Climate Scientists: ‘What We’re Seeing…Is a Window Into What Global Warming Really Looks Like’
- Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:03pm by
Liz Klimas
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An open Starbucks store displays its updated status two days after a massive storm that swept through the region Friday night, July 1, 2012 in Bethesda, Maryland. Although crews are at work repairing systems, there are still almost a million people in the greater Washington, DC area without power. (Photo by Allison Shelley/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) – Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho — a pet name for the Washington, D.C., storm that left thousands without power over the weekend.
These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change, although it’s too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.
“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level,” said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. “The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfire. This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about.”
Check out this photo gallery of the deadly Colorado wildfires, which scientists are saying are just one of the extreme events that will become increasingly prevalent with global warming:
Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time. Sometimes it isn’t caused by global warming. Weather is always variable; freak things happen. And this weather has been local. Europe, Asia and Africa aren’t having similar disasters now.
Even still, The Blaze reported earlier this year on a study that showed warmer, more extreme weather influenced people’s belief in global warming, even if it really shouldn’t. The poll by University of Michigan and Muhlenberg College showed that even though climate experts are careful to say that localized weather events cannot necessarily be tied to global warming as a whole, about half of those responding in the study linked whether or not they believed in global warming — either man-made or cyclical — to the weather they observed outside their windows.
The Washington Post and Sanford University released their own poll yesterday that found climate change no longer ranks as American’s number one environmental concern. Reporting conversations with some of the respondents, one said the would link the recent wildfires with global warming, but another respondent said that even though she thinks warmer winters and summers are a sign of climate change, she doesn’t “really give it a thought.”
Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, told the Washington Post that is is “sad” that mainstream-media coverage and “Congress falsely screaming hoax” have made global warming less of a priority.
“But record-breaking temperatures, intense droughts and wildfires, and other climate-related disasters will hopefully be a wake-up call,” Karpinski said.
The Associated Press reports that since at least 1988, climate scientists have warned that climate change would bring, in general, increased heat waves, more droughts, more sudden downpours, more widespread wildfires and worsening storms. In the United States, these extremes are believed to be happening now.
So far this year, more than 2.1 million acres have burned in wildfires, more than 113 million people in the U.S. were in areas under extreme heat advisories last Friday, two-thirds of the country is experiencing drought, and earlier in June, deluges flooded Minnesota and Florida.
Washington, D.C. temps have topped 100 degrees with many out of power thanks to a weekend storm. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in fire-charred Colorado, warned these record-breaking conditions would happen, so it’s I told-you-so time, he said to AP.
In March, a special report an extreme events and disasters by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of “unprecedented extreme weather and climate events.” Its lead author, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University, said Monday, “It‘s really dramatic how many of the patterns that we’ve talked about as the expression of the extremes are hitting the U.S. right now.”
Watch this overview of the report to get an idea of what its experts found:
“What we’re seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like,” said Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer. “It looks like heat. It looks like fires. It looks like this kind of environmental disasters.”
Oppenheimer said that on Thursday. That was before the East Coast was hit with triple-digit temperatures and before a derecho — an unusually strong, long-lived and large straight-line wind storm — blew through Chicago to Washington. The storm and its aftermath killed more than 20 people and left millions without electricity. Experts say it had energy readings five times that of normal thunderstorms.
Fueled by the record high heat, this was one of the most powerful of this type of storm in the region in recent history, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storm Laboratory in Norman, Okla. Scientists expect “non-tornadic wind events” like this one and other thunderstorms to increase with climate change because of the heat and instability, he said.
Such patterns haven’t happened only in the past week or two. The spring and winter in the U.S. were the warmest on record and among the least snowy, setting the stage for the weather extremes to come, scientists say.
Since Jan. 1, the United States has set more than 40,000 hot temperature records, but fewer than 6,000 cold temperature records, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Through most of last century, the U.S. used to set cold and hot records evenly, but in the first decade of this century America set two hot records for every cold one, said Jerry Meehl, a climate extreme expert at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This year the ratio is about 7 hot to 1 cold. Some computer models say that ratio will hit 20-to-1 by midcentury, Meehl said.
“In the future you would expect larger, longer more intense heat waves and we’ve seen that in the last few summers,” NOAA Climate Monitoring chief Derek Arndt said.
