AtmosNews takes a lighthearted look at an unexpected analogy, explaining why some people call carbon dioxide (and the other greenhouse gases) the steroids of the climate system. Statistics and extreme behavior are involved, whether we’re talking about baseball or Earth’s atmosphere. NCAR scientist Gerald “Jerry” Meehl explains why.

NCAR has puts it together an very informative website on global warming and extreme weather, which I highly recommend.

Related Post:

• PBS Covers Link Between 2011′s “Mind-Boggling” Extreme Weather and Global Warming: It’s Like “Being on Steroids”

The laws of physics demand that the huge amount of heat-trapping gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere must be significantly altering the fundamental large-scale circulation pattern of the atmosphere.

Stronger hurricanes, bigger floods, more intense heat waves, and sea level rise have been getting many of the headlines with regards to potential climate change impacts, but drought should be our main concern. Drought is capable of crashing a civilization.

by Christine Shearer, reposted from the Conducive Chronicle

If you are interested in weather, chances are you have visited Weather Underground and read the posts of its director of meteorology, Dr. Jeff Masters. The consistently reliable Masters has been a rare voice in helping make sense of, rather than cloud (zing!), the increasingly strange weather events hitting the planet.

Masters has studied weather both on the ground and in the air. He received his bachelors and masters degrees in meteorology from the University of Michigan, and then worked as a Miami-based flight meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Hunters team. It was there that Masters and his crew, having lost temporary control of their radar and thinking they were heading toward a mild twister, flew right into the eye of Hurricane Hugo — a category 5 storm and the most destructive of its time.

Masters later wrote of the event in “Hunting Hugo“: “I look out my window, and behold the eye of Hurricane Hugo in its full fury. It is awesome, terrifying, supernatural.”

Although two engines of the plane were damaged, the crew made it out, which Masters attributes to the navigating of the team, the strength of the P3 plane, and luck. Masters returned to Ann Arbor for his PhD at U-M in 1991, continuing his work on the more applied science of air pollution meteorology: “I had a lot of concerns back then about how human activities were harming the environment and people who rely on the environment for jobs or for a strong economy.” He studied smog, but his attention soon turned to the growing issue of climate change.

He also started an earlier version of Wunderground in 1991, before it went online as the first weather site in 1995. Today, Wunderground.com is fed by the world’s largest network of 17,000 individual weather stations, and is the second most visited weather site in the world.

Masters shared some of his thoughts on meteorology, the effect of increasing greenhouse gases on weather and weather cycles, and the future of the earth’s climate.

Christine Shearer: As far as I can tell, you are one of the few meteorologists that puts daily weather events in a historic context, and therefore really looks at averages and deviations from the average. Would that be a fair assessment of what you do?

Jeff Masters: I focus on current weather events that have a high impact on people or society, and put them in a historical context. If there is current research which is relevant, I will mention that, particularly if the weather event in question is unusual and fits in with the general predictions of climate change.

Christine Shearer: How did you get interested in weather?

Jeff Masters: Growing up in Michigan is enough to get anyone interested in weather! The Midwest U.S. has a lot of weather extremes. I had my own home weather station back in junior high school, and used to go out and take regular wind, snow depth, and precipitation measurements. I was interested in all Earth Sciences, and had my own telescope, microscope, and rock collection. Both my uncle and grandfather taught physics (one at Stanford, the other at Purdue), so I initially thought I should be a physicist. But once I got into college, I found my interest drawn more to meteorology.

Christine Shearer: Very interested in meteorology – you became part of NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters team and had some pretty close calls, which you’ve written about. Do you ever miss flying into hurricanes? It must be quite an experience.

Jeff Masters: It was a fantastic opportunity to get to experience the world’s greatest storms first-hand, but I did enough flying into storms to satisfy this curiosity. I do miss the camaraderie of the great people I worked with, but I don’t miss the flying. Those 10 – 12 hour flights were long, and being on the road so much was difficult.

Christine Shearer: You helped start the website Weather Underground – what made you and your colleagues start the site?

Jeff Masters: We launched the predecessor of the web site at the University of Michigan, as a text-only menu-based educational service called “um-weather” back in 1991, before the web. The um-weather program became the most popular service of any kind on the entire Internet between 1992 – 1993, according to Merit Networking, Inc., who ran the Internet backbone at that time. So, we knew we had a popular concept, and we applied for and got several NSF grants to expand the effort into K-12 schools. When the web was established in 1995, the University and NSF encouraged us to take the next step and start a business.

Christine Shearer: Did you or your colleagues call the site Weather Underground after the 1960s activist group of the same name?

Jeff Masters: The company that became The Weather Underground grew out of an educational weather project with the same name that began in the early 1990s. Since the educational weather project and the original radical group The Weather Underground both got their start at the University of Michigan, the professor that supervised the educational project (Perry Samson) thought it would be an amusing tongue-in-cheek name for our small weather project. When the project became an amazingly successful one, and was spun off into a business, the name Weather Underground was kept — perhaps unwisely!

Christine Shearer: Could you give us a bit of insight on how meteorologists make their assessments? Beyond technological improvements, have you noted techniques that meteorologists can do themselves that make for more accurate forecasts?

Jeff Masters: We rely heavily on computer models, but there is no substitute for looking at the raw radar, satellite, and station data oneself to make a forecast. A lot of forecasting is experience–if you’ve been doing it for many decades, then you tend to pick up on recurring patterns more easily.

Christine Shearer: How do you think about the relationship between climate, climate change, and daily weather?

Jeff Masters: Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get. I like to think of the weather as a game of dice. Mother Nature rolls the dice each day to determine the weather, and the rolls fall within the boundaries of what the climate will allow. The extreme events that happen at the boundaries of what are possible are what people tend to notice the most. When the climate changes, those boundaries change. Thus, the main way people will tend to notice climate change is through a change in the extreme events that occur at the boundaries of what is possible. If you want a longer explanation, think of the weather as a game of dice like craps or backgammon, where Mother Nature rolls two six-sided dice to decide the day’s weather. There are 36 possible combinations of the two dice, and rolls can range from two to twelve. Most often, an ordinary roll like six, seven, or eight comes up; seven is the most common, with a 6 in 36 probability. Rolls of six and eight are only slightly less common, coming up with a 5 in 36 probability. These rolls of the “weather dice” correspond to typical summer weather–high temperatures in the mid- to upper 70s on a nice summer day in New York City, for instance. It is much harder to roll an extreme event–snake eyes (corresponding to a record cold day, with a high near 65), or double sixes (a record warm day, with a high near 100.) These rolls only have a 1 in 36 chance of occurring–about 3%.

Now think about what happens if we take one of the six-sided “weather dice” and paint an extra spot on each side. The old die still rolls a one through six, but the new die now rolls a two through seven. The most likely roll increases to an eight, so we’ve shifted to a warmer climate, getting a typical summertime high of 78 degrees instead of 76. However, the increase in 78 degree days isn’t that noticeable, since we’ve only increased the likelihood of getting an eight on our “weather dice” from 5 in 36 to 6 in 36. But now look at what has happened to extreme events as a result of loading our “weather dice” in favor of higher rolls. Whereas before we had only a 3% chance of rolling an twelve on our “weather dice”–an extreme heat day of 100 degrees in New York City–we’ve now tripled these chances to almost 9%, since there are three possible combinations of the dice that total twelve or higher. Moreover, it is no longer possible to roll snake eyes, corresponding to a record cold day, but it is now possible to roll a 13–a previously unprecedented weather event. Temperatures higher than 106, New York City’s previous all-time high temperature, can now occur.

Christine Shearer: Despite these shifting parameters, many meteorologists do not consider climate change when offering their reports, even when it comes to events where it seems it would at least deserve a mention. Why do you think that is – is there something fundamentally different about how meteorologists and climatologists are trained?

Jeff Masters: TV meteorologists are not required to have training in climate change in order to get their AMS [American Meteorological Society] seal of approval, and most do not have any formal training in climate science. In a subject as complicated and politically charged as climate change, I would expect most of them would be reluctant to offer their views on the subject if they have little training.

Christine Shearer: A recent popular science magazine had an article stating that many experts so far attribute this year’s warm weather in the continental U.S. to La Niña and the effect of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations on the jet stream, “not global warming.” But is there a case to be made that increasing greenhouse gases and their effects could be affecting pressure systems? What is your take on this year’s U.S. winter and what you have said is the most “unusual configuration” of the jet stream ever recorded?

Jeff Masters: The natural weather rhythms I’ve grown used to during my 30 years as a meteorologist have become disrupted over the past few years. Many of Earth’s major atmospheric circulation patterns have seen significant shifts and unprecedented behavior; new patterns that were unknown have emerged; extreme weather events were incredibly intense and numerous during 2010 – 2011. The laws of physics demand that the huge amount of heat-trapping gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere must be significantly altering the fundamental large-scale circulation pattern of the atmosphere. Unprecedented behavior like we’ve witnessed in the configuration of the winter jet stream over North America–with the four most extreme years since 1865 occurring since 2006–could very well be due to human-caused climate change. Something is definitely up with the weather, and it is clear to me that over the past two years, the climate has shifted to a new state capable of delivering rare and unprecedented weather events. Human emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide are the most likely cause of such a shift in the climate.

Christine Shearer: Having really looked closely at the weather for a while now, is there something that stands out to you most?

Jeff Masters: The atmosphere I grew up with no longer exists. My new motto with regards to the weather is, “expect the unprecedented.”

Christine Shearer: Anything you would like to say?

Jeff Masters: Stronger hurricanes, bigger floods, more intense heat waves, and sea level rise have been getting many of the headlines with regards to potential climate change impacts, but drought should be our main concern. Drought is capable of crashing a civilization. To illustrate, drought has been implicated in the demise of the Mayan civilization in Mexico, the Anasazis of the Southwest U.S., and the Akkadians of Syria in 2200 B.C. The Russian heat wave and drought of 2010 led to a spike in global food prices that helped cause unrest in Africa and the Middle East that led to the overthrow of several governments. It’s likely that global-warming intensified droughts will cause far more serious impacts in the coming decades, and drought is capable of crashing our global civilization in a worst-case scenario, particularly if we do nothing to slow down emissions of carbon dioxide.

Extreme weather years like 2010 and 2011 are very likely to increase in frequency, since there is a delay of several decades between when we put heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere and when the climate fully responds. This is because Earth’s oceans take so long to heat up when extra heat is added to the atmosphere (think about how long it takes it takes for a lake to heat up during summer.) Due to this lag, we are just now experiencing the full effect of CO2 emitted by the late 1980s; since CO2 has been increasing by 1 – 3% per year since then, there is a lot more climate change “in the pipeline” we cannot avoid.

We’ve set in motion a dangerous boulder of climate change that is rolling downhill, and it is too late to avoid major damage when it hits full-force several decades from now. However, we can reduce the ultimate severity of the damage with strong and rapid action. A boulder rolling downhill can be deflected in its path more readily early in its course, before it gains too much momentum in its downward rush. For example, the International Energy Agency estimates that every dollar we invest in alternative energy before 2020 will save $4.30 later. There are many talented and dedicated people working very hard to deflect the downhill-rolling boulder of climate change–but they need a lot more help very soon.

JR: Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters said in June that, driven by global warming, “It Is Quite Possible That 2010 Was The Most Extreme Weather Year Globally Since 1816.″ In a late December PBS story on the link between 2011′s “mind-boggling” extreme weather and global warming, Masters said it’s like “being on steroids … for the atmosphere.” Now Masters examines “Where is the climate headed?”

by Jeff Masters, cross-posted from the WunderBlog

The year 2011 tied with 1997 as the 11th warmest year since records began in 1880, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center said last week. NASA rated 2011 as the 9th warmest on record. Land temperatures were the 8th warmest on record, and ocean temperatures, the 11th warmest. For the Arctic, which has warmed about twice as much as the rest of the planet, 2011 was the warmest year on record (between 64°N and 90°N latitude.) The year 2011 was also the 2nd wettest year over land on record, as evidenced by some of the unprecedented flooding Earth witnessed. The wettest year over land was the previous year, 2010.

Figure 1. Departure of global temperature from average for 2011. The Arctic was the warmest region, relative to average. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory.

How much of the warming in recent decades is due to natural causes?

The El Niño/La Niña cycle causes cyclical changes in global temperatures that average out to zero over the course of several decades. La Niña events bring a large amount of cold water to the surface in the equatorial Eastern Pacific, which cools global temperatures by up to 0.2°C. El Niño events have the opposite effect. The year 2011 was the warmest year on record when a La Niña event was present. Global temperatures were 0.12°C (0.2°F) cooler than the record warmest year for the planet (2010), and would very likely have been the warmest on record had an El Niño event been present instead.

Figure 2. Departure from average of annual global temperatures between 1950 – 2011, classified by phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The year 2011 was the warmest year on record when a La Niña event was present. ENSO is a natural episodic fluctuation in sea surface temperature (El Niño/La Niña) and the air pressure of the overlying atmosphere (Southern Oscillation) across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Over a period of months to a few years, ENSO fluctuates between warmer-than-average ocean surface waters (El Niño) and cooler-than-average ocean surface waters (La Niña) in that region. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center.

[JR:  See also It’s “Extremely Likely That at Least 74% of Observed Warming Since 1950″ Was Manmade; It’s Highly Likely All of It Was.]

Correcting for natural causes to find the human contribution
We know that natural episodes of global warming or cooling in the distant past have been caused by changes in sunlight and volcanic dust. So, it is good to remove these natural causes of global temperature change over the past 33 years we have satellite data, to see what the human influence might have been during that time span. The three major surface temperature data sets (NCDC, GISS, and HadCRU) all show global temperatures have warmed by 0.16 – 0.17°C (0.28 – 0.30°F) per decade since satellite measurements began in 1979. The two satellite-based data sets of the lower atmosphere (UAH and RSS) give slightly less warming, about 0.14 – 0.15°C (.25 – .27°F) per decade (keep in mind that satellite measurements of the lower atmosphere temperature are affected much more strongly by volcanic eruptions and the El Niño phenomena than are surface-based measurements taken by weather stations.) A 2011 paper published by Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf, Global temperature evolution 1979 – 2010, took the five major global temperature data sets and adjusted them to remove the influences of natural variations in sunlight, volcanic dust, and the El Niño/La Niña cycle. The researchers found that adjusting for these natural effects did not change the observed trend in global temperatures, which remained between 0.14 – 0.17°C (0.25 – 0.31°F) per decade in all five data sets. The warmest years since 1979 were 2010 and 2009 in all five adjusted data sets. Since the known natural causes of global warming have little to do with the observed increase in global temperatures over the past 33 years, either human activity or some unknown natural source is responsible for the global warming during that time period.

Figure 3. Departure from average of annual global temperatures between 1979 – 2010, adjusted to remove natural variations due to fluctuations in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, dust from volcanic eruptions, and changes in sunlight. The five most frequently-cited global temperature records are presented: surface temperature estimates by NASA’s GISS, HadCRU from the UK, and NOAA’s NCDC, and satellite-based lower-atmosphere estimates from Remote Sensing Systems, Inc. (RSS) and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH.) Image credit Global temperature evolution 1979- 2010 by Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf, Environ. Res. Lett. 6, 2011, 044022 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/044022.

