Meteorologist Paul Douglas writes about Minnesota weather daily, trying to go beyond the "highs" and "lows" of the weather story to discuss current trends and some of the how's and why's of meteorology. Rarely is our weather dull - every day is a new forecast challenge. Why is the weather doing what it's doing? Is climate change a real concern, and if so, how will my family be affected? Climate is flavoring all weather now, and I'll include links to timely stories that resonate with me.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Summery Weekend - First Canadian Slap Brewing - Army Concerns About Global Warming
76 F. high temperature in the Twin Cities Wednesday. 69 F. average high on September 23. 74 F. high on September 23, 2014.
September 24: 1985: 0.4 inches of snow fell in the Minneapolis area! September 24, 1982: Tropical air over the state. The Twin Cities has a low of 71. September 24, 1869: Heavy rain dumps nearly 10 inches on the White Earth Reservation.
Simmering September First Canadian Slap Brewing
What
if winter....never came? That's not going to happen anytime soon, and
frankly it would be a very bad sign if the flakes didn't fly and the
winds didn't howl and the temperatures didn't tumble. It would mean we
were past the point of no return. The arrival of winter is a reminder
that we haven't irreversibly screwed things up, at least not yet. I'm
happy to report (on some level) that winter is, in fact, coming...
The first real Canadian slap of autumn is brewing for the first weekend of October, when you might actually need a jacket.
Your
drip-dries may be drooping after yesterday's June-like downpours.
Morning puddles give way to gradual clearing later today. The weekend
still looks partly-glorious with sunshine and highs near 80F. Soak it up
because we cool into the 60s early next week; in about 2 weeks we may
be looking at highs in the 40s and 50s.
You know, actual autumn-like weather, for a change.
It's
still supernaturally green out there for late September. Minnesota's
growing season is 2 weeks longer than it was a generation ago. That's
not a nebulous climate model; that's based on actual NASA observations of greenery from low-Earth orbit.
Torrential Rains Flood Omaha.
Training T-storms dumped out some amazing rainfall amounts on the Omaha
area, at least for late September. Here's an excerpt from WOWT-TV: "Torrential
rains hammered the metro Wednesday morning with some of the heaviest
rain totals on record being tallied. Streets flooded, tree limbs
cracked, power failed. Then came the clean-up and the threat of more
rain. Council Bluffs schools closed, bowing to the challenge of the high
water. Up to eight inches of rain fell in four hours in parts of
Pottawattamie and Mills counties in Iowa. Eppley Airfield had received
5.25 inches by 5:00 p.m., breaking the previous record for this date of
1.97 inches set in 1977. It was also the sixth highest daily rainfall of
all time in Omaha. The most ever recorded was the 6.46 inches that fell
on August 7, 1999..."
Clearing Out For The Weekend.
Today still looks unsettled with a few lingering showers - although the
heaviest bands of storms should push east by the PM hours. A ridge of
high pressure builds over the weekend, keeping us dry, sunny and
unseasonably warm. A few low 80s are possible close to home. 84-hour NAM
guidance above: NOAA.
7-Day Rainfall Potential.
An area of disturbed weather over Central America is forecast to push
into the Gulf of Mexico by early next week, increasing the risk of heavy
rain for the Gulf Coast; more flash flooding problems possible across
the Carolinas. The rains that soaked the Omaha area will push east; the
next chance of showers and T-storms over Minnesota coming the middle of
next week.
Chilly Snap - Then Warming Up Again.
High temperatures may hold in the 40s and 50s between October 5-8, but
some recovery is likely the second week of October as the flow becomes
more zonal, more west to east, allowing 60s, even a few 70s to return to
the Upper Midwest. Source: GrADS:COLA/IGES.
Fall is Here, But U.S. Temperatures are Stuck in Summer. WXshift has the story - here's an excerpt that caught my eye: "...If
the month ended today, at least 26 cities across the country would have
their warmest September on record. They range from El Paso, Texas to
Denver to Cheyenne, Wyo. to Boston. Also among the record setters is New
York, which could set a new record by a wide margin. This September is
outpacing the current record — set in 1961 — by 3.1°F. A host of other cities including Cleveland and Chicago would also see this September among their top five warmest.
