We know that climate change pushes the weather toward extremes, but this is getting ridiculous. In California, in less than a span of 24 months, water levels at a key reservoir have shifted from record drought to a flood that’s now endangering the state’s water supply system. Unfortunately, it’s these kinds of extreme shifts that we’ve come to expect from human-forced climate change.
Record California Drought
During 2015, California experienced its hottest winter on record. The same winter was also California’s driest in 65 years. It was an extremely dry season that occurred during one of the most intense droughts ever to strike California (2011 through 2016). A period that included the worst dry spell ever to affect the state (2011 through 2014).
(2011 to 2016 included the driest period on record for California producing extreme water stress for the state. Image source: The US Drought Monitor.)
A 2015-2016 El Nino brought hopes of rain. It also brought concerns that when the rains did finally arrive, they would come as deluges. This concern was driven by the fact that the warming atmosphere now holds an unprecedented amount of moisture. With much of that extra moisture bleeding off of the Pacific Ocean and with El Nino producing a tendency to both intensify the Pacific storm track and to aim rivers of moisture at California, these concerns appeared to be at least somewhat valid.
But, for the most part, the rain held off — increasing concerns that a drought that had already lasted for five years could continue. That an odd weather pattern called the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge might be a semi-permanent feature spurred by warming in the Arctic and a related movement of the Jet Stream northward.
Followed By Record California Flooding
The Jet Stream did flatten and the rains did eventually come, however. And when they did, it was at the oddest of times — when El Nino had long since faded and a weak La Nina — which typically brings drier conditions to the U.S. West Coast — was in full bloom. By January of 2017, the pattern had switched. And when it switched, it switched hard.
A massive river of moisture began to flow from the Philippines all the way to California during December of 2016. The atmospheric river linked up with a raging storm track running 6,000 miles across the Pacific from Japan to the U.S. West Coast. And this combined moisture flow and vigorous storm pattern has pummeled the U.S. West Coast for the better part of six weeks.
(Throughout the winter of 2016-2017, a powerful, 6,000 mile long, river of moisture has produced a succession of strong storms running into California. This weather/climate feature is occurring in a record warm/moist atmosphere. The result has been that conditions in California have shifted from extreme drought to extreme flood. Image source: TPW Version 2.)
Some regions of California experienced their wettest January on record. Sacramento was one of these. Throughout California, records for the top ten wettest comparable periods were shattered. According to the Washington Post:
…by one important measure, there’s been more rain and snowfall in the 2016-2017 water year than any other season on record, to date. The California-Nevada River Forecast Center uses an eight-station index in the North Sierra to quantify the region’s precipitation. As of Feb. 12, these eight stations have received 68 inches — 226 percent of normal.
In the region of Lake Oroville — a reservoir that as recently as 2015 had dropped to extreme low levels — the rainfall has been particularly consistent and heavy. And it now appears likely that the winter of 2016-2017 will be the wettest on record for that region at least.
Weather Extremes Damage Critical Water Infrastructure
The Lake Oroville Dam had never seen so much water flowing into its backing reservoir since its completion in 1968. By January, Dam operators were already releasing considerable flows of water through its primary spillway to reduce pressure off the 800 foot tall structure trapping water within the reservoir. By February, more than 55,000 cubic feet of water per second was sent raging down the spillway in an effort to keep water levels below the over-topping line. Unfortunately, the spillway structures supporting the Dam have likely never seen so much continued stress from strong water outflows related to record high water levels. And as of last week, the powerful floods of water released from the Dam had damaged the primary spillway. The spillway’s concrete apron had eroded and initially produced a 300 foot wide sink hole near the top of the spillway that later expanded.
(Lake Oroville forced to use emergency spillway resulting in severe stress to key California water infrastructure. Video source: KCRA.)
Concerns about how an expanding sink hole in the reservoir’s wall could, in the worst case, breach the Dam wall and result in a catastrophic failure spurred operators to shut down and reduce water flows through the primary spillway. The abatement resulted in water levels at Lake Oroville rising to above 901 feet. This triggered an automatic over-spill into a second emergency spillway (the first time this has happened in the Dam’s history). But over-topping water also produced severe erosion — igniting more concerns of structural failure. And on the weekend of February 10th -12th, nearly 200,000 people were evacuated from the Dam’s outflow zone as a potential catastrophic structural failure could cause a 30 foot wall of water to rush through numerous downstream communities.
Over recent days, rainfall in the Oroville region abated — providing a brief window for repairs and reducing stress to the Dam. Round-the-clock emergency repairs in the form of bags of boulders used to buttress the Dam appeared to have shored up the Dam. Meanwhile, water levels within the Dam earlier this week were dropping by 4 inches per hour. Mandatory evacuation orders were lifted. And downstream residents began to trickle back in.
(More heavy rain on the way is likely to continue to produce a touch and go situation for the Lake Oroville Dam. If heavy rain continues through spring melt, the Dam could face considerable additional challenges. Image source: NOAA.)
However, the underlying weather conditions that caused so much damage to the Lake Oroville Dam have not yet changed. February and March are typically California’s wettest periods. And the massive river of moisture feeding into a powerful Pacific storm track continues unabated. Over the next 7 days, NOAA predicts that as much as twelve and a half inches of rain could fall on the Lake Oroville region.
Harmed by Drought, Harmed by Flood
So much rainfall will again likely necessitate considerable water outflows from the Dam’s damaged spillways — producing more stress to the already burdened structure. In addition, the arrival of warmer weather come March and April will add snow melt to the already considerable rainfall inflows coming into the Oroville system. To be clear, most experts still think that the overall risk of losing Oroville due to a complete failure of the Dam remain low. However, such a loss would be catastrophic to California.
(As the climate warms, it produces more record hot weather — which spurs increasing instances of drought. In addition, when precipitation does fall, it tends to come in the form of more heavy precipitation events where the rain that does fall, tends to fall more intensely over a shorter period. As a result, the human forced warming of the Earth is producing a general tendency toward more extreme instances of drought and flooding. Image source: NOAA/UCAR.)
The Lake Oroville reservoir provides drinking water to 23 million residents in California and irrigates 750,000 acres of farmland. In the outside worst case event where the Dam does fail, it would produce a water crisis for numerous residents and communities in addition to any damage caused by severe downstream flooding. But even if the Dam holds through the Spring, extreme deposition of sediment from heavy water flows running into the reservoir will also likely pose challenges to water access.
It’s a case of too much or too little. From 2011 through 2016 drought threatened Lake Oroville’s water supplies. Now it’s flooding. And unfortunately, with climate change, we can expect the weather in many regions to take on extreme characteristics or switch hard from one extreme to the other — as has been the case with California.
Links:
Stress Test isn’t Over for Lake Oroville
Record Rain is Straining California’s Whole Flood Control Network
climatehawk1
/ February 16, 2017Tweet scheduled.
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Connecticut Gordon
/ February 16, 2017Hi Robert
Wonderful summary of the problems that we are facing. The added problem is the USA’s unwillingness to ever spend money on maintenance of infrastructure. As a Brit I find it perplexing. I look forward to your posts although they invariably bring bad news.
Slightly off topic, but I see you did not comment on the Antarctic ice levels after you forecast a new low. I believe that did occur 2-3 days ago, but perhaps you might confirm it.
Also Andrew Slater’s 50 day forecast, which you brought to my attention a couple of year’s back, is back up for this year, although I do not understand what he has done so far. The light blue dot around the 14 level has simply moved horizontally each of the past 3-4 days. There seems to be no forecast though. Link is below
http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/SEAICE/
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robertscribbler
/ February 16, 2017Thanks Gordon. I am also perplexed about the U.S. government’s reluctance to spend money on infrastructure. It appears to me that the push to cut taxes for the wealthy supercedes all other priorities for the present republican congress and that republicans in congress have continuously blocked infrastructure funding.
As for the Antarctic, we have an update article pending. Wanted to have a solid confirmation.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ February 16, 2017Re infrastructure, that’s my impression as well. First priority of Republicans in Congress for 8 years has been to block virtually everything proposed by Obama. When Trump stops flailing, he’ll probably get around to infrastructure.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 16, 2017There is some amazingly rapid breakup of sea ice. Links below shows sea ice breaking up over 3 days at King Edward VIII Bay & Robert Glacier,
http://go.nasa.gov/2kDCvLv
http://go.nasa.gov/2lp8bII
I believe there is about another fortnight until ice melt minimums are usually reached in Antarctica but something fundamentally has changed this year down south.
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webej
/ February 16, 2017Ideology has dictated that there is no such thing as public wealth or a public cause: government is only waste and theft. In reality, public wealth is the difference between prosperous nations and poor nations. Mozambique has little regulation and cheap labor, but that does not pull in business. What pulls in business is good infrastructure (lowering the cost of doing business) and social capital. Infrastructure used to be called the “fourth” factor of production (next to capital, labor, and resources). California water works illustrates perfectly how dependant the private sector is on well maintained public property.
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mulga mumblebrain
/ February 19, 2017webej, the Right’s total antipathy to public property and any collective endeavours or institutions is easily explained. These psychopaths fear and hate other people, and wish to do them harm, and enjoy it when they do. You see it in military aggressions where protected infrastructure like water treatment plants are targeted, you see it in sanctions that kill hundreds of thousands, PARTICULARLY children, denied medicines and vaccines. You see it in ‘privatisation’ pillaging, you see it in the deliberate destruction of public education, in the hideously wasteful private health system of the USA, about to be forcibly imposed on other countries through ‘Free Trade’ ‘agreements’. You see it in rapidly worsening inequality, and elite hyper-greed, and the murders of thousands of environmentalists, peasant leaders, unionists etc, in the poor world. And you see it in industries like tobacco, asbestos and junk-food that kill tens of millions, and who DO NOT CARE, so long as the profits flow.
And above all else you see it in the Right’s psychotic determination to drive on to an ecological Holocaust, to fell that last tree, pollute that last river, kill that last fish and drive the climate to utter chaos, just so long as they grow ever richer and more powerful, and crush the defenders of Life on Earth in the process. It represents their deepest and most wicked hatred of all-that of our children and descendants, already alive and those yet unborn. It looks like me to fit the criteria for the Sin for Which There is No Forgiveness.
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jimbenison
/ February 24, 2017They are slumlords.
Plain and simple.
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Connecticut Gordon
/ February 24, 2017I have just discovered that Andrew Slater died unexpectedly in October 2016, aged 44. I apologize for providing his link in error.
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Ken Weaver
/ February 16, 2017Thanks for the article! Do you have a source on the outflows being a record high? I wasn’t under that impression but I’m having trouble locating historical data.
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robertscribbler
/ February 16, 2017Ken — don’t have a source stating that outflows are record high. However, the first time use of the emergency spillway, the combined high outflows through the primary spillway, and the fact that water levels at Oroville hit record highs imply record water outflows.
Click to access 020917spillwayflow.pdf
The text of the article was changed based on this comment to clairify that strong water outflows and record high water levels combined to produce structural stress. However, it is likely that outflows have hit record highs considering the use of the emergency spillway (unconfirmed).
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Ken Weaver
/ February 16, 2017Thanks for the response! I think part of the problem might have stemmed from DWS shutting down the main spillway to assess damage while inflows were rising rapidly, which was completely reasonable if they were working under the assumption that the emergency spillway was functional. Here’s a great resource I’ve been using to track inflows and outflows throughout the process.
https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/dee79515/11/#fullscreen
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robertscribbler
/ February 16, 2017Thanks, Ken. Will update as more info becomes available. I think we might have reached a peak record surge outflow. Net outflow data is a bit murkier. Probably near records considering the level of overall regional flooding. Will be a close call.
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Exposing the Big Game
/ February 16, 2017Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
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mlparrish
/ February 17, 2017OT but great figures in today’s N&O. I have decided not to fret so much about solar adoption.
“Cape Lookout Lighthouse to get solar, LED upgrades”, 2/16/17.
“An underwater power line, several feet in diameter, . . . was laid in 1982, and to replace it would cost between $2 million and $3 million. . . switching to solar power and LED lighting will cost less than $6,000 . . Annual maintenance costs will drop from about $93,000 a year to about $1,200. . . ”
The downside is that the light will reach only 14 miles rather than the previous 24 nautical miles, but they say that the reduced distance will not affect navigation.
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wili
/ February 17, 2017Good source of civil, informed discussion of the situation as it developed, with lots of pictures and diagrams through out (from neven’s site): https://www.metabunk.org/oroville-dam-spillway-failure.t8381/
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Abel Adamski
/ February 17, 2017Forgive me , a little OT, but referring back to previous post.
From a local paper serving the NSW South East Coastal are (beautiful part of the country, normally sheltered somewhat from the hot inland winds and the Antarctic blasts common down South by the inland mountain ranges.
http://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/4472837/cattle-deaths-a-climate-change-wake-up-call/
The loss of so many precious dairy cows in the Shoalhaven during last weekend’s extreme heat and humidity should have us all paying close attention. We know records are being broken for warmest months and warmest years. We know Australia – and, more alarming still, NSW – were the hottest places on earth in recent weeks.
It might be jumping the gun to blame our recent heatwaves solely on climate change but our shared ordeal gives us all an alarming insight into what life will become if global temperatures keep rising.
If what was described by agriculture consultant Steve Little as a perfect storm of heat and humidity was indeed “extraordinary”, imagine trying to cope if it became “ordinary”. Dr Little likened last weekend’s conditions to those experienced during the Black Saturday bushfires.
This summer, those sorts of conditions have become all too familiar. The disastrous effect on dairy herds is a major concern. For farmers, each cow is not just a valuable asset – they are part of the family. The loss of so many will be deeply felt.
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Abel Adamski
/ February 17, 2017But this is not new in the World, from the recent past
https://www.yahoo.com/news/indias-next-weapon-against-climate-change-heat-tolerant-103800648.html
India’s next weapon against climate change? The heat-tolerant dwarf cow
ReutersJune 29, 2015
THIRUVANANDHAPURAM, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Worsening heat, fodder shortages and the threat of drought are forcing many hard-hit dairy farmers in the Anantapur area of India’s southern Kerala state to reduce their herds, experts say.
“This is nothing less than a catastrophe,” said Ananthakrishnan Kannappan, a livestock agent for 30 years in Anantapur. “This is the first time that due to lack of water and fodder, farmers are eagerly competing to sell off their livestock for throwaway prices.”
But the solution to the problem is simple and small, livestock experts argue: heat-tolerant dwarf cows.