Commentary: What do climate scientists think?
Some scientists have proposed that previously unknown natural causes could be responsible for global warming, such as a decrease in cloud-producing galactic cosmic rays. Others have proposed that the climate may be responding to the heat-trapping effects of carbon dioxide by producing more clouds, which reflect away sunlight and offset the added heat-trapping gases. These theories have little support among actively publishing climate scientists. Despite public belief that climate scientists are divided about the human contribution to our changing climate, polling data show high agreement among climate scientists that humans are significantly affecting the climate.

A 2008 poll of actively publishing climate scientists found that 97% said yes to the question, “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” In my personal experience interacting with climate scientists, I have found near-universal support for this position. For example, I am confident that all 23 climate scientists and meteorologists whom I am personally acquainted with at the University of Michigan’s Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Science would agree that “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.” It is good that we have scientists skeptical of the prevailing consensus challenging it, though, because that is how scientific progress is made. It may be that one of the scientists making these challenges will turn out to be the next Einstein or Galileo, and overthrow the conventional scientific wisdom on climate change. But Einsteins and Galileos don’t come along very often.

The history of science is littered with tens of thousands of discredited scientific papers that challenged the accepted scientific consensus and lost. If we rely on hopes that the next Einstein or Galileo will successfully overthrow the current scientific consensus on climate change, we are making a high-stakes, low-probability-of-success gamble on the future of civilization. The richest and most powerful corporations in world history, the oil companies, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to push us to take this gamble, and their efforts have been very successful. Advertising works, particularly when your competition has little money to spend to oppose you.

Where is the climate headed?
The 2007 United Nations-sponsored IPCC report predicted that global temperatures between 2007 and 2030 should rise by an average of 0.2°C (0.36°F) per decade. The observed warming over the past 30 years is 15 – 30% below that (but within the range of uncertainty given by the 2007 IPCC climate models.) Most of the increase in global temperatures during the past 30 years occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. The 2000s have seen relatively flat temperatures, despite increasing CO2 emissions by humans. The lower-than-expected warming may be partially due to a sharp decrease in stratospheric water vapor that began after 2000. The missing heat may also be going into the deep ocean waters below about 1,000 feet (300 meters), as part of a decades-long cycle that will bring extra heat to the surface years from now.

Regardless, the laws of physics demand that the huge amount of heat-trapping gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere must be significantly altering the weather and climate, even if we are seeing a lower than predicted warming. As wunderground’s climate change blogger, Dr. Ricky Rood said in a recent post, Changing the Conversation: Extreme Weather and Climate: “Given that greenhouse gases are well-known to hold energy close to the Earth, those who deny a human-caused impact on weather need to pose a viable mechanism of how the Earth can hold in more energy and the weather not be changed. Think about it.”

Our recent unusual weather has made me think about this a lot. The natural weather rhythms I’ve grown to used to during my 30 years as a meteorologist have become significantly disrupted over the past few years. Many of Earth’s major atmospheric circulation patterns have seen significant shifts and unprecedented behavior; new patterns that were unknown have emerged, and extreme weather events were incredibly intense and numerous during 2010 – 2011.

It boggles my mind that in 2011, the U.S. saw 14 – 17 billion-dollar weather disasters, three of which matched or exceeded some of the most iconic and destructive weather events in U.S. history–the “Super” tornado outbreak of 1974, the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, and the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. I appeared on PBS News Hour on December 28 (video here) to argue that watching the weather over the past two years has been like watching a famous baseball hitter on steroids–an analogy used in the past by climate scientists Tony Broccoli and Jerry Meehl.

We’re used to seeing the slugger hit the ball out of the park, but not with the frequency he’s hitting them now that he’s on steroids. Moreover, some of the home runs now land way back in the seats where no one has ever been able to hit a home run before. We can’t say that any particular home run would not have occurred without the steroids, but the increase in home runs and the unprecedented ultra-long balls are highly suspicious. Similarly, Earth’s 0.6°C (1°F) warming and 4% increase in global water vapor since 1970 have created an atmosphere on steroids. A warmer atmosphere has more energy to power stronger storms, hotter heat waves, more intense droughts, and heavier flooding rains.

Natural weather patterns could have caused some of the extreme events we witnessed during 2010 – 2011, and these years likely would have been naturally extreme years even without climate change. But it strains the bounds of credulity that all of the extreme weather events–some of them 1-in-1000-year type events–could have occurred without a significant change to the base climate state. Mother Nature is now able to hit the ball out of the park more often, and with much more power, thanks to the extra energy global warming has put into the atmosphere.

Extreme weather years like 2010 and 2011 are very likely to increase in frequency, since there is a delay of several decades between when we put heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere and when the climate fully responds. This is because Earth’s oceans take so long to heat up when extra heat is added to the atmosphere (think about how long it takes it takes for a lake to heat up during summer.) Due to this lag, we are just now experiencing the full effect of CO2 emitted [by] the late 1980s; since CO2 has been increasing by 1 – 3% per year since then, there is a lot more climate change “in the pipeline” we cannot avoid.

We’ve set in motion a dangerous boulder of climate change that is rolling downhill, and it is too late to avoid major damage when it hits full-force several decades from now. However, we can reduce the ultimate severity of the damage with strong and rapid action. A boulder rolling downhill can be deflected in its path more readily early in its course, before it gains too much momentum in its downward rush. For example, the International Energy Agency estimates that every dollar we invest in alternative energy before 2020 will save $4.30 later. There are many talented and dedicated people working very hard to deflect the downhill-rolling boulder of climate change–but they need a lot more help very soon.

– Jeff Masters is co-founder of the Weather Underground. This piece was originally published at the WunderBlog.

Related Climate Progress Posts:

• We’ve only warmed about a degree and a half Fahrenheit in the past century.  We are on track to warm five times times that or more this century (see M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F ).
• In 2007, Science (subs. req’d) published research that “predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest” — levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California.
• In October 2010, a National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) study warned, “The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades … possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.”

Seven countries and one territory set all-time hottest temperature records in 2011, and one nation set an all-time coldest temperature record. Image credit: Ilissa Ocko, Princeton University.

By Dr. Jeff Masters, in a Wunderblog repost

The year 2011 was the tenth warmest year on record for the globe, but the warmest year on record when a La Niña event was present (Ricky Rood has a discussion of this in his lastest post.) Seven nations and one territory broke all-time hottest temperature records. This is a far cry from 2010 (which tied for the warmest year on record), when twenty nations (plus one UK territory) set all-time hottest temperature records. One all-time coldest temperature record was set in 2011; this was the first time since 2009 one of these records was set. The all-time cold record occurred in Zambia, which ironically also set an all-time hottest temperature record in 2011. Here, then, are the most most notable extreme temperatures globally in 2011, courtesy of weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera:

1. Hottest temperature in the world in 2011: 53.3°C (127.9°F) in Mitrabah, Kuwait, August 3
2. Coldest temperature in the world in 2011: -80.2°C (-112.4°F) at Dome Fuji, Antarctica, September 18
3. Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 49.4°C (120.9°F) at Roebourne, Australia, on December 21
4. Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -67.2°C (-89°F) at Summit, Greenland, March 18. This is also the coldest March temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere.
5. Hottest undisputed 24-hour minimum temperature in world history: A minimum temperature of 41.7°C (107°F) measured at Khasab Airport in Oman on June 27

New country hottest temperature records set in 2011

Iraq recorded its hottest temperature on record on August 3, 2011 in Tallil (Ali military airbase), when the mercury hit 53°C (127.4°F). The previous record was 52.3°C recorded at Diwanya FOB airbase a few days before.

Armenia recorded its hottest temperature on record on July 31 in Meghri, when the mercury hit 43.7°C (110.7°F). The previous record was 43.1°C in Meghri on July 17, 2005.

Iran recorded its hottest temperature in its history on July 28, 2011, when the mercury hit 53°C (127.4°F) at Dehloran. The previous previous record was set just one day earlier at Omidieh and Shoshtar, when the mercury hit 52.6°C (126.6°F). Older hotter temperatures have been measured in Iran using automated stations, but these temperatures have been found to be overestimated.

Kuwait recorded its hottest temperature on record on August 3, 2011, when the mercury hit 53.3°C (127.9°F) at Mitrabah. The previous record was 53.1°C in Sulaibiya on June 15, 2010. The Kuwait Meteorological Center confirmed the reading as authentic, though the temperature sensor had problems between 2009 and July 2010. Some temperatures as high as 53.5°C measured at the Kuwait City Airport during 2011 were in error. The 53.3°C (127.9°F) at Mitrabah thus represents:

1) The hottest temperature measured on Earth in 2011
2) New official national record for Kuwait
3) Second highest (undisputed) temperature ever recorded in Asia
4) Highest temperature ever recorded in an Arabic country
5) Third hottest location in the planet together with Lake Havasu City, AZ (after Death
Valley, CA and Moenjodaro, Pakistan)
6) A new world record for August

China broke its national heat record for both uninhabited and inhabited locations on July 14, 2011, when the temperature soared to 50.2°C (122.4°F) at a automatic station near Adyngkol Lake (just south of Turfan), and 49.4°C (120.9°F) at the town of Tuyoq. A higher reading of 50.7°C at Aydingkol Mirabilite on 23 July 1986 has not been verified as official by the Chinese.

Republic of the Congo set a new all-time extreme heat record on March 8, 2011, when the temperature hit 39.2°C (102.6°F) at M’Pouya. Congo’s previous all-time hottest temperature was 39.0°C (102.2°F) at Impfondo on May 14, 2005.

Zambia set an all-time national heat record of 109.0°F (42.8°C) at Mfuwe, on October 26, 2011, breaking the previous national record of 108.1°F (42.3°C) also set at Mfuwe, on November 17, 2010. A no longer functioning station at Lusitu, Zambia measured a higher temperature in November 1990, but surrounding stations were all about 10°C cooler, so the Lusitu 1990 reading is considered unreliable.

The French Southern and Antarctic Lands Territory tied its all-time hottest temperature record when Europa Island recorded 35.6°C (96.1°F) on November 12, 2011. The previous record was set at Juan de Nova Island on March 31, 1997.

New country coldest temperature records set in 2011
For the first time since 2009, a new national extreme cold temperature record was set. Zambia set an all-time national cold record of -9°C (16°F) at Choma on June 27, 2011, breaking the previous national record of -8°C (18°F), set on July 10, 1898, at Nalisa Western Province.

Special mention:
Russia had its hottest temperature on record at a regular synoptic reporting staion on July 30, 2011, when the mercury hit 44.3°C (111.7°F) at Divnoe in Russia’s Kalmykia Republic. Three hotter temperatures have been recorded at automated stations: 45.4°C in 2010 at a hydrological station at Utta, plus readings of 45°C at El’ton and 44.5°C at Verhjnky Baskunkak in August 1940.

Weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera is the primary source of the weather records listed here and has worked tremendously hard to research them. He maintains a comprehensive list of extreme temperature records for every nation in the world on his website. If you reproduce this list of extremes, please cite Maximiliano Herrera as the primary source of the weather records.

Other posts looking back at the remarkable weather events of 2011
U.S. weather in 2011: unprecedented rains and wet/dry extremes
Top ten global weather events of 2011
2011: Year of the Tornado
Deadliest weather disaster of 2011: the East African drought
Tropical Storm Lee’s flood in Binghamton: was global warming the final straw?
Wettest year on record in Philadelphia; 2011 sets record for wet/dry extremes in U.S.
Hurricane Irene: New York City dodges a potential storm surge mega-disaster

– Dr. Jeff Masters, in a Wunderblog repost

Relate Climate Progress Post:

• PBS Covers Link Between 2011′s “Mind-Boggling” Extreme Weather and Global Warming: It’s Like “Being on Steroids”
• Hansen et al: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 Were ‘Caused’ by Global Warming”

“Climate dice,” describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons relative to climatology, have become progressively “loaded” in the past 30 years, coincident with rapid global warming.   The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased.  An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology.

This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface in the period of climatology [1951-1980], now typically covers about 10% of the land area.  We conclude that extreme heat waves, such as that in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, were “caused” by global warming, because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming.

 

Remarkably, more than half of the country (58%) experienced either a top-ten driest or top-ten wettest year, a new record.

Percentage of the contiguous U.S. either in severe or greater drought (top 10% dryness) or extremely wet (top 10% wetness) during 2011, as computed using NOAA’s Climate Extremes Index. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.

by Jeff Masters, cross-posted from the WunderBlog.

Rains unprecedented in 117 years of record keeping set new yearly precipitation totals in seven states during 2011, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center revealed in its preliminary year-end report for 2011.

Precipitation rankings for U.S. states in 2011. Seven states had their wettest year on record, and an additional ten states had a top-ten wettest year. Texas had its driest year on record, and four other states had a top-ten driest year. Image credit: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

An extraordinary twenty major U.S. cities had their wettest year on record during 2011. This smashes the previous record of ten cities with a wettest year, set in 1996, according to a comprehensive data base of 303 U.S. cities that have 90% of the U.S. population, maintained by Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt. Despite the remarkable number of new wettest year records set, precipitation averaged across the contiguous U.S. during 2011 was near-average, ranking as the 45th driest year in the 117-year record. This occurred because of unprecedented dry conditions across much of the South, where Texas had its driest year on record.

Wettest, driest, and warmest year records set during 2011 for major U.S. cities. No major cities had their coldest year on record during 2011. Image credit: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

2011 sets a new U.S. record for combined wet and dry extremes [see top graph]
If you weren’t washing away in a flood during 2011, you were probably baking in a drought. The fraction of the contiguous U.S. covered by extremely wet conditions (top 10% historically) was 33% during 2011, ranking as the 2nd highest such coverage in the past 100 years. At the same time, extremely dry conditions (top 10% historically) covered 25% of the nation, ranking 6th highest in the past 100 years. The combined fraction of the country experiencing either severe drought or extremely wet conditions was 58%–the highest in a century of record keeping. Climate change science predicts that if the Earth continues to warm as expected, wet areas will tend to get wetter, and dry areas will tend to get drier–so 2011′s side-by-side extremes of very wet and very dry conditions should grow increasingly common in the coming decades.

23rd warmest year on record, and 2nd hottest summer for the U.S.
The year 2011 ranked as the 23rd warmest in U.S. history, with sixteen states recording a top-ten warmest year on record. Delaware had its warmest year on record, and Texas its second warmest. However, these statistics don’t convey the extremity of the summer of 2011–the hottest U.S. summer in 75 years. The only hotter summer–and by only 0.1°–was the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, when poor farming practices had turned much of the Midwest into a parking lot for generating extreme heat. The June – August 2011 average temperatures in Texas and Oklahoma were a remarkable 1.6°F and 1.3°F warmer than the previous hottest summer for a U.S. state–the summer of 1934 in Oklahoma. The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI), which is sensitive to climate extremes in temperature, rainfall, dry streaks, and drought, indicated that an area nearly four times the average value was affected by extreme climate conditions during summer 2011. This is the third largest summer value of record, and came on the heels a spring season that was the most extreme on record. When averaged over the entire year, 2011 ranked as the 8th most extreme in U.S. history, since the fall weather was near-average for extremes. The CEI goes back to 1910.

