Global Warming-Fueled Heat Demolishes March Weather Records

How has 2012 rewritten America's temperature records?

• 2012's was America's warmest March on record. It didn't just barely break the record by a tiny fraction - it smoked it by half a degree.
• Measured against the historical average, March's 8.6 degree deviation from normal was America's second-largest on record, surpassed only by another recent warm month, January 2006.
• The first three months of 2012 were America's warmest January to March on record.

What was scariest about March was how many cities in so many parts of America were so far above their historical averages and absolutely obliterated their records:

• Green Bay, WI was 10.4 degrees above normal & broke its March record by 4.4 degrees
• Des Moines, IA was 9.8 degrees above normal & broke its March record by 3.7 degrees
• Boston, MA was 6.4 degrees above normal & broke its March record by 1.6 degrees
• Norfolk, VA was 6 degrees above normal & broke its March record by 1 degree
• Bismarck, ND was 9.1 degrees above normal & broke its March record by 0.5 degrees

While Europe and much of Asia have been colder than usual this year, it's not enough to offset the global trend. January-February were 0.67 degrees above the 20th century average and the 20th-warmest on record globally.

NOAA has been unequivocal that global warming is fueling the trend. Have your local meteorologists been willing to point out that fact? And do your elected officials know it's time to act?

Massachusetts Media Fails to Connect 2012's Extreme Weather to Climate Change

Massachusetts has had an record-shattering warm and dry start to 2012, resulting in brush fires - but with rare exceptions, the local media isn't connecting the extreme weather to global warming for their audience.

Polls and Beltway discussion focuses on whether Americans accept climate science and support action, but that whistles past the media's role in the matter. What if the public's knowledge of the climate threat and how it's already impacting their community is being obscured, misinformed by a media that's either not up to date on the topic, afraid to tackle it & face Tea Party blowback, or letting their own political leanings color their coverage?

Meteorologists often say they avoid talking about climate change's impact on weather because they don't want to be political. But the connection between global warming and increased wildfire frequency & intensity is well-documented. Omitting scientific reality in the face of political pressure IS politicizing the issue.

Imagine if Big Oil and its allies started denying another weather phenomenon - say, hurricanes. Would meteorologists bow to political pressure and not connect hurricanes to their local weather impacts? "Violent wind, torrential rain & extremely high tides this weekend ... uh, weird!"

'God Wouldn't Let Us Destroy the Climate': A Brief Rebuttal

So why did God let us light the Cuyahoga River on fire? Does God just really hate Cleveland? What about smog - God hates kids with asthma?

I missed the part in the Bible about God cleaning up our messes for us. God is not our mom - no, wait, mom wouldn't pick up after you, either.

Maybe people like Rick Santorum and Jim Inhofe should stop acting like bratty kids and take responsibility for our mess instead of leaving it for someone else to deal with.

New Study: Global Warming Could Push DC Cherry Blossoms into February

The National Park Service now agrees with what the Capital Weather Gang first predicted - our warm winter will have the Tidal Basin's cherry blossoms challenging the earliest peak bloom record, continuing the global warming-fueled trend. As this photo from Flickr's Richard Cline shows, they're already beginning to emerge.

A 2000 Smithsonian study showed the climate crisis already has the cherry blossoms emerging about a week earlier than they used to - but a new report says that could be just the tip of the iceberg:

Now comes a team of scientists theorizing that with drastic warming of the globe, future decades could see blossom times not just a few days early but advanced by almost a month.

That could mean a bloom process that begins in January, rather than February, a blooming period in February instead of March, and a peak bloom in early March, instead of early April, the research suggests.

Oddly, the study doesn't frame the challenge not as one of limiting our use of carbon-intensive fuels like oil and coal, but one strictly of limiting population growth:

According to the more dire global warming scenario the scientists used — one with unchecked global population growth — the District’s cherry trees could be blooming 29 days earlier by 2080 and 13 days earlier by 2050.

A less severe scenario, with eventually declining population, had the trees blooming 10 days earlier by 2080 and five days earlier by 2050.

