DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Is it hot, or what??

Sorry to all the fireworks fans, but I hope it pours tomorrow, so I don't have to deal with two neurotic dogs. They are terrified by the fireworks, even with the windows down and the AC on. Its bad enough I can't calm them down, but they won't even go outside to do their bidness. Guess where they go.

This US summer is 'what global warming looks like'
Associated PressBy SETH BORENSTEIN | Associated Press – 8 hrs ago


WASHINGTON (AP) — If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks.

Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho.

These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change, although it's far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.

Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time. Sometimes it isn't caused by global warming. Weather is always variable; freak things happen.

And this weather has been local. Europe, Asia and Africa aren't having similar disasters now, although they've had their own extreme events in recent years.

But since at least 1988, climate scientists have warned that climate change would bring, in general, increased heat waves, more droughts, more sudden downpours, more widespread wildfires and worsening storms. In the United States, those extremes are happening here and now.

So far this year, more than 2.1 million acres have burned in wildfires, more than 113 million people in the U.S. were in areas under extreme heat advisories last Friday, two-thirds of the country is experiencing drought, and earlier in June, deluges flooded Minnesota and Florida.

"This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level," said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. "The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfire. This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about."

Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in fire-charred Colorado, said these are the very record-breaking conditions he has said would happen, but many people wouldn't listen. So it's I told-you-so time, he said.

As recently as March, a special report an extreme events and disasters by the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of "unprecedented extreme weather and climate events." Its lead author, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University, said Monday, "It's really dramatic how many of the patterns that we've talked about as the expression of the extremes are hitting the U.S. right now."

"What we're seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like," said Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer. "It looks like heat. It looks like fires. It looks like this kind of environmental disasters."

Oppenheimer said that on Thursday. That was before the East Coast was hit with triple-digit temperatures and before a derecho — an unusually strong, long-lived and large straight-line wind storm — blew through Chicago to Washington. The storm and its aftermath killed more than 20 people and left millions without electricity. Experts say it had energy readings five times that of normal thunderstorms.

Fueled by the record high heat, this was one of the most powerful of this type of storm in the region in recent history, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storm Laboratory in Norman, Okla. Scientists expect "non-tornadic wind events" like this one and other thunderstorms to increase with climate change because of the heat and instability, he said.

Such patterns haven't happened only in the past week or two. The spring and winter in the U.S. were the warmest on record and among the least snowy, setting the stage for the weather extremes to come, scientists say.

Since Jan. 1, the United States has set more than 40,000 hot temperature records, but fewer than 6,000 cold temperature records, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Through most of last century, the U.S. used to set cold and hot records evenly, but in the first decade of this century America set two hot records for every cold one, said Jerry Meehl, a climate extreme expert at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This year the ratio is about 7 hot to 1 cold. Some computer models say that ratio will hit 20-to-1 by midcentury, Meehl said.

"In the future you would expect larger, longer more intense heat waves and we've seen that in the last few summers," NOAA Climate Monitoring chief Derek Arndt said.

The 100-degree heat, drought, early snowpack melt and beetles waking from hibernation early to strip trees all combined to set the stage for the current unusual spread of wildfires in the West, said University of Montana ecosystems professor Steven Running, an expert on wildfires.

While at least 15 climate scientists told The Associated Press that this long hot U.S. summer is consistent with what is to be expected in global warming, history is full of such extremes, said John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He's a global warming skeptic who says, "The guilty party in my view is Mother Nature."

But the vast majority of mainstream climate scientists, such as Meehl, disagree: "This is what global warming is like, and we'll see more of this as we go into the future."

___

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on extreme weather:

http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/

U.S. weather records set:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records/

___

Sweet. Now can we drag politics into the Andy Griffith thread, too?

Or maybe its just what we call "summer" ... ya know, what we waited all winter for?

The Sun has been very active this year. Even late February and Early March it was letting off huge eruptions which in turn warms are little Marble. June 18th it has another large eruption and again yesterday it released another one. We can reduce our carbon usage to nil yet if the Sun is going to bombard the planet with plasma then we are going to be hot.