Average temperatures for the summer in Texas and Oklahoma, at 86.8 degrees F (30.4 degrees C) and 86.5 degrees F (30.3 degrees C), respectively, exceeded the previous seasonal statewide average temperature record for any state during any season. The previous warmest summer statewide average temperature was in Oklahoma, during 1934, at 85.2 degrees F (29.6 degrees C). Image credit: National Climatic Data Center.

Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt has a more detailed look at the U.S. extremes observed during 2011 in his latest post. His selection for the most remarkable yearly record set during 2011:

Perhaps, most astonishing is the total annual rainfall of just 1.06” at Pecos, Texas (normal annual precipitation is 11.61”). If confirmed this would be a Texas state record for least amount of precipitation ever recorded in a calendar year, the current record stands at 1.64” at Presidio in 1956.

– Jeff Masters is co-founder of the Weather Underground. This piece was originally published Masters’ WunderBlog.

For background on the science of extreme weather with links, see these Climate Progress posts:

• Climate Story of the Year: Warming-Driven Drought and Extreme Weather Emerge as Key Threat to Global Food Security

• Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment
• Hansen et al: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 Were ‘Caused’ by Global Warming”

• NOAA Bombshell: Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts
• Warming-Enhanced Texas Drought Is Once in “500 or 1,000 Years … Basically Off the Charts,” Says State Climatologist
• Climatologist Kevin Trenberth in an extended interview:

… one of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.

Cordova, Alaska is buried by snow.

The National Guard estimates more than 18 feet of snow has fallen the past few weeks, and the drifts can measure 12 to 14 feet high. The Associated Press reports:

“It’s a lot of snow. I’ve lived here 33 years and this is the most snow I’ve ever seen,” she said by phone. “The thing I’m impressed most with is we haven’t had any injuries. Maybe a few back strains from all of the shoveling. But we have a very, very efficient, professional emergency staff here.” [...]

The town issued a disaster proclamation last week after three weeks of relentless snow overwhelmed local crews working around the clock and filled snow dump sites.

“We had no alternative but to declare an emergency,” Cordova Mayor Jim Kallander said. “It became a life-safety issue.”

While Cordova, Alaska is familiar with snow, the snow dump fueled by climate change has immobilized the city. Thankfully there have been no injuries but like Cordova resident Wendy Rainney told the AP, “This is more quantity than can be handled.”

by Jeff Masters, reposted from WunderBlog

Flowers are sprouting in January in New Hampshire, the Sierra Mountains in California are nearly snow-free, and lakes in much of Michigan still have not frozen.

It’s 2012, and the new year is ringing in another ridiculously wacky winter for the U.S. In Fargo, North Dakota [Thursday], the mercury soared to 55°F, breaking a 1908 record for warmest January day in recorded history. More than 99% of North Dakota had no snow on the ground this morning, and over 95% of the country that normally has snow at this time of year had below-average snow cover.

Departure of snow depth from average on January 6, 2011. More than 95% of the country that normally has snow at this time of year had below-average snow cover (yellow and orange colors.) Image credit: NOAA.

High temperatures in Nebraska yesterday were in the 60s, more than 30° above average. Storm activity has been almost nil over the past week over the entire U.S., with the jet stream bottled up far to the north in Canada. It has been remarkable to look at the radar display day after day and see virtually no echoes, and it is very likely that this has been the driest first week of January in U.S. recorded history.

Portions of northern New England, the Upper Midwest, and the mountains of the Western U.S. that are normally under a foot of more of snow by now have no snow, or just a dusting of less than an inch. Approximately half of the U.S. had temperatures at least 5°F above average during the month of December, with portions of North Dakota and Minnesota seeing temperatures 9°F above average. The strangely warm and dry start to winter is not limited to the U.S–all of continental Europe experienced well above-average temperatures during December.

December 2011 jet stream pattern the most extreme on record
The cause of this warm first half of winter is the most extreme configuration of the jet stream ever recorded, as measured by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The Arctic Oscillation (AO), and its close cousin, the North Atlantic Oscillation (which can be thought of as the North Atlantic’s portion of the larger-scale AO), are climate patterns in the Northern Hemisphere defined by fluctuations in the difference of sea-level pressure in the North Atlantic between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High. The AO and NAO have significant impacts on winter weather in North America and Europe–the AO and NAO affect the path, intensity, and shape of the jet stream, influencing where storms track and how strong these storms become. During December 2011, the NAO index was +2.52, which was the most extreme difference in pressure between Iceland and the Azores ever observed in December (records of the NAO go back to 1865.) The AO during December 2011 had its second most extreme December value on record, behind the equally unusual December of 2006. These positive AO/NAO conditions caused the Icelandic Low to draw a strong south-westerly flow of air over eastern North America, preventing Arctic air from plunging southward over the U.S. and Europe.

Figure 3. December 2011 temperatures in Europe and the U.S. were well above average, thanks to a positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). Compare the U.S. plot with the plot of typical departures of temperature from average due to the positive phase of the AO (Figure 4.) The two patterns are nearly identical. Image credit: NOAA/ESRL.

Figure 4. The departure of temperature from average in Centigrade during the November – December – January period during various phases of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). Positive AO conditions lead to warm winters in the U.S., while negative AO conditions lead to cold winters. Image credit: NOAA/Climate Prediction Center.

Wild swings in the December Arctic Oscillation
This winter’s remarkable AO/NAO pattern stands in stark contrast to what occurred the previous two winters, when we had the most extreme December jet stream patterns on record in the opposite direction (a strongly negative AO/NAO). The negative AO conditions suppressed westerly winds over the North Atlantic, allowing Arctic air to spill southwards into eastern North America and Western Europe, bringing unusually cold and snowy conditions. The December Arctic Oscillation index has fluctuated wildly over the past six years, with the two most extreme positive and two most extreme negative values on record. Unfortunately, we don’t understand why the AO varies so much from winter to winter, nor why the AO has taken on such extreme configurations during four of the past six winters. Climate models are generally too crude to make skillful predictions on how human-caused climate change may be affecting the AO, or what might happen to the AO in the future. There is research linking an increase in solar activity and sunspots with the positive phase of the AO. Solar activity has increased sharply this winter compared to the past two winters, so perhaps we have seen a strong solar influence on the winter AO the past three winters. Arctic sea ice loss has been linked to the negative (cold) phase of the AO, like we observed the previous two winters. Those winters both had near-record low amounts of sunspot activity, so sea ice loss and low sunspot activity may have combined to bring a negative AO.

Figure 5. The December Arctic Oscillation (AO) index has fluctuated wildly over the past six years, with the two most extreme positive and two most extreme negative values on record. Image credit: NOAA/Climate Prediction Center.

The forecast for the remainder of January
We will (finally!) get the first major storm of 2012 in the U.S. early next week, when a low pressure system will develop over Texas and spread heavy rains of 1 – 3″ along a swath from Eastern Texas to New England during the week. This storm will pull in a shot of cold air behind it late in the week, giving near-normal January temperatures to much of the country, and some snow to northern New England. Beyond that, it is difficult to tell what the rest of winter may hold, since the AO is difficult to predict more than a week or two in advance. The latest predictions from the GFS model show the current strongly positive AO pattern continuing for at least the next two weeks, resulting in very little snow and warmer-than-average temperatures. If we don’t get significant snows during the latter part of winter, the odds of a damaging drought during the summer in the Midwest will rise. The soils will dry out much earlier than usual without a deep snow pack to protect them, resulting in a much earlier onset of summer-like soil dryness. Water availability may also be a problem in some regions of the west due to the lack of snow melt. Fortunately, most Western U.S. reservoirs are above average in water supply, due to the record-breaking snows of the previous winter.

– Jeff Masters is co-founder of the Weather Underground. This piece was originally published at the WunderBlog.

Related Posts:

• Mother Nature is Just Getting Warmed Up: December Heat Records Exceed Cold By 80%, Annual Ratio Hits 2.8-to-1
• TP Green: Record Heat Floods America With Temperatures 40 Degrees Above Normal

“Climate dice,” describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons relative to climatology, have become progressively “loaded” in the past 30 years, coincident with rapid global warming.   The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased.  An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology.

This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface in the period of climatology [1951-1980], now typically covers about 10% of the land area.  We conclude that extreme heat waves, such as that in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, were “caused” by global warming, because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming.  We discuss practical implications of this substantial, growing climate change.

That’s the finding of a detailed climatological analysis by NASA’s James Hansen along with Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy in which they attribute some of the uber-extreme heat waves to global warming.

Here’s a key figure from “Perceptions of Climate Change: The New Climate Dice“:

Percent area covered by temperature anomalies in categories defined as hot (> 0.43σ), very hot (> 2σ), and extremely hot (> 3σ).  Anomalies are relative to 1951-1980.  A normal distribution of variability has 68% of the anomalies falling within one standard deviation (σ) of the mean value.  The tails decrease quite rapidly so there is only a 2.3% chance of the temperature exceeding +2σ.  The chance of exceeding +3σ is only 0.13% for a normal distribution of variability.

This analysis builds on some of the recent new papers on the subject, such as “Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming” [see figure below]

The entire Hansen et al paper is a must-read.  The authors explain why they focus on summer:

Summer, when most biological productivity occurs, is the most important season for humanity and thus the season when climate change may have its biggest impact.  Global warming causes spring warmth to come earlier and it causes cooler conditions that initiate fall to be delayed.  Thus global warming not only increases summer warmth, it also protracts summer-like conditions, stealing from both spring and fall.  Our study therefore places emphasis on study of how summer temperature anomalies have been changing.

The paper also explains the ‘dice’ metaphor and why they are not fans of using a new climatological period, such as 1981-2010 in place of 1951-1980.  I will excerpt some key parts and post some key figures.

First, you may be wondering why the top chart of summer hot area percentage doesn’t have as clear a trend for the United States as it does for  North America or the globe.  As the authors explain:

The small area of the contiguous 48 states (less than 1.6% of the globe) causes temperature anomalies for the United States to be very “noisy”.  Nevertheless, it is apparent that the long-term trend toward hot summers is not as pronounced in the United States as it is in hemispheric land as a whole.  Also note that the extreme summer heat of the 1930s,  especially 1934 and 1936, is comparable to the most extreme recent years.

Year-to-year variability, which is mainly unforced weather variability, is so large for an area the size of the United States that it is perhaps unessential to find an “explanation” for either the large 1930s anomalies or the relatively slow upturn in hot anomalies during the past few decades.  However, this matter warrants discussion, because, if the absence of a stronger warming in recent years is a statistical fluke, the United States may have in store a relatively rapid trend toward more extreme anomalies.

Some researchers have suggested that the high summer temperatures and drought in the United States in the 1930s can be accounted for by sea surface temperature patterns plus natural variability (10, 11).  Other researchers (12-14), have presented evidence that agricultural changes and crop failure in the 1930s contributed to changed surface albedo, aerosol (dust) production, high temperatures, and drying conditions.  Furthermore, both empirical evidence and climate simulations (14, 15) indicate that agricultural irrigation has a significant regional cooling effect. Thus increasing amounts of irrigation over the second half of the 20th century may have contributed a summer cooling tendency in the United States that partially offset greenhouse  warming.  Such regionally-varying effects may be partly responsible for differences between observed regional temperature trends and the global trend.

They explain the “loaded climate dice” metaphor:

“Loading” of the “climate dice” describes the systematic shift of the frequency distribution of temperature anomalies.  Hansen et al. (2) represented the climate of  1951-1980 by colored dice with two sides colored red for “hot”, two sides blue for “cold”, and two sides white for near average temperatures.  With a normal distribution of temperatures the dividing point would be at 0.43σ to achieve equal (one third) chances of being in each of these three categories in the period of climatology (1951-1980).

A climate model was used (2) to project how the odds would change due to global warming for alternative greenhouse gas scenarios.  Scenario B, which had climate forcing that turned out  to be very close to reality, led to four of the six dice sides being red early in the 21st century based on global climate model simulations.

Fig. 5 confirms that the global occurrence of “hot” anomalies (seasonal mean temperature anomaly exceeding +0.43σ) has approximately reached the level of 67% required to make four sides of the dice red, with the odds of either an unusually “cool” season or an “average” season now each approximately corresponding to one side of the six-sided dice.  However, the loading of the dice over land area in summer is even stronger (Fig. 5, lower row).

Fig. 5. Area of the world covered by temperature anomalies in the categories defined as hot (> 0.43σ), very hot (> 2σ), and extremely hot (> 3σ), with analogous divisions for cold anomalies.

Probably the most important change is the emergence of a new category of “extremely hot” summers, more than 3σ warmer than climatology.  For practical purposes it is important to look at the changes over land areas, where most people live, rather than the global mean for which anomalies are more constrained by the ocean’s thermal inertia.  Fig. 6 illustrates that +3σ anomalies practically did not exist in the period of climatology (1951-1980), but in the past several years these extreme anomalies have covered of the order of 10% of the land area.

… Warming is larger in winter than in summer, but this tends to be more than offset by the much larger natural variability in winter (Fig. 2), which makes it harder for the public to notice climate change in winter.  Another factor affecting the public’s perception of winter warming is the fact that snowfall amounts increase with global warming (in regions remaining cold enough for snow), and there is a tendency of the public to equate heavy snowfall and harsh winter conditions, even if temperatures are not extremely low.

The increase, by more than a factor 10, of area covered by extreme hot anomalies (> +3σ ) in summer reflects the shift of the anomaly distribution in the past 30 years of global warming, as shown succinctly in Fig. 4.   One implication of this shift is that the extreme summer climate anomalies in Texas in 2011, in Moscow in 2010, and in France in 2003 almost certainly would not have occurred in the absence of global warming with its resulting shift of the anomaly distribution.  In other words, we can say with a high degree of confidence that these extreme anomalies were a consequence of global warming….

It is not uncommon for meteorologists to reject global warming as a cause of these extreme events, offering instead a meteorological explanation.  For example, it is said that the Moscow heat wave was caused by an atmospheric “blocking” situation, or the Texas heat wave was caused by La Nina ocean temperature patterns.  Certainly the locations of the extreme anomalies in any given case are related to specific weather patterns.  However, blocking patterns and La Ninas have always been common, yet the large areas of extreme warming have come into existence only with large global warming.  Today’s extreme anomalies occur because of simultaneous contributions of specific weather patterns and global warming.

The paper notes that warming leads to drying (and heavy precipitation):

Changes of global temperature are likely to have their greatest practical impact via effects on the hydrologic cycle.  Amplification of hot, dry conditions by global warming is expected, based on qualitative considerations.  For example, places experiencing an extended period of high atmospheric pressure develop dry conditions, which we would expect to be amplified by global warming and by ubiquitous surface heating due to elevated greenhouse gas amounts.

See “Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security” for  some of the recent literature on drying.  See also NOAA Bombshell: Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts; “The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone,” said lead author Martin Hoerling, Ph.D. of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory [see figure]

Reds and oranges highlight lands around the Mediterranean that experienced significantly drier winters during 1971-2010 than the comparison period of 1902-2010.  [Click to enlarge.]

And, of course, Hansen et al note that warming leads wet areas to get wetter

The other extreme of the hydrologic cycle, unusually heavy rainfall and floods, is also expected to be amplified by global warming.  The amount of water vapor that the atmosphere holds increases rapidly with atmospheric temperature, and thus a warmer world is expected to  have more rainfall occurring in more extreme events.  What were “100-year” or “500-year”  events are expected to occur more frequently with increased global warming.  Rainfall data reveal significant increases of heavy precipitation over much of Northern Hemisphere land and in the tropics (3) and attribution studies link this intensification of rainfall and floods to humanmade global warming.

