Global Climate Change Science News

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gotta store this one up.....

Off the charts now 54 degrees !!!!!! That 129.2 for the Yanks viewing.

The range now extends to 54 degrees – well above the all-time record temperature of 50.7 degrees reached on January 2, 1960 at Oodnadatta Airport in South Australia – and, perhaps worringly, the forecast outlook is starting to deploy the new colours.

"The scale has just been increased today and I would anticipate it is because the forecast coming from the bureau's model is showing temperatures in excess of 50 degrees," David Jones, head of the bureau's climate monitoring and prediction unit, said.

While recent days have seen Australian temperature maps displaying maximums ranging from 40 degrees to 48 degrees - depicted in the colour scheme as burnt orange to black – both Sunday and Monday are now showing regions likely to hit 50 degrees or more, coloured purple.

Read more: Bureau Of Meteorology Weather Chart | Deep Purple

•••

David Jones

Head of Climate Monitoring and Prediction Services at Australian Bureau of Meteorology

A total fire ban is in place across NSW and the ACT as temperatures soar.

Heatwaves like the one sweeping Australia today will become more common as the globe warms, with record high temperatures already outpacing record lows by a ratio of three to one, experts said today.

Temperatures are expected to climb past 40 degrees celsius across the country today, with authorities warning of extreme bushfire risk in NSW. Over 90 bushfires had broken out across that state by early this morning, the NSW Rural Fire Service said.

Australia had experienced six days in a row of average temperatures above 39 degrees and another two days were expected, the Bureau of Meteorology said. The previous long run of such high average temperatures was four days, set in 1973.

A long dry spell in inland Australia, fewer cold fronts and the delayed onset of the monsoon in the country’s north had helped create today’s conditions but “the other thing at play here is climate change,” said Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Monitoring and Prediction Services at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

“We know that inland Australia is a degree and a half hotter than it was 50 to 100 years ago. Every single day we have this background warming trend which effectively means the whole climate system operates on a higher base,” he said.

“If you look at maximum temperatures, we are now finding that the rate at which we get record high temperatures is three times faster than the rate at which we get record low temperature.”

In other words, he said, “for every record cold day we see, we get three record hot days.”

“The climate system is really strongly weighted over Australia now towards record heat… that’s quite a profound shift.”

Dr Jones said Australia “was now seeing record hot nights five times more frequently than record cold nights.”

The Bureau of Meteorology released a Special Climate Statement yesterday saying that for the last four months of 2012, “the average Australian maximum temperature was the highest on record with a national anomaly of +1.61 degrees celsius, slightly ahead of the previous record of 1.60 degrees celsius set in 2002 (national records go back to 1910).”

As climate warms, heat waves outpace cold snaps three to one

and the denier crowd keep rattling on in their fantasy land....

They keep records there...since 1910

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It’s Official: 2012 Was Hottest Year Ever in U.S.
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: January 8, 2013 360 Comments

The numbers are in: 2012, the year of a surreal March heat wave, a severe drought in the corn belt and a massive storm that caused broad devastation in the mid-Atlantic states, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous United States.



How hot was it? The temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree, but last year blew away the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit.

If that does not sound sufficiently impressive, consider that 34,008 new daily high records were set at weather stations across the country, compared with only 6,664 new record lows, according to a count maintained by the Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton, using federal temperature records.

That ratio, which was roughly in balance as recently as the 1970s, has been out of whack for decades as the country has warmed, but never by as much as it was last year.

“The heat was remarkable,” said Jake Crouch, a scientist with the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., which released the official climate compilation on Tuesday. “It was prolonged. That we beat the record by one degree is quite a big deal.”

Scientists said that natural variability almost certainly played a role in last year’s extreme heat and drought. But many of them expressed doubt that such a striking new record would have been set without the backdrop of global warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases. And they warned that 2012 was likely a foretaste of things to come, as continuing warming makes heat extremes more likely.

Even so, the last year’s record for the United States is not expected to translate into a global temperature record when figures are released in coming weeks. The year featured a La Niña weather pattern, which tends to cool the global climate over all, and scientists expect it to be the world’s eighth or ninth warmest year on record.

