GR: Still ringing the alarm, but no one is pouring into the streets. CO2 levels are rising, farms are expanding, forests are disappearing, population is rising, and the oceans–the oceans are getting warmer, deeper, and more acidic. Plants and animals are dying. (Here’s another story on extremes.)
This story emphasizes the extremes that are beginning.
“Giant airstreams are circling the Earth, waving up and down between the Arctic and the tropics. These planetary waves transport heat and moisture. When these planetary waves stall, droughts or floods can occur.
“Warming caused by greenhouse-gases from fossil fuels creates favorable conditions for such events, an international team of scientists now finds.
“The unprecedented 2016 California drought, the 2011 U.S. heatwave and 2010 Pakistan flood as well as the 2003 European hot spell all belong to a most worrying series of extremes,” says Michael Mann from the Pennsylvania State University in the U.S., lead-author of the study now to be published in Scientific Reports.
“The increased incidence of these events exceeds what we would expect from the direct effects of global warming alone, so there must be an additional climate change effect. In data from computer simulations as well as observations, we identify changes that favor unusually persistent, extreme meanders of the jet stream that support such extreme weather events. Human activity has been suspected of contributing to this pattern before, but now we uncover a clear fingerprint of human activity.”
How sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave: “If the same weather persists for weeks on end in one region, then sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave and drought, or lasting rains can lead to flooding”, explains co-author Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany.” –ANI News (Continue reading: Humans responsible for weather extremes in summer: Study | ANI News.)