See “Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment.”

Their bottom line:

If global warming approaches 3°C by the end of the century, it is estimated that 21-52% of the species on Earth will be committed to extinction (3).  Fortunately, scenarios are also possible in which such large warming is avoided by placing a rising price on carbon emissions that moves the world to a clean energy future fast enough to limit further global warming to several tenths of a degree Celsius (29).  Such a scenario is needed if we are to preserve life as we know it.

They don’t even contemplate the 4C to 5C+  warming we are projected to see if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path.

The time to act is now.

AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan

While a number of U.S. utilities are actively embracing an energy transition, rural electric cooperatives have yet to begin leading the fight action on climate change.

In fact, because co-ops own a large portfolio of coal plants across the country, they have often been at the forefront of opposing federal climate policy.

The Virginia Association of Electric Cooperatives, recently put together a petition demanding Congress stop Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that Congress should do it. But when Congress tried to do it in 2009, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) dragged its heels and declined to support the efforts.

This mindset at NRECA, the Washington, DC-based association, originates with its members. For example, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, has been reportedly working to oust a member of the board who is considered “green” and who stopped the group from sending tends of thousands of dollars to fund climate deniers. And the anti-action messaging from a Virginia rural electric cooperative caused one member to criticize the organization for “wasting members’ money challenging the world’s scientific community.”

Given this history of behavior, it was quite a shock to read the latest piece of news from NRECA lamenting the expensive impact that extreme weather had on co-ops around the country:

Big natural disasters added up to big money in 2011, and many of the nation’s electric cooperatives could be including projects to repair the damage permanently in their construction plans for 2012.

“The year 2011 is already in the record books as a year of historic extreme events,” Undersecretary of Commerce Jane Lubchenco said recently. “There have now been 12 extreme weather events [each] totaling at least $1 billion in damages.”

We’ve seen some failure to connect the dots on climate and extreme weather in the press, but this is a completely different level of absurdity.

At a time when climate and meteorological experts are calling climate change the “steroids” for extreme weather, electric cooperatives are busy trying to downplay the problem in order to avoid the consequences of transitioning away from coal — even while recognizing the immense economic costs already incurred by electricity infrastructure.

In fact, a recent study published in the American Economic Review showed that the true cost of coal is actually about $0.17 cents per kilowatt-hour when factoring in the health and environmental consequences.

How high do those costs need to be before cooperatives, which have so much at stake, start recognizing the need to take action?

A remarkable blitz of extreme weather events during 2011 caused a total of 32 weather disasters costing at least $1 billion worldwide. Five nations experienced their most expensive weather-related natural disasters on record during 2011 — Thailand, Australia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia.

According to insurance broker AON Benfield’s November Catastrophe Report, the U.S. was hit by no less than seventeen punishing multi-billion dollar extreme weather disasters in 2011; NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center official total is lower–twelve–but is likely to grow in number as additional damage statistics are tallied. Brazil experienced its deadliest weather-related natural disaster — a flash flood that killed 902 people in January, and the Philippines had its second deadliest flood ever, when Tropical Storm Washi killed over 1200 people in December.

It was difficult to pick a top ten list of top weather events of 2011 from this bewildering list of candidates, and I cheated a bit by giving a tie for tenth place, so that eleven events would make the list. My list of top weather events were chosen based on their impact to society and meteorological significance. Damage estimates and death tolls for the 2011 disasters were mostly taken from AON Benfield’s November Catastrophe Report, and records for damages and death tolls from disasters in previous years was taken from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED.)

Here, then, is this year’s top ten list. I’ve included links to some of my blogs posts made at the time of the disaster.

1) East Africa drought and famine: over 30,000 dead
The deadliest weather disaster of 2011 was a quiet one that got few headlines–the East African drought in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. On July 20, the United Nations officially declared famine in two regions of southern Somalia, the first time a famine has been declared by the UN in nearly thirty years. Almost 30,000 children under the age of five were believed to have died of malnutrition in Somalia this summer, and the total death toll of this great drought is doubtless much higher. East Africa has two rainy seasons–a main “long rains” of March – June, and the “short rains” of October – November. The “short rains” failed in the fall of 2010, and when the main “long rains” in spring 2011 also failed, it brought one of the worst droughts in recorded history. The 2010 – 2011 drought was rated along with the droughts of 1983 – 1984 and 1999 – 2000 as one of the three most significant droughts of the past 60 years. It was the driest 12-month period on record at some locations in East Africa. Damage assessments from the drought are not yet available, but it would not be a surprise if the drought of 2011 was the costliest weather-related natural disaster on record for Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

December 20 post: Deadliest weather disaster of 2011: the East African drought

Figure 1. Children fetch water at a tap installed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in the village of Darssalam in central Somalia. Image credit: IRC.

[JR:  See also "USGS Expert Explains How Global Warming Likely Contributes to East Africa’s Brutal Drought."]

2) Thailand flooding: most expensive natural disaster in Thai history
Heavy monsoon and tropical cyclone rains from July through October, enhanced by La Niña conditions, led to unprecedented flooding that killed 657 people and caused Thailand’s most expensive natural disaster in history. Damages are now estimated at $45 billion by re-insurance company AON Benfield. This is 18% of the country’s GDP. Hurricane Katrina cost the U.S. about 0.7% of its GDP, so the Thailand floods can be thought of as a disaster 25 times worse than Katrina for that country. Thailand’s previous most expensive natural disaster was the $1.3 billion price tag of the November 27, 1993 flood, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). The floodwaters this year have hit 83% of Thailand’s provinces, affected 9.8 million people, and damaged four million structures and approximately 25% of the nation’s rice crop. Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice, accounting for 30% of the global total, and the flood has helped trigger an increase in world rice prices in late 2011.

November 14 post: Thailand’s flood gradually subsiding; climate change increasing Thai flood risk

Figure 2. An SH-60F Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 14, flies around the Bangkok area with members of the humanitarian assessment survey team and the Royal Thai Armed Forces to assess the damage caused by the 2011 floods. Image credit: Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Villalovos

3) Queensland, Australia flooding: most expensive natural disaster in Australian history
Heavy rains from December 2010 through January 2011, enhanced by La Niña conditions and record-warm ocean temperatures, led to unprecedented rains and flooding that killed 35 people and did $30 billion in damage. This was 3.2% of Australia’s GDP, and five times more costly than the nation’s previous most expensive natural disaster in history, the 1981 drought ($6 billion.) Rainfall in Queensland and all of eastern Australia in December 2010 was the greatest on record, and the year 2010 was the rainiest year on record for Queensland.

January 21 post: 2011: Year of the Flood

Figure 3. Still frame from a remarkable 6-minute YouTube video showing the sad fate of a row of parked cars when a flash flood in Toowoomba, Queensland sweeps away dozens of the cars. A note to the wise: Two minutes into the video, we see a man enter the flash flood to save his car. He is successful, but his actions were extremely risky–most flash flood deaths occur when cars with people inside get swept away.

[JR:  See also Terrific ABC News story: “Raging Waters In Australia and Brazil Product of Global Warming.”]

4) Columbia floods: most expensive natural disaster in Colombia’s history
Heavy rains in Colombia reached their peak in late April, triggering floods that killed 116 and did $5.85 billion in damage (2% of their GDP), making it the most damaging natural disaster in Colombia’s history. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos warned: “There are going to be a lot of needy people, there has never been a tragedy of this scale in our history.” Colombia’s previous most expensive weather disaster occurred just last year, when the heaviest rains in 42 years of record keeping occurred. Floods and landslides killed 528, did $1 billion in damage, and left 2.2 million homeless in 2010. Colombia’s most expensive natural disaster prior to 2011 was the $1.9 billion in damage from the January 25, 1999 earthquake, according to CRED.

5) Tropical Storm Washi: second deadliest weather disaster in Philippine history
Tropical Storm Washi hit the southern Philippine island of Mindanao as a tropical storm with 45 – 55 mph winds, crossing the island in about eighteen hours on December 16. Washi was unusually wet, as the storm was able to tap a large stream of tropical moisture extending far to the east, and drew moisture from an area where sea surface temperatures were nearly 1°C above average–one of the top five warmest values on record. Washi’s rains fell on regions where the natural forest had been illegally logged or converted to pineapple plantations, and the heavy rains were able to run off quickly on the relatively barren soils and create devastating flash floods. Since the storm hit in the middle of the night, and affected an unprepared population that had no flood warning system in place, the death toll was tragically high. At least 1249 people perished, and 79 people are still listed as missing. The only deadlier storm ever to hit the Philippines was Tropical Storm Thelma on November 5, 1991, which killed 5956 people.

December 19 post: Tropical Storm Washi kills 632 in the Philippines

Figure 5. MODIS true-color satellite image of Tropical Storm Washi at 01:45 UTC December 16, 2011, as it bore down on the Philippines. At the time, Washi had top sustatined winds of 50 mph. Image credit: NASA.

6) Brazil flash flood kills 902: deadliest natural disaster in Brazil’s history
Brazil suffered its deadliest natural disaster in history on January 11, when torrential rains inundated a heavily populated, steep-sloped area about 40 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. Flash floods and mudslides from the heavy rains have claimed 902 lives, including at least 357 in Nova Friburgo and 323 in Teresópolis. Rainfall amounts of approximately 300 mm (12 inches) fell in just a few hours in the hardest-hit regions. Damage estimates are $1.2 billion, making it the most damaging storm in Brazil’s history, and third most damaging natural disaster, behind the $2.3 billion and $1.7 billion price tags of the 1978 and 2004 droughts. The previous deadliest flood in Brazilian history was a January 23, 1967 flood that killed 785 people.

January 14 post: At least 611 dead in Brazilian floods: Brazil’s deadliest natural disaster in history

Figure 6. Flooded stream in Teresópolis. Image credit: Wikipedia.

7) April 25 – 28 “Super” tornado outbreak kills 321 in the U.S.
On April 25 – 28, 2011, a massive tornado outbreak clobbered the Midwest and Southeast U.S. with 343 tornadoes. Now called the April 2011 Super tornado outbreak, it was the largest and most damaging tornado outbreak in U.S. history. The tornadoes caused 321 deaths, with 240 of those occurring in Alabama. The deadliest tornado of the outbreak, an EF-5, hit northern Alabama, killing 78 people. Several major metropolitan areas were directly impacted by strong tornadoes including Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Huntsville in Alabama and Chattanooga, Tennessee, causing the estimated damage costs to soar. The outbreak caused more than $7.3 billion insured losses and total losses greater than $10.2 billion.

April 29 post: Over 300 dead in historic tornado outbreak; one violent EF-5 tornado confirmed

Figure 7. The Piggly Wiggly supermarket and Family Dollar store after the EF-5 Hackleburg, Alabama tornado on April 27. Image credit: NWS Birmingham, Alabama.

8) Southern U.S./Northern Mexico drought: $10 billion in damage, and rising
Drought and excessive heat created major impacts across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Kansas, western Louisiana, and northern Mexico. Texas endured its driest 1-year period on record, and rainfall in much of northern Mexico was the lowest since record keeping began in 1941. Texas had the hottest summer ever recorded by a U.S. state, and Oklahoma had the hottest month (July) any U.S. state has ever recorded. The total direct losses to crops, livestock and timber are estimated at $10 billion, but are expected to continue to rise as the drought continues into 2012. Record fires across the region caused an additional $1 billion in damage.

August 17 post: Texas heat wave smashes more records

Figure 8. Business was slow at the Lake Conroe, Texas jet ski rental in 2011, thanks to the great Texas drought of 2011. Image credit: wunderphotographer BEENE.

9) Pakistan floods: 2nd most expensive weather disaster in Pakistani history
Heavy rains during the July through September monsoon season triggered devastating flooding that killed 456 and did $2 billion in damage (1.1% of GDP) in Pakistan. It was the second most expensive weather-related disaster in Pakistan’s history, behind the $9.5 billion price tag of the 2010 floods (5.5% of GDP.)

10 (tie) Hurricane Irene: most damaging tropical cyclone of 2011
The most damaging tropical cyclone on the globe during 2011 was Hurricane Irene, which plowed through the Bahama Islands as a Category 3 hurricane with 120 mph winds before striking North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane with 85 mph winds on August 27. Most of Irene’s damage occurred after it made landfall on Long Island, New York as a tropical storm with 65 mph winds, when torrential rainfall triggered extreme flooding in the Northeast U.S. More than 7 million homes and businesses lost power during the storm. Irene caused at least 45 deaths in the U.S., and ten in the Caribbean and Bahamas. Damage is estimated at $7.3 billion.

December 3 post: Hurricane Irene: New York City dodges a potential storm surge mega-disaster

Figure 9. GOES-East visible satellite image of Irene taken at 7:45 am EDT on Sunday, August 28, 2011. At the time, Irene was a tropical storm with 65 mph winds, making landfall on Long Island, New York. Image credit: NOAA Environmental Visualization laboratory.

10 (tie) May 22 – 27 Joplin, Missouri tornado outbreak
A violent EF-5 tornado carved a ½ – ¾ mile-wide path of devastation through Joplin, Missouri on May 22, killing 158, and causing $3 billion in damage. Huge sections of the town virtually obliterated, and damage from the tornado was so severe that pavement was ripped from the ground. It was the largest death toll from a U.S. tornado since 1947, seventh deadliest tornado in U.S. history, and the most expensive tornado in world history. The six-day outbreak spawned 180 tornadoes in the central and southern states, killed 177, and did $9.1 billion in damage.

May 23 post: Deadliest U.S. tornado since 1953 rips through Joplin, Missouri, killing 89

Video 1. Video of the Joplin, Missouri tornado of May 22, 2011, entering the southwest side of town. Filmed by TornadoVideos.net Basehunters team Colt Forney, Isaac Pato, Kevin Rolfs, and Scott Peake. The most remarkable audio I’ve ever heard of people surviving a direct hit by a violent tornado was posted to Youtube by someone who took shelter in the walk-in storage refrigerator at a gas station during the Joplin tornado. There isn’t much video.

Honorable mentions:
1) Sri Lanka: Heaviest rains in nearly a century of record keeping triggered a 1-in-100 year flood in January that killed 43 and did $500 million in damage–the costliest weather-related disaster in Sri Lanka’s history. Renewed rains February 1 – 10 caused flooding that killed 18 and cost an additional $450 million–the second most costly natural disaster in Sri Lanka’s history.

2) Heavy rains in September and October in Cambodia triggered flooding that killed 250 and did $521 million in damage–by far the most expensive natural disaster in Cambodian history. The previous most expensive disaster was the $160 million cost of floods in July 2000.

3) El Salvador: Heavy rains from Tropical Depression 12-E in October triggered flooding that killed 140 in Central America and caused $900 million in damage to El Salvador (4.2% of GDP). This is the 2nd most expensive weather-related disaster in El Salvador’s history, behind the $939 million price tag of their Nov. 7, 2009 flood.

4) China: June floods in China killed 239, doing $6.65 billion in damage, the 10th most damaging weather-related disaster in Chinese history.

5) China: September floods killed 101 and did $4.25 billion in damage.

6) U.S.: Greatest flood on the Lower Mississippi River on record caused $4 billion in damage.

7) China: A drought in Northern China during January through April cost $2.7 billion.

