A Change in the Wind

The headline exaggerates, of course, but doesn't in fact mislead. Here's a graph of a NASA climate model, depicting a forecast of precipitation in the U.S. for the next winter. Colors tell the story. 

In truth, it's a little hard to decode the anomalies chart, but this turns out to be just one of eight climate models forecasts. The trouble is that seven of those eight, as Eric Holthaus mentioned this morning on Twitter, depict little or no rain for the winter three months in California. 

California has about a 1-in-8 chance of a wet winter. Continued drought looks increasingly likely, per latest models: pic.twitter.com/z0t4huwNNt

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) October 13, 2014

Troubling. Am trying to reserach, verify, discuss for a story. But also striking is this contrast with the NOAA forecast. 

It's a bit different isn't it? At least for SoCal. Much better chance of rain. 

NOAA released its October outlook for our winter, based on ocean temperatures, and continues to find a 60-65% chance of the appearance of the boychick.

Here's my fave set of graphs today, from another site, and here's my fave single graph:

These are tempeartures taken across a section of the equatorial Pacific, the vast belt across the widest girth of the planet, that the experts consider central for the formation of El Niño.

As you can see, this year is in the red -- meaning warmer than usual ocean conditions, which harbingers a warm winter with possibility of wetness for California -- but only by a tiny bit. 

It's especially small compared to big El Niño years such as 2010 and of course the epochal 1997-1998, a year of catastrophic weather that literally changed the world. Note too that the forecast was well in the red for 2012, a predicted El Niño, which did not develop and left us in drought. 

On the other hand, if you look at the depth of blue/cooling over recent years in this indicative region, you see a steadily diminishing. This was the point The New York Times made a month or so ago in a story with a conclusion that struck me as anomalously insightful. 

“Even if we don’t see an El Niño, it doesn’t mean California is going to be dry,” [the climatologist] said.

In fact, Mr. Halpert and Mr. Pierce said, one bright spot in the long-range outlook is that with the odds favoring at least a weak El Niño, the opposite weather phenomenon, known as La Niña, is less likely. La Niña occurs when Pacific water is colder than normal, and the result for California could be very dry weather.

“At least when you have a weak El Niño it’s not a La Niña,” Mr. Pierce said. “So that’s some limited good news.”

Impressive to me when a highly changeable news story remains relevant well after the pub date.

From the NYTimes: A Clarion Call for Action

USAToday calls it the largest climate march ever. MSNBC said hundreds of thousands in NYC.

To be followed by a mass demonstration at Wall Street tomorrow -- now that should be interesting. Flood Wall Street. Bringing the experience so many people around the globe have lived through home to the financial captal. From metaphor to life. 

Not able to join this mobilization because I am off to explore Section G of the PCT of Planet A, which goes from Walker Pass, south of Kernville CA, to Kennedy Meadows, the gate to the Sierras.

Back next weekend. Wish me luck and no rattlesnakes. 

Four years ago an eminent climate researcher named Michael Oppenheimer at Princeton published a study predicting that climate change would increase the chance of a devastating drought hitting Mexico. He warned that it could drive farmers from their fields and send them across the border looking for work. 

a new study published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences appears to establish a coming (and possibly a present) link between global warming and illegal immigration from Mexico,..the study led by atmospheric science Prof. Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University and co-written by scientists from China’s Shanghai University and the U.S. Treasury Department, the more global warming dries out farms and water supplies in Mexico, the more Mexicans will head to this country.

The Oppenheimer study predicts anywhere between 1.4 million and 6.7 million current Mexican farmers and farmworkers will emigrate north between now and 2080 solely because their farmlands become too parched to produce.

I actually reported that story from the American Geophysical Union that year (although I can't seem to find it on this site -- perhaps I forgot to post it). Regardless, it comes to mind as I read this item from Reuters today:

A severe drought has ravaged crops in Central America, and as many as 2.8 million people are struggling to feed themselves, the United Nations World Food Program said Friday. The drought, which is also affecting South America, has been particularly hard on southern Guatemala, northern Honduras and western El Salvador. Guatemala declared a state of emergency after 256,000 families lost their crops. Farmers growing peas, green beans and broccoli estimate that they will lose 30 to 40 percent of their crops. Jesús Samayoa, a farmer in Jutiapa, Guatemala, said, “I am 60 years old, and this is the first time I have seen a crisis like this.”

Perhaps it's time to follow up with Prof. Oppenheimer. Although the child immigration crisis of last month seemed driven more by gang violence and threats of murder than drought, one has to wonder if there could be a connection, given that most of the immigrants were coming from Honduras and Guatemala.  

Early this year Neil Young toured Canada as part of anti tar-sands effort, allying himself with the First Nations groups who accuse Canada of ruining their ancestral lands. This prompted an angry response from Stephen Harper, the climate change denying and oil promoting Prime Minister.

And a cute cartoon...

What rock star action in the U.S. could provoke a reaction from a U.S. President? Any?

At the last minute for an El Nino this year, a Kelvin wave rises from the data:

Seth Borenstein of the AP leads the national press in reporting on a leaked IPCC report starkly warning that global warming will give us a poorer, sicker, more violent world.

And he puts the language of the report itself front and center:

"Throughout the 21st century, climate change impacts will slow down economic growth and poverty reduction, further erode food security and trigger new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger," the report says. "Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low- and lower-middle income countries and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries with increasing inequality."

The warnings pull no punches:

The report says scientists have high confidence especially in what it calls certain "key risks":

—People dying from warming- and sea rise-related flooding, especially in big cities.

—Famine because of temperature and rain changes, especially for poorer nations.

—Farmers going broke because of lack of water.

—Infrastructure failures because of extreme weather.

—Dangerous and deadly heat waves worsening.

—Certain land and marine ecosystems failing.

Reminds me of a tweet today, that actually comes to us from deep in the past:

...there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

— Moby Dick (@MobyDickatSea) August 28, 2014

One of the funniest tweets of all time, according to one semi-disreputable media outlet, is about climate change. 

#13, to be precise. From Playboy. 

As usual, Tom Toles finds a funny way to dramatize a disaster: a methane explosion in Siberia. 

Which raises the question: Well, how dangerous is the methane that is emerging from the Arctic? Is it just blowing holes in the permafrost, or does it presage global atmospheric doom?

It's not a small volume of methane, after all, and we know that methane in the short term is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2-- about 30x more potent, to be exact. So the concept of a "methane time bomb" that will set off the greatly feared runaway global warming seems plausible at a glance. 

But look closer, says RealClimate, with lots and lots of data. (From last week.) They conclude: 

...the future of Earth’s climate in this century and beyond will be determined mostly by the fossil fuel industry, and not by Arctic methane. We should keep our eyes on the ball.