New Study Says Critical Ocean Current Called AMOC Is Amok Due To Climate Change; Could Cause Big Danger

The warm ocean current abbreviated as AMOC 
brings warmer conditions to western Europe in the
winter. If it collapses, winters in parts of
that continent could abruptly turn much
colder in the winter, despite the warming
effects of climate change. 

 I've seen a lot of back and forth in recent years concerning a critical ocean current in the Atlantic Ocean that basically keeps us living the life as we know it.  

If that current collapses, Very Big Deal bad things would happen. 

So, the latest piece of news is not what I wanted to hear. 

As Politico.eu reports:

"The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system that forms part of the Gulf Stream -an Atlantic Ocean current that keeps Europe from becoming frigid - could start shutting down in the 2060s as a result of climate change, according to a study by Utrecht University researchers published this week."

AMOC keeps Europe warm, especially in the winter, by bringing warmth and moisture from the tropics. Paris, France is at about the same latitude as International Falls, Minnesota. 

International Falls does not benefit from AMOC so normal January high and low temperatures there are minus 2 and 16 above Fahrenheit.  

Normal January weather brings lows in the mid 30s Fahrenheit and highs in the mid-40s. 

Now imagine all of western Europe turning into an icebox like northern Minnesota.  It would be an incredibly sudden,  devastating change. No region can withstand an immediate change in climate that abrupt. 

The world is indeed warming under the force of climate change, but it can create some strange, cold spots as longterm atmospheric and oceanic patterns break down. 

An AMOC shutdown would also cause severe summertime European droughts. 

Here in the United States, an AMOC  collapse event would also abruptly raise sea levels along the U.S. East Coast by as much as 50 centimeters, or nearly 20 inches. 

The Dutch study uses 25 different climate models found that a rise in global temperatures of around 2.7 degrees Celsius (around  5 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels could get the AMOC to start collapsing around 2063. 

We're already about halfway there, as the world is already 1.3 degrees hotter than those pre-industrial levels. The rate of global temperature increase is accelerating, so time is of the essence. 

Under scenarios in which the global temperature rise by 4 degrees Celsius or more the AMOC shutdown would arrive in around 2055. Warming that fast is considering quite unlikely, but 2.7 degrees is solidly in the realm of possibility at the rate we're going.

This new study is a departure from previous studies, which had suggested an AMOC shutdown is unlikely. 

One study that came out late last year suggest AMOC was more stable and was unlikely to entire collapse before 2100 but could definitely weaken, which would have some effect on Europe's climate. 

I'm sure there will be more science and research regarding the AMOC.  I don't think we have a perfect answer for what's going to happen. But something will, eventually, and it won't be pretty.  

Arctic Sea Ice Melting Slows Despite Hotter Atmosphere

Dire warnings that Arctic sea ice would be a thing of
the past by several years ago hasn't happened. A 
new study explains why those warnings were
false alarms - but only for now. 

This sounds like great news:

Despite the increasing pressure of climate change, Arctic sea ice decline has slowed quite a bit. 

The slowdown has been noticeable in all months of the year.  The month of September has seen no statistically significant decline in sea ice over the past two decades. 

The melt rate per the past 20 years has been at least twice as slow as the longer term rate. 

But when it comes to climate change, there's never good news.  This slower melt won't last forever. More on that in a bit. 

Arctic sea ice is important because what goes on at the North Pole doesn't stay at the North Pole. If the ice went away entirely during summers,   the pace of Earth's warming could increase. White ice reflects away the sun's heat. Blue ocean water absorbs it. 

The Arctic is already warming faster than the rest of the planet and if the ice goes, the heating up there would really ramp up. 

An ice-free Arctic would accelerate climate change and throw things even more off balance than they already are. That, in turn could lead to even bigger climate extremes than we're seeing now.

Even if all that climate bad stuff doesn't happen, an ice-free Arctic would invite even more ships, resource mining,  geopolitical conflict, population and everything else that would dangerously pollute what has been a rather pristine environment.

THE STUDY

This slow Arctic melt all comes from research recently published in Geophysical Research Letters. 

Per the study's abstract:

"Most of the evidence from these climate models suggests that natural climate variations have played a large part in slowing the human-driven loss of sea ice. However, it is not entirely certain whether changes in the human influence on climate (the "forced response") have also contributed.