Assuming that prediction holds up, it will mean that the 10 warmest years on record all fell within the past 15 years, a measure of how much the planet has warmed. Nobody who is under 28 has lived through a month of global temperatures that fell below the 20th-century average, because the last such month was February 1985.

Last year’s weather in the United States began with an unusually warm winter, with relatively little snow across much of the country, followed by a March that was so hot that trees burst into bloom and swimming pools opened early. The soil dried out in the March heat, helping to set the stage for a drought that peaked during the warmest July on record.

The drought engulfed 61 percent of the nation, killed corn and soybean crops and sent prices spiraling. It was comparable to a severe drought in the 1950s, Mr. Crouch said, but not quite as severe as the legendary Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s, which was exacerbated by poor farming practices that allowed topsoil to blow away.

Extensive records covering the lower 48 states go back to 1895; Alaska and Hawaii have shorter records and are generally not included in long-term climate comparisons for that reason.

Mr. Crouch pointed out that until last year, the coldest year in the historical record for the lower 48 states, 1917, was separated from the warmest year, 1998, by only 4.2 degrees Fahrenheit. That is why the 2012 record, and its one degree increase over 1998, strikes climatologists as so unusual.

“We’re taking quite a large step above what the period of record has shown for the contiguous United States,” he said.

In addition to being the nation’s warmest year, 2012 turned out to be the second-worst on a measure called the Climate Extremes Index, surpassed only by 1998.

Experts are still counting, but so far 11 disasters in 2012 have exceeded a threshold of $1 billion in damages, including several tornado outbreaks; Hurricane Isaac, which hit the Gulf Coast in August; and, late in the year, Hurricane Sandy, which caused damage likely to exceed $60 billion in nearly half the states, primarily in the mid-Atlantic region.

Among those big disasters was one bearing a label many people had never heard before: the derecho, a line of severe, fast-moving thunderstorms that struck central and eastern parts of the country starting on June 29, killing more than 20 people, toppling trees and knocking out power for millions of households.

For people who escaped both the derecho and Hurricane Sandy relatively unscathed, the year may be remembered most for the sheer breadth and oppressiveness of the summer heat wave. By the calculations of the climatic data center, a third of the nation’s population experienced 10 or more days of summer temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Among the cities that set temperature records in 2012 were Nashville; Athens, Ga.; and Cairo, Ill., all of which hit 109 degrees on June 29; Greenville, S.C., which hit 107 degrees on July 1; and Lamar, Colo., which hit 112 degrees on June 27.

With the end of the growing season, coverage of the drought has waned, but the drought itself has not. Mr. Crouch pointed out that at the beginning of January, 61 percent of the country was still in moderate to severe drought conditions. “I foresee that it’s going to be a big story moving forward in 2013,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013 ... ?ref=earth

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and it can get cold too..... China gets it.

An unusually cold winter across China has some regions hitting their lowest average temperatures in more than 40 years, according to state media reports. The Chinese national meteorological agency said polar fronts caused by global warming are to blame for the frigid air.

The freeze is the coldest winter in 28 years, the English-language newspaper China Daily reported. The national average temperature across China's vast territory was a chilly 25.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3.8 degrees Celsius) since late November. In northeast China, which typically has snowy, cold winters, the average temperature was an icy 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15.3 degrees Celsius), the lowest in 42 years.

Temperatures have dropped down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius) in eastern Inner Mongolia, northern Xinjiang and the Arctic reaches of northeast China. (Mohe, in northeast China, holds China's record low temperature of minus 62.1 F, or minus 52.3 C, set on Feb. 13, 1962.)

Global warming brings record cold

The wintry weather doesn't disprove global warming, however. In fact, an expert a China's National Climate Center blamed rising temperatures for the deep freeze. Global warming is shrinking ice in the Arctic and pushing polar fronts south, Zhou Botao told China Daily.

The loss of Arctic ice could affect weather in China in several ways, said Julienne Stroeve, a research scientist specializing in Arctic ice at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo. "It's hard to separate out cause and effect, but one of the things we do know is when we have less sea ice, the Arctic atmosphere is a lot warmer," Stroeve told OurAmazingPlanet.

