Turns Out It Is the Heat After All

Have you seen what's going on this week, just now, in the Southwest? The weather? The temperatures and forecasts?

American Just Cancelled 43 Flights to Phoenix Because This Place Is a Literal Hellscape

While the headline is more than a bit of hyperbole, the fact is, some jet planes can't handle temperatures over 118 degrees. it's been forecast for Phoenix today to be over that. It's supposed to be 120 degrees there today and 119 tomorrow, Wednesday.

And keep in mind, it's not even July yet, of course, let alone the hottest month of the year down there, August.

Then check this out.  While this has become more common, not that long ago it wasn't like this. The following took place in June, 2013.

Death Valley hit hottest U.S. June temperature ever

The temperature hit 129 for the first time that year.  Now? It's not uncommon.

Then this happened, just last year.

Two Middle East locations hit 129 degrees, hottest ever in Eastern Hemisphere, maybe the world

If a person didn't know any better, you'd think the planet was heating up or something.

Links:

Too hot to fly: Dozens of US flight cancellations due to excessive heat

Canceled flights, burning door handles: Heat hits Southwest

Too Hot to Fly? Climate Change May Take a Toll on Air Travel

Planes, Road Burns And Snakes: 5 Things That Extreme Heat Brings

Quote of the Day -- On a Cleaner, Healthier Planet

From a friend's page on Facebook.

As long expected, Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, a worldwide pact to curb the devastation we are inflicting upon our planet through greenhouse gas emissions. In doing so, his administration once again put the needs of lobbyists, crony capitalists, and feeble short term gains over the health, well-being, and safety of us, our children, and future generations. We now join the illustrious ranks of Syria & Nicaragua as the only countries not a part of the Paris Agreement. Rather than being on the cutting edge of technology & discovery that would energize our economy and make us truly a world leader, we are shrinking back to the shadows, making conspiracy theories our policy bedrock, paranoia and disfunction our driving force, a dying fossil fuel industry our bedfellows. We are nowhere close to being great again...we are being openly mocked by our allies, openly challenged by our enemies...a shallow mockery of a great nation who once landed on the freakin' moon!

Over 70% of our population, including many oil and coal executives, fully support our inclusion in this agreement. The audacity of this President to put the needs of a few corrupt politicians (22 GOP senators who received over $10m from big oil urged Trump to back out) over the will of the people shows his utter tone-deafness, his infinite pliability, his unbridled ignorance.

--Daniel Thompson

Links:

Everyone But Donald Trump Is Standing By the Paris Climate Agreement

Gergen: Why Trump committed one of US's most shameful acts

Those 60s and 70s We Had In February?

This article came out today based on a report just released:

Yes, February was too warm. Global climate is in ‘uncharted territory,’ group says

A little from it, some highlights:

More than 11,700 daily temperature records across the U.S. were broken in February, with the average temperature 7.3 degrees warmer than normal for the last full month of winter. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Arctic “witnessed the polar equivalent of a heatwave.” This spurred dangerous sea ice melting.

“Even without a strong El Nino in 2017, we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system. We are now in truly uncharted territory,” World Climate Research Program Director David Carlson said.

Out of the 17 hottest years ever recorded, 16 occurred since 2000.

Prof Sir Robert Watson, a distinguished climate scientist at the UK’s University of East Anglia and a former head of the UN’s climate science panel.

“Our children and grandchildren will look back on the climate deniers and ask how they could have sacrificed the planet for the sake of cheap fossil fuel energy, when the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of a transition to a low-carbon economy,” Watson said.

“Arctic ice conditions have been tracking at record low conditions since October, persisting for six consecutive months, something not seen before in the [four-decade] satellite data record,” said Prof Julienne Stroeve, at University College London in the UK. “Over in the southern hemisphere, the sea ice also broke new record lows in the seasonal maximum and minimum extents, leading to the least amount of global sea ice ever recorded.”

Food for thought, for sure.

At what point do we humans do something, do more, about this?

Here's hoping we don't have Summers of 100 degrees and more and for long stretches of time.

Additional links:

Record-breaking climate change pushes world into 'uncharted territory

Nasa: Earth is warming at a pace 'unprecedented in 1,000 years

Abnormal Weather

87 degrees yesterday.

In Missouri.

Northwest Missouri.

Mid-March.

Summertime temperatures.

Air conditioning. Again, in March.

Broke the day's record high.

And the last official day of Winter, to boot.

Additionally, Peru just got 10 times more rain than normal, creating horrific floods and flooding.

Abnormal El Nino in Peru unleashes 

deadly downpours;

Apocalyptic scenes as scores die 

in Peru floods

Apocalyptic scenes Peru flooding

There's also this.

