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American West Heating Twice as Fast
Don't think climate change is going to affect you? Well, if you live in the American West, it already is. In fact the west is heating up faster than the rest of the world, reports the National Resources Defense Council. The average temperature rise in the drought-struck Colorado River basin is more than double global average—especially bad news for the 30 million people living in Denver, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego, among the nation's fastest growing American cities and all dependent on the Colorado for water.
The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization analyzed temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for 11 western states and found the average temp in the Colorado River Basin, from Wyoming to Mexico, was 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the historical average for the 20th Century, and more than twice the global rise of 1.0 degree. Throughout the West, the average temperature increased 1.7 degrees. "We are seeing signs of the economic impacts," says study author Stephen Saunders, including $2.7 billion in crop losses since 2000, commercial salmon losses, reduced hunting revenues, and shorter, less profitable ski seasons. The Colorado River Basin is in the throes of a record drought and climate scientists predict more and drier droughts in the future as hotter temperatures reduce the snowpack and increase evaporation. "We need strong leadership from western senators to pass America's Climate Security Act," said Spencer.
How about any leadership? You know, turning off the lights one hour a year ain't gonna work. In 2007 I was optimistic about Earth Hour. A year later, I'm like, is this all we're ever going to do?
Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the John Burroughs Medal Award. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, here.
Bill, you are deeply and completely misinformed. You state that "Everything you global warming people have been putting fourth for the past decade has been DISPROVEN...!!!"
What in the world are you talking about? Disproven by who? The vast majority of climatologists and weather scientists agree that global warming is real and man-made:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
"In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability. Global warming in this case is indicated by an increase of 0.75 degrees in average global temperatures over the last 100 years."
Joint Science Academies' statement 2007 (Royal Society of Canada, National Academy of Sciences, USA, Science Council of Japan, Academie des Sciences, France, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, Germany, Royal Society, United Kingdom, etc. etc. etc.)
In preparation for the 2007 G8 summit, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a declaration referencing the position of the 2005 joint science academies' statement, and acknowledging the confirmation of their previous conclusion by recent research. Following the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the declaration states:
It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.
As for your ridiculous global warming has been" reversed in 2 years, you really need to check your facts. Here's what the source of your misinformation had to say about this bogus "fact" flying around the red state blogs:
"The website DailyTech has an article citing this blog entry as a reference, and their story got picked up by the Drudge report, resulting in a wide distribution. In the DailyTech article there is a paragraph:
"Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C ? a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."
I wish to state for the record, that this statement is not mine: "?a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years"
There has been no "erasure". This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not "erase" anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied.
see: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-s...
Bill, you are deeply and completely misinformed. You state that "Everything you global warming people have been putting fourth for the past decade has been DISPROVEN...!!!"
What in the world are you talking about? Disproven by who? The vast majority of climatologists and weather scientists agree that global warming is real and man-made:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
"In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability. Global warming in this case is indicated by an increase of 0.75 degrees in average global temperatures over the last 100 years."
Joint Science Academies' statement 2007 (Royal Society of Canada, National Academy of Sciences, USA, Science Council of Japan, Academie des Sciences, France, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, Germany, Royal Society, United Kingdom, etc. etc. etc.)
In preparation for the 2007 G8 summit, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a declaration referencing the position of the 2005 joint science academies' statement, and acknowledging the confirmation of their previous conclusion by recent research. Following the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the declaration states:
It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.
As for your ridiculous global warming has been" reversed in 2 years, you really need to check your facts. Here's what the source of your misinformation had to say about this bogus "fact" flying around the red state blogs:
"The website DailyTech has an article citing this blog entry as a reference, and their story got picked up by the Drudge report, resulting in a wide distribution. In the DailyTech article there is a paragraph:
"Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C ? a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."
I wish to state for the record, that this statement is not mine: "?a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years"
There has been no "erasure". This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not "erase" anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied.
see: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-s...