The 100-degree heat, drought, early snowpack melt and beetles waking from hibernation early to strip trees all combined to set the stage for the current unusual spread of wildfires in the West, said University of Montana ecosystems professor Steven Running, an expert on wildfires.
While at least 15 climate scientists told The Associated Press that this long hot U.S. summer is consistent with what is to be expected in global warming, history is full of such extremes, said John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He’s a global warming skeptic who says, “The guilty party in my view is Mother Nature.”
Still, the majority of mainstream climate scientists, such as Meehl, disagree: “This is what global warming is like, and we’ll see more of this as we go into the future.”
Those skeptical of man-made global warming are often touted as not being as well educated or experts in the field to make their dissenting claims with any clout. But Fox News reported in late May that according to a poll published in Nature Climate Change, that “as respondents’ science literacy scores increased, their concern with climate change decreased.”
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Comments (113)
AJAYW
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:49pmI have never met a liberal that wasn’t a lair and or a theif.
Report Post »screw
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 1:06pmThe Greatest Hoax? Global Warming, Says Sen. James Inhofe
June 5, 2012
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/47138
“In short, both temperature data sets (NASA and Hadley Center) show:
1. Minimal global warming over the last 130 to 160 years: about half a degree Celsius per century.
2. No statistically significant global warming in the last 14 to 17 years.
3. Global cooling in the last 9 to 13 years.”
Report Post »majasdad
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 1:09pmWhat does your comment have to do with the issue at hand?
Report Post »Locked
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 1:11pm“a lair and or a theif.”
If that’s anything like a liar and a thief, that could be bad! ;-)
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 2:37pm… or sure that he was the Smartest & Brightest person in the Room…
Report Post »JRook
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 3:09pm@AJAYW Show we should therefor realize that Nixon and Bush Jr., as liars, are liberal. Or the heads of the investment banks on Wall Street, as thieves, are liberal. Of course your comment merely provides evidence to the assertion that all conservatives are ignorant.
Report Post »JRook
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 3:14pmI am reminded of Greenspan’s comments relative to the excess exuberance regarding the stock market and later the real estate market. By the time the global warming and climate change effects are irreversible, it will be too late to have any moderating effect at all. Have people forgotten that individuals watched for 30 years as the great lakes were polluted to the point the Lake Erie was declared biologically dead. There were obvious signs and warnings over the entire period. But I’m sure they were met with similar miss-information and miss-representation by the guilty industries and wealthy owners at the time.
Report Post »yougottabekidding
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 3:50pmMillions and millions spent on“education” and computers and they can not get tomorrow right!
Report Post »johnpaulkuchtajr
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:51pmI’m going to type slowly so that the “Climate Scientists” hyped in the headline can follow my logic:
1. Use a common spread sheet program to construct a table of daily high temperatures of the major US cities. Invite the “climate scientists” to view yours since they will be incapable of doing likewise.
2. Compare the tables and discover that NEW, daily high temperature records are few and far between. Show the results to the “climate scientists”and, speaking slowly, explain the results to them as often as necessary to drive the results home.
OUR ANCESTORS FOUGHT TEMPERATURE EXTREMES exceeding the extremes felt today.
Pretty basic; but, you’ll never see any of the “experts” use this approach.
Report Post »mikem1969
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 8:48pmAJW, you said it.
Screw, you are correct. The data proves the GW freaks are nothing but liars. History has shown us that freak weather happens with or without man, and it always will. Liberals and progressives just have to paint their agenda on any and everything they can. Tell a lie long enough or loud enough, people may believe it.
Report Post »Rollo2
Posted on July 4, 2012 at 9:22amFunny how the author (Stan Borenstein) can recall warnings about “Global Warming” from 1988, but he cannot remember Prof. Phil Jones (CRU, East Anglia) reporting two years ago that there has been no increase in average global temperatures since 1995!!!
Of course, it’s difficult to support a lie when ALL the facts are on the table.
Report Post »Secret Squirrel
Posted on July 4, 2012 at 11:50pm.
Report Post »Global warming?
Call me back in 6 months when you’re up to your a$$ in snow.
Blazebanned
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:49pmI would say stop the fear mongering,but i’ll just say this,stop listening to their b/s,all these so called global waring scientist have done with their lies,is have people lose any kind of respect for “real” science…..The more they report on this crap, the less i listen….
