Legion of Zombies on 23/12/2012 at 19:49
I've never seen so much flooding about. There's a local park near to me that is literally now a lake. I wonder if global warming is actually starting to manifest itself now.
(
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20829807)
SubJeff on 23/12/2012 at 22:25
It is a bit bizarre for sure, but it does seem we're getting floods somewhere every year now.
Scots Taffer on 23/12/2012 at 23:19
I'm 80-90% through a book called The Wave, that's half about the formation of rogue waves (and associated science/theory regarding sea levels, global warming and the like) and half about the madmen who tow-surf monster waves, and it's left me in no doubt as to the uncertain future we face with regards to climate change. The scientists interviewed in this book are uniform in their view that change is happening and that the only question is what dimension will be change the most... is it frequency or severity... and from there, what is the cumulative impact created by various weather patterns on sea levels such as increased strain on the earth's crust, hence increasing the likelihood of earthquakes and resultant tsunamis...
One of the scariest things is that science's collective memory of these weather pattern changes and extreme events is shockingly short... in the 1700s Lisbon was wiped out by a tsunami and records show that a tsunami also rocked Japan at the same time... that means that there was potentially a earthquake or something else that hit two coastlines at the same time with enough damage to kill nearly 100,000 people.
gunsmoke on 25/12/2012 at 00:29
Damn, that is awful. I wish everyone affected the best.
Is the UK like the states in regards to the homeowner's insurance clause that requires one to have specific flood insurance to recoup losses, as opposed to just general insurance?
Renzatic on 25/12/2012 at 07:32
For me, Christmas Day is going to be one spent near the basement in case the tornado alarm sounds.
Yes. That's right. Tornadoes. In December.
Couple this with doom and gloom tales of the stock market possibly crashing in the very near future, and...well...
Happy Holidays, everyone!
Sulphur on 25/12/2012 at 07:35
Again?
Boy, does your town ever get a break?
Renzatic on 25/12/2012 at 08:19
Apparently not. :(
zombe on 25/12/2012 at 13:23
Some years ago i thought about what one, relatively uninformed person like me, would see as crossing the tipping point of runaway climate change (as judged from a comfy chair in front of a PC monitor). Where natural positive feedback surpasses our (realistic) ability to proportionally tone town anthropogenic forcings. Thus:
* some significantly accelerating climate effect => runaway positive feedback will not be far behind ( (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback#Positive) ).
* some significantly accelerating positive feedback => stuff we can not control, even if we "wanted" to do so, becomes more important than whatever we do/did to start the process.
I believe we have crossed that point as every now and then i encounter something that conforms to my (completely made up) criteria. Like:
(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWDWYgc496M) (Climate 2013: Perspectives of 8 Scientists)
* Greenland is melting about twice as fast as it did only ten years ago (as claimed in the vid, have not dug up the relevant material myself).
* Permafrost is melting (releases quite potent greenhouse gases from bacterial activity) for quite a few decades already and sure as hell is not slowing down - far from it.
So, inconvenient weather will become more frequent and more severe (as one would expect from the fact that our climate system has more raw energy to redistribute in it than it used to).
PS. that UK pic looks quite terrible to everyone affected :(, how usual are such floods there?
Yandros on 25/12/2012 at 14:39
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Yes. That's right. Tornadoes. In December.
Yikes, I just checked the radar... hunker down, Renz. It's supposed to get to me Wed night/Thursday. Lovely.
Neb on 25/12/2012 at 21:19
Quote Posted by Legion of Zombies
I wonder if global warming is actually starting to manifest itself now.
I don't know enough, but if you do some digging around for answers whenever there's been extreme weather in winter it usually comes down to a weather pattern called the Arctic oscillation, and how there have been more freak events recently.