Overall, while it may sound surprising that Arctic sea ice loss has slowed down even as global temperatures hit record highs, the climate modeling evidence suggests we should expect periods like this to occur somewhat frequently."

The researchers ran climate models which show natural cycles can create these pauses in Arctic melting.

"Even though there is increased emissions (and) increased global temperatures, you can still get periods where you have very minimal loss of Arctic sea ice for sustained periods," said Mark England, lead author of the study. 

Energy always transfers back and forth between oceans and the atmosphere, with the oceans able to store much more energy than the air. 

There's natural cycles in which the oceans take in a little more energy than normal, which makes the atmosphere a tad cooler. Those cycles also sometimes allow the atmosphere to keep a slightly greater share of energy, so the climate warms up. 

The study concluded that natural cycles kept waters around the Arctic a little cooler, so the rate of ice loss has slowed. 

Mark England,  lead author of the study, said that without climate change, sea ice might well have expanded during the cycle we're in now.  

The study helps explain why dire predictions of an imminent summer time ice-free Arctic never came to pass. 

Sea ice in the Arctic hit record minimums in 2007 and 2012, leading to speculation the Arctic could have its first ice-free summer by 2020.  In hindsight, the researchers wrote, that idea was overly alarmist. 

MELT TO RESUME?

All good things must come to an end, though, and so will this cycle that's been preserving the Arctic sea ice. 

The current melting slowdown could last another five to 10 years, according to the climate models and the study. When that happens (It's a when, not an if) the ice loss would accelerate and at that point we might actually see the demise of Arctic sea ice during summers. 

In the short term, the ice up there is clearly in short supply up in the Arctic, despite the slowdown in melting. 

In its recent July climate report, the National Centers for Environmental Information said Arctic sea ice was the fourth smallest on record for July, at 420,000 square miles below average.  

Another melt zone scientist watch closely is Greenland. That ice will never entirely go away, at least not for hundreds, more likely thousands of years, if ever

Greenland matters even more than the Arctic because whatever melts off of Greenland becomes sea level rise.   If the ice on the Arctic ocean melts, it doesn't really raise se levels. It's like the ice in your gin and tonic melting. 

Greenland is probably subject to cyclical weather and climate patterns too, but the research we're talking about in this post didn't address that. 

This year, the Greenland melt has been above normal once again, but it's not setting records. There was a lot of melting between July 7 and 20, which tipped the scales to above the 1981 -2019 average for total melt extent, say the National Snow and Ice Data Center. But overall, the number of days with melting lagged behind some of the warmer summers in the recent past. 

There has been a last minute spike in Greenland ice melting in the past few days, but once that tapers off, that'll be mostly it for 2025.   By early September, the Greenland melt season is pretty much over.  

Canadians To The Rescue Again: Montreal University To Preserve Endangered U.S. Climate Data

Since the United States has apparently given up
on science, Canada is stepping up, as usual. 

Seems like lately, it's always Canada to the rescue. 

Unlike some in the United States, Canadians are really in the habit of making sound decisions, based on you know, facts, And reality. 

Sure, every nation has its nutcases. I'm sure Canada does. But overall, if we want an example of an adult in the room, we look to Canada.  

The latest example - at least in terms of climate and weather,  -is what's going on at McGill University in Montreal.

The Trump people are destroying - or at least are threatening to destroy -  years of climate and environment research. Mostly because the facts arising from the research conflict with the world they want.   

So, a group at McGill University is working to preserve that research. 

This actually started about six months ago, when researchers at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management launched the Sustainability Academic Network (SUSANHub.com). It's a database that centralizes climate research and data.

At first, this wasn't necessarily an effort to preserve scientific research. 

The whole idea was to connect researchers and other professionals involved in climate change and sustainable developing, kind of a LinkedIn for that field of study, said Juan Serpa, a professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management.

Then Donald Trump came on the scene.

Already unimpressed by Trump's desire to make Canada the 51st state in the United States, they also knew that America's wealth of climate research was under threat. 

So, once again, the Canadians did the right thing. 

As the Canadian Press News reports:

"...at a time when the administration of United States President Donald Trump is firing climate researchers, banning certain words from scientific article, cutting funding for environmental research, threatening to withdraw financial support from universities and deleting scientific reports from government websites, the McGill platform has taken on a different significance.

'The goals is to protect scientific data against threats from the U.S. government,' Serpa said".

Just a couple years ago, I would have never thought academic freedom would be under siege in the U.S. like it is now.  Once again, thank gawd for the Canadians.