8) Denmark: Severe flooding on July 2 – 3 caused $1 billion in damage, the 3rd most expensive weather-related disaster in Danish history.

Other posts looking back at the remarkable weather events of 2011
2011: Year of the Tornado
Deadliest weather disaster of 2011:; the East African drought
Tropical Storm Lee’s flood in Binghamton: was global warming the final straw?
Wettest year on record in Philadelphia; 2011 sets record for wet/dry extremes in U.S.
Hurricane Irene: New York City dodges a potential storm surge mega-disaster

Donations sought for the East Africa famine
Weather Underground has partnered with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to help the Horn of Africa region during the ongoing famine. With the help of the Weather Underground community, we hope to raise $10,000 that will go toward helping the refugees survive the crisis. Weather Underground will match the community’s donation dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000 for a total donation of $20,000. Please visit the East Africa famine donation page to help out. Ninety cents of every dollar donated goes directly to the people in need.

Jeff Masters co-founded the Weather Underground in 1995 while working on his Ph.D. He flew with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990. This piece was originally published at the WunderBlog.

Texas, Alabama and Missouri topped the list of states hardest hit by the unrelenting assault of extreme weather in 2011.

Severe weather across much of the nation has raised the question of whether global warming has already begun to influence shorter-term weather patterns, and the specter of even more extreme years to come as global temperatures continue to rise.

According to climate studies, the short answer is yes: the new climate environment created by global warming is more conducive to some extreme events, particularly heat waves and heavy precipitation events: these are now more likely to occur and be more intense when they do take place. Climate models have more difficulty predicting how climate change may be influencing other types of extremes, such as severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, but a warming climate provides more fuel to these events in the form of increased water vapor and heat in the atmosphere.

And those extreme events — searing heat waves, parching drought, deadly tornadoes, blizzards and floods — cost billions of dollars in damage, affected millions of lives and tragically, killed more than a thousand people across the U.S.

By some measures, 2011 was the most extreme year for the U.S. since reliable record-keeping began in the 19^thcentury — and the costs have been enormous: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2011 set a record for the most billion dollar disasters in a single year. There were 12, breaking the old record of nine set in 2009. The aggregate damage from these 12 events totals at least $52 billion, NOAA found.

While extreme weather knows no boundaries, and the impact of those events was felt coast to coast, Climate Central looked at the number of extreme events that affected each state to determine the 10 states that were clobbered the worst. According to Climate Central’s analysis, Texas tops that list of hardest hit, with a costly — and deadly — combination of intense drought, a punishing heat wave, the worst wildfires in state history, and plenty of tornadoes. Rounding out the top 10 was Alabama, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas, Connecticut, Vermont and New Jersey.

Climate Central’s analysis factored the death toll in each state, damage costs, the disruption caused to daily life, and how unusual the events were compared with what transpires in an average year.

But for these 10 states, little of what transpired was average as extreme weather rewrote the record books in 2011.

1. Texas

Texas was hit by eight of the nation’s billion dollar disasters — the most of any state in the country. Of the eight, the three most devastating were drought, heat, and wildfires. The drought still grips the state, and it is the most intense one-year drought on record. Unlike past dry periods, the damage to the state has been aggravated by record-breaking heat. Groundwater levels in much of the state have fallen to their lowest levels in more than 60 years, according to observations from NASA satellites.

The heat during the summer of 2011 was relentless, with many cities smashing records for the longest stretch of 100-degree days, including Dallas with a record 70 straight days with 100-degree heat, and San Angelo with a whopping 98 days above 100. July 2011 was the hottest month ever recorded statewide, and Amarillo, Texas, reached 111 degrees F on June 26, an all-time record high for that location where records date back to 1892.

The combination of drought and unusually hot conditions during this summer helped fuel massive wildfires, and the 2011 wildfire season was the worst in Texas’ history, with about 4 million acres burned from November 2010 through November 2011, causing $750 million in damage and killing 10 people, including four firefighters.

Lake and reservoir levels have fallen so low that they are revealing entire towns flooded decades ago at the bottom of lakes and reservoirs. Ranchers have been forced to sell off large portions of their herds early, which is likely to raise beef prices by reducing future beef supplies.

2. Alabama

Alabama was ground zero for the largest tornado outbreak in American history, when more than 100 twisters gouged paths across the state in late April, killing 240 people.

Some of the most intense tornadoes flattened heavily populated areas. One twister, shown nationally on live TV, tore through downtown Tuscaloosa and went on to destroy parts of Birmingham. Another monster EF-5 twister, with winds stronger than 200 mph, tracked across northern Alabama, killing 78 people, becoming one of the deadliest single tornadoes in modern American history.

According to the Storm Prediction Center, Alabama saw the most tornadoes of any state this year, with 170. The staggering death toll and damage these storms caused led to a wave of Alabama state pride, with the mantra “We are Alabama” spreading throughout social media networks in the storms’ wake.

3. Missouri

Missouri was the site of America’s worst tornado disaster since 1950, when a massive tornado, nearly a mile wide, wiped large portions of the city of Joplin off the map on May 22. With winds greater than 200 mph, that tornado killed nearly 160 people, making it the seventh deadliest in U.S. history.

Tornadoes were just one prong of the deadly onslaught of extreme weather in Missouri, as a combination of heavy spring rains and upstream snowmelt sent the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers surging over their banks. According to NOAA, in an average year, the Missouri River channels 24.8 million acre feet of water. This year, it carried 24.3 million acre feet in May and June alone. When the Army Corps of Engineers essentially blew up the levees to save the small town of Cairo, Ill., floodwaters inundated around 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland.

4. North Carolina

April 2011 was the most active tornado month in U.S. history with 753 tornadoes. North Carolina was among the states worst hit. On April 16, multiple tornadoes ripped through Raleigh and nearby towns, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. Thirty-eight people died in a two-day April tornado outbreak that spread through 10 states; 22 were in North Carolina.

North Carolina was also one of the first states walloped by Hurricane Irene in August. With its immense 450-mile span, the storm battered the North Carolina coast with rain and driving 60-80 mph winds for nearly 12 hours. Half a million people lost power during the storm, and the gusting winds generated waves high enough to demolish piers and damage homes along the coastline. All told, the cost to North Carolina from tornadoes and Irene is estimated at $3.2 billion.

5. Oklahoma

In 2011, Oklahomans suffered through a brutal combination of severe drought and intense heat, the likes of which have not been seen since the infamous Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. The Sooner State had the hottest summer of any state in U.S. history, narrowly beating neighboring Texas, and eclipsing a record that dated to 1934. Oklahoma’s average day and nighttime temperature during July was a scorching 88.9 degrees F, the warmest in any state during any month on record.

For an idea of how hot it was in Oklahoma last summer, consider this: In Grandfield, the temperature reached or exceeded 100 degrees on a record-setting 97 days from mid-April to Sept. 1.

On top of record heat, last February, the state froze its way through the coldest temperature on record: -31 degrees F, and the state’s heaviest 24-hour snowfall on record, when 27 inches fell in the town of Spavinaw.

And if that wasn’t enough, Oklahomans also struggled with other weather hazards, including the largest hailstone in state history, some of which measured half a foot in diameter.

6. Tennessee

The good news for Tennessee this year was that the drought that plagued states to the southwest — Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas — didn’t make it up this far. But for the Volunteer State, a little more drought might have been a good thing.

Tennessee had an unusually wet spring, part of a broader-scale deluge that spurred massive flooding along the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio Rivers. On May 10, the Mississippi River crested at 47.9 feet (14.6 m) in Memphis, the highest level reached there since 1937. The damage in Memphis alone is estimated to have cost $320 million, according to NOAA.

Floods weren’t the only lethal weather to strike Tennessee during the spring. Although it did not suffer the brunt of these events, Tennessee was also affected by five massive severe weather outbreaks, each of which were billion dollar disasters. During the largest of the tornado outbreaks, which occurred between April 24-28, 32 people were killed in Tennessee. One EF-4 tornado tracked across parts of Chattanooga, causing major damage in the community of Apison where eight people were killed and 100 injured. When you add in the heat wave that blasted most of the eastern half of the U.S. in July, the total damage from weather and climate-related disasters added up to nearly $4 billion.

7. Kansas

The massive heat wave and drought that devastated Texas and Oklahoma didn’t hit Kansas quite as hard, but it was bad enough to help push the Jayhawk State into the top 10 this year. By midsummer, much of the southwestern part of the state was suffering under “exceptional drought” conditions — it ended up being the ninth driest year ever recorded — and by year’s end, there was still no relief in sight. Wichita had more 100-degree-plus days than any year on record, beating out even the Dust Bowl summer of 1936.

As of May, the state had seen unusually few tornadoes, but that didn’t last: powerful thunderstorms, tornadoes, and punishing hail swept the state in June, July, and August. To top it all off, a 5.6-intensity earthquake struck on Nov. 5. The quake didn’t cause much damage, but combined agricultural losses from the heat and drought topped $4 billion.

8. Connecticut

Snowstorms aren’t usually news in Connecticut — but 2011 was hardly usual. Hartford was buried under a record-setting 57 inches of snow in January, making it the all-time snowiest month in state history. Then, nearly two months before the next winter began, Connecticut was blasted by the worst October snowstorm in 200 years. The heavy wet snow, which cost the state more than $500 million, sent trees and tree limbs falling onto power lines, leaving more than 700,000 people without heat or lights. In the worst power failure in state history, many didn’t get their electricity back for more than a week.

In August, tropical storm Irene pummeled the state with heavy rains and gale-force winds that caused devastating floods and turned the lights out on more than 650,000 people. Some areas were pounded with as much as eight inches of rain in just 24 hours.

9. Vermont

Just as most of the Northeast thought they had escaped the worst of Irene’s wrath, the super-saturated tropical storm ravaged Vermont. The furious rains battered more than 2,000 roads spanning 500 miles in the state, paralyzing commerce, stranding people, and demolishing thousands of homes and businesses. More than 175 roads were completely destroyed and have only been rebuilt months later in what has been described as a model of fast-paced recovery from a disaster.

This all came after one of the snowiest winters on record, which produced record snowmelt. In May, heavy rain and all that melting snow drove Lake Champlain to its highest level on record, flooding several nearby towns. Record-setting rains helped set the stage for Irene’s damage by saturating the ground and putting streams and rivers at unusually high levels when the storm arrived.

Vermont officials say the total damage costs from Irene will be between $175 and $250 million.

10. New Jersey

Hurricane Irene roared into New Jersey to become one of the state’s deadliest and costliest storms, as well as the state’s wettest storm in more than a century. Tropical downpours sent rivers and streams overflowing, with nine rivers rising to their highest level ever. The flooding closed 300 roads and highways and interrupted train service for days.

The bill for hurricane damage in New Jersey stands at $1.4 billion already, and at least seven people died during the storm. Then, two weeks later, a second round of drenching rain — the remains of Tropical Storm Lee — swept across the state, triggering even more flooding. All told, it was the wettest August and September New Jersey has seen in 117 years.

Just as the Garden State began to dry out, a freak autumn snowstorm hit over the Halloween weekend. The wet, heavy snow stuck to leaves that hadn’t fallen from the trees. The result: falling branches that blocked roads and downed power lines, leaving half a million people without electricity, some of them for a week.

This piece was originally published at Climate Central, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is comprised of journalists and climate scientists dedicated to communicating accurate and compelling climate science information.

This piece has been updated.

So PBS deserves a special mention for a segment that aired yesterday looking at how global warming is influencing extreme weather events. As Jeff Masters, co-founder of the Weather Underground (and periodic contributor to this blog) explained in the piece: “They all tend to get increased when you have this extra energy in the atmosphere. I call it being on steroids … for the atmosphere.”

Watch the full segment:

Watch How 2011 Became a ‘Mind-Boggling’ Year of Extreme Weather on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

And here’s the transcript:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Some of the biggest stories of 2011 involved extreme weather that wreaked havoc in many states and cities. As the year comes to a close, it’s sparking plenty of discussion in the world of science about the causes and meaning of those events.

Hari Sreenivasan explores all that following some background.

HARI SREENIVASAN: From snow to floods to tornadoes, it has been a year of record-breaking weather across the U.S. mainland, more, in fact, than any year since modern record-keeping began.

It started in late January with paralyzing blizzards that dumped heavy snow on 22 states. Chicago was buried under nearly two feet of snow, and the Windy City ground to a near standstill.

RAPHAEL GUZMAN, resident of Chicago: For the past ten hours, I have traveled 0.9 miles. So, now, when the fire department finally came to see if I wanted to leave my car, I saw the tow truck four cars back, and I was like, I will just wait for it. That was two hours ago.

MAN: This is amazing.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Spring brought the start of an especially deadly tornado season, with three of the largest twister outbreaks in American history in just six weeks, killing more than 550 people and causing $25 billion in damage.

More than 300 were killed over three days in late April in Central and Southern states. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was the hardest-hit.

MATT WILSON, resident of Tuscaloosa: It was horrifying. It was coming towards us, so we ran to the back, and got under a metal structure back in the back. And that’s, honestly, what saved us.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Then, in late May, a tornado with winds topping 200 miles an hour leveled the town of Joplin, Mo. It was the single deadliest U.S. tornado since 1947, killing nearly 160 people.

MAN: I actually was planning on helping where it was really torn up, but there’s nothing really to help. It’s just flattened. There’s — I don’t know. There’s probably three-quarters-of-a-mile of nothing.

HARI SREENIVASAN: That same storm system brought triple the normal amount of rainfall to the Ohio River Valley. The rain, coupled with snowmelt, caused both the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to flood.

In August, Hurricane Irene drenched the Eastern Seaboard. It triggered record flooding in New Jersey, New York State and Vermont, and cost more than $7 billion.

WOMAN: Once the water started coming through the front door. I mean I knew things were getting bad. And then the walls started to break and the molding started to pop, and I knew I was really in trouble.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The Southern Plains and Southwest could only hope for some of that rain. Texas suffered through its worst one-year drought, as losses reached $10 billion in crops, livestock and timber.

The tinder-dry conditions in Texas also fueled wildfires that burned a million acres. The Bastrop fire over Labor Day weekend was the state’s most destructive on record. Overall, it was the hottest summer Texas has ever seen. Wichita Falls had more than 100 consecutive days of 100-degree readings.

Nationwide, more than 6,000 heat records have been broken this year. On average, the U.S. has three or four events every year that are considered major natural disasters. But, this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration counted at least a dozen such events. Based on reports to date, damages are expected to exceed $52 billion.

Weather around the world showed equal extremes. Australia was hit with record flooding, followed by one of its worst tropical cyclones ever. Floodwaters also ravaged parts of Thailand and China, while the Horn of Africa suffered its worst drought in decades.

We have more on this with two experts who watch the impact of weather closely.

Kathryn Sullivan is the deputy director of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an oceanographer and former astronaut. She helps oversee NOAA’s work on weather observation and climate sciences. And Jeff Masters, who’s a meteorologist with the Weather Underground website, he joins us from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

So thanks for being here.

Ms. Sullivan, I just rattled off what seemed like an exceptional year of weather, but put this in perspective for us. How rare is this?

KATHRYN SULLIVAN, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Well, the prior record-breaking year was nine significant events, well above the three to four that are typical. That was 2008.

