‘Note first that emissions are greater in the industrialized northern hemisphere, which probably explains why the Arctic is melting first’.
‘Then note the difference between winter emissions in the north, which remain airborne, and summer emissions, which are partially withdrawn by growing vegetation’.
‘The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that 2015 will set (or already has set) a variety of worrisome climate records due to manmade carbon pollution’:
“This is all bad news for the planet,” noted WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. In particular, crossing the 1°C (1.8°F) means we are halfway to the 2°C (3.6°F) threshold that world’s top scientists and governments have identified as the defense line past which climate impacts become very dangerous and then catastrophic’.
‘Last week, NASA data made clear that 2015 was going to crush the record for hottest year. On top of the underlying human-caused warming trend is the short-term warming caused by a very strong El Niño’.
‘As the top chart shows, global temperature records tend to be set in El Niño years, and those records just get higher and higher over time because of carbon pollution’.
‘Indeed, last month was not merely the hottest October — by far — in the 135-year temperature record of NASA’.
‘It was the highest divergence from the mean temperature ever recorded in the 1,600-month temperature record of NASA. NOAA reported that October 2015 bear the previous record set in October 2011 by a whopping 0.31°F (0.17°C)’.
‘As this NOAA chart shows, the warming since January is so high that it is now a certainty 2015 will smash the record for hottest year set just last year’.
From : http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/25/3725792/hottest-5-years-record/
I’ll be long dead before this happens and I have no children so whatever the rest of you want to do to the o-n-l-y home you have…..is your choice.
‘James Hansen and 16 leading climate experts — including some of the world’s foremost authorities on Antarctic melt and sea level rise — warned in July we face “sea level rise of several meters in 50, 100 or 200 years,” which means as early as this century but in any case, sooner than expected’.
‘They also warn that even with the less than 1°C of warming we already have, ice sheet melt appears to be putting sea level rise on an exponential growth path that would bring 10 feet of sea level rise sooner, rather than later — even if we stabilize at 2°C total warming’.
‘The science has made clear for a long time that we don’t need to burn anywhere close to all of the world’s fossil fuels to have beyond-catastrophic sea level rise’.
‘A March 2012 National Science Foundation news release on paleoclimate research warned, “Global Sea Level Likely to Rise as Much as 70 Feet in Future Generations.”
‘The lead author pointed out, “The natural state of the Earth with present carbon dioxide levels is one with sea levels about 70 feet higher than now.”
‘A 2009 paper in Science concluded that when CO2 levels were this high 15 million years ago, it was 5° to 10°F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher’.
From : http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/09/16/3701137/200-feet-sea-level-rise/
‘NASA-supported researchers have found that ice covering
Greenland is melting faster than previously thought. The
action is happening out of sight, below the surface’.
Yesterday when I was checking the air quality before going out and mowing the lawn, I noticed that the town of Nespelem had and Air Quality Index (AQI) of 500.
Bacisly if you went out side – you couldn’t breathe.
On and FYI, the middle of August is the START of our fire season……..
Like today – high winds expected – gusts up to 65mph – all over the fire area.
And again a great big thank you to Republicans especially our very own wonderful US Representative Cathy Dumber Then A Pile Of Rocks McMorris Rodgers for voting in the budget to cut funding for wild fire fighting.
It turns out this is the worst wild fire season on record so thanks for cutting the funding.
Published on Aug 28, 2015
Information updated through August 28 at 2:00AM PDT. A
virtual fly through of the public MODIS+VIIRS Fire Data
from the US Forest Service for the Chelan Complex Fire,
the Okanogan Complex Fire, and other fires in North
Central Washington State. The fly through starts above
the US, then flys in on the Pacfic North West, then
Central Washington, before flying in on the fire
areas’.
‘Chelan Complex and Okanogan Complex Wildfire Fly
Through updated on 8-28-2015 based on data captured
from 8-26-2015 through 2:00AM PDT 8-28-2015’.
‘Data color is based on MODIS fire activity with Red
representing activity detected in the last 0-12 hours
(at the time data was updated). Orange represent
activity in the last 12-24 hours ago, and Yellow data
is 24 hours or older (up to 6 days)’.
‘You can download the raw data, including Google Earth
data, used to create this video from the US Forest
Service here: http://bit.ly/FSFireData’.
‘In less than eight months, humanity has used up nature’s budget for the entire year, according to data from Global Footprint Network’.
‘Earth Overshoot Day – this year falling on August 13 – marks the date when humanity’s annual demands on nature exceed what Earth can regenerate in that year, and has moved up from early October in 2000′.
‘The costs of ecological overspending are becoming more evident by the day, in the form of deforestation, drought, freshwater scarcity, soil erosion, biodiversity loss and the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration makes up more than half of the demand on nature’.
“Humanity’s carbon footprint alone more than doubled between 1961 and 1973, which is when the world went into ecological overshoot. It remains the fastest growing component of the widening gap between the Ecological Footprint and the planet’s biocapacity,” said Mathis Wackernagel, President of Global Footprint Network’.
‘Zoologist Mark Carwardine outlines just how hard whale spotting can be. And promptly gets upstaged by the biggest whale there is. This clip was taken from Big Blue Live, an exciting new live series coming soon to BBC One in the UK and PBS in the US‘.
fire photo courtesy of the national wildfire coordinating group
‘When fire can eat a rainforest in a relatively cool climate, you know the Earth is beginning to burn’.
‘Deep in Washington’s Olympic National Park, the aptly named Paradise Fire, undaunted by the dampness of it all, was eating the forest alive and destroying an ecological Eden’.
‘In this season of drought across the West, there have been far bigger blazes but none quite so symbolic or offering quite such grim news’.
‘It isn’t the size of the fire (though it is the largest in the park’s history), nor its intensity’.
‘When fire can eat a rainforest in a relatively cool climate, you know the Earth is beginning to burn’.
From : http://www.thenation.com/article/the-wettest-rainforest-in-the-united-states-has-gone-up-in-flames/
‘Old Indian proverb’:
“If you don’t change directions, you may wind up where you’re headed”.
‘With climate change, that could be a very dark place’.
‘Harrowing interviews with scientists who study some of the most catastrophic episodes in Earth history’.
From : http://climatecrocks.com/2015/08/05/new-video-we-are-the-asteroid/
Here in Spok-A-Loo, we are going to get into the triple digits this weekend.
Not a big thing….usually except that Spokane’s average temperature is around 73 this time of year and we also have two major sporting events.
Hoopfest – the biggest (correct me if I’m wrong) 3 on 3 basketball tournament and over in CDA -Iron Man.
Iron Man has already adjusted the starting times moving it up two hours and Hoopfest has gobbled up all of the misting fans they can find as the temps in downtown Spokane with the buildings and 50,000 to 75,000 spectators will climb into the 120 range.
The Last Of The Millenniums 