September, 2011

Climate Change Update

Today’s Tip:  When it comes
to weather, weird is the new normal.

The weather ain’t what it used to be. According to experts, we can expect more body-roasting heat waves affecting massive amounts of people, like we experienced in July, affecting 140 million people in the U.S. We can expect more large cell tornadoes—the kind that take out schools, sweep cars off the road, and wipe out entire towns.

We can expect more weird weather in general as the planet heats up, so says Heidi Cullen, a respected and reputable climatologist in her new book, The Weather of the Future. Cullen notes that "just as our brain is hardwired to perceive threats that are most immediate to us, we are hardwired to devote more energy to caring about the weather than to caring about the climate," and that "by the time you see it in the weather... it's too late."

How late is it? I remember when the Union of Concerned Scientists issued its first warning in 1982, claiming we had perhaps 25 years before our weather turned on us if we didn’t do something about it. Well, we didn’t do enough and it looks like our weather is becoming our enemy.

As Mark Twain joked, “Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get.”

Are our communities ready for this? With some ecosystems, such as the Central Valley of California which the entire state of California depends on for water, people would rather simply hope for a happy ending, Cullen says. In contrast, in the Arctic, the Inuit are responding to climate change and incorporating technology into their traditional hunting methods. Kudos also to New York City, which decided to “fix the climate bug now" with its Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.

Despite the worry among scientists that humans will follow the woolly mammoth, the symbol of a climate that no longer exists, Cullens book presents a surprisingly optimistic view of humanity's determination to come to terms with a daunting future.

If preparing for climate change interests you, The Weather of the Future by Heidi Cullen is a good read.

Today’s Tip: Prepare for next summer now

Temperatures last July set records. We’ve never experienced a heat wave that intense for that long covering such a huge expanse, the result of a sprawling mass of high pressure that just sat there, day after day, refusing to move.

On July 20th alone, 141 million people were under heat advisories or warnings. That same day, the heat index set a new record in Moorhead, Minnesota hitting a whopping 134 degrees--more typical of summertime in the Gulf of Mexico than northern Minnesota! The Twin Cities tied its all-time heat index record at 119 degrees. Much further south, Dallas, Texas, experienced its 46th day of over 100 degree temperatures.

If such extreme temperatures haven’t convinced you that climate change is real, you aren’t paying attention. Reputable scientists say we can expect to see more extreme weather as the planet heats up. Increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere are to blame. Some of this increase is naturally caused, but a large part of it is a direct result of human action.  It’s painfully evident that burning massive amounts of fossil fuels is working its way into our weather. It has gone on for so long weather is becoming our enemy.

Are you prepared for it? It’s a fact that heat kills more people in the U.S. than any other weather-related event. The combination of high heat and high humidity is especially dangerous for children, the elderly, and animals. How are you preparing for next summer? Best to start thinking about it now.

Today’s Tip: Wild weather is the new normal.

So says to Heidi Cullen--one of the world's foremost climatologists and environmental journalists, in her new book, The Weather of the Future. We can expect to see more extreme weather as the planet heats up. Wild weather is “the new normal,” Cullen says, and it won’t be easy to deal with.

Here’s what we can expect:

• An increase in wild fires--particularly in the West and Southwest
• We can expect an increase in precipitation--the Northeast has experienced a 65% increase in extreme rain events since the 1950s.
• We can expect warmer temperatures around the U.S. as the climate shifts. In the decade from 2000 to 2010, every state in the lower 48 has gotten warmer. Extreme weather due to a restless climate will continue.
• We can expect to see a wave of tornadoes, with more massive cells, wind shear, and moisture. Tornado alley has shifted eastward, which may be good news for us living in Iowa. But nothing is predictable.
• We can expect melting arctic sea ice to contribute to snowier winters, especially in the Northeast. Flooding of the Missouri River in 2011 was a direct result of ice melt in northern Canada.
• We can expect earlier springs with more flooding in the Midwest. All this part of the “new normal.”