Summer’s temperature grip should stay firmly in place for the rest of
the month just about everywhere across the U.S., save the Pacific
Northwest which is in a bubble of average temperatures..." (Graphic: WXshift).
Valley Fire Named Third Most Destructive Wildfire in California State History. Here's an excerpt from the San Jose Mercury News: "As
fire crews moved closer to controlling the Valley Fire overnight
Monday, bringing it to 75 percent under control, the blaze was named the
third most destructive wildfire in state history, according to Cal Fire
officials. As of 7:30 a.m.,
75,781 acres were burned, according to Cal Fire officials. Firefighters
mopped up hot spots and strengthened fire lines designed to keep the
fire from advancing, according to a news release from the agency..."
Photo credit above: "Charred
vehicles rest among the remains of houses burned down by the Valley
Fire in Middletown, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 18, 2015." (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group).
When You Add Severe Storms to Rising Seas You Get Some Scary Math. onEarth takes a look at coastal vulnerability; here's a clip: "Sometimes, 1 plus 1 can equal 3." This quote
from Columbia University climatologist Radley Horton isn’t likely to
convert any climate deniers, but it is a succinct way of summarizing an intriguing new study
about how global warming will increase flooding in U.S. coastal cities.
If you have even a passing familiarity with climate change science, you
know that global warming raises the risk that coastal cities will be inundated.
Dozens of studies have made that point. But there’s an element of the
research that few pick up on: There are two entirely different
mechanisms that place coastal communities at risk..." (Hurricane Katrina file photo from New Orleans courtesy of FEMA).
British Columbia Coast Should Brace for "Monster" El Nino Year. Details via the Canadian Press and the Edmonton Journal; here's a clip: "The
"monster" El Nino weather system expected to hit Canada's West Coast
later this fall and winter could lead to higher tides, flooding and
erosion in low-lying coastal areas, says a professor at the University
of Victoria. Ian Walker's warning comes out of part of a larger study by
a group of researchers from five countries bordering the Pacific who
looked into El Nino and La Nina weather systems. The study was published
this week in the journal Nature Geoscience..."
File photo credit above: "Massive
waves hit the seawall as storms surges on West Vancouver's Ambleside
beach area at high tide , flooding the local John Lawson Park, on
December 17, 2012." Mark van Manen / PNG Staff
Flooding May Increase 300-Fold on Atlantic, Gulf Coasts.
Rising sea levels are already making storm surge flooding worse, even
without major hurricane strikes. That's not alarmist hype, that's based
on actual observations. Here's a clip from CBS News: "Sea-level rise
along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts combined with more frequent and
violent storms could increase flooding from the Northeast to Texas by
several-hundredfold, according to a new study out Monday. Over the past
century, the East Coast has seen sea-level rise far above the 8-inch
global average - up to a foot in much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast,
including New York City. It is expected to increase as much as four feet by 2100, mostly due to the melting ice sheets as well as the expansion of the seawater as the oceans warm..." (File photo: USGS). Californians Fear El Nino's Dark Side Will Bring More Trouble.
Floods...in the midst of the worst drought in 500 years? It's a
distinct possibility as El Nino warming of the Pacific shifts the core
of the jet stream, the main storm track, 500-1000 miles farther south
than typical during the winter months. But will this pattern actually
emerge in the coming months? Here's a clip from Bloomberg Business: "...They
weren’t touting it as the savior that will end the state’s four-year
drought. Instead, they were looking at a darker scenario where the
weather-changing phenomenon adds another year of dryness in the north
while ravaging the south with floods. “What do you say when the governor
asks you what to do? ‘You prepare for flood and drought because there
is a possibility you can get both,”’ said Mike Anderson, state climatologist. While it bucks conventional wisdom, the scenario is a real possibility..."
