Happy Monday, News Viewers, and welcome to Free Range, our free chat centering on the world around us, the environment of animals, people, land and sea and let’s include space while we’re at it, shall we?
What a week it’s been, in news and in weather, and we wonder what we’re seeing weather-wise, a fluke? An anomaly? — Extremes of weather, weather events are now in the news daily. It wasn’t always that way, was it?
From the Guardian we start with a three minute clip of the past month in this our ongoing climate crisis. And that “Aha moment you’re having? That’s telling you the climate crisis is not just a future possibility anymore. The climate crisis is here. . . .
In the last month, devastating weather extremes have hit regions across the world. From flash floods in Belgium to deadly temperatures in the US, from wildfires in Siberia to landslides in India, it has been an unprecedented period of chaotic weather. Climate scientists have long predicted that human-caused climate disruption would lead to more flooding, heatwaves, droughts, storms and other forms of extreme weather, but even they have been shocked by the scale of these scenes
Since 1880, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by a little more than 1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) with two-thirds of that warming occurring since 1975, a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20 degrees Celsius per decade.
The temperature has risen one or two degrees over the past hundred years. So what? On its face, one or two degrees might not seem like a lot. But consider this:
- With each additional degree Celsius of temperaThick Smoke Continues Into August, ‘Unprecedented’ Bad Air Quality In Minnesota (forbes.com)ture rise, the atmosphere can hold 7% more water vapor.
- The result: Hurricanes bringing unprecedented storm surge and rainfall to coastal areas; devastating rainfall events washing out vital agricultural fields; more and more once-in-a-thousand-year floods all over the world.
- For every one degree Celsius of warming, lightning strikes increase 10- 12%.
- The result: More and more wildfires, like those that have ravaged the American West and Arctic.
DATA: NDMC/USDA/NOAA | MAP: DENNIS MERSEREA
Source: The Guardian Climate Reality Forbes