Today’s Tip:  Get ready for a perfect storm.

I’m an optimist by nature, but a pessimist at heart. I find comfort in preparing for hard times. Change is inevitable. History tells us shock happens, and hard times must be reckoned with. Best to be prepared.

The world may be looking one of those “shock treatments” in the face right now. It could come in any of a number of guises, but the one that is most likely to occur is a collapse of our economy, a “perfect storm” or “ultimate recession,” as described by Lester Brown in his new book, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse.

Brown is the founder of WorldWatch Institute and author of over 50 books on global environmental issues, many of them translated into more than 40 languages. In World on the Edge, Brown tells us a perfect storm could develop at any time, precipitated by extreme weather and crop failures on a massive scale.

A growing number of nations, including the oil giants and China, are now scrambling to secure overseas farmland to feed their domestic populations. World grocers and supermarkets, including the U.S., have, on the average, only a four-day supply of food on hand. An oil shock, global disease pandemic, prolonged drought in the American heartland, or nuclear meltdown could set off a global food panic. Supermarket shelves and grain silos would be stripped bare within a short period of time.

I’m not ordinarily an alarmist, but have you thought about this? Are you and those in your community ready for this? Think about it.

Today’s Tip: In Iowa, expect more flooding and intense heat waves

Climatologists tell us to expect wild weather for the next few years. Wild is the new normal. Here’s what we can expect in Iowa:

• Earlier springs, with heavy rains and flooding coming from the melting of arctic sea ice.
• More intense heat waves covering a large area of the country, like the one that occurred in July 2011.
• New heat index records, resulting from an extraordinary combination of high temperatures and high humidity. During the last heat wave heat indices in Minnesota and South Dakota shot up to levels more commonly seen in the brutally hot and humid region near the Red Sea.

 It’s a fact that heat kills more people than any other weather-related event. Children, the elderly, and animals are especially at risk.  In Iowa, the combination of heat and high humidity can cause distress for normally healthy people, especially those years when flooding occurs. All that moisture has to go somewhere. Much of it evaporates into the air which causes high dew points. Nights with high temperatures and high dew points can be extraordinarily uncomfortable for all living things. If temps don’t fall overnight, everything stays hot ‘round the clock—the asphalt in the street, the concrete pavement, the roof of your house. When humidity is high, sweat doesn’t evaporate so you can’t cool off. 

What are you doing to prepare for climate change?

Today’s Tip: We can do something about climate change.

Climate change is here to stay. Volatile weather and wild events—raging floods, large cell tornadoes, unexpected earthquakes, increasing vulnerability of our nuclear power plants—are the new normal.

Five U.S. cities are most vulnerable to climate change, according to The Weather of the Future, a new book written by Heidi Cullen, formerly a climatologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The five cities are New York City, Miami, the central valley of California, Fairbanks Alaska, and Las Vegas.  In addition, both coasts are vulnerable. Water levels are expected to rise one inch by 2050. That doesn’t sound like much, but it will have big impact, causing people to move inland.

Climate change is hitting northern regions the hardest right now. In Alaska summer temperatures have increased 3.5 degrees in the last few years, while winter temperatures have increased six degrees.

What can we do to prepare for wild weather and volatile changes?

• First, admit that climate change is real.
• We must adapt our infrastructure. We need to assess the risks and vulnerabilities of our roads, bridges, rivers, heat sinks, etc., both regionally and locally.
• We must decide how we are going to dwell on the planet and remove dependence on fossil fuels. We can each make this decision for ourselves in our every day lives.

There are exciting options for change. For example, the Midwest is a wind belt, an ideal place for wind energy. The Southwest is rich in solar energy. Scientists calculate that installing a 100-square-mile solar array in the Four Corners region of the Southwest will provide electricity for the entire country—all of the United States. That’s all we’d need.

The important thing is to realize is we can fix this. We need to make it a priority, as important as getting to the moon. Please do your part.

RETURN TO PREVIOUS PAGE