Where Is The “Climate Emergency”?

The graph shown above does not disprove the conclusion that Most of the Western U.S. is entering a period of long-term drought conditions that will probably get worse.
The focus is mostly on the Southwestern portion of the U.S. but most of the West will be affected.

The 20th century precipitation in the Western U.S.was unusually high. According to the article published in Science magazine and reported on by CBS, the megadrought
started about 20 years ago.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-drought-california-western-united-states-study/

"Another interesting finding in the research: The 20th century was the wettest century in the entire 1,200-year record. So the conditions we may think of as "normal" were actually a historical fluke.
"The 20th century gave us an overly optimistic view of how much water is potentially available," said co-author Benjamin Cook."

What separates this drought from past megadroughts is that the natural dry cycle is magnified by a warming climate. This has caused the modern megadrought to impact an even wider area than any of the past ones.

Climate change has boosted temperatures in this part of the West upward by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 20 years. Since warmer air holds more moisture, extra moisture is increasingly being drawn from the ground, intensifying drying soils.

The researchers say rising temperatures due to human-caused climate change are responsible for about half the pace and severity of the current drought. Since regional temperatures in the West are projected to keep rising, this trend is likely to continue.



Large contribution from anthropogenic warming to an emerging North American megadrought Science Magazine April 2020
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/314

Global warming has pushed what would have been a moderate drought in southwestern North America into megadrought territory. Williams et al. used a combination of hydrological modeling and tree-ring reconstructions of summer soil moisture to show that the period from 2000 to 2018 was the driest 19-year span since the late 1500s and the second driest since 800 CE (see the Perspective by Stahle). This appears to be just the beginning of a more extreme trend toward megadrought as global warming continues.

Abstract:
Severe and persistent 21st-century drought in southwestern North America (SWNA) motivates comparisons to medieval megadroughts and questions about the role of anthropogenic climate change. We use hydrological modeling and new 1200-year tree-ring reconstructions of summer soil moisture to demonstrate that the 2000–2018 SWNA drought was the second driest 19-year period since 800 CE, exceeded only by a late-1500s megadrought. The megadrought-like trajectory of 2000–2018 soil moisture was driven by natural variability superimposed on drying due to anthropogenic warming. Anthropogenic trends in temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation estimated from 31 climate models account for 46% (model interquartiles of 34 to 103%) of the 2000–2018 drought severity, pushing an otherwise moderate drought onto a trajectory comparable to the worst SWNA megadroughts since 800 CE.

 

Sadly, that's all just arm waving to try to distract from the fact that the West has been getting wetter.

 

Evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger PNAS
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/24/13194

Tropical cyclone intensity is limited by the rate at which heat can be extracted from the ocean, the rate at which the energy of the winds is dissipated, and the thermodynamic efficiency of the process, which depends on difference of temperature across the troposphere (3). The limiting surface wind speed is referred to as the potential intensity, and increasing greenhouse gases lead to an increase in this limit (4). It is straightforward to calculate the potential intensity from gridded climatological data, and, as shown in Fig. 1, such calculations show that the thermodynamic limit has indeed been increasing in regions prone to tropical cyclones.




Linear trend in potential intensity (in meters per second per century, color scale at right) from 1979 to 2018, calculated from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5 (ERA 5) dataset. Trends are only displayed where their P values are 0.2 or less.



Does global warming make tropical cyclones stronger? Storms of more than 200km/hr (124 miles/hr) have more than doubled from 1980 to 2016.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.p...obal-warming-make-tropical-cyclones-stronger/

The results of numerous such studies can be summarized briefly as follows: due to global warming we do not necessarily expect more tropical storms overall, but an increasing number of particularly strong storms in categories 4 and 5, especially storms of previously unobserved strength. This assessment has been widely agreed on at least since the 4th IPCC Report of 2007 and reaffirmed several times since then. A review article in the leading journal Science (Sobel et al. 2016) concluded:

We thus expect tropical cyclone intensities to increase with warming, both on average and at the high end of the scale, so that the strongest future storms will exceed the strength of any in the past.