A team of researchers from Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University and the state government’s Animal Husbandry Department are now promoting a switch to Vechur and Kasargod cattle, two local varieties known for being easy to raise, resistant to diseases and – most important – better at tolerating high temperatures than the more popular crossbred cattle.
“High-yielding crossbreed varieties of cattle can faint or even die during hot and humid summer days,” said E.M. Muhammed, an expert on animal breeding and genetics at the university. “Our natural breeds can better withstand the effects of climate change.”
Dwarf cows, on the other hand, appear to carry a “thermometer gene” that allows them to better tolerate high temperatures, researchers said.
With India facing growing heat and drought threats, other state governments have reached out to learn more about Kerala’s dwarf cows as a way to help protect their own cattle and dairy industries.
Government officials from the state of Gujarat recently bought three Vechur cows from Kerala, while Punjab Chief Minister Prakesh Singh Badal took six dwarf cows from Kerala to his farm in Chandigarh, livestock experts say.
“It is a fact that the characteristics of the seasons have been altered by the disastrous impacts of climate change, so our lifestyle needs to adapt to using our indigenous flora and fauna,” said K. Ramankutty, a dairy farmer in Palakkad.
“The dwarf cow is a great weapon against climate change,” he said.
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Abel Adamski
/ February 17, 2017Not just NSW and Qld for The mozzies and Ross River virus
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/02/17/ross-river-cases-reach-1000-victoria
Ross River cases reach 1000 in Victoria
More than 1000 people in Victoria are suspected of having contracted Ross River virus, making it the state’s worst outbreak of the disease since 2011.
It follows floods across the state’s north and west in 2016 and a subsequent boom in mosquito numbers.
More than 120 cases have been recorded in Melbourne.
Mosquito breeding sites are being treated in 18 local government areas in an attempt to control the population.
People with Ross River virus usually have a rash and enlarged lymph nodes soon after being bitten and can suffer arthritis for up to a year.
The mosquito-borne disease commonly affects people in the northern states and outbreaks of this magnitude in Victoria have been recorded only three other times since 1993.
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Spike
/ February 17, 2017Interesting – previous warmings did favour dwarf mammals.
http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/releases/21789-global-warming-led-to-dwarfism-in-mammals-twice
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Cate
/ February 17, 2017Fascinating, indeed. And thinking of those deniers who like to assert that increased atmospheric CO2 levels are good for plants, I found this sentence in Spike’s link noteworthy:
“In 2006, Gingerich proposed that mammalian dwarfing could be a response to the lower nutritional value of plants grown under elevated carbon dioxide levels. Under such conditions, plants grow quickly but are less nutritious than they would normally be.”
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umbrios27
/ February 17, 2017Dwarf cows and other animals, can better survive heat waves because small sizes shed heat better. The smaller the animal, the greater its surface area (the skin, where heat is lost to the environment) in relation to its volume (the rest of the body, where methabolism creates heat).
That´s why small animals normally have faster methabolisms (they need to create heat to keep their temperatures stable), but can withstand heat better (huge animals in hot climates normally have “radiator” structures, like the ears of an elephant: lots of skin that can be flaped to lose excess heat), while bigger animals can withstand cold better (it is almost a rule that if an species is geographically well spread, the smaller members of the species will live in the hottest habitats, and the biggest in the artic ones. Wolves are a good example of this).
That´s bad bad news for production animals, that were over-selected to be big masses of muscle and fat, and normally withstand heat very badly.
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Andy_in_SD
/ February 17, 2017The storm heading to that area has been revised upward regarding rainfall amounts. We’re supposed to get some weather down here. We’re looking at 50 to 60+ mph winds, 3 to 6″ rain in ~24 hrs. We’ve seen ~1.5 to 2.5x normal precip since Dec 1st.
Storm headed to Oroville Dam area carries 10 inches of rain, revised forecast warns
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oroville-weather-forecast-20170216-story.html
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lesliegraham1
/ February 18, 2017“The storm heading to that area has been revised upward”.
I knew it! The “climate scientists” are ‘adjusting’ their weather forecast for rain upwards so California gets extreme floods so they can claim billions more in grant money to fund their lavish lifestyles.
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utoutback
/ February 17, 2017Nice to have you back Robert. Hope the break was good for you.
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wharf rat
/ February 17, 2017It started raining in Northern California in mid-Oct, and it pretty much hasn’t stopped.
Rains have drenched Northern California, where most of the state’s largest reservoirs are located. The state had the second wettest October since the Department began keeping records in 1921.
“We are almost 400 percent of the normal amount of rain in October here in the north and even the San Joaquin and Tulare regions are well above their averages as well,” says Doug Carlson with the California Department of Water Resources. “But if history tells us anything it’s don’t predict what the weather is going to be two or three weeks from now.”
http://www.capradio.org/articles/2016/10/31/reservoir-levels-rise-in-california-with-record-october-rainfall/
According to the National Weather Service in Sacramento, precipitation from Oct. 1 through Nov. 28 has been the highest in 30 years in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains, an amazing 201 percent of average.
https://weather.com/climate-weather/drought/news/california-wet-start-water-season-drought-improvement-fall-2016
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coloradobob
/ February 17, 2017Climate Change Is Transforming the World’s Food Supply
ATLANTA — Climate change is poised to affect the world’s food supply in three key ways, experts say.
“There will be impacts on the quantity, quality and location of the food we produce,” said Dr. Sam Myers, a medical doctor and senior research scientist studying environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
http://www.livescience.com/57921-climate-change-is-transforming-global-food-supply.html
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Cate
/ February 18, 2017This is the scariest thing.
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ February 18, 2017Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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wharf rat
/ February 17, 2017Epic Storm Pounds Southern California With Heavy Rain, High Wind and Huge Waves
By: Jeff Masters , 5:20 PM GMT on February 17, 2017
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/epic-storm-pounds-southern-california-with-heavy-rain-high-wind-and-h
“The epic assault of the winter of 2016 – 2017 “
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Suzanne
/ February 17, 2017“New” (this month) and a must see lecture by Michael Mann in Sydney …IMO.
“What Role can Climate Science play in promoting effective Climate Action”
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Suzanne
/ February 17, 2017Senate has confirmed Pruitt for head of EPA. I continue to weep for my country. Apparently, the new Regime and Republicans will not be happy until there is no EPA..and our air and water is as polluted as possible.
I recently read that 44,000 Chinese die a day from lung illnesses directly related to poor environmental conditions in China. I guess the Republicans are hoping that becomes our future….But hey, according to the Lunatic…America will have more jobs. Of course they will be low paying, dirty jobs that kills them, their children and the environment.
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Suzanne
/ February 17, 2017A judge has demanded that Pruitt release the emails with the fossil fuel industry…on Tuesday. So the Republicans just had to push through Pruitt today..because you know…they can’t handle the truth.
I really, really don’t know how much more of this I can take. I truly believe we are heading for Dystopian Future…How much more can we all take of this lunacy? I know I can’t take four years of this CRAP . Every day is another chaotic day of destruction.
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mulga mumblebrain
/ February 19, 2017Suzanne, I hate to pick nits, but at an annual mortality rate of 7.7 per thousand, China’s total deaths per year appear to be about ten million a year, and 44,000 a day would equal sixteen million odd a year, and so there is a discrepancy. Not to downplay the air quality disaster there, and in India, and many Western cities as well, not forgetting the poor world. I rather fancy that the Chinese will do something about it, however. Of course, once ‘global dimming’ by particulate smogs is reduced, our climate destabilisation woes will grow even more dire.
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Suzanne
/ February 19, 2017Mulga…You are right…It is 1.2 million per year. I should know better than to write a comment when I am upset…”Decimal places do matter”.
Here is a link…to an article about air pollution and Chinese annual deaths:
And please, feel free to pick nits any time…unlike Trumplethinskin…I can be corrected when I am wrong, and not have a meltdown or scream FAKE NEWS. 🙂
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mulga mumblebrain
/ February 19, 2017Yes, Suzanne-I reckon it must be 44,000 a week, still tragic, but the Chinese are at least working on it. Unlike the poor deranged Anglosphere, where climate destabilisation is verboten or ferociously denied, even as the Great Barrier Reef starts bleaching AGAIN. I do like Trumplethinskin-it rather sums the lunatic up, doesn’t it.
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wili
/ February 20, 2017Coming soon to a US city near you!
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Shawn Redmond
/ February 17, 2017And the water sagas continue……
It would be wonderful to be able to put the shameful episode of the toxic water of Flint, Michigan behind us. Even if the water system was now repaired an clean water was flowing through the repaired pipes and into the homes and businesses of Flint, but it is not. Even if, the people of Flint, including their vulnerable children, were being given the best of care to ameliorate as much as possible the damage done, but it’s not. After the people of Flint had be made financially whole for any damages done them, which they have not. After, the culprits in this horrendous event were brought to justice, which they have not. After procedures have been changed so that it is nigh impossible for such a criminal act to ever be perpetrated upon an unsuspecting public again, and it has not. So how in Hell can the book be closed on the Flint debacle……….
The human disaster caused by the conspiratorial and reckless switch to Flint River interrupted the flow of revenues from water bills. With all their talk of a Flint recovery, it is the stream of money that is most important to the political operatives of capitalism.
http://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2017/02/17/as-michigan-cuts-off-water-bill-credits-flint-officials-announce-shutoffs.php#more-22379
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Syd Bridges
/ February 17, 2017Thanks for the update, Robert. I’ve been watching the California water situation for some years. I have to say that the Chinese have been totally masterful in deceiving us with this hoax. The switch from drought to flood is one of the most astonishing climate events that I can recall. We will soon see more of this in other parts of the world.
I wonder how much more infrastructure in the US and elsewhere will soon be found wanting. The refusal to face up to updating it as the one percenters need the money so badly is not restricted to the US. Homeowners in the UK-but fortunately not the one percenters-are already finding out about unmaintained infrastructure to their cost.
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Erik Frederiksen
/ February 17, 2017The US has a lot of aging dams and they are likely not designed with these enhanced precipitation events we’re seeing now due to warmer air holding more moisture.
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Erik Frederiksen
/ February 17, 2017How well we adapt to global warming tells us much about why we need to focus on mitigation.
Richard Alley mentioned that for the decade leading up to Hurricane Katrina nearly every geoscientist he knew teaching an intro to geology course taught that it was coming. The course material was largely drawn from material prepared for the government, by the government with government funding and that everyone who was paying attention knew for decades that New Orleans is sinking, the protective delta is eroding, sea level rise is accelerating and maximum storm strength may be increasing.
All these affect optimal levee design.
So surely our economically efficient society appropriated the funds to raise the levees which protect New Orleans.
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Colt
/ February 17, 2017We have a major wasp problem in the middle of Winter in Colorado. What the heck is going on? This is a June problem, not a February problem.
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bostonblorp
/ February 19, 2017In Boston I opened my windows today (it was nearly 60 degrees). A house fly flew in and buzzed around. In February.
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017Brazil races against time to save drought-hit city, dying crops
The shrunken carcasses of cows lie in scorched fields outside the city of Campina Grande in northeast Brazil, and hungry goats search for food on the cracked-earth floor of the Boqueirao reservoir that serves the desperate town.
After five years of drought, farmer Edivaldo Brito says he cannot remember when the Boqueirão reservoir was last full. But he has never seen it this empty.
“We’ve lost everything: bananas, beans, potatoes,” Brito said. “We have to walk 3 kilometers just to wash clothes.”
Brazil’s arid northeast is weathering its worst drought on record and Campina Grande, which has 400,000 residents that depend on the reservoir, is running out of water.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-drought-idUSKBN15W1HP
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ February 18, 2017Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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umbrios27
/ February 20, 2017The drought in Northeast Brasil has been going for 6 years, and it´s the most severe that has hit that region since records began. In the rural areas, water collapse has already hit, some middle-size cities are in severe rationing, and water collapse is threatning a few metropolis.
That said, the *human cost* of this drought has been smaller than previous, disastrous droughts in the 70s and 80s (and in all history of the Northeast “sertão”, a semi-arid region). There has been no mass-famines nor huge spikes on human mortality (there has been cows and goats mass deaths, because per law, water´s first priority in Brasil is for relieving human thirsty), as a good system of cysterns to collect and keep whatever rain-water comes has been installed and a finantial aid system is in place.
These were good measures implemented by the previous government of Brasil, during PT´s presidency. Credit where credit is due, I´m against most other PT´s policies, specially the big corruption schemes that Lula and Dilma were involved into, but THIS, this were crucial measures, that have been saving lifes. I can understand why Northeast voters in Brasil still support PT.
These measures have been kept by the current government of Michael Temer, and while the drought is dire, it´s even being kind of muted in the press, because… no calamities thus far. It may sound strange, but mass-famines and social collapse and mass imigration from the Northeast to the rest of Brasil where kind of “expected” once or twice for decade in Brasil, a legendary problem… and even if physically this is the worst drought ever recorded, socially it´s the least damaging.
I seriously doubt that the transposition of São Francisco River will be done in 2 years. There were HUGE corruption cases involved in this construction, sub-par materials were used, and places already constructed collapsed while still dry, places were the construction was considered “complete” on paper weren´t even started when inspected… 2 years may be the promise, but it won´t happen. And that´s good, because the Sâo Francisco itself is drying, and might not have enough water for the transposition if emergencial restoration measures (that will take about 5 years to be effective… most of them involve reflorestation of the margins) aren´t done. Those emergencial restoration measures have been ordered in the beginning of Michael Temer´s government, but I´m not sure about how they´re being implemented thus far.
Link for an article in Portuguese, written by one of Brasil´s IPCC scientists, from the University of Ceará, in the Northeast Brasil, with a much better summary than mine: http://www.observatoriodoclima.eco.br/segue-o-seco/
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Andy_in_SD
/ February 18, 2017Yup, we’re getting nailed down here in So Cal.
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Leland Palmer
/ February 18, 2017Interesting speculation – the drought might have damaged the Oroville Dam spillway:
The San Jose Mercury News speculates that soil shrinkage from the drought might have weakened the main concrete spillway, among other speculation including cavitation as the cause:
“Another theory is that the drought dried the ground under the spillway enough that it shrank, creating a void of a few inches that cracked the spillway when huge volumes of water roared down this winter.
“Soils shrink and swell,” said Nicholas Sitar, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC-Berkeley. “They have a way of changing volume with seasons. Anyone who has an old house where the doors open and close differently through the year has seen it.”
Big changes are critical, Sitar said.