February 2017: Earth's 2nd Warmest 

February and 4th Warmest Month

But always remember, kids...

A New, Lighthearted Approach To Global Warming

I saw an ad in  The New York Times today for this organization, Save Our Snowmen. It told of a video one could see if you go to their site. So I did. Here it is.


And sure, it's cute and maybe amusing but I wonder if that's what we really need to help gain awareness of global warming and climate change. That is, do we need "cute" to help people pay attention and wake up to what we're doing as people, across the planet?

I guess if it adds people to the cause, it serves a good purpose.

It was followed on YouTube by one the Zurich Insurance also made.



Enjoy your Sunday, y'all and think happy thoughts.

GO CHIEFS!!

What Needs To Happen With And For Energy

I've said for a long time this is what needs to happen. We need to power our cities with our skyscrapers.

For starters.

The Stupid Coming From the Right Wing and Republican Party -- Still

In two headlines today:

Gohmert Calls Boehner A Dictator While Claiming Republicans Have Been The Only Party Willing To Compromise

House Votes To Keep EPA From Considering Costs Of Climate Change

It hurts.

The stupid. It hurts.

Kansas City In Top Ten Cities Facing the "Most Danger Days"

With the warming of the planet, proven, scientifically, it becomes important to know what's in front of us.
There's a rather important article out last month from the online environmental magazine Grist:

Top 10 cities facing the most “danger days” due to climate change

So what is a "danger day"?

A danger day is when the combination of heat and humidity (also known as the heat index) make it feel like it’s 105 degrees F or hotter. Warming temperatures are about to push U.S. cities into a new regime where danger days happen regularly.
With the globe's warming temperatures, it's projected we will continue to have ever-climbing temperatures.

Of the 144 U.S. cities Climate Central analyzed, only 12 of them averaged more than one danger day per year since 1950. Most of those cities are clustered in the South where humidity tends to be worst in the morning while temperatures peak in the late afternoon.

But by 2030, a whopping 85 cities — home to nearly third of the U.S. population — are projected to deal with at least 20 danger days annually. Only nine cities are projected to experience less than one danger day per year. By 2050, just three cities could have as little as one danger day per year, while 109 cities that are home to 125 million Americans will experience 20 danger days or greater annually.

So where does this tend to look likely to hit worst? Where, in the nation, will be most heated and have the most of these "danger days"? Here are the top 10 cities projected now. And look who's right about in the middle of it all:

There is a lot of the Midwest there. Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jackson, Missouri, Wichita, Kansas all along with our own Kansas City.

Some of the ripple effects?

All that added heat will change the daily rhythm of life across the U.S. The impact on health will be a top concern, particularly for children and senior citizens. When the heat index rises above 105°F, heat exhaustion can set in and cause fainting, dizziness, confusion and vomiting. When humidity crosses 60 percent, the body also loses its ability to cool itself by sweating. Hot, humid conditions have made high school football a focal point for heat exhaustion as heat-related deaths have tripled since 1994.

Some states and cities have responded by setting up rules to cancel sports practices based on the weather forecasts while others have cooling centers and warning systems to help deal with oppressive conditions. Rising temperatures mean those plans will have to be adjusted and relied upon more regularly.

Outdoor laborers will see their productivity fall. According to findings in the Risky Business report, the productivity of farmers, construction workers, landscapers, and others who work outside could drop by 3 percent by century’s end.

It will also drive up how much people spend on energy as air conditioning goes from being handy to being a necessity. If greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trend, energy expenditures could rise by up to 7 percent by 2050 and 21 percent by 2100. That added capacity will strain the electricity grid, and even violent crime could rise.

Once again, it doesn't look pretty, ladies and gentlemen.

It would be nice if our legislators---all of them---would start taking action on climate change. Heaven knows some in the business community and the lots of the military, both, already have.

At What Point Do We Agree On Man-Made Global Warming and Climate Change?

With all that's going on this year meteorologically, at what point do people give in and admit that there is global warming, first and that, second, it is, in fact at least heavily human-influenced if not out-and-out humankind created and that we have to do things about it? And soon as possible.

There have been many, many weather events this year, certainly, like all the hundreds of fires across Canada, Alaska, Washington state, Oregon, Idaho and California, at minimum.

Jul 27, 2015 Scorched earth: U.S. wildfires 

near record level 

What Washington state's wildfires tell us about climate change

Wildfires have now burned a massive 

8 million acres

Then, more recently, like yesterday, there was the unprecedented, unseasonable and deadly sandstorm in the Middle East.