With more near-record warmth forecast today, it's a reminder that we can't wait to cut carbon pollution - and that if we don't, earlier cherry blossoms will be the least of our worries.

New Study Details Threat of Global Warming-Fueled Sea Level Rise in Virginia

Sea levels have already risen 8 inches since 1880 and thanks to global warming are forecast to rise at least several more feet in the lifetime of a child born today. A new study from Climate Central takes a look at what that means for people who live on America's coasts:

The studies look at people who live in homes within three feet of high tide, whereas old studies looked just at elevation above sea level, according to work published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research and an accompanying report by Climate Central.

That's an important distinction because using high tide is more accurate for flooding impacts, said study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment. And when the new way of looking at risk is factored in, the outlook looks worse, Overpeck said.

"It's shocking to see how large the impacts could be, particularly in southern Florida and Louisiana, but much of the coastal U.S. will share in the serious pain," Overpeck said.

And what about here in Virginia? I entered a very modest number - three feet of sea level rise, storm surge & tide - into the ClimateCentral.org model & here's what I got:

Things below +3ft in Virginia:

• Population 58,507 0.7%
• Homes 28,511 0.8%
• Acres 157,123 0.6%

Over 1 in 6 chance sea level rise + storm surge + tide will overtop +3ft by 2020 at nearest flood risk indicator site: Lewisetta - Potomac River, 116 miles away.

View the model for yourself and see what different levels of sea level rise would mean for your community:

 

WJLA Makes Coverage of Climate's Impact on Warm Weather Look Easy

Reporters make covering the relationship between extreme weather and climate change seem really hard. It doesn't have to be! Take today's story from WJLA's John Gonzalez:

• It's much warmer than average
• That's good in some ways and bad in others
• Climate science tells us it fits a long-term pattern and we can expect more of it if we don't cut our carbon pollution
• Moms doing their exercises outdoors! With cute babies!

And that's it! Not controversial. Not political. No sound bite from the American Petroleum Institute necessary. Just the facts.

Many reporters think the way to dodge politics and controversy is to avoid mentioning the connection between climate change and extreme weather altogether. Just the opposite! Omitting facts and leaving a void of confusion in their place is no better than manufacturing a false "balance" with he said, she said reporting.

NASA's James Hansen: Continued Climate Inaction "Immoral"

Here's a new TED Talk from Dr. James Hansen, NASA climate scientist. Dr. Hansen explains how he wrote a paper in 1981 predicting "the 21st century would see shifting climate zones, creation of drought prone regions in North America and Asia, erosion of ice sheets, rising sea levels, and opening of the fabled Northwest passage. All of these impacts have since either happened or are now well underway."



If you're at the office and can't watch video, read a good summary of Hansen's talk from ClimateProgress.org.

It's a stark reminder that while polluters & their allies accuse climate scientists of being "alarmist," the predictions of climate scientists to this point have more often been too conservative. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just issued its Fourth Assessment in 2007, but many climate scientists already think its predictions were far too cautious given our rapid climate changes and the continued acceleration of global carbon pollution.

By the way, are you familiar with TED Talks? The acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment & Design and the organization describes itself simply as a "nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading." Their podcasts are indispensable - brilliant ideas explained in easy to understand terms in around 15 minutes.

Cherry Blossoms Coming Earlier, But Media Won't Make Climate Connection

UPDATE 3/12/2012: Thanks to our ongoing warm temperatures, the Capital Weather Gang predicts the cherry blossoms could peak March 18, one day short of the earliest on record.

The cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC are expected to peak between March 24 and 31, the National Park Service announced today. That's 5 to 10 days earlier than normal and right in line with our global warming-fueled trend - a Smithsonian study found the blossoms come out about 4.5 days earlier than they used to, part of a shift that all plants are feeling. 

Of course, reporters can't say any of that! The peak's just early somehow, and the warm weather must be described as unusual or unseasonable and reporters must never mention that the changes are exactly in line with broader global warming trends.