“They have to look at their procedures and modify them,” he said. “Clearly the spillway is going to have to be rebuilt,” a job that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
And the investigation won’t be easy.
“All evidence of what caused this thing,” Sitar said, “has been washed away.””
We may never know, but my money is on the soil shrinkage and swelling idea. Why? Occam’s Razor – we already know that there was a severe drought, and likely big changes in soil volume. Some soils – clays I think – are expansive. If the soil around and under the spillway is an expansive clay soil, that might add weight to that hypothesis. The Oroville photographs remind me of the red clay soil I grew up with in Mariposa, CA, also in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range.
If this is true, the drought might have damaged other dams, and they ought to be extensively inspected for damage.
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Playamart - Zeebra Designs
/ February 18, 2017yes that’s a good hypothesis, as many times the soaked heavy-clay soils, like in rice fields, create lots of fissures when dry… i see that here in ecuador too along the shrimp ponds or in a cracked yard at the end of the dry season. one can place a water hose in a crack and it would probably run forever without ever getting full…
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Leland Palmer
/ February 18, 2017Yes, the red clay in Mariposa, roughly a hundred miles south in the same mountain range, at about the same elevation, would crack like that. Sometimes in the winter when it was wet, it would make a big ball on each boot, and you’d have to keep scraping it off.
It’s a testable hypothesis, I think. Just test soils in the area for expansiveness, and look at the soil tests when the dam was built. They did extensive soil science on the Oroville dam when it was built.
Then, if that’s the real explanation, avoid doing it again when the spillway is repaired.
The cavitation hypothesis and the soil contraction hypothesis don’t appear to be mutually exclusive: it could have been soil contraction followed by cavitation, followed by gross undermining by turbulence and general failure.
It’s worrisome to watch the spillway progressively erode. It would be nice if the repaired one did not do that, so that one crater would not spread to the whole structure.
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Playamart - Zeebra Designs
/ February 18, 2017the oroville crisis is scary, especially for people to return with a false sense of safety; this reminds me of the morganza spillway and old river structures on the lower mississippi river. ‘one day it’s going to go’ is a prediction that all hope will never happen.
here in ecuador’s earthquake recovery area, someone was telling me a story about pirates off the coast (jama/el matal) that were recently caught by the local ‘coast guard’ after stealing motors/fuel etc from the artisanal fishermen… what caught my interest was the comment, ‘the fishermen are having to go farther out to sea because there are no fish — the water’s too warm near the shore.’
it was good (?) to read your feedback regarding the jet stream, el nino/la nina and the river of moisture. it’s normal for reports of flooding during the rainy season, but it’s also smart to watch out for more problems. two nights ago the port city of manta received exceptionally-heavy rainfall, and other areas continue to report flooding. the post-earthquake infrastructure has been patched, so the heavy rains are finding the weak points in roads and bridges…
http://www.eldiario.ec/noticias-manabi-ecuador/423335-mas-de-600-familias-afectadas-en-tosagua-tras-fuertes-lluvias/
way too many people are still living in tents…
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017Murray Energy CEO claims global warming is a hoax, says 4,000 scientists tell him so
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/17/murray-energy-ceo-claims-global-warming-is-a-hoax.html
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017Animal success stories that will make you call your senator to protect endangered species.
One of the things that seems it might be on the new administration’s chopping block is the Endangered Species Act. Yep, really.
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017Man taking selfie among seven dead in Iran storms
The torrential rain caused flooding across the south, from Khuzestan province on the Iraqi border to Sistan-Baluchistan province on the border with Pakistan.
Thousands fled villages downstream from dams fearing collapses like that in Jiroft.
In the north, at least five people have been killed in avalanches over the past two weeks as up to two metres (more than six feet) of snow fell in the Zagros and Alborz mountains.
Even as downpours gripped much of the south, residents of some areas near the Iraqi border were praying for rain as some of the worst dust storms in years sent hundreds to hospital with respiratory problems.
Photographs shared on social media showed cars, kitchens and furniture caked in thick dust beneath an orange sky.
The dust level in the air was 18 times the normal levels, officials in Khuzestan province said.
Long power cuts hit the cities of Ahvaz, Khoramshahr and Abadan as the combination of the dust and up to 98 percent humidity played havoc with the electricity grid.
Link
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ February 19, 2017Scheduling tweet on this, thanks. (Wow, what a crappy headline.)
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.
Rachel Carson
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017We live in a scientific age, yet we assume that knowledge of science is the prerogative of only a small number of human beings, isolated and priestlike in their laboratories. This is not true. The materials of science are the materials of life itself. Science is part of the reality of living; it is the way, the how and the why for everything in our experience.
Rachel Carson
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Connecticut Gordon
/ February 18, 2017I notice that the CO2 levels at Mauna Loa have shown a small but steady decline over the past 3-4 weeks. I don’t recall that happening before at this time of year. Does that occasionally happen or is it very unusual and could it be the start of a major slowing down in recent annual increases?
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Leland Palmer
/ February 18, 2017I think it’s unusual, if it’s real. Could just be noise?
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
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Roger Boyd
/ February 18, 2017Been tracking the Manua Loa numbers for a few years, it is a very noisy dataset. Given that its a measurement from only one location, there can be significant spikes and troughs extending over a number of weeks. For the final estimate of the yearly increase numbers they use a 4 month average (Nov-Feb) to reduce the noise impact.
“There is a small amount of month-to-month variability in the CO2 concentration that may be caused by anomalies of the winds or weather systems arriving at Mauna Loa … Therefore, we finalize our estimate for the annual mean growth rate of the previous year in March, by using the average of the most recent November-February months, corrected for the average seasonal cycle, as the trend value for January 1”.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
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Connecticut Gordon
/ February 18, 2017Thanks to both of you for educating me. I wondered whether wind could play a part. It still seems strange that any ‘noise’ as such would continue for more than a month now, which it has. Something I’ll keep a watch on.
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mulga mumblebrain
/ February 19, 2017Perhaps it’s an early Northern spring.
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Leland Palmer
/ February 18, 2017LikeLike
wili
/ February 20, 2017There was a bit of a flattening of the curve around this time of year in 2015 and 2016, iirc. Not sure what that was (or what this is) about. As others have said, it’s a noisy signal on the daily and even weekly basis. But this does seem an odd and somewhat persistent pattern for this time of year.
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Spike
/ February 20, 2017Be interested to see if the annual peak has been getting earlier if the NH growing season gets going earlier with warmer springs. I’ve looked for research on that point and never seen any, but intuitively it would make sense.
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017An “enemy of the people” in the Soviet Union was not necessarily a criminal, but more often someone stigmatized by social origin or pre-revolutionary profession. The label alone was akin to a terminal illness, and merely being a friend of an enemy of the people was a certain cause for official suspicion.
“What it basically meant was a death sentence,” Orenstein told VOA.
Some see parallels in history
Stalin’s crimes were exposed to the world by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in a shocking speech to the Communist Party Congress in 1956, 61 years ago next Saturday, February 25. The speech, secret at the time, was delivered to a huge audience of communist faithful who heard it in fearful silence, but Khrushchev’s words were leaked to Western reporters and broadcast around the world the next day.
http://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-attack-on-media-enemy-of-people-historic-echoes/3729946.html
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Spike
/ February 20, 2017Bob our right wing fanatics in the press have been using the phrase against judges and opponents of Brexshit ever since the hoodwinked turkeys here voted for Xmas. I suspect Trump picked up its renaissance from here, as there is a lot of networking between the dark forces here and over the pond. And of course it has a truly terrible historical resonance.
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labmonkey2
/ February 18, 2017A tad OT, but – climate models…are they as accurate as they could be? Maybe not.
—
Titled “Modeling Sustainability: Population, Inequality, Consumption, and Bidirectional Coupling of the Earth and Human Systems”, the paper describes how the rapid growth in resource use, land-use change, emissions, and pollution has made humanity the dominant driver of change in most of the Earth’s natural systems, and how these changes, in turn, have critical feedback effects on humans with costly and serious consequences, including on human health and well-being, economic growth and development, and even human migration and societal conflict. However, the paper argues that these two-way interactions (“bidirectional coupling”) are not included in the current models.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-climate_1.html#jCp
—
exponential indeed…
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Roger Boyd
/ February 18, 2017Thanks for this labmonkey2. What an excellent paper, written in a very clear and accessible way. Very interesting section on the underestimates of population growth and immigration in the rich countries:
“One result of such unrealistically low projections of future migration to the developed countries is to produce lower estimates of future total emissions of the developed countries, which means the developed countries are not required to make as much effort today to lower their own emissions”
Stunning that Africa has gone from 230 million to a billion people between 1950 and 2010, and forecasts for 4 billion in the next 85 may be too low an estimate. Also that the Integrated Assessment Models assume that the poor will remain desperately poor, rather than improve their lot:
“Projections that global resource use and emissions will not rise very much due to rapid population growth in the poorest countries are based on the assumption that those countries will remain desperately poor by the standards of developed countries”
Should be a wake up call for the IPCC, they are being way too conservative on both the science assumptions (Mr Scribblers great work and Neven’s blog makes that very obvious), and the social assumptions. Then the feedbacks … Time for attack, not defence, in the Age of Stupid/Trump.
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Jean Mcmahon
/ February 19, 2017Thanks for the info..easy for me to read.Some of why I read Robert’s blog “religiously”
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Shawn Redmond
/ February 18, 2017“Without including the real feedbacks, predictions for coupled systems cannot work; the model will get away from reality very quickly.” Hmmmm…….
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labmonkey2
/ February 18, 2017begs the question: “who’s modeling the models?”
used in the Who’s Watching the Watchers context, if you know what I mean.
And wait for the deniers to focus on this as a cudgel to further divide the knowledgeable folks here and everywhere.
#RESIST
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017As the EPA battle is drawn remember this –
Around 2.2 million deaths in India and China from air pollution: Study
Air pollution is the leading environmental cause of death on the planet and 92 percent of the global population is living in areas where the air is unhealthy, according to a new report.
The State of Global Air 2017 report states that extensive, long term exposure to fine particulate matter contributed to more than four million premature deaths in 2015.
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017LikeLike
Spike
/ February 20, 2017Superb!
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mlparrish
/ February 20, 2017+1
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017The murder of winter in it’s bed is complete –
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 18, 2017Meanwhile in Antarctica the Brunt Icesheet crack continues to extend and despite moving the Halley VIII base it still looks vulnerable.
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinels_warn_of_dangerous_ice_crack
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017A few days back there was yearly conference in Alaska dealing with their rapidly changing world . The EPA people were greatly curtailed from attending. This was sold as “saving Taxpayers money”.
I got your saving taxpayer money right here-
Paying for President Trump’s travel and security costs
“If President Trump is going to go back and forth to Florida every weekend, those costs could really skyrocket,” Fitton said. “The presidency is too big, it costs too much money and if anyone is able to cut down the cost, maybe President Trump can.”
Fitton suggested Trump spend weekends at one of his properties closer to Washington, or even Camp David, the presidential retreat.
The costs of presidential travel have been in the spotlight for decades. President George W. Bush took 77 trips to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, over 8 years, according to CBS’ Mark Knoller. Richard Nixon frequently spent short weekend trips at his “Winter White House” at Key Biscayne in Florida. Ronald Reagan made occasional trips to his home on the West Coast.
In the past, Trump has been sharply critical of the costs of presidential travel. He lambasted President Obama on Twitter for millions of dollars of “unbelievable!” travel expenses –- and suggested he spent more time golfing and campaigning than working for the American people.
In 2015, Trump went so far as to publicly pledge that he would “rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” The Hill reported. But so far, Trump has shown no indication he’s looking to cut down on his own presidential travel costs.
This one man’s carbon foot will be the biggest in the history of the world
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 18, 2017The same ESA site also has a report on the drainage of lakes underlying the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica
“On average, Thwaites carries about 135 cubic km of ice to the sea every year, but drainage from these lakes released an extra 3.5 cubic km of freshwater.
“In addition, the speed of the glacier increased by about 10% and would have contributed to a discharge of around 150 cubic km a year between 2013 and 2014.”
Drainage is estimated to have peaked at about 240 cubic m a second, possibly the largest outflow of meltwater ever reported from subglacial lakes in this region. This peak rate is about four times faster than the River Thames in England discharges to the North Sea each year.”
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat/CryoSat_reveals_lake_outbursts_beneath_Antarctic_ice
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Shawn Redmond
/ February 18, 2017Jeremy the fast ice in Antarctica seems to be dissolving right before our eyes. You mentioned ablation in an earlier thread. I have taken that to mean melting period. However I’m thinking with the polar ice it refers to atmospheric melts i.e. winds and warmth. I believe the melting is occurring mostly from below. I see over at ASIF they’re talking about the melt season being over due mostly to air temps, however the ice shelves still seem to be shrinking.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 18, 2017I referred to ablation specifically to the ice free areas around the Showa base and Shirase glacier in particular as sublimation and evaporation (supplemented by ice melting) seems to result in bare rock and possibly the polyna.
I would agree that most of the melting seems to be at the base of glaciers and ice sheets.
Generally the melt season in Antarctica comes to an end in the second half of Feb but like you believe the water temp may extend this.
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017Climate change impacts: Say goodbye to the huskies of Scotland
llawarra Mercury, Jamie Lafferty, 19 Feb 2017, 12:15 a.m.
[…] Sadly, for the snow dogs of Scotland, the days of running are drawing to a close. Not because their desire is diminished, but because the climate has changed so completely as to make their continued exertion inhumane and dangerous. Huskies have high core temperatures when running and anything above 11C isn’t safe; Scotland’s winters have become so warm that owners Alan and Fiona Stewart have decided to pack up the Cairngorm Sled Dog Centre. …
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/4476931/climate-change-impacts-say-goodbye-to-the-huskies-of-scotland/?cs=34
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ February 19, 2017Scheduling tweet on this, thanks.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 22, 2017…and 400 years ago Scotland had its own (if small) glacier in the Cairngorms
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/highlights/2014/scottishGlaciers.html
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017Years and years ago , I had this idea for a novel.
It begins on the West Coast . At first the small things begin to die , they are washed up on the beaches. Because they are so many the task is huge.
The smell is unbearable.
Then come the whales , the otters. the tuna, the dolphins, the sea loins . the seals, the rest of the food chain .
Huge piles on the beaches of dead life. In a matter of weeks. The smell is unbearable for the millions onshore. the cost is is unbearable to bury so much life.
Then it begins in Japan . And South African.