With less ice cover, the Arctic Ocean absorbs heat and solar energy from the sun that the ice would have reflected back into space. The heating of Arctic sea water can shift weather patterns in the Arctic and also affect the jet stream, Stroeve said. The jet stream is a persistent river of air that circles the planet, and has a strong influence on winter storms and movement of frosty polar air. Dips and troughs created by the shifting Arctic wind patterns could let Arctic air sneak south, studies show.

November and December also saw a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation, a winter weather pattern that drives colder-than-normal weather, Stroeve said. The NSIDC reported today (Jan. 8) that the Arctic Oscillation is weakening, so relief may be coming to hard-hit areas. "Temperatures aren't quite as cool now as they have been," Stroeve said.

Putting Asia on ice

As of last week, about a thousand ships were stuck in ice in Laizhou Bay in the eastern Bohai Sea, according to China Daily. Some 10,500 square miles (27,000 square kilometers) of sea surface has frozen in Bohai Bay, the greatest ice extent since records began in 2008, according to the Chinese Meteorological Association.

Northern India is also suffering from record cold winter temperatures, Weather Underground reported. In Uttar Pradesh, home to New Delhi, 175 people have died from the cold. The high on Jan. 2 was just 49.6 F (9.8 C), the coldest daily maximum in 44 years.

Brutal cold is also shattering records across Russia. This winter is the coldest on record since 1938, and temperatures plunged as low as minus 58 F (minus 50 C) in some areas.

http://www.livescience.com/26095-china- ... ather.html

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Climate change is heating up the U.S., national report warns



View Photo Gallery — Wild weather of 2012: From wildfires in the West, droughts in the Midwest and storms in the East, 2012 will go down as a memorable year for most Americans. Here are some images of weather both in the United States and abroad.

By Juliet Eilperin,

Jan 11, 2013 10:04 PM EST
The Washington Post Updated: Friday, January 11, 5:04 PM

A federal advisory panel released a massive draft report Friday saying climate change is already damaging the nation’s infrastructure and poses a risk to human health as well as the natural resources supporting Americans’ way of life.

The draft of the third National Climate Assessment — more than 1,000 pages compiled by more than 300 experts over the past three years — sums up what has become increasingly apparent: The country is hotter than it used to be, rainfall is becoming both more intense and more erratic, and rising seas and storm surges threaten U.S. coasts.

It warns that these impacts will intensify in the coming decades, given the current rate of global carbon emissions.

The report does not include policy recommendations, but is designed to guide decisionmakers on the federal, state and local level on how to prepare for a warmer world. In a joint blog post Friday, White House science adviser John P. Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote that it is aimed at Americans “who need information about climate change in order to thrive — from farmers deciding which crops to grow, to city planners deciding the diameter of new storm sewers they are replacing, to electric utilities and regulators pondering how to protect the power grid.”

The draft was posted online Friday afternoon and will be subject to public comment starting Monday. It is scheduled to be finalized in March 2014, after senior policymakers in the administration sign off on its conclusions.

While the United States has issued assessment reports twice in the past, in 2000 and 2009, this one was much more ambitious. It involved 10 times as many contributors as the one issued four years ago, and focused more heavily on how to adapt to a changing climate and reduce the emissions that are driving it.

Climate activists and Democratic lawmakers said the assessment revealed gaps in the country’s effort to cope with global warming’s near-term effects and with future emissions that will exacerbate these problems.

“This draft report sends a warning to all of us: We must act now in a comprehensive fashion to reduce carbon pollution or expose our people to continuing devastation from extreme weather events and their aftermath,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Rick Piltz, who worked as a senior associate in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and heads the group Climate Science Watch, said the report offers President Obama a rare opening.

“He’s said he wants to lead a national ‘conversation’ on climate change,” Piltz said. “He should start the national conversation.”

But congressional Republicans are sure to oppose any such efforts. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who heads the Republican Study Committee, said in a statement that it is clear that Americans will not tolerate any new policies: "Even President Obama acknowledged that our focus right now should be on putting folks back to work and growing the economy – not climate change."

The overview tackles subjects from ocean acidification to water scarcity, attributing many of these changes to greenhouse gas emissions released through the burning of fossil fuels.