I live here......Its true.
I think there's a fair amount of this 'research' that could bear some double-blind verification and testing and stuff. There's a lot of money at-play when you start talking environment and climate, and I for one am NOT convinced that some of these groups' motives are beyond reproach...question everything...if need be we can build a Big Giant Solar Powered Ice Maker. Then, when the glaciers come....LOL
Hey People,
I have lived 45 yrs in Southern CA. It is NOT as hot here as when i was a kid. It used to be 117 deg every summer, 1970's, and it has not reached that temp in over a decade. And if you haven't heard, the planet has regained the tempreture loss over the last 100 yrs, in just the last 2 yrs..!!! The ice age is coming, and most tf you lemmings are still following that fat, hairy pig al gore till you are proven WRONG. Evne the founder of the weather channel, in consultation with the NOAO has come out and said that global warming is the GREATEST fraud put upon the people in the last 50 yrs..
HAHAHA..
let the ice come..!!!
Bill
Bill you are the biggest idiot on the planet. The fact that pollution from Chinese sweat shops is picked up by the jet stream and blown over southern California may be causing local dimming in addition to 25% of local pollution problems (NOVA had a special on global dimming a while back, it mitigates the effects of global warming); however, that doesn't mean the guy who buys what 0.5% of paid idiots posing as scientists say is anything but an idiot. Go peddle your ignorant trash somewhere else.
I have some difficulty understanding the resistance to the concept of global warming. (I should say aside from those with entrenched moneyed interests)
Most of the approaches to combat global warming, would also net cleaner air, cleaner water, curtailment of un-necessary manufactured goods, and all round better stewardship of the planet.
Even people like Bill Nigh should recognize that what we are presently doing is both detrimental and unsustainable.
You guys didn't even address one thing i said...? Everything you global warming people have been putting fourth for the past decade has been DISPROVEN...!!! The 100 yr gain in WORLD tempreture of 1 deg, has be reversed in just 2 yrs..!!! If you check with your average climatologits, he will tell you that a Global Cooling has bee coming since the 1970's...
In 25 yrs, this will be refered to as the "Al Gore snake oil period"... Don't get me wrong, i love the outdoors, i hunt and fish, backpack, etc. But when you let yourself be "conned" by the fat, bearded, loser al gore, you have your head up your butt..!!!
Bill
Bill, you are deeply and completely misinformed. You state that "Everything you global warming people have been putting fourth for the past decade has been DISPROVEN...!!!"
What in the world are you talking about? Disproven by who? The vast majority of climatologists and weather scientists agree that global warming is real and man-made:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
"In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability. Global warming in this case is indicated by an increase of 0.75 degrees in average global temperatures over the last 100 years."
Joint Science Academies' statement 2007 (Royal Society of Canada, National Academy of Sciences, USA, Science Council of Japan, Academie des Sciences, France, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, Germany, Royal Society, United Kingdom, etc. etc. etc.)
In preparation for the 2007 G8 summit, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a declaration referencing the position of the 2005 joint science academies' statement, and acknowledging the confirmation of their previous conclusion by recent research. Following the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the declaration states:
It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.
As for your ridiculous global warming has been" reversed in 2 years, you really need to check your facts. Here's what the source of your misinformation had to say about this bogus "fact" flying around the red state blogs:
"The website DailyTech has an article citing this blog entry as a reference, and their story got picked up by the Drudge report, resulting in a wide distribution. In the DailyTech article there is a paragraph:
"Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."
I wish to state for the record, that this statement is not mine: "a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years"
There has been no "erasure". This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not "erase" anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied.
see: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-s...
THANK-YOU.....Mettarefuge! As long as ill-informed blathering idiots like "Bill Nigh" are allowed to scream political rhetoric without ANY real facts to back it up, then you will continue to have a small segment of society who continue to stubbornly refuse to see the light! Just because YOU want to desperately believe something doesn't necessarily make it so. You can lead a horse to water.....but you can't make it drink. Wait!..........the stream has dried-up........