Just look at coverage of our warm winter. DC's fresh off its 3rd-warmest winter on record and 2 of the top 4 have come within the last 10 years, exactly the type of changes climate scientists say we can expect in a warming world. But on local weather blogs, neither the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang nor WJLA's StormWatch 7 would even say the word climate.

People sometimes ask me if I'm frustrated that a minority of Americans still don't accept climate science. Just the opposite - I'm amazed the poll numbers are so strong! Even though the media won't connect the dots, Americans are doing it on their own, telling pollsters that changes in their own backyards are convincing them that our climate is warming.

Should We Teach Students Climate Reality or Polluter Fantasy?

Here's a new video from the Climate Reality Project - if you agree that the Heartland Institute's science denial has no place in America's schools, sign Climate Reality's petition:

Trees in My Backyard Officially Giving Up on Winter

The National Park Service won't even issue its first cherry blossom forecast until March 1, but it's February 23 and the trees in Falls Church are already starting to bloom. Who's ready for an earlier allergy season fueled by global warming? Tree pollen is already considered high.

January 2012: America's 4th-Warmest on Record

The DC area is on pace for its 3rd-warmest winter on record, but we're not the only region that's had a relatively balmy winter. It was America's 4th-warmest January on record:

The national average temperature in January was 36.3 degrees F, which is 5.5 degrees F above the long-term average and the warmest since 2006, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. The other warmer Januarys were in 1990 and 1953. The data is based on records dating back to 1895.

Nine states — Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming — had January temperatures ranking among their ten warmest. Florida and Washington were the only states in the lower 48 with temperatures near average, and no state was cooler than average. [...]

According to data from the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the average snow cover in January was 1 million square miles, which was 329,000 square miles below average. This marked the 3rd-smallest January snow cover extent in the 46-year period of record.

USA Today's article does not mention global warming in his write-up, despite the fact that 3 of America's 4 warmest Januarys have now come since 1990 and 2011 that the 9th-hottest year on record globally. Read more on the warm January at NOAA.gov.

I've compared man-made carbon pollution to a baseball player on steroids - turning a warm winter into a potential record breaker. The National Center for Atmospheric Research has a new video fleshing out the analogy:

 

Global Warming-Fueled Mild Winters Bad News for Groundhogs

The same mild temperatures that are bringing up some spring flowers in the middle of winter may cause groundhogs to emerge from hibernation too soon, leaving them without their spring food sources and vulnerable to sudden cold snaps:

Punxsutawney Phil will be pulled from his caged slumber tomorrow to do his faux forecasting duty, but most groundhogs in the wild will sleep through to spring to finish their winter’s hibernation, a seasonal behavior that is key to their long-term survival.

However, with this year’s warm winter, which some experts pin on global warming, biologists say groundhogs and their hibernating brethren might rise closer and closer to Groundhog Day each year as Earth's climate changes.

The balmy weather could snap awake groundhogs and other hibernating animals too early this year, well before their breakfasts are ready and threatening their survival.

Global warming loads the dice for milder winters. How warm has this winter been? The DC area is having its 4th-warmest winter on record & of the 21 warmest January months in DC history, 4 have come since 1998. That fits right into the global trend - 2011 was the 9th-hottest year on record according to NASA. And since 1976, 2011 was the 35th consecutive year that the yearly global temperature was above average.

And it's important to remember how global warming has completely changed the record books - until the late 1990s, 2011 would've been the hottest year on record. Man-made carbon pollution has rewritten our temperature records as thoroughly as steroids rewrote baseball's home run records.

Will DC's TV Forecasters Acknowledge Climate's Contribution to Warm January Weather?

The DC area's forecast for Friday calls for temperatures near 60 degrees with thunderstorms. In January.

But you won't catch our television weather presenters attributing the bizarre forecast to global warming loading the dice for extreme weather! No, sir! Expect to hear lots of things like, "Wow, tropical weather in January. Uh ... weird!"