So, we went a third again in the number of events each of which had greater than a billion dollars, many other events, of course, that just fell below that billion-dollar threshold through the course of that year, quite a remarkable string, quite a remarkable array.

I came aboard NOAA as the deputy administrator early in May, and the preceding month of April, in one month alone, we had record-breaking flood, wildfire, tornado outbreaks, just all within one single month. It was certainly unprecedented in my experience.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And, Jeff Masters, you’ve said in your blog that you have never seen a year like this. What else stands out to you?

JEFF MASTERS, Weather Underground: In one year, we had three of the most remarkable extreme weather events in history of the U.S.

I mean, we talk about the Dust Bowl summer of 1936. Well, this summer pretty much matched that for temperature, almost the hottest summer in U.S. history. We also talk about the great 1974 tornado outbreak. Well, we had an outbreak that more than doubled the total of tornadoes we had during that iconic outbreak. And, also, we talk about the great 1927 flood on the Mississippi River. Well, the flood heights were even higher than that flood this year.

So, it just boggles my mind that we had three extreme weather events that matched those events in U.S. history.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, Jeff, how do we tie this in with any particular cause? We can’t say that a temperature warming or a global temperature increase causes a tornado or this hurricane. But what can we say? What does the data show us?

JEFF MASTERS: That weather has natural extremes.

We all know that you can have extreme years and not very extreme years. Certainly, this year was a very naturally extreme year. But I argue that when you have a naturally extreme year occurring within the context of global warming, okay, now you’ve put more heat in the atmosphere. That means you have more energy to power stronger storms and more energy also to give you more intense heat waves and droughts.

So, in particular, we look at heat waves, droughts, and flooding events. They all tend to get increased when you have this extra energy in the atmosphere. I call it being on steroids kind of for the atmosphere.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Explain that, being on steroids. What do you mean?

JEFF MASTERS: Well, normally, you have the everyday ups and downs of the weather, but if you pack a little bit of extra punch in there, it’s like a baseball hitter who’s on steroids.

You expect to see a big home run total maybe from this slugger, but if you add a little bit of extra oomph to his swing by putting him on steroids, now we can have an unprecedented season, a 70 home run season. And that’s the way I look at this year.

We had an unprecedented weather year that I don’t think would have happened unless we had had an extra bit of energy in the atmosphere due to climate change and global warming.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Kathryn, you were in Joplin yourself. What are some of the longer-term impacts, some of the costs that we’re not seeing here as we just total up the dollar signs?

KATHRYN SULLIVAN: It is a really sobering and heart-wrenching experience to be on the ground in some of those tornado-ravaged areas.

The casualties, of course, the injuries and loss of life take precedence over everything. But the scale — the scale of the damage and the pervasiveness of it really just boggle my mind. The figure I heard that day out in Joplin was there were 1,800 acres of debris. And debris hardly begins to describe it. Things that had been businesses and homes and a large first-class hospital were little more than toothpicks.

Fabulous large trees with trunk diameters up to 18 to 24 inches were maybe 10- or 12-foot-tall stubs with not a shred of bark left on them, just amazing, the power and fury that had ripped through that community in such a really brief period of time.

So, you think about rebuilding a house, but, you know, first to clear some portion of 1,800 acres of debris, it’s just a massive undertaking, then to deal with the administrative mechanics of whatever you might have, insurance and a builder. And for it to be that pervasive over that large of a swathe of a community just means it’s all going to take such a long time to come back.

Small businesses affected, larger, major stores affected with major building damage, firehouses, schools, and then one of the primary hospitals all destroyed. So the fabric of the community is really affected in an experience like this. And that also makes it harder for the community itself and its citizens to rebound, so a very long train of consequences well beyond the media moments that we tend to pay attention to.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Jeff, also, what sorts of economic or geopolitical consequences do you see when we have natural disasters like drought in different parts of the world?

JEFF MASTERS: Drought is my number-one concern for climate change because drought affects food prices.

We had a terrific drought in Russia last year that caused them to shut off their exports of wheat. Now global food prices spiked thereafter, and it’s thought that the Arab spring revolts that happened this year were due in part to the fact that food prices were so high due to the Russian drought. Those food prices were the highest we have seen since the early 1990s.

Had we had a drought of that magnitude this year in the U.S., there would have been very severe consequences for the global economy, the global food supply, and there would have been a large amount of political unrest, much higher than we saw, I think.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Kathryn, briefly, what kind of changes are you making at NOAA when it comes to modeling, and what are cities trying to do to plan for the possibility of more extreme weather?

KATHRYN SULLIVAN: Well, we always are working to advance the technology we use to observe the atmosphere in countless ways, as well as the computing infrastructure that runs the forecast models that give us our everyday three-, five-, seven-day outlook.

In addition, this season really has focused our attention even further, along with our partners in the private sector such as Jeff and his colleagues and emergency managers, on the really human part of the warning process. From the forecast information that NOAA puts out for everyone to work with, from there to the signal that triggers someone to take a response, how can we do better on that?

What combination of communication improvements or better understanding how people are accessing information these days, of how people make high-impact decisions, almost the social science side of completing the full warning process certainly will have heightened attention from us in the years ahead.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Alright, Kathryn Sullivan from NOAA, Jeff Masters from Weather Underground, thank you both for being here.

KATHRYN SULLIVAN: It was a pleasure.

Related Posts:

• Terrific ABC News story (1/14/11): “Raging Waters In Australia and Brazil Product of Global Warming”

“Scientists: Climate Change No Longer a Theory, It’s Happening”

The pictures today from around the world of dramatic rooftop rescues from raging waters, makes it seem as though natural disasters are becoming an everyday occurrence. But they’re not all that natural; climate scientists say man-made global warming is the sudden force behind the forces of nature.

• Another terrific ABC News story (1/24/11) — on the role global warming is playing in extreme winter weather

ABC news contacted 10 climate scientists to ask their take, if the extreme winter like the one we’re having is the way of the future.  The consensus:  global warming is playing a role by shifting weather patterns in unpredictable ways.  Many say the forecast for the future calls for record-breaking precipitation and extreme temperatures year-round.

“The question is not whether sea ice loss is affecting the large-scale atmospheric circulation…. It’s how can it not?” That was the take-home message from Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, in her talk “Does Arctic Amplification Fuel Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes?”, presented at last week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Dr. Francis presented new research in review for publication, which shows that Arctic sea ice loss may significantly affect the upper-level atmospheric circulation, slowing its winds and increasing its tendency to make contorted high-amplitude loops. High-amplitude loops in the upper level wind pattern (and associated jet stream) increases the probability of persistent weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere, potentially leading to extreme weather due to longer-duration cold spells, snow events, heat waves, flooding events, and drought conditions.

Figure 1. Arctic sea ice in September 2007 reached its lowest extent on record, approximately 40% lower than when satellite records began in 1979. Sea ice loss in 2011 was virtually tied with the ice loss in 2007, despite weather conditions that were not as unusual in the Arctic. Image credit: University of Illinois Cryosphere Today.

Summertime Arctic sea ice loss: 40% since 1980

The Arctic has seen a stunning amount of sea ice loss in recent years, due to melting and unfavorable winds that have pushed large amounts of ice out of the region. Forty percent of the sea ice was missing in September 2007, compared to September of 1980. This is an area equivalent to about 44% of the contiguous U.S., or 71% of the non-Russian portion of Europe. Such a large area of open water is bound to cause significant impacts on weather patterns, due to the huge amount of heat and moisture that escapes from the exposed ocean into the atmosphere over a multi-month period following the summer melt.

Figure 2. The extent of Arctic sea ice loss in the summer July – August – September period in 2007 was about 1.4 million square miles (3.6 million square kilometers) greater than in 1980, according to the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. For comparison, the lost ice coverage (orange colors) was equal to an area about 44% of the size of the contiguous U.S., or 71% of the non-Russian portion of Europe.

Arctic sea ice loss can slow down jet stream winds

Dr. Francis looked at surface and upper level data from 1948 – 2010, and discovered that the extra heat in the Arctic in fall and winter over the past decade had caused the Arctic atmosphere between the surface and 500 mb (about 18,000 feet or 5,600 meters) to expand. As a result, the difference in temperature between the Arctic (60 – 80°N) and the mid-latitudes (30 – 50°N) fell significantly. It is this difference in temperature that drives the powerful jet stream winds that control much of our weather.

The speed of fall and winter west-to-east upper-level winds at 500 mb circling the North Pole decreased by 20% over the past decade, compared to the period 1948 – 2000, in response to the extra warmth in the Arctic. This slow-down of the upper-level winds circling the pole has been linked to a Hot Arctic-Cold Continents pattern that brought cold, snowy winters to the Eastern U.S. and Western Europe during 2009 – 2010 and 2010 – 2011.

Figure 3. West-to-east jet stream wind speeds at 500 mb (approximately 18,000 feet or 5,600 meters) in the mid-latitudes (40 – 60°N) over North America between 1948 and 2010. During fall (October – November – December) and winter (January – February – March), jet stream winds weakened by about 20%, from 13 – 14 m/s to 10.5 – 11 m/s. Spring (AMJ) and summer (JAS) winds changed little during this time period.

Arctic sea ice loss may increase the amplitude of jet stream troughs and ridges

The jet stream generally blows from west to east over the northern mid-latitudes, with an average position over the central U.S. in winter and southern Canada in summer. The jet stream marks the boundary between cold polar air to the north and warm subtropical air to the south, and is the path along which rain and snow-bearing low pressure systems ride. Instead of blowing straight west-to-east, the jet stream often contorts itself into a wave-like pattern. Where the jet stream bulges northwards into a ridge of high pressure, warm air flows far to the north. Where the jet loops to the south into a trough of low pressure, cold air spills southwards. The more extreme these loops to the north and south are–the amplitude of the jet stream–the slower the waves move eastward, and consequently, the more persistent the weather conditions tend to be.

A high-amplitude jet stream pattern (more than 1000 miles or 1610 km in distance between the bottom of a trough and the peak of a ridge) is likely to bring abnormally high temperatures to the region under its ridge, and very cold temperatures and heavy precipitation underneath its trough. The mathematics governing atmospheric motions requires that higher-amplitude flow patterns move more slowly. Thus, any change to the atmosphere that increases the amplitude of the wave pattern will make it move more slowly, increasing the length of time extreme weather conditions persist.

Dr. Francis discovered that during the early 1960s, a natural pattern in the atmosphere called the Arctic Oscillation increased the amplitude of the winter jet stream pattern over North America and the North Atlantic by more than 100 miles, increasing the potential for long-lasting weather conditions. The amplitude of the winter jet fell over 100 miles (161 km) during the late 1960s, remained roughly constant during the 1970s – 1990s, then increased by over 100 miles again during the 2000s. This latest increase in wave amplitude did not appear to be connected to the Arctic Oscillation, but did appear to be connected to the heating up of the Arctic due to sea ice loss. A warmer Arctic allows ridges of high pressure to build farther to the north. Since temperatures farther to the south near the bases of the troughs are not changing much by comparison, the result is that the amplitude of the jet stream grows as the ridges of high pressure push farther to the north. Thus it is possible that Arctic sea ice loss and the associated increases in jet stream amplitude could be partially responsible for some of the recent unusual extreme weather patterns observed in the Northern Hemisphere. This is preliminary research that has yet to be published, and much more work needs to be done before we can confidently link Arctic sea ice loss with an increase in extreme weather, though.

Figure 4. A high-amplitude jet stream pattern observed over the U.S. on December 13, 2011. Instead of blowing straight west-to-east, the jet was contorted into a southward-bulging trough of low pressure that brought cold temperatures and a snow storm to Southern California, and a northwards-bulging ridge of high pressure that brought record warm temperatures to portions of the eastern 2/3 of the country. The axis of the jet stream is marked by the strongest winds (green and light blue colors) at the top of the lower atmosphere (200 – 300 mb pressure level.)

Earlier snow cover melt on Arctic land also increases the amplitude of jet stream troughs and ridges

As Earth’s climate has warmed over the past 30 years, the Northern Hemisphere has seen a dramatic drop in the amount of snow cover in spring (April, May, and June.) Spring is coming earlier by an average of three days per decade, and the earlier arrival of spring has significantly reduced the amount of snow on the ground in May. Less snow on the ground means the land surface can heat up more readily, and May temperatures in Arctic have increased significantly over the past 30 years. Dr. Francis found that the upper-level wave amplitude has increased by over 100 miles (161 km) in summer over the past decade, and this change appears to be connected to the decline in May snow cover. Thus, reduced May snow cover due to global warming may be causing higher-amplitude jet stream patterns, potentially leading to slower-moving weather patterns that favor extreme weather in summer, such as heat waves, drought, and flooding. Note that significant changes to the upper-level atmospheric circulation in spring were not observed, so springtime extreme weather events like the 2011 flooding and tornadoes in the U.S. cannot be connected to changes in the Arctic sea ice or high-latitude snow cover using this research.

– by Jeff Masters in a Wunderblog repost

Related Post:

• Arctic Death Spiral Continues: Sea Ice Volume Hits Record Low for Second Straight Year

Figure 1. Departure of precipitation from average for 2011, as of December 6, 2011.  Remarkably, more than half of the country (56%) experienced either a top-ten driest or top-ten wettest year, a new record. Image credit: NOAA/HPC.

– Dr. Jeff Masters in a WunderBlog repost (with added material at the end)

This year is now the wettest year in nearly 200 years of record keeping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A large, wet low pressure system soaked the Northeast U.S. on Wednesday and early Thursday, bringing 2.31 inches of rain to the City of Brotherly Love, bringing this year’s precipitation total in Philly to 62.26 inches. This breaks the old yearly precipitation record of 61.20 inches, set in 1867. In a normal year, Philadelphia receives about 40 inches.

According to wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt, this is one of the most difficult U.S. city records to break, since rainfall records in Philadelphia go back to 1820. The only other sites with a longer continuous precipitation record in the U.S. are Charleston, SC (1738 -) and New Bedford, MA (1816 -).

20+ inches above average precipitation in Ohio Valley, Northeast

Philadelphia is not alone in setting a wettest year in recorded history mark in 2011. Over a dozen major cities in the Ohio Valley and Northeast have set a new wettest year record, or are close to doing so. Thanks to rains associated with this year’s tremendous tornado outbreaks in April in May, plus exceptionally heavy summer thunderstorm rains, combined with rains from Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene, portions of at least twelve states have seen rains more than twenty inches above average during 2011.

The fraction of the country covered by extremely wet conditions (top 10% historically) was 32% during the period January through November, ranking as the 2nd highest such coverage in the past 100 years. And if you weren’t washing away in a flood, you were baking in a drought in 2011–portions of sixteen states had precipitation more than twenty inches below average (Figure 1.)

The fraction of the country covered by extremely dry conditions (top 10% historically) was 22% during the period January through November, ranking as the 8th highest in the past 100 years. The combined fraction of the country experiencing either severe drought or extremely wet conditions was 56% averaged over the January – November period–the highest in a century of record keeping [see Figure 2 below].

Climate change science predicts that if the Earth continues to warm as expected, wet areas will tend to get wetter, and dry areas will tend to get drier–so this year’s side-by-side extremes of very wet and very dry conditions should grow increasingly common in the coming decades.