As usual, guys like Bill are not sharp enough to realize that all Conservative policies and talking points exist only to support their corporate benefactors. If big oil felt they could benefit from Global Warming, Republicans would be screaming it from the roof tops.
Only since the appearance of the "Uniter" has science become Liberal or Conservative. The idea that thousands of scientist, who spend their whole life looking for the truth, would lie just to irritate Bush is moronic.
The atmosphere is only five miles thick. To think that the billions of tons of green house gases that are produced continually have no effect, is like saying, no matter how much sugar I put in my coffee, the taste will never change.
Wow Woodman..........another voice of "common sense" in the darkness of total ignorance. It never ceases to amaze me how far people will go to rationalize their irresponsible behavior. You know...............like people who purchase and ingest a product that clearly states on the package that it can lead to death & disease. Duh! Well.....like my grandfather used to say, "common sense isn't very common"!
1.7 degrees. I didn't notice. I like the heat. The side benefit is that if the water supply goes down, we will not get all this destructive population growth here. I know that northern California does not want to share their water with SoCal. This is good. Anything to stop the growth in SoCal will be appreciated. Sames goes for Lost Wages NV. The locals there also appreciate the water shortage.
"1.7 degrees. I didn't notice."
No, Wilbur, your body won't register an *average" increase of 1.7 degrees, because you don't exist, over time, in all the multiple measuring points that are used to come up with that average!
But what you probably *did* feel and notice, if you lived in the Southwest, is that to get this kind of *average* increase, you probably experienced truly record heat throughout the spring and summer, and with exceptions, warmer winters. As you may recall, both 2005, and especially 2006, has truly brutal heat waves that set records throughout the Southwest and Midwest. And man, did people notice!
Now, of course, you can't blame one, or two, especially hot summers on global warming. (While it has been very hot in July during the past 20 years, there was a period in the 1930s was was equally hot.) What you are looking for, as a climatologist, is a *trend.* For example, globally, July 2006 was the third warmest July on record since records began in 1880 (1.01F/0.56C above the 20th century mean) and the sixth warmest year-to-date (January-July) (0.92F/0.51C).
To look at these stats and say, "Gee, only 1.01 F above the 20th century mean? Who would notice that?" is to totally misunderstand the science here -- and also, not to remember how damn noticeably hot it was in the both the Midwest and Southwest in 2006, if you happened to live there. For example, the July 2006 heat wave broke more than 2,300 daily temperature records for the month and eclipsed more than 50 records for the highest temperatures in any July. July of 2006 was ranked as the 26th driest July in the 112-year record, and severe drought conditions from Texas northwards to the Dakotas have been responsible for billions of dollars in agricultural losses.
Think plants, and animals, and people of the Southwest and Midwest "noticed" this? I do. As as the trend continues, record heat and drought will indeed be more and more "noticeable," even if averages "only" increase by (an astonishing, climatologically speaking), 2 to 5 degrees in the decades ahead.
There's no doubt that the population growth in the Southwest is not and has not been sustainable for decades, but I would hardly call the record-breaking drought in the Southwest a "side benefit" for any living thing in this ecosystem, including human beings who have foolishly over-populated a fragile and water-scarce place like the Southwest. Actions do have consequences, and the insane population growth in the Southwest is indeed going to lead to catastrophic problems as the millions of people battle over Colorado River water rights in a period of very long-term drought. The human suffering will be huge, and I, for one, don't relish the thought, even if I decry overpopulation and abuse of the ecosystem.
By the way, I happened to have been born and raised in "Lost Wages," and I don't think very many people in that crazy place are going to "appreciate" the kind of water shortage that probably lies in that city's future -- even those of us who remember when the Vegas valley has a few hundred thousand people and not 1.7 million. Heck, if Vegas had to use the indigenous water of "The Meadows," which gave the city its Spanish name, the population might be a few thousand people living off those original springs. But, thanks to Hoover Dam, supposedly "unlimited" Colorado River water, and Bugsy Siegel, we have the spectacle that is today's Las Vegas.
