Thick-gray overcast this early Friday on California’s north coast and although we’re expected to have temperatures in the low-70s, the coolness of the shoreline prohibits any heat of measure — not so eastward, a weak low pressure off the beach keeps triple-digits happening in the middle of the state.
Incidentally, most-likely our hot weather, coupled with the scorching heatwave now burning across Europe and the UK is “virtually certain” to have been inflamed by climate change.
Via Reuters this morning: ‘As heat waves grow more frequent, “it does resonate with a much wider audience that this is connected to climate change and we’re facing a new normal”, said Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.‘
(Illustration found here).
A more-personal take: ‘Cities facing heat waves are having to adjust the way they deal with the threat, including through simple measures such as sending out social media messages urging people to “give a call to your grandmother,” van Aalst said.’
In other words, keep tabs on us old folks.
A study from late last month reported that with climate change real-hot weather is the new norm, and precautions must be taken (per CBS News):
“We know that in the event of a heat wave, and in particular the repeat heat wave, the mortality rate as the result of heart attack and heart failure increases substantially,” study co-author Nick Watts, the Commission’s Head of Projects, told CBS News.
“On the flooding side of things, there’s the spread of infectious disease that occurs as you get a breakdown in sanitation.
“In terms of drought, often one of the worst impacts is that it decreases agricultural yield, increases food prices, and then as a result causes malnutrition.”
Certain extreme weather events can already be attributed to climate change, according to the report, including several deadly heat waves and the current California drought.
On Reddit this morning, some brainiacs from the Lancet Commission on Public Health and Climate answered some environmental/climate change questions, and this reply to resignation on the final impact of global warming:
So I responded to someone else here about that: overcoming climate fatalism is an interesting issue, as usually we focus on getting people to understand, but these people feel that they understand too much and are discouraged.
The big thing to remember is that we are not “doomed.”
We have so many solutions available, and translating that worry into action is important.
Everyone cries optimism — yeah, there’s ‘many solutions‘ to a rapidly-deteriorating environment worldwide, but can mankind pull it off? These guys are responding on climate — even climate change itself is exacerbated by other factors, too. And the big, big concern, ‘…translating that worry into action is important,’ and should be humanity’s only goal right now.
Get a handle on our climate, then we can go back to hating and killing one another full-steam.
The Reddit Q&A was way-interesting, but no revelations or disclosures about anything — more for people who haven’t been keeping up with the subject.
Problem be, however, the shit get’s worse nearly by the day — now about every week or so, some new report on some just recognized piece of evidence. Just in the past two weeks…
From Climate Progress:
But a new study, published in Nature Climate Change, argues that shortcomings in the understanding of how climate change and atmospheric circulation interact shouldn’t stop us from asking a different question: did climate change play a part in worsening the weather event, even if it would have occurred without climate change?
The answer is yes…similar to salt on an open wound.
And from EurekAlert
A new study by physical oceanographers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, shows that water temperatures in this continental shelf region have been trending upward, with unprecedented warming occurring over the last 13 years.
The study also suggests a connection between sea level anomalies and water temperature along the continental shelf.
And onward into the fireworks…