Models also suggest that atmospheric aerosol pollution may have weakened tropical storms and masked the effect of global warming for decades, making it more difficult to detect trends in measurement data.
(atmospheric aerosol pollution reduces evaporation and precipitation)

Nevertheless, observational data support the expectation from models that the strongest storms are getting stronger. We focus here on the period from 1979, because this is the period covered by geostationary satellite data (thus no cyclones went unobserved) and also the period over which three quarters of global warming has occurred. These data show an increase in the strongest tropical storms in most ocean basins (Kossin et al. 2013). However, these data are not homogeneous but are estimated from a variety of satellite, and air- and ground-based instruments whose capabilities have improved over time. The homogenization of these data by Kossin et al. (2013), which is generally recognized as very careful, reduces the trends, but does not eliminate them. The strongest increase can be found in the North Atlantic (which is more than 99% significant) where the trend has likely been boosted by the decrease in sulfate aerosols over this period.

One consequence of this increase is that in most major tropical cyclone regions, the storms with the highest wind speeds on record have been observed in recent years (see Fig. 1 based on reanalysis by Velden et al. 2017). The strongest globally was Patricia (2015), which topped the previous record holder Haiyan (2013).

Other recent records are worth mentioning. Sandy (2012) was the largest hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic. Harvey (2017) dumped more rain than any hurricane in the United States. Ophelia (2017) formed further northeast than any other Category 3 Atlantic hurricane – fortunately it turned north before striking Portugal, against initial predictions, and then weakened over cool waters before it hit Ireland. September 2017 broke the record for cumulative hurricane energy in the Atlantic. Irma (2017) sustained wind speeds of 300 km/h longer than any storm on record (for 37 hours – the previous record was 24 hours by Haiyan in 2013). Cyclone Pam in March 2015 was already beaten again by Winston in February 2016 according to the Southwest Pacific Enhanced Archive for Tropical Cyclones (though not in Velden’s data analysis). Donna in 2017 was the strongest May cyclone ever observed in the Southern Hemisphere. All coincidence?

 

The professor should stick his nose up a tail pipe and take a good whiff and see if he still thinks fossil fuels isn't hurting the environment. People commit suicide using exhaust fumes. We live in a protected bubble so where does the professor think all the pollution is going? Venting out into space?

 

Pollution =/= global warming. The heat is indeed venting to space. Pollution is under control.

 

Professor Henrik Svensmark is the godfather of the solar-climate hypothesis.

And Mike Lockwood is the godfather of debunking the idea that changes in solar output could be responsible for modern warming. In simple terms, for the sun to be responsible for GW, there would have to be some change in solar output. Sadly for solar fans all the trends have been in the wrong direction:

"There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth's pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth's climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures."

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspa.2007.1880

See also https://www.realclimate.org/index.p...imatology-tired-old-arguments-in-new-clothes/

 

Give it time. The heavy use of fossil fuels just began with the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800's. Just a mere billionth of a second in time compared to how long the earth has been around.

 

That would be the William Connolley who was banned from Wikipedia for data suppression.

Not true. You reveal your ignorance of how Wiki works.

 

US emissions have been steadily declining.

 

Of course since we have outsourced coal to Asian and Eastern European countries. We just shifted the emissions to another location on planet earth but the pollutant count remains the same.

 

The key is our shift to natural gas. We have not "outsourced coal," whatever that means.

 

U.S. coal production decreased 6.6% year over year to 706.3 million short tons (MMst). The total productive capacity of U.S. coal mines was 1,009.5 MMst, a decrease of 1.1% from the 2018 level. The average number of employees at U.S. coal mines decreased by 779 from the 2018 level to 52,804 employees.Oct 5, 2020

Annual Coal Reports - U.S. Energy Information Administration ...
https://www.eia.gov › coal › annual
Not much change I see.

 

Care to provide proof?