Report Post »Secret Squirrel
Posted on July 4, 2012 at 11:57pm.
So now the wildfires are caused by global warming.
Maybe they were caused by illegal aliens campfires.
Maybe they were caused by environmentalists not allowing
new roads and underbrush to be cleared.
Do you think there weren’t fires before the invention of the firetruck?
Report Post »They were massive.
HorseCrazy
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:48pmpoke all the fun you want at washington state and its liberal hub seattle but its 63 degrees and windy today with thunderstorms last night. I see all this heatwave garbage and get real thankful I live here
Report Post »yougottabekidding
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 4:05pmWas there for three weeks sometime back, most depressing place I have ever been. Weather and liberals What do the liberals have to do with the weather besides make it more unbearable??
Report Post »Secret Squirrel
Posted on July 5, 2012 at 12:01am.
Report Post »The polar ice caps on Mars are shrinking too.
We better send them some solar panels and windmills before it’s too late.
lilium479
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:45pmJunk science!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Report Post »inblack
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 3:25pmThis is what it will look like when the economy collapses.
No ice, not A/C and people sweating in the fields trying to find an onion to eat, to stay alive.
Report Post »The_Cabrito_Goat
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:45pmIt‘s Bush’s fault!
Report Post »The_Cabrito_Goat
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:42pmGotta capitalize on fear, emotion and disasters to push through their statist agenda. Is that any surprise at all?
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:51pmnope it isn’t. no surprise here I thought I was the one as a Christian that’s supposed to believe in fear and fairy tales but seems to me these folks cannot see their own hypocrisy or the fallacy of the argument for the doctrine of man made global warming
Report Post »Rickfromillinois
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:38pmSo why is it when we have record COLD spells during the Winter people who say anything about how that shows that the global warming threat is fake are too stupid to understand the difference between climate and weather but when we have record heat it is obviously the result of global warming?
Report Post »wakewiseone
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:33pmhey climate guys. yeah, we re having some hot ones. but i dare say that big orange ball in the sky has more influence on earth temps than anything else. just think……….its beaming down on us 24 x 7……..lotta energy soaked up by our planet.
and that is my 2 cents worth for the day !!!!!
Report Post »phillyatheist
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 1:46pmwhat you said is not worth 2 cents.
Report Post »PCs-PushComestoShove
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 4:34pmHey philly,
Report Post »it is worth more than your plug nickel.
BTW, in my part of Texas where we had 70+ days of 100+ temps last year we have had only a handful of 100+ days this year (so far). At this point last year we were already at 20-something days.
Where my global warming?
michael48
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:33pmit’s normal to be very hot after snorting 10 pounds of bath-salts…and hungry…now about that snow thingy…in winter
Report Post »aChameleon
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:30pmIf we can’t get more money pumped into this global warming agenda, we’ll have to start laying off teachers, firefighters, and police officers. Do you want that on your conscience? O.K. now open your wallet if you have one shred of decency. Nothing will change, but you’ll feel better if you just give us some more money. And, don’t ask how much money is enough. Shouldn’t the real question be: How much money do you have?
Report Post »RodT82721
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:29pmActually Johnny. What you have been saying is that you knew how to stop it! Everyone that has achieved the age of 5 knows it gets warm in the summer season – regardless of where on this green planet you live.
You and your ilk are running around wanting money to fix it! So why not start today? Take all your superior book learning and put an end to heat. What’s that? You don’t know how? That’s what I thought.
We have been having summer for as long as I have been alive, and according to what little information in books, etc it’s been going on as long as man learned to record things.
Report Post »Yet no one has ever come with any way to change the weather, just complain about it.
searching for the Truth
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:29pmActually, people do have a cause in it – but, it’s called sin, It’s talked about in the Bible, and It’s not caused by human emissions – and it will get hot in the ” End of Days. ” Scientist just want to comply so that they can receive grant money ; and , everyone else can pay for it through taxes on global warming from the Sun ( thing that causes earth to get warm ) .
Report Post »carolewash
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 1:02pmYou are right this is God telling us to get right with him and it is in the Bible for the end times and looks like we are getting mighty close to His comming for His set apart ones. It will get worse until we come back to God as a nation. But we won’t as that is also in the Bible. Read it and see for yourself.
Report Post »elosogrande
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:28pmEverybody! Get out your check books and send these climate scientists your money, so they can save us from global warming.