The Hottest Cities to Live - and Die - In. Takepart
takes a look at how the urban heat island, coupled with warming from
the climate system, is increasing the risk of heat-related ailments in
America's largest cities, including MSP. Here's an excerpt: "...In a
study recently published in the journal Computers, Environment and Urban Systems,
researchers at the University of Georgia looked at the 50 largest
metropolitan areas in the United States to see which cities were
experiencing the most intense temperature changes owing to the UHI
effect. Salt Lake City; Louisville, Kentucky; Miami; and Cleveland
topped the list with jumps in annual temperatures between 0.92 degrees
Celsius and 1.49 degrees Celsius in 2010 thanks to asphalt, density, and
urban sprawl. Urban areas with increases between a half to nearly 1
degree Celsius included Los Angeles; San Francisco; Dallas–Fort Worth;
Minneapolis–St. Paul; Detroit; Washington, D.C.–Baltimore; New York
City; Philadelphia; Norfolk, Virginia; Birmingham, Alabama; and
Jacksonville and Tampa, Florida..."
Map credit above: "This graphic shows the annual average urban heat island effect in 2010." (Photo: University of Georgia)
A Massive Amount of Death is Plaguing the World's Oceans. VICE News has the story - here's a clip: "Marine
species have declined by almost half over the last forty-five years,
according to the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Index, and leading
marine scientists tell VICE News that the only hope of stopping mass
death in the oceans is to radically and quickly transform human
behavior. Based on a study of 5,829 populations of 1,234 mammal, bird,
reptile, and fish species in the world's oceans, the WWF found
a decline of 49 percent between 1970 and 2012. Fish were the most
threatened, in large part because of human overfishing: Over a third of
fish consumed by humans measured by the Living Planet Index are under
threat of extinction, with one family of tuna and mackerel falling 74
percent between 1970 and 2010..." (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA).
3-D Meteorological Experience: Tornado in the Cube. This is pretty cool, and it's helping meteorologists better understand the dynamics of tornadogenesis. Here's an excerpt from a2ru.org: "...The
team re-created a tornado that happened in Moore, Oklahoma in 2013—a
weather event that killed 24 people—using the data from the storm. Using
the audio and visual capabilities of the Cube, researchers can
penetrate the storm’s outside layers of rain, walking through to see
what is happening at the center of the tornado. With this comprehensive
view, researchers can better understand how tornadoes develop, allowing
them to develop more accurate storm predictions and improve warning
systems. The ultimate goal is to visualize weather events in real time,
which would provide invaluable emergency management information..."
Study: Twice As Much Trash Put in Landfills Than Estimated. 1,871 pounds of trash per person into landfills as recently as 2013. Good grief. Here's an excerpt from a story at AP: "...Researchers
at Yale University looked at the records for more than 1,200 landfills
and calculated amounts, predominantly based on weights. They figured it
was 289 million tons in 2012, according to a study published Monday in
the journal Nature Climate Change. For the same year, EPA estimated the
figure to be 135 million tons. The Yale team calculated that in 2013,
waste sent to landfills rose to 294 million tons. With 316 million
people, that comes to 1,871 pounds per person in that year, the last for
which there are figures..."
* TIME has additional perspective on a growing problem with trash.
Wherever You Go, Your Personal Cloud of Microbes Follows. I took a second shower after reading this story at NPR; here's an excerpt: "...The findings from Meadow and his colleagues were published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ.
Each of us carries around millions of microorganisms – including
bacteria, fungi and viruses — on the inner and outer surfaces of our
bodies. Most of them aren't dangerous. In fact, growing evidence
indicates that they help us in lots of ways. Scientists call this
collection of organisms our microbiome..."
Illustration credit above: Thomas Kuhlenbeck/Ikon Images/Corbis.
So Sad, So Dumb. Selfies Kill More People Than Sharks. Darwin was right, it turns out. Here's an excerpt of a post from Mashable and Yahoo News: "...It’s
gotten so bad in Russia, where kids have been electrocuted while trying
to take selfies on top of train cars, the government has launched a public-service campaign
to warn young people about locations where it might not be so smart to
take a photo (including on top of houses, next to oncoming trains, and
in the company of wild animals). Mashable
went a step further in putting this so-tragic-it’s-tragic trend into
perspective, crunching to numbers to determine that more lives in 2015
have been lost to selfie mishaps (12) than to shark attacks (eight)..."