Canadian Press News continues:

"Scientific data that is on the chopping block south of the border is download and uploaded to the platform. 

Scientific data on wildfires, protecting forest from insects and diseases the impact of climate change on agriculture, flood risks, ocean plastic pollution, and the industries that emit the most greenhouse gases are just a few examples of the data that can be accesses on SUSANHub.com that would otherwise be at risk for being lost."

The Trump administration has launched a war on science, and that obviously includes climate and sustainability research. Information on climate has been removed from more than 200 U.S. government web sites. 

We know about the layoffs and funding cuts at NOAA and other U.S. agencies that deal with climate change and related issues. NOAA is one example of how science is dead in the U.S. thanks to Trump. 

BRAIN DRAIN

As a result of Trump, there's now an alarming brain drain from the U.S.  As grateful as I am for McGill University and their efforts to save climate and environmental data, it's just one of many shifts that are drawing the best minds in science away from the United States toward much more receptive nations.

As Le Monde reports, the European Union is encouraging U.S. researchers to relocate to Europe. They've announced an incentive package worth about 500 million Euros to make the bloc a "magnet for researchers." That equals about $566 million. 

The European Union isn't doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. They know that Trump is ruining one of the United States' most important economic engines: Scientific research that improves the lives of people, and increases markets for new and innovative products and ideas. And protects the public from expensive crises ranging from disease to climate change. 

It's a business decision on the part of the European Union, and who can blame them?

 It's not just Europe.  China and Russia are also trying to recruit U.S. scientists, and that's a whole other threat.   At least traditionally, Europe has been our friend. China and Russia, not so much, despite Trump's fondness for Vladimir Putin. 

As Fast Company and other outlets report, China seems to have embarked on an effort to recruit recently laid of U.S. scientists to relocate or contribute remotely to research operations based in Shenzhen.

China's goal, of course, is to gain technological knowledge and trade secrets to put them at an advantage over the United States.  So much for Trump's America First rhetoric. 

Per Fast Company:

"Laid off federal employees with security clearances or institutional knowledge are considered particularly vulnerable. Analysts suggest that financial strain and professional uncertainty may make these individual more susceptible to overtures from foreign entities."

So great, on top of everything else, Trump is creating a potential industrial espionage or spy crisis.  

NOAA Weather, Research Canceled By Trump Goons, U.S. No Longer A Place For Science Education.

The Trump administration keeps finding ways to endanger
American lives. They're now working to sharply cut
back NOAA research on weather, and climate,
along with satellite technology that provides crucial
information to business, agriculture and the 
general public. 

 If you're relying on scientists to inform us and help humanity learn the risks of climate change, don't count on the United States, thanks to our "Glorious Leader" Donald Trump. 

As Science.org reports:

"President Donald Trump's administration is seeking to end nearly all of the climate research conducted by the U.S.  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), one of the country's premier climate science agencies, according to an internal budget document seen by Science. 

The document indicates the White House is ready to ask Congress to eliminate NOAA's climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming."

As at least one scientists quoted in the article says. all this is happening because "the Trump administration doesn't like the answers to scientific questions NOAA has been studying for a half-century."

Because, as we all know, if we say climate change doesn't exist then, POOF! It goes away, right?

Uh, yeah. Until the next big climate-driven wildfire, storm or heat wave.  

CNN puts the effects of these cuts pretty starkly:

"The cuts would devastate weather and climate research as weather is becoming more erratic, extreme and costly. It would cripple the U.S. industries - including agriculture - that depend on free, accurate weather and climate data and expert analysis. It could also halt research on deadly weather, including severe storms and tornadoes."

 I would add that this would add to a developing brain drain in the United States. Since Trump and the government are now openly hostile to scientists, those scientists probably flee to other nations where they can actually conduct research.

Make America Stupid Again! 

There are quite a few gems in the internal budget document Science reviewed.

The plan would "eliminate all funding for climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes."

The White House wants to "eliminate NOAA's climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming," as Science writes. 

Also says Science:

"The proposal would cut NOAA's competitive climate research grants program, which awards roughly $70 million a year to academic scientists. It would end support for collecting regional climate data and information often used by farmers and other industries."

Wait, I thought the Trump people loved  who they call real Americans, you know, farmers. But the tariffs, and now the withholding of critical weather and climate information from said farmers, I'm not so sure. 