Its executive summary states that not only have extreme weather and climate events become more frequent in recent years, “there is new and stronger evidence that many of these increases are related to human activities.”

The report adds that these changes are exacting an economic toll: “Infrastructure across the U.S. is being adversely affected by phenomena associated with climate change, including sea level rise, storm surge, heavy downpours and extreme heat.”

It also identifies specific vulnerabilities in the Washington region, such as the Chesapeake Bay, which it called “an example of a critical and highly integrated natural and economic system threatened by changing land use patterns and a changing climate — including sea level rise, higher temperatures, and more intense precipitation events.”

Virginia Beach ranks among the nation’s “most vulnerable port cities,” according to the assessment, after Miami, Greater New York, New Orleans and Tampa/St. Petersburg.

Human health is likely to suffer as a result of warmer temperatures, according to the assessment. Studies show that a 1.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature could boost the number of premature deaths by 1,000 annually because of worse smog and fine particle pollution. By 2050, the report notes, there could be an additional 4,300 premature deaths per year, costing $6.5 billion nationwide.

Some sectors of the economy face less immediate threats from a changing climate, according to the analysis. In the next 25 years U.S. agriculture is expected “to be relatively resilient, even though there will be increasing disruptions from extreme heat, drought, and heavy downpours,” the report states. Over the next 100 years, however, both crops and livestock are likely to suffer as a result.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... ml?hpid=z3

[Jason]

Dude built his house on a foundation of sand? Didn't he read the bible? Jesus laid down some basics for everyone to read. Don't build on sand - no brainer really.

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Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Posted on 15 January 2013 by Rob Painting

Over the last 50 years an enormous amount of energy, equivalent to two Hiroshima bombs per second, has gone into heating the global oceans. Because of their much greater mass, the oceans have a thermal capacity roughly one thousand times greater than the atmosphere. This means that despite this huge increase in accumulated energy, the change in upper ocean temperature is small compared to that of global surface air temperatures.

Upper ocean heat buried beneath the surface layers doesn't necessarily remain in the ocean though. For instance, the largest year-to-year fluctuation in global temperature generally occurs in response to the Pacific Ocean phenomenon called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Variation in ocean circulation and surface winds typically expose warmer-than-average sea surface water to the atmosphere during El Niño, and cooler-than-average sea surface water during La Niña episodes (check out this brilliant animation to understand the fundamental process). The resultant ocean-to-atmosphere heat exchange has a major influence on global surface temperature in any given year, and this works to obscure the long-term surface global warming trend when viewed at short intervals.

Due to the huge difference in heat capacities between the ocean and atmosphere, what may in fact be a small amount of ocean heat transforms into a major bout of atmospheric warming when this heat is transferred from the ocean to atmosphere. A poignant example is the record-breaking heat wave which has recently enveloped all of Australia.

A heat wave requires a number of 'weather fluctuation stars to align', so-to-speak, but the role of the ocean in this heat wave is demonstrated in the animation below - where a pulse of oceanic heat rapidly accumulates in the surface Indian Ocean around Western Australia and propagates eastward.



Figure 1 - Global sea surface temperature anomalies (departures from the average) for the period 17th December 2012 to 10th January 2013. The maps are from the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The temperature bar is in °C and the anomalies are relative to the long-term average at each location for that time of year.

The marine heat wave which contributed to this record-breaking Australian heat wave, may (hopefully) have been of short enough duration to prevent a mass mortality of marine life in the oceans around Australia, unlike a long-ish marine heat wave off Western Australia in early 2011, but that remains to be seen. Regardless, the vast accumulation of heat in the ocean going on right now may be "out of sight, out of mind" for many, but the extra heat being added to the upper levels of the ocean will have consequences for humanity, as this Australian heat wave amply demonstrates.

Like the giant European, Russian, and United States heat waves before this, the Australian heat wave will slowly fade in the collective memory of the public consciousness, but it may not be too long before another rears its head to inflict suffering. We have seen a historic increase in record-breaking temperatures globally (Hansen [2012]) and, due to the well-understood physically-based scientific foundation (weather fluctuations operating within a warmer background climate state), we have to expect more frequent and more intense heat waves in the future (although their proximate causes are likely to differ).

