81 F. high on Monday in the Twin Cities.
84 F. average high on July 20.
87 F. high on July 20, 2014.
July 20, 1951: Tornado hits Minneapolis and Richfield killing five.
July 20, 1909: 10.75 inches of rain fell in 24 hours at Beaulieu in Mahnomen County. This record would stand for over 50 years. Bagley received an estimated 10 inches.
Earth is a heat machine – a steady fire-hose of solar radiation creates the atmospheric and oceanic circulations that sustain life. 2015 is shaping up as the warmest year on record: atmosphere and oceans.
Biggest El Nino Since 1997-98. At the rate we’re going I wouldn’t be surprised. So far NOAA and other organizations have consistently underestimated the strength of the warming waters in the Pacific. The tweets above show some of the reaction to what oceanographers are tracking. It’s going to be a very interesting fall and winter at the rate we’re going.
Tough New Tornado Panels Take a Stormy Beating. Resilience: how do we make everything we do more weather and climate-resistant, and reinvigorate the economy in the process? Here’s an excerpt from Gizmag: “A tornado hitting your house is no joke, but it’s not always practical to build a shelter just in case the worst should happen. If the thought of jumping into a protective bag doesn’t appeal, a new tough construction panel developed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) could be a good alternative. UAB’s new panels can be retrofitted to existing houses or integrated into new builds, and offer protection even in the most extreme EF5 tornado – that is, in winds over 200 mph (321 km/h)…”
Rome Is On The Verge of Collapse, Warn City Leaders. Great Britain’s The Independent has the story; here’s the introduction: “Rome is on the verge of collapse. That’s the warning given by Giancarlo Cremonesi, the city’s Chamber of Commerce president, who says the Eternal City is at crisis point after years of neglecting its world famous historical landmarks, an immigration crisis and crippling corruption. “Rome is on the verge of collapse. It is unacceptable that a major city which calls itself developed can find itself in such a state of decay.” Mr Cremonesi told Reuters…”
Plastic Road Surface Might Be Streets Ahead of Asphalt. Yes, and maybe nano-robots can one day do all the repairs at night. No orange construction cones. Here’s a clip from gizmag.com: “Asphalt covers more than 94 percent of the paved streets in the US, but have we gone down the wrong road with our choice of building material? Dutch firm VolkerWessels thinks so and has unveiled plans for roads crafted from recycled plastic, claiming the approach would significantly cut construction and maintenance time, as well as extend their expected lifespan...”
Where Are All The Aliens? Quartz asks the question that a lot of astronomers and cosmologists are asking – it’s a little too quiet out there. Then again they may have all sampled reality TV and the comments under all those stupid Instagram cat videos and quickly lost interest. Here’s a clip”…Continuing to speculate, if 1% of intelligent life survives long enough to become a potentially galaxy-colonizing Type III Civilization, our calculations above suggest that there should be at least 1,000 Type III Civilizations in our galaxy alone—and given the power of such a civilization, their presence would likely be pretty noticeable. And yet, we see nothing, hear nothing, and we’re visited by no one. Welcome to the Fermi Paradox…”
Hackers Threaten To Out 37 Million Users of Cheating Website AshleyMadison.com. Note to self: maybe I shouldn’t give my credit card and identity information to a site that condones and encourages adultery. What could possibly go wrong? Here’s an update from Huffington Post: “Hackers have threatened to expose the identities and sensitive information of millions of AshleyMadison.com users unless the online cheating site shutters its doors. AshleyMadison.com (tagline: “Life is short. Have an affair”) boasts more than 37.5 million users worldwide. On Sunday, the hookup site’s owner, the Toronto-based Avid Life Media, confirmed that data had been stolen from the company, including user databases, financial records and other proprietary information…” (File photo: AP Photo/Lee Jin-man).
Husband Films Wife Giving Birth in Traffic. Houston, we have a problem. My water just broke and we’re stuck in rush hour traffic. So let’s give birth in my vehicle and videotape the entire ordeal! The ultimate selfie; courtesy of Huffington Post: “…Jonathan Pettijohn told KHOU-TV in Houston (http://bit.ly/1fTAnxo ) that they didn’t pull over because there was no apparent danger to his wife or the baby. The roughly four-minute video shows him calmly instructing his wife while she screams, “It’s coming out! It’s coming out!” After the birth, he says, “We did it! High-five, babe!…”
TODAY: Spectacularly sunny. Winds: NW 10. High: 81
TUESDAY NIGHT: Clear to partly cloudy. Low: 63
WEDNESDAY: Hazy sun, isolated T-storm possible. High: 83
THURSDAY: Sticky sun, probably puddle-free. Wake-up: 67. High: 87
FRIDAY: Few T-storms likely, some heavy. Wake-up: 70. High: 84
SATURDAY: Hot sun, hit the lakes! Winds: NW 5-10. Wake-up: 71. High: 90
SUNDAY: Sticky sun, T-storms at night. Dew point: 70. Wake-up: 73. High: 92
MONDAY: Steamy sun, few T-storms nearby. Wake-up: 72. High: 89
Climate Stories….
Earth’s Most Famous Climate Scientist Issues Bombshell Sea Level Warning. Here’s an excerpt of a story that is making me rethink coastal property, courtesy of Slate: “In what may prove to be a turning point for political action on climate change, a breathtaking new study casts extreme doubt about the near-term stability of global sea levels. The study—written by James Hansen, NASA’s former lead climate scientist, and 16 co-authors, many of whom are considered among the top in their fields—concludes that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will melt 10 times faster than previous consensus estimates, resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years...” (File photo: Peter Morgan, AP).
