Extreme Heat Becoming More Likely Under Climate Change

[Methuselah]

Feedbacks exist irrespective of man's meddling.

Clouds.....we need first to discover if the feedback from CO2 is negative or positive, we still don't know. An increase in cloudiness may trap heat or it may reflect the Sun and reduce the energy received. Ice....which has the highest albedo, dirty ice or snow? We may have less ice but this in turn may generate snowier weather further south leading to a greater expanse of the earth snow covered during the winter - will this balance out the loss of albedo from less ice, be greater than the ice albedo due to the brightness of fresh snow compared to old, dirt ice?

These and many more questions are still unanswered, to assume we know what's going on and can predict the future when these basics are still unknown is misguided.

I'm still of the opinion that increased CO2 has the potential to alter the climate but we're a very long way from knowing how, why or what the impacts will be. Doubt and questioning is my personal stance in all this, I fail to accept the certainty which some state when a simple gardener like me can see there are huge gaps in our knowledge.

Absolutely agree, J.

But if what we need before taking any action is empirical proof, of all the individual workings of all the individual feedbacks, we'll need to wait until after Mother Nature has revealed everything to us; in other words - we'll need (for as long as at least one dissenting voice remains) to wait forever: empirical proof cannot exist until after the fact...

So my question is: how long do we wait?

[rob48]

I think most of the Mid-west ones died from the drought Rob?

No mention of the Mid-West here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-441906/An-English-country-garden-circa-2050.html

unless you mean Somerset?

[Gray-Wolf]

Due to remarks made earlier I've been reviewing ,as best as I can, what advice we have been offered as our studies into climate change advanced since the late 60's.

Did you know as far as I can make out the 70's had 6 times as many climate papers proposing warming as those proposing 'cooling' yet we are constantly told that science back then was predicting a new ice age?

I'm currently in the 80's and planting for 'drought' includes drainage to take away the anticipated 'deluges' when they occur?

EDIT: Thanks for the link rob, I take it you read it too?

Edited July 11, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[jethro]

Absolutely agree, J.

But if what we need before taking any action is empirical proof, of all the individual workings of all the individual feedbacks, we'll need to wait until after Mother Nature has revealed everything to us; in other words - we'll need (for as long as at least one dissenting voice remains) to wait forever: empirical proof cannot exist until after the fact...

So my question is: how long do we wait?

Who's asking anyone to wait?

The question of action is not ours to make. As I said, governments around the world are making those decisions. Here in the UK we can no longer buy old fashioned light bulbs, they're all now energy efficient ones. We have to re-cycle our rubbish instead of simply throwing it away. Buildings Regs now insist on incredible insulation in our buildings. Energy costs are rocketing in an effort to fund greener energy. The list goes on and on.

No one is waiting, no one is being asked to wait. The fact that we're all living in a more eco friendly way than say 10 years ago is being imposed upon us. No matter how we live, the interest in the science can still remain. The questions of what we still need to learn and discover are still valid.

[jethro]

Due to remarks made earlier I've been reviewing ,as best as I can, what advice we have been offered as our studies into climate change advanced since the late 60's.

Did you know as far as I can make out the 70's had 6 times as many climate papers proposing warming as those proposing 'cooling' yet we are constantly told that science back then was predicting a new ice age?

I'm currently in the 80's and planting for 'drought' includes drainage to take away the anticipated 'deluges' when they occur?

EDIT: Thanks for the link rob, I take it you read it too?

I can offer you the official RHS view:

Changing outlook

The average effect of climate change will be that summers will be hotter and drier. Lawns will turn brown, bedding plants and vegetables will require more water, trees may scorch and lose their leaves prematurely, hosepipe bans may be more widespread. Gardeners themselves will need to retreat into the shade and drink more water. Winters will be increasingly mild: less frost, much less snow, but more rain, and in heavier downpours. Spring will come earlier (currently, it is arriving two to six days sooner per decade) and summer will extend longer into what would have been autumn (currently, two days later per decade). Clear autumn skies should result in brighter autumn colours – if the leaves have not already crisped and fallen due to water stress.These changes will be even more marked in the wider landscape than in gardens.