WEDNESDAY: Unsettled, few showers possible. Wake-up: 54. High: 67
Climate Stories....
Pope Francis, in Washington, Offers Vision for Church, and World. Here's a clip from The New York Times; an excerpt of yesterday's address by Pope Francis: "...Mr.
President,” Francis said, speaking in English despite his discomfort
with the language, “I find it encouraging that you are proposing an
initiative for reducing air pollution. Accepting the urgency, it seems
clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be
left to a future generation. When it comes to the care of our common
home, we are living at a critical moment of history.” Devoting more of
his address to that issue than to any other topic, the pope said there
was still time to heal the planet for its children. “To use a telling
phrase of the Rev. Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted
on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it,” he said..."
Photo credit above: "Pope
Francis departs the Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican's diplomatic
mission in the heart of Washington, en route to the Basilica of the
National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015.
The Pope will celebrate Mass and canonize Junipero Serra." (AP Photo/Cliff Owen).
Pope Francis and the Case for Optimism about Climate Change. Here's a snippet of a story from Chris Mooney at The Washington Post: "...For
even assuming that Paris is a success and clean energy continues to
grow like gangbusters, emissions won’t suddenly cease tomorrow, and
there’s a fair amount of warming (and sea level rise) already baked into
the system. And we honestly don’t know whether or not, by the time
temperatures have peaked and are on the way down again, human emissions
will have already in effect flipped any climate change “wild cards,” as
my colleague Joby Warrick recently put it, involving the circulation of the oceans, the planet’s increasingly worrisome ice sheets, or Arctic permafrost (to name a few)...."
Pope Francis' Remarks at the White House. The New York Times has a full transcript of the Pope's message; here's an excerpt of Wednesday's speech in Washington D.C.: "...Accepting
the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem
which can no longer be left to a future generation. When it comes to
the care of our “common home”, we are living at a critical moment of
history. We still have time to make the changes needed to bring about “a
sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can
change” (Laudato Si’, 13). Such change demands on our part a serious and
responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving
to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a
system which has overlooked them...."
Pope Francis Comes to America to Preach for Climate Action. Eric Holthaus has a story at Slate; here's a snippet: "...This
is the message Pope Francis will bring to America: The world needs
Americans to take a dramatically different path, a moral path, and the
time is now. Each of us has the ability and the responsibility to put
the common good ahead of our own interest every day, and the health of
our planet demands it. Echoing Pope Francis, Oreskes writes in the
foreword: “It is not a question of people versus the environment and
choosing which is more important. It is a question of abandoning the
notion of ‘versus’ altogether...”
Global Warming: Army Health Readiness Concern? Here's an excerpt from the U.S. Army:
"Climate change might be the most significant threat facing the Army's
health readiness in the future, one Army science advisor said. Dr.
Steven Cersovsky spoke during the Association of the U.S. Army's "Hot
Topics" forum on health readiness in Arlington, Virginia, Sept. 22. He
serves as science advisor for the Army Public Health Center
(Provisional) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. "We must understand
what is coming and how these changes will affect our Army," Cersovsky
said. "And we must begin adapting now." More heat-related injuries will
be among the most obvious problems coming with global warming, Cersovsky
said..."
Image credit above: "Extreme heat and increased
particulates in the air may be a problem for Soldiers in the future with
climate change, an Army science advisor said. Here Soldiers, from 77th
Sustainment Brigade, train on Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J."
Graphic: The Presidential Candidates on Climate Change. NPR has a good summary of where the candidates stand; here's an excerpt: "...Climate
change is something the next president will also have to grapple with
as well, though the candidates vary vastly in whether they believe it is
real, consider it a priority, and in what action they would take.
Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that she now opposes
building the Keystone XL pipeline, after avoiding taking a position on
it for months. Republican candidate Bobby Jindal took a quick jab at
Clinton over that announcement, tweeting that she "should focus on
creating American jobs instead of appeasing radical environmentalists."
In one graphic, here's where the presidential candidates stand on
climate change."