Huge dust storm roars through 

Middle East

For the second week in a row, an expansive dust storm slashed visibility and put hundreds in the hospital with respiratory ailments across the Middle East. The countries most affected include Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

This storm comes soon after another dust storm, which was shaped like a pinwheeling cyclone that absorbed light, drastically lowered visibility across Iraq on Sept. 1.

'Unprecedented' sandstorm blasts across 

Middle East

'Unprecedented' sandstorm envelops Lebanon and Syria

Massive sandstorm blankets Middle East for a second day

Not only was there this 2 day sandstorm across several nations in the Middle East but there have actually been many duststorms, internationally, across the globe of late:

Mystery of the dust storms 

sweeping the world

Today we get word of another unprecedented rain and flooding in Japan and not just heavy but, again, unprecedented.

Terrified residents wait for evacuation by helicopter as the overflowing Kinugawa River rages through Joso, Ibaraki prefecture; 90,000 people were forced to flee their homes

Japan floods: City of Joso hit by 

'unprecedented' rain

Record rainfall in Japan has burst riverbanks, ripped houses from their foundations and forced over 100,000 people to flee their homes. The aftermath of Typhoon Etau has also washed tons of radioactive water from the ruined Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific.

In dramatic scenes reminiscent of the tsunami disaster that struck the country’s coast in 2011, residents of Joso City, 34 miles north-east of Tokyo, were rescued from rooftops by Self-Defence Force helicopters. Houses were swamped by a muddy deluge from the Kinugawa River as people were winched to safety, some clutching family pets.

Check out this facts of this rain and flood (emphasis added here):

Weeks of near-daily rain had already left much of Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures, north/north-east of Tokyo, deluged before the typhoon struck, dumping over 500mm (about 20 inches) of precipitation in just 24 hours in some places – twice the average for the entire month of September.  At one point early today over 900,000 people were advised to evacuate. So far, more than 90,000 had been forced to flee the “wall of water”.

It seems the recurring adjective in all this is that each of these events, vastly different as they are and from far flung corners of the planet, is "unprecedented." It's either unprecedented or historic or record-breaking, all true and applicable here.

Other "unprecedented" factors this year? Here's one:

2015 May Just Be Hottest Year on Record

Here's another:

World's Glaciers Melting Faster Than 

Ever Before Recorded

And this last one:

Sea level rise accelerating faster 

than thought

Mind you, these aren't projections, either. This isn't warnings now of what could or might happen in the future. These things are already occurring and they are occurring now, not 20 or 50 or 100 years in the future. And all these events are killing thousands upon thousands of people and displacing and making homeless millions.

Put those few things together---warmer temperatures, more glacier and ice cap melt and rising oceans and to what simple but obvious conclusion do you surely have to come?

Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

On Climate Change

A Facebook friend of mine, Steven McCain made this observation:

Climate change is either true or false. We have a 50% chance of being right. That leaves us with only 4 options.

1. It's true and we take action. We leave a better world for our descendants.

2. It's true and we take no action. The world as we know it disappears.

3 It's false and we take action. We leave a better world for our descendants.

4. It's false and we take no action. We leave a more polluted world for our descendants.

It's basically the same as this cartoon:

Think happy thoughts, kids. 

Positive thoughts.

Dear Future Generations

Link:  Stand for Trees

We Just Aren't Very Bright

It's not stupid enough we have to buy---expensively---water in a bottle, no. Then we have to go further and put it in these plastic bottles and not recycle them so we can pollute. Then, we top it off by taking water from an area suffering a sever drought to do all that.

Wal-Mart Bottled Water Comes From Sacramento Municipal Supply

We humans just aren't very bright.

In fact, we're rather dumber than dirt.

Quote of the day -- and a Warning

Happy Earth Day

This is what I think of when I hear people say we shouldn't do anything about global warming or climate change:

I also think "Idiots."

What 2014 Was -- And Why It Matters

According to Scientific American:

2014 to Be Hottest Year Ever Measured

Yes, 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded in the history of humankind (though admittedly, in the "big picture" of things, that's a short time frame--around 150 years or so).

This year will likely be the hottest on record for the planet, with global temperatures 1.03 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1961-to-1990 average, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.

But here's why this is important and why we should do something about it. It's part of a far bigger trend:

This would make 2014 the 38th consecutive year with an anomalously high annual global temperature.

Each year for the past 38 years--nearly 4 straight decades, the new year tops the other in temperature increase.

Clearly, that's a trend.

