Climate Change? What Climate Change?

  Climate Change is Causing Floods Flash Flood Waters after the storm flows through the Canyonlands Needle District Utah USA 123rf.com Pro: Disastrous Floods are Increasing Floods in inland areas are the most common type of natural disaster in the United States, and one of the most harmful to people and property. In 2017 alone 25 people lost their lives trapped in floods, and more than 3 billion dollars were lost in property damages and ruined crops. Global warming is shifting rainfall patterns, making heavy rain more frequent in many areas of the country. With human alteration of the land—like the engineering of rivers, the destruction of natural protective systems, and increased construction on floodplains—many parts of the United States are at greater risk of experiencing destructive and costly floods.  https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/climate-change-extreme-precipitation-and-flooding However, as the [UN’s] IPCC ([United Nations] In...

  Coal Pollution Can Be Seen Pouring From Power Plant Smokestacks Pro: Many photos show the ugly pollution being emitted The screen grab below is from this Washington Post article. The Washington Post’s caption says “…emissions spew from the smokestacks at… coal-fired power plant…” These photos are all over the Internet showing the pollution from these plants. Con: These photos are pure propaganda, blatantly and deliberately deceiving readers What do you suppose those black, deadly-looking plumes of “emissions” really are? Condensing steam, that’s what. Just plain water. Plumes of condensing water vapor normally look white and benign, but by artfully choosing a vantage point to the east of the plant, and a time just after sunset, the photographers manage to make the pretty white plumes of harmless steam look black and threatening. Coal plants in the US and elsewhere in the West have spent 10’s of billions of dollars installing state-o...

Climate Change is Increasing the Strength and Frequency of Hurricanes Hurricane Harvey, seen fom the International Space Station. Elements of this image are furnished by NASA 123rf.com Pro: Hurricanes are Becoming Stronger and More Frequent Hurricanes have become stronger worldwide during the past four decades, an analysis of observational data shows, supporting what theory and computer models have long suggested: climate change is making these storms more intense and destructive. The analysis, of satellite images dating to 1979, shows that warming has increased the likelihood of a hurricane developing into a major one of Category 3 