"Eye-Popping" Record Temperatures Soar: This Is What Climate Change Looks Like In The United States

[Better Believe It]

Unprecedented, "Eye-Popping" Temperatures Soar, Highs Continue
Climate scientist: "This is to me the most unusual weather event I've witnessed in my lifetime."
by Common Dreams staff
March 20, 2012

People from the Midwest and Northeast have been stepping out to record-setting temperatures this month. Meteorologists are calling the temperatures unprecedented.

Deke Arndt, who leads the climate monitoring branch of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., said, “This will be a March event that we’ll look back on as one of the big March events of modern history.” And Jonathan Martin, chairman of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UW-Madison, adds, "This is to me the most unusual weather event I've witnessed in my lifetime."

Weather maps show many areas with temperatures at 30 degrees above normal days in a row.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/20-5


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90 Degrees in Winter: This Is What Climate Change Looks Like
by Bill McKibben
March 20, 2012

The National Weather Service is kind of the anti–Mike Daisey, a just-the-facts operation that grinds on hour after hour, day after day. It’s collected billions of records (I’ve seen the vast vaults where early handwritten weather reports from observers across the country are stored in endless rows of ledgers and files) on countless rainstorms, blizzards and pleasant summer days. So the odds that you could shock the NWS are pretty slim.

Beginning in mid-March, however, its various offices began issuing bulletins that sounded slightly shaken. “There’s extremes in weather, but seeing something like this is impressive and unprecedented,” Chicago NWS meteorologist Richard Castro told the Daily Herald. “It’s extraordinarily rare for climate locations with 100+ year long periods of records to break records day after day after day,” the office added in an official statement.

It wasn’t just Chicago, of course. A huge swath of the nation simmered under bizarre heat. International Falls, Minnesota, the “icebox of the nation,” broke its old temperature records—by twenty-two degrees, which according to weather historians may be the largest margin ever for any station with a century’s worth of records. Winner, South Dakota, reached 94 degrees on the second-to-last day of winter. That’s in the Dakotas, two days before the close of winter. Jeff Masters, founder of WeatherUnderground, the web’s go-to site for meteorological information, watched an eerie early morning outside his Michigan home and wrote, “This is not the atmosphere I grew up with,” a fact confirmed later that day when the state recorded the earliest F-3 strength tornado in its history. Other weathermen were more… weathermanish. Veteran Minneapolis broadcaster Paul Douglas, after noting that Sunday’s low temperature in Rochester broke the previous record high, blogged “this is OFF THE SCALE WEIRD even for Minnesota.”

It’s hard to overstate how impossible this weather is—when you have nearly a century and a half of records, they should be hard to break, much less smash. But this is like Barry Bonds on steroids if his steroids were on steroids, an early season outbreak of heat completely without precedent in its scale and spread. I live in Vermont, where we should be starting to slowly thaw out—but as the heat moved steadily east, ski areas shut down and golf courses opened.

Read the full article at:

http://www.thenation.com/article/166917/90-degrees-winter-what-climate-change-looks


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Record-breaking dead heat in Illinois for both polls and temperature
Bill McKibben for Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
March 20, 2012

Today may mark the seventh straight day of 80 degree temperatures at O'Hare, something that's never happened before in March. Or in April, for that matter. "It is extraordinarily rare for climate locations with 100+ year-long periods of records to break records day after day after day," the local office of the National Weather Service said in a statement on Sunday morning, following a Saint Patrick's Day that shattered 141 years of records.

And the Windy City is not alone. In International Falls, which threatened suit when a Colorado city tried to steal its "Nation's Icebox" moniker, the mercury went to 77 degrees on Saturday — which was 42 degrees above average, and 22 degrees above the old record. It's possible, according to weather historian Christopher Burt, that no station with a century of weather data has ever broken a mark by that much.