If they mentioned our changing climate, they might get angry calls from viewers who find climate reality doesn't fit in with their political views. Here in the DC area, unless your name is Bob Ryan, you're likely to figure it's better to keep quiet about the facts than risk standing up for inconvenient truths. Or maybe, like Topper Shutt, you're a climate science denier yourself.

Learn more about why some TV weathermen aren't straight with their viewers about climate science at ForecastTheFacts.org.

November 2011: Ignoring Global Warming Fails To Make It Go Away For 321st Consecutive Month

November 2011, 12th-hottest on record & 321st consecutive month our planet's temperatures were above the 20th-century average. January-November 2011, 11th-hottest on record.

And if that doesn't sound hot, keep in mind how much the last decade - the hottest decade humans have ever recorded - has skewed the record books. Until 1995, there had never been a year recorded more than 0.4 degrees Celsius above average. Now 2011's 0.52°C above average ... and it only ranks 11th.

Here's a NOAA chart on November 2011's extreme weather events:

Washington Post Ignores Climate Impacts, Wonders Why People Are Ignorant on Climate Impacts

The Washington Post's Darryl Fears, who conspicuously left climate change out of his recent article on the impacts of sea level rise on the Virginia coast, today has a follow-up article on how some people don't think climate change is connected to sea level rise.

Gee, I wonder why people are so in the dark about climate science? It's quite the puzzler.

Why I'm Sorta Glad Jon Huntsman Flip-Flopped on Climate Science

Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman might be best known for tweeting his support for the science of evolution and climate change. But at a blogger event today at the polluter-funded Heritage Foundation, TPM reports Huntsman was flip-flopping his way back to the GOP presidential pack's consensus science denial:

Jon Huntsman attended a packed blogger sit down at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro attended, pressing the GOP presidential candidate about his position on climate change.

In August, Huntsman acknowledged the broad body of science pointing to climate change. Seated at an elite conservative think tank, however, Huntsman played a different tune, saying climate scientists “owe us more” information before we can decide if climate change is real.

“I think there’s probably more debate to be played out within the scientific community,” he said.

Obviously, it can't be considered a good thing when the leaders of a major political party are required to reject mainstream science. But then again, it wasn't exactly helping the scientific cause to have Huntsman be the only GOP candidate in the field to fully accept climate science ... while polling at 1%. And it was crazy to see reporters overlooking Huntsman's extremist plan to raise taxes on seniors, veterans & the poor to fund huge tax cuts for the 1%, calling him "moderate" solely based on his support for science.

What IS heartening is that the Republican field's climate science denial may actually be turning some voters into climate science believers. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed the public’s awareness of climate threats up in recent months. Meanwhile, majorities of Republican voters continue to say the world’s temperature is going up, and that it’s partly or mostly due to human activities. And a new Pew poll shows the GOP primary race hurting the party among independents, with 29% taking a dimmer view of the party, compared to just 10% with a more favorable view (the unmoved 61% is probably a testament to just how few voters are paying attention yet).

So do I wish Huntsman had stuck to climate reality? Sure. But Huntsman's abandonment of the truth says a lot more about his own desperation to get in lockstep with an out-of-touch GOP field than it does about climate science.

Today's Reminders the Climate Crisis Continues Unabated

As UN climate talks meander along in South Africa, Grist's David Roberts says our window for being able to stop catastrophic climate change with small steps may have already closed:

It's simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. "Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake" footing. That simply won't be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It's not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.

It is unpleasant to talk like this. People don't want to hear it. They don't want to believe it. They bring to bear an enormous range of psychological and behavioral defense mechanisms to avoid it. It sounds "extreme" and our instinctive heuristics conflate "extreme" with "wrong." People display the same kind of avoidance when they find out that they or a loved one are seriously ill. But no doctor would counsel withholding a diagnosis from a patient because it might upset them. If we're in this much trouble, surely we must begin by telling the truth about it.

Also today, The Onion looks back at what a science-based response to the climate crisis might have looked like.

