wildfires
gregladen | July 7, 2015Focusing on Earth, but also a few tidbits on wind, fire, and ice, some current news and observations about global warming.
Earth
As humans release greenhouse gas pollutants (mainly CO2) into the atmosphere, the surface of the Earth, and the top 2000 meters of the ocean, heat up. But some of the CO2 is absorbed into plant tissues and soil, as well as in the ocean or other standing water. Historically, about 30% of the extra CO2 is absorbed into the ocean, and another 30% converted into (mainly) plant tissue. We hope that enough CO2 is absorbed that the effects of greenhouse gas pollution is…
gregladen | July 1, 2015Humans have been releasing greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere for a long time now, and this has heated up the surface of the planet. This, in turn, has caused a number of alarming changes in weather. Several current weather events exemplify the effects of climate change.
Record High Temperatures Being Shattered
South Asia recently experienced a number of killer heatwaves, and that is still going on in the region. More recently, we've seen long standing record highs being broken in the American West. The Capital Climate group recently tweeted this list of records:
Hot Whopper…
gregladen | August 6, 2014I don't like the messaging Holdren almost always seems to start with: "While we can't attribute a single bla bla bla to climate change" (it is not the right way to phrase what is happening, this is a good video just out:
gregladen | July 18, 2014AGW -> AA -> QR -> WW -> WF -> DS -> A- -> AGW
The great cycle of climate change. Anthropogenic Global Warming has resulted in a relatively increased warming of the poles, which changes the dynamic of jet streams forming thus causing quasi-ressonant (stuck in place) Rossby Waves (curvy slow moving jet streams) which then fuels Weather Whiplash (or Weather Weirding if you prefer) which at the moment is causing unprecedented wild fires especially in Western Canada and Siberia, which causes a darkening of glacial surfaces in Greenland (Dark Snow) which decreases albedo which…
illconsidered | August 30, 2013A little Friday Funnies video to contemplate along with the wildfire near Yosemite....
Hot Stuff by Zlatko Grgic, National Film Board of Canada
My favorite line: "Stop it! Please, I have to wash the rocks!"
lborkowski | August 15, 2013A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Osha Gray Davidson in Rolling Stone: The Great Burning: How Wildfires Are Threatening the West
Courtney Subramanian at TIME's Healthland blog: Rebranding Climate Change as a Public Health Issue
Harold Pollack at Washington Post's Wonkblog: 85 million Americans lack dental coverage. Fixing that requires more than just money.
Abraham Lustgarten at ProPublica: Unfair Share: How Oil and Gas Drillers Avoid Paying Royalties
Heather Rousseau at NPR's Shots blog: In Rural Uganda, Homemade Bikes Make the Best Ambulances
gregladen | June 13, 2013High temperatures and dry conditions have caused the outbreak, increased intensity, and rapid spread of numerous wildfires in Colorado. Again. Fires happen, but the number, size, and intensity of wildfires in the western United States has been very high in recent years, and this is caused by global warming.
Global warming causes more rain and more frequent and more severe storm lines. More rain causes more plant growth in otherwise arid regions, and severe storms knock a lot of that vegetation down. This causes more light to get to the ground, so "ladder" vegetation, which enhances fire…
illconsidered | February 12, 2009As I mentioned briefly before, I have just returned from Australia and as you could imagine, the heatwaves and wildfires were a hot topic(how funny am I?).
So the death toll is expected to exceed 200 people. Southern Australia has been experiencing extreme drought for many years now, so the whole place is a tinder box. Increased risk of wildfires is an anticipated, and probably already observed, consequence of global warming.
You are never on solid ground when attributing a particular extreme event to such a slow moving change in the average of all events, which is what climate change is,…
illconsidered | October 6, 2007"South America chokes as Amazon Burns" is the headline on an online Independent news article. Apparently the annual practice of fall burning to clear forest land so we can eat hamburgers and get fat has spun out of control this year. The world's largest forest has become a bit of a "tinder box" due to drought conditions thought to be a result of climate change.
Vast areas of Brazil and Paraguay and much of Bolivia are choking under thick layers of smoke as fires rage out of control in the Amazon rainforest, forcing the cancellation of flights.
Satellite images yesterday showed huge clouds…