Here's how Jeff Masters, founder of the website WeatherUnderground and probably the internet's most widely read meteorologist, put it from his Michigan base: "As I stepped out of my front door into the pre-dawn darkness I braced myself for the cold shock of a mid-March morning. It didn't come. A warm, murky atmosphere, with temperatures in the upper fifties — 30 degrees above normal – greeted me instead. Continuous flashes of heat lightning lit up the horizon, as the atmosphere crackled with the energy of distant thunderstorms. I looked up at the hazy stars above me, flashing in and out of sight as lightning lit up the sky, and thought, this is not the atmosphere I grew up with."

For 25 years climatologists have been telling us to expect exactly this kind of weather — such extremes become ever more likely as we warm the planet. It's not just heat; it's also drought and flood. Last year the US suffered through more multi-billion-dollar weather disasters than any other year in history. And it's not just the US — in 2010, the world's largest insurance company said there was no way to explain the rapid planetary spike in extreme weather except for global warming.

Read the full article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/20/us-heatwave-climate-change-republicans?intcmp=122


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Record streak of records ends, but more on the way
by SAMARA KALK DERBY | Wisconsin State Journal & BILL NOVAK | The Capital Times
March 20, 2012

The record-tying streak of record high temperatures ended on Monday in Madison, but record warmth is forecast to return for three more days this week.

"This is to me the most unusual weather event I've witnessed in my lifetime," Jonathan Martin, chairman of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UW-Madison, said in an interview.

Before this month, Madison's weather history had recorded only five days in March where the temperature climbed past 80 degrees. In the last week alone, there have been three, he said.

"This is simply unprecedented," Martin said. "I think that the longevity of this particular warm streak, the time of year it comes at, and the record high temperatures that we've set, are simply remarkable."

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/record-streak-of-records-ends-but-more-on-the-way/article_c51c94c4-7224-11e1-a330-001871e3ce6c.html


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WGN-TV Chicago meteorologist Tom Skilling:

"An unheard of seventh consecutive record-level temperature is forecast Tuesday, and Wednesday is likely to bring an eighth," Skilling says. "On the verge of replacement Tuesday is March 20's 91-year-old record high of 76 degrees set in 1921. The day's predicted late June-level high of 83 degrees would be an eye-popping 35 degrees above normal."

http://www.wgntv.com/news/local/breaking/chi-skilling-eyepopping-first-day-of-spring-20120320,0,4618341.story?track=rss

WZZM Michigan: Warmest March day ever forecast Tuesday

For the past week, West Michigan's basked in record warmth. Temperatures have skyrocketed 35 degrees above average into the 70s and even low 80s, feeling more like June than mid March.

Tuesday is the first day of spring, but it will feel more like summer with a temperature reading we've never seen in March. The 13 On Target Weather team is forecasting a high of 86 degrees today in Grand Rapids. That would be not only a record high for the date, but the warmest temperature ever in the month of March.

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/205373/2/Warmest-March-day-ever-forecast-Tuesday

[msongs]

1. so, how was last winter? oh, nevermind lol nt

[Better Believe It]

4. It was cold sometimes and we got some snow in the north. Well, we're suppose to! It was winter!

But, we didn't even get an inch of snow this winter and we're nearly 5,000 feet up in a "valley"!

It's been in the 70's here this "winter".

[Hugabear]

6. Do you deny that climate change is currently going on?

There's a reason why it's usually called "global warming".

Generally speaking, average global temperatures are going up. That doesn't mean that EVERYWHERE on the planet is seeing rising temps, and it doesn't mean that we won't have winters with unusually cold temps. Indeed, one of the effects of climate change is wild fluctuations in seasonal temperatures in some areas, and some areas may see colder than usual temps.

[Better Believe It]

16. Thanks for the clear explanation on how this climate change impacts temperatures.

[onlyadream]

23. I think the global warning means extreme weather

So, for us in the NE last year it was a severe winter, this year a very mild winter. Extreme.

[RobertEarl]

9. Last winter was extremely cold

Extreme temperatures are what we were told to expect as global warming got warmer and causing climate changes.