On our current trajectory, these extreme record-breaking summer temperatures are set to effectively become the norm by around mid 21st century (Anderson [2011]). If this occurs it will present a formidable challenge, not only to human society in the form of wildfires and such, but to human agriculture and the many natural ecosystems that afford us our current lifestyles and feed 7 billion people. It might prove useful for our global society to act in order to prevent this scenario from becoming reality, something not even attempted thus far. Our children and grandchildren might think it was very useful of us.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-H ... ralia.html

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15 January 2013 Last updated at 12:59 ET

Climate change: Soot's role underestimated, says study
Matt McGrath By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News


wood fire The burning of wood is a major source of black carbon the world over.

Black carbon, or soot, is making a much larger contribution to global warming than previously recognised, according to research.

Scientists say that particles from diesel engines and wood burning could be having twice as much warming effect as assessed in past estimates.

They say it ranks second only to carbon dioxide as the most important climate-warming agent.

The research is in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.

Black carbon aerosols have been known to warm the atmosphere for many years by absorbing sunlight. They also speed the melting of ice and snow.

"The large conclusion is that forcing due to black carbon in the atmosphere is larger," lead author Sarah Doherty told BBC News.

"The value the IPCC gave in their 4th assessment report in 2007 is half of what we are presenting in this report - it's a little bit shocking,"

The researchers say black carbon emissions in Europe and North America have been declining due to restrictions on emissions from diesel engines. But they have been growing steadily in the developing world. However as these type of particles don't last very long in the atmosphere, cutting their number would have an immediate impact on temperatures.
diesel engine Cutting emissions from diesel engines could have a big effect

"Reducing emissions from diesel engines and domestic wood and coal fires is a no-brainer as there are tandem health and climate benefits," said Professor Piers Forster from the University of Leeds.

"If we did everything we could to reduce these emissions we could buy ourselves up to half a degree less warming, or a couple of decades of respite," he added.

The report warns that the role of black carbon is complex and can have cooling and warming effects.

"Mitigation is a complex issue because soot is typically emitted with other particles and gases that probably cool the climate," said Prof Forster,

"For instance, organic matter in the atmosphere produced by open vegetation burning likely has a cooling effect. Therefore the net effect of eliminating that source might not give us the desired cooling," he added.

Black carbon is said to be a significant source of rapid warming in the northern United States, Canada, northern Europe and northern Asia. The particles are also said to have an impact on rainfall patterns in the Asian monsoon.

Last year a six nation coalition of countries began a combined effort to curb the impact of short lived climate agents such as black carbon.

The authors say that while cutting back on soot is important, cutting carbon dioxide emissions is the best way to address climate change in the long term.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21033078

[Jason]

A new study suggests breathing may contribute more to global warming than previously estimated. Human defecation and flatulation has also been cited as one of the major producers of methane.

Stop driving. Stop heating your homes with a renewable resource. Stop shitting. Stop farting. Stop breathing! It's for the good of the planetz!

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Record-breaking temperatures are now the norm

* 18:00 15 January 2013 by Peter Aldhous
* For similar stories, visit the Climate Change Topic Guide

Video: How climate change is both global and local
Interactive map: "Your warming world"
http://warmingworld.newscientistapps.com/

Call it the new normal. Last year was the ninth warmest on record across the globe, according to NASA's annual analysis of surface temperatures. But by recent standards, it was nothing special: all but one of the hottest 10 years have happened since 2000.

The single exception – 1998 – was influenced by a very strong El Niño, in which warm water from the western Pacific spreads to the east, increasing the transfer of heat from the oceans to the atmosphere.

The global average figures from the annual analysis of surface temperatures, released today by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, tell only part of the story. Local and regional changes can be even more extreme.

To visualise how temperature has changed around the globe, take a peek at New Scientist's interactive map of the entire historical temperature record from the NASA analysis. Watch the video to get started.
Continental record

Although 2012 was not a record breaker in global terms, it was an extreme year for the Arctic and North AmericaMovie Camera, with temperatures exceeding 3 °C above the average for NASA's baseline period of 1951 to 1980.

