Think this summer is hot? Get used to it

[DainBramaged]

This summer's stifling, deadly heat along the Eastern Seaboard and Deep South could be a preview of summers to come over the next few decades, according to a report about global warming to be published Wednesday by the National Wildlife Federation and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
In fact, according to NWF climate scientist Amanda Staudt, the summer of 2010 might actually be considered mild compared with the typical summers in the future. "We all think this summer is miserable, but it's nothing compared to what's in store for us," she says.


The East just sweltered through one of its hottest Julys on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Monday. Every state from Maine to Florida endured one its top-10 warmest Julys since records began in 1880. Two states, Delaware and Rhode Island, had their hottest July ever.

The report, a supplement to a 2009 report on heat waves, notes that more extremely hot summer days are projected for every part of the country by the year 2050: "Summers like the current one, or even worse, will become the norm by 2050 if global warming pollution continues to increase unabated."

A federal report by the U.S. Global Change Research Program in 2009, which much of this report was based on, found that average temperatures in the USA have increased more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past five decades, largely as the result of emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which are produced by burning fossil fuels

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/extremes/2010-08-1...

[Lebam in LA]

1. Yet here is West Los Angeles

we haven't broken 80 degrees all summer. I had a client tell me yesterday that they were going on vacation to Wisconsin so they could have some summer weather. I am not complaining, I love not having 100 degree weather, but it is very weird this year. I haven't seen a June bug in 2 years.

[theophilus]

6. What is the cool doing for crop production? n/t

[Lebam in LA]

10. Good question

Not sure and will have to check it out.

[pitohui]

22. yeah it was colder than fuck in los angeles the other day

what the--? glad i was just passing thru, frankly

[Kalyke]

11. The June bugs are all on my side porch in Knoxville, TN.

I'll gladly send you a jarful!

[Lebam in LA]

25. You are so very kind

but if its all the same to you, I'll let you keep em. I hate those lil buggers

[Auggie]

2. It's been unusually cold in Northern California

[amborin]

9. it

was 99 in Mt. Shasta not too long ago.....

[Auggie]

15. Mt. Shasta is further inland

I'm referring to about 30/35 miles from the coast

[amborin]

18. yes,

Arcata and environs was cool....

it's also been a cool summer in los angeles, night time temps in the 50s

but we get these every now and then

[Rage for Order]

3. Also from the article...

But can this summer's heat be directly attributed to global warming?

(NWF climate scientist Amanda) Staudt concedes that it can't, as does Chris Fenimore, a physical scientist at the National Climatic Data Center, who was not part of the study: "It's not really possible to pin a single event on climate change."

[hugo_from_TN]

4. Really cool summer here in Oregon

[amborin]

8. cool here in So Cal, supporting the fact that weather does not equal climate

[Subdivisions]

5. The worst thing that could happen to this planet right now is the discovery

of a major new oil field. Considering all the oil discovered in the past 10 years combined doesn't add up to a "major" oil find, thankfully that hasn't happened yet.

[DainBramaged]

7. The worst thing would be alien's attacking

because the fucking Republicans (and every other faction on this rock) wouldn't stop fighting for a second to face the threat.

[Kalyke]

12. Actually, you're not that far off. They've detected an asteroid.

It may impact in 2165. Do you think the political factions can stop arguing in time to pull their resources and divert the thing years before impact?

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk /

[DainBramaged]

14. Now I'm worried about zombie fever, the next big pandemic......

[Kalyke]

19. LOL!!

Well, my 11-year-old son is tired of the vampire craze that has engulfed all the young girls (and, hell, half their mothers) at his school.

Maybe I should tell him to introduce this look.



Brains! Brains!!

[NeedleCast]

24. Come on

Lets report all the facts, yeah? The object you're referring to is this one:

The second object, (101955) 1999 RQ36, currently has non-zero impact probabilities on numerous occasions during the years after 2165. This is analyzed in a paper published by Milani et al. (Icarus, Vol. 203, pp. 460-471, 2009), which is available as here:

Understand that by non-zero, NASA is saying that the chance is so minor that it doesn't even rate a numeric value.

