Bush Admin Report On Climate Predicts Weather Extremes, More Droughts

[Richard Tafoya]

Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/20/ST2008062000916.html

As greenhouse-gas emissions rise, North America is likely to experience more droughts and excessive heat in some regions even as intense downpours and hurricanes pound others more often, according to a report issued yesterday by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

The 162-page study, which was led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+National+Oceanic+and+Atmospheric+Administration?tid=inf ormline), provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of how global warming has helped to transform the climate of the United States and Canada over the past 50 years -- and how it may do so in the future.


Coming at a time when record flooding is ravaging the Midwest, the new report paints a grim scenario in which severe weather will exact a heavy toll. The report warned that extreme weather events "are among the most serious challenges to society in coping with a changing climate."

While the Southwest is likely to face even more intense droughts, the scientists wrote, heavy downpours will become more frequent in some other parts of the country because of increased water vapor in the air.


"This report addresses one of the most frequently asked questions about global warming: What will happen to weather and climate extremes?" said one of the report's two co-chairs, Thomas R. Karl, who directs NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Climatic+Data+Center?tid=informline) in Asheville, N.C.. He added that the report, which synthesizes the findings of more than 100 academic papers, "concludes that we are now witnessing and will increasingly experience more extreme weather and climate events."

[Java]

One frightening aspect not mentioned is the fact the northern jet stream has been plunging farther north each summer. We've been fortunate so far in that the northern jet stream has not crossed completely over the north pole and collided with itself on the other side of the planet! This would cause a complete collapse of the northern jetstream and a very abrupt climate catastrophe from which it might take centuries before the northern jet stream can become reorganised again. During the meantime the lack of organised jetstream winds which are responsible for steering the weather patterns over the northern hemisphere would no longer exist and the only habitable places would be near the coastlines and creeping inland as sea levels rise - therefore nothing resembling permanence could be built within these areas without soon becoming inundated, and the extreme social unrest during those kinds of times would not even allow for much chance for human survival.

...and what happens in the northern hemisphere will inevitably have an equally negative effect upon the southern hemisphere as everything on earth is interconnected in more ways than imagined. Even the frequency at which leap seconds occur will increase and those who know why will also realise the other catastrophes which are also upon our doorstep in time...

I'm not meaning to sound like one of those doomday naysayers but the facts are there and anyone with a sufficiently broad knowledge of the sciences can also put these puzzle pieces together and hear what 'the eagle soaring in mid-heaven' is saying and very loudly so!