I am liking this GW. Love it or leave it. The climate change, however will not be enjoyable, what with all the extremes.

For now, what is causing this heat wave is that a very strong and persistent high pressure system over the Atlantic is bringing the Easter winds to the USA much earlier.

That's why they call it Easter, because the east winds overcome the frigid north winds every year about this time, only this year extremely early.

[eShirl]

22. No, they call it Easter because

of the ancient pagan holiday in honor of the goddess of dawn/spring

[tex-wyo-dem]

33. Exactly...the name "Easter" has nothing to do...

With the wind direction.

Easter is actually the ancient pagan celebration of the spring equinox.

[FSogol]

36. I think he means "easterly."

easterly
east·er·ly
adjective, adverb, noun, plural -lies.

adjective
1. moving, directed, or situated toward the east: an easterly course.
2. (especially of a wind) coming from the east: an easterly gale.

adverb
3. toward the east.
4. from the east.

Nothing to do with "Easter."

[siligut]

47. With a lower case "e" easter can mean just a wind from the east.

2. easter - a wind from the east
east wind, easterly
levanter - an easterly wind in the western Mediterranean area
air current, current of air, wind - air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure; "trees bent under the fierce winds"; "when there is no wind, row"; "the radioactivity was being swept upwards by the air current and out into the atmosphere"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Easter

[FSogol]

50. How would you use it without "-ly" on the end?

Works as "a nor'easter or northeaster"

[siligut]

53. The easter blew my umbrella right out of my hand?

I agree with you, it isn't in common use, but it isn't wrong either.

[SOS]

45. Last winter? About average (since 1895)

Data from December 2010 - March 2011 for contiguous 48 states:

Dec 2010 - Mar 2011
4-month period: 35.09°F
Average since 1895: 35.37°F
Departure: -0.28°F

Source: NOAA

Last winter was a pretty normal winter in the US based on data collected since 1895.

[stuntcat]

54. ty

oh but if the northeast gets a wet snowy winter again next year it will turn most of our good and learned citizens against the majority of the world's scientists. Weather will make up the geniuses' minds.

not just saying stuff, mark my word. And remember in 2040 exactly who was fighting the environmentalists.

[Better Believe It]

58. According to your chart, 2012 was the third warmest winter since 1895. And your point is?

And the four month figures including March 2012 temperatures haven't been tabulated yet!

So this could easily be the warmest December-March winter temperatures ever recorded.

Do you have a chart on the snowfall in the states that normally have snow in the winter?

[SOS]

69. The point was as response to post #1

Post #1 asks "what about last winter"?

I just wanted to point out that the trend is up 1.7 degrees F. since 1895.

Just because last winter was about average since 1895, it doesn't change the 112 year trend.

Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been.

[Better Believe It]

70. OK Thanks for the clarification.

[yardwork]

67. You see that red "trend" line that is steadily increasing?

[bvar22]

49. How was last Winter?

The warmest Winter since 1951 here in Central Arkansas (Dec. - Feb.), with several records for warmest daily Winter temps.

This is scaring us.
Last year sucked, though we did much better than most of the other locals.
If THIS is the New Normal, this country is in a lot of trouble.

We are already planning our Veggie Garden in expectation of another Heat/Drought Summer.

*Selecting Heat/Drought resistant hybrids

*Early seed starts (Hoping we don't get the normal late April frost)

*Experimenting with planting some things in partial shade,
and some tomatoes in overhead shade (11AM - 2PM) with optimized breeze cooling

*Fast Ripening Tomatoes, hoping to harvest before the daytime heat goes over 95

*More beans (Black, Green, Purple Hulls, Field Peas...) and other heat/drought tolerant crops

*Simplifying our irrigation plan, and organizing it around conserving and maximizing the use of water.

[salin]

66. Extreme.

Not in temperatures but in volatility. A series of storms brought 2 inches of ice. In my lifetime (decades), unprecedented.

