is melting.
Before this gives my holiday drinking a dangerous edge, please tell me why I shouldn’t be reminded of The Day After Tomorrow when I read this article?
Because there’s a big difference between good science, and bad science-fiction.
Finnish soil does grow crops and soil actually does grow on trees. What do you think leaves turn to?
Global warming is caused by all the screaming from liberal liars pretending that pollution, carbon-dioxide, and over-exploitation of natural resources are bad things. Ha! Pollution creates hundreds of jobs for large corporations. Carbon dioxide is created by trees (hat-tip Ronnie Reagan). God put natural resources there for our use; He will replenish them as required.
Frankly, while I fell pretty bad for my young children, I think the universe would be largely better off without humanity. Perhaps the next intelligent species will do better.
The NEXT intelligent species? Isn’t that giving mankind a bit too much credit?
(Can I use your comment to re-calibrate my Snark Meter?)
I think he was referring to the dolphins and mice.
Our future feathered overlords.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131128103835.htm
uhh … ‘Raccoons’, anyone ??
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Humans, self considered intelligent, can be also the stupidiest creatures on earth. You give us good demonstration.
Thanks!
Ronnie Raygan always had it backwards and this one about trees creating carbon dioxide is also the same kind of BS. You need to educate yourself. Stop listening to the oil oligarchs and their supporters.
I wonder if Santa would actually consider relocating to the South pole. That would be a disaster for the Northern Hemisphere econonmy.
States are way in the lead on green and sustainable energy but if Christmas is non-partisan issue it shoudln’t be hard to pass a “Keep Santa at Home” bill through congress that really puts the lid on greenhouse gas emissions and makes jobs with green power development — cause one man’s cost is another man’s revenue so you can’t just think “cost” you have to think “cost and revenue as an ensemble that requires multidimensional analysis”, helping states expand their mandates so it’s not a federal program.
Jingle bells jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh what fun it is to float
In a one horse open boat
oH man. The north pole freaks out every once in a while, evidently it did in 1959 too, but so what. Santa may lose his cool — no pun intended — and say “phakkk this I’m outa here.”
No more sloppin around with reindeer doo greasy and smearing under my boots.
If we look like we’re serious he may agree to stay. Who could be against this? I can’t even imagine anybody would be. LOL,
Jingle bells jingle bells
South Pole all the way
WTF, got a sleigh
if Rudolf has his way
When they run the political commercials for the “Keep Santa at Home” act they’ll need a theme song. Whoa this is it. Now all they have to do is write the bill and it’ll pass itself.
Well the sun is roastin
And the ground is toastin
Not a beautiful sight
Something ain’t right
We’re sloppin in a winter wonderland
We’ll get drunk and try to build a mudman
Or smoke some reefer and just lay around
Riding on a sleigh is such a dud man
Scrapin cross the dirt will get you down
All the elves are greavin
Looks like Santa’s leavin
For the South Pole Tonight
Where the snow is still white
No more sloppin in a winter wonderland
But then Santa can’t use Reindeer. They don’t live in the South Pole. He’d need to hitch his wagons to a bunch of penguins. And those penguins make a lot less, plus have fewer health benefits than the reindeer, so it will just be a race to the bottom (yes, more bottom-er than the south pole).
all these willfully ignorant climate deniers are having a field day. sadly, however, their children (and ours too) will pay. what has done climatically won’t be undone, no matter what Trumpism/deniers wish. Senator Inhofe and his snowball.
it is interesting to see so many dreamers show up with their fantasies. Proof that the Right wing foundations, aka Koch et al, have done a quite successful job of leading the sheep to the slaughter house. along with the rest of us.
show me where the intelligent humans are, that species appears to be another fantasy the Right/Koch’s are relying on selling us out with. the only humans i see, (crafty/sly money lenders, i.e.) are selling us and the entire planet out for short term profit. as they say, Capitalism can only be failed, it can never be wrong!.
Well capitalism might be the reason there are no intelligent humans – anywhere in power at any rate, it’s not what it promotes.
