At scienceblogs, Greg Laben and a cohort of people heavily interested in the actual climate have put together a list of the top climate stories of the year past.
Gareth over at Hot Topic contributed and put the list up in his post “THE YEAR THE EARTH BIT BACK: TOP CLIMATE STORIES OF 2012“.
Unlike Gareth, I didn’t contribute, but I’m going to cheerfully quote their list in full anyway.
This list is somewhat US centric. But as the US legislature is the main large proponent of ostrich tactics (ie sticking their head in a nice warm place and denying anything is happening), this is probably appropiate. Tim Groser and the National party have made the NZ government the primary small first world proponent of the same stupid short-term thinking.
1 Super Storm Sandy
Super Storm Sandy, a hybrid of Hurricane Sandy (and very much a true hurricane up to and beyond its landfall in the Greater New York/New Jersey area) was an important event for several reasons. First, the size and strength of the storm bore the hallmarks of global warming enhancement. Second, its very unusual trajectory was caused by a climatic configuration that was almost certainly the result of global warming. The storm would likely not have been as big and powerful as it was, nor would it have likely struck land where it did were it not for the extra greenhouse gasses released by humans over the last century and a half or so.
A third reason Sandy was important is the high storm surge that caused unprecedented and deadly flooding in New York and New Jersey. This surge was made worse by significant global warming caused sea level rise. Sea level rise has been eating away at the coasts for years and has probably caused a lot of flooding that otherwise would not have happened, but this is the first time a major event widely noticed by the mainstream media (even FOX news) involving sea level rise killed a lot of people and did a lot of damage. Fourth, Sandy was an event, but Sandy might also be the “type specimen” for a new kind of storm. It is almost certainly true that global warming Enhanced storms like Sandy will occur more frequently in the future than in the past, but how much more often is not yet known. We will probably have to find out the hard way.
Note that the first few of the links below are to blog posts written by concerned climate scientists, whom the climate change denialists call “alarmists.” You will note that these scientists and writers were saying alarming things as the storm approached. You will also note that what actually happened when Sandy struck was much worse than any of these “alarmists” predicted in one way or another, in some cases, in several ways. This then, is the fifth reason that Sandy is important: The Earth’s weather system (quite unconsciously of course) opened a big huge can of “I told you so” on the climate science denialist world. Sandy washed away many lives, a great deal of property and quite a bit of shoreline. Sandy also washed away a huge portion of what remained of the credibility of the climate science denialist lobby.
Is Mother Nature revving up an October Surprise (w/ human thumbs on the scale)?
Has climate change created a monster?
Ostrich Heads in the Sand(y)? Does your meteorologist break the climate silence?
Climate of Doubt As Superstorm Sandy Crosses US Coast
Are Tropical Storms Getting Larger in Area?
What you need to know about Frankenstorm Sandy
Fox: Hurricane Sandy Has “Nothing To Do With Global Warming”
2 Related to Sandy, the direct effects of sea level rise…
… were blatantly observed and widely acknowledged by the press and the public for the first time
Sea Level Rise … Extreme History, Uncertain Future
Peer Reviewed Research Predicted NYC Subway Flooding by #Sandy
3 The Polar Ice Caps and other ice features experienced extreme melting this year.
This year, Arctic sea ice reached a minimum in both extent (how much of the sea is covered during the Arctic summer) and more importantly, total ice volume, reaching the lowest levels in recorded history.
Arctic sea ice extent settles at record seasonal minimum
Ice Loss at Poles Is Increasing, Mainly in Greenland
TV Media Cover Paul Ryan’s Workout 3x More Than Record Sea Ice Loss
4 Sea Ice Loss Changes Weather …
We also increasingly recognized that loss of Arctic sea ice affects Northern Hemisphere weather patterns, including severe cold outbreaks and storm tracks. This sea ice loss is what set up the weather pattern mentioned above that steered Sandy into the US Northeast, as well as extreme cold last winter in other areas.
Arctic Warming is Altering Weather Patterns, Study Shows
5 and 6 Two major melting events happened in Greenland this summer.
First, the total amount of ice that has melted off this huge continental glacier reached a record high, with evidence that the rate of melting is not only high, but much higher than predicted or expected. This is especially worrying because the models climatologists use to predict ice melting are being proven too optimistic. Second, and less important but still rather spectacular, was the melting of virtually every square inch of the surface of this ice sheet over a short period of a few days during the hottest part of the summer, a phenomenon observed every few hundred years but nevertheless an ominous event considering that it happened just as the aforementioned record ice mass loss was being observed and measured.
Media Turn A Blind Eye To Record Greenland Ice Melt
7 Massive Ice islands…
…were formed when the Petermann Glacier of northern Greenland calved a massive piece of its floating tongue, and it is likely that the Pine Island Glacier (West Antarctica) will follow suit this Southern Hemisphere summer. Also, this information is just being reported and we await further evaluation. As summer begins to develop in the Southern Hemisphere, there may be record warmth there in Antarctica. That story will likely be part of next year’s roundup of climate-related woes.
8 More Greenhouse Gasses than Ever
Even though the rate of emissions of greenhouse gasses slowed down temporarily for some regions of the world, those gasses stay in the air after they are released, so this year greenhouse gas levels reached new record high levels
United States Greenhouse Gas Levels Reach New Record High
World Meteorological Organization: Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Reach New Record
9 It Got Hot
As expected, given the greenhouse gases just mentioned, Record Breaking High Temperatures Continue, 2012 is one of the warmest years since the Age of the Dinosaurs. We’ll wait until the year is totally over to give you a rank, but it is very, very high.
