2016 IS STRANGE Part 22 // JULY

Latest vid from LAST MESSAGES. Includes the SAnd Fire in Sta. Clarita, Calif. which started just this past week.

2016 is strange.

2016 IS STRANGE Part 20 // June-July, and the Reason Why!

First, the latest from Youtuber Last Messages:

Very weird clouds and storms in this video compilation from around the world. What's the
reason? The chemical mess in the air (at 0:35 in) cause by our fossil fuel emissions including chemtrails from all the jet planes' exhausts.

The additional carbon released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) or as methane (natural gas - CH4) increases the insulation of the atmosphere, causing the temperature to increase. With each 1 degree Celsius increase the amount of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere increases by 7%. The increased heat and moisture, of course, makes the atmosphere more energetic in an attempt to cool things down (more cloud cover), but actually makes things even warmer!. We are now about 1.2 degrees Celsius above 1880s levels.

Feedbacks and Peak Fossil Fuel Emissions.
Source: Sam Caranas, Arctic News.

In the above graphic you see all global energy-related emissions staying relatively flat for the past three years while CO2 content continued to increase, with a record jump in carbon dioxide content this past winter and spring. That means one, two or all of three things: the carbon sinks are no longer taking in as much carbon as they used to even just last year, natural "positive" (amplifying) feedbacks are kicking in, or the end of El Niño is evicting an enormous amount of carbon from the planet's oceans.

2016 is strange!

Crikey, Do I Look Like an Idiot!

Remember this post about the Jet Stream doing something weird by crossing the equator?

It turns out that this sort of thing is not unprecedented and not even unusual. In fact, it is a mechanism, one of a few or several, by which the air of the Northern Hemisphere mixes with the air of the Southern Hemisphere. So it actually is something that would happen in a normal world.

However, The Washington Post interviewed Jennifer Francis, professor of meteorology at Rutgers University who specializes in the relationship between global warming and the jet stream and she said that “cross-equator flow cannot be unprecedented, maybe not even all that unusual.”

This broadsheet also interviewed Sam Lillo, who is working toward his PhD in Meteorology at U of Oklahoma and he replied, “None of this is unusual, There isn’t a wall at the equator separating the two hemispheres, and air is free to flow from one side to the other.”

But of course, I uncriticaly reblogged Robertscribbler's article which stated that this was " Something that would absolutely not happen in a normal world," quoting four paragraphs from it verbatim including the above phrase (in quotes), and made myself look like an idiot when the Washington Post article came out. A closer look at the article's first graphic from Earth Nullschool shows that jet stream that branched out and sent a stream crossing the equator was not the polar one at the 80th North parallel, but the subtropical one further south. Now to his credit, Robert has toned down the content of his blog article, parts somewhat, parts considerably.

Now when the Polar Jet Stream really does jump the Equator and join the other polar stream, that would be really, really weird. Possibly even the end of our regular seasons.

I guess it's back to posting Angel of Apocalypse and LastMessage's YouTube videos and even some of my own.

2016 is strange!

More Global Weirding - Near Northern Jet Stream Splits, New South Fork Jumps Equator to Join Near Southern Jet Stream.

Posted 28 June 2016 by Robertscribbler.

Gigantic Gravity Waves to Mix Summer with Winter? Wrecked Jet Stream Now Runs from Pole to Pole

It’s as if global warming [Ed-M: global weirding] were ringing the Earth’s atmosphere like some great, cacophonous alarm bell. The upper level zonal winds are swinging wildly from record high positive anomalies to record low negative anomalies. Gravity waves — the kinds of big atmospheric waves that tend to move air from the Tropics all the way to the Poles and are powerful enough to cause the Caribbean Sea to ‘whistle’ in the satellite monitors — are growing larger. And the Jet Stream now has redefined all boundaries — flowing at times from the East Siberian Sea in the Arctic across the Equator and all the way south to West Antarctica.

South Fork of Northern Jet Stream Caught Crossing the Equator. Source: Earth Nullschool. 

Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream crosses the Equator in this Earth Nullschool screen capture to merge with the Southern Hemisphere Jet Stream. It’s the very picture of weather weirding due to climate change. Something that would absolutely not happen in a normal world. Something, that if it continues, basically threatens seasonal integrity.

