What happens when your dire predictions start coming true?

[kristopher]

If you’re a climate scientist, what happens when your dire predictions start coming true?
The ongoing anthrax outbreak in Siberia is offering us a preview: What was once considered a future theoretical possibility — a re-animated deadly bacterium emerging from the permafrost — is now a reality.

Throughout July, temperatures in northern Siberia have soared as high as 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) during what’s typically the warmest part of the year. It’s unknown exactly how the disease emerged — possibly via a thawed reindeer carcass or human remains at a crumbling, above-ground cemetery that’s typical of the region. Russia has sent troops trained for biological warfare to help establish a quarantine in what’s become the first anthrax outbreak in the region since 1941.

As my colleague Francie Diep wrote on Tuesday, this is an “apocalyptic-sounding chain of events” and the initial news coverage surely capitalized on that tone. But what’s happening in Siberia — while scary! — will not, by itself, threaten the viability of human civilization. In fact, it was expected.

Scientists have been warning for years that melting permafrost might release ancient pathogens, frozen for millennia or longer in northern soils. Over the last decade or so, bacteria have been discovered alive in Alaskan permafrost at temperatures as low as minus-40 degrees Celsius, and in permafrost layers as old as three million years in Siberia. Although the vast majority of known bacteria are harmless, we don’t yet know what’s buried up there, or how dangerous it might be to humans.

And it’s clear that, for now, weather conditions in Siberia are far outside their normal range. Last month, parts of Siberia near where the anthrax outbreak is occurring were as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, averaged over the entire month. That’s like New York City suddenly adopting the climate of Tucson, Arizona, for the whole month of July. To say the Arctic climate is off the charts this year is an understatement.

“The record-warm Arctic so far this year...

https://psmag.com/for-climate-scientists-the-siberian-anthrax-outbreak-is-a-sign-of-whats-to-come-5b73e88cdf12#.5z6x9oq5r

[CrispyQ]

1. The human collective is so unprepared for what's coming. -nt

[Wellstone ruled]

2. What we have seen here in the

desert Southwest is,the seasonal wind shifts are all messed up. Normal spring time brings winds from the Southwest,well that has not happened since 1997,which was the end of the previous El Nino. And when we do get a weather system that could bring rain,the cloud mass is much lower in elevation thus wringing out the moisture before they cross the peaks.