Last week, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that 2012 was the warmest year on record for the continental US.

NASA's analysis confirms this conclusion. According to team leader James Hansen, an unusually warm spring dried out the soil across much of the country, leaving little moisture to moderate summer temperatures through evaporative cooling.

Still, the steady rise in global average temperature seems to have levelled off in the past few years. One reason may be that the El Niño conditions that prevailed in the first half of the decade gave way to La Niña, which reduces heat transfer from the oceans. If so, prepare for more record-breaking years when El Niño returns.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... -norm.html

[Jason]

[cronus]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... hange-nasa

Amazon showing signs of degradation due to climate change, Nasa warns

The US space agency Nasa warned this week that the Amazon rainforest may be showing the first signs of large-scale degradation due to climate change.

A team of scientists led by the agency found that an area twice the size of California continues to suffer from a mega-drought that began eight years ago.

The new study shows the severe dry spell in 2005 caused far wider damage than previously estimated and its impact persisted longer than expected until an even harsher drought in 2010.

With little time for the trees to recover between what the authors describe as a "double whammy", 70m hectares of forest have been severely affected, the analysis of 10 years of satellite microwave radar data revealed.

The data showed a widespread change in the canopy due to the dieback of branches, especially among the older, larger trees that are most vulnerable because they provide the shelter for other vegetation.

"We had expected the forest canopy to bounce back after a year with a new flush of leaf growth, but the damage appeared to persist right up to the subsequent drought in 2010," said study co-author Yadvinder Malhi of Oxford University.

The Amazon is experiencing a drought rate that is unprecedented in a century, said the agency. Even before 2005, water availability had been shrinking steadily for more than 10 years, which made the trees more vulnerable. Between 2005 and 2010, localised dry spells added to the problem.

The leader of the research team, Sassan Saatchi of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said forests will find it increasingly difficult to recover if climate change makes droughts more frequent and severe.

"This may alter the structure and function of Amazonian rainforest ecosystems," he warned.

(continued)

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for some it takes a sledge hammer for a wake up call.

Tim Flannery sees possible catastrophy in Australia's future. (Credit: AAP/Lukas Coch)
THIS SUMMER, LIFE here in Australia has resembled a compulsory and very unpleasant game of Russian roulette. A pool of hot air more than 1600km wide formed across the inland. It covered much of the continent, and has proved astonishingly persistent.

Periodically, low pressure systems spill the heat towards the coast, where most Australians live. At Christmas it was Perth. Then the heat struck Adelaide, followed by Tasmania, Victoria, and southern New South Wales and Canberra. The second weekend in January, it was southern Queensland and northern New South Wales that faced the gun. On Friday, Sydney experienced its hottest day ever recorded, with a high of 45.8ºC.

And with every heatwave, the incidences of bushfires and heat-related deaths and injuries spike.

Australians are used to hot summers. We normally love them. But the conditions prevailing now are something new. Temperature records are being broken everywhere. At Leonora, in the Western Australian interior, it reached 49ºC two weeks ago – the national high – and just one record temperature among many. The nation's overall temperature record was set on 7 January. Then the following day that record was exceeded, by half a degree celsius.

Australia's shifting climate

The breaking of so many temperature records indicates that Australia's climate is shifting. This is supported by analysis of the long-term trend. Over the past 40 years we've seen a decline in the number of very cold days, and the occurrence of many more very hot days.

All of this was predicted by climate scientists decades ago, and is consistent with the increasing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere

The new conditions have seen the Bureau of Meteorology add two new colour categories to Australia's weather prediction maps. Temperatures of 48-50ºC used to be the highest, and where such extremes were anticipated, the weather map was marked black.

Over the last few weeks, purple patches have begun to appear on some maps. They mark temperatures above 50ºC. Pink, which is yet to be deployed, will denote temperatures above 52ºC.

Climate extremes have a way of stacking up to produce unpleasant consequences. Two years ago, the ocean temperature off northwestern Australia reached a record high, and evaporation of the warm seawater led to Australia's wettest year on record. This was followed, in central Australia, by the longest period without rain on record. The vegetation that had thrived in the wet now lies dried and curing, a perfect fuel for fires.