Important satellite technology looks like it will go by the wayside, too. 

The Trump administration would also cut back drastically on its satellite technology, which provides a lot of data critical for weather forecasts, and for weather and climate research. Not to mention coastal security.  NOAA had been working on several new satellites that would have gone into orbit around 2032, and would have greatly advanced skill in weather forecasting. 

But I guess that's not important anymore.  

These NOAA cuts come as the National Weather Service is already increasingly hamstrung by staffing and other cuts that are creating gaps in weather data that are making forecasts less accurate - including predictions for dangerous storms. 

National Weather Service offices across the nation are understaffed, heightening the risk that overworked meteorologists would miss clues that life threatening weather might be about to break out. 

But that's OK.  No great loss if more than a few die in weather disasters as long as those added tax breaks go straight to the billionaires, right?

Stalling Hurricanes Are A Rising Concern In The Age Of Climate Change

Hurricane Harvey caused extreme flooding in 2017
when it stalled around eastern Texas. Research indicates
hurricanes and tropical storms are stalling more
frequently, causing worse flooding. 

 To be Captain Obvious here, any town or city struck by a hurricane gets a rough ride. 

The destructive winds, the storm surges that batter everything to death along the coast, and the inches and inches of rain that create instantaneous floods are to say the least, scary and depressing. 

If you can find any good news in these awful scenarios, hurricanes more often than not move right along. 

They'll batter coastal communities for maybe 12 hours before moving on to wreck somebody else's life either further up the coast or somewhere inland. 

Here's a problem, though. Hurricanes are becoming less likely to be "hurrycanes" if you will. 

Sure, the two most recent big destructive hurricanes -Helene and Milton - cruised along at a fast forward speed. And both caused horrible deaths, damage and suffering. But researchers are becoming increasingly wary of what seems to be a rising trend in slow movers.

As the Washington Post reported last month:

"That is raising threats that even weaker storms, the kind hardy residents might shrug off, could unleash outsize impacts as they batter communities with uninterrupted downpours and unrelenting winds. 

The finds add to proof that human- caused global warming is intensifying rainfall and encouraging hurricanes to rapidly strengthen, revealing yet another sign of storms' increasing potential for destruction."

Researchers who have been looking into these sloth like storms, needing parameters, defined stalled hurricanes or tropical storms as those that stay within 250 square miles for at least 72 hours. 

 Between 1966 and 2022, the frequency of stalled storms rose at a rate of 1.5 percent each year. The stalling seems to occur most often in the Bay of Campeche, the central Gulf of Mexico, the western Caribbean, near Florida and near the Carolinas

 These stalled storms can happen anytime during hurricane season, but seem to be most common in September and October. The oceans supporting the storms are warm, and steering patterns are often weak in the tropics that time of year, so things tend to get sluggish, making these storms prone to stalling

The Washington Post notes that the new research is in line with previous work on the subject.

A 2018 study said the forward speed of Atlantic tropical cyclones decreased by 10 percent between 1949 and 2016. Polar regions are warming faster than the tropics, and this change tends to slow circulation patterns, so hurricanes and tropical storms don't get a push to move along. 

In the United States, tropical storm stalls are most likely near Texas and Louisiana, the western coast of Florida (the fast forward speed of Helene and Milton notwithstanding) and near the northeastern Florida/Georgia and Carolina coasts. 

There's plenty of examples of nearly stalled extreme havoc in recent years. Hurricane Harvey is perhaps the most famous example. It stalled over east Texas for days in August, 2017, dumping more than 50 inches of rain in some spots and causing the the worst flood in metro Houston history. 

Other stallers include Category 5 Hurricane Dorian, which stalled near Great Abaco, the Bahamas, blasting the island with catastrophic winds, which maintained hurricane force winds for 24 hours an d at least tropical storm force for three days.  Hurricane Florence stalled in the eastern Carolinas for days in 2018, producing a catastrophic flood there. Nearly three feet of rain fell in some spots.

Just last week, Tropical Storm Sara stalled near Honduras, dumping up to 40 inches of rain and causing intense flooding. 

The recent research didn't get into why more tropical storms and hurricanes are stalling. They often stall near coastlines, so maybe it has something to do with differences in temperature between land and sea in those locations.  Also, polar regions are warming faster than mid-latitudes, and that might have something to do with it. 

The study does suggest emergency managers who deal with hurricanes might want to factor in what to do if a hurricane stalls nearby.  