[Kalyke]

28. Let's not miss the point, shall we?

The point is that Republicans would stonewall any amendment to disrupt an asteroid to garner political points.

Man... did you read the preceding points or just come in here to dispute something I heard as an actual teaser on the radio news?

[taught_me_patience]

13. It's barely breaking 70 in Long Beach

Foggy and cool at night. Unusually cool weather here in socal, but I'm loving it.

[Swede]

16. largest area of Earth's surface to experience all-time record high temperatures in any single year i

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Obamanaut]

17. Cyclical. Several 'Little Ice Ages' over the past many hundreds of

years, followed each time by a warming trend.

[NickB79]

26. The Little Ice Age was regional to Europe, not globally

We are now seeing a global warming trend, not a regional one like we've seen in the past. Furthermore, there is no known natural cause found so far that could explain the warming trend we're seeing as a natural, cyclical one.

[Obamanaut]

27. In the period when this little ice age began, and through most of

the cycle, there were not all that many people keeping many records except in Europe.

These two selected links, of the many available, suggest the climate change was global. They also suggest there were cycles within cycles, and this has been ongoing for thousands of years.

http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/little_ic...

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

[NickB79]

29. The IPCC came to a different conclusion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

"Evidence from mountain glaciers does suggest increased glaciation in a number of widely spread regions outside Europe prior to the 20th century, including Alaska, New Zealand and Patagonia. However, the timing of maximum glacial advances in these regions differs considerably, suggesting that they may represent largely independent regional climate changes, not a globally-synchronous increased glaciation. Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries... hemispherically, the "Little Ice Age" can only be considered as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C relative to late 20th century levels.<6>"

As far as record-keeping, the vast majority of climate data comes from things such as isotope studies, ice cores, tree rings, sediment studies, pollen studies, etc, that in total are far more accurate than spotty records kept by people from the same timeframe.

[one_voice]

20. It's been hotter than hell...

here in Delaware. My electric bill is crazy high.

We get a few hot snaps every summer but it seems that's all we've had. This after a winter that produced record snow fall. Delaware isn't known for any kind of extreme weather, we're kinda boring here. But this summer seems to be changing that.

[pitohui]

21. can you imagine this mess?

i just met a man who had purchased an expensive cruise of moscow and up toward finland starting, well, i think he had to leave today

can't imagine they had much success w. "white nights" tourism in russia this year

i used to think the northern world wouldn't give a damn abt global warming, because they'd figure it would HELP them, but actually it's just as bad or worse for them -- i stand amazed at how fast the temps have gone up in the arctic and sub-arctic

maybe we'll be able to work together on this after all

if it was only the south being hurt, not to be cynical, but i just didn't believe that any action would be taken, i think that's why we didn't take action for most of the 90s and 00s, the feeling is, "oh this affects the southern, poor countries, a bit more dengue and malaria there? who would even notice?"

let it affect some important northern cities and maybe the world will wake up...a woman from moscow told me that EVERY FAN was sold out, at every store, just can't picture it, she took the wiser course of just leaving the country instead of a fruitless search for cooling

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. Note to all the people saying 'but it's been really cool here on the West Coast':

Read about prevailing winds, the rotation of the Earth, and general continental climate patterns sometime. I'm in the UK, off the west coast of Europe; being on the western side of a continental landmass and in the path of prevailing oceanic air currents means comparatively cooler climates to those that prevail on the eastern coasts of continents, especially at higher latitudes. There have been maybe 14 days total so far this summer when the temperature where I am has been much above 70F; and yet 1500 miles away, in Russia, they have brutal, punishing, record-breaking heat of 95F for days and weeks on end, drought, and rampant wildfires.

[lunatica]

30. The Bay Area has been cool all Summer

We've had days on end where it doesn't even make it into the 70s. Lots and lots of fog that keeps the weather very cool. This week we're in the 70s.