[Xipe Totec]

2. This isn't hell, and it isn't hot...

[femmocrat]

3. We are in the 80s in western PA.

I hate the heat! I know there is no way to predict, but if we are having May in March, will we have July in May? What will summer be like? :augh:

The TV weather-person just said this is the 5th warmest March in history, but the others were decades ago. So, I'm not sure if that means global warming is the cause of our unseasonably warm winter.

I just know I wish it would rain....

[smirkymonkey]

59. The flowering trees are already in bloom in NYC and there are

little green buds forming on the other deciduous trees. You never see this until mid to late April. Even daffodils and other spring flowers are blooming in the parks. Very pretty, but kind of makes me worried that we'll have a scorcher of a summer.

[RKP5637]

5. Makes one wonder what the future holds, this, was certainly not in the forecast. I also wonder

what the tornadic activity will be like this season.

[FreeState]

7. Not everwere - barely reached 60 here the last 4 days (San Diego) n/t

[Art_from_Ark]

34. And here in southeastern Japan, it's been a little colder than normal

This winter, we had at least 4 snowfall events, with snow on the ground for 10-14 days in some places after one of those events-- very unusual. It's supposed to be 50 degrees F outside right now, but the wind chill is making it seem like it's in the 30s. Brrr.

[Juneboarder]

43. Seriously!

I'm in the SD area as well, and it is SO WEIRD that we are colder than my family over in Michigan right now.

[al bupp]

8. Two words for this...

Climate Change

[caseymoz]

31. But there's a solar maximum, too.

And it's a record-setting one. So, it's not all global warming.

Man, with the two of them, it's going to be a terrible summer.

[Gregorian]

10. THE PLANET HAS A FEVER.

Anyone who says a couple of degrees is no big deal needs to think about it this way. When you have a 102 degree fever, it's not a big temperature change. But it can be deadly.

[Canuckistanian]

11. We beat the record here in Ottawa, Canada

Shattered it, actually. The previous record was 15 degrees C (59F). Today reached 26C (78.8F)

This is scary to us here. Too much heat, too fast.

[Octafish]

12. ''This is not the atmosphere I grew up with.''

No problem. The wealthy have redoubts in Paraguay and Switzerland.

[ProSense]

13. Remember

how close we came:

House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change

By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — The House passed legislation on Friday intended to address global warming and transform the way the nation produces and uses energy.

The vote was the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change. The legislation, which passed despite deep divisions among Democrats, could lead to profound changes in many sectors of the economy, including electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

The bill’s passage, by 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats voting against it, also established a marker for the United States when international negotiations on a new climate change treaty begin later this year.

At the heart of the legislation is a cap-and-trade system that sets a limit on overall emissions of heat-trapping gases while allowing utilities, manufacturers and other emitters to trade pollution permits, or allowances, among themselves. The cap would grow tighter over the years, pushing up the price of emissions and presumably driving industry to find cleaner ways of making energy.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/politics/27climate.html

That was almost three years ago.

[Zalatix]

14. Cap and trade sucks.

How about CAP... period.

[ProSense]

15. That's

"Cap and trade sucks."

...your opinion. If I could go back in time and had the power to change things, I'd ensure Kerry-Boxer passed, and that both bills made it to the President's desk.

[Zalatix]

17. I prefer cap, period. Why should we be allowed to outsource our pollution elsewhere?

[ProSense]

21. Whatever works

It worked before, or I should way, would have worked. As it stands now, we are where we are.

[Zalatix]

24. This is what I fear about Cap and Trade

I fear that it will be abused, particularly to allow some countries to lower their pollution by outsourcing it to other countries, thereby increasing pollution in a poorer nation and destroying their standard of living in the long term; and thus reducing or even eliminating the intended benefits.

It is an outrageously complicated attempt to bargain with the Free Market Satan and I fear it will not work.

A hard core cap is expensive as hell, but so is all that pollution.