Mettarefuge, don't worry, SoCal will steal your Hoover Dam water. DWP has done it before. Look at Mono Lake and Owens Lake. I know that the Bristle Cone Pine has recorded droughts in the past. This is normal climate variation. Much to do about nothing. But in the short term there can be water shortages which will put a stop to all these people coming here. I remember LA County when the population was only 15% of what it is today. I pray for a drought and earthquakes to put a stop to paving all of SoCal. The paving makes for one big heat island that changes the local climate in heat and reduced rainfall.
Well.......Mettarefuge. Again I applaud your concise explaination of the REAL facts on climate change. However, it is obvious that people like "Wilbur" will NEVER be able to grasp the real consequences of this problem! In his own little world he sees this as a possible benefit to the over-crowding in his small spot on the planet. If it wasn't so sad......it would almost be funny. If people were not able to grasp the fact that the new millenium did NOT begin in the year 2000, but actually started in the year 2001...............then how can you possibly expect people like poor Wilbur to understand climatology science??????
>Mettarefuge, don't worry, SoCal will steal your Hoover Dam water. DWP has done it before. Look at Mono Lake and Owens Lake.
I don't live in Vegas anymore, but I have no doubt that the big population centers will ultimately win in the upcoming water battles, which will probably be in the courts forever. I well know the history of Mono Lake (what a beautiful place -- those tufa spires! And the amazing brine shrimp!) and Lake Owens - because I have written high school textbook chapters on this very subject. The upcoming "water wars" between northern and southern CA, and between CA and AZ and CO, are sure to dwarf the "water wars" at the turn and middle of the last century, when they were building the LA Aqueduct and destroying the Owen Valley and later, the Mono Basin ecosystems.
>I know that the Bristle Cone Pine has recorded droughts in the past. This is normal climate variation. Much to do about nothing.
Yes, the paleo-history of the Southwest shows periodic long-term, severe droughts, sometimes lasting as long as 500 years or more. The record's there in the Bristle-cone pine tree rings, and even the pre-historic middens of pack rats! The disappearance of pre-historic native populations, like the Anasazi, may well be due to these cyclical climatological changes. What impact the *recent* phenomenon of human-created global warming will have on these long-term, recurrent drought patterns in the Southwest remains to be seen. The initial evidence seems to suggest that the droughts will be longer and even more severe. As to whether this is "much ado about nothing," I would contend that this very much depends upon the eye of the beholder. :)
>But in the short term there can be water shortages which will put a stop to all these people coming here. I remember LA County when the population was only 15% of what it is today. I pray for a drought and earthquakes to put a stop to paving all of SoCal. The paving makes for one big heat island that changes the local climate in heat and reduced rainfall.
Wilbur, yes, I agree that the inevitable water shortages will greatly slow down the population growth of CA and the Southwest, and this is a good thing, in the long run. But I always have to smile that people want other people to "stop coming here" *after* they are already there, as you are, either through birth or immigration! People before you can remember when LA county was only 5% of what it is today. You, my friend, are part of *their* blight. I wonder if they prayed that you might die in an earthquake, or that your family and parents might die in one, or have been driven away by drought, before you came to "spoil" the landscape with your presence!
Look, I agree about the horrific effect of overpopulation on ecosystems and the "paving" of SoCal. You are so right about the heat sink effect, and many other ecological effects of overpopulation. My grandfather, when he got out of the Navy, bummed around Southern CA during the depression. He spoke in awe of how incredibly beautiful and unspoiled Orange Country was in the 1930s. (Though even then, there were miles of oranges groves, he said, which smelled so delicious during their flowering time.) How I wish I could have seen SoCal at this time, but it's all now crushed under the huge overpopulation caused by everyone wanting to be in this incredible Mediterranean climate and ecosystem. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the reasons your family originally came to CA was its warmth and beauty and opportunity, so *you* are part of the problem, not just "other people." We are all interconnected, and we are all in this together, like it or not.
