Northeast Snow Blizzard is Proof of Global Warming

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Northeast Snow Blizzard is Proof of Global Warming

January 26th, 2016

Awake Goy

A photo taken on January 23, 2016 shows snow-covered cars lining a residential street in the northwest of Washington, DC. A deadly blizzard with bone-chilling winds and potentially record-breaking snowfall slammed the eastern US on January 23, as officials urged millions in the storm's path to seek shelter -- warning the worst is yet to come. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

A photo taken on January 23, 2016 shows snow-covered cars lining a residential street in the northwest section of Washington, DC.

On the past week-end, several Northeastern States along the I-95 corridor were hit by a mammoth show storm that claimed some 41 lives in related incidences. It is reported that snowfall, lasting as much as 36 hours in some areas, accumulated snow-piles up to 40 inches high in places along the NE coastal region. Major transportation systems were shut down; around 8,000 airline flights were canceled. A wind gush of hurricane force, 75 miles per hour, was recorded in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware.

A small number of entrenched right-wing politicians and religious leaders still argue that there is no such phenomenon as climate change caused by human atmospheric pollution. They hold firmly to this belief in face of mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, believing that climate patterns are wholly in the province of divine forces. Some will point to the recent North East blizzard as evidence against the concept of global-warming—“How could there be global-warming amidst all this snow”, they say.

But overwhelmingly the society of climatologists points to scientific evidence that adds proof to the reality of global warming. Joe Romm, reporter for Climate Progress, ask two renowned climatologists, Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth, to comment on the role climate change has on the latest record-breaking superstorm: Mann, Director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, said this: “There is peer-reviewed science that now suggest that climate change will lead to more of these intense [blizzards because of] unusually warm Atlantic ocean surface temperatures.” Trenberth, former administrator at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, agrees with this assessment. He indicated that over a region of some 1000 miles off the NE coast, the sea surface temperatures are over 3F above normal and, as a result, water vapor in the atmosphere is about 10 to 15% higher. He said that up to half percent of this pattern “can be attributed to climate change.”

The bottom line is that scientific findings directly connect global warming with more extreme precipitation. The basic physics is that a warmer atmosphere has the capacity to hold more moisture, at a rate of approximately 7 % increase per every 1 C higher water temperature. The United Kingdom Met Office’s 2014 update on climate science said in essence that by the use of the stated principle we can predict comparable future increases in rainfall. The 2014 National Climate Assessment (NCA), a congressionally mandated study by 300 climate science experts, stated: “Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air. Global analysis shows that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere has in fact increased due to human-caused warming…This extra moisture is available to storm systems, resulting in heavier rainfalls” [snowfalls in the winter].

Though it is predicted that we will continue to have blizzards as we had the past week-end, the average annual snowfall will not increase; in fact, it might well decrease. Why? NCA climatologists conclude that the long-term trend is for climate change to alter weather patterns is such a way as to produce more severe snowstorms, while, overall, winters become shorter and milder.

Chances are that there will continue to be deniers of the severity of man-created atmospheric pollution and its resulting green-house effect and global warming. However, the good news is that, largely as a result of the leadership of the President Obama Administration, in mid-December, 2015, some 200 nations came together and signed a landmark clean air agreement in Paris, France, in which they committed to reducing pollutants in the atmosphere. The opening statement in the agreement says that climate change “is an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to humankind and the planet”.

Northeast Snow Blizzard is Proof of Global Warming

January 26th, 2016

Awake Goy

A photo taken on January 23, 2016 shows snow-covered cars lining a residential street in the northwest section of Washington, DC.

On the past week-end, several Northeastern States along the I-95 corridor were hit by a mammoth show storm that claimed some 41 lives in related incidences. It is reported that snowfall, lasting as much as 36 hours in some areas, accumulated snow-piles up to 40 inches high in places along the NE coastal region. Major transportation systems were shut down; around 8,000 airline flights were canceled. A wind gush of hurricane force, 75 miles per hour, was recorded in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware.

A small number of entrenched right-wing politicians and religious leaders still argue that there is no such phenomenon as climate change caused by human atmospheric pollution. They hold firmly to this belief in face of mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, believing that climate patterns are wholly in the province of divine forces. Some will point to the recent North East blizzard as evidence against the concept of global-warming—“How could there be global-warming amidst all this snow”, they say.

But overwhelmingly the society of climatologists points to scientific evidence that adds proof to the reality of global warming. Joe Romm, reporter for Climate Progress, ask two renowned climatologists, Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth, to comment on the role climate change has on the latest record-breaking superstorm: Mann, Director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, said this: “There is peer-reviewed science that now suggest that climate change will lead to more of these intense [blizzards because of] unusually warm Atlantic ocean surface temperatures.” Trenberth, former administrator at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, agrees with this assessment. He indicated that over a region of some 1000 miles off the NE coast, the sea surface temperatures are over 3F above normal and, as a result, water vapor in the atmosphere is about 10 to 15% higher. He said that up to half percent of this pattern “can be attributed to climate change.”

The bottom line is that scientific findings directly connect global warming with more extreme precipitation. The basic physics is that a warmer atmosphere has the capacity to hold more moisture, at a rate of approximately 7 % increase per every 1 C higher water temperature. The United Kingdom Met Office’s 2014 update on climate science said in essence that by the use of the stated principle we can predict comparable future increases in rainfall. The 2014 National Climate Assessment (NCA), a congressionally mandated study by 300 climate science experts, stated: “Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air. Global analysis shows that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere has in fact increased due to human-caused warming…This extra moisture is available to storm systems, resulting in heavier rainfalls” [snowfalls in the winter].

Though it is predicted that we will continue to have blizzards as we had the past week-end, the average annual snowfall will not increase; in fact, it might well decrease. Why? NCA climatologists conclude that the long-term trend is for climate change to alter weather patterns is such a way as to produce more severe snowstorms, while, overall, winters become shorter and milder.

Chances are that there will continue to be deniers of the severity of man-created atmospheric pollution and its resulting green-house effect and global warming. However, the good news is that, largely as a result of the leadership of the President Obama Administration, in mid-December, 2015, some 200 nations came together and signed a landmark clean air agreement in Paris, France, in which they committed to reducing pollutants in the atmosphere. The opening statement in the agreement says that climate change “is an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to humankind and the planet”.