Sun Unleashes Early Fourth of July Fireworks

Oh no, it has to be global warming ..... there can't possibly be any other kind of explanation .......

No. This is the first summer where it's been REALLY hot.

Come on down to Chattanooga and you'll get hot and sweaty every April through September, and I am not even accounting for the fact I am here.

I think that she was being sarcastic ......... of course, without smilies or colored fonts .... who can be sure?

Quote:

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I still don't get what the big deal is. the Giant yellow thing in the sky controls most of our weather.

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Big Bird flying?

I know. I have kin in St. Bernard, SE, La. About as far south as you can go and still find spots of dry land.

I've got a kiddie pool my dog likes to "swim" in that I'm going to put about an inch of water in for the birds today (in addition to the regular bird bath). A few large limestone rocks so the little ones can get out of the water and all should be well. This is crazy heat and I've got more birds at the water than I've ever seen. I'm sure the water will evaporate by 2pm.

the birds in the neighborhood are always eating our chickens' food and drinking water from our swimming pool (blech). They probably drink from the chickens' waterers, too, but I haven't seen it.

Good for you. I don't water the birds, I have a big lake about 30 yards away that has some beach head...they water there. I do feed them from a feeder. I like to watch them....but, that lures in the devil squirrels who eat at my house if I allow them in the yard. I like squirrels. I really do, but for some reason the mountain stone and cedar makes them think they can live in my attic, and they can't.


If they enter my yard, I can live with that. As soon as I see one running around on my deck, roof, or any other part of the house, the pellet gun comes out until there are no more squirrels seen. Then a few months goes by with no problems, but then they invade again and sooner or later one of the devils breaks my rule and invades my domain, and the process starts over. Sight up the gun and plunk them on sight.



I've thought about dumping the feeder, but the squirrels invade anyway, so why deny the enjoyment of beautiful birds??

Plus, it makes a convenient place to watch to defend the home once the invasion takes place..

j/c

Hot? Our vehicle read 104 degrees when we pulled in to watch my daughter's friends play their softball game. (the "upper" team).

Why'd we go? Daughter wanted to. But, I sat in the sun - watching the players PLAY in the sun. Just because, I guess.

They cancelled all games at the rec where my son plays.....except his game! I guess the heat's dangerous unless the game has an effect on final league standings.

J/C...

I work out on the roads as a highway worker. Yesterday at about 1pm, I'd guess the temp was about a 1,037, a guy walked out of his house with a cooler full of water and pop for the crew. It was an incredibly nice thing to do and something more should do - especially on days like yesterday and for those working outside on a day like today.

God Bless that man.

I can't take the heat, I'm already sick of summer.

Why does it seem like summer and winter take forever, but the awesome seasons like fall and spring go by so fast?

Summer is my least favorite season.


Fall > Spring > Winter > Summer

Relief on the way; its supposed to be a high around 82 tomorrow in NE Ohio. Thats more like it.

No surprise to me. I hate this heat. Give me mid-60s to mid-70s all day, every day.

I love summer, but heat indices of 100+ are too high even for me. 70-80 is my sweet spot for a perfect summer day.

We're finally hitting the 80's. Humidity in the 20% range. Summer has finally arrived!

Nice!

Just give me mid-March through early April and I'm good.

NCAA Tournaments, year 'round! lol.

I love summer too, but I haven't had power at my home for 8 days now, thanks to that storm that blew through two Fridays ago. To add to that, it has been consistently 95 to 103 degrees every day, and this is starting to get reeeeeal old.

I feel sorry for you, I wouldn't be able to sleep a minute at night without a/c in this heat.

I don't like winter and do like the summer, just not the 95-100 degree temps. Keep it in the 85-90 range and I'm happy.

As nice as it would be to have my A/C on, I consider it a luxury. I would just like to have a working refrigerator and hot water available.

See, my theory is this...

If I get too cold, I can always add more layers.

If I get too hot, there's only so much I can take off before people start getting offended.