Separate research also says climate change is making hurricane wind speeds higher. So the news is basically all bad. I'll have a separate post on those hurricane wind studies in an upcoming post. 

Winters (For Most Of Us) Are Getting Shorter

Climatologist Brian Brettschneider did some interesting
number crunching to find that by at least one measure,
winters are getting shorter with climate change. 

 As we launch into a late autumn spell of warm, dry weather, and await winter, we have additional evidence that winters for most areas of the northern and central U.S., and Alaska, are getting shorter. 

Including here in Vermont. 

Alaska climatologist Brian Brettschneider crunched a lot of numbers and posted his results on Twitter, under his handle @Climatologist49.

Brettschneider clearly has a lot more patience with math than I do.  But do check out his twitter feed. It's interesting and very accessible and easy to follow for non-scientists. 

Here's what Brettschneider did:  He looked at 292 weather stations across the U.S.. and figured out for each station what the first early winter five-day period where the average temperature was at or below 32 degrees. He did the same for the last such cold period of the winter at each station.

He compared this data the way it was 70 years ago, and what things are like today.  He found that for 90 percent of the stations, the time between the first cold period of early winter and the last cold period in late winter had shrunk over the past seven decades. That means only ten percent of the stations have had longer winters. 

By at least one measure, winters are getting shorter in
most areas of the United States, including here in Vermont. 

Judging from Brettschneider's map, it seems that in general, the winters grew shorter by the most days in areas near the southern reaches where you can have a long period of sub-freezing winter days. (I posted the map on this post. 

It's interesting that in some areas, sites with shorter winters are in close proximity to ones that had longer winters. This could be due to the vagarities of stations at difference elevations, or whether the measuring site moved a little since the early 1950s.

I see that here in Vermont, the winters have gotten somewhat shorter, according to Brettschneider's data. 

In Burlington, the interval between the first and last five day average of 32 degrees is 10 to 20 days shorter than it was in 1953.  For Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, the change is smaller, amounting to ten days or less.

Interesting, parts of northern New York seem to have had very slightly longer winters, at least under the parameters of this research. 

For us here in Vermont, this data is especially important, given the prominence of our ski industry. I can infer from this data that the period in winter in which ski areas can make snow is growing shorter. 

 And it highlights the difficulty cross country ski centers in low elevations have had in recent winters with warm spells. 

It's all just one of many indications that the times, they are a'changing with the world's climate.

 

Does Cleaner Air Create More Hurricanes?

Hurricanes Irma and Jose in the Atlantic Ocean in 2017. Less
pollution due to the Clean Air Act seems to be one reason
hurricanes are increasing in the Atlantic Ocean

We should all love the Clean Air Act 

It was enacted in 1963 and amended numerous times since.  It has made the air in and near the United States a lot easier to breathe over the past several decades. I don't know how many lives the Act saved due to the fact that it created much safer air. I bet it's a lot of people, though. 

Just as every cloud has a silver lining, almost every good thing has a dark side. One consequence of the Clean Air Act is it might be encouraging extra hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. 

As AccuWeather reports, the key here is particulates, also known as aerosols, which is a mix of fine dust and tiny liquid droplets.

Some of this gunk in the air is natural stuff, made up of sand blowing from deserts, smoke from distance wildfires or volcanoes, or maybe sea salt. 

A lot of other particulates come from us as we blast down the highway in our SUVs, or we allow stuff to belch from factories, houses and buildings.  Things like catalytic converters in vehicles, scrubbers on smokestacks and other devices the Clean Air Act demands have gotten rid of much of those aerosols. 

Which of course air blowing over the Atlantic from the United States has a lot less particulates than it did decades ago.

The cleaner air is teaming up with climate change to make oceans warmer. When there was more pollution in the air, it blocked some sunlight from reaching all the way down to the Earth's surface. Now, with less crap in the air, the sun shines brighter and hotter on the oceans, making them heat up more efficiently. 

Hotter oceans mean more potential fuel for tropical storms and hurricanes. A storm that might not have been able to get its act together decades ago because of cool ocean water can now gain strength from that hotter H20.

The lead author of the study, released in May is Hiro Murakami, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory. He described to CNN the Clean Air Act and its effects on hurricanes this way:  

Decreased aerosol pollution is akin to quitting smoking. If you quit smoking, you're much healthier. Less pollution increases the health of the general population. However, there are side effects to quitting smoking, such as weight gain and stress. Those problems aren't as bad as smoking, overall. The increased hurricane activity is sort of like the comparatively small side effects of quitting smoking.

