Warming..

Xymphora was sick but now he(?)'s back.  Thankfully, his(?) writing is still as incisive as ever.  Like a bitch slap to your stupid face:

There is a bizarre bi-partisan - for the most part, and I assume by agreement - plan in current American politics to deal with the problem of global warming by simply not talking about it (the old plan of dealing with it by denying all the science and obvious facts on the ground became too silly even for politicians). Global warming simply does not exist as an issue in American political life, despite the immense effect it is having on the fly-over Americans.


Americans have been doing lots of really, really awful things recently, with no obvious effect on the lives of average Americans (although, believe me, the repercussions are coming). The fact that by ignoring global warming they are going to truly and deeply fuck themselves within a few years is almost heartwarming.

He(?)'s not wrong..

Prominent climate-change denier now admits he was wrong

One down, legions of bozos to go..  McClatchy.  Excerpts:

The verdict is in: Global warming is real and greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity are the main cause.



This, according to Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkely, a MacArthur fellow and co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project.


The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of other climatologists around the world came to such conclusions years ago, but the difference now is the source: Muller is a long-standing, colorful critic of prevailing climate science, and the Berkeley project was heavily funded by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, which, along with its libertarian petrochemical billionaire founder Charles G. Koch, has a considerable history of backing groups that deny climate change.


In an opinion piece in Saturday's New York Times titled "The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic," Muller writes:


"Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."


The Berkeley project's research has shown, Muller says, "that the average temperature of the earth's land has risen by 21/2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of 11/2 degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."


He calls his current stance "a total turnaround."


Tonya Mullins, a spokeswoman for the Koch Foundation, said the support her foundation provided, along with others, has no bearing on results of the research.


"Our grants are designed to promote independent research; as such, recipients hold full control over their findings," Mullins said in an email. "In this support, we strive to benefit society by promoting discovery and informing public policy."


Some leading climate scientists said Muller's comments show that the science is so strong that even those inclined to reject it cannot once they examine it carefully.


Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said Muller's conversion might help shape the thinking of the "reasonable middle" of the population "who are genuinely confused and have been honestly taken in" by attacks on climate science.


On his Facebook page, Mann wrote: "There is a certain ironic satisfaction in seeing a study funded by the Koch Brothers - the greatest funders of climate change denial and disinformation on the planet - demonstrate what scientists have known with some degree of confidence for nearly two decades: that the globe is indeed warming, and that this warming can only be explained by human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations. I applaud Muller and his colleagues for acting as any good scientists would, following where their analyses led them, without regard for the possible political repercussions."


Muller's conclusions, however, did not sway the most ardent climate contrarians, like Marc Morano, a former producer for Rush Limbaugh(!!) and former communications director for the Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.


"Muller will be remembered as a befuddled professor who has yet to figure out how to separate climate science from his media antics. His latest claims provide no new insight into the climate science debate," Morano said in an email.

Global Warming must be a hoax if Rush Limbaugh's former producer says it is!  You know what your problem is, buster?  Too much Oxycontin; that's what!  It rots your brain, ya know..  Some of my batshit friends and relatives still deny Climate Change, too.  How about quoting them?  I guess some people won't leave their seats until they can actually see the theater on fire.  Or until Fox News tells them so..

Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt

Good news from NASA!  No, not really..

Extent of surface melt over Greenland’s ice sheet on July 8 (left) and July 12 (right). Measurements from three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet had undergone thawing at or near the surface. In just a few days, the melting had dramatically accelerated and an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. In the image, the areas classified as “probable melt” (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as “melt” (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting. The satellites are measuring different physical properties at different scales and are passing over Greenland at different times. As a whole, they provide a picture of an extreme melt event about which scientists are very confident. Credit: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory
For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its two-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists.


On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet and the rest is lost to the ocean. But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July.


Researchers have not yet determined whether this extensive melt event will affect the overall volume of ice loss this summer and contribute to sea level rise.
..
Nghiem consulted with Dorothy Hall at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Hall studies the surface temperature of Greenland using the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. She confirmed that MODIS showed unusually high temperatures and that melt was extensive over the ice sheet surface.



Thomas Mote, a climatologist at the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga; and Marco Tedesco of City University of New York also confirmed the melt seen by Oceansat-2 and MODIS with passive-microwave satellite data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder on a U.S. Air Force meteorological satellite.


The melting spread quickly. Melt maps derived from the three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet's surface had melted. By July 12, 97 percent had melted.


This extreme melt event coincided with an unusually strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland. The ridge was one of a series that has dominated Greenland's weather since the end of May. "Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one," said Mote. This latest heat dome started to move over Greenland on July 8, and then parked itself over the ice sheet about three days later. By July 16, it had begun to dissipate.

Even the area around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles above sea level is near the highest point of the ice sheet, showed signs of melting. Such pronounced melting at Summit and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889, according to ice cores analyzed by Kaitlin Keegan at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather station at Summit confirmed air temperatures hovered above or within a degree of freezing for several hours July 11-12.

Whatever this is, it is arriving.  Two more months of summer here in the Northern Hemisphere.  Two more months of relentless, ongoing events that you are most likely already experiencing. 

Here, near/in the "Breadbasket of America," almost exactly under the High Pressure System-that-will-never-end, we wait.  The temperatures consistently hover around 100.  The wind feels oven-heated.  Wild trees and vegetation are browning and dying.  Everything looks and feels baked or beat down.  I'm not sure the region can take much more of this punishment.

Locally, there is a chance of showers both Thursday and Friday.  The long-term heat and absence of rain, though, is not forecast to subside.  There is no relief in sight.  Dire ticks toward Critical.  We need respite, but the heat continues to punish, furious at our gleeful ignorance and obstinate lack of forethought.