[Muskypundit]

25. You know what really wont work?

Doing nothing. Purists will be the end of the world.

[FSogol]

37. +1 n/t

[Selatius]

39. The world is already doomed to climate change according to experts.

The consensus belief among scientists polled is that we're going to miss the target of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celcius by 2100. That level of temperature change is approaching catastrophe levels for the earth's biosphere, and the worst case scenarios are twice that increase. Most of them believe between 3C and 4C are more likely outcomes.

Cap and trade is better than doing nothing, but it's a bit like employing a knife when you're dealing with a whole army of soldiers trying to kill you. We need to do a lot more than that.

[bvar22]

51. No.

"Centrists" masquerading as "Democrats"
who are perfectly willing to follow the Right Wing over the "bi-partisan" cliff,
and THEN calling THAT "progress" will be the death of us all.
QED: The Last 25 years

Centrism...because its so EASY!
You don't have to STAND for ANYTHING,
and get to insult those who DO!



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[Muskypundit]

55. If cap and trade legislation came to your desk

Having BARELY passed, would you veto it?

I would love to see something stronger than cap and trade, like just... Cap, but when 60% of this stupid country either doesn't know, care, or believe that temperatures in Minnesota shouldn't be in the 70s first week of spring.... I would think you should take what you get.

[ProSense]

56. The

bill was supported by 217 Democrats. Heath Shuler and other "'Centrists' masquerading as 'Democrats' who are perfectly willing to follow the Right Wing over the 'bi-partisan' cliff" voted against it. So in that sense, you're right.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll466.xml

[RC]

18. I can barely wait till this Summer.

It got to 110°F around Kansas City last Summer. What is this Summer going to be like, if it is this warm now already? We hardly had a Winter to speak of.

Temps hit 107 at KCI — and 111 in southern Johnson County
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/02/3053268/temps-hit-107-at-kci-and-111-in.html

[MikeOlsen]

19. From the Right Wing University of Minnesota Dept of weather is not climate

Minnesota's "Year Without a Winter" 1877-1878

The Winter of 1997-1998 will go down in history of one of the warmest ever. However, the Winter of 1877-1878 was definitely the mildest of the post-settlement era.

State Climatologist, Jim Zandlo prepared the following summary of the 1877-1878 Winter in the aftermath of another mild Winter, 1986-1987. Responding to questions resulting from that modern-day temperate Winter, Jim's investigation shows us that nothing is new under the sun!

Farmers near Minneapolis were plowing fields until late December 1878. But in spite of the general warmth, three days with subzero temperatures in early January 1878 froze the Mississippi River in Saint Paul so that it was closed for navigation until the 28th of February. After January 7 only three days through the remainder of the 'cool' season would experience single digit temperatures or lower.

The "Monthly Weather Review" from February 1878 reported prairie fires in Minnesota, Dakota, and Kansas. In that same month active insects in Iowa, grasses sprouting in Dakota, and the ice cover in Duluth harbor broken up by heavy winds were all reported.

The continuing warmth of March 1878 allowed the first boat arrival in Duluth on the 17th. From research done by naturalist Jim Gilbert, Lake Minnetonka ice is known to have gone out at the earliest date on record, March 11, some 35 days earlier than its median ice-out date of April 15.

The winter of 1877-78 while warmest of record at Minneapolis-St. Paul, was not a dry winter. The months of December 1877 through February 1878 saw 3.09 inches of precipitation. For comparison, the full record average for December through February is 2.71 inches.

No simple rule depicts what will follow dry or warm winters; the range of precipitation which can follow in the warm season is large and but has average values which are very nearly the same as all other winters. The perception that 'a drought follows a dry winter' probably reflects the fact that less snow melt would be available to recharge soil moisture in the springs following dry winters.

http://climate.umn.edu/doc/journal/wint77_78.html

[Devil_Fish]

20. it's all just them tree huggers tricking us!!!