In simplistic terms, a 1°C temperature rise is equivalent to moving 100 miles further south.Assuming a 3°C temperature rise in the UK by the end of the 21st century (which already seems a significant underestimate), Britain will ‘move south’ – actually, the climate will move north – by the equivalent of 300 miles. Effectively, this is 3 miles per year or 12 metres a day.To visualise what seem like small rises in temperature in terms of a threatening cloud (or warming rays,for the optimists) spreading across the land at this speed helps put the phenomenon into perspective. What can we do? Other contributors will answer this question in more detail in the following pages, but in general terms there are many things that we can do in our gardens (see opposite).There are signs that the world is beginning to wake up to the reality of climate change; indeed,the UK Government has committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050 – but it is yet to spell out how it plans to achieve this. Of equal concern is how the emissions of developing economies, particularly of China and India, will affect global greenhouse gas emissions. Gardeners cannot save the world by installing another water butt, but they can be exemplars of the good practices needed to adapt to, mitigate and eventually help to halt global warming.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Sustainable-gardening/Gardening-in-a-changing-climate/Current-Situation

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Media/PDFs/Climate/Jan08-Bisgrove-intro

[BornFromTheVoid]

Global CO2 output is still increasing, so no proper changes have been made to combat the global warming aspect of emissions, just minor energy efficiency improvements.

As for energy cost increases, fossil fuels are still far more heavily subsidised than renewables.

[cyclonic happiness]

Assuming that the climate is in a constant state of flux (AGW? Natural variation? Both?) I find it hard to believe that man-made CC is not having any effect on world-wide weather?

Can we have it both ways? On the one hand AGW is all poppycock (to be dismissed at all costs) and on the other, weather-variability is eagerly-attributed to Solar Cycles, lunar cycles, volcanoes, cosmic rays, black carbon etc., etc. ad infinitum. You can pick-and-mix to your heart's content, it seems - so long as CO₂ is left out of the equation?

Does anyone know why that is?

You do like you Latin quotes don't you?

[cyclonic happiness]

I don't understand why we are all so desperate to save 'humankind' when there are far too many of us on the planet as it is.

We may have an inbuilt program to breed and multiply, but surely that's the key to 'saving the world' from what ever. (we really mean 'saving mankind')

Is there really a good argument for having almost 7 billion of one animal on a planet?

Well, I'm doing my bit, I'm not gonna have children, I think it's unfair to impose such an extra burden on the Earth/ Humanity, until we've actually managed to get our population down to a low enough level that we can all enjoy a nice , middle class type lifestyle to which most of us aspire.

Maybe one day I'll be proved right.

Until then, just lessen your reproducing and you'll 'save the world'!

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi J' , I'm sure that the RHS advice will become more and more valid as time rolls on?

My personal opinion is that we just did not realise how swiftly the Arctic would turn into the massive heat engine it has so quickly become and so the impacts of this rapid shift were not fully modelled and understood?

We are now coming up to speed with the clarity of vision hindsight brings with it but how do we envisage these changes evolving further as we lose all the summer ice and start seeing major reductions in winter ice (like we saw last winter?)?

If you accept that this reduction in temp/pressure gradient, twixt pole and equator, does indeed slow and amplify our Jet how do you see this change as we lessen these 'differences' further?

Do we get to a point where the jet becomes so slack as to effectively disappear for periods leaving mere streaks in small areas of the northern Hemisphere?

How do we see pressure patterns evolve without the jet providing the 'suck and blow' to produce high and low pressure systems?

I do believe we are now beyond the slow changes that mankind had been forcing in the climate system and that we are now headed into a period of 'extreme climate oscillations' before we settle back down into a much warmer planet (in line with the RHS advice document).

[4wd]

As for energy cost increases, fossil fuels are still far more heavily subsidised than renewables.

In what way exactly, Governments in many parts of the world have a huge tax take, while here windmills and solar don't break even until at least twice the regular unit cost.

