At the end of what is generally the hottest month of the year in the northern hemisphere, I suppose it’s time to do a climate check for August 2023. Here’s list of some of what has happened, in no particular order.

Hurricanes

• Hurricane Hilary turned from a Category 4 Pacific hurricane into a tropical storm as it threatened Southern California for the first time in 84 years. There was at least one fatality and almost 3,000 people were displaced by it.
• Typhoon Doksuri struck northern China, causing the most rain to fall in Beijing since records were first kept in 1883. It also caused a severe risk to one of Xi Jinping’s pet projects: Xiong’an New Area.
• Hurricane, then Tropical Storm Idalia devastated sections of northern Florida. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power and rescuers pulled dozens of people from flooded homes.
• Franklin will go down as the first major hurricane 2023 season: a category three with winds of 115 mph 120 mph. This one is not a threat to land.
• NOAA forecasters predict an “above normal” hurricane season as a result of record warm sea-surface temperatures.

Heat

• NOAA forecasters predict excessive heat across the south-central US.
• Climate change continues with an annual temperature increase of 0.14F (0.078C)
• The 10 warmest years in the historical record have all occurred since 2010.
• Heat domes seem now to be an annual phenomenon in the US and Europe as the jet stream reconfigures itself.
• Canadian wildfire emissions are 6 times higher than average this year. A forest fire in Greece is the largest ever recorded by the European Union.

Trend

The temperature trend is up everywhere. Global warming continues apace, with little substantive prospect of a change in its rate. Governments and industry worldwide may be described as inactive at best, regressing at worst, with little prospect for change in the near future. They all are kicking the can down the road; maintaining their promises for 2030 or 2050 but failing to make significant progress toward their announced goals. The UK seems to be the leader in that trend, with Rishi Sunak waffling on, or even negating previous decisions on drilling for oil in the North Sea.

I suppose that I should apologize for being impatient but I’ve been putting up with this foot-dragging for more than a half century now. I’m tired of it. If you’re with me, keep yelling at the climate perpetrators to make real, positive changes. Otherwise it will steadily continue to get worse.

Happy September!

Heat is altering the future on this planet. If you haven’t yet personally experienced the effects of global warming, you surely must have heard about them. July, like June, has produced record-breaking temperatures world wide. If that’s not bad enough, the future will clearly get worse every year, according to almost all scientists who study the phenomena.

Unless we, collectively, do something about it. The sooner we act, the quicker this trend will slow down. By acting I mean stopping putting carbon into the atmosphere. Stopping, not reducing. Every additional atom of carbon dioxide or methane in the atmosphere makes thing a bit worse. Regardless of its source.

Basics

For example, Phoenix, Arizona, has had 31 straight days in June-July with the temperature at or exceeding 110F (43.3C). For reference on the human impact of this temperature, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has a handy chart showing the relationship between temperature, humidity and human survival. Note that 110F with only 36% humidity makes sunstroke, heat cramps or heat exhaustion likely and heatstroke possible with prolonged exposure and.or physical activity. Even at 10% humidity those problems are possible. But for 31 straight days? Next year it might 40 straight days.

Of course Phoenix is a desert city and its humidity tends to be low in summer but the point is that the annual number of really hot days is increasing faster than seems possible just a few years ago. Kim Stanley Robinson’s prophetic book “The Ministry of the Future” begins with a story about a (fictional) city in India that suffers a devastating heat wave that kills most of its population. Review that NOAA chart for your own location.

All of this is because we continue to pump more carbon into the atmosphere, day after day. That has to stop if we are to survive long term. If we are to stop the boiling.

My blog in May, written by Lucy Reed, focused on what you personally can do to relieve climate stress. I’m focusing here on the broader picture of what must be done to stop climate change. There are three main objects of needed effort: government; polluting industry and us.

Continue reading Heat: Altering the future →

The road to rescue from climate change is rocky and devious. All sorts of promises are being made by all sorts of groups, from individuals to major country groups. But real progress? Not so much.

For example, according to the Financial Times, on 20 June 2019 a meeting of leaders of the European Union gathered to adopt a plan to get net global emissions of greenhouse gases down to zero by 2050. Except the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Poland all refused to join. They all have industries that are major greenhouse gas emitters and they wanted to know up front exactly how much they were going to be paid to refrain from producing those emissions. Never mind the fact that, as global warming increases, we’re all going to be affected. They don’t want to pay the bill too soon. They may think that they have plenty of time to decide.

Continue reading Climate Change: Many promises, little real progress →