There are holding a lighter under all the thermometers so that we think it's gettin hotter.

[FedUpWithIt All]

26. I've been hearing people say they are loving the weather.

Wonder how much they'd like it if it was 30 degrees higher than an average summer day. People are fools.

[caseymoz]

29. I'm loving the weather, too.

But I ask people, "Are you enjoying this great, creepy weather we've been having?"

It's ominous, but I'll point as as I did below, we also have a record solar peak going right now, with the sun throwing out huge flares. So, it could be the hotter sun, too.

[Historic NY]

27. First near snowless winter I've ever experienced.......

Halloween was the biggest & earliest storm of the season over a foot....the rest were trace to a couple inches of slush for a maybe 12 inches from Nov. 1 - March 21st. Its 55 degress and I have all my windows open tomorow another 80 degree day. Strange indeed.

[caseymoz]

30. I think the winter here, we had five inches.

The average is over twenty.

[caseymoz]

28. Wait! But we also have a record solar peak.

Have you heard about all those solar flares? The huge borealis?

I think it's mostly climate change, too, but be prepared for skeptics to point out that the sun has quite a fever now, too.

[Historic NY]

35. Well they can't blame the shuttle or NASA....

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that one over the years.

[caseymoz]

41. The sun being hotter is a much more likely factor.

You have to admit, that one actually makes sense. I'll expect to hear it from my brother when he's in town Friday.

But you could also point out that there have been other solar maximums, and this never happened. This is unprecedented.

[Lugnut]

32. It was 72 here today.

I'm in the Pocono Mountains of NE PA. The forecast is calling for warmer temps tomorrow and Thursday. My daffodils are in full bloom a month ahead of schedule.

[NotThisTime]

68. 80 in Burlington Vermont, a near snowless winter..... It's been like this all week

I have to say the weather is perfect at 80 and dry, I hope the summer is as good....

[Better Believe It]

38. The View From the ‘Catio’

The following article may be posted in full on Democratic Underground with attribution. BBI

Week in Review
A Weekly Column by Bill Onasch
March 20, 2012

The View From the ‘Catio’

That’s the trendy name for a second-story covered front porch that a carpenter friend screened in so that my wife’s four cats can safely romp–or sleep–in fresh air. Since it is also a designated smoking area, weather permitting I spend a fair amount of time with the cats out there reflecting on the state of the world.

Over the past few weeks I couldn’t help noticing the first daffodils flowering, robins battling over this year’s turf--and grass already overdue for mowing. The only problem with these idyllic first signs of Spring–it was still Winter and I live in the Midwest. It was a Winter that required me to pick up the snow shovel only once. And, at a time when basketball tournaments are often accompanied by the season’s biggest snows, we basked in record-breaking high temperatures exceeding 80F last week.

These unseasonable conditions are, of course, not a fluke confined to Kansas City. So far in March, 1,757 new daily high temperature records have been set in the USA including new ones in 36 states just last Thursday.

Admittedly, most of us urban dwellers in these parts have not directly suffered from snow scarcity and warm temps. But these conditions are producing swollen numbers of insects that kill corn and trees and devour key structural parts of wood-framed houses.

Other regions have experienced different and less pleasant extremes. The first three months of 2012 have seen twice the normal number of tornadoes. Many of these have been of exceptional and deadly force.

States west of the Continental Divide got plenty of frigid Arctic air that evaded the rest of us. Snow too. While Kansas City got only a record paltry 3.9 inches of snow, the temperate port city of Anchorage, Alaska has so far seen eleven feet of the stuff–creating a load of a quarter of a million tons to be hauled away by overwhelmed street crews.

