Record setting weather

[brainpanhandler]

Spring and Autumn don't exist as they used to, we're pretty much down to Summer and Winter only here, with about a week of Spring and Autumn each. Not the definable 3-month seasons we've had.

I'm no climatologist or scientist. Just an observer. But I notice significant change.

Same here. Its pretty obvious the Earth is changing. We've got shit blooming outside right this minute, FFS!

Not only do the Winter/Summer seasons appear more intense, but what I've noticed the last couple years is also an extreme change in DAILY temperatures, like a huge shift in day/night, almost like desert weather.

Ditto to all that, especially the observation that spring and fall seem so brief. I am reluctant to make such observations because they are so subjective, but fuck it. Yes. The fucking weather just does not seem right.

Where I live in the upper midwest of the US we really are on a pace to shatter what was a record amount of snowfall last year by a staggering 30-40% more snow.

I lived in Roswell GA for a couple of years as a kid. An inch of snow paralyzed the whole area. I can remember incredible ice storms. Pine trees snapping from the weight of the ice sounded like gunshots.

[chiggerbit]

What I'm seeing as a pattern here in SE Iowa is a bit different. The extreme temps, both highs and lows, aren't as extreme as they were when I was growing up here as a kid. No 100+ degree temps in the last four or five years, which is almost unheard of around here, and I remember it usually getting -15 or even as low as -28 when I was a kid, while it hasn't broken below -10 for the last twelve years. And in the last four years, winter comes on hard and sudden in December, then warms up, then cools off again. Overall, it's warmer, but with less extremes on both ends.

[freemason9]

Spring and Autumn don't exist as they used to, we're pretty much down to Summer and Winter only here, with about a week of Spring and Autumn each. Not the definable 3-month seasons we've had.

I'm no climatologist or scientist. Just an observer. But I notice significant change.

Same here. Its pretty obvious the Earth is changing. We've got shit blooming outside right this minute, FFS!

Not only do the Winter/Summer seasons appear more intense, but what I've noticed the last couple years is also an extreme change in DAILY temperatures, like a huge shift in day/night, almost like desert weather.

My "rules of weather" are truisms. You can argue terminology, precision of definition, and dismiss them by saying they are imprecise, but that's the point. It is exceptionally difficult to make broad statements regarding weather deviations in terms of human effect.

I wasn't speaking of climate, though. That's different.

Years ago, there seemed to me more snow, less wind, and more sunny days in the winter (in my part of the country, that is). Things are different now, and it seems to be a consensus.

I've known since I was a teenager that human activity certainly affects the climate. How could it not? I'm amazed that there is any discussion of global warming at all. We are around 6 billion in number now. A trigger will be squeezed at some point.

[anothershamus]

Goddamn weather anyway!

[alwyn]

Personally, I could use a little global warming at my place now. Finally diggin out from too much snow, the pipes freeze every night, and we've been out of water for a coupla weeks with no chance of more, 'cause the delivery truck can't make it up the hill. Luckily, I can melt snow with the best of them...sigh......

[brainpanhandler]

December 27, 2008

Weather Eye: 2008: the tenth hottest year on record
Paul Simons

This year is set to become the tenth hottest on record across the globe. But temperatures would have been even higher had the Pacific not cooled, a phenomenon known as La Niña.

The Middle East was exceptionally cold in January, with rare snowfalls in Baghdad and Saudi Arabia, as cold air swept down from Siberia. And snowstorms paralysed central China in one of its harshest winters on record. Southern Australia suffered continued intense heat and drought, hitting its important agricultural regions particularly hard. Scandinavia had a remarkably mild winter, with record high average temperatures in Sweden, and the Baltic region had its lowest levels of ice since records began more than a century ago.

The worst natural disaster of the year struck Burma on May 2, when Cyclone Nargis drove a 3.6m (12ft) storm surge 40km (25 miles) deep inland. The floods caused colossal death and destruction — the death toll was estimated at 130,000 but the true figure may never be known. During the last week of July, Iceland sweltered in a rare heatwave, breaking Reykjavik’s highest temperature record with 25.7C (78.3F). The Indian monsoon set off floods that claimed 2,400 lives. In the north, heavy rains caused the Koshi river to break out, flooding a vast swath of Bihar state.

Hurricane Ike was the worst hurricane of 2008 when it struck in September. It was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, caused 164 deaths and did immense damage in Haiti and Cuba before hitting Texas. The total cost was estimated at more than $30 billion.

The annual Arctic ice melt reached its second highest extent, as the region experiences a faster rate of warming than the rest of the world.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 400414.ece

[brainpanhandler]

Spring and Autumn don't exist as they used to, we're pretty much down to Summer and Winter only here, with about a week of Spring and Autumn each. Not the definable 3-month seasons we've had.

I'm no climatologist or scientist. Just an observer. But I notice significant change.

Same here. Its pretty obvious the Earth is changing. We've got shit blooming outside right this minute, FFS!

Not only do the Winter/Summer seasons appear more intense, but what I've noticed the last couple years is also an extreme change in DAILY temperatures, like a huge shift in day/night, almost like desert weather.

My "rules of weather" are truisms. You can argue terminology, precision of definition, and dismiss them by saying they are imprecise, but that's the point. It is exceptionally difficult to make broad statements regarding weather deviations in terms of human effect.

I wasn't speaking of climate, though. That's different.

That's the only answer you could have given that makes sense, although it seems you should have been addressing me.