DC Meteorologist Ignores Climate's Influence on Warm November

WUSA-TV Chief Meteorologist Topper Shutt, last covered here giving a shout-out to climate science deniers, blogged recently about the DC region's warm November temperatures:

It was 73 on [November 14], just four shy of the record high and is still mild today but changes are on the way which is what November is all about. November typically features wide temperature fluctuations in the Metro Area. Temperature swings of highs 10 degrees above average one day can be followed by days with high temperatures 10 degrees below average all in the same week. Although rare, it has snowed in November in the Metro Area (we were reminded it can snow in October as well) while November has also seen temperatures in the mid 70s. There have been instances of both extremes that Washingtonians have experienced on this date in the not too distant past.

To use a local example, this would be like writing an article about the recent history development in Arlington's Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and saying, "Some buildings are short while others are tall." While that's true, it also would be completely ignoring the easily perceived upward trend.

Just look at the global temperature trend:

Or to get local as the Capital Weather Gang did, look at DC's Thanksgiving temperature trend:

*Reflects adjusted data to account for later occurring Thanksgiving prior to 1939.

Yes, there will always be day-to-day weather fluctuations, but over the long term, the trend is pointing up thanks to man-made carbon pollution. Even the cool-down that began yesterday only brought our temperatures down to what should be normal.

It's not controversial - it's climate science. The only thing hard to figure out is why Topper Shutt won't give the whole story about how global warming is impacting DC's weather.

This is How You Fight Back Against GOP Attacks on Clean Air

You don't need to have a Ph.D. to talk about why we need clean air and climate action. You don't need to have a mastery of facts & figures.

In fact, you're your own target audience. You need to be able to talk about it in a way that people who don't know facts & figures either can understand. Don't worry about framing the issue or dazzling with statistics - tell a story.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) had the quote of the year back in January, summing up the fight against polluter-funded GOP attacks on the Clean Air Act: "There is a case to be made that, in the contest between corporate profits and children's lungs, someone should be standing up for children's lungs."

Last week on the Senate floor, Sen. Whitehouse expanded on the case with a series of simple yet vivid examples:


If you don't have time to watch the clip, check out the full transcript at ClimateProgress.org.

New Report Highlights Climate Crisis' Threat to Hampton Roads

A new report takes a closer look at which cities will be hurt by global warming-fueled sea level rise. As Brad Plumer reports, Virginia is in the climate crisis crosshairs:

Things don’t look good for India. But the United States doesn’t get off easy, either. If you look at exposed assets rather than total population, then Miami, New York-Newark, New Orleans and Virginia Beach all climb higher on the list, with $7 trillion in assets vulnerable to severe coastal flooding by 2070. [...]

Take Miami. A three-foot sea-level rise, experts have noted, would likely put all of Miami Beach underwater and turn downtown Miami into an island, channeled off from the rest of Florida. Yet the state isn’t doing all that much to prepare for this eventuality. Instead, it’s racing to subsidize new developments along the coasts, through state-run insurance and funding for coastal protection. By contrast, cities such as London and Amsterdam are taking more prudent steps to guard against future flooding — and, as the OECD report notes, are likely to cope with sea-level rise better.

That’s not an isolated case. In general, the United States has been slow in preparing for rising sea levels. In many cases, we’re actively making things worse, as Steve Nash laid out in this excellent article in the New Republic. This is one area in particular where climate-change denial can do a lot of damage — it’s awfully hard to prepare for a problem that no one can agree even exists.

So we're not doing climate mitigation, like cutting carbon pollution. And as an event just last month at NASA's Langley Center in Hampton pointed out, we're not doing climate adaptation, either, like coastal restoration & limiting development in areas just above sea level.

Basically, if you were consciously trying to leave the worst possible situation for the next generation, you'd be doing exactly what people like Gov. Bob McDonnell are doing now - deny the problem & delay solutions. And note the 2070 date - we're no longer talking about forecast impacts on some future generation, but real changes happening within the lifetimes of the children in your family right now.

Amazing that the same people who profess such a concern with our budgetary national debt have no qualms about leaving our kids stuck with a multi-trillion-dollar climate liability.