Now some readers may be saying, “there he goes again–complaining about weather.” I did indeed speak and write about extreme weather--last year. In a KC Labor Forum presentation entitled Climate Change Comes to the Ozarks last June I said,

“Unexpected freak weather incidents have always been a part of the human experience. Meteorologists will tell you that it’s difficult to prove a direct connection between any specific incident to climate. But when you start getting reports of unusual extreme events on a regular basis across the planet then it is time to give credibility to the predictions of climate scientists that climate change includes more common, more frequent, more intense weather related disaster. The top climate expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently told a reporter, ‘Looking at some of the modern trends, we've seen increases in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, drawing a direct link between what's happening in the Midwest and global warming.’”

Weather is one topic that is always thoroughly covered by the mass media. Since NBC acquired the Weather Channel, Brian Williams has a weather segment every evening on the national Nightly News. The meteorologists appearing still offer the same superficial explanations for extreme weather–el Nino, la Nina, jet stream, etc--usually leading to circular restatements of effect rather than explanation of cause.

As years of unfamiliar weather patterns pass they can no longer be called “unseasonable.” The quantitative accumulation of weather statistics reveals a qualitative change in seasons–climate–has begun. The only thing we can count on is instability. More and faster change is coming.

The fundamental force altering el Nino, la Nina, the jet stream, and other weather engines throughout the world, is global warming resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, the warming term refers to the global average temperature. Within the range leading to the average will be places getting at least temporarily colder. While much of North America had a much warmer winter most of Europe suffered unusually brutal cold and snow.

There’s an old saw: weather–everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it. Except for such ethically questionable practices as cloud seeding, there’s nothing much we can do to control day-to-day weather. But climate shapes weather and we can do something about the destructive human practices that are changing the climate and weather patterns that are vital to sustaining human civilization.

Unlike the USA and Canada, most of the governments of the European Union have acknowledged climate science findings on global warming and have adopted goals to reduce emissions. They have even created a new post of Chief Scientific Adviser tasked to regularly report to the EU President on progress.

The first appointee to this position–Scottish molecular biologist Anne Glover–has made a less than inspiring initial report. “It has been extremely disappointing to see many member states cut back on their emission reduction efforts because they say 'we're going through a recession',” she said.

She continues, “Make no mistake, if we had unabated man-made climate change, we would go through an absolutely horrible period of conflict and migration, until the world's population started diminishing very rapidly.”

This plain-speaking scientist deserves our applause. In the short term, however, the “dismal science” of market economics will likely trump climate science within EU governments–as in North America. The scientists need some mass opinion and action on their side.

When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced they were awarding the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry to the team of F. Sherwood Rowland, Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen, they said the three “contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences.” This was not just hype. They had discovered that CFCs, once widely used in aerosols and refrigeration systems, were creating a hole in the ozone layer that protects us from UV radiation. Like today’s climate scientists, they were viciously attacked by corporate interests. But, after eventually winning not only scientific consensus but also broad popular support, nearly every country agreed to phase out CFCs. Today the ozone layer is largely restored.

In 1962, Rachel Carson published a book that is generally credited with launching the environmental movement in the USA. It was certainly an eye-opener for me. It exposed the collateral damage of agricultural pesticides and stirred an outcry that eventually led to the ban of DDT in the United States. Referring to the mass kills of birds, she entitled it The Silent Spring.

Perhaps we can utilize the palpable transformation of our seasons to begin to ignite a sense of urgency about the issue of climate change and expose what’s behind The Early Spring.

http://www.kclabor.org/wir3202012.htm

KCLabor
Copyright Issues. The original content we provide is now copyrighted and may not be reproduced by commercial media without our consent. However, labor movement and other nonprofit media may reproduce with attribution.

http://www.kclabor.org/good&welfare.htm

[truebrit71]

40. Loved the Bill McKibben article...

...

[raouldukelives]

42. We'd better hurry and max out our stock holdings.

Might not be much time left to make a bundle of cash helping corporations destroy what is left of our environment.
Wall St will thank us for our continued assistance and understanding even if our grandchildren will know we were monsters. They didn't live it so they have no frame of reference. Money is our raison d'etre.

[pipi_k]

44. We should be up

to our knees, still, in snow where I am.