If You Care About Climate Change It's Getting Easier to Find Companies To Invest In. Here's a clip from an article at Quartz: "...In
the past year, though, there has been a marked rise in the number of
companies that set their own internal “price” for carbon emissions and
self-report the figures. In 2015, 437 companies around the world used
such a guide, up from 150 the previous year. The list of those companies
(pdf) was released recently by CDP, a charity that collects data on
carbon emissions and has the stated aim of helping to mitigate climate
change. In the report, companies said they were driven by pressures
including the desire to incentivize investment in clean energy and
reducing emissions..."
96 Cities That Are Quitting Fossil Fuels and Moving Toward 100% Renewable Energy. EcoWatch has the article; here's an excerpt: "...Several
cities have even made impressive strides to ditch fossil fuels in favor
of renewables. Two recent reports have confirmed that 100 percent
renewable energy is possible. Earlier this summer, professors out of Stanford and U.C. Berkeley laid out a plan for the U.S. to convert to 100 percent renewable energy in less than 40 years, and Monday Greenpeace published its Energy Revolution 2015 report, which proposes a pathway to a 100 percent sustainable energy supply by 2050..."
Global Companies Joining Climate Change Efforts. A number of big companies are stepping up; here's an excerpt of a story at The New York Times: "...Nine major companies are expected on Wednesday to join a global coalition of firms intent on converting to renewable energy. The new members include Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Walmart and Goldman Sachs.
A handful of the companies have already reached the 100 percent target;
others do not expect to do so for several decades, but they are
typically setting aggressive interim targets..." (Image above: NASA).
Exxon Confirmed Global Warming Consensus in 1982 with In-House Climate Models. Here is the third installment of the series from InsideClimate News: "Steve
Knisely was an intern at Exxon Research and Engineering in the summer
of 1979 when a senior vice president asked him to analyze how global
warming might affect fuel use. "I think this guy was looking for
validation that the greenhouse effect should spur some investment in
alternative energy that's not bad for the environment," Knisely, now 58
and a partner in a management consulting company, recalled in a recent
interview. Knisely projected
that unless fossil fuel use was constrained, there would be "noticeable
temperature changes" and 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO2)
in the air by 2010, up from about 280 ppm before the Industrial
Revolution. The summer intern's predictions turned out to be very close
to the mark...."
Graphic above courtesy of Greg Laden, who has additional perspective in this blog post: "...Notice
that Exxon 1981 had it right. The revelations of the Exxon research,
and the fact that it was kept secret and all that, is an interesting
story. And, that story will develop over coming days, week, and months.
But I don’t want to lose track of the other story, in some ways even
more interesting. How surprised should we be, after all, that a major
corporation would both look into and ignore, possibly even repress, the
science associated with their primary activity? Not at all, really. But
what is surprising is that we (and by “we” I mean scientists who have
studied climate change) have understood the basic problem for a very
long time, and decades of research have confirmed early findings, and of
course, added important details...."
Industry Can Lead on Climate Change. The New York Times
takes a look at how big companies are getting out in front on this
issue, to lower carbon emissions, yes, but also to save energy, and save
money, tightening up their bottom lines. Here's an excerpt: "A
NUMBER of major companies — from PepsiCo to Walmart to U.P.S. — have
recognized that corporations have a responsibility to address the causes
of climate change before it is too late. We do not have to wait for an international treaty or new regulations to act. At Siemens,
the global industrial manufacturing company I lead that makes
everything from wind and gas turbines and automation systems to
high-speed trains and M.R.I. machines, we understand that taking action
is not just prudent — it’s profitable..."
Photo credit above: "The Siemens plant in Sacramento."Credit David Paul Morris/Bloomberg.
Green Group: Fossil-Fuel Phase-Out Possible by 2050. Here's a clip from a story at TheHill: "The
world could completely phase out fossil fuels and use only renewable
energy by 2050, activist group Greenpeace concluded in a new report. In a
joint project with the German Aerospace Centre, Greenpeace concluded
that the 2050 timeline would create jobs and be cost competitive when
compared with a continued reliance on fossil fuels. “We must not let the
fossil fuel industry’s lobbying stand in the way of a switch to
renewable energy, the most effective and fairest way to deliver a clean
and safe energy future,” Greenpeace International Executive Director
Kumi Naidoo said in a statement..."
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