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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(3)
Plague/Virus:(1)
Climate Chaos:(13)
Resource Depletion: (5)
Biology Breach:(7)
Recovery:(6)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ weather extremes  ~ carbon emissions  ~ albedo effect  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ technological innovation  ~ toxic buildup  ~ efficiency increase  ~ contamination  



ApocaDocuments (5) matching "weather extremes" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "weather extremes"]
Sun, Aug 30, 2009
from Los Angeles Times:
10,000 homes are threatened
The unstoppable Angeles National Forest fire threatened 10,000 homes Saturday night as it more than tripled in size and chewed through a rapidly widening swath of the Crescenta Valley, where flames closed in on backyards and at least 1,000 homes were ordered evacuated. Sending an ominous plume of smoke above the Los Angeles Basin, the fire was fueled by unrelenting hot weather and dense brush that has not burned in 60 years. It took off Saturday afternoon in all directions, forcing residents out of homes from Big Tujunga Canyon to Pasadena, and reached toward Mt. Wilson. ...


Hollywood is made of wood!

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Sat, Aug 29, 2009
from Chronicle Herald (Canada):
Bugs, fire twin threat in a warming world
"As far as the eye can see, it's all infested," forester Rob Legare said, looking out over the thick woods of the Alsek River valley. Beetles and fire, twin plagues, are consuming northern forests in what scientists say is a preview of the future, in a century growing warmer, as the land grows drier, trees grow weaker and pests, abetted by milder winters, grow stronger. Dying, burning forests would then only add to the warming.... While average temperatures globally rose 0.74 degrees Celsius in the past century, the far north experienced warming at twice that rate or greater. And "eight of the last 10 summers have been extreme wildfire seasons in Siberia," American researcher Amber Soja pointed out by telephone from central Siberia.... American forest ecologist Scott Green worries about a "domino effect."... Flannigan worries, too, that future fires smouldering through the carbon-heavy peatlands that undergird much of the boreal region would pour unparalleled amounts of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas, into the skies, feeding an unstoppable cycle. ...


"What are you, a doomer?"
"Nope, just thinking it through."

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Fri, Aug 28, 2009
from Environmental Research Web:
Scientists uncover solar cycle, stratosphere and ocean connections
Subtle connections between the 11-year solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe, according to research appearing this week in the journal Science. The study can help scientists get an edge on eventually predicting the intensity of certain climate phenomena, such as the Indian monsoon and tropical Pacific rainfall, years in advance.... [I]f the total energy that reaches Earth from the Sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the approximately 11-year solar cycle, how can such a small variation drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth? ... The team first confirmed a theory that the slight increase in solar energy during the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone. The energy warms the air in the stratosphere over the tropics, where sunlight is most intense, while also stimulating the production of additional ozone there that absorbs even more solar energy. Since the stratosphere warms unevenly, with the most pronounced warming occurring at lower latitudes, stratospheric winds are altered and, through a chain of interconnected processes, end up strengthening tropical precipitation. At the same time, the increased sunlight at solar maximum causes a slight warming of ocean surface waters across the subtropical Pacific, where Sun-blocking clouds are normally scarce. That small amount of extra heat leads to more evaporation, producing additional water vapor. In turn, the moisture is carried by trade winds to the normally rainy areas of the western tropical Pacific, fueling heavier rains and reinforcing the effects of the stratospheric mechanism. ...


I'm not sure I like the idea of such little things making such a big difference... because we're doing some pretty big things.

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Wed, Aug 26, 2009
from University of Oklahoma, via EurekAlert:
Global warming threatens tropical species, the ecosystem and its by-products
Tropical lizards detect the effects of global warming in a climate where the smallest change makes a big difference, according to herpetologist Laurie Vitt.... Climate change caused by global warming threatens the very existence of these and other tropical species, the ecosystem and its by-products, Vitt maintains.... Tropical species are affected more by the very narrow temperature range of their typically warm climate than are ectotherms living where the temperatures fluctuate in greater degrees. Even the smallest change in the tropics makes a difference to the tropical species most susceptible to climate change. "Climatic shifts are part of our natural history, but years of research indicate global warming has increased the rate at which climate change is taking place, " Vitt states. ...


I know! Let's do some flyovers and spraypaint the canopy of the rainforest white!

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Wed, Aug 26, 2009
from UCSD, via EurekAlert:
Deadly heat waves are becoming more frequent in California
From mid July to early August 2006, a heat wave swept through the southwestern United States. Temperature records were broken at many locations and unusually high humidity levels for this typically arid region led to the deaths of more than 600 people, 25,000 cattle and 70,000 poultry in California alone. An analysis of this extreme episode carried out by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, put this heat wave in the context of six decades of observed heat waves. Their results suggest that such regional extremes are becoming more and more likely as climate change trends continue.... While mechanisms driving this regional anomaly are still under investigation, the researchers concluded that the trend towards more frequent and larger-scale muggy heat waves should be expected to continue in the region as climate change evolves over the next decades. ...


It's not the heat, or even the humidity... it's the sense of impending doom.

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