To freeze or to boil: An extreme new earth has just begun to fight
Remember last winter, when the only thing keeping you warm while shoveling the snow that would not stop falling was the sound of gleeful cackles coming from climate change deniers? Well, the New York Times would like to know who’s laughing now, as Russia burns, Pakistan drowns, and the rest of the world takes turns with extreme weather. “The climate is changing,” says one expert. “Extreme events are occurring with greater frequency, and in many cases with greater intensity.”
Earth has warmed an average of 1.4 degrees since the Industrial Revolution—which is a lot of heat when you think about that spread out over the entire planet. And while scientists have yet to specifically link extreme weather to global warming, the majority of research points toward it. Warmer air holds more moisture, which means rain storms and snow storms alike have greater potential, meaning wet areas get wetter and dry areas get drier. “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability,” says another expert. “Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”
Related articles:
- You: In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming (nytimes.com)
- A stormy future? (openparachute.wordpress.com)
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Professor Mike
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I’m not certain I agree but you have the right to say it.
Good job!~! Mad Mike! Great awareness post! The environment, and global warming is past the turn it around phase and stays now in continual crisis. Less than two gens from now we will be suffocating or living very differently… within artificial atomospheres… those lucky enough to be ‘chosen’ to have a place there.
Unless we act in every moment of every day to change this. And the best among climatologists say it’s too late. But that only hits certain pubs and news outlets.
I take the approach that all Asians are smarter than me, even the ones selling dumplings in Chinatown in NY, so when Professor Michio Kaku says we have a warming Globe and resultant weather affects from it…I am a believer, big time.
This guy actually knows what he speaks about and gives proof for all his theories except one…but he is working on that.
Funny that the “Global Warming” deniers always are pointing out that it has gotten cooler in some place. But like all complicated systems, what the alarm is when something is acting different.
Does it seem like the amount of snow has suddenly increased, the ice-storms are more severe, the temperature swings are wider, flooding occurs more frequently, hurricanes are more severe. Weather that normally doesn’t appear in an area that suddenly shows up like the snow in Georgia.
Maybe it is just perceived because of all the news about Global Warming, but to me even without the seeing the measured statistics, weather weirdness seems to be happening.
Last winter in this part of Georgia we had the first measurable snow (3 inches) for a generation. All the locals could say is “what global warming”. We are past the tipping point, enjoy your life.
Extreme weather has always been the norm in the state we live in. It takes a special breed of crazy/desperate to put up with it. Our section of Oklahoma is “Green Country” with a climate more like Arkansas than the Texas panhandle.
But the weirdest weather (hail, snow in April, tomatoes in December, ice storms) has been in the last 15 years or so. Yet our idiot congressman is in the forefront of global warming deniers.