Category: Climate science

State of the climate 2011: extreme heat our fault

This year’s State of the Climate report [PDF], covering 2011, was published yesterday, and has made headline news around the world because of its focus on weather extremes. Can we blame some of the extremes of heat and heavy rain on continued warming? The answer — based on a new global effort to look at attribution of six of 2011’s extreme events — is yes. However, Dr Peter Dr Peter Stott, Head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution at the Met Office, and one of the lead authors of the extremes research said:

… we didn’t find evidence that climate change has affected the odds of all the extreme weather events we looked at, [but] we did see that some events were significantly more likely. Overall we’re seeing that human influence is having a marked impact on some types of extreme weather.

The UK Met Office summarised some of the key findings:

  • December 2010 was the second coldest and November 2011 the second warmest in the Central England temperature record dating back to 1659. The extreme warm average temperature in November 2011 is 60 times more likely to have occurred than in the 1960s. The change in odds of the extremely cold December was considerably less, however, being only about half as likely. Even without climate change, unusual circulation patterns can still bring very cold winter months.
  • In 2011, Texas had its hottest and driest summer in records dating back to 1895. While the heat wave was associated with La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean, the heat wave was 20 times more likely in such conditions than it would have been only 50 years ago.
  • There were some remarkable temperatures across Western Europe in 2011. Comparisons to the temperatures previously associated with the weather patterns seen in 2011 reveal the year was almost 1.5 deg C warmer than can be attributed to weather patterns alone.

The paper dealing with the attribution exercise, Explaining Extreme Events Of 2011 From A Climate Perspective, by Peterson et al (BAMS, July 2012, pdf here) is well worth a read.

Below the fold: the full abstract of the State Of The Climate 2011 report – an excellent short form overview of the year…

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You’ll see with your own eyes

An interesting piece in the Huffington Post recently reported Mohamed Nasheed, former President of the Maldives, warning the United States: “You can’t pick and choose on science.” The Maldives is one of the most threatened nations in the world from the sea level rise accompanying global warming. While he was President, Nasheed worked to make the country carbon-neutral, as reported on Hot Topic a couple of years ago. That won’t save the Maldives, of course, but it will at least show willing to do what other much larger nations must do to keep climate change within manageable limits. With a population of 300,000-plus, he said his country needs to complete around 200 projects to reach that goal, a process he believes would take about 10 years.

He acknowledges the United States has a bigger challenge, but they need to face up to it.

“It’s going to be difficult for the U.S. to be a world leader unless they themselves embrace it.”

The population of the Maldives see all too clearly the effects of climate change, but Nasheed acknowledges that Americans may need the evidence of their own eyes. They’ll be getting it:

“You will probably see many aberrations in climate patterns. You’ll have to see that and you’ll have to experience that for you to take this thing seriously.”

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Welcome to the rest of our lives

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Here’s an excellent new video from Peter Sinclair, contrasting the recent weather disasters in the USA with the “we’ll adapt” line recently run by ExxonMobil boss Rex Tillerson. It’s a powerful message, to which I would only add one thought: this is only the beginning.

The truth is molten

Extreme weather events are where the climate change rubber hits the road, and if events over the last month are anything to go by, global warming is currently doing doughnuts and burnouts on tarmac right round the globe. Kevin Trenberth put it rather nicely in an interview with PBS Newshour in the US: “This is a view of the future, so watch out.” John Vidal in The Guardian sums up the situation rather well:

…how much more extreme weather does it take for governments and individuals to act, or for the oil companies to withdraw from the Arctic, or the media to link global warming with the events now being witnessed around the world? Must the sea boil, the Seine run dry, New York flood and the London Olympics be consumed by fire before countries are shocked into taking concerted action?

Damn good question.

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This is our planet

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A wonderful video to start the weekend — time-lapse photography from the space station compiled by Tomislav Safundžić. If anyone ever tries to tell you that man’s influence is too puny to affect our great planet, point them at this. The world is littered with our lights, and much else besides. Watch the full HD version at Vimeo for the best effect.