That was a fiction I never wrote , but now it is a fact that may come to pass.
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017I called it , The Biggest Funeral .
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017I thought of the unthinkable A pure work of fiction. Now we near it’s fact .
The Biggest Funeral
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017I am that old man that Paul wrote of so long ago . I never dreamed I would live to see it.
Bookends – Simon and Garfunkel
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017When I tried to be a deep thinker, I was a “House Boy at Taos” , this was our soundtrack that summer. I’d care I was living with artists .
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017I’d NOT care I was living with artists .
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coloradobob
/ February 18, 2017I had always wanted to be an Artist . I never wanted anything else.
This is art…….
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017The toes over the no’s at the end of the world.
I have no idea what that means But it sounds good.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Spend lawyer, guns, and money , the fecal matter has entered the rotating device.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017LikeLike
Genomik
/ February 20, 2017RIP! He had such unusual music. Great musician.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Jackson Browne – Poor Poor Pitiful Me – Tribute to Warren Zevon (Enjoy Every Sandwich)
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017(Enjoy Every Sandwich)
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Our culture is very very thick. Most of it is very good. We’ve fighting these assholes for over 200 years. They have never won. Ever.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017These assholes have never won. Now , we start a new fight to see the battle to see if we can win again.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Dr, .King did not die so assholes in Chicago Could murder little girls. .
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Dr. RS,
The most important time on Earth , and you lay down. You better be deep, and better have swep.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017I poke at my friend . I have earned this right.
I am his is oldest online friend.
None of you know how much I love RS.
I beat him up . He comes back with ever more important posts.
I am a fool/
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Jimi Hendrix – Born Under A Bad Sign
https://vimeo.com/146967727
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017That;s not my turnip truck, parked out front
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017I was painting the the Vulcan Gas Company at around 4 AM. When Big Mommy Thorton came in
“Here is Huston White ?”
He’s in bed.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017i saw Jimmy Reed so drunk m he could not play.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017I saw Muddy Waters in Purple Pontiac station wagon .
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017I saw the 13th Floor Elevators
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017I saw all this , 50 years ago , when I was was 17.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017I saw all this , 50 years ago , when I was 17.
In the Light Show at the Vulcan Gas Company . The pay was zip. I was friends Jim Franklin, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW COOL THAT WAS/
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017This goes on for ever -https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/94/23/ae/9423aee7ac5750eda5dd7a78debddb07.jpg
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017A stone cold –
http//s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/0d/37/e5/0d37e5ee8439c01d8017fc5500db99b7.jpg
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Note the S in the link.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017When I first met Jim Franklin . We both smoked weed in a cistern at back of the Vulcan Gas Company.
It was 20 feet deep. It had a perfect E flat tone.
He wanted to me, I was not gay.
Hubdreds of people smoked dope in that cistern since than.
God knows what they did .n that hole Since 68′.
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Andy_in_SD
/ February 19, 2017Check the ice pack difference from 2 yrs ago, same date.
If you scan round the arctic and reference past years, it becomes apparent that the state of the ice pack is not healthy. It is fractured and not contiguous at this time of year prior to any melt.
http://www.arctic.io/explorer/8-8/2015-02-18;2017-02-18/7-N58.32054-W80.67919
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017Let’s see if they Killed the last .
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017i have no pistol but I wake up in pain. Everyday, I have no pills . I have no help. I have no weed. No bullet no help.
Just pain,
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Leland Palmer
/ February 19, 2017About an inch of precipitation has fallen in the last 48 hours on the Oroville dam watershed, some of it snow.
The weather forecast from NOAA predicts 5 to 10.5 inches of precipitation in the next 72 hours on the Oroville dam watershed, some of it snow. That seems like a lot of precipitation in a short amount of time.
I sure hope that the amount of water they have released is enough. The dam level is at 853 feet now, after overflowing at about 903 feet on February 11th. Water volume now is about 2.85 million acre feet, versus 3.58 million acre feet on February 11th.
The officials seem confident that the amount released is enough. I hope they are right.
http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/
Select Forecast Precipitation (QPF) on the right, then select 72 hour gridded QPF.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017There are 4 kinds of pain now, each one has it’s set of tears,
Image the bones in your feet. And they are wrapped in a sheath . Now image that sheath is attacking those bones, You have no idea how much this hurts.
The Pancake of Pain ,
Welcome to the Gilden Tears.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017The weather forecast from NOAA predicts 5 to 10.5 inches of precipitation in the next 72 hours on the Oroville dam watershed, some of it snow. That seems like a lot of precipitation in a short amount of time.
Make sure your seat back trays are in their upright and locked position. And Kiss that flotation device , because your gonna need it.
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coloradobob
/ February 19, 2017My oldest friend ,called us fleas.
This despair, is becoming a real battle. Every second of every day.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes. when the waves turn the minutes to hours ?
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mulga mumblebrain
/ February 19, 2017And as the record destabilised weather events plague Australia, the Right’s war on renewables moves up several gears. The Greens are under even more ferocious attack than usual, led by the Murdoch cancer, one of whose metastases claimed on ABC TV yesterday that the Greens’ support for BDS against products from the Occupied Territories is a boycott of ‘Jewish business’, you know, like the Nazis. So environmentalism is now, inevitably, ‘antisemitic’.
The Federal regime, deeply indebted to coal industry cheques, intends changing the definition of ‘renewable energy’ to include ‘clean coal’, a propaganda trope straight from the US coal-mining industry and far Right US politics. The Labour Party’s now wobbly committment to 50% renewable in cloud-cuckoo time, is being viciously attacked as ‘ideologically driven’ by the ideologists of mass death.
Regretably but predictably, Labour refuses to mention climate destabilisation when defending renewables, even during escalating weather disasters and prodigies of record-breaking. The fake-stream media, as loyal as mongrel dogs to their rich owners, too, just regurgitate the lies that the question of renewable energy is solely economic, and climate destabilisation is either verboten, or ferociously attacked by the Murdoch cancer. It really is odd to live in an asylum of a country where its ‘democratic’ leadership is either fanatically determined to make ecological collapse even worse, or is too gutless and craven to fight for our children’s futures.
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Genomik
/ February 20, 2017Mulga, you are a poet of smack talking. I love it. Your having a smack attack!
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Vic
/ February 19, 2017There goes a portion of Western Australia’s record wheat harvest. Hey, it’s only food.
“It is also understood wheat ships are queuing down the coast as the rain has cut roads and slowed transport from holding sites up-country.”
https://thewest.com.au/countryman/news/cbh-borden-receival-site-turns-into-lake-ng-b88386579z
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Vic
/ February 19, 2017The northern New South Wales town of Moree has somehow recorded a run of 54 consecutive days with maximums above 35C (95F). The previous record was 17 days, set in 1981. It also breaks the NSW state-wide record which was 50 days, set in Bourke in 2012-13.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/morees-unprecedented-heatwave-20170203-gu4vw9.html
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Vic
/ February 19, 2017Another coral bleaching event is currently taking place on the Great Barrier Reef with “definite large areas of mortality” seen from Cairns to Townsville.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/20/images-of-new-bleaching-on-great-barrier-reef-heighten-fears-of-coral-death
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Vic
/ February 19, 2017Australian government seeking to divert funds from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/government-interested-in-carbon-capture-tech-frydenberg-says/8284682
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Genomik
/ February 20, 2017Seems a shit-ton of rain will hit california and oroville in next couple days. 10 trillion gallons or up to 7-10″ in 72 hours.
Folks that’s not normal weather! Sure it’s rained but this kind of thing is way extreme!
What does it take for folks to say “that’s unusual”? 23 trillion gallons? A broken dam?
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Cate
/ February 21, 2017LikeLike
Tigertown
/ February 20, 2017The flood events are all over the world, but the media covers one at a time to make them seem like isolated events. Europe has had their share lately, especially Spain.
http://floodlist.com/europe/spain-floods-malaga-february-2017
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Leland Palmer
/ February 20, 2017From the Guardian-
Expect to see more emergencies like Oroville Dam in a hotter world
Scientists predicted decades ago that climate change would add stress to water management systems like Oroville Dam.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/feb/20/expect-to-see-more-emergencies-like-oroville-dam-in-a-hotter-world
“Like many extreme events, the Oroville emergency is a combination of natural weather likely intensified by climate change. California regularly sees “atmospheric rivers” that deluge the state with rainfall, but in a hotter world, scientists anticipate that they’ll be amplified by an increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.
Northern California is in the midst of its wettest rainy season on record – twice as wet as the 20th century average, and 35% wetter than the previous record year. “
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Leland Palmer
/ February 20, 2017https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/feb/20/expect-to-see-more-emergencies-like-oroville-dam-in-a-hotter-world#img-2
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Leland Palmer
/ February 20, 2017Ooops…Let’s try that again:
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6d11d3ac16530a95e48ff9372493eaeb70f78dda/0_0_809_699/master/809.png?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=78d79789165cae4cd7c27e67a5313834
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Leland Palmer
/ February 20, 2017From the LA Times:
Damage to Oroville’s main spillway was ‘an accident waiting to happen’
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-oroville-spillway-damage-20170220-story.html
Interesting analysis from an expert on dam construction and failure.
A 3000 foot spillway can shrink 15 feet while curing, leading to gaps that could create cavitation. There may have been tree damage and water runoff damage to the spillway. Soil shrinkage might have occurred, from the drought. The spillway was fighting gravity, with a tendency to slide down the hill. “These things have to be grouted in perpetuity” – something we haven’t apparently been doing very well. The spillway was designed to handle 300,000 CFS, yet failed at only 18% of that flow.
The whole thing will have to be rebuilt, at an estimated cost of 100 million dollars. That’s a bargain, IMO, since building a new dam would cost billions.
It’s a shame they can’t just wash away the soil down to bedrock hydraulically, and start from there, when they reconstruct it.
If we are going to get more rain in the future, maybe they could upgrade the power plant, or build a secondary power plant into the new spillway structure?
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utoutback
/ February 20, 2017From a security conference in Munich last weekend, Climate Change seen as a threat multiplier for armed conflict:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-19/war-is-the-climate-risk-that-europe-s-leaders-are-talking-about
Let’s see? War, famine, disease, climate refugees, ocean temperature & salinity changes, sea level rise…….
(lions, & tigers & bears, oh my!)
As my friend says, “we’re right on schedule”.
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Spike
/ February 20, 2017More biological co-conspirators with the Chinese identified in Germany! The study confirms that the changes in ambient temperature are having a direct impact on the population sizes of species. The study also suggests that the impacts of climate change are more prevalent across communities than other threats. “Land use change still poses a serious threat to the populations and diversity of species. However, its effect tends to be of a more local nature, while climate change is geographically widespread. Temperature increases affect the populations of species across Germany, and this very effect can already be observed today”, Böhning-Gaese sums up.
http://www.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=5210&year=0&kid=2&id=4370
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Suzanne
/ February 20, 2017Water in Helheim Glacier Makes Its Way to the Ocean
New NASA research found that large crevasses provide aquifer water upstream of Greenland’s Helheim Glacier with a clear escape to the ocean. This discovery helps confirm that the water, which is held in a layer of crunchy, granular snow called firn, contributes to sea level rise
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wharf rat
/ February 20, 2017Holy shit; my son just filled me in on some rain reports from the locals. He lives in our valley, a few miles north of town. His neighbor had 93″ before the last series of storms. Another person, about half way to our western “suburb” of Branscomb, has 135″.
Both Branscomb and da Rat had 120 inches in ’97-98.
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Robert in New Orleans
/ February 20, 2017Oh, the irony of it all.
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Tigertown
/ February 21, 2017Today. 2-20-2017
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wharf rat
/ February 21, 2017CA – DWR @CA_DWR
1:57 PM – 19 Feb 2017
Yesterday’s video shows immense progress to armor the emergency spillway, while main spillway flows are down to 55K
v=yxgtyOfwrj8&index=1&list=PLeod6x87Tu6eVFnSyEtQeOVbxvSWywPlx
CA – DWR @CA_DWR 10h10 hours ago
Flows upped from 55k to 60k cfs 2/19, in anticipation of expected increase in inflows.Increase is typical of normal flood control operations
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wharf rat
/ February 21, 2017Re-try on the video
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Leland Palmer
/ February 21, 2017Inflow at Oroville reservoir, for the first time for the last 4 hours, has exceeded outflow during this storm. Lake levels are rising very slowly, at 849 feet, about 50 feet from the top of the reservoir.
The dam is releasing 60,000 CFS outflow, and inflow now has become greater than outflow, at about 88,100 CFS right now. The dam operators have the ability to release up to 150,000 CFS if they deem it necessary, and want to risk more damage to the main spillway.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryF?ORO
The area has received 2.0-4.5 (an average of maybe 3.5 ?) inches of precipitation so far in the last 48 hours, with NOAA projections of 3.0 to 7.4 inches in the next 72 hours, most of it tonight and tomorrow.
Some of the precipitation is snow. Some of the rain is falling on snow, potentially freezing in place, potentially melting some snow. There is a time lag, depending on distance the water has to travel, almost always less than a day between the time the precipitation falls and the time the water reaches the reservoir. So, there is likely a surge of water headed for the dam. How big a surge and how rapidly it will come are the real questions.
So far, things are proceeding according to the dam operators’ plan, I think. I do hope they released enough water through the damaged main spillway. The emergency spillway has also been partially repaired, so it seems possible that even if water starts to go over the emergency spillway, they will still be OK..
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Leland Palmer
/ February 21, 2017So, the Oroville watershed has received 5-9 inches of rain and snow in the last couple of days, and the water level has risen a couple of feet – no big deal.
They are at about 852 feet, with 50 feet to go before the emergency spillway would have to be used.
The immediate crisis appears to be over, as dam officials were telling us all along.
So long as they are able to use the regular spillway, the dam appears to be pretty safe. The water level rose quickly when the dam operators were afraid to use the regular spillway around 02/07/17 – 02/11/17, when inflow was about 85,000 – 155,000 CFS, and outflow was 12,000 – 61,000 CFS.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryDaily?ORO
They still have to worry about spring thaw, especially if the main spillway fails, especially if there are huge warm storms that affect the snow pack. Likely they will shut down the main spillway in a few days, and we’ll be able to see the damage to it.
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017How an Interoffice Spat Erupted Into a Climate-Change Furor
A few weeks ago, on an obscure climate-change blog, a retired government scientist named John Bates blasted his former boss on an esoteric point having to do with archiving temperature data.