Unless there's a drastic, enlightened paradigm shift in human consciousness on how we view our planet, its plants, animals, and ecosystems, we are going to see ever more disastrous consequences to our selfishness and inability to see our interconnection with every aspect of this amazing "blue marble" that we live on. This is what I pray for, not the death and suffering of my fellow beings, even if we can't escape the immediate and long-term consequence of our wrong actions.
Mettarefuge, there is such a thing as carrying capacity. In SoCal we have gone far beyond that for a desert region. We have become a beast that is sucking up all the water from our neighbors. The beast must be stopped. If it takes global warming or earthquakes so be it. Mother Nature has a way to deal with such an over capacity problem. Famine. It is already here. The grain prices have shot up and people are starving.
Yes Mettarefuge! Again you are able to succinctly articulate many of my precise thoughts & feelings about this issue. Kudos to you and your obvious intellect. If only MORE citizens were as equally informed and open-minded, then maybe our country would not have nearly as many problems of our own and throughout the world! Gracias amigo.
jnh99kr, thanks, my friend, for this, and your other kind comments earlier. It's always nice to meet a kindred spirit. :)
You know, I really do think that if one goes deep enough into one's own heart, or into the truth, insofar as we are able to ascertain truth, we will find that we all have much more in common than we realize, and Wilbur and Bill Nigh are actually brothers too, even if not yet (or apparently) kindred spirits. :)
Individually, we are here such a brief time on this amazing planet, and our species is still so very young and inexperienced and has so much to learn, how can we not be kind to one another and not work together to make things better?
i'm 16 years old. reading about all you arguing and debating about whether global warming is even happening or not. whether you believe or not, it shoulsn't cause for argument, every one has there own opinion and each and every one of them is relevent. everything can be 'proven' wrong by anyone with something to say that seems rational. global warming doesn't seem that rational to the common person so i see how it would be hard to comprehend the concept of not having the power to control and distroy our earths life... aka natural resources. pollutiion is effecting our planet. whether the planet is going to raise so many degrees and the water level will rise 20 feet or not. people are dying from pollution, from the heat, from genoside. and yes global warming is a huge issue, there are islands with rising waves like never seen before, ruining land and homes. look at the facts. snow storms in san diego. raising temp in Vegas, all the tornado's more ppl have already died this year from tornado's than usual. there is no point in arguing at what might be wrong. because there are so many 'facts' to back up and contradict almost everything that is said, it's time to look at the issues that you believe are issues and just try and try to do something possitive and productive to help save our earth, whether you believe it needs our help now or not. earth is our mother, it takes care of us and all we have done is stripped it from everything within. almost like stripping her from her soul, and i feel that life is insane, and we are going to be going through some [deleted] right now. and we probably deserve it. hopefully we can make it through and learn from our mistakes. and if your going to call Gore a pig, you better not be backing up that monkey bush, cause monkey see monkey do, (following in the steps of his rotten father)
and thats why we're billions in dept and China basically owns us.
so for a little girl what do i know?
Amanda dear, in the future, please use spell check and don't use the "s" word that is prohibited by the FCC. You may use "crap" instead.
Amanda, your spelling may not be perfect. Your use of the s word may be offensive to some, but definitely not me.
More importantly though, it seems you actually know quite a lot for a 16 year old. I think you've made a number of good points.
I also think that editing your post for the S word is a little pedantic.
Hey Doc, Does the FCC really regulate the internet? I won't talk about some of the things I've seen out there that are a lot worse than the s word. Further, right here on this blog, I see trolls posting racist s which is far more offensive to most thinking individuals than the s word.
So, back on topic, Amanda, good post. If you do want spell checking in the future try firefox as a browser. Version 2 and higher has it built in.