Please don’t forget that these people spent a lot of money to get advanced degree in climate science. (you paid for a great deal of the cost of those degrees through state and federal grants.) They have no place to go, if global warming is proved to be part of a natural cycle and not man-made.
Global warming has to be blamed on human beings for the sake of these highly paid and highly educated climatologists. Their future is in our hands.
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 1:24pmwe actually all are sending these fools money everytime we pay our taxes. NOAA NMFS etc are all giant government activists for climate change and worthless research. I have relatives in both of those places and they’ve gone bonkers in those highly bloated agencies. I doubt at this point sanity will ever be brought back to this nation
Report Post »TORCH9
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:27pmSeems to mostly be within the Borders of America though! Interesting!?! Weather is weather. Get a grip…..
Report Post »rl
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:25pmClimate Scientists: ‘What We’re Seeing Really Is a Window Into What Global Warming Really Looks Like’
BULL****…. what we’re seeing is called SUMMER….. GET OVER IT!!!!!!!
Report Post »teddrunk
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:23pmIn 1873, while building a railroad track by some quicksand, near the town of Rock Ridge, they thought it might be 120 degrees. But it can’t be more than 114.
Report Post »13
Posted on July 4, 2012 at 4:13pmTrue, but what would Mongo or Jim think?
Report Post »Redmanblackdog
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:22pmWe have been well below our average temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, Washington.
For the last year, we have been about 10 degrees cooler than normal, everyday, every month.
Wheres that play in global warming?
Report Post »Bootlegger97
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:22pmWhat we’re seeing really is a window into what…..July ……really looks like,”
Report Post »Xiccarph
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:17pmStupid university activist faculty. I‘d give ’em an “F” for poor research methodology. Its a frakin’ heat wave. Its “weather”. These are the same idiots that will say the equally extreme -20 F cold snaps sure to occur this coming winter is also a result of Global Warming A.K.A. “Climate Change”. Simplex minds.
Report Post »Dougral Supports Israel
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:17pmIf global warming was really a threat, governments would be flocking to develop nuclear power instead of uncertain and unreliable wind and solar. I’d sooner deal with the possibility of a warmer world than to deal with the certainty of economic and social ills that will come from policies that environmentalists advocate.
Report Post »Mutiny
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:15pmIs climate change real and global warming real? Yes. Do we effect it either way? No. This is just another ploy by the globalists to bankrupt the United States.
Report Post »cessna152
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:13pm“What we’re seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like,”
________________________________________________________________________________
Then care to explain the last three years of record cold temperatures? How about looking into history when the warmest temperatures on record were in the late 1800′s.
It’s a crock and a money maker…. a scam. Makes Bernie Madoff seem like a toddler stealing a cookie compared to these thugs.
Report Post »HKS
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:13pmHistory always repeats itself eventually, Geological studies show that Illinois was once a tropical climate and will be again, eventually. So whatever is happening, it’s done it before, and people had absolutely nothing to do with it, jerk,
Report Post »cdb
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:12pmNo, what we are seeing is a repeat of the weather pattern that caused the giant dust bowl of the thierties. It just so happens that the record temperatures, are breaking the very records set durring that time. Coincidence?
Report Post »USSTruth
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:38pmThe primary factor for the dust bowl in the 30s was the FDR mandate for farmers to plow up natural grasslands in the plain states and grow Wheat. Wheat is very taxing on the soil and the root system is far less drought resitant than plains grass. Once a drought kicked in the wheat died and left dirt and dust behind which fed the problem further.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 2:25pmWhat was causing global warming in the 20‘s and 30’s when the records were set that we are now breaking?
Report Post »DIR
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 4:25pmThe true cause of global warm are the boga-experts pretending it exists. If we really want to get rid of global warming lynch the experts (those who pretend it exists and those who report it).
Report Post »Welcome Black Carter
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:51pmGonzo,
Report Post »You nailed it as usual.
Kinda like the glaciers receding enough to uncover trees… You mean the ice has not always been there? Hard to reason with a warmer…
The_Jerk
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 12:11pmOccurs in cycles. Has since the beginning.
Report Post »Welcome Black Carter
Posted on July 3, 2012 at 6:12pmThat’s funny, when we had extreme cold that was called weather…
Report Post »