“The stunning extremes we witnessed gives me concern our climate is showing early signs of insabilit

[RedEarth]

The year of living dangerously. Masters: “The stunning extremes we witnessed gives me concern that our climate is showing the early signs of instability”

Posted By Joe On December 23, 2010 @ 2:15 pm In Extreme Weather | Comments Disabled

A year of deadly record-smashing weather extremes from Nashville to Moscow, from the Amazon to Pakistan, ended with staggering deluges from California — “Rainfall records weren’t just broken, they were obliterated <1>” — to Australia:

More than a year’s rain fell in Carnarvon in just 24 hours this week <2>. A monsoonal low hovering over the Gascoyne dumped a 24-hour record 204.8mm, smashing the previous record of 119.4mm set on March 24, 1923.

NASA reported that it was the hottest ‘meteorological year’ <3> on record and likely to be the hottest calendar year.(RedEarth here....this article is from 12/23/10, and as it turned out 2010 tied for the hottest year on record...so yes it was a very hot year..globally)

Uber-meteorologist and former NOAA Hurricane hunter Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground reported <4>, “The year 2010 now has the most national extreme heat records for a single year–nineteen. These nations comprise 20% of the total land area of Earth. This is the largest area of Earth’s surface to experience all-time record high temperatures in any single year in the historical record.”



This was a year that the scientific literature became clearer that global warming is driving more extreme weather, hell and high water (see Study: Global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse <5>) — and it is likely to get much, much worse if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path (see “A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice <6>” and “Must-read NCAR analysis warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path <7>“).

But this was also very much a year of living dangerously right now for people around the globe:

•Russian President Medvedev: “What is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past.” <8> NYT: “Russia Bans Grain Exports After Drought Shrivels Crop”
•Another extreme drought hits the Amazon, raising climate change concerns <9>
•Juan Cole: The media’s failure to cover “the great Pakistani deluge” is “itself a security threat” to America <10>
•We had Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge <11> aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina’ <12>.
As Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, put it last week, “The term ‘100-year event’ really lost its meaning this year.” Tamino calculates (at length) <13> that global warming made the Moscow heat wave roughly eight times more likely: “Without global warming, this once-in-a-century-or-two event would have been closer to a once-in-a-millenium event.” On our current emissions path, Russia’s grain-export-ending heat wave and drought could be a once every decade event — or even more frequent.



..............more of an outstanding article....here....

http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/23/the-year-of-living-dangerously-masters-weather-extremes-climate-change/print/


.........also....

“Raging Waters In Australia and Brazil Product of Global Warming”

http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/14/abc-news-australia-floods-extreme-weather-global-warming-climate-change/print/

[DCKit]

1. I half expected your headline to read "Instabil... AHHH... OMG... AHHH nt" nt

[tridim]

2. This is what I picture every time I think about melting glaciers..

and the resulting rising water levels. I never picture the water rising on the shores and overtaking the land that way.

The Earth is just trying to cope with the extra water by spreading the moisture out over the entire surface. It'll probably work somewhat, but unfortunately people will die in the process.