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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/27/extreme-weather-heatwaves-fire-climate-change-europe-greece-scientists-northern-hemisphere>
"How to respond to the avalanche of record-breaking extreme weather and
temperatures terrorising the planet? For many scientists it is a moment of
genuine despair, but also a time to resist climate doomism.
For British tourists still flying to Greece while it is on fire, and a few
holdout news organisations, the answer seems to be to look away or deflect. We
shouldn’t join them. Equally, as Michael Mann and Susan Joy Hassol have argued,
there is no need to inflate the magnitude of what is happening. The reality is
confronting enough.
Here’s some of what we know. Mediterranean Europe and northern Africa are
burning. Wildfires in at least nine countries, particularly Greece, Algeria and
Italy, are killing people and wrecking lives, livelihoods and nature. They
follow historic blazes in Canada a few weeks ago.
There have been bad fires before, of course, but these have been exacerbated by
what is almost certainly the hottest month on record due to the extreme
northern summer. Across the globe, the average temperature for most days in
July has been hotter than any previous day that we know of. The list of records
broken is itself unprecedented. A heat dome in the US south-west has pushed the
temperature in Phoenix, Arizona, beyond 43C for 27 days straight. Beijing
usually has 11 days a year hotter than 35C, but has already had 27 scorchers.
If these trends continue this may be the hottest year on record.
That seems particularly likely for sea temperatures, where records have already
been smashed. Zeke Hausfather, a US-based climate scientist and writer,
calculated that the heat in the northern Atlantic Ocean has now pushed beyond
what climate models predicted. It suggests something extraordinary is happening
in that part of the world. Similarly, the amount of sea ice around Antarctica
continues to be far below previous record lows.
But Hausfather found for the planet as a whole – both on the land and sea
surface – temperatures were within what most climate models projected, just at
the hotter end of it. Put another way: this is not actually worse than we
expected. It is the brutal reality of what scientists told us would happen."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