A Dire Forecast From Climate Scientist James Hansen. Could sea level rise accelerate to the point where major coastal cities are threatened by the end of the century? Here’s an excerpt from The Daily Beast: “…James Hansen, the former NASA scientist whose congressional testimony put global warming on the world’s agenda a quarter century ago, is now warning that humanity could confront “sea level rise of several meters” before the end of the century unless greenhouse gas emissions are slashed much faster than currently contemplated. This roughly ten feet of sea level rise—well beyond previous estimates—would render coastal cities such as New York, London and Shanghai uninhabitable. “Parts of [our coastal cities] would still be sticking above the water,” Hansen says, “but you couldn’t live there…” (Image: NASA).
For Naval Academy Climate Change Is A Challenge Both Global and Local. The Baltimore Sun has the story – here’s a clip: “…The Pentagon views climate change as a global threat to national security. Carter, now the superintendent at the Naval Academy, told a group of congressmen Friday not only about the challenges he faced on that deployment with the Enterprise strike group, but also how he is dealing with the prospect of rising sea levels and floods as the leader of the elite school for future Navy and Marine Corps officers. “Annapolis is really on the front lines,” said Rep. John Sarbanes, a Democrat whose district includes the city. “There’s no question this is the challenge of our generation...”
Image credit above: “This map shows where flooding could occur in Annapolis in a 100-year flood with a 3.7-foot rise in sea level by 2100.” (Courtesy Image, HANDOUT).
In Greenland Climate Change Is Already Hard At Work. Here’s an excerpt from CBS News: “…The impact has been dramatic in Greenland, the huge ice-covered island between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Almost 8 years ago to the day in 2007, it was 35 degrees below zero on top of Greenland’s vast ice sheet. Strong winds and blowing snow were more the norm for researchers there. This summer, the sun is shining and the ice is thinning; it’s 27 degrees above zero — 62 degrees warmer. Researchers are trying to determine if the warming is a trend…”
“I’m A Republican. I’m Spending $175 Million Of My Own Money To Encourage the GOP to Tackle Climate Change.” Here’s an excerpt of entrepreneur Jay Faison’s Op-Ed at Politico Magazine: “...In my conversations with fellow Republican donors and friends, it’s this last point — reducing emissions — that often produces puzzled looks and awkward silences. Our party’s dialogue about the issue has generated a lot of heat but not much light. I think this is largely due to a few things. First, the left has put forward Big Government, command-and-control climate solutions that scare any true conservative. Second, many liberals have been in denial about the progress the U.S. has already made: Thanks to energy efficiency gains and the shale gas revolution, our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are lower than they were in 1995. This should be something we celebrate…”
When Climate Change Becomes a Climate Catastrophe. We still don’t know what we don’t know. Climate volatility is already spiking storms and creating more extremes in rainfall and heat. But there may be a rash of additional unpleasant and unforseen surprises in the years ahead. Here’s an excerpt of a book review at Bloomberg View: “…
Devastating home fires, car crashes, and other personal catastrophes are almost always much less likely than 10 percent. And still, people take out insurance to cover against these remote possibilities…. Risks like this on a planetary scale should not — must not — be pushed onto society.
Yet action to address the risk is complicated because of what Wagner and Weitzman call the Big Four problems: Any one country’s effort to prevent climate change alone would be ineffective; political systems struggle to address long-term challenges; by the time humanity decides to act aggressively, it may be too late; and the risks are highly uncertain, which makes them easy to dismiss...”
Summer Nights Are Heating Up Across U.S. Some of this is a function of more water in the air. Warmer air can hold more water vapor, which in turn limits how much temperatures can cool at night. Here’s the intro to an explanation at Climate Central: “Global warming often conjures scenes of sweaty, scorching summer days, but daytime temperatures aren’t the only thing expected to rise in a warming world. Nights, too, are expected to get sultrier, with overnight lows not dropping as much as they used to. That trend in increasing nighttime low temperatures is expected to continue for the entire U.S. as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and trap more and more heat. This trend has important human health implications and could affect power systems and agriculture...”
Watching the Global Thermometer – Year to Date GISTemp. 2015 is tracking as the warmest year on record, worldwide, according to HotWhopper. Here’s an excerpt: “…2015 is still tracking as the hottest on record. The years to watch are 2014, 2010 and 2005. I’ve plotted them with slightly thicker lines so they stand out more easily. The coldest year of the lot was 1996, which still ended up more than 0.3°C above the 1950 to 1981 average. The next time someone tries to tell you that “it hasn’t warmed since 1996” then show them this chart :)...”
Heed Climate Change Science Echoed In Call of Faith: Bill Richardson. Here’s an excerpt of an Op-Ed at USA TODAY that got my attention: “…The pope’s very job description gives him access to depths of suffering, spans of time and peaks of human potential that are too vast for most of us to comprehend. So while those of us in less transcendent lines of work squabble about who causes climate change and who should pay for it, Pope Francis cuts through the politics to focus us on what matters most — care for our planet and those most vulnerable to ecological harm…”
* Bill Richardson is the former governor of New Mexico, the Energy Secretary in the Clinton administration, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and leader of Voces Verde.