It was little more than lingering workplace bad blood, said Dr. Bates’s former co-workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dr. Bates had felt he deserved his boss’s job at NOAA, they said, not the demotion he received.
“He’s retaliating. It’s like grade school,” said Glenn Rutledge, a former physical scientist at NOAA who worked with Dr. Bates.
But in what seems like a remarkable example of office politics gone horribly wrong, within days the accusations were amplified and sensationalized — in the pages of the British tabloid The Mail on Sunday — inciting a global furor among climate-change deniers.
Link
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Vic
/ February 21, 2017A Tasmanian Senate inquiry into the impact of climate change on sea life has heard that the giant kelp forests of Tasmania have become virtually extinct.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-21/tasmanian-kelp-forests-dying-as-water-warms-dive-operator-says/8289300
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Vic
/ February 21, 2017Hundreds of cameras set up to monitor the movements of Victoria’s tiger quoll have failed to photograph the animal for three years, raising fears for the future of the threatened species.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-11/conservationists-hunt-to-catch-the-elusive-tiger-quoll-on-camera/8258990
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Vic
/ February 21, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017Somalia Faces Unprecedented Drought
BURAO, SOMALILAND —
Even the hyenas won’t eat the carcasses of Mohamed Aden Guleid’s sheep, goats and camels, which litter the landscape in Somalia’s northwest Somaliland region.
There is too little meat on their bones because of a devastating drought.
“I had 550 of these livestock; now only 50 of my livestock remain,” he said. “My family contains 10 members, and I must provide for them.”
Herds of animals are dying across Somalia following two failed rainy seasons. Here in Somaliland, at least 40 percent of goats and sheep have perished, amounting to more than 10 million animals.
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017Impacts of mass coral die-off on Indian Ocean reefs revealed
Warming seawaters, caused by climate change and extreme climatic events, threaten the stability of tropical coral reefs, with potentially devastating implications for many reef species and the human communities that reefs support.
New research by the University of Exeter shows that increased surface ocean temperatures during the strong 2016 El Niño led to a major coral die-off event in the Maldives, and that this has caused reef growth rates to collapse. They also found that the rates at which some reefs species, in particular parrotfish, are eroding the reefs had increased following this coral die-off event.
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017Researcher’s 1979 Arctic Model Predicted Current Sea Ice Demise, Holds Lessons for Future
Claire Parkinson, now a senior climate change scientist at NASA, first began studying global warming’s impact on Arctic sea ice in 1978, when she was a promising new researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Back then, what she and a colleague found was not only groundbreaking, it pretty accurately predicted what is happening now in the Arctic, as sea ice levels break record low after record low.
Parkinson’s study, which was published in 1979, found that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from preindustrial levels would cause the Arctic to become ice-free in late summer months, probably by the middle of the 21st century. It hasn’t been ice-free in more than 100,000 years.
Although carbon dioxide levels have not yet doubled, the ice is rapidly disappearing. This record melt confirms the outlook from Parkinson’s 1979 model.
“It was one of these landmark papers,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “She was the first to put together the thermodynamic sea ice model.”
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017EPA Official, After Years of Work to Thwart the Agency’s Mission, Returns to Carry Out Trump Agenda
A key member of Donald Trump’s transition team, David Schnare returns to the agency where he worked for 33 years, while also striving to hamstring some of its work.
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017The last 30 days of new daily records ………..
Max high …….. 3119
Min high ……… 3518
Max low …….. 4
Min low …….. 4
Link
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DaveW
/ February 21, 2017CB – got your wires crossed a little I think…
Last 30 days:
Max high …….. 3119
Min high ……… 3518
Max low …….. 349
Min low …….. 199
Last 7 days:
Max high …….. 655
Min high ……… 251
Max low …….. 4
Min low …….. 4
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DaveW
/ February 21, 2017Still shocking !!
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017Stark Drive launches $400 full-size folding electric bike
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017Research Ship To Be Purposely Frozen In Arctic Ice To Drift Across The North Pole
In what is thought to be the single biggest Arctic research expedition ever, a team of scientists is planning on getting a research vessel purposely trapped in sea ice and letting it drift over the North Pole. The plan is to study the Arctic in vast detail, in order to better understand what exactly is driving the dramatic climatic changes seen in the region over recent years.
The 120-meter (400 foot) research vessel, the Polarstern, will hopefully set sail in the summer of 2019, and then spend the next year on its 2,414-kilometer (1,500 miles) trip, as it moves with the drifting sea ice across the Arctic. Involving over 50 institutions from 14 different countries, researchers will set up camps and mount expeditions from the ship out onto the sea ice to take measurements that have never been possible before.
Link
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Roger Boyd
/ February 21, 2017Hopefully, there will be some ice left for it to drift in
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Matt
/ February 22, 2017x2
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017Science activism on the rise: Boston rally is latest iteration
Faced with the possibility of cuts to research agencies and fears about suppression of data, attendees at Sunday’s rally added their voices to a growing chorus of concerned scientists.
FEBRUARY 20, 2017 —As temperatures climbed above the 50 degrees F., on Sunday, many Bostonians enjoyed the February weekend outdoors on the city’s bike trails and waterfronts. But for those who gathered in Copley Square downtown, the unseasonable warmth was just the latest evidence of their cause for concern.
“Climate change is not a controversy,” read one sign at yesterday’s “Rally to Stand Up for Science,” which drew hundreds to the historic downtown plaza. Other slogans were more lighthearted, arguing that “Trump’s team are like atoms – They make up everything.”
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017The “puny humans theory” takes another hit –
Gabon’s elephants are being decimated by poachers
“A 78 to 81 percent loss in a single decade from one of the largest, most remote protected areas in Central Africa is a startling warning that no place is safe from poaching,” said researcher John Poulsen.
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 21, 2017British Antarctic Survey (BAS) recently captured this video footage of a huge crack in the Larsen C Ice Shelf, on the Antarctic Peninsula.
https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/new-footage-shows-rift-in-larsen-c-ice-shelf/
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Climate change in the North Sea: oysters in, cod out
The temperature of the North Sea is increasing with climate change. Good news for immigrant species – bad news for cold-loving residents. What else does global warming have in store for marine life of the North Sea?
http://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-in-the-north-sea-oysters-in-cod-out/a-37646483
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017We are not pulling people from “muddy water’ , we are pulling people from a toxic modern soup.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Where the fuck is everyone?
Am on the Ice planet ?
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wharf rat
/ February 22, 2017Picture a bright blue ball, just spinning, spinnin free,
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky,
Brush in some clouds and sea,
Call it home for you and me.
A peaceful place or so it looks from space,
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace
Is the human face,
But afraid we may lay our home to waste.
There’s a fear down here we can’t forget.
Hasn’t got a name just yet.
Always awake, always around,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
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PlazaRed
/ February 23, 2017Back from a passing slumber. PR.
Lurking on a memory of a past reality,
Chasing a dead leaf on a hillside breeze;
Wondering how to cope with insanity,
When times turn with senseless ease.
Looking not into a rosie future,
Or casting a glance at what could have been the past?
Taking time off drowning in deep in contemplation,
Over whether to act, or just be an extra in the cast?
Missing for a while when the clock tick on,
Asleep with eyes wide open,
Nothing to predict, lest it be revealed a lie,
And now left contemplating the remnants of things broken.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 20174 things today –
The kelp forest in New Zealand is gone
The cod have left Norway.
The Maldive corals have beached.
85 percent of the Elephants in the forest have been in murdered the last 10 years 25,000 animals.
Have a nice day.
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wili
/ February 22, 2017http://www.npr.org/2013/03/06/173508369/elephant-poaching-pushes-species-to-brink-of-extinction
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017I know , I read 3 reports.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Let’s look at those 4 assholes from Texas who died today , They were off to play on an island today a game of fucking golf.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017No one should fly this distance just to hit a little white ball.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017All of our efforts mean nothing.
Only time will bake our cake.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017I slept on the railroad tie piles at Clovis, I earned this, I am left. the only one left.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Enjoy every sandwhich
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Linda Ronstadt ~ Poor Poor Pitiful Me
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017More cowbell.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Well it’s a strange old game you learn it slow
One step forward and it’s back you go
You’re standing on the throttle
You’re standing on the brake
In the groove ’til you make a mistake
Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re just a fool in love
Sometimes you’re the Louisville Slugger
Sometimes you’re the ball
Sometimes it all comes together
Sometimes you’re gonna lose it all
You gotta know happy – you gotta know glad
Because you’re gonna know lonely
And you’re gonna know sad
When you’re rippin’ and you’re ridin’
And you’re coming on strong
You start slippin’ and slidin’
And it all goes wrong because
Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re just a fool in love
Sometimes you’re the Louisville Slugger
Sometimes you’re the ball
Sometimes it all comes together
Sometimes you’re gonna lose it all
One day you got the glory and then you got none
One day you’re a diamond and then you’re a stone
Everything can change in the blink of an eye
So let the good times roll before we say goodbye because
Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re just a fool in love
Sometimes you’re the Louisville Slugger
Sometimes you’re the ball
Sometimes it all comes together
Sometimes you’re gonna lose it all
Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re just a fool in love
Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re just a fool in love
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017You gotta know happy – you gotta know glad
Because you’re gonna know lonely
And you’re gonna know sad
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Vic
/ February 22, 2017A lack of eucalypt blossoms across the Sydney region has drawn hungry bats into suburban back yards where record numbers are being caught and injured in nets used to protect back yard fruit trees.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-22/sydney-flying-fox-rescues-at-record-high/8293004
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Vic –
On no, to be a flying fox. And now this. Hungry, and alone. Like our butterflies.
Hungry, and alone .
Once they flew in their millions.
Now, Hungry and alone .
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Vic
/ February 22, 2017“There are four mainland species of flying fox: Black, Grey headed, Spectacled and Little Red. Tragically, populations of flying foxes across Queensland, NSW and Victoria are in decline. Both the Grey-headed flying fox and Spectacled flying fox have declined by at least 95% in the past century, with massive losses in the past 30 years. Some researchers believe they could be functionally extinct by 2050.
The causes include habitat loss (land clearing), camp disturbance, starvation, increased heat events, legal and illegal shooting, and man-made hazards like power lines, barbed wire and backyard fruit tree netting.”
http://www.animalsaustralia.org/issues/flying-foxes.php
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017LikeLike
wharf rat
/ February 22, 2017More Floods and Evacuations in California–Plus Wind Gusts Topping 190 MPH
By: Bob Henson and Jeff Masters , 6:50 PM GMT on February 21, 2017
Between 10:45 pm and 11:00 pm PST, the Siberia (Sierra Crest)-Squaw station, or SIBSV–located at an elevation of 8700 feet near the top of Squaw Peak–recorded a peak wind gust of 193 mph, with sustained winds reported at 123 mph. During the same interval, only about two miles to the southeast, the Summit (Ward Mt)-Alpine station, or SUMAM–perched atop Mt. Ward at 8643 feet–recorded a gust to 199 mph, with sustained winds of 148 mph.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/more-floods-and-evacuations-in-californiaplus-wind-gusts-topping-190
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Hungry, and alone .
Once they flew in their millions.
Now, Hungry and alone .
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017I said this last week, but it bares repeating,
A Flying Fox like Vic showed us, Has one way of keeping cool. They lick their wrists That’s it. .
They do not pant , they do not sweat. It is the only way they cool their bodies when they hang in the trees and it’s 117F. Then they drop to the ground, dead, Because licking your wrists won’t cut it anymore.
Oh, the the flying foxes are like bees, a huge range of plants need them to reproduce.
So if you’er a denier, and say so what . Get ready to go without food. Because the bees are on their knees , and the foxes are dropping from their trees.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Because the bees are on their knees , and the foxes are dropping from their trees.
This is our bubble. Remember it . When it pops. You will miss it when it’s gone.
I am old, alone, and sick and don’t give a fig.
But I am very right , and I remember the last of the old world.
Go look for a bee, this spring, tell us what you see.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Many ways to say this , but I use this ;
“The Crash of Nature”
Now she unplugs. And our ” I phone world” will drop like an old Led Zeppelin album.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017But Robert Plant lived long enough to meet the “Fortune Teller”
None of this will save us. But it sav our soul
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Personally I always thought we were doing to Hell in a Bucket.
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017It was very complex life. For me, and all of you. For none of us has sailed on a simple sea. Now have we ?
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coloradobob
/ February 22, 2017Sleep tight my friends , Your going to need it.
Everyday in everyway, your going to need it.
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Shawn Redmond
/ February 22, 2017A very well organized description of our situation.
DESCRIPTION OF SECTIONS
The First Section, entitled ‘Dominance of the Human System within the Earth System’, describes major changes in the relationship between the Earth System and the Human System, and key Human System factors driving these changes.
The Second Section, entitled ‘Inequality, consumption, demographics, and other key Human System properties: projections vs. bidirectional coupling’, provides examples of fundamental problems in the exogenous projections of key Human System factors used in current models.
The Third Section, entitled ‘Human System threatens to overwhelm the Carrying Capacity and ecosystem services of Earth System’, describes examples of changes in the Earth System that may impact the Human System seriously, as well as missing feedbacks from the Earth System onto the Human System.
The Fourth Section, entitled ‘Bidirectional coupling of Human System and Earth System Models is needed. Proposed methodology: Dynamic Modeling, Input–Output models, Data Assimilation’, argues for the need to bidirectionally couple both systems in order to model the future of either system more realistically, and proposes practical methods to implement this coupling.
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/nsr/nww081
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wili
/ February 22, 2017Few noticed, but we all just lost our last shred of legal personal protection.
“The policy also expands a program that lets officials bypass due process protections such as court hearings…”
Now any of us can be whisked away by any ICE or any other law enforcement official with no due process. If you think this will only be applied to undocumented folks, you are deluding yourselves.
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entropicman
/ February 22, 2017From Machiavelli through Germany, Italy, Venezuela, Argentina and Zimbabwe, there is a playbook for potential dictators.
A classic move is to identify a scapegoat minority, deprive them due process and the protection of the law and recruit thousands of paramilitaries to persecute them.
Another is the mass rally like Trump’s weekend rally in Florida. Numbers uncertain, but a 747 hanger would be about 100M wide and 90M deep, 9000M2. That would hold about 18,000 people max. Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies drew 300,000 people, so Trump is still small beer.
Nevertheless, you have a POTUS autocrat in embryo. My sympathies.
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entropicman
/ February 22, 2017Things may not quite as bad as I thought The police estimate for the Florida rally last weekend was 9,000.