Figure 2. Percentage of the contiguous U.S. either in severe or greater drought (top 10% dryness) or extremely wet (top 10% wetness) during the period January – November, as computed using NOAA’s Climate Extremes Index. Remarkably, more than half of the country (56%) experienced either a top-ten driest or top-ten wettest year, a new record. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.

Unofficial state yearly precipitation record set in Ohio
The Wilmington, Ohio NWS office announced last week that three stations in Southwest Ohio had unofficially broken the 140-year old state yearly precipitation record. Cheviot, Miamitown, and Fernbank have recorded 73.81″, 71.89″, and 70.85″, respectively so far in 2011, beating the old record of 70.82″ set at Little Mountain in 1870. According to wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt, the old record should be 72.08” at Mt. Healthy, Ohio in 1880.

Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt summarizes the global weather extremes in November in his latest post.

– Jeff Masters

JR:   See two posts from last week by Capital Climate:

1. Precipitation Records Broken Tennessee to New England
2. Wettest December Day in DC History: In fact, Wettest Day During the Entire Cold Season (November-March) in DC History

Related Climate Progress Posts:

• Leading experts explain how human-caused warming exacerbates Texas drought
• NOAA Chief: U.S. Record of a Dozen Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters in One Year Is “a Harbinger of Things to Come”

• The year of living dangerously. Masters on 2010: “The stunning extremes we witnessed gives me concern that our climate is showing the early signs of instability”
• Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment
• Climatologist Kevin Trenberth always reminds us:

One of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.

Yale released the above chart in November (which I posted at the time).  Now they have released “the second and third reports from our latest national survey on Americans’ climate change and energy beliefs, attitudes, policy support, and behavior.”  Key findings:

• Public understanding that global warming is happening stayed at 63 percent, while belief that it is caused mostly by human activities increased three points since May 2011, to 50 percent.
• A majority of Americans (57%) now disagree with the statement, “With the economy in such bad shape, the US can’t afford to reduce global warming” – an 8 point increase in disagreement since May 2011.
• 65 percent said that global warming is affecting weather in the United States.
• 58 percent of Americans said that the record heat waves last summer strengthened their belief that global warming is occurring, up 4 points since May 2011.
• 38 percent of Americans said they have personally experienced the effects of global warming, up 4 points since May of 2011.
• Americans trust “climate scientists” (74%) as a source of information about global warming more than any other group, including “other kinds of scientists” (65%) and the mainstream media (38%)

This matches September polling by ecoAmerica, which found:

• 69% of Americans Know “Weather Conditions (Such as Heat Waves and Droughts) Are Made Worse by Climate Change”
  
• 57% of Americans understand “If we don’t do something about climate change now, we can end up having our farmland turned to desert.”

That public understanding certainly matches the science:

• “Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming”
• “NOAA Study Finds Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts”
• Study: Global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse
• Leading experts explain how human-caused warming exacerbates Texas drought

We know from a major 2011 study that “human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas.”

As predicted, the warming has put more water vapor in the air, making deluges more intense.  Climatologist Kevin Trenberth explains:

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR COMMENT

There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms,

Obviously, since it’s getting hotter, we’re worsening extreme heat waves — both in intensity and duration and scale (the area the heat wave covers).  For the same reason, we know humans are making droughts worse — in intensity, duration, and scale.

Actual observations reveal that since 1950, the global percentage of dry areas has increased by about 1.74% of global land area per decade (see here).  Heck, our best scientists are already using global warming to help them predict dangerous extreme weather (see “USGS Expert Explains How Global Warming Likely Contributes to East Africa’s Brutal Drought“).

The reinsurance industry understands all this (see Munich Re: “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change”).

The American public can’t miss the extreme weather because it is everywhere now and increasingly off the charts — see NOAA Chief: U.S. Record of a Dozen Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters in One Year Is “a Harbinger of Things to Come.”

Of course, what’s to come is the real issue, since we still have control over that.  We’re facing 5 to 10 times the warming this century that we’ve seen in the past half century.

The time to act was a long time ago, but further delay is suicidal  — see IEA’s Bombshell Warning: We’re Headed Toward 11°F Global Warming and “Delaying Action Is a False Economy”

Related Posts.

• “No One on the Face of This Earth has Ever Fought Fires in These Extreme Conditions”
• Virginia Deluge Was an “Off the Charts Above a 1000-year Rainfall,” Says National Weather Service
• “An extreme rainfall event unprecedented in recorded history has hit”
• “The most devastating weather event ever to hit the region”
• Texas Drought Worst in Centuries: State Beats U.S. Record for Hottest Summer by  1.6°F
• Warming-Enhanced Texas Drought Is Once in “500 or 1,000 Years … Basically Off the Charts,” Says State Climatologist

• Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released an analysis, “U.S. sets record with a dozen billion-dollar weather disasters in one year.”  They report:

• To date, the United States set a record with 12 separate billion dollar weather/climate disasters in 2011, with an aggregate damage total of approximately $52 billion. This record year breaks the previous record of nine billion-dollar weather/climate disasters in one year, which occurred in 2008.
• These twelve disasters alone resulted in the tragic loss of 646 lives, with the National Weather Service reporting over 1,000 deaths across all weather categories for the year.
• Previously only 10 events were reported; the two new billion-dollar weather and climate events added to the 2011 total include:
  • The Texas, New Mexico, Arizona wildfires event, now exceeding $1 billion, had been previously accounted for in the larger Southern Plains drought and heatwave event. This is in line with how NOAA has traditionally accounted for large wildfire events as separate events.
  • The June 18-22 Midwest/Southeast Tornadoes and Severe Weather event, which just recently exceeded the $1 billion threshold

UPDATE:  ClimateWire (subs. req’d) reported on Thursday:

… this year was not an aberration, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said during a speech here yesterday.

The seemingly endless onslaught of floods, droughts, wildfires, windstorms, blizzards and tornadoes that have marked 2011 fit within an ongoing increase in the number of natural disasters recorded in the United States, she said, citing statistics maintained by reinsurer Munich Re.

And at least some of that increase appears to be driven by climate change, Lubchenco said, citing a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“What we are seeing this year is not just an anomalous year, but a harbinger of things to come for at least a subset of those extreme events that we are tallying,” the NOAA chief told attendees of the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting.

In September 2010, Munich Re one of the world’s leading reinsurers, wrote “the only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change.”  Here is the chart on their statistics:

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR COMMENT

In January, they summed up 2010 this way:  “The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change.”

You may recall my repost last month of Dr. Jeff Masters’ analysis, “Fourteen U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters in 2011: a new record.”

The difference is these two storms:

NOAA continues to collect and assess data regarding several other extreme events that occurred this year including the pre-Halloween winter storm that impacted the Northeast and the wind/flood damage from Tropical Storm Lee. Currently, these events are not over the $1B threshold using the available data.

They beat the threshold according to Masters, easily, in the case of the Pre-Halloween storm:

No, not all of those events can be attributed to climate change, but climate change almost certainly made most of them worse (see “Tornadoes, extreme weather, and climate change“).  As climatologist Kevin Trenberth always reminds us:

One of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.

And lumping the Texas drought and wildfires as one single disaster suggests, if nothing else, the scale of the extreme weather catastrophes to come (see “Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security“).

Related Post:

• Bombshell: Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming
• The year of living dangerously. Masters: “The stunning extremes we witnessed gives me concern that our climate is showing the early signs of instability”
• Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment

AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam

by Lauren Simenauer, in a Science Progress cross-post

Delegates from 194 parties are meeting in Durban, South Africa, for the annual U.N. Conference of Parties, or COP, climate change conference. Among topics being addressed is the reduction of carbon emissions worldwide, clean energy funding in lower-income nations, and the future of the Kyoto Protocol. One lesser-discussed issue that diplomats will address is the growing body of science about the impacts of climate change on global health.

The National Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, identified six natural disaster events thought to be exacerbated by climate change. Those events include ozone air pollution, heat waves, the spread of infectious disease, river flooding, hurricanes, and wildfires. Tragically, extreme weather ravaged Durban itself just days before international delegates arrived. Torrential rains caused severe flooding that destroyed 700 homes and resulted in the deaths of 10 people. But beyond the immediate effects, all these disasters have wide-reaching consequences for national health, and a study published in Health Affairs magazine estimated that health costs incurred from the tragedies exceeded $14 billion from 2000 to 2009.

In the national debate on health care, it is imperative that the international community and our lawmakers at home not ignore the value of preventing the damage that climate change will cause to both the environment and human health.

The whole story

In a 2003 report, the World Health Organization, or WHO, posited that perhaps not all effects of climate change will be detrimental. Milder winters in temperate areas might mean a decrease in the death toll during the coldest months. Further, higher average temperatures in tropical areas could kill off mosquitos that carry deadly infectious diseases.

The WHO was careful to note that human vulnerability to climate change depends on population density, economic stability, food availability, income distribution, and various other mitigating factors. Thus, it is possible that not everyone will suffer uniformly. The WHO concluded, however, that on the whole, the ill effects of climate change will disproportionately affect lower-income regions and nations compared to post-industrial nations. The disadvantages to global health, the WHO concluded, will outweigh the few potential perks of climate change.

Direct impact

The immediate effects of climate change on human health are perhaps clearest. It is no secret that heat causes dehydration and that carbon emissions result in air pollution. The Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, noted that heat waves account for the highest proportion of weather-related deaths annually, with children and older adults most susceptible. The CDC estimated that heat-related deaths could climb from about 700 a year to between 3,000 and 5,000 by the year 2050, given expected levels of human-caused warming. In order to counteract the loss to human life, the CDC recommended air conditioning for poorly ventilated areas, though such utilities are hard to come by in the lower-income areas that need them most.

The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, reported that an increase in particulate matter will exacerbate respiratory diseases. While some air pollutants may occur naturally, as in the case of volcanic ash and dust, there is reason to believe that a significant portion of particulate matter in the air is anthropogenic—that is, humans produce them by burning fossil fuels. NASA estimates that humans cause at least 10 percent of aerosols, a particularly hazardous type of air pollution that contributes to the greenhouse gas effect and the deterioration of human health. An increase in ground-level ozone is also associated with decreased lung function, as well as cancer.

The CDC elaborated on potential detriments to asthma and airway diseases; fine particles in the air are associated with heart attack and blood clots. Indirectly, early flower blooming increases pollen, which can cause allergic reaction. Higher temperatures also increase mold spores, further irritating respiratory diseases. Furthermore, more frequent droughts may lead to increase in airborne dust, and increasingly frequent wildfires caused by climate change may also contribute to particulate matter.

A January 2010 report from the EPA offered a conservative estimate that heat waves cost the public $5.1 billion a year in health costs. The EPA put the baseline cost for asthma and respiratory illness at $5 billion. Additionally, the EPA estimated that public health costs incurred by poor indoor air quality and communicable respiratory diseases could exceed $10 billion.

Natural disasters

With climate change comes extreme weather: more frequent and severe flooding, storms, and forest fires. The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, found that the number of hurricanes had increased annually since 1970, writing, “There is observational evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with increases of tropical sea surface temperatures.”

The IPCC went on to predict an influx of hurricanes in the near future:

Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical SSTs. There is less confidence in projections of a global decrease in numbers of tropical cyclones. The apparent increase in the proportion of very intense storms since 1970 in some regions is much larger than simulated by current models for that period.

The cost to human life from extreme weather is significant. Scientists and economists from the NRDC estimated that Florida hurricane season racked up $1.4 billion in health bills in 2004 alone. California wildfires cost $578 million in 2003, and flooding in North Dakota cost $20 million in 2009. Many of these figures do not take into account the added cost of damage to hospitals and other health care infrastructure, as well as the costly effects to health that pervade the population years later in the form of heart disease, cancer, and disorders of mental health.

Implications for disease control

As the globe heats up, the outlook for the containment of pathogens is becoming increasingly dismal. Rising average temperatures worldwide expand the range and seasonality of communicable diseases unique to warmer months. The WHO estimated that climate change was responsible for 2.4 percent of deaths from diarrhea and 6 percent of deaths from malaria in middle-income countries in the year 2000.

The Commission on Climate Change and Development, or CCCD, emphasized the importance of containing the rise of vector-borne diseases. Though the WHO does not predict that climate change will incite the mutation of new diseases, climate change could precipitate the resurgence of diseases that have plagued human history. Aside from malaria and diarrheal diseases, the CCCD warned of an influx of cholera, which is linked to low river flows in the dry season, and possibly due to pathogen infection of standing pools of water that result. Also of concern is an increase in rodent-borne diseases after flooding, and meningitis is linked to drought and heat, though the mechanism for transmission is still unclear.

Dengue fever and a spike in food-borne illnesses could also result from continued climate change, according to the same WHO study. A report from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, suggested that an increase in temperatures will result in more contamination of crops. The NIH also reported that drought increases the prevalence of insects and other pests that can hamper agricultural productivity.

Of particular concern is the seafood supply. The CDC warned that algal blooms are known to release harmful neurotoxins that cause death in humans; marine organisms can also pick up these neurotoxins. The most common neurotoxin that blue-green algae releases is anatoxin-a, which interrupts neurotransmitter activity at neuromuscular junctions and can cause muscle paralysis and even death from respiratory failure. Because cooking seafood does not necessarily kill harmful biotoxins, these harmful chemicals pose a unique threat to the food supply. Measures to prevent contamination of the food supply may not be consequential, however, as the CDC reports that it is also possible that marine neurotoxins will be aerosolized by the surf crashing onto the beach and dispersing into the wind.

Communicable diseases are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to health impacts of climate change, according to the CDC. With increases in temperatures comes an increase in the volatility of certain dangerous chemicals associated with cancer. Such hazardous chemicals like ground ozone, black carbon, diesel exhaust, and ammonia, are also known to be dispersed with heavy rainfall, which is associated with climate change. Further, the depletion of ozone means that more harmful UV radiation penetrates the atmosphere, increasing the occurrences of skin cancer.

The ripple effect

The direct consequences of climate change on public health are not relegated to the immediate effects of hotter averages and more extreme weather. The direct effects of extreme weather, like injury, property damage, and loss of life also create ripple effects that cause additional damage to society and public health. For example, the CDC warns that diminished access to food and water caused by drought could cause migration from rural to urban areas or vice versa. Migration itself is linked to health problems that impose a steep price tag for public funds. The International Organization for Migration reported that, among other health concerns, migration increases physical trauma and spreads diseases.

Additionally, climate-enhanced food insecurity has its own ramifications for human development. Starvation leads to malnutrition in mothers and, consequently, stunted development in fetuses and children.

Coastal flooding and pollution could impair food manufacturing and health care facilities. Reactions will vary regionally, but the consequences of population displacement, as well as the erosion of food manufacturing industries, may not be apparent for several decades.

Climate change is no longer just a looming threat in the abstract. Climate change is a hidden culprit with real impacts on health care costs, and, more gravely, human lives. Finding solutions to the climate crisis is no longer just an environmental issue. The effects of climate change permeate through all facets of human life, and preparing for the impact on health care should be a priority.

Lauren Simenauer is an intern with Science Progress and a senior at the University of Virginia. This piece was originally published at ScienceProgress.org.