Catastrophic bushfire risk

With abundant fuel and increased temperatures, the nature of bushfires is changing. Australians have long rated fire risk on the MacArthur index. On it, a rating of 100 – the conditions that prevailed in the lead-up to the devastating 1939 bushfires – represents "extreme" risk.

But after the 2009 fires a new level of risk was required. "Catastrophic" represents a risk rating above 100. Under such conditions fires behave very differently. The Black Saturday fires of 2009, which killed 173 people, were rated at between 120 and 190. They spread so fast, and burned so hot, that the communities they advanced upon were utterly helpless.

The superheated air currently monstering the continent is fickle. Earlier in the month, Sydneysiders watched in relative thermal comfort as those living just 100km to the south endured scorching heat, blustering winds, and unstoppable fires.

The unprecedented conditions of recent weeks have seen many Australians rethinking their attitude to climate change.

A good friend of mine farms just outside Canberra. A few years ago the drought was so severe that his 300 year-old gum trees died of thirst. Then the rains came on so violently that they stripped the precious topsoil, filling his dams with mud and sheep droppings. This week he watched as his cousin's property at Yass was reduced to ashes.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

When I called he was trying to secure his own historic homestead and outbuildings from fire. He asked me if I thought the family would still be farming the area 50 years from now. All I could say was that it depended upon how quickly Australia, and the world, reduced their greenhouse gas emissions.

Australia's average temperature has increased by just 0.9 of a degree celsius over the past century. Within the next 90 years we're on track to warm by at least another three degrees. Having seen what 0.9 of a degree has done to heatwaves and fire extremes, I dread to think about the kind of country my grandchildren will live in.

Even our best agricultural land will be under threat if that future is realised. And large parts of the continent will be uninhabitable, not just by humans, but by Australia's spectacular biodiversity as well.

The extreme conditions have once again raised the political heat around climate change. The Greens party condoned an anti-coal activist who created a false press release claiming that the ANZ bank had withdrawn support for a major coal project, causing its share price to plunge. Meanwhile the acting leader of the opposition, Warren Truss, said it was simplistic to link the hot spell to climate change, and "utterly simplistic to suggest that we have these fires because of climate change".

Race against time in Australia

Australia is the world's largest coal exporter, and the mining lobby is exceptionally strong. As calls to combat climate change have increased, the miners have argued that "mum and dad investors" will lose out if any effort is made to reduce the export or use of fossil fuels.

But the smart money is no longer backing fossil fuels. In South Australia, wind energy has gone from 1% to 26% of the mix in just seven years, and nationally solar panel installations are 13 years ahead of official projections. Last year, in fact, Australia led the world in terms of number of individual solar installations.

And finally, with a carbon price in place, Australia's emissions curve is beginning to flatten out. Despite these efforts, Australians are already enduring the kind of conditions they'd hoped to avoid if strong, early action had been taken. Now, more than ever, we're in a race against time to avoid a truly catastrophic outcome.

Professor Tim Flannery is a scientist at Macquarie University, a writer, government advisor and former Australian of the Year. This opinion piece was first published by the Guardian newspaper.

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/ ... annery.htm

[macdoc]

complete shocker - damn - 3.2 degrees C warmer in winter....

Dramatic temperature increases could threaten Canadian health, infrastructure
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Jan. 21 2013, 9:37 PM EST

Every community in the country is getting a new definition of “normal” weather.

Environment Canada is rolling out updated benchmarks to reflect a rapidly changing climate. These adjusted figures for precipitation, temperature and other factors change the calculations for anyone trying to build a bridge, insure a house or predict mosquito season. In a best-case scenario, the adaptive cost is incremental and can be factored into planning; at worst, it could mean expensive cleanups as sewers back up and power lines fail.

MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY

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INFOGRAPHIC


Winter temperatures across Canada

While applying new normals at Canada’s weather stations is not unusual (the 30-year rolling average is updated every decade), the degree of change this time is notable: Average temperatures are rising across the board, during winter most of all. In the past 65 years, Canada’s national average winter temperature has risen 3.2 degrees.