 

I have serious doubts the term fossil fuels is actually accurate. Not when oil is found 5 miles deep in Earth. Not when it is found very deep in the Ocean.

If it was not venting into space, this planet would be too hot for men to survive on it.

 

I sure hope you are not weather frightened.

There are many myths about weather/climate.

Check this out.
https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/2018-05-31-weather-flight-travel-myths

 

It's not in the data.

Figure: Last 50-years+ of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE.

 

Lockwood is a nullity, and an outdated (2007) nullity at that.
Henrik Svensmark: Force Majeure – The Sun’s Role In Climate Change (PDF)

Increased ionization supports growth of aerosols into ... - Nature
https://www.nature.com › ... › articles › article

by H Svensmark · 2017 · Cited by 62 — Article; Open Access; Published: 19 December 2017 ... To form a cloud droplet, water vapor needs to condense to aerosols acting as cloud ... steel reaction chamber used in Svensmark et al., and shown schematically in Fig.

 

William Connolley, now "climate topic banned" at Wikipedia
had the news first, which is fitting since Mr. Connolley is based in Britain.

 

I could find no evidence that harsh winters have killed off pine beetles. The scientific evidence supports drought and global warming as increasing the destruction of forests by
pine beetles. You find 1 article from the blog, "What's Up With That", that makes a brief, contrary statement which isn't entirely true, and then conclude that the matter is settled.
That seems to be your modus operandi. Maybe colder winters was a factor, I don't know. The evidence that I find is that these infestations occur periodically and die out naturally
from a lack of available trees that these beetles can infect. This particular epidemic of pine beetles was about 10 tomes the size of previous ones. Warmer weather means that
each female beetle can produce 2 generations of 60 X 60 eggs = 3600 eggs as opposed to just 60 eggs per year. Warm weather make trees more vulnerable to death by fewer
beetles per tree. The number of beetles to kill a tree can drop from 800 to less than 100.

https://www.custommade.com/blog/mountain-pine-beetle-epidemic/ July 15, 2014

"Though mountain pine beetle attacks have substantially declined in the past three years due to the death of a large portion of mature pine trees, the beetle can continue to infest and kill other pine species. “There is still great potential for an epidemic, largely in Ponderosa pine, which has an enormous range across the west,” Ferrenberg says. He believes controlling attacks will never be easy."

"Bark beetles have populated North American forests from Canada to Mexico for thousands of years, but within the last two decades, different species of beetles, including the destructive mountain pine variety, have killed pine and spruce trees throughout the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere. The current outbreak is the largest ever recorded in U.S. and Canadian history."




Pine forests have suffered in the past, and come back even stronger after previous infestations. And an ebb and flow of insect outbreaks is natural. However, there are a number of elements contributing to this current, more severe infestation.

An extended drought in the late 1990s and early 2000s is considered the spark that set off the explosive assault. Beyond that initial drought, three other factors have facilitated the epidemic: warmer winters, old forests, and continued dry conditions. With global temperatures on the rise, beetle eggs and larvae have a better chance of surviving the winter; it is only with a continued deep freeze of five days or more that the beetle population can be controlled. Secondly, bark-dwelling beetles prefer mature trees to carry out their lifecycle. The insects prefer older trees because the bark is thicker and more protective; larger trunks provide more space to colonize; and the phloem, which provides beetle food, is more abundant. As large portions of pine forests reach a mature age of 80 years old and up, due to in part effective wildfire suppression programs, those trees become more susceptible to bark beetle infestation.

 

I know that it isn't obvious from glancing at the above graph, but the ACE does increase a little from 1970 to 2020. The global ACE increases from about 1350 (1972-1992 average) to about 1420 (2000-2020).
I used a triangle and found the horizontal line where the area above the line was equal to the area below the line. The graph for the N. Hemisphere also shows an increase in ACE from about 930 to 1100.