I always like to remind myself that capitalism really isn’t an “ism”. It is us and we are it. The more anti-social it is, the worse we suffer. But since it is us, we can change. It’s nothing more than human nature and it’s becoming a frightening darwinian moment quickly. We shouldn’t despair bec. after all, we did manage to come down from the trees; survive drought and ice-ages, some ghastly plagues, famine, and each other a million times over; and patiently cultivate science and knowledge. I think it’ll be miserable for decades, but our odds are as good as they have ever been :-). Here’s to neocapitalism.
When you read or hear Free Market Stalinists like Milton Friedman or Stephen Moore, you have to admit that there is a whole multi-layered belief system built around the capitalist order.
Perhaps we could call it Capitalnism.
Cool off with this
The Rapid Deceleration Of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss In Recent Years Not Reported In ‘Arctic Report Card’
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2016/12/26/the-rapid-deceleration-of-greenland-ice-sheet-mass-loss-in-recent-years-not-reported-in-arctic-report-card/#sthash.Ls61Prw7.dpuf
“2016 melt season in review
October 26, 2016
Melt extent in Greenland was above average in 2016, ranking tenth highest (tied with 2004) in the 38-year satellite record. Melt area in 2016 was slightly greater than in 2015, which ranked twelfth. However, near-average to below-average coastal snowfall levels that exposed bare ice earlier in the melting season, combined with warm and sunny conditions at lower elevations, led to high overall ice loss from runoff.”
http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/2016/10/2016-melt-season-in-review/
An occasional random “rapid and dramatic change of weather known as a ‘cold snap'” mixed with some extended heat waves and sporadic periods of extended drought will make farming and gardening more interesting. Little problems with food and water will create some interesting social problems.
50 degrees warmer and the arctic isn’t cold enough to freeze sea water anymore… Now not only do we have a warming gulf stream in the Atlantic, we have a meandering jet stream above it folding itself up like taffy. And that dollop of cold air looks like a lava lamp. When our warm and cold homogenize it will be a watery mess. So the gulf stream prolly won’t cause Europe to go into a mini-glaciation because the atmosphere is so much denser and warmer. Could all the oceans stagnate and lose their warm/cold currents? And then what happens to the jet stream – could it also stagnate? Rain everywhere. We clearly don’t know what we are in for.
With rain everywhere, it would look like one of the old black and white Kurosawa films.
Our goose is cooked, we baked it into the cake and we’re getting our just dessert.
Time for one of mr. polecat’s perfunctory ….. “WEEERRREEAAALLLGOOOONNAAADIIIIIEEE !!!”
You should send that in to Matt Tiabbi’s Thomas Friedman competition! You can’t win if you don’t step up to the plate and give it a shot, you might hit a bulls-eye. It won’t be a cakewalk but if you win it would be sweet.
Umm, I actually like this site so please do your research and don’t become a fake news site.
Rights beside the record high you have record lows.
[…]
Head Editor at Con-Tru.com
The comment as originally submitted contained a long section that was formatted with periodic interspersed numbers. It contained references to certain recent record low temperatures, but was extremely difficult to read because of how the formatting appeared within the text box. Feel free to resubmit a discussion of the relevant facts that is easier to follow.
Easy to explain record highs and record lows.
If you have more energy in the system, you have more volatility in the system, hence the the movement in the polar vortex as displayed above.
Just watch a pot of water about to boil and you can see the flows start in the water.
But you don’t really want to understand it, do you?
This post has led my thinking to crystallize somewhat about a several-days-ago article about the Geechee-Gullas of coastal South Carolina being cheated out of their ancestral seaside lands for very little money. I had two thought which combined into a third thought.
First, given the large amounts of money owned, made and controlled by black culture and entertainment figures ( the Hip Hop Industrial Complex and so forth) . . . why does it not occur to any of them to just swoop in there and pay all the back taxes that the Geechee Gullahs are said to owe? Thereby saving Geechee Gullah ownership of Geechee Gullah lands? Don’t Black Lands Matter?