The big trough today begins near the Northern Hemisphere Pole. It pulls Arctic air down over Eastern Siberia and into a Pacific Ocean storm track. There, a second big dip in the Jet Stream pulls a crazy loop of this upper air flow further south. And here is where things get really weird — for the upper level river of air that began in the Arctic then makes a jump directly across the Equator.

But our story of a wayward Jet Stream doesn’t end there. The upper level air flow that originated near the North Pole joins with a building Southern Hemisphere Jet Stream ridge pattern over the Southeast Pacific. Feeding into very strong upper level winds, it turns southward into a high amplitude wave that crosses the Horn of South America and slams itself, carrying with it a big pulse of extreme warmth, into the upper level airs over Western Antarctica.

For more, click at the link below.

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/28/gigantic-gravity-waves-to-mix-winter-with-summer-wrecked-jet-stream-now-runs-from-pole-to-pole/#comment-84471

More Weird Weather from Robertscribbler.

First, the cause of all this global weirding.

CO2’s Vertigo-Inducing Rate of Rise — In First 5 Months of 2016 Hothouse Gas Concentration Rocketed 3.7 Parts Per Million Above 2015 

“Perhaps the most worrisome threat is that because the Arctic is warming so much faster than the globe as a whole, the permafrost — soil that remains frozen year-round — is thawing. As it does, organic matter which is trapped within can decay, and when it does it releases CO2 into the atmosphere, except those places where instead of releasing CO2 it releases CH4.” — Tamino. 

With the Northern Hemisphere Pole warming at a rate 2-3 times faster than the rest of the globe, there’s a risk that we start to set off a kind of runaway warming feedback. We may be near that threshold now… God help us if we’ve crossed it… 

Image source: NOAA ESRL.

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/22/co2s-vertigo-inducing-rate-of-rise-in-first-5-months-of-2016-hothouse-gas-concentration-rocketed-3-7-parts-per-million-above-2015/

Now the effects - first in Arizona and Nevada: Lake Mead is drying up. How soon before Phoenix and Las Vegas will simply dry up and blow away?

Water Knives in the Near Future — 16 Year Drought Brings Lake Mead To New Record Low 

It’s been ridiculously hot along the unstoppable shrinking shoreline at Lake Mead. Over the past four days, highs have peaked at a scorching 109 to 111 F (42 to 44 C). Similar heat blasted all up and down the Colorado River Basin, squeezing moisture out of a key water supply for 25 million people in California, Arizona, and Nevada. 

Source: NASA.

If you thought the current drought was bad, then this animation will knock your socks off. Loss of soil moisture for the US is ridiculously extreme under business as usual fossil fuel burning in this NASA projection. 

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/23/water-knives-in-the-near-future-16-year-drought-brings-lake-mead-to-new-record-low/

Now on to Japan, where 700,000 had to be evacuated because of floods; and to West Virginia, where even the Greenbrier Resort, host to a civil defense / continuity of government folly in the cold war 1960s, got flooded out. I'll bet the folly became an aquarium!

Bad Rains Fall Across Globe — 700,000 Evacuated in Kyushu Deluge as Worst Flood in 100 Years Inundates West Virginia
In Kyushu, Japan on Friday, government officials urged 700,000 residents to evacuate as record heavy rains and severe flooding inundated the city for the fifth day in a row. Half a world away in West Virginia, another unpredicted record deluge dumped 8.2 inches of rain, washed out roads, cut off shopping malls, flushed burning homes down raging rivers, and left more than 14 people dead and hundreds more stranded. 

Individually, these events would be odd. But taken together with what are now scores of other extreme flooding events happening around the world in the space of just a few months and the context begins to look a lot like what scientists expected to happen due to human-forced climate change.

In Kyushu, the skies opened up on Monday. An extension of a seasonal front draped across China and feeding on moisture bleeding off of record hot ocean surfaces edged out over Japan. Mountainous cloud banks unloaded. Record rains in the range of five inches an hour then began to inundate the southern Japanese island. This mass dumping of water eventually accumulated to half a meter (or 1.6 feet) over some sections of the island over the course of just one 24 hour period. 

A burning home floats down a West Virginia creek swollen to a raging torrent by the worst flood to hit the state in 100 years. 

