http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/natural-causes-drove-russian-heat-wave-study-finds/
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"If you want to help the world most, help yourself grow, and you will do far more than you could by just being involved." (Priscilla T. Lim)
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We were told by Anne Jolis (from the WSJ Opinion Europe) in February of this year that the latest research belies the idea that storms are getting more extreme. She had a look at The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project (where they use super-computers to generate a dataset of global atmospheric circulation going back to 1871). She reported that the project's initial findings show no evidence of an intensifying weather trend.
We all know that carbon dioxide and other gases trap and re-radiate heat. We also know that humans have emitted ever-more of these gases since the Industrial revolution. What we don't know is exactly how sensitive the climate is to increases in these gases versus other possible factors - solar variability, ocean currents, Pacific heating and cooling cycles, and so on.
So we spend trillions to cut carbon emissions (with implied reductions in economic growth as a consequence) to pre-industrial levels. Does that mean the climate won't continue to change?
This week's report (which we've attached) on the deadly heat wave that seared Russia last summer indicated that weather event was driven primarily by a natural phenomenon, not man-made causes. This is per Randall Dole, deputy director of research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory.
That heat wave killed nearly 11,000 people in Moscow alone. In this day and age, it is unimaginable to think that heat, whether in Moscow or anywhere else, could cause that many deaths.
But the NOAA scientists conclusions rebut speculation by some at the peak of that crisis that the heat wave could be directly attributed to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other heat- trapping gases in the atmosphere. However; those scientists also point out that, by 2060, models show that intensive heat waves could occur as frequently as once every decade.
Earthquakes, like the one in Japan this week, happen. It's presumptive for mankind to think that our presence on the planet causes something that facilitates natural disasters. The fire in Moscow was caused by weather patterns but not weather that changed because of something mankind was doing.
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Okay, I will bite. I agree that the earthquakes and tsunamis and even some fires are natural events, but I would suggest that we can look to the disaster in Japan as a lesson for what will happen when the increased warming causes the western ice-sheet to collapse. Then flooding will be world-wide as the sea level rises between 3-7 meters.
ReplyDeleteEven a best case scenario of 3 meters means incredible destruction and relocation of hundreds of millions of people. I can't remember the exact stats but a large percentage of the world population lives in coastal areas, such as the islands in Indonesia. In the US, important cities such as D.C. and NYC will be innundated. I think that the scenes we are seeing in Japan should serve as a warning of what is to come if we continue to live at the same energy-using levels we are at now.
If nothing else, reducing our energy consumption will cut costs and reduce local pollution - for even if you don't believe that emissions lead to global warming, it is clear that they lead to smog. Not that we will ever reduce our dependence on oil and coal (or that we should) to zero, but we could certainly be much more efficient in how we use it.
Tracey: outstanding stuff! That would be a good post!
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