Hurricanes are deadly. Pollution is deadlier. 

Meanwhile, tropical cyclones in the western Pacific are decreasing in number. In that part of the world, hurricanes are known as typhoons. They remain frequent and fierce there, more so than in the Atlantic. But we have seen a decreasing trend in the annual number of typhoons and tropical storms along and off the Asian coast. 

Industrialization in China and India has boomed tremendously over the last half century.  That means more particulates, which are shading the western Pacific a bit.  The particulate pollution has caused many deaths and often leads to economic disruptions in India, China and other Asian nations. That has led the nations to begin enforcing some serious anti-pollution regulations. 

Researchers caution that decreased particular pollution is only one factor that seems to be increasing hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic. 

According to AccuWeather:

"Murakami predicts in the next decade, increased greenhouse gases will significantly influence tropical cyclones compared to human-caused particulate air pollution."

The good scientist elaborated further for CNN: "Climate science is very complex and it's a work on progress, especially for hurricane activity....What we saw in the past 40 years may not be applied to the future, so we may see something much different."

Great. More climate surprises loom.  

Climate Change To Bring More Destructive Hurricanes To The Northeast

Flooding from Tropical Storm Irene overwhelming a 
Waitsfield, Vermont farm stand in 2011. If new research
is true, Irene was not a worst case scenario in our 
neck of the woods. 

 Hurricanes need very warm water to survive.  

New England isn't known for its toasty ocean waters. That's why our hurricanes are pretty few and far between, right? 

But the waters off the Northeast United States are getting warmer with climate change, and that's not good news if you lack enthusiasm about hurricanes.  

Of course it takes scientists to determine whether the warmer water will give us New Englanders more tropical trouble. The answer, according to new research, is probably. 

The research suggests that hurricanes that pack a major one-two punch of high storm surges and serious inland flooding will be on the increase. Especially in New England, apparently. 

The hurricanes that are the subject of the research - that combination of storm surges and heavy rains, produce what are regarded as compound floods.  These compound floods are the worst of the worst. In these cases, walls  of water surging in from the oceans combine with surges of water from areas just inland due to extreme rains.

Technically, Hurricane Irene's cataclysmic floods in Vermont and elsewhere in the Northeast wouldn't even quite qualify as such a storm.  Irene did cause extreme inland flooding in Vermont and parts of New York and Massachusetts, but the hurricane's storm surge along the coast was damaging, but not a full-bore catastrophe. 

Instead, think 2017's Hurricane Harvey in Texas.  When it first hit the Texas coast, a large share of its destructive power was its storm surge.  Then, as Harvey slowly wound down, it unleashed unprecedented rains on eastern Texas, including Houston, the nation's fourth largest city. 

We don't want more Harveys, but the research suggests just such a scenario is in our future. 

As NPR reports:

"Scientists at Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology wanted to know if such storms will happen more frequently in the future. They began by looking backward, to see how frequently hurricanes cause both extreme storm surge and extreme rain. They found that, in the past, such storms have been rare. Along both the Gulf Coast and the East Coast, it has been unlikely that a person would experience such a storm in the course of their lifetime."

However, within a century with climate change factored in, hurricanes that cause these big "compound floods" will be much more frequent, with most people experiencing them within their lifetime. 

The largest increase in risk is in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States.  In those areas, a storm that had a less than 0.1 percent chance of happening in any given year would have a 10% chance of occurring in a given year, the researchers found.  

That's actually a huge increase. And also a huge problem because coastal areas from Virginia north are so thickly populated.  A storm of that magnitude would necessitate enormous, potentially chaotic evacuations. And potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in damage in each of these mega storms. 

We're not immune from this here in Vermont. There's no coastline here, obviously, so no storm surges. As we learned in Tropical Storm Irene, though, a hurricane or tropical system wandering into New England can cause horrendous damage way inland, in places like Vermont. Worse, if the research is correct, Irene wasn't even the worst case scenario for the Green Mountain State. 

I also want to see more studies on more middling tropical storms and hurricanes. It stands to follow that destructive, but not cataclysmic tropical storms would also become more common in places like New England.