Numerous homes and hundreds of cars have also been lost due to the flash floods that swept through West Virginia’s valleys. In one instance, a burning house was filmed floating down a river. As a result of the severe and unexpected rains, 44 of the state’s 55 counties have now been declared a disaster area.

These severe flooding events add to those this week occurring in China, Australia, Sri Lanka,Indonesia, and Great Britian over just the past seven days. In addition, extreme floods have swept through Texas, Canada, Central Asia, Europe, Ghana and Argentina over the past couple of months. 

The floods occur at a time when global temperatures are just coming off of new record highs during the first part of 2016. Temperatures that, in February peaked near 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than 1880s averages. 

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/24/bad-rains-fall-across-globe-700000-evacuated-in-kyushu-deluge-as-worst-flood-in-100-years-inundates-west-virginia/

And you know the cause. Ever increasing CO2 built-up in Earth's atmosphere. Cause by combustion of fossil fuels, adding to the Fossil Fuels Derivatives Beast. 2016 is strange.

Latest Weird Weather from Angel of Apocalypse - Mid to Late June

Part 180 - June 2016

Part 181 - June 2016

2016 is strange!

2016 IS STRANGE Part 17 // JUNE

This is the latest from Last Messages. Wicked cool music as always. :^)

And the latest from Angel of Apolcalypse.

2016 is strange!

Texas Deluge

They had one just last month and this time they just had another! It was a 500-years' storm according to the people who track the frequency of storms. Flooding wicked bad in the Brazos valley - a 53.5 foot floodwater crest (I hope it's not the DEPTH of the expected floodwater at its crest!). Instead of 7 or 10 inches of rain, they've been getting 16, 19, even 30 inches of rain in one day... causing immense flash floods in minutes! Then the regular floods follow.

As Robertscribbler reports:

(Image source: NOAA.)

All time record rainfall totals that might be associated with a powerful hurricane. Floods that would typically happen only once every 500 years. But in the new moisture-laden atmosphere of a record warm world, a garden variety thunderstorm now has enough atmospheric oomph to frequently set off what were once multi-century floods.

From Lehmann via Peter Sinclair via Greg at Robertscribbler.

Rain bombs again explode over Texas in a huge complex of storms on Tuesday afternoon in this GOES enhanced satellite shot. It’s all part of the same stormy weather pattern — associated with a trough and an upper level low — that over the past five days produced another round of record flooding over Texas. And it’s expected to remain in place through the end of this week. With more severe storms firing and 4-8 inches of additional rainfall on the way for some sections of soggy Texas, it appears that still more extreme flooding is likely.
 
It’s under these new, freakish, conditions that the Brazos River is today expected to crest at 53.5 feet — its highest level ever recorded. And this crest is predicted to push a flood of 8-9 feet into neighboring communities. Extreme flooding that local officials say Texans are not at all prepared for. In total, more than 40,000 people have been urged to evacuate. But with the worst flooding still on the way, the situation is still very fluid.

In isolation, the current Texas floods would be an extreme record disaster worthy of the weather history books. But it is just one of three such severe rainfall events to strike southeastern Texas since April. And, unfortunately, more storms are on the way as a strong ridge of high pressure out west is expected to generate another deep Central US trough and related rain bomb inducing storm pattern over the next five days.

Robertscribbler: New Extreme Climate to Hurl More Rain Bombs at Texas.

Another rain bomb by June 6th. 500-year storm again in the same place, perhaps? That'll be something!

And they usually spend themselves out by the time they reach here in New Orleans... although this Memorial Day we did have heavy, windy rainstorm that looked like a hurricane at times, with wind coming from the East at one time and then the West later on and then back again! Should have taken a video.

But one of these days our luck will run out.

Hell's bells. Oh, Sugar.

2016 IS STRANGE Part 14 // MAY

From Last Messages:

The Fossil Fuels Derivatives Beast (the witches' brew of too much Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and other greenhouse gases and pollutants in our atmosphere and oceans) is heralding the collapse of industrial civilization with its signals that it's about to act out in a big way -- these are the various signs of the end.

Speaking of Signs of the End... also the latest from Angel of Apocalypse: Signs of the End Part 170.

Enjoy!

2016 is strange.

Coral Reefs in Florida Keys decimated by acidification.

