This is at the top of the Drudge Report right now:
Yes, I know: there's a "polar vortex" affecting the middle of the country. Minneapolis temperatures will be down to 25 below tonight, and tomorrow's high will be 13 below. The high in New York City on Tuesday is going to be 13 above. Therefore, Al Gore is fat and there's no global warming -- right?
Well, it was 71 degrees here in New York City on December 22, shattering the old record of 63 for the day. That day, records were also broken in Newark, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, Delaware, as I learn from ... um, Fox News.
And before New York has that 13-degree high on Tuesday, we'll have a high of 50 tomorrow.
But this is nothing compared to what's going on in Australia:
On Thursday, parts of inland Australia reached temperatures around 50 degrees Celsius, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit.... There were reports of temperatures as high as 54 degrees Celsius, 129 degrees Fahrenheit, in the outback on Thursday.More, from the Brisbane Times:
Archerfield, west of Brisbane, recorded its highest ever temperature since records began with a top of 43.5 degrees, just eclipsing the previous record of 43.3 degrees.(A partial conversion for the Celsius-challenged: 39.5 degrees Celsius is 103.1 Fahrenheit. 45.4 degrees Celsius is 113.72 degrees Fahrenheit. Google's converter is here.)
On the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore's 41.3 smashed its previous record of 37, while Nambour's 42.9 degrees was well above its previous record of 40.8.
Gympie equalled its record temperature of 42 degrees.
Records were also recorded at Redcliffe (40.3 degrees), Toowoomba (39.5) and Beaudesert (43.9).
As at 3.30pm, the hottest temperature recorded in Queensland on Saturday was at Lochington, south-west of Emerald, where it was 45.4 degrees.
This Australian heat wave has been going on since before Christmas, as this guy noted on December 21:
Just landing in Australia after endless flight. Worth it. What's better than family Xmas, even in heat wave?
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) December 21, 2013And:
The Pacific Islands experienced record temperatures in 2013 due to warmer oceans.
Neville Koop, the Meteorology and Climate adviser to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program told [Radio Australia's] Pacific Beat increasing ocean temperatures have contributed to new highs in the region.
"Minimum temperatures in particular above average and we have seen warmer than normal daytime temperatures as well," he said.
"In some cases, we definitely have set new records, some places have recorded the monthly average temperatures that are warmest ever seen and over the course of 2013.
"I'm not sure if all of the stats are done yet but it would not surprise me if we saw annual records beaten in 2013 for many places in the Pacific."
So when right-wingers start cackling about the cold weather, please remember that America is not the planet. A cold spell of a few days in part of our country is not evidence that climate change is a hoax.
Is this a bad time to point out that while east of the Rockies is under an arctic front we here out west are experiencing the warmest winter on recotd? That Oregon, the heart of the northern hemisphere's on temperate rain forest, saw this past year only half (27 inches) our annual rainfall (45 inches), or that California's Sierra Nevada snowpack is at at nine percent of the historical average?
ReplyDeleteFear me.
For the southern Sierra Nevada in this part of CA, the snow pack measurements around here were 20%.
ReplyDeleteHere in the San Joaquin Valley, we're under an inversion layer that usually would be broken up by incoming storms. I can't remember when it was so hazy from pollution around here.
We're in the beginning of strange days, how it turns out none can say yet.
DA,
ReplyDelete"Strange days" rarely end well.
We're probably past the point of doing something to stop the climate change, so our Conservatives will tell us, "Why bother then?"
Never mind that anything we do may mitigate the circumstance for people later.
Hard as I try, I can't understand the Conservative "mind."
It is warm for this time of year in Minneapolis. We've had years where it never got above -20 for weeks at a time, sheesh, this is nothing I tell ya!
ReplyDeleteI'm in the LA region, one of the few places not hit by the cold. We've got a big college championship football game here and this weekend in a restaurant we ran into some Auburn fans. After some polite chit-chat about the weather - it is apparently quite cold in Birmingham right now - and well-wishes to enjoy the game and have a safe trip home, a bluff, beefy fellow somewhat resembling Toronto Mayor Rob Ford gave me a hearty "haw haw" and told me that Birmingham's cold spell sure put the lie to what ole Al Gore had to say!
ReplyDeleteThe winter of 77/78, stellors, here on the Oregon High Desert, at 4000 feet above sea level just miles from what were once prolific glaciers close enough to the 45th parallel to call it half way to the North Pole, went 97 days below freezing, 62 days below zero.
ReplyDeleteThat, is normal. This, is not.
No fear.
I realize Stellours is joking, but…in case anyone missed it, in actual fact the average high in January for Minneapolis is in the low 20s...
ReplyDelete