Also, the ACE is an indicator of maximum storm wind velocity squared over 6 hour intervals, the duration of the storm when the maximum wind speed is greater than 40 mph, and the number of
storms in a given year. It isn't a specific indicator of how many strong hurricanes and cyclones occur within a specific year. So, presenting this evidence to disprove that hurricanes are getting stronger
is not sufficient to make that judgement. The evidence is that hurricanes are getting stronger and that is in complete agreement with the above graph.


https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/07/how-climate-change-is-making-hurricanes-more-dangerous Notice that the number of category 1 and 2 hurricanes are declining over the 1975 - 2013 time
period.

Are Hurricanes Getting Stronger

The authors of that same 2013 study found a substantial regional and global increase in the proportion of the strongest hurricanes – category 4 and 5 storms. The authors attribute that increase to global heating of the climate: “We conclude that since 1975 there has been a substantial and observable regional and global increase in the proportion of Cat 4-5 hurricanes of 25-30 percent per °C of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming.”

Interestingly, the increase in those most powerful of storms is balanced by a similar decrease in category 1 and category 2 hurricanes. The authors put forth this intriguing theory: “We suggest that this [balance] arises from the capped nature of tropical cyclones to a maximum value defined by the potential intensity, which increases only slightly with global warming.”

 

Quite. A temporary topic ban, and not for data suppression. If you understood wiki you'd know that suppressing anything is well nigh impossible.

In short, ad hominem and wrong.

 

Pffft. Still no trend. If Svensmark's assertions had merit he would publish them in an academic journal, not Lord Lawson's climate-science-denying think tank.

For Galactic Cosmic Rays to influence cloud formation, first they must induce aerosol formation, these aerosols must grow sufficiently in mass (approx x100,000) through the condensation of gases in the atmosphere to form cloud-condensation nuclei (CCN), and these CCN must lead to increased cloud formation.

The Nature paper showed the first step was possible, but not in an Earth-like atmosphere. The conclusions were hand-waving at best…

"In conclusion, a mechanism by which ions condense their mass onto small aerosols and thereby increase the growth rate of the aerosols, has been formulated theoretically and shown to be in good agreement with extensive experiments. The mechanism of ion-induced condensation may be relevant in the Earth’s atmosphere under pristine conditions, and able to influence the formation of CCN. It is conjectured that this mechanism could be the explanation for the observed correlations between past climate variations and cosmic rays, modulated by either solar activity or supernova activity in the solar neighborhood on very long time scales."

The theory was further investigated at CERN in the CLOUD project. Alas, the results were not encouraging for Henrik…

"Fundamental questions remain about the origin of newly formed atmospheric aerosol particles because data from laboratory measurements have been insufficient to build global models. In contrast, gas-phase chemistry models have been based on laboratory kinetics measurements for decades. Here we build a global model of aerosol formation using extensive laboratory-measured nucleation rates involving sulfuric acid, ammonia, ions and organic compounds. The simulations and a comparison with atmospheric observations show that nearly all nucleation throughout the present-day atmosphere involves ammonia or biogenic organic compounds in addition to sulfuric acid. A significant fraction of nucleation involves ions, but the relatively weak dependence on ion concentrations indicates that for the processes studied variations in cosmic ray intensity do not significantly affect climate via nucleation in the present-day atmosphere."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02082-2
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/107269/1/Global atmospheric particle formation.pdf

 

Argument from lack of authority? Mike Lockwood has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers, is Professor of Space Environment Physics at The University of Reading, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was awarded a Gold medal by the Royal Astronomical Society and had his collected lectures published in book form as 'The Sun, Solar Analogs and the Climate'.

On this topic, he literally wrote the book.

 

The factories we resourced to China use coal we sell to them.

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-...s-us-coal-canadian-barley-continue-climb-amid

China continued to buy large quantities of coal from the United States in March, moving it closer to meeting its obligations under the US-China trade deal and replacing Australian coal exports that were banned in October.

 

Along with sending our factories overseas to Asia we also sell our coal to them. In return we get back cheaply made products the US once made. So of course our emissions have decreased in the US but China's emissions are rising.