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Ailsa
/ February 22, 2017Sometimes, in the midst of all your disillusionment with the-powers-that-be, something comes along to give you some heart. I could say that this Brit feels almost proud of this display –
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Ailsa
/ February 22, 2017LikeLike
Ailsa
/ February 22, 2017Greenland is melting, the west is on fire
But don’t ever stop praying for rain
It’s a curious place between hope and desire
Different gods, but the prayer is the same
And thousand-year storms seem to form on a breeze
Drowning all living things in their paths
And when a small southern town finds a rope in a tree
We’re all once again trapped in the past
It seems we’re just standing still
One day we’ll get up that hill
In the age of miracles
Is one on the way
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Ailsa
/ February 22, 2017CB, hold on in there – maybe we’ll all get to see it…!
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entropicman
/ February 22, 2017This Brit, too!
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Ailsa
/ February 22, 2017entropicman, have you seen our version of The Onion – found it recently and makes me chuckle…
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
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cushngtree
/ February 23, 2017Thanks for this, Ailsa, Especially the Queen’s “legally, I can kill him”
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/legally-i-can-kill-him-queen-confirms-20170131121313
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Ailsa
/ February 23, 2017🙂
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0000
/ February 23, 2017>
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 22, 2017Here is an odd story concerning low levels of iodine-131 spreading throughout Europe – is it an unreported accident – a Russian test – or some nefarious test to see what the affect of a dirty bomb would do?
http://www.sciencealert.com/no-one-can-figure-out-what-s-behind-a-mysterious-radiation-spike-across-europe
It is also report in the Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/radiation-europe-russian-missile-strike-radioactive-material-france-norway-iodine-131-irsn-a7591886.html
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Ailsa
/ February 22, 2017Odd indeed – so much we can never really know in this ever more complex world. The law of diminishing returns leaves us more and more befuddled, and feeling more and more at risk. No wonder the black and white certainty of a Trump-like message appeals. Simplistic angry scapegoatism rules!
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g. orwell
/ February 23, 2017some are suggesting FUKISHIMA….
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 23, 2017Maybe this US Airforce sniffer plane will give someone a clue – of course it is pure coincidence that it is in the general area
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wc135-nuclear-sniffer-plane-europe-spike-in-radiation-us-military-raf-uk-landed-monitor-radioactive-a7593871.html
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entropicman
/ February 22, 2017Ailsa
Thank you for the Daily Mash. Best not let my wife see it. 🙂
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Vic
/ February 23, 2017Another report on the Great Barrier Reef’s 2017 bleaching event.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-23/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-new-normal-2050/8273314
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Vic
/ February 23, 2017Ex Republican Congressman Bob Inglis delivered an interesting talk on climate policy yesterday to some of Australia’s MSM elite. Particularly interesting IMO is his prediction that if the US were to implement a “revenue-neutral, border-adjustable carbon tax” then China and the rest of the world would likely follow suit in short order.
There’s a write-up here,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/22/australian-coal-risks-being-caught-out-by-trump-climate-u-turn
The hour long presentation can be viewed here,
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Abel Adamski
/ February 23, 2017A little more on the Republican Grass roots climate change movement.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-22/a-republican-case-for-climate-action-in-the-trump-era/8275120
Bob Inglis was a Republican Congressman, which to him meant one thing: “Climate change was nonsense.”
It was the mid ’90s and the representative from South Carolina says he didn’t know anything about climate change except that it was something for the other side of politics to fuss over.
“I was just from the reddest district in the reddest state in the nation and it seemed that that was the business of the other tribe,” he said.
Fast forward to 2004 and Mr Inglis was preparing for yet another run at office when his eldest son, who was about to vote in his first election, approached him.
“He said to me, ‘Dad I’ll vote for ya, but you’re gonna clean up your act on the environment’.”
“It was the first of a three-step metamorphosis for me.”
The next two steps in Mr Inglis’s transition from critic to climate action champion were visits to Antarctica and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
These trips, and discussions with scientists along the way, convinced him there was a serious problem with the environment that had to be fixed.
He rushed back to the US and promptly introduced a bill to put a tax on combustible fossil fuels.
It promptly fell flat and he promptly lost his seat in Congress.
That was 2010.
Since then Mr Inglis has become a fierce advocate of action on climate change, but with a very specific focus: to tackle the problem with policies that are true to conservative principles, and in so doing convince his fellow Republicans they should get on board.
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Abel Adamski
/ February 23, 2017And for the Red states grass roots movement, has to be very carefully worded and presented and is just application of band aids and crutches, but maybe it is a start
https://theconversation.com/red-state-rural-america-is-acting-on-climate-change-without-calling-it-climate-change-69866
In response to real threats and public demand, cities across the United States and around the world are taking action to address climate change. We might think this is happening only in large, coastal cities that are threatened by sea-level rise or hurricanes, like Amsterdam or New York.
Research shows, however, that even in the fly-over red states of the U.S. Great Plains, local leaders in small- to medium-size communities are already grappling with the issue. Although their actions are not always couched in terms of addressing climate change, their strategies can provide insights into how to make progress on climate policy under a Trump administration.
‘Deliberate framing’
My colleagues and I did a survey of over 200 local governments in 11 states of the Great Plains region to learn about steps they’re taking to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to them. We found local officials in red states responsible for public health, soil conservation, parks and natural resources management, as well as county commissioners and mayors, are concerned about climate change, and many feel a responsibility to take action in the absence of national policy
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hatrack
/ February 24, 2017Well, that’s nice. Maybe by the time Red State America works its way through its collective political psychodrama of “What Shall We Call The Lion That Is Leaping Towards Us?”, there might be enough time left to modestly blunt the impact of its claws.
Or maybe not. But whatever you do, don’t upset people or challenge their assumptions!
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meljay14
/ February 23, 2017New blog post from Paul Gilding, after an absence of nearly two years. I guess Robert is not the only one who gets burned out by this stuff.
http://paulgilding.com/2017/02/23/the-walking-dead-in-washington/
Not sure if the link will work.
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cushngtree
/ February 23, 2017Link worked great, and led to this piece, a list of what Trump has REALLY (and inadvertently) accomplished:
“Is there a silver lining? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it looks like America is getting great again. Just look at the progress made since the election:
1. Unprecedented levels of ongoing civic engagement.
2. Millions of Americans now know who their state and federal representatives are without having to google.
3. Millions of Americans are exercising more. They’re holding signs and marching every week.” (more at link)
Even the COMMENTS are good; go down a few and there’s a comment from the creator of this list.
“But you must hear the backstory. See, I wrote it from my default setting – sarcasm. I was on a break at work, and had spent all morning trying to brain bleach that press conference out of my head. (I needn’t specify; pretty certain it’s going down in history as “That Press Conference”.) “
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Cate
/ February 23, 2017CB asked where the goldurnit is everyone. Well, not in those words, but– 😀 Still here, Bob. Like most, still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor every day at the news out of Trumpland.
Let’s go up North and watch the Arctic come into the light. Greenland is sunlit now almost to the Fram and can break your heart with its beauty. Farther west in the Canadian archipelago, Banks Island is fully in daylight. And everywhere from Baffin to the Beaufort, the ice is cracking, in some places almost to rubble, compared to earlier years.
A sure sign that something’s up: in response to demands, Neven has (re-) opened the 2017 melting thread.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ February 23, 2017….and in Antarctica the sea ice extent, which is usually at a minimum at this tine of year is 2 standard deviations below the 1981-2010 average
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PlazaRed
/ February 23, 2017Its not only the ice in Antarctica its the same story in the Arctic. Looking at it as logically as I can, it seems that about 4 million square kilometres of ice is either missing or has not formed.
This in itself is remarkable but the nasty side effect of all this is that a lot of sun radiation and heat is being absorbed into the waters, warming them just that little bit more than usual for the times of the year.
Now its about the time for the Arctic to start to melt and more dark waters absorbing more heat.
Heat in some areas is reaching new records with parts of the USA getting to 100f and Cordoba in Spain touching 29/C yesterday. Clouds of red Saharan “calima,” dust all over the western Mediterranean; now drenched with rain showers to make the blood rain as they call it in Spain. Bad storms in northern Europe with more to come possibly over southern Greenland in a few days.
Interesting times we have lived to see!
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Sheri
/ February 23, 2017Maybe the Trump administration is the one cataclysmic event that will shock us into action, no event in nature seems to have done it to us human being.
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Suzanne
/ February 23, 2017In response to Bob wondering where everyone is…I have been RESISTING all week down here in Fl…while the Congress is on break. First, last Saturday drove 2 hours to join the 1,500-2,000 of us protesting while the Lunatic held a campaign rally less than a month after taking office. Second, on Monday joined with over 100 protesting the Lunatic when he was leaving WPB…after another one of his expensive weekend vacations. Then, writing a blog post on this experience at the DailyKos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/02/19/1635529/-First-diary-but-4th-protest-since-the-Lunatic-became-POTUS-From-the-ground-yesterday-in-Melbourne
Tuesday, joined a group of 45 of us showed up to our Republican Congressman’s office to tell his aides “politely and firmly”… to stay away from the ACA and Planned Parenthood. And for the past two days getting “charged up” for our first http://www.IndivisibleGuide.com meeting this Sunday. Finally, tomorrow going to a Town Hall that the above Congressman is holding, and preparing for that, should I get called on to ask a question.
Whew….my new “unpaid” job of #RESIST…has kept me away from you Scribblers..other than checking in to see the latest CC headlines. But I am always with you all in spirit….Our fight has just begun… 🙂
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Ryan in New England
/ February 23, 2017Thank you for your efforts, Suzanne! I too have been very active in the Trump resistance. I spent a lot of time volunteering before the election, sadly the situation has become exponentially worse, which is why it is so imperative to maintain the energy and focus and fight against this treasonous administration.
The Republicans can investigate Hillary eight times over Benghazi, promise unending investigations if she became president, but are silent when their own party colludes with Russia to betray the American people. Now more than ever the Republicans, not the press, are the true enemies of the American people.
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wharf rat
/ February 23, 2017He’s headed your way again.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-top-republican-donors-meet-palm-beach-235312
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climatehawk1 (@climatehawk1)
/ February 24, 2017Nice going, Suzanne. I will be attending a local Indivisible organizing meeting tomorrow afternoon. Very blue state here, but there are still many worthwhile things we can do.
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mlparrish
/ February 23, 2017More action against the Standing Rock camps.
https://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1412904948
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Ailsa
/ February 24, 2017Incredible, for most of us unimaginable, bravery.
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Ailsa
/ February 24, 2017http://sacredstonecamp.org/donate/
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mlparrish
/ February 23, 2017Crocus are blooming in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania, February 20, 2017.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/the-milding-of-february-alltime-winter-warmth-in-midwest
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bostonblorp
/ February 24, 2017Talked to a friend outside of DC in Maryland, said the frogs were out already and the daffodils were coming up. Insanity. It’s still February.
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Dave McGinnis
/ February 23, 2017I think of it this way: If you golf, each game-score is the weather, your handicap is the climate; if you bowl, each line-score is the weather and your average is the climate; if you play baseball, each at-bat is the weather, your batting average is the climate. It seems clear to me that weather causes the climate; that climate is no more than the sum-total of all the weather events that have occurred, divided by N. If asked, “Was (some event) caused by climate change?” I would answer, “No. Rather, events such as this result in climate change.” Extreme weather events move the climate, like going 4-for-4 or bowling a perfect game.
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coloradobob
/ February 23, 2017Killer whales are ‘terrorizing’ narwhal as melting Arctic ice gives them easier access to prey
“I think the narwhal are scared to death,” said Ferguson. “Watching your brother or sister or mother get killed and eaten by a killer whale would cause a little post-traumatic stress in most of us.”
Ferguson has a theory on how the narwhal know.
“Killer whales are quiet,” he said. “They almost don’t communicate while they’re hunting.
“But once they make a kill, they tend to celebrate and make a lot of noise. And quite likely, in the chase, the narwhal are able to communicate and somehow this gets passed on down through the different groups.”
The predation drives the narwhal from their richest feeding grounds.
Extensive year-round sea ice once limited the number of killer whales in those waters. The decline of that ice due to global warming means killer whales arrive earlier, leave later, and are greater in number.
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coloradobob
/ February 23, 2017Extreme weather threatens maple syrup industry in Michigan
“So far, the sugar content this year has been really low. When I asked around, the general consensus of fellow farmers is the same. When it stays warm too many nights in a row, the buds on the tree will swell. Once they swell, the sap will turn bitter and the season is done,” Tassier said.
The lower sugar content means it will take a lot more sap to make one gallon of syrup. According to the Michigan Maple Syrup Association, the average amount of sap it takes to make one gallon of syrup in Michigan would be about 40 gallons. This year, Tassier reported that the low sugar content resulted in some farmers needing 85 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup – more than twice the normal amount.
Link
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Ryan in New England
/ February 24, 2017Notice how the term “extreme weather” is used repeatedly in place of “climate change”. Perhaps this is the way to communicate to the idiots that live in Trumpland? Climate change is a liberal hoax, but extreme weather is real?
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Ryan in New England
/ February 24, 2017The same thing is happening here in Connecticut (southern New England) and the rest of New England. As many here likely already know, it’s the cold nights and above freezing days that get the sap running. One of the clearest and most obvious effects of climate change is warmer nights, and that is the enemy of maple syrup production. Syrup production has been taking a big hit in recent years.
http://wtnh.com/2017/02/21/maple-syrup-producers-face-challenges-in-warming-world/
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coloradobob
/ February 23, 2017Coral reef images show new bleaching at Great Barrier Reef
9:55am EST – 01:06
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association warns that large amounts of coral bleaching will occur in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef over the next three months. Jim Drury reports.
Link
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Vic
/ February 24, 2017When the Federal Government’s Great Barrier Reef propaganda unit releases statements like this, it’s not good.
“An unusually warm winter and a second warm summer has resulted in more heat stress accumulated in more areas than at this time last year.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-24/reef-coral-bleaching-grmpa-warning-queensland-government/8298760
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Vic
/ February 24, 2017At this time last year tropical cyclone Winston flew in and cooled off large portions of the Southern Great Barrier Reef region. No such luck this year.
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Ryan in New England
/ February 24, 2017Just a few years ago I would never have thought that I would see the end of coral in my lifetime. Now I weep because it’s a foregone conclusion.
Another thing I’ve come to realize, we will NEVER do what we have to in order to preserve a stable climate. Never. The psychopaths are in control.