We've had what I would regard as at least circumstantial evidence that "regular" tropical storms are harassing the Northeast more than they once did.   Tropical Storms Elsa, Henri and Ida all affected Nw England in 2021, so that's three in one year.  Luckily, though the three storms caused damage, they weren't cataclysmic. At least in New England. 

Will New England suffer more hurricane seasons like 1954, when Hurricanes Carol, Edna and Hazel all caused damage in New England? Those compound flood storms in the research I talked about in this post are bad enough. Repeated, somewhat more modest sized hurricanes would cumulatively at least as much damage and trouble. 

 

 

Will An Increase In Rainy Days Hurt The Economy?

An increase in rainy days caused by climate change can
harm economies worldwide, especially in industrialized 
nations, new research indicates. Photos is of a sudden
summer downpour disrupting lunchtime in 
Burlington, Vermont several years ago. 

 We know that an increase in weather disasters brought on by climate change is bad for a huge number of reasons. One of them is that they are a drag on the global economy.  

But what about just an increase in rainy days. 

Climate scientists tell us that overall, a warmer climate means more and heavier rain.  (Yes, climate change increases droughts in some areas, too, but rain is still a big issue here).

As ABC News reports, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have concluded that extreme rainfall, combined with just more generally rainy days are likely to hurt global economies.  

Extreme rainfall has long been established as a climate change hazard. Such new, torrential rains can cause a lot of damage to buildings, roads and such,  never mind the direct effects it has on businesses and people's livelihoods. 

However, more rains, even if they don't cause all that much damage, can disrupt business, manufacturing and transportation, among other aspects of the economy, said Leonie Wenz a lead scientist in the research.  

Reports ABC News: 

"'We know from previous work that flooding associated with extreme rainfall can damage infrastructure, which is critical to economic productivity, ad also cause local disruptions to production,'" said Wenz, adding that the new findings also suggest everyday disruptions caused by more rain will have 'a disruptive effect on businesses, manufacturing, transportation.'"

Industrialized nations are likely to fare worse than more agrarian economies. After all, you need rain to grow crops, right?  In industrialized nations, rain slows travel, disrupts outdoor work and puts consumers in less of a mood to go out and shop. 

As NPR reports: 

"Just a few extra inches of rain throughout the year could diminish a country's annual growth by half a percentage point - a significant decline, the study points out, given that most developed nations grow by 2 to 3 percentage points annually."  

The bottom line: It's not just the high end disasters or the temperature extremes that will get you with climate change. It's the weirder much more uneven distribution of precipitation that will screw things up, too. 

 

As Another Heat Wave Bears Down On West, The Big One In June Only Possible Through Climate Change

The unprecedented heat wave in the Pacific Northwest
and Canada in late June could not have happened without
climate change, scientists concluded. And now, another
 heat wave looms in the western part of the continent.

Despite a brief squirt of oppressively humid and very warm air on Tuesday, Vermont continues to be off to a cool July so far, a respite from June, which was one of the region's hottest on record. 

Not so out west, where conditions have remained pretty hot in most places even though the worst of the unprecedented late June heat wave has waned.  

Now, it appears the heat is building back up in the western United States and southwestern Canada. Though this next heat wave won't be as intense at the last one, there will still probably be quite a few daily record highs broken.

A punishing, ongoing drought continues in the western United States and in British Columbia, Canada.  Wildfires are already raging out on control.  Humans and dry lightning strikes are setting new fires pretty much daily. 

The long-lasting heat will further dry things out and encourage more fires. There's really no end in sight. 

While the western heat will be widespread, it'll be centered a bit further south than last time. Instead of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia being the most torrid spots, Nevada, California and Arizona look like the worst spots. 

It's pretty much always hot in the summer in these areas, but this heat will be intense, even by their standards. 

Death Valley could make it to 130 degrees, which is pretty close the hottest on record for the entire Earth. 

Want to head up to northern Arizona's mountains to escape the desert heat? Good luck with that. Temperatures at elevations as high as 4,000 feet above sea level could still flirt with 110 degrees, note the Washington Post. 

In California's Central Valley, temperatures are forecast to be near 110 this weekend. Sacramento, California is usually in the low 90s this time of year, but will be in the 105-110 degree range over the upcoming weekend. 

Further north, some of the places that had the worst of the heat in late June will still broil. Spokane, Washington could reach 100 degrees over the weekend.

Spokane's normal high temperature this time of year is in the low 80s, similar to that in Vermont. But Tuesday was their 14th consecutive day at 90 or better, and each of the next seven days at least are forecast to top that 90 degree mark. 