And it's not a trend sitting there, all by itself. Here's another, rather obvious result:

World's Major Ice Caps Melting at Unprecedented Rate

And satellite images show it, in case there are any disbelievers out there:

Other possible effects this could and will likely have in the future for us:

Major U.S. Cities Face More Blackouts under Climate Change

This May, Finally, Be THE Meteorological Event

Last year, about this time, a "super typhoon" rather infamously hit the Philippines. It was named Haiyan and the strength and power and destruction was rather legendary.

Right this moment, just now, a second "super typhoon" is building and bearing down on the Philippines, once again:

Super Typhoon Hagupit may try for a near-repeat of deadly typhoon Haiyan

Super Typhoon Hagupit may be peaking in strength this morning, with maximum sustained winds of about 170 miles per hour. All weather agencies, from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in the U.S. to the Philippines' own agency known as PAGASA, now forecast the storm making a slow trek across several Philippine islands starting on Saturday. However, these agencies still disagree on the storm track and intensity, and the specifics are going to matter a great deal.

If there is some good news, it is that, so far, it is not as powerful---yet---as Haiyan. Not quite.

It will not be nearly as intense as Super Typhoon Haiyan was last year when that storm made landfall near Tacloban in the central Philippines. Still, Hagupit, also known as Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines, poses a multitude of life-threatening risks, from rainfall-induced landslides to high winds and storm surge flooding.

All that said, however, though Hagupit won't be quite as strong as its predecessor, it will be strong, it will be big, widespread and it has the potential to be destructive, likely quite so, and deadly.

Haiyan opened eyes, so to speak, with its power, naturally (no pun intended). And again, naturally, people who have accepted the overall scientific and science-backed opinion of not just climate change but human made climate change mentioned then that this storm and its effects were a part of that very meteorological change and development. 

Now, with this new storm, especially on top of all the other rather historic storms and weather events, from Hurricane Katrina, now years ago, to the rather phenomenal 9 foot snow event last week in Buffalo, New York that nearly immediately changed to 60 degrees the following Monday, I believe more and more people are beginning to notice. And maybe believe.

I think they're quite possibly, quite likely beginning to accept and believe that human-influenced climate change has taken place and is. As just one example, look at this:

223 firms back EPA power plant rule: Companies Sign Letter Supporting 30% Carbon Cut

More than 200 U.S. companies came together Tuesday to support a major reduction in carbon pollution from power plants proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

"As businesses concerned about the immediate and long-term implications of climate change, we strongly support the principles behind the draft carbon pollution standard for existing power plants," states a letter that was sent to the EPA, the Obama administration and congressional leaders.

Major brand names and Fortune 500 companies -- including Kellogg's, Starbucks, Ikea, Levi Strauss and Nestlé -- were among the 223 companies that signed the letter.

And then there's this, with the US military supporting action on climate change:

Pentagon: We Could Soon Be Fighting Climate Wars

Even our military thinks we may well, we likely will be fighting climate change.

Perhaps we should listen to the military as well as the scientists.

If not to Mother Nature herself.

Things that need changing, ways to do it

Links to organizations to get active in here:

TAKE ACTION: Index of Organizations

Familiar with San Diego?

Anyone who's been to California, to Southern California and Los Angeles and especially San Diego--I have, several times, at least--knows it's virtually never, ever 106 degrees there, in the city. It's not usually that hot there even at the hottest time of year, August.

Get this.

Wednesday, it was 106 degrees.  It was that hot.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, along with a many-years-long drought is what that begat, also, Wednesday:



One of the terrific things, rather famously, about San Diego in specific, is that it's nearly always about 65 to 75 wonderful degrees.  Heck, at the worst of Winter, with clouds and rain, it would be cold at about 55 degrees for a high.

That was it.

San Diego, rather famously, had some of the most pleasant, wonderful, mild, moderate temperatures even on the planet, let alone in the United States.

No more.

You know how, in so much of the US, we let our schools out for ice and snow and severe cold weather in the Winters?

In San Diego this week, there were so many fires in the county and the temperatures were so high, they let out schools.

So let's put it all together, just a few things here.

The ice caps are melting, glaciers are melting, average temperatures are rising, as are ocean levels, so much so that coast lines are shrinking and islands are disappearing back into the oceans and now this.

Should we still do nothing to stop pouring carbon dioxide into our atmosphere?

Does that still seem prudent?

To anyone?

Yesterday's headlines on climate

Read 'em and weep:

Texas Panhandle Wildfire Destroys 156 Structures

Wildfire Forces 20000 Evacuations Near San Diego

Smokin' hot heat wave in Bay Area to continue 

Arizona Town Near Grand Canyon Runs Low on Water

And it's May.

Only May, not Summer or June or July or August.

It doesn't look good.