It's been incredibly warm, and my mini roses are starting to bud, the grass is growing already, the lilacs and forsythia are budding also. This is especially odd considering that we have a "micro climate" that is usually seven to ten degrees cooler than that in the nearby (20 miles) city and five degrees cooler than that in the town at the base of our hill.

I marched a few times in one of the large St Patricks Day parade some 40+ years ago when it was so cold I thought we would get frostbite. At this year's parade, people were in shirtsleeves.

Forty years. That's a drop in the bucket, climate-wise...



PS...and my seasonal allergies have been a pain right through winter this year.

[DLevine]

46. Climate change is real.

I'm old, so it probably won't be affecting me that much. But I fear for our kids & grandkids.

[fascisthunter]

48. and Doing Nothing means doing the same crap we have done all along

increase manufacturing to increase profits without regulating the pollution it causes. Sending our jobs else where so the already well off can reap more profits and skirt regulations to curb polution and improve working conditions with a decent wages. Yuh, call me a purist(a dumb slam), but doing nothing is to continue down a path which is unsustainable and is just plain stupid/insane.

Time for all of us "purists" to put a lid on crazy.

[Marrah_G]

52. It is HOT out here in Boston

We have not had a Winter. Only a few flakes of snow. I've turned on my heat 3 times.

[Uncle Joe]

57. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Better Believe It.

[WonderGrunion]

60. Climate change? More like a cold day in hell.

Look a BBI OP that doesn't bash Obama. I better check for other signs of the apocalypse.

[Better Believe It]

61. After Illinois, Santorum Gets Wackier on Global Warming

After Illinois, Santorum Gets Wackier on Global Warming
By Matthew Rothschild
March 21, 2012

In his rambling concession speech after the Illinois primary Tuesday night, Rick Santorum got even wackier than usual on the issue of global warming.

First he mocked those who take global climate change seriously.

“When times were tough and people thought, well, all this oil and gas and coal in the ground is all a source of carbon dioxide, and we can’t take that out of the ground because, well, there’s a finite supply and it could damage our environment and cause global warming, when those who profess manmade global warming and climate science convinced many, many Republicans, including two who are running for president on the Republican ticket, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, there was one who said: I know this isn’t climate science. This is political science.”

The know-nothings in his crowd cheered that line, and Santorum went on to denounce government efforts to limit global warming: “This was another attempt of those who want to take power away from you and control your access to energy, your utilization, whether it’s in your car or in your home, of energy, because they are better to make these decisions about how you use energy than you do. That’s what they believe.”

Read the full article at:

http://www.progressive.org/santorum_gets_wackier_on_global_warming.html

[uponit7771]

62. Live in Nor Texas, first time I've had the AC on during winter

[RebelOne]

63. It has been the 80s here in North Georgia for 9 days now.

I usually do not have to turn on my AC until the beginning of June, but I have had it on for the past week.

[Bladian]

64. I go to school in NY and live in CA.

This summer is gonna be nasty. Thank god I have a pool I'd roast otherwise.

[Better Believe It]

65. Another record high temperature set Wednesday in Chicago

Another record high temperature set Wednesday
Sun-Times Media Wire
March 21, 2012


Chicago’s rare March heat wave broke yet another record Wednesday, the eighth day in a row in which the record high for the day was either broken or tied.

The official temperature as of 11 a.m. at O’Hare International Airport was 80 degrees, which breaks the previous high temperature for March 21 -- 77 degrees -- set in 1938, the National Weather Service said.

And the day will only get warmer, with an expected high temperature of 84 degrees, according to the weather service.

The official high for Tuesday was 85 degrees, breaking the previous record for that date, 76 degrees, set in 1921. That reading was also the third warmest March temperature ever to be recorded in Chicago, surpassed only by an 87-degree day on March 31, 1981, and an 88-degree day on March 29, 1986.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/11451380-418/another-record-high-temperature-set-wednesday.html