UK Met Office forecasts next year to set new record
Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math
10 …and that heat brought extreme, killer heat waves
Hot, Very Hot, Extremely Hot Summers
STUDY: TV Media Ignore Coverage of Climate Change In Coverage Of Record July Heat
11 For many areas, this was the year without a Spring.
The growing season in temperate zones is longer, causing the USDA in the US to change its planting recommendations.
12 There were widespread, unprecedented and deadly wildfires…
…around the world and in the American West.
STUDY: Media Avoid Climate Context In Wildfire Coverage
STUDY: Media Begin To Connect The Dots Between Climate Change And Wildfires
13 There was a major drought…
…in the US with numerous negative effects including threats to the food supply
What is the link between Global Warming and Drought?
Brutal Droughts, Worsened by Global Warming, Threaten Food Production Around The World
Alarm bells on climate change as extreme weather events sweep the world: CCSOS
14 River Traffic Stops
A very rare event caused by drought conditions was the closing of the Mississippi River to traffic in mid-summer at two locations. This is part of a larger and growing problem involving drought, increased demands for water, and the importance of river traffic. Expect to hear more about this over the next couple of years.
Drought Closes Mississippi River Traffic in Two Locations
14 Very, very bad storms.
In June, a major and very scary derecho event – a thunderstorm and tornado complex large enough to get its own Wikipedia entry – swept across the country. This was one of several large storm systems that caused damage and death in the US this year. There were also large and unprecedented sandstorms in Asia and the US.
June 2012 North American derecho
16 Widespread Tree Mortality is underway and is expected to worsen.
Dire Drought Ahead, May Lead to Massive Tree Death
17 Biodiversity is mostly down…
We continue to experience, and this will get worse, great Losses in Biodiversity especially in Oceans, much of that due to increased acidification because of the absorption of CO2 in seawater, and overfishing.
Big loss of biodiversity with global warming
18 Unusual Jet Stream Configuration and related changes to general climate patterns…
Many of us who contributed to this list feel that this is potentially the most important of all of the stories, partly because it ties together several other events. Also, it may be that a change in the air currents caused by global warming represents a fundamental yet poorly understood shift in climate patterns. The steering of Hurricane Sandy into the New York and New Jersey metro areas, the extreme killer cold in Eastern Europe and Russia, the “year without a Spring” and the very mild winters, some of the features of drought, and other effects may be “the new normal” owing to a basic shift in how air currents are set up in a high-CO2 world. This December, as we compile this list, this effect has caused extreme cold in Eastern Europe and Russia as well as floods in the UK and unusually warm conditions in France. As of this writing well over 200 people have died in the Ukraine, Poland and Russia from cold conditions. As an ongoing and developing story we are including it provisionally on this list. Two blog posts from midyear of 2011 and 2012 (this one and this one) cover some of this.
The following video provides an excellent overview of this problem:
19 The first climate denial “think” tank to implode as a result of global warming…
… suffered major damage this year. The Heartland Institute, which worked for many years to prove that cigarette smoking was not bad for you, got caught red handed trying to fund an effort explicitly (but secretly) designed to damage science education in public schools. Once caught, they tried to distract attention by equating people who thought the climate science on global warming is based on facts and is not a fraud with well-known serial killers, using large ugly billboards. A large number of Heartland Institute donors backed off after this fiasco and their credibility tanked in the basement. As a result, the Heartland Institute, which never was really that big, is now no longer a factor in the climate change discussion. We failed to drive the wooden stake through Heartland’s heart when it was down. While Heartland has lost much of their funding and Corporate support Heartland’s Anti-Science Syndrome Hatred Of a Livable Economic System voices still get soapboxes in traditional media =91 balance=92 articles and otherwise. Learning how to pound in the wooden stake has merit.
The following people contributed to this effort: Angela Fritz, A Siegel, Eli Rabett, Emilee Pierce,Gareth Renowden, Greg Laden, Joe Romm, John Abraham, Laurence Lewis, Leo Hickman,Michael Mann, Michael Tobis,, Paul Douglas, Scott Mandia, Scott Brophy, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Tenney Naumer.
I’d point out that next year will probably be even more interesting.
We’re currently hitting the solar maximum which so far (touch wood) looks to be reasonably mild. Apart from it’s potential for disruptive effects to our tech infrastructure, the extra energy hitting the earth’s increasingly energy retentive human modified atmosphere will cause effects. John Cook at Skeptical Science points to estimates of the solar forcing:-
The other significant finding is that solar forcing will add another 0.18°C warming on top of greenhouse warming between 2007 (we’re currently at solar minimum) to the solar maximum around 2012. In other words, solar forcing will double the amount of global warming over the next five to six years.
There isn’t enough information about exactly how the high energy events impacting the top of the atmosphere translate into weather and climate patterns, we’d really need to observe a 1859 event with modern instrumentation. However statistically from the observed data it is apparent that it does.
However the main known effect from that extra heating has already been the massive drop in Arctic sea-ice volumes as pointed out above, and all of the downstream effects from that. There are currently bets on the Arctic getting effectively ice-free over the coming northern summer. Personally, I wouldn’t bet either for or against it. But it again shows the models that the IPCC were using in the mid-2000 period were seriously conservative. We’re currently seeing ice-extents that were not expected to happen until towards the end of the century
The flow on effects are likely to be some rather traumatic weather in the north as the climate adjusts to having no fridge up north.
But fortunately it looks like we won’t have to suffer a El Nino at the same time. The forecast is for a welcome neutral climate effect from the El Niño/Southern Oscillation this coming year, and probably for a few years.
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