This reaffirms what many suspected. Canada is getting hotter faster than ever before and at a faster rate than almost any other country. Rain, snow, sleet and hail storms are becoming more erratic. What were once considered exceptional weather patterns – the kind researchers reject to avoid skewing their data – are becoming common.

“We’ve had an awful lot of those ‘exceptionals,’” said Robert Tremblay, research director at the Insurance Bureau of Canada. “What used to be happening every 50 years is now happening every five, seven years. … There’s obviously a sense of urgency.”

Canada’s infrastructure wasn’t built for this kind of climate. And much of the burden falls on municipal governments, with road, sewer and transit systems that can barely cope with existing weather conditions, let alone future vagaries.

“There’s a very large gap in terms of the current health of municipal infrastructure in Canada and where we should be right now,” said Paul Kovacs, University of Western Ontario economist and executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, a group established by Canada’s insurance industry to research the costs of natural disasters and how to mitigate them. “Incrementally, the cost of filling that gap is getting larger.”

Building codes across Canada require new high-rises and government structures to take into consideration the “normal” temperature at the time of construction, Mr. Kovacs said. Residents have sued cities – and won – over weather-related damage that courts ruled the municipalities should have planned for. In 2010, Stratford, Ont., paid $7.7-million to more than 800 homeowners in a class-action suit over damage from a flood in July, 2002.

Local public health officials are also paying close attention to vulnerable populations as extreme heat and cold become more frequent. They use climate projections to plan West Nile virus prevention – milder winters and springs can mean more mosquitos carrying the disease.

It’s a big deal for businesses, too, although many don’t know it yet. “Or they don’t want to know: They see it as a kind of capitulation,” said Blair Feltmate, who runs Canada’s Climate Change Adaptation Project.

“Traditionally, in the whole area of climate change, almost 99 per cent of the discussion has focused on mitigating,” Mr. Feltmate said. But “climate change is a done deal. There’s nothing we can do to turn it off. … How do we adapt to that new reality?”

Take tailings impoundment areas – the ponds used to store mine waste. Mr. Feltmate said many of the ponds in northern areas were designed “with the idea that permafrost will be in the ground permanently.” In many regions, that isn’t the case.

The effects of erratic weather patterns became very real for Ontario’s apple farmers last year: An early thaw followed by an unexpected frost wiped out 82 per cent of the province’s crop. Now, the industry – worth about $100-million in Ontario alone – is trying to figure out how to weatherproof itself. Potential fixes are wind breaks, hail nets, frost fans and sunscreen for apples to prevent damage from sunlight and heat. It’s expensive and uncertain, especially when the weather becomes tougher to predict. Leslie Huffman, Ontario’s apple production specialist, is working with the province on evaluating new techniques.

It’s a big deal for insurance companies: Claims for sewage backups alone have doubled in 11 years, Mr. Tremblay said. Companies are including weather variables in their risk calculations that they wouldn’t have factored in before, such as how much wind a garage door can withstand.

If insurance costs go up, rates may rise. “We’re not at that stage yet,” Mr. Tremblay said.

While actuaries and engineers factor these new normals into their formulas, some people studying Canada’s climate change argue that’s not satisfactory.

“New normals are better than old data,” Mr. Kovacs said. “But for most of us, what we’re ideally hoping is that people will start looking further ahead.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le7614461/

[FBM]

Forgive me, macdoc, if I don't have time to search the whole thread, but I have a question. A while back I read that no matter what we do now, there's no way to avert global warming. I'm still trying to minimize my carbon footprint, but since reading that I've had the nagging notion that I'm/we're just pissing in the wind. What say you?

[pErvinalia]

We've locked in at least 2C average global increase. The reason for this is that CO2 persists in the atmosphere, and even if we reduced emission tomorrow, that 2C is already locked in. Last figures I saw suggest we are looking at at least a 4C rise if we get our shit together eventually, but likely at least a 6C rise if we just continue on like we are now. This is an international scale problem. I'm not sure how the figures stack up, but I suspect personal reduction in carbon footprint won't make the largest impact. It will come down to reducing wasteful consumption and industry wide changes in practice (i.e. an economy wide change to renewables). Without that repeated on a global scale, we are in for some pain.