Reflections on a heat wave

[BridgeTheGap]

It is the 23rd of July as I write this. One month since I turned 56. Certain numbers stick in one's head. For example, thus far it has been the hottest summer on record around the world, with average temperatures in the 90s.

The dog and I have just come inside from the porch, where a passing rain shower has left the air even hotter and stickier than it was before. Whatever happened to the cool aftermath of rain showers when I was a boy?

Now, I know better than to conflate weather and climate. Anti-green politicians pooh-pooh the notion of global warming, saying, “There's 6 feet of snow outside my office window!” That's weather — not climate. I know not to confuse the two. And yet, this summer, I cannot help but wonder.
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To me, the logic is rather simple. There are only four choices: If global warming is real, and we prepare for it, then we might be OK. If global warming is not real, and we prepare for it, then so much the better. If global warming is not real, and we do not prepare for it, then so what? But if global warming is real, and we do not prepare for it, then we're, well, in a great big world of hurt.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100727/OPINION04/307270018/1054/OPINION/Frederick+Smock+|+Reflections+on+a+heat+wave

[SheilaT]

1. For what it's worth,

I'm a few years older than you (61) and I can clearly remember it being hotter and stickier sometimes after a shower than before.

We all have selective recall about all sorts of things.

I did hear a report yesterday on my local public radio station that the summer of 1936 was the hottest on record for this country, and that any number of record high temps were set across the country that still stand.
Here's a link to a Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave

I am by no means a climate change denier. It is obvious the trend is continuing up, but keeping it all in perspective is also useful.

[rurallib]

2. I am 61 also. I remember hotter days and warmth after rain

but I also see trends. Like I used to start cutting grass in May and quit shortly after Labor day. Now I go from early April to halloween.
Trees bud out about two weeks earlier than they used to when I was a kid.(eta) Leaves now don't drop until after November 1. Our city finally adjusted their leaf pickup schedule to reflect this. They used to quit and prepare the trucks for winter on Nov.1. Now they pick up leaves until the first week of December.
Summer heat comes earlier and stays much later. September used to be a really mild month around here. These days we have to run air conditioning into September.
Surely 1936 was a very hot year. Those who liver through it still talk about it. But globally, most of the hottest years on record happened in the past 2 decades.

To not pursue an energy policy that gets us and the world away from fossil fuels is to me almost criminal. Even if fossil fuels have no part in warming, it surely has major impact on air and water quality. Time to move into the future before we condemn our kids and grandkids to a future of undrinkable water and unbreathable air.

[SheilaT]

6. That's actually the really big thing,

the change in the length of the growing season. When that gets longer OR shorter, it can impact lots and lots of other things.

The other thing that I often think about -- and actually have since I first learn that over time climate does change, whatever the cause -- is that climate change is inevitable in the long run. And shorter cycles can play hell on humans. I'm currently reading a book about the Little Ice Age, which is fascinating. Basically (for those who don't already know about it) Europe cooled down for about 400 years, and depending on how exactly you calculate it, we only came out of it either in the 18th or mid-19th Century. I just got done reading a section detailing the erratic swings of weather during the 14th century. I also learned about storm surges along the Dutch and German coasts in 1200, 1212-19, 1287, and 1362, which are called "long-forgotten disasters the rivaled the worst in modern-day Bangladesh", and at least 100,000 people died in these surges. (The book is The Little Ice Age, How Climate Made History 1300-1850, by Brian Fagan).

My point is not that current climate changes are trivial or aren't man-made, but that because individual human lifetimes are relatively short, and we tend not to understand the basic fact that climate does change.

I agree that an appropriate energy policy is the first thing. Even if the use of fossil fuels has absolutely nothing to do with the current warming, the absolute fact is that we will someday run out of those fossil fuels. Plus, they are not the most efficient source of energy, and the cost of extracting those fuels may have reached an intolerable point. The current spill in the Gulf Coast being only one of many.

[madrchsod]

3. third wettest july since 1871 here in northern illinois...

http://blog.chicagoweathercenter.com/2010/07/2-day-break-in-muggy-air-coming-to-an-end-temps-headed-back-to-90.html

and july is`t over......

[Javaman]

4. It's not just global warming, it's also climate change.

Last year, here in Austin, we had one of the hotest dryest summers ever. It was almost unbearable. 90 plus days over 100. And a few over 110. Not a drop of rain for over 3 months. It was hellish.

This year, I think we had only a handful of days at or over 100. We are having rain right as I speak. Even in "normal times" rain in July was an event.

The weather is now set permanently to freaky.

As our earth begins to cook in earnest, things will get stranger and stranger.

(spell check is acting odd, so I apologize for my spelling)

[SheilaT]

5. The other thing about climate change

(which is really what's going on, not just warming) is that we're entering a period of less stable weather all around. And from the books about climate that I've read, it's also possible that all of a sudden the changes could trigger a major ice age. It used to be thought that the cooling trends in the past ice ages took a very long time to happen, but recent research has shown that some ice ages basically happened in a decade or so.

Weather instability of any kind can cause vast changes, especially to crop growing or habitability of certain places, that can also cause social and political instability. Not good.