But don’t think for one second that I’ll ever stop fighting!
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coloradobob
/ February 23, 2017Poachers kill an elephant illegally every 25 minutes
Link
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Vic
/ February 24, 2017BOM temperature outlook for the next three months – relentless heat.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-24/autumn-unlikely-to-let-up-on-hot-weather-for-australia/8300078
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Vic
/ February 24, 2017The Queensland town of Texas has endured a run of 71 consecutive days above 30C (86F).
The previous record was 47 days, set in 2014.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-weather-rains-just-around-the-corner/news-story/3ce72d60a3803d18d1c13606d497735a
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Leland Palmer
/ February 24, 2017Damn, these ocean temperature anomalies in the Arctic near Svalbard island have been there for literally months:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=4.85,78.19,3000/loc=27.121,78.673
I have a nasty suspicion that these will be around for more months. Similar warm spots delaying or denying the formation of Arctic sea ice will also become more and more common, maybe These anomalies are 50-100 miles across, and don’t look like they’ll be going anywhere soon.
These delayed or denied freezing events could become more and more common, I think.
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017Humans May Have Altered Arctic Ice Much Earlier than Thought
Aerosol pollution may have suppressed global warming and increased Arctic sea ice from 1950-1975.
When people burn fossil fuels, they produce a range of different pollutants that can “force” the climate to react in different ways. Greenhouse gases — like carbon dioxide — trap heat and warm the planet, while fine particles suspended in droplets, known collectively as aerosols, usually cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s energy away.
“It’s a tug-o-war between these two forcings as to what the climate is actually going to do,” said Fyfe.
In the mid-20th century, coal-burning power plants and other sources released huge amounts of sulfur dioxide, which then formed toxic sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere. Past research has suggested that the cooling influence of these sulfate aerosols helped counteract warming from greenhouse gases, said Fyfe. But around 1970, the U.S. Clean Air Act and other air quality regulations started curbing sulfate aerosol production. Sulfate aerosols degrade relatively quickly, so people soon enjoyed air that was healthier to breathe. Meanwhile, production of greenhouse gases — which linger in the atmosphere much longer than sulfate aerosols — has continued, causing average global temperatures to rise.
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017Forest fires rage again in Chile’s Bio-Bio region
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Ryan in New England
/ February 24, 2017It’s February and here in Connecticut we are in the middle of a string of days in the 60s, with nighttime temperatures hovering around 50. The daytime high should be in the upper 30s, low 40s. We are so far from normal, and all anyone can do is to remark how great this is. We are welcoming and cheering for our own destruction.
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Ryan in New England
/ February 24, 2017Remarkable warmth across the Mid-West smashing all time records. I know this is a lot to paste from the article, but the numbers are stunning and I want everyone to see them.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/the-milding-of-february-alltime-winter-warmth-in-midwest
Residents of Wisconsin have never experienced a winter day like the one that enveloped the state in a springlike balm on Wednesday. An uncommon lack of late-February snow cover across Illinois and southern Wisconsin allowed very mild air streaming northward to sweep across the state with very little surface cooling. All three of Wisconsin’s largest cities saw the highest temperatures observed on any December, January, or February day in more than a century of recordkeeping. Milwaukee’s 71°F smashed its winter record of 68°F (Dec. 5, 2001 and Feb. 11, 1999). Madison’s 68°F beat out 65°F from Dec. 3, 2012, as well as the monthly record of 64°F from Feb. 25, 2000. Meanwhile, Green Bay’s 65°F eclipsed the previous winter record of 64°F (Dec. 5, 2001) and the monthly record of 61°F (Feb. 26, 2000).
Wednesday’s warmth was a fitting coda to a remarkably warm stretch across most of the Midwest. In some ways, the ultra-mild period is reminiscent of the Great Warm Wave of March 2012, if not quite as spectacular as that summerlike spell was. Duration is one of the most impressive aspects of the past week’s Midwestern mildness. St. Cloud, Minnesota, saw its sixth consecutive day above 50°F on Wednesday, the longest such streak on record for any February, while Chicago, Illinois, set a similar record for its first six-day streak of 60°F readings in any February (or in any winter month, for that matter). Rockford, Illinois, set six daily record highs in a row on February 17-22. Each of these new records was between 66°F and 70°F, beating out previous records that ranged from 58°F to 64°F.
In Detroit, Michigan, the high on Wednesday hit 65°F, and was already at 66°F at 1 pm Thursday, marking the third and fourth time in the past week the Motor City has reached or exceeded 65°F. The forecast for Friday calls for a fifth February 2017 day of 65°F or greater, with a high of 67°F—a full thirty degrees above average. Between 1874 and 2016, Detroit reached or exceeded 65°F only six times in February. Jeff Masters reports from southeast Michigan: “My lawn is starting to green up–an extraordinary occurrence for a time of year when the ground is usually frozen and covered with a hefty layer of snow!”
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017Millions of Americans facing ‘megadrought’ as Colorado River shrinks to alarming low
Only ‘aggressive reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere’ will help reduce the long-term decline in the amount of water in the once-mighty river, scientists say
The once-mighty Colorado River, which has regularly failed to reach the ocean since the 1960s, is already in the grip of the worst 15-year drought on record with the flow of water in the 21st century nearly a fifth lower than the 20th century average, a new study found.
And the scientists warned the river could be reduced by anything from 35 to 55 per cent by the end of this century if nothing was done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Rising temperatures cause increased evaporation from the river, but also prompt plants to use more water.
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017A paper about the study in the journal Water Resources Research said: “With continued anthropogenic [human-caused] warming, the risk of multi-decadal megadrought in the Southwest increases to over 90 per cent over this century if there is no increase in mean precipitation.
“Even if modest precipitation increases do occur, the risk will still exceed 70 per cent.”
In the event of “huge and unlikely” increases in rainfall, there would still be a megadrought risk of just under 50 per cent.
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cushngtree
/ February 24, 2017OT, but: Way to go, Connecticut!
“On Wednesday, the Malloy administration sent recommendations to schools and police departments across the state on immigration. The governor’s order also asked schools to create a plan to deny access by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to any students.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded:
“The idea that Governor Malloy would not want the law followed as enacted by Congress or by the Connecticut legislature in any fashion seems to be concerning, right? You, you, whether you’re a governor or a mayor or the president, laws are passed in this country and we expect people and our law-makers and our law enforcement agencies to follow and adhere to the laws.”
The Malloy administration told police and schools, “ICE detainer requests are requests, they are not warrants or orders.” The administration suggested this should only be followed as set forth in Connecticut law.
Malloy recommends local police departments do not take action solely to enforce federal immigration law and do not provide access to people in law enforcement custody for questioning by ICE.”
“We agree with one thing Mr. Spicer said-it is important to adhere to the ‘laws passed by the appropriate level of government.’ However, it would seem that Mr. Spicer and the administration would benefit from a Civics 101 refresher. Not only does the U.S. Constitution provide explicit protections for both individual rights, but it also provides clear guidance on the rights of states-specifically in the tenth amendment.
“And to be clear, we know that the rule of law is important. We also know that it is equally important to know what those laws actually mean.”
http://wtnh.com/2017/02/23/white-house-fires-back-at-gov-malloy-over-immigration-order/
And the reports of all the town hall meetings yelling at their GOP reps. Way to go peeps.
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017A group of scientists and others skeptical of global warming are asking President Trump to withdraw the United States from the United Nations’ climate change agency.
The group of 300, led by high-profile climate change skeptic Richard Lindzen, said in a Thursday letter to Trump and Vice President Pence that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are not as harmful as most climate scientists say.
“Since 2009, the US and other governments have undertaken actions with respect to global climate that are not scientifically justified and that already have, and will continue to cause serious social and economic harm — with no environmental benefits,” the letter reads.
“While we support effective, affordable, reasonable and direct controls on conventional environmental pollutants, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” it says. “To the contrary, there is clear evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful to food crops and other plants that nourish all life. It is plant food, not poison.”
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017Spring coming sooner to Arctic due to climate change
The site
The study covered 12 years of observations at a West Greenland field site, about 240 km inland from the Davis Strait. ……………….. One racehorse of a sedge species now springs out of the proverbial gate a full 26 days earlier than it did a decade ago.
Rate of change
This was the greatest increase in the timing of emergence the researchers had seen on record in the Arctic.
“When we started studying this, I never would have imagined we’d be talking about a 26-day per decade rate of advance,” Post said.
Link
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Shawn Redmond
/ February 24, 2017I notice no mention of the other end of the growing season. Is it to 26 +/- days longer as well. I suspect probably. So thats essentially 52 days less winter. Another decade and 52 more days less winter thats 104 days less winter. On top of the 20th century average summer that leaves about two and one half months of winter. So basically only winter while there is no sun for photosynthesis, not necessarily frozen tundra. Just musing….
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Ryan in New England
/ February 24, 2017It’s 70 degrees right now in Connecticut. In February!
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entropicman
/ February 24, 2017It’s all right. It is just “natural variation”. (/Sarc off.)
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bostonblorp
/ February 24, 2017Pfft, according my wunderground station it’s 73 in Boston. Girls out in skirts, went running in a shirt yesterday. And all I hear is “what a lovely day!”
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DaveW
/ February 25, 2017Boston – ” And all I hear is “what a lovely day!” “….
So true, so sad – The incredible shortsightedness of sooo many people is disheartening.
Earlier comment by Ryan NE is appropriate – “Another thing I’ve come to realize, we will NEVER do what we have to in order to preserve a stable climate. ”
– which is essentially what I said about 10 years ago at a “green efforts” community meeting – ” It’s not that we couldn’t solve this problem – but that we won’t.“
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Suzanne
/ February 25, 2017I fear your assessment is correct. It is just so disheartening. People just seem to be unable or unwilling to connect the dots. There are so many “canary’s in the coal mine”..now you have to be completely “unconscious” to not see what is happening.
Again, I ask myself….does our species have a death wish?
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Ryan in New England
/ February 25, 2017It eventually reached 73 where I live.
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017As of Friday morning, NOAA’s U.S. Records site had compiled 4492 daily record highs for February 2017, against a mere 29 daily record lows
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/alltime-warmth-for-february-stretches-to-new-england
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mlparrish
/ February 24, 2017Senator Snowball, since he has run out of snow, can throw those record lows on the Senate floor now. ):(
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miles h
/ February 24, 2017possible accelerated shutdown of the Gulf Stream leading to a much chillier N. Europe? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/24/drastic-cooling-north-atlantic-beyond-worst-fears-scientists-warn
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017I had a gut feeling there was some free floating irony around today , almost 2 years to the day …
Published on Feb 26, 2015
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) displays and tosses a snowball in the Senate. Watch more here:
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coloradobob
/ February 24, 2017Free Floating Irony
I had that sinking feeling again, earlier today when I saw that letter from Richard Lindzen, and his greased up band of 300 . Trotting out the “plant food hypothesis” once again. Then the good folks here , put up this crazy factoid :
As of Friday morning, NOAA’s U.S. Records site had compiled 4492 daily record highs for February 2017, against a mere 29 daily record lows( Don’t forget Alaska is in this giant set of reporting stations. )
I knew we couldn’t be far from the anniversary of Senator Snowballs famous stunt.
Why?
Because , then some big name denier says something, or does something really stupid, one only has to look at the reports that day, that prove them to be a paid fool.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017It is what dumbfounds me .
We can no longer tell the difference , between sh?t , and shine ole’.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017I thank you all for my venting .
I am so old, I don’t give a rat’s fuzzy butt what anyone of you are thinking.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017Nature is not part of the “Hoax”. She does not watch Fox News.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017The Tears of Africa
So large so dear so many many years
So lost in so many , many tears
The elephant screams , but world does not hear
So large so dear so many many years
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017Nature is not part of the “Hoax”. She does not watch Fox News
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017Jefferson Starship – Miracles
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017sad deep shit.
How does one live in a world of sad deep, shit ?
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017You reach out to real people. NOT some jackass on the web.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017I hate real people., and I am a jackass on the web..
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017Same time same place
LEON RUSSELL /// 1. Stranger In A Strange Land – (Leon Russell And The Shelter People) – (1971)
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Suzanne
/ February 25, 2017I have been a stranger in a strange land..for most of my life.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017We spend our entire sniffing lives between the dark, and light.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017This is why we invented religion , we can never explain ourselves.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017Cry me a River.
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017How much coke can we sort / and still play ?
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017Sreve Earle completely coke free,
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coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 25, 2017Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. .
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Abel Adamski
/ February 25, 2017One for CB and DT
OT, maybe, but the insects have more survival skills than we thought
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-24/smart-bees-learn-how-to-use-tools-by-watching-others/8297576
They may have tiny brains, but it turns out that bumblebees can not only learn to use tools by observing others, they can improvise and make the task even easier.
Key points
Bees were taught how to do a task they would not normally do
They were able to improve on the task after watching another bee complete it
Study shows that bees have cognitive powers way beyond what we thought an insect could have
We knew bees were smart, but this level of brain power has never before been seen in an insect, according to a team of UK scientists writing in the journal Science.
“Our study terminates the idea that small brains constrain insects to have limited behavioural flexibility and only simple learning abilities,” said Olli Loukola of Queen Mary University of London.
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Abel Adamski
/ February 25, 2017https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223092159.htm
Light-driven reaction converts carbon dioxide into fuel
Illuminated rhodium nanoparticles catalyze key chemistry
Duke University researchers have developed tiny nanoparticles that help convert carbon dioxide into methane using only ultraviolet light as an energy source.
Having found a catalyst that can do this important chemistry using ultraviolet light, the team now hopes to develop a version that would run on natural sunlight, a potential boon to alternative energy.
Chemists have long sought an efficient, light-driven catalyst to power this reaction, which could help reduce the growing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere by converting it into methane, a key building block for many types of fuels.
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Roger Boyd
/ February 26, 2017With methane having up to 86 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide within a 20 year period, this may not be such a great idea.
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Suzanne
/ February 25, 2017Front page of NY Times on the disappearing Amazon…The graphics alone will break your heart:
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Suzanne
/ February 25, 2017Our species does not deserve this beautiful biosphere.
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Abel Adamski
/ February 25, 2017Remember Siberia
Siberia’s ‘doorway to the Underworld’ Is Getting So Big It’s Uncovering Ancient Forests
A doorway to 200,000 years ago.
FIONA MACDONALD
25 FEB 2017
It’s no secret that Siberia’s permafrost has been on thin ice lately. Conditions are varying so much that huge holes are appearing out of nowhere, and, in some places, tundra is quite literally bubbling underneath people’s feet.
