Another clear and breezy morning this Thursday on California’s north coast as we prepare for the weekend — and the weather is cooperating.
Yesterday was pure gorgeous. Bright sunshine with very-little wind, which is abnormal especially for the afternoon, and way-warm — I opened windows to let the draft clear out my apartment, and, marched around in a T-shirt! So Abby Normal.

Weather nowadays is anything but the usual.

(Illustration found here).

And from the smell of things, the state of the atmosphere is getting more Abby Normal — earth’s climate is shifting quickly, hotter and coming at us like a furnace on fire.
Yesterday from Skeptical Science:

In 2013 the Earth’s oceans accumulated energy at a rate of 12 Hiroshima atomic bombs per second, according to global ocean heat content records from the US National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).
This rapid heating in 2013 compares to an average of 4 Hiroshima bombs per second since 1998, and 2 bombs per second since records began in 1955.
This is not the usual way to begin an article about global warming observations, but I have chosen to do so because ocean heat content is objectively the most important piece of evidence.
The vast majority of heat from global warming goes into the oceans, so ocean heat content is a more reliable indicator of climate than surface or atmospheric temperature.
This data shows global warming has accelerated in the last 15 years, contrary to denialist claims that global warming has “slowed”, “paused”, or “stopped” because the upper ocean, atmosphere, and surface have warmed more slowly in recent years.
Warming oceans fuel hurricanes, raise sea level, melt sea ice, devastate coral reefs, and force fish to migrate to cooler waters.
Satellite measurements confirm Earth is gathering heat at the rate indicated by ocean heat content.
This can be expected to continue as atmospheric CO2 is currently at 400 ppm and rising (its highest level in at least 13 million years and well above the estimated safe level of 350 ppm).
…
Several studies found climate scientists have systematically underestimated the impacts of global warming.
New results are more than 20 times more likely to be worse than predicted than they are to be better.
It appears scientists are overcorrecting in response to the deniers’ accusations of alarmism.
One study concluded: “If the intention is to offer true balance in reporting, the scientifically credible ‘‘other side’’ is that, if the consensus estimates such as those from the IPCC are wrong, it is because the physical reality is significantly more ominous than has been widely recognized to date.”
…
In summary, the Earth is gaining heat faster than ever before.
Arctic sea ice is melting at an astonishingly accelerating rate and could soon be all gone.
Most indications of climate change are proving worse than scientists predicted.
When you include the fast-changing Arctic, surface warming in the last 15 years has continued at only a slightly slower rate.
This apparent “slowdown” in surface warming is temporary and can be explained by a combination of ocean and solar cycles, with a possible contribution from reflective particles emitted by volcanoes and/or Asian industry.
Global warming is driving an increase in extreme weather, with almost everywhere warmer than usual during 2013.
The idea of a global warming “pause” is a false narrative promoted by ideologically motivated deniers, uncritically propagated by journalists, and unwittingly reinforced by the IPCC.

And given a ho-hum by the general population. On Tuesday, the Washington Post‘s Wonk Blog forecast via four reasons the failure of humanity towards climate change — and the last one, we can’t overcome: China is determined to increase living standards with more cars, more power plants, and more everything. In 2012, the average Chinese emits 6.2 metric tons a year of carbon dioxide versus 17.6 metric tons for the average American. Closing even one-third of that gap (even with more energy efficient economy) will generate a lot more emissions.

And the piece concludes on this shit-note: Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University said: “The most likely scenario is that we will find out just how bad the climate change problem is slated to be.”
Way-too late, bud.
Things are sure normal — not!

And it’s just not the weather and temperatures — the earth itself can be forced to movement as the world warms. The 6.8 earthquake we had this week, along with about two dozen aftershocks, could be the foretelling of one shitty story. We’re prone for some heavy ground moving — via yesterday’s LA Times with the headline, “A potent threat of major earthquake off California’s northern coast,” which creates a movement feeling in my bowels:

The Cascadia subduction zone is less known than the San Andreas fault, which scientists have long predicted will produce The Big One.
But in recent years, scientists have come to believe that the Cascadia is far more dangerous than originally believed and have been giving the system more attention.
The Cascadia begins at a geologically treacherous area where three tectonic plates are pushing against each other.
The intersection has produced the two largest earthquakes in California in the last decade — Sunday’s 6.8 temblor off Eureka and a 7.2 quake off Crescent City in 2005.
The area has produced six quakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater in the last 100 years, the California Geological Survey said.
…
For years, scientists believed the largest earthquake the area could produce was magnitude 7.5.
But scientists now say the Cascadia was the site of a magnitude 9 earthquake more than 300 years ago.
Ripping over a fault that stretches in the Pacific Ocean from the coast of Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, the quake on the evening of Jan. 26, 1700, was so powerful, entire sections of the Pacific coastline dropped by as much as 5 feet, allowing the ocean to rush in and leave behind dead trees by the shore.
The tsunami reached Japan, destroying homes and rice paddies along the eastern shore.
In the Pacific Northwest, Native American stories told of “how the prairie became ocean,” and how canoes were flung into trees.
Whitmore of the National Tsunami Warning Center said similar waves, up to 100 feet above sea level, could again inundate many areas of the U.S. West Coast.
…
Sunday’s quake, which erupted 50 miles off the coast, caused light to moderate shaking. No injuries or damage was reported.
But the North Coast has not always been so lucky.
On April 25, 1992, a magnitude-7.2 earthquake hit on shore near the village of Petrolia — about 30 miles southwest of Eureka — injuring 95 people, and triggering landslides and rockfalls, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
That quake was so powerful that a 15-mile stretch of beach was pushed up as much as 4 feet — leaving behind rows of dead sea urchins, mussels and sea snails.

So the brain was, “Abby Something-or-another?”