Second, if the Gullahs didn’t lose their land to tax scamming sooner, they would lose their land to rising sea levels later. So what’s the long term point in caring?
The Aha! thought. What if the Rich and the Super-Rich Black millionaires were to swoop in there and pay all the Gullahs’ taxes? And then work with the Gullahs to figure out where the seafront might be in a hundred years? In two hundred years? And quietly help the Gullahs buy and pay for huge bunches of land along the future seafront of tomorrow? And once that is done, and the Gullahs have a new land base ready for the new sea level of tomorrow, they can sell their current land at Top Dollar to the developers. And have the last laugh a hundred years from now as all those Developered Communities and Condo Clusters go :”underwater” . . . har dee har har.
Everytime I see people in denial about climate change globally,
I ask myself,”How can they be so short sighted?”
The extreme situations too many people of the world are dealing with.
Drought in some areas,crops struggling to flourish,hot burning huge fires across thousands of acres, bringing massive destruction of oxygen producing trees and plants with loss of habitat for those making their homes there and for wildlife.
The flip side of horrible historic flooding in others.
Huge super storms, as they are now referred to in both warm and cold seasons,bringing unprecedented rainfall,typhoon,hurricanes,tornados and blizzards.
Yes,every time I watch the news there is some report about the new extreme weather and it latest victims.You have seen it,too.
Glacial melt is well documented,.Have you seen the photographs of the recede?
Diminishing coast lines as sea levels rise as polar ice melts.
Yes,all of this is being studied and has been published by scientists from many backgrounds of research.
Our planet is rapidly changing now all though,to some it may appear slow.
Just like it has done over and over and over.again throughout it’s history.
The fact that we now have the ability to study theses changes is wonderful but,it does not help any of us live through them in our day to day existence here.
Mother Nature kicks ass regardless of race,creed ,color or who you voted for.
I do what I can to remain a conscientious person who cares about our world.
We are the microcosm living within the macrocosm of this planet.
Compartmentalize all you want.
The earth is our only home.
This rare gem in our solar system,our only true home,is suffering under the extreme stress of our very existence here.Why don’t we want to do more?
It is too easy to take it all for granted.
To believe that the status quo will remain just that.
All great civilizatios have perished and are the very things we use as fossil fuel.
Some day you will be that very thing.All you see will come to pass.
In the meantime,do what you can to be an asset to this life we are living.
Choose well for yourself but most of all choose well for the next generation.
Please…Thank you.
I’m sorry, but if WE had the POWER to bring our green house gas/carbon footprint to zero, then we would ALL be DEAD and buried for at least 2 decades…maybe that’s what this climate propaganda is all about!?!
Go climb a tree people and get a broader perspective. We don’t know much about climate, ask any meteorologist. We do know that the Sun, our Earth’s tilt, magnetic pole movements, stellar rays…our place in the procession of the equinoxes for that matter, all have a great affect upon our weather and we have yet to fully document and understand how those process react with our planet over the course of the ages. (look it up!)
Now, our man-made pollution does have an effect, but, it is more localized to the region and air patterns…think acid rain. We should totally clean up industries and our lifestyles just because we are intelligent humans that want to leave a better world than what we came into, right? (I know, let’s start with Monsanto!)
But, truly the Earth doesn’t need us to save her…she never has and she will be fine and self repair and go through her changes as she always has.
Although, the survival for us as a species is questionable as we spin through our orbit in space…while we fight and argue and call people names for not perceiving our own blend of miasmal distortions (even here on this board) but, that’s a whole other topic.
Respect for others, even when we don’t agree, makes for a much nicer read…hell, one can even ignore a post that doesn’t resonate, just saying. ;)
A great deal of factual data have been meticulously documented and studied, and many climate processes are well understood, so your casting of doubt based on spurious information and your specious suggestions are not valid or useful. This is not a “localized” phenomenon but rather a global one caused by atmospheric GHG concentration which has numerous local side effects. Respect is not earned by denying the established science, which is what you are “just saying.”