But new research has revealed that one of the biggest craters in the region, known by the local Yakutian people as the ‘doorway to the underworld’, is growing so rapidly that it’s uncovering long-buried forests, carcasses, and up to 200,000 years of historical climate records.
Known as the Batagaika crater, it’s what’s officially called a ‘megaslump’ or ‘thermokarst’.
Many of these megaslumps have been appearing across Siberia in recent years, but researchers think Batagaika could be something of an anomaly in the region, located around 660 km (410 miles) north-east of the region’s capital city of Yakutsk.
Not only is the crater already the largest of its kind, almost 1 km (0.6 miles) long and 86 metres (282 feet) deep, but it’s getting bigger all the time.
http://www.sciencealert.com/siberia-s-huge-doorway-to-the-underworld-is-getting-so-big-it-s-uncovering-millennia-old-forests-and-carcasses?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1
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Suzanne
/ February 25, 2017Some good news? I went to my Republican Congressman Brian Mast’s town hall. Over 400 people showed up..The majority by a long shot..Progressives. To his credit, this double amputee veteran Congressman..stayed until every question was answered…4 hours. And though he promised he would vote “yes” to an Independent Bipartisan Investigation to the Russian/Trump connection…The rest of his answers were pretty much “follow the Republican party line”. He wants the wall, and doesn’t see a problem with the billions it will cost. Doesn’t see a problem rounding up “non-violent” illegal immigrants. Why? Well, because they are illegal. And the problem with our algae bloom and getting the land to filter? Oh, blame the feds on that too. Big Sugar…not a word on their role in the debacle.
(sigh).
The Republican party won’t be happy until the entire country is nothing but an Authoritarian Oligarchy..and the Federal government is completely dismantled..and every federal program with it.
Ah well..if abrupt climate change continues at the current pace, we won’t have to worry about any of this, because whomever are left will be scrounging for food like our hunter gather ancestors.
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DaveW
/ February 25, 2017And since we are destroying so many species – wonder what the hunter-gatherers will have to hunt and gather…(and/or fish)…
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Abel Adamski
/ February 26, 2017And the mammals that survive will be dwarf variants.
At least the insects will be plentiful and plump
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lesliegraham1
/ February 26, 2017That is what makes the standard denialist line: “We will just adapt”, even more absurd.
It presumes that all the animals, fish and plants we depend upon for our survival will ALSO ‘adapt’ when it is already patently obvious that they are not ‘adapting’.
They are going extinct.
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Shawn Redmond
/ February 26, 2017Welcome to hospice Earth. As with the hospice’s of today the hospice’s of tomorrow will be oddly located and widely spaced, and have a maximum “guest” size. As well, they will exist in one place or other for a limited time only. They will be required to move around due to zoning laws. These laws will be written and rewritten by Gaia as seen fit. Look at the tropical and subtropical areas of Asia, Africa, southern Europe and South America, the hospice zones are already being changed and the move is on! You may want to fix up that spare room or get packed, depending on your zone. Either way the near future is going to be very different than anything those of us alive today can probably even come close to imagining. As the extreme weather starts to tear apart our existing infrastructure faster than the present economic system can put it back, “adapt” is not the right verb, more like “revert”. This will not be a controlled crash let alone a soft landing. The runway for the soft landing should have been well under construction by the mid ’90’s. The parachutes for the controlled crash should have been packed and strapped on 10 to 15 years ago. What’s coming will make the dirty thirties look like a cake walk. All that said the more we can cobble together now that will work with little or no FF the better. Learning how to produce food and store it on an individual bases without FF will be a key step in running a viable hospice. At a certain point in the coming bottle neck food production, storage, and the willingness to share will be the difference between survival or not. That is assuming we don’t go hot house and I’m guessing we won’t. Otherwise why bother with anything. If we somehow manage BAU for another 30+/- years than maybe hothouse will become more of an issue.
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cushngtree
/ February 25, 2017From Facebook, to the Idaho representatives:
“Our current President is the epitome of the adage, “Everyone serves a purpose – even if it is to serve as a bad example.” How am I supposed to explain to my grandson that lying is wrong when he sees the President do it ALL the time? How am I supposed to explain ‘alternative facts’? That repeating a thing endlessly does not make it true. How do I explain to my grandchildren that they are responsible for the things they say on social media – when the President uses social media to lambaste any and every slight, real or imagined? How do I tell them that they are responsible for their actions, and that those actions have consequences? Please, tell me how I explain these things to my grandchildren. (You will please note that I am not talking about the things I dislike about the man personally, such as adultery, sexual harassment, defrauding people and dodging the draft for a ‘foot thing’.)”
……….
“We provide a house for our President. It’s in a nice neighborhood with a fenced yard and off-street parking. I grew up in Silver Spring, MD (basically a suburb of D.C.) and I’ve driven past the place. It’s nice. We also provide a little retreat called Camp David. Now, I understand The Donald likes his tower and his Florida golf course – but since we’ve provided adequate housing, he ought to pay out-of-pocket if he insists on using his own properties in lieu of government housing. Civil servants have had to put up with government housing (or use their own dime) for decades. To do otherwise is waste, fraud and abuse on a (dare I say it) Trumpmental scale.
If he wants his family to stay in New York, then he ought to pay for that out-of-pocket as well (I DO understand not wanting to move your child during the school year – because as a Navy wife, I did it. Repeatedly.) The Donald keeps telling us that the old ways are no good any more – that we should do things differently. Let’s start with this, and with him. No more tax dollars spent just because the man doesn’t want to color in the book he’s given. No renting rooms at Trump Tower. Let the family move to D.C., where everything is all inclusive, or let Donald resign. See? Simple solutions really are best.”
(I love the phrase “doesn’t want to color in the book he’s given”—grade school at its best!)
And pictures on facebook of daffodils blooming in South Carolina in Feb….at least I’ve got actual snow out here in WY….for a few days, anyway.
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wharf rat
/ February 26, 2017Raging grannies
Minnesota grandmas get naked to draw attention to climate change
http://www.citypages.com/news/minnesota-grandmas-get-naked-to-draw-attention-to-climate-change/414596513%5Dcitypages.com
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coloradobob
/ February 26, 2017“The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week. ………………. “Rich western countries are now siphoning up the planet’s resources and destroying its ecosystems at an unprecedented rate,” said biologist Paul Ehrlich, of Stanford University in California. “We want to build highways across the Serengeti to get more rare earth minerals for our cellphones. We grab all the fish from the sea, wreck the coral reefs and put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We have triggered a major extinction event. The question is: how do we stop it?”
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 26, 2017FLOYD COUNTY, Ga. – Warm temperatures and the drought have led to a major outbreak of a type of beetle that is killing pine trees.
Channel 2’s Carol Sbarge went to Rome to talk to a specialist with the Georgia Forestry Commission to find out how to tell if trees in your area are in trouble.
The Georgia Forestry Commission is warning people the Ips beetles are killing pine trees and are expected to continue to do so in the spring and summer.
Forest Health Specialist Lynn Womack said it’s been such a warm winter that they are seeing active beetle spots in North Georgia, which is unusual in February.
Link
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coloradobob
/ February 26, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 26, 2017By comparing this year’s temperatures with data from previous years, the scientists are able to determine which locations are seeing an unusually early spring, compared with the average. Washington D.C., for instance, saw its spring arrive a whopping 22 days early, according to the analysis.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/24/the-u-s-geological-survey-hails-an-early-spring-and-ties-it-to-climate-change/?utm_term=.ebcb0a74b21b
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coloradobob
/ February 26, 2017Hypnotic Animations Show Why Trees Depend on Forest Fires
ELEANOR LUTZ IS a matchmaker, but not for people. Instead she pairs knotty scientific topics with sublime visuals and publishes them on her blog, Tabletop Whale. And these aren’t random setups: She once illustrated the topography of Mars as a Victorian-era explorer’s map, connecting two periods of voyaging and discovery. Ikea assembly guides inspired an infographic on embryonic development. Recently she hitched diagrams of viruses to a trading card motif because, like baseball players or Pokémon species, each virus has a unique profile.
Lutz’s latest setup involves a category of plants that need fire to survive. Fire ecology, as it’s known among scientists, acknowledges wildland fires as instrumental to a functioning ecosystem—a point of view likely lost on most. “Most people tend to think about natural events from mostly a human perspective—like how forest fires or flooding affect you—but this other perspective is really interesting too,” Lutz says. To illustrate it, she built low-relief paper sculptures of six different plants and then set a match to them. She cast her aflame creations on another series of trading cards, highlighting the unique properties and behaviors of each.
Link
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Mark in OZ
/ February 26, 2017Those ‘poor’ Australian oligarchs can’t rort the energy system if renewables are adopted.
Battery home storage is a very real threat to the vast power grid and the sunk capital provided by investors–many who are located overseas. After all, making money IS the most important objective for the sitting, neo-con liberal government whose mantra is ” coal is good for humanity’.
Solution?
Lean on your ‘mates’ in power (A Gov’t) and pass legislation that makes any competition -un-economical or illegal.
““If you’re going to ban the installation of all battery storage in the home, you might as well ban all laptops,” says Richard Turner, the CEO of Adelaide based Zen Energy, which partners with one of the industry pioneering battery storage makers, Greensmith.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/global-battery-storage-industry-fight-australia-home-bans-52711/
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017The new stupid marches on .
I really value you and your mates down there, keeping us up to date up here. Australian has really added to it’s exports, once it was just wool, and mutton.
Now it’s wool, and mutton, plus iron ore , thermal coal, hot movie stars , bad reef reports, really stupid politics, and bat shit crazy.
You folks are leading the way , when you exported Rupert , the world shuddered. And so did your bats, they drop out of the trees now, and they’re dead when they hit the ground.
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Mark in OZ
/ February 28, 2017Thanks CB!
We’re happy to oblige.
As you suggest, we are quite exceptional. Have a look at ‘our’ world map where we are ‘up top’ and everybody else is ‘down under’. Ya oughtta come for visit–is a lot like Tejas and the echidna just must be related to the armadillo–both reflect nature’s excellent sense of humour.
And, ya get to drive on the ‘other’ side of the road-visualize that next time you’re on the I-27!
https://www.flourish.org/upsidedownmap/
PS eres bienvenido en cualquier momento
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017Poor Chile, what a summer of pain for them. Pretty thin report, but it reads like some mine’s tailings pond was overwhelmed.
Four million without water in deadly Chile floods
Rainstorms and landslides in Chile killed four and contaminated a major river, forcing authorities to cut off drinking water to four million people in the capital, authorities said.
The torrential rain that started Saturday prompted mudslides and rubble to surge into the Maipo river which supplies most homes in the capital.
http://en.rfi.fr/wire/20170226-four-million-without-water-deadly-chile-floods
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017Leon Russell And The Shelter People – (1971)
Stranger In A Strange Land
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017“Roll Away the Stone” — Leon Russell
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017The new stupid marches on .Logic and proportion have sloppy dead.
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017LikeLike
deb
/ February 27, 2017Advanced MS etc stops me from interacting with Roberts wonderful blog in a timely manner (if only industry moved as slowly and carefully), but I’ve finally got around to posing a long unasked (apart from on an ABC drum forum a few years ago), and unanswered question related to the following quote:
“Of most importance to humankind is the troposphere which extends to about 12 km in altitude. Almost all the features of weather and climate of human significance are contained in this layer, as is the bulk of the atmosphere’s mass and almost all of its water vapour and dust particles” (The Atmospheric System, O’Hare and Sweeney 1992)
In an attempt to get my inner-city Sydney neighbours to visualise just how tiny our climate ‘living room’ / atmospheric pollutant dump, is, is it right to tell them that it’s ceiling is only 12k above their heads? From Sydney city this is only as far away as Roseville to the north or Homebush to the west or Rockdale to the south (as the crow flies). i.e. not very far
I will be overjoyed if someone can answer this years – old question for me. Thanks, Deb
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mlparrish
/ February 27, 2017Deb,
Also have a look at the thickness of the atmosphere as seen on the satellite pics.
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Bob from Seattle
/ February 27, 2017Deb, type in “thin blue line from space” on images and you can see what 12 km of breathable air looks like in comparison to the curvature of the earth. Truly a thin blue line. I think we better get going on figuring out how to pull CO2 out of this layer. That is if we wish to survive.
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Mark in OZ
/ February 28, 2017Greetings deb!
NASA puts the Karman line (boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space) at about 84 kilometres- hence, just under an hour away in the hypothetical drive straight up in the ‘Camry’.
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deb
/ February 28, 2017Thanks for your research tips which help me to rephrase my question:
As Bob Henson says, carbon dioxide is heavy stuff. https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/perspective/9574/five-things-know-about-carbon-dioxide,
So, while it’s on its journey between the atmosphere, biosphere and oceans, during its time in the troposphere, which “contains the bulk of the atmosphere’s mass” according to O’Hare and Sweeney, how much ‘leaks’ out into higher atmospheres and outer space and stops being part of the greenhouse gas blanket?
People look up into what seems like an endless sky. They have to know just how close and dense the blanket is.
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017Simon and Garfunkel – Old Friends
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017O Brother, Where Art Thou FULL soundtrack
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017Music has saved more souls than fears, tears, and beers.
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017RS ………. 338 comments , this thing loads like an idiot midget in the NBA.
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017O Brother were art thou ” candy mountains”
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017One day we will all sing into can and get 10 dolllars
‘ O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU Constant Sorrow ”
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017One day we will all sing into can and get 10 dolllars
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017In The Jailhouse Now
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017The madness of the Trump years.
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017O Brother, Where Art Thou – Sold my soul to the Devil
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017” You two are dumber than a bag of hammers. ”
This the greatest line anyone ever wrote.
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coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017LikeLike
coloradobob
/ February 27, 2017Back to singing in a can.
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wharf rat
/ February 27, 2017More Record Heat Invading the U.S. as Cleanup From Rare February Tornadoes Begins
By: Bob Henson and Jeff Masters
. Record-warm temperatures of 30°F or more above average are expected over a large portion of the eastern half of the U.S. Note also that another remarkable surge of warm air is predicted to pass over Greenland and into the Arctic, which has seen record-low sea ice extent this winter due to repeated incursions of warm air.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/more-record-heat-invading-the-us-as-cleanup-from-rare-february-torna
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Ridley Jack
/ February 27, 2017C02 ppm https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2 how high will c02 ppm hit this year 410-412 ppm? h
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