[4wd]

Hi J' , I'm sure that the RHS advice will become more and more valid as time rolls on?

My personal opinion is that we just did not realise how swiftly the Arctic would turn into the massive heat engine it has so quickly become and so the impacts of this rapid shift were not fully modelled and understood?

We are now coming up to speed with the clarity of vision hindsight brings with it but how do we envisage these changes evolving further as we lose all the summer ice and start seeing major reductions in winter ice (like we saw last winter?)?

If you accept that this reduction in temp/pressure gradient, twixt pole and equator, does indeed slow and amplify our Jet how do you see this change as we lessen these 'differences' further?

Do we get to a point where the jet becomes so slack as to effectively disappear for periods leaving mere streaks in small areas of the northern Hemisphere?

How do we see pressure patterns evolve without the jet providing the 'suck and blow' to produce high and low pressure systems?

I do believe we are now beyond the slow changes that mankind had been forcing in the climate system and that we are now headed into a period of 'extreme climate oscillations' before we settle back down into a much warmer planet (in line with the RHS advice document).

The trouble is you present these supposed facts as given but it's only (mostly your) specualtaion.

You could equally make a case that changes in the jet can sometimes affect Arctic ice, that seems far more plausible to me since heat from tropics is an energy source whereas the Arctic is an energy sink.

[BornFromTheVoid]

In what way exactly, Governments in many parts of the world have a huge tax take, while here windmills and solar don't break even until at least twice the regular unit cost.

I generally dislike using papers as a source, but this has some data at least for the UK

http://www.guardian....dy-fossil-fuels

Gas, oil and coal prices were subsidised by £3.63bn in 2010, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , whereas offshore and onshore wind received £0.7bn in the year from April 2010. All renewables in the UK benefited from £1.4bn over the same period, according to data from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).

A quick google search of "fossil fuel subsidies" yields a lot of data, though it seems like a lot of governments don't like giving out subsidy data.

[4wd]

But that takes no account of how much they get back in tax at the pumps.

It's a typical misleading half truth article.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm pretty sure I keep saying 'I believe' and 'in my opinion' before I give my opinion four?

The Jet certainly does bring warm air into the Basin now that the amplitude is high enough? would we be seeing the kind of temp records being broken there if this was not the case?

I have to wonder though that had the jet not been moving north would this amplification have been high enough to bring us such an issue?

Had we not seen 07' would we be seeing enough energy introduced into the system to bring about the type of amplification we see?

If the ice had not shed over 50% of it's mass through the 70's and 80's could we have seen an 07'?

This is all 'backward looking' and I'm sure I asked for folk to project forward?

So Four, how do you see this progressive change in the Arctic impacting our weather patterns further as time move on and the impacts become more severe?

Edited July 11, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[BornFromTheVoid]

But that takes no account of how much they get back in tax at the pumps.

It's a typical misleading half truth article.

Agreed, half truths. Didn't even mention the trillions paid for wars to secure oil in the middle east...

[4wd]

There's no particular reason to have any changes beyond what is normal variation, even if it all melted permanently the incoming energy won't change.

The current obsession with trying to blame a few showers on retreating ice many hundreds of miles away is rather silly IMO.

Agreed, half truths. Didn't even mention the trillions paid for wars to secure oil in the middle east...

Well yes but that is stretching it a bit, presumably all those soldiers would get paid anyway though.

[full_frontal_occlusion]

Well yes but that is stretching it a bit, presumably all those soldiers would get paid anyway though.

The fixed cost stays the same, the variable costs are the eye-waterers: deployment allowances, tax free, medical care costs of the wounded/disabled, invalid benefits, cost of expended equipment, vastly increased maintenance bill, vastly increased fuel costs, transportaion to/from the battle zone etc. War is far more expensive than a dormant army.

Start adding it up: eurofighter £70,000+ per hour in the air (1 round trip to Libya = £0.55m), Block IV Tomohawk missile circa £1m each, replacement cost of a Eurofighter £65m each etc.

Estimated additional costs of the war in Afhanistan - £4bn / year.

Source - RUSI London.

ffO.