Princeton researchers found for the first time that day-to-day weather conditions have become more erratic in the past generation. Days have increasingly fluctuated between sunny and dry, and cloudy and rainy with little in-between, which can have negative consequences for ecosystems, plants, solar-energy production and other factors that depend upon consistent weather.  From 1997 to 2007, rainfall became highly erratic for much of the globe, particularly in tropical areas. Green areas indicate that the day-to-day variability increased so that those areas experienced more days at one extreme or another, either dry or a downpour with little weather variation in-between.

by Morgan Kelly, Princeton University

The first climate study to focus on variations in daily weather conditions has found that day-to-day weather has grown increasingly erratic and extreme, with significant fluctuations in sunshine and rainfall affecting more than a third of the planet.

Princeton University researchers recently reported in the Journal of Climate that extremely sunny or cloudy days are more common than in the early 1980s, and that swings from thunderstorms to dry days rose considerably since the late 1990s. These swings could have consequences for ecosystem stability and the control of pests and diseases, as well as for industries such as agriculture and solar-energy production, all of which are vulnerable to inconsistent and extreme weather, the researchers noted.

The day-to-day variations also could affect what scientists can expect to see as the Earth’s climate changes, according to the researchers and other scientists familiar with the work. Constant fluctuations in severe conditions could alter how the atmosphere distributes heat and rainfall, as well as inhibit the ability of plants to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, possibly leading to higher levels of the greenhouse gas than currently accounted for.

Existing climate-change models have historically been evaluated against the average weather per month, an approach that hides variability, explained lead author David Medvigy, an assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences at Princeton. To conduct their analysis, he and co-author Claudie Beaulieu, a postdoctoral research fellow in Princeton’s Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, used a recently developed computer program that has allowed climatologists to examine weather data on a daily level for the first time, Medvigy said.

“Monthly averages reflect a misty world that is a little rainy and cloudy every day. That is very different from the weather of our actual world, where some days are very sunny and dry,” Medvigy said.

“Our work adds to what we know about climate change in the real world and places the whole problem of climate change in a new light,” he said. “Nobody has looked for these daily changes on a global scale. We usually think of climate change as an increase in mean global temperature and potentially more extreme conditions — there’s practically no discussion of day-to-day variability.”

The Princeton findings stress that analysis of erratic daily conditions such as frequent thunderstorms may in fact be crucial to truly understanding the factors shaping the climate and affecting the atmosphere, said William Rossow, a professor of earth system science and environmental engineering at the City College of New York.

“It’s important to know what the daily extremes might do because we might care about that sooner,” said Rossow, who also has studied weather variability. He had no role in the Princeton research but is familiar with it.

Rossow said existing climate-change models show light rain more frequently than they should and don’t show extreme precipitation. “If it rains a little bit every day, the atmosphere may respond differently than if there’s a really big rainstorm once every week. One of the things you find about rainstorms is that the really extreme ones are at a scale the atmosphere responds to,” he said.

Although climate-change models predict future changes in weather as the planet warms, those calculations are hindered by a lack of representation of day-to-day patterns, Rossow said.

“If you don’t know what role variability is playing now, you’re not in a very strong position for making remarks about how it might change in the future,” he said. “We’re at a stage where we had better take a look at what this research is pointing out.”

Medvigy and Beaulieu determined sunshine variation by analyzing fluctuations in solar radiation captured by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project from 1984 to 2007. To gauge precipitation, the researchers used daily rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project spanning 1997 to 2007.

Medvigy and Beaulieu found that during those respective periods, extremes in sunshine and rainfall became more common on a day-to-day basis. In hypothetical terms, Medvigy said, these findings would mean that a region that experienced the greatest increase in sunshine variability might have had partly cloudy conditions every day in 1984, but by 2007 the days would have been either sunny or heavily cloudy with no in-between. For rainfall, the uptick in variation he and Beaulieu observed could be thought of as an area experiencing a light mist every day in 1997, but within ten years the days came to increasingly fluctuate between dryness and downpour.

The researchers observed at least some increase in variability for 35 percent of the world during the time periods analyzed. Regions such as equatorial Africa and Asia experienced the greatest increase in the frequency of extreme conditions, with erratic shifts in weather occurring throughout the year. In more temperate regions such as the United States, day-to-day variability increased to a lesser degree and typically only seasonally. In the northeastern United States, for instance, sudden jumps from sunny to bleak days became more common during the winter from 1984 to 2007.

In the 23 years that sunshine variability rose for tropical Africa and Asia, those areas also showed a greater occurrence of towering thunderstorm clouds known as convective clouds, Medvigy said. Tropical areas that experienced more and more unbalanced levels of sunshine and rainfall witnessed an in-kind jump in convective cloud cover. Although the relationship between these clouds and weather variations needs more study, Medvigy said, the findings could indicate that the sunnier days accelerate the rate at which water evaporates then condenses in the atmosphere to form rain, thus producing heavy rain more often.

Storms have lasting effect on daily weather patterns

Although the most extreme weather variations in the study were observed in the tropics, spurts of extreme weather are global in reach, Rossow said. The atmosphere, he said, is a fluid, and when severe weather such as a convective-cloud thunderstorm “punches” it, the disturbance spreads around the world. Weather that increasingly leaps from one extreme condition to another in short periods of time, as the Princeton research suggests, affects the equilibrium of heat and rain worldwide, he said.

“Storms are violent and significant events — while they are individually localized, their disturbance radiates,” Rossow said.

“Wherever it’s raining heavily, especially, or variably is where the atmosphere is being punched. As soon as it is punched somewhere in the tropics it starts waves that go all the way around the planet,” he said. “So we can see waves coming off the west Pacific convection activity and going all the way around the planet in the tropical band. The atmosphere also has the job of moving heat from the equator to the poles, and storms are the source of heat to the atmosphere, so if a storm’s location or its timing or its seasonality is altered, that’s going to change how the circulation responds.”

These sweeping atmospheric changes can interact with local conditions such as temperature and topography to skew regular weather patterns, Rossow said.

“Signals end up going over the whole globe, and whether they’re important in a particular place or not depends on what else is happening,” he said. “But you can think of storms as being the disturbances in an otherwise smooth flow. That’s why this is a climate issue even though we’re talking about daily variability in specific locations.”

The impact of these fluctuations on natural and manmade systems could be as substantial as the fallout predicted from rises in the Earth’s average temperature, Medvigy said. Inconsistent sunshine could impair the effectiveness of solar-energy production and — with fluctuating rainfall also included — harm agriculture, he said. Wetter, hotter conditions also breed disease and parasites such as mosquitoes, particularly in tropical areas, he said.

On a larger scale, wild shifts in day-to-day conditions would diminish the ability of trees and plants to remove carbon from the atmosphere, Medvigy said. In 2010, he and Harvard University researchers reported in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that erratic rain and sunlight impair photosynthesis. That study concluded that this effect upsets the structure of ecosystems, as certain plants and trees — particularly broad-leafed trees more than conifers — adapt better than others.

In the context of the current study, Medvigy said, the impact of variability on photosynthesis could mean that more carbon will remain in the atmosphere than climate models currently anticipate, considering that the models factor in normal plant-based carbon absorption. Moreover, if the meteorological tumult he and Beaulieu observed is caused by greenhouse gases, these fluctuations could become self-perpetuating by increasingly trapping the gases that agitated weather patterns in the first place.

“We have not yet looked for direct ties between weather variability and increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, but I would not be surprised if they are connected in some way,” Medvigy said.

“Increases in variability diminish the efficiency with which plants and trees remove carbon dioxide from the air,” he said. “All of a sudden, the land and the atmosphere are no longer in balance, and plants cannot absorb levels of carbon dioxide proportional to the concentrations in the environment. That will affect everybody.”

The study was published online Oct. 14 by the Journal of Climate, and was funded by grants from the Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative and the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies.

— Morgan Kelly is a science writer for the Office of Communications at Princeton University. This piece was originally published at the Princeton University website.

Related Posts.

• Study: Global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse
• Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming
• NOAA Study Finds Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts
• The year of living dangerously. Masters: “The stunning extremes we witnessed gives me concern that our climate is showing the early signs of instability”; Munich Re: “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change”

• Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment
• Blockbuster IPCC Chart Hints at Dust-Bowlification, But Report Is Mostly Silent on Warming’s Gravest Threat to Humanity
• Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security

Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a summary report on the risks posed by climate disasters. The report says climate change will likely worsen certain extreme weather events like heat waves, floods, droughts and storms.

This could be costly for the U.S., which has already experienced a record number of weather disasters this year, resulting in economic costs of almost $50 billion. The report discusses strategies for reducing vulnerability to extreme weather events.

The panel’s findings have been reported by every major print outlet in the U.S., but have been almost entirely ignored by the television news media, including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC and CBS. The only mention of the U.N. report on a major TV news outlet was a segment on NBC Nightly News.

This is not the first time television networks have made time for stories that are less than newsworthy, but not for important developments in climate change science.

This is not surprising coming from Fox News, which systematically sows doubt about climate science and ignores evidence confirming that climate change is a real threat.

But this trend is especially problematic because television is still the primary source of news for most Americans.

And surveys suggest that inadequate and often inaccurate climate coverage has taken a toll. In August, a Rasmussen Reports poll found that 57 percent of adults believe there is significant disagreement within the scientific community about climate change – a five point leap from 2009. A 2010 survey found that regular Fox News viewers were 30 points more likely than those who never watched Fox to disagree with the statement, “Most scientists believe that climate change is occurring.”

In reality, the vast majority of scientists agree that human activity is impacting our climate. As the new report demonstrates, the consequences are severe, even more so if we do not begin to address our vulnerabilities to climate extremes.

— Jill Fitzsimmons is a researcher with Media Matters for America. This piece was originally published at the Media Matters website.

Related Posts:

• Blockbuster IPCC Chart Hints at Dust-Bowlification, But Report Is Mostly Silent on Warming’s Gravest Threat to Humanity

A USA Today (not IPCC) chart emphasizes the risk of drought in heavily populated areas.

The IPCC Special Report “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX)” is now online.  I had seen the previous draft and the changes to it, so I knew that it was a big missed opportunity, as I explained here.

UPDATE:  Dr. Richard Klein offers a defense of the IPCC process in the comments of my previous post (here).

Even so, since the media hasn’t been spending much time connecting the dots between extreme weather and climate change, the report has garnered some headlines:

• Report: Climate change worsens extreme weather events (USA Today)
• Extreme weather to worsen with climate change: IPCC (Reuters)
• Extreme weather will strike as climate change takes hold, IPCC warns; Heavier rainfall, storms and droughts could wipe billions off economies and destroy lives, says report by 220 scientists (UK Guardian).

There is definitely some good material in the report (I’ll do a separate post on that).  We should all appreciate the hard work that a great many scientists put into this report.  I’ve been highly supportive of IPCC scientists over the years, pushing back against the attacks by the deniers and confusionists — even as I have been critical of the IPCC process that tends to water down even the most obvious conclusions.

For instance, the report states:

It is virtually certain that increases in the frequency and magnitude of warm daily temperature extremes and decreases in cold extremes will occur in the 21st century on the global scale. It is very likely that the length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells, or heat waves, will increase over most land areas.

Virtually certain means “99-100% probability” while very likely means “90-100% probability.”  Is there really as much as a 10% chance that the length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells, or heat waves, will NOT increase over most land areas over the next 90 years?

Then we have this line:

It is very likely that mean sea level rise will contribute to upward trends in extreme coastal high water levels in the future.

C’mon guys and gals.  You couldn’t put a “virtually certain” on that?  Note that the sentence is already hedged with “will contribute” and “upward trends” and even the vague “in the future.”  Precisely how could mean sea level rise — even sticking with the lowball estimate from the 2007 report — have as much as a 10% chance of NOT contributing toward an upwards trend in extreme coastal high level waters sometime in the future.

So you can see the effect of the IPCC process that waters down even the most innocuous conclusions.  And by the way, since this is a 2011 report, it ought to base such statements on the recent literature of sea level rise, which is considerably higher than the 2007 estimate (see the discussion in “Scientists withdraw low-ball estimate of sea level rise“).

My biggest problem with the report remains the short shrift it gives to the vast literature on drought that I reviewed in my recent Nature article.  As I wrote, “Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.”

You can see from the chart above that USA Today (and Jeff Masters, who helped put it together) figured out that drought may be the biggest extreme weather danger in that it affects 5 heavily populated areas.

Reuters, in its story, states what should be obvious:

Droughts, perhaps the biggest worry for a world with a surging population to feed, were also expected to worsen.

The 29-page report itself has quite little on droughts, and the word “agriculture” appears only once in the main text, but it does have this blockbuster chart:

Figure SPM.5: Projected annual changes in dryness….  Changes in soil moisture (soil moisture anomalies, SMA). Increased dryness is indicated with yellow to red colors; decreased dryness with green to blue. Projected changes are expressed in units of standard deviation of the interannual variability in the three 20-year periods 1980-1999, 2046-2065 and 2081-2100. The figures show changes for two time horizons, 2046-2065 and 2081-2100, as compared to late-20th-century values (1980–1999), based on GCM [Global Climate Models] simulations under emissions scenario SRES A2 relative to corresponding simulations for the late-20th-century. Results are based on 17 (CDD) and 15 (SMA) GCMs contributing to the CMIP3. Colored shading is applied for areas where at least 66% (12 out of 17 for CDD, 10 out of 15 for SMA) of the models agree in the sign of the change; stippling is added for regions where at least 90% (16 out of 17 for CDD, 14 out of 15 for SMA) of all models agree in the sign of the change….

We can’t tell exactly how serious this is since they aren’t using a standard metric, like, say, the Palmer Drought Severity Index, and since the full report won’t be out until February!

But those large red patches around the global look pretty worrisome since they are where a great many people live and where a considerable amount of arable land is.  Indeed, the United States breadbasket looks to be headed for some very serious soil moisture drying in the second half the of the century if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path.

The IPCC has but one paragraph on this (plus the chart and a table):

There is medium confidence that droughts will intensify in the 21st century in some seasons and areas, due to reduced precipitation and/or increased evapotranspiration. This applies to regions including southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, central Europe, central North America, Central America and Mexico, northeast Brazil, and southern Africa. Elsewhere there is overall low confidence because of inconsistent projections of drought changes (dependent both on model and dryness index). Definitional issues, lack of observational data, and the inability of models to include all the factors that influence droughts preclude stronger confidence than medium in drought projections. See Figure SPM.5. [3.5.1, Table 3.3, Box 3.3]

The Table simply focuses on “Droughts in the context of food security in West Africa,” which is certainly important subject but only one of many, many areas around the world threatened by every-worsening droughts.

You would never know from this summary report that there is in fact a large literature just on the drying projected for the U.S. Southwest (which I reviewed here).  Heck, 3 years ago, the Bush Administration (!) released a US Geological Survey report that found:

The serious hydrological changes and impacts known to have occurred in both historic and prehistoric times over North America reflect large-scale changes in the climate system that can develop in a matter of years and, in the case of the more severe past megadroughts, persist for decades. Such hydrological changes fit the definition of abrupt change because they occur faster than the time scales needed for human and natural systems to adapt, leading to substantial disruptions in those systems. In the Southwest, for example, the models project a permanent drying by the mid-21st century that reaches the level of aridity seen in historical droughts, and a quarter of the projections may reach this level of aridity much earlier.

And there have been another half a dozen major studies covering the SW since then.

So yes the report was a missed opportunity to review this literature and highlight the  very real threat to food security.  The most comprehensive published literature review to date remains the must-read study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Drought under global warming: a review,” which I discussed here.