Earth ChangesS


Compass

US: Where's The Heat?!

Good Monday everyone and welcome to a the post 4th of July holiday week. Many of you are probably confused by the weather as it has been anything other than July-like. This has been one of the coldest starts to July on record and a lot of people are asking one simple question... WHERE'S THE HEAT?

That reminds me of the old Wendy's commercial from the 1980s. You know the one I am talking about...
Where's the beef
© unknown

To put it all in perspective... most areas have not recorded a 80 degree temp since one week ago today. Many record low high temps have fallen over the past several days with Sunday seeing more added to the list. Take a look at this graphic I put together for you guys...

Cloud Lightning

Flash floods and power cuts (even at the Queen's garden party) in Britain's heaviest downfall since records began in 1865

torrential rain Buckingham palace
© Press AssociationTorrential downpours forced guests to abandon tables and chairs and head for cover at the Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace

The band at Buckingham Palace played on - but the rest of the country was ducking for cover.

Britain was battered with three months' worth of rain yesterday, with some parts suffering the heaviest downpours on record.

The flash floods, hail and electrical storms in the South of England made last week's 31.8C heatwave a distant memory.

And England cricket fans were braced for a severely delayed start to the first Test match of the Ashes in Cardiff against Australia as showers swept across the country.

Hourglass

UAH global temperature anomaly - hitting the slopes

Mathematician Luboš Motls takes on the new UAH data (source here) and some current thinking about slopes in global climate by adding his own perspective and analysis. Be sure to visit his blog and leave some comments for him - Anthony

UAH: June 2009: anomaly near zero

UAH anomaly
© unknownGlobal mean temperature according to UAH MSU for the first 8.5 years i.e. 102 months of this century. Linear regression gives a cooling trend by a hefty -1.45 °C per century in this interval. So if someone tells you that the trend is "of course" positive as long as we omit the year 1998, you may be very certain that he or she is not telling you the truth.

UAH MSU has officially released their June 2009 data. This time, they're faster than RSS MSU. The anomaly was +0.001 °C, meaning that the global temperature was essentially equal to the average June temperature since 1979. June 2009 actually belonged to the cooler half of the Junes since 1979.

Global warming is supposed to exist and to be bad. Sometimes, we hear that global warming causes cooling. In this case, global warming causes global averageness. In all three cases, it is bad news. The three main enemies of environmentalism are warm weather, cool weather, and average weather.

It is not a coincidence that these enemies are very similar to the four main enemies of communism. The four main enemies that were spoiling the success of communism were Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. :-) See Anthony Watts' blog for additional discussion.

Vader

Al Gore uses Nazis as tool to win world minds over to global warming belief

Gore / Nazis - two words I thought I'd never see together, and never wanted to. Yet here it is in a story in the Times Online. Surprisingly, Hollywood has been exploiting this linkage for years. I suppose the appearance of a proof of Godwins Law was inevitable, given how long the global warming discussion and Gore have gone on.

Does anyone else besides me get the impression that Al Gore is really reaching now? At the end of this post, Mr. Gore listed only two possible future questions, I'm sure our readers can fill in some of the missing ones. - Anthony

Addendum: I wonder, did Gore get paid for this speaking engagement "sponsored by The Times" and if so, is The Times responsible for creating this "news" where there would be none otherwise? - Anthony

Binoculars

Climate projections: Past performance no guarantee of future skill?

world crystal ball
© unknown

Forecasting accuracy of Global Climate Models is something that has been at the very heart of the global warming debate for some time. Leif Svalgaard turned me on to this paper in GRL today:

Reifen, C., and R. Toumi (2009), Climate projections: Past performance no guarantee of future skill?, Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L13704, doi:10.1029/2009GL038082.

PDF available here

It makes a very interesting point about the "stationarity" of climate feedback strengths. In a nutshell, it says that climate models break down after a time because both forcings and feedbacks don't remain static, and the program can't predict such changes.

Bell

EPA's Jackson and Energy Sec. Chu on the Senate hot seat

In case you missed the debate on the Senate floor today over the Waxman-Markey bill, here is a video segment of interest.


Jackson agrees that the USA effect on global CO2 would be minimal, Chu does not.

Washington, D.C.-During a hearing today in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, EPA Administrator Jackson confirmed an EPA analysis showing that unilateral U.S. action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would have no effect on climate. Moreover, when presented with an EPA chart depicting that outcome, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he disagreed with EPA's analysis.

Blackbox

Alaska: 'Uplift' baffles scientists, transforms area beach

Like a giant fist punching through the earth, a 1,000-foot long section of the beach below Bluff Point rose up 20 feet from the tidelands sometime last Friday or late Thursday, pushing boulders up from the ocean bottom, cracking sandstone slabs and toppling rocks upside down.
Homer News Alaska Uplift
© Photo by Michael Armstrong Two men climb an uplift on the beach below Bluff Point on Sunday.

Below Bluff Point, a new fissure opened up at the base of the 800-foot high cliff. The uplift could be a re-activation of a landslide that happened perhaps 12,000 years ago.

"There was just beach before," said Ron Hess, who lives on Bluff Road above the new uplift. "Now there are tidal pools."

"You can see a rock circle," said Marilyn Hess. "All you used to see was one big rock, and now you can see this uplift of rock."

Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Magnitude 5.1 - Off The Coast Of Oregon

Image
© US Geological Survey

Date-Time:
Friday, July 10, 2009 at 00:31:27 UTC
Thursday, July 09, 2009 at 03:31:27 PM at epicenter

Location:
44.550°N, 129.827°W

Depth:
26.6 km (16.5 miles)

Distances:
455 km (283 miles) W (275°) from Yachats, OR

457 km (284 miles) W (268°) from Depoe Bay, OR

457 km (284 miles) W (271°) from Newport, OR

537 km (334 miles) W (278°) from Eugene, OR

575 km (357 miles) W (262°) from Portland, OR

Frog

US: Striking salamander species found

New salamander species
© T. LambThe yellow patch on the nose is a distinctive feature
A striking new species of lungless salamander has been found living in a small stream in the Appalachian foothills of the US.

The salamander is so distinct that it's been classified within its own genus, a taxonomic grouping that usually includes a host of related species.

The creature breathes through its skin, and unusually for its kind, males and females have different colouration.

Such a distinct amphibian has not been found in the US for half a century.

The researchers who discovered the salamander describe it in the Journal of Zoology. They have dubbed it the 'patch-nosed' salamander after the yellow patch on the animal's snout.

Bizarro Earth

US: Mysterious tremors detected on San Andreas Fault

Los Angeles - Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California's San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857.

What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor.