Thread for discussing climate change

[Atlanticmike]

In the light of the terrible tornadoes that many have recently experienced, a sober look at possible links between such extreme phenomena and global heating is worth reading:

A warming world could add more fuel to tornadoes, scientists say

While the link between global warming and disasters like wildfires and flooding are more definitive, experts say, warmer temperatures could intensify cool-season thunderstorms and tornadoes in the future.

Executive summary: The short-term nature of tornadoes and their dependence on local conditions for initiation makes it difficult to be as sure about the link with global heating as scientists are for "wildfires, heat waves and other climate disasters". The jury is still out, even though the science points that way.

What I would say personally is that if my property had been in the way of once of these, I might prefer to see people (shall we say) thinking hard before deciding to maintain or increase their current rate of carbon emissions.

In the wake of deadly storms that ravaged parts of the South and the Midwest this weekend, scientists had a warning: While the exact link between climate change and tornadoes remains uncertain, higher temperatures could add fuel to these violent disasters.
As rescuers searched Saturday amid the rubble of violent tornadoes that barreled through multiple states, killed scores of people, and leveled homes and businesses, climate scientists said people around the world needed to brace for more frequent and intense weather-driven catastrophes.

“A lot of people are waking up today and seeing this damage and saying, ‘Is this the new normal?’ ” said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University, adding that key questions still remain when it comes to tornadoes because so many factors come into play. “It’ll be some time before we can say for certain what kind of role climate change played in an event like yesterday.”

Still, he said the warm December air mass in much of the country and La Niña conditions created ideal conditions for a turbulent event. Thunderstorms — the raw material for tornadoes — happen when there is warm, moist air close to the ground and cooler, drier air above, creating a path for humidity to travel upward.

The tornadic thunderstorm carved a 250-mile path of destruction through northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, northwest Tennessee and western Kentucky, hurling debris into the sky for more than three straight hours. At times, the wreckage reached an altitude of 30,000 feet. As the twister blasted through Mayfield, Ky., it sheared entire homes off their foundations, indicating its top-tier intensity.

Whether or not scientists can pin down a link between this week’s horrific storms and climate change, Gensini said there’s no doubt that the tornadoes will go down as “one of the most devastating long-track tornadoes” in U.S. history — probably the worst since the Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which tore across three states over several hours and killed hundreds of people.

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service are surveying damage to determine whether this week’s storm was a single tornado or several. If it was a single tornado traveling on the ground without interruption for 250 miles, it will rank as the longest tornado track in U.S. history and the first to cross through four states.

As the death toll is expected to swell, it will become the deadliest December tornado outbreak on record and potentially among the most deadly in any month. Until Friday night, the deadliest December outbreak occurred on Dec. 5, 1953, which killed 38 people in Vicksburg, Miss.
Temperatures in the zone ravaged by tornadoes rose into the 70s to near 80 degrees Friday afternoon, providing the conditions for severe thunderstorms to develop that night. Dozens of record highs were set that day in the states hardest hit by the storms: In Memphis, temperatures soared to 79 degrees, breaking a 103-year-old record.

In a warming world, Gensini said: “It’s absolutely fair to say that the atmospheric environments will be more supportive for cool-season tornado events.”

But Gensini and other climate and weather experts noted that tornadoes are among the most difficult events to link definitively to global warming, partly because they are relatively small and short-lived events compared with the wildfires, heat waves and other climate disasters.

“Tornadoes are, unfortunately, one of the extreme events where we have the least confidence in our ability to attribute or understand the impact of climate change on specific events,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist who directs climate and energy programs at the Breakthrough Institute, a climate research center based in Oakland, Calif. “There is not much evidence to date that the number of strong tornadoes is different today than it was over much of the past century.”

The most recent National Climate Assessment, assembled by experts at numerous federal agencies, underscored this dynamic in 2018.

“Observed and projected future increases in certain types of extreme weather, such as heavy rainfall and extreme heat, can be directly linked to a warmer world,” the authors wrote. “Other types of extreme weather, such as tornadoes, hail, and thunderstorms, are also exhibiting changes that may be related to climate change, but scientific understanding is not yet detailed enough to confidently project the direction and magnitude of future change.”

The report went on to say tornado activity in the United States has become “more variable” in recent decades, with a decrease in the number of days per year that saw tornadoes but an increase in the number of tornadoes on these days.

Harold Brooks, a senior research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Severe Storms Laboratory, said extreme tornadoes are becoming “clumpier” over time, meaning they have become more concentrated in day-long bursts. He said it wasn’t clear whether there was a connection to climate change.

And warmer Decembers will probably lead to more December thunderstorms.

“Studies suggest that the frequency and intensity of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. could increase as climate changes, particularly over the U.S. Midwest and Southern Great Plains during spring,” Hausfather said.

The additional factors required to transform a thunderstorm into a tornado — among them, a change in wind speeds at different altitudes, with more intense winds up above — are so complex that scientists have a hard time drawing a straight line between warming temperatures and more frequent tornadoes. In fact, the number of intense tornadoes in the United States “hasn’t changed back into the fifties,” Brooks said, around 500 a year.

There may be some evidence that wintertime tornadoes are becoming more frequent, Brooks said. But the tornadoes are rare enough — and hard enough to measure and classify — that it is difficult to achieve statistical confidence.

What is unequivocal, Gensini said, is that the steady warming of the planet is making a broad array of extreme weather disasters more likely and more intense.

“When you look at these things in the aggregate, it becomes pretty clear that changes are happening,” he said. “There are definitely shifts in the probability of these things happening.”

That includes longer severe weather seasons and more instability in the atmosphere during “shoulder” seasons when such disasters historically would have been less common, he said. It also could include more variability than in the past — some years could be very intense and marked by multiple catastrophes, while others could prove mild when it comes to severe weather.

That is in line with the findings of a major report the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this summer, which found that as humans have continued to pump planet-warming gases into the atmosphere, weather-related disasters are growing more extreme and affecting every region of the world.

While the report didn’t draw a conclusion about the relationship between tornadoes and climate change, it noted that the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation in the United States was increasing.

One thing that’s different now: More people and more “things” lie in the paths of future tornadoes and other extreme weather events.
“As populations continue to grow, as cities get larger, as we continue to have more things — this is what you get,” Gensini said. “I know for certain there will be more disaster as our human footprint continues to grow.”

This is really really sad. You do realize any major weather event is going to be tied to """ global warming""" now because you Progressives are using climate change to brainwash as many people as possible so they'll join your Progressive cult!!

[Chap]

This is really really sad. You do realize any major weather event is going to be tied to """ global warming""" now because you Progressives are using climate change to brainwash as many people as possible so they'll join your Progressive cult!!

Yup, of course you're right. I really ought to stop paying attention to 99.5% of qualified climate scientists and use the more reliable information coming from the roofers. After all, those guys are up there under the open sky all day, and they can not only feel the weather, they can see it all round them. That's real first hand knowledge that you can't get any other way.

I mean. what do those guys with their data collecting and analysis and their peer-reviewed journals and their professional conferences know compared to that? Nothing, that's what!

Of course, the point of the quoted article was to show that tornadoes are a type of extreme climate event that, unlike others such as heat waves, wildfires and floods, can still only be loosely linked to global heating: the jury is still out to some extent. Which is sorta' like the opposite of what you are claiming. But don't let that worry you.

[Gunnar]

This is really really sad. You do realize any major weather event is going to be tied to """ global warming""" now because you Progressives are using climate change to brainwash as many people as possible so they'll join your Progressive cult!!

Yup, of course you're right. I really ought to stop paying attention to 99.5% of qualified climate scientists and use the more reliable information coming from the roofers. After all, those guys are up there under the open sky all day, and they can not only feel the weather, they can see it all round them. That's real first hand knowledge that you can't get any other way.

I mean. what do those guys with their data collecting and analysis and their peer-reviewed journals and their professional conferences know compared to that? Nothing, that's what!

Of course, the point of the quoted article was to show that tornadoes are a type of extreme climate event that, unlike others such as heat waves, wildfires and floods, can still only be loosely linked to global heating: the jury is still out to some extent. Which is sorta' like the opposite of what you are claiming. But don't let that worry you.

The adamancy and persistence of Atlantic Mike's resistance to overwhelming evidence and logic is nothing short of breathtaking. I know of few, if any, stronger examples of backfire effect than him. And he accuses us of being a cult?!! I know of nothing more cultish than Trumpist conservatives and their continuing, insane insistence on believing, despite virtually zero supporting evidence, that the 2020 election was somehow unfairly stolen from Trump! Almost of of the documented examples of voter fraud so far discovered in that election were committed by Trump supporters in support of Trump! Even flat earthers have stronger evidence of their claims than do Trump and his loyal, duped and/or incorrigibly corrupt sycophants!

And he still obviously hasn't a clue or definitive concept of "progressive." To him it is obviously little more than a meaningless epithet that he applies to whomever disagrees with him about anything whatsoever in lieu of any actual argument or evidence.

[Atlanticmike]

Yup, of course you're right. I really ought to stop paying attention to 99.5% of qualified climate scientists and use the more reliable information coming from the roofers. After all, those guys are up there under the open sky all day, and they can not only feel the weather, they can see it all round them. That's real first hand knowledge that you can't get any other way.

I mean. what do those guys with their data collecting and analysis and their peer-reviewed journals and their professional conferences know compared to that? Nothing, that's what!

Of course, the point of the quoted article was to show that tornadoes are a type of extreme climate event that, unlike others such as heat waves, wildfires and floods, can still only be loosely linked to global heating: the jury is still out to some extent. Which is sorta' like the opposite of what you are claiming. But don't let that worry you.

The adamancy and persistence of Atlantic Mike's resistance to overwhelming evidence and logic is nothing short of breathtaking. I know of few, if any, stronger examples of backfire effect than him. And he accuses us of being a cult?!! I know of nothing more cultish than Trumpist conservatives and their continuing, insane insistence on believing, despite virtually zero supporting evidence, that the 2020 election was somehow unfairly stolen from Trump! Almost of of the documented examples of voter fraud so far discovered in that election were committed by Trump supporters in support of Trump! Even flat earthers have stronger evidence of their claims than do Trump and his loyal, duped and/or incorrigibly corrupt sycophants!

And he still obviously hasn't a clue or definitive concept of "progressive." To him it is obviously little more than a meaningless epithet that he applies to whomever disagrees with him about anything whatsoever in lieu of any actual argument or evidence.

Rachel Maddow, is that you!?!?!?!? I had no idea you posted here, awesome!

[Gunnar]

Rachel Maddow, is that you!?!?!?!? I had no idea you posted here, awesome!

What does Rachel Maddow have to do with it? I don't have to be Rachel Maddow to recognize the realities of climate change, and I was not quoting her. Thank you for confirming once again by that totally vacuous response that you have not the slightest reasonable argument or evidence to counter the facts we have documented of the seriousness and urgency of climate change, nor any real interest in doing so. It is remarkable how you can be so oblivious to what a colossal fool you repeatedly make of yourself!

Yet, I will acknowledge that even you, on occasion, make some cogent and worthwhile remarks. But not on this subject!

[Themis]

Of course, the point of the quoted article was to show that tornadoes are a type of extreme climate event that, unlike others such as heat waves, wildfires and floods, can still only be loosely linked to global heating: the jury is still out to some extent. Which is sorta' like the opposite of what you are claiming. But don't let that worry you.

It's reasonable to think if you put more energy in a system you will get more extremes from bigger tornadoes and hurricanes, to larger rain and dry events, to higher highs and even lower lows.

[Atlanticmike]

Rachel Maddow, is that you!?!?!?!? I had no idea you posted here, awesome!

What does Rachel Maddow have to do with it? I don't have to be Rachel Maddow to recognize the realities of climate change, and I was not quoting her. Thank you for confirming once again by that totally vacuous response that you have not the slightest reasonable argument or evidence to counter the facts we have documented of the seriousness and urgency of climate change, nor any real interest in doing so. It is remarkable how you can be so oblivious to what a colossal fool you repeatedly make of yourself!

Yet, I will acknowledge that even you, on occasion, make some cogent and worthwhile remarks. But not on this subject!

I'm building an ark in my backyard!! That way when the sea rises and the shoreline reaches my backyard I can just float away with all my animals and family. I still have a few spots open if you'd like to join us! Just send me a money order for $10,000 and I'll reserve a spot for you. I just got an email yesterday from Alexandria ocasio-cortez and she'll be joining us on the ark, if that makes you feel better. She says we only have 9 years and 7 months left until all hell breaks loose.

[Chap]

Of course, the point of the quoted article was to show that tornadoes are a type of extreme climate event that, unlike others such as heat waves, wildfires and floods, can still only be loosely linked to global heating: the jury is still out to some extent. Which is sorta' like the opposite of what you are claiming. But don't let that worry you.

It's reasonable to think if you put more energy in a system you will get more extremes from bigger tornadoes and hurricanes, to larger rain and dry events, to higher highs and even lower lows.

Just as you say. But while climate scientists acknowledge that tornadoes getting worse as the atmosphere heats up is not unexpected, they are cautious folks, and as yet they can't trace a causal link as clearly as they can with other extreme climate events that are less short-term and contingent on local circumstances than tornadoes are.