Years ago, there seemed to me more snow, less wind, and more sunny days in the winter (in my part of the country, that is). Things are different now, and it seems to be a consensus.

I've known since I was a teenager that human activity certainly affects the climate. How could it not? I'm amazed that there is any discussion of global warming at all. We are around 6 billion in number now. A trigger will be squeezed at some point.

Consensus: When taking in anecdotal evidence I especially listen to folks that are still closely connected to the land and the weather. Around here that is the farmers. I have yet to find one that dismisses global climate change and they all seem to have an uneasy feeling about the weather patterns they are seeing.

Amazed: I've noticed that typically, when talking about non-farmers and the like, it is the older generations that tend to be anthropogenically induced climate change nay-sayers. My suspicion is that they do not want to admit that it was their generations that failed to do something when the doing was a whole lot easier; not easy, but easier. Changes we could have made 40, 50 or 60 years ago might have lessened the potentially catastrophic situation we now face.

[Extradimensional Beatnik]

What I've noticed locally (in MA) over the last few years is how the "averages" of previous years no longer apply. The temps are either way above or below where they're "supposed" to be. Also, storms are fiercer and more intense, but they come thru very fast, esp. in summer. Damaging winds, hail, lots of lighting, flash flooding, these kinds of storms used to be rare but now they are the norm, more like what they typically get in the midwest, along with a lot more tornados. We had tornado warnings this year right into late Nov.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Also, storms are fiercer and more intense, but they come thru very fast, esp. in summer. Damaging winds, hail, lots of lighting, flash flooding, these kinds of storms used to be rare but now they are the norm

Same here in Australia.

At last where I am. We always have a storm season, and it gets very intense, tropical thunderstorms are. But the last five years the storms are a series of supercells that look like mushroom clouds and smash the living crap out of whatever is in the way.

I took some photos last night/yesterday evening. I'll get em organised and post some pics.

The lightning is different too. Tho its a subtle difference. You wouldn't notice if you hadn't spent as much time as you could in the last 15 years sitting out in lightning storms trying to make it strike where you want it to.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I had a whole post describing that storm yesterday (pics above), the one we followed into town this arvo and a whole other lot of crap, but just wrote it out then shut the browser window by being unco. Bastard.

fm9 Those first 2 truisms of yours are wrong. IN parts of the world the opposite holds true (tho it does depend on how precisely you measure the temp), in Fiji there are places where it is 31.8 C (or something near that) every day for weeks. In other parts no storms is a serious deviation from normal. (Whatever normal is.)

[OP ED]

definite weirdness abounds. probably not as obvious where i live as it may be elsewhere, as we've always experienced odd and unexpected shifts in our patterns (we make tshirts about it).

it'll balance itself out again, i'm sure, once it has killed off most of us.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

The end of normal. In our lifetimes.

I used to have more positive associations with that idea.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Storms themselves are acts of balance.

Thats why they will get more intense as the planet gets hotter.

In some ways its more helpful not to think of it as the planet getting warmer, but storing more energy.

Thats why storms get more intense, cos there is more energy in the sky, in the form of heat, among other reasons of course.

So the planet is storing more energy, but its not storing anywhere near as much in the ways it used too. I dunno if the figures support this so I could be flat out wrong, but it seems to me that once upon a time there was more biomass on earth.

Now there's a lot less.

Biomass stores the suns energy. Its converted to a chemical form via photosynthesis, and then stays in the biosphere for a while, possibly eternally, or at least while there is life on earth. The less biomass, especially photosynthesisng biomass, the less of the suns heat and light that becomes sugar. The less biomass to feed on the photosynthesisng biomass the less energy thats stays in the biosphere.

Thats probably why all the predictions are out and "its happening faster than we expected". Cos those predictions probably don't take into account the energy converted by plants, and the energy stored by all the biomass, plants and animals, that we have released into the environment by chopping down trees, wiping out buffalo and quolls and everything else, and sweeping the oceans clean with mega drift nets, and fishing lines countless km long.

[brainpanhandler]

Also, storms are fiercer and more intense, but they come thru very fast, esp. in summer. Damaging winds, hail, lots of lighting, flash flooding, these kinds of storms used to be rare but now they are the norm

Same here in Australia.

At last where I am. We always have a storm season, and it gets very intense, tropical thunderstorms are. But the last five years the storms are a series of supercells that look like mushroom clouds and smash the living crap out of whatever is in the way.

I took some photos last night/yesterday evening. I'll get em organised and post some pics.

The lightning is different too. Tho its a subtle difference. You wouldn't notice if you hadn't spent as much time as you could in the last 15 years sitting out in lightning storms trying to make it strike where you want it to.

I thought about you Joe when I saw this tropical cyclone blew through northern Australia.

Interesting you mention the lightning is different. It reminded me that the thunder in the last few summers seems markedly different to me. I grew up in the southern US and so I am familiar with thunderstorms, but I don't ever remember hearing thunder so loud in my entire life. It may well be a function of where I live now. I've only lived at my current address for 3 years. Maybe the sound propagates differently. I don't know. But the thunder around here occasionally sounds more like massive bombs going off across town. I mean there's none of the usual rumbling and build up to the crash. There's just an enormous explosion.

[brainpanhandler]

along with a lot more tornados. We had tornado warnings this year right into late Nov.

I've had recurring nightmares about swarms of tornadoes ever since I was a kid growing up in the south. The tornado in the wizard of OZ used to scare the piss out of me. As of about 8 years ago I started having these nightmares again.