According to scientists at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, the acidification that's hitting the Florida coral reefs right now is about 35 year of schedule set by the IPCC and previous scientific modeling.

Here's a look:

Forty years ago Carysfort Reef, off of Key Largo, was a thriving, thickly settled neighborhood of corals.
It was designated a national marine sanctuary.
Now the whole area is blighted.  Source: Science Daily via Robertscribbler.

 

 The UofM scientists did a study of the coral reefs off Biscayne Bay and the Florida Keys and found out that due to ocean acidification, the limestone bedrock of these coral reefs were losing limestone mass faster than the corals themselves can build it back up. As a result, South Florida is losing an important source of fish, tourism revenue and even protection from hurricane storm surges.

From the National Geographic via Robertscribbler:

“ 'Lots of scientists think that ocean acidification is not going to be a problem until 2050 or 2060,' says Chris Langdon, a marine biology professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. 'This is happening now. We’ve just lost 35 years we thought we had to turn things around.' "

More here, here and here.

6 Feet of SLR on the Northern Gulf Coast means New Orleans will be surrounded by water.

Not as bad as South Florida, though.



High Tide flooding on Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Source: blog.cleanenergy.org.



Hallandale Beach where 7 out of 8 wells are contaminated with seawater.
Source: climatecentral.org.

With just 6 feet of SLR, much or all of THAT place, will be utterly destroyed or made unlivable even if no hurricane or tropical storm hits it. Because of the porous limestone bedrock that's right at the surface, the rising seas will invade the Biscayne Aquifer, depriving the area of its drinking water. Already SEVEN out of EIGHT wells in Hallandale Beach have been invaded by salt water. (Click  here.)



Sea-Level Rise and coastal flooding impacts at 6 feet of SLR in South Florida.
The Everglades and Broward are gone. Miami-Dade is unlivable. Source: NOAA via blog.ucsusa.org..

And with a 10-foot SLR Miami Beach is inundated. Miami-Dade is utterly destroyed.
I guess the elevated Metrorail will become a scenic electric railway, accessible by boat!
Source: ClimateCentral.org.

For proof, click here and here.

Wicked wildfire threatens Fort McMurray, Alberta, as other wicked fires burn down Himalayan forests.

Traffic evacuating Ft McMurray May 4, 2016 to flee wildfires.
Note the jams in both directions!

I got this information -- and pics -- from Robert Scribbler and his commentariat. For more, click here and here.

 An immense 10,000 ha (25,000 ac.) burn scar, 15 kilometers (10 miles) long.
Satellite shot of Fort McMurray Fire and burn scars posted in the NASA twitter feed on Wednesday afternoon.

A whole city of 88,000 souls (100,000 in the metro area) was under threat from a 25,000 acre wildfire yesterday and probably still is today. The flames might even reach a tar sands processing facility! Ooh, I'd like to see the flames when that goes up. I know I'm being mean, but tar-sands are one of most carbon-heavy type of fossil fuel on the face of this earth, worse than cold, because you need to burn natural gas (methane = CH4) to get the bitumen out of the sands and dilute it so you can transpoirt it via railway or through pipelines; AND, this sort of wildfire is consistent with what the IPCC has determined what has been happening with wildfires as we have been continuing to burn fossil fuels. And if we burn more, and increase the carbon content of Earth's Atmosphere, it'll only get worse.

Wicked red-hot glowing clouds over a subdivision in greater Fort McMurray:

And this is how it look driving out of town on the main highway:

And a nice view of the inferno from a small plane:

This is the latest from #ymmfire via @CBCNews
 Photo via @TownSlaveLake #Alberta via Robertscribbler.

For more click here, and here for the latest.

Now on to the other side of the globe:

Source: Press Trust of India via Robertscribbler.

The above pic is a fire on a steep, steep slope in the Himalayan Mountains. There are 21,000 fires burning there right now, in 21 Districts in 2 Indian States, and they've consumed in whole or part or threatened 84 villages and two endangered tiger reserves as well as thousands of acres of forests that India had been husbanding and growing back over the decades since they kicked out the Brits. And all they have to fight forest fires is a crew of 9,000 firefighters and increasingly scarce water due to the drought that's parching northern India, thanks to climate change.

More here, here and here.