Meanwhile, that crushing late June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia could not have possibly happened without a boost from climate change, scientists have concluded.

According to the BBC:

"An international team of 27 climate researchers who are part of the World Weather Attribution netword managed to analyze the data in just eight days. 

Unsurprisingly, given the quick turnaround, the research has not yet been peer-reviewed However, the scientists use well-established methods accepted by top journals.

They used 21 climate models to estimate how much climate change influenced the heat experienced in the area around the cities of Seattle, Portland and Vancouver. 

They compared the climate as it is today, with the world as it would be without human-induced warming."

The result was this, the BBC said, quoting co-author Dr. Friederike Otto, from the University of Oxford:

"Without the additional greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, in the statistics that we have available with our models, and also the statistical models based on observations, such an event just does not occur."

At least it didn't, until climate change came along. 

The disconcerting thing about the whole thing is this: Scientists aren't sure whether the extreme heat wave was an extraordinarily rare event that would have happened anyway, but was made worse by climate change - OR - did we cross some sort of threshold where heat waves like this one become more common.

By "this one" I mean one that broke all time records not by one or two degrees,  but by as many as ten degrees Fahrenheit. 

Makes you worry about the next heat wave that will inevitably hit your home town, doesn't it?

 

Report: Heat Waves To Be Increasingly Deadly Threat In Coming Decades

Boaters seek cool breezes on Lake Champlain on a hot
day in 2016.  Dangerous heat waves are expected to 
lengthen and worsen both locally and around the world]
due to climate change. 

Here in Vermont, as previously advertised, we're getting this season's first taste of real summer weather.  The past two days have gotten to 80 degrees in Burlington. 

We'll be in the low 80s today and mid to possibly upper 80s Thursday. 

This week's weather is certainly much more nice than dangerous. Though since we're still unaccustomed to the warmth, you want to be careful exerting yourself in afternoon sunshine this week. 

The very warm weather we're in for today and tomorrow is by no means a heat wave and not the hottest weather we've ever seen in May. (That was last May, when Burlington reached an all time May high of 95 degrees. The previous May record was tied just three years earlier).

Those May stats hint at an increased frequency of heat waves, both here and almost everywhere else, and that is a real topic of concern. 

With climate change, heat waves are getting stronger, longer and more deadly. 

Several studies on extreme heat were unveiled at a recent conference, and those studies paint a dangerous picture of future hot spells, both internationally and in the United States, says Inside Climate News

The research shows that ever more intense heat waves combined with high humidity in some parts of tropical Africa and South Asia threaten to make those areas practically unlivable in future decades. 

Also, major cities in the United States are experiencing longer and more intense heat waves now than in the 1960s. If this trend holds, the heat could overwhelm the power grid, causing electricity failures and increasing the risk of a high death toll due to the lack of air conditioning. 

Heat waves are already deadly enough, says Bob Berwyn, writing for Inside Climate News:

"Globally, extreme heat killed at least 166,000 people between 1998 and 2017, according to the World Health Organization, including about 70,000 during a 2003 heat wave in Europe. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control calculated that extreme heat 'caused or contributed to more than 7,800 deaths' between 1999 and 2009."

Heat waves are not the kind of dramatic, "sexy" disasters you see on the news. Hot weather doesn't cause the type of dramatic property damage like hurricanes and tornadoes inflict, so it's not eye-catching. 

Heat deaths occur much more out of public view, and statistics on heat deaths take time to compile. It's not as immediately reportable as the casualties caused by a tornado or flash flood. 

These heat waves can hit the Great White North, too, with fatal results.  A record July, 2018 heat wave caused four deaths in Vermont, making that the state's worst weather disaster since Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. There was no property damage from the heat wave, but tell that to the families of people who succumbed to the heat.

That same July, 2018 heat wave was blamed for 70 deaths in Quebec.

Those increasingly deadly heat waves could also have global societal impacts. If parts of the tropics become places that are too hot to survive, you'll risk having massive migrations to cooler places. Those migrations can cause massive political and economic upheaval, possibly even leading to wars. 

Heat waves are slow moving, quiet disasters.  Stealth disasters like that need more scrutiny, and I'm glad scientists seem to be taking a renewed look at this hot global killers. 

Yeah, this is kind of a downer post, I know.  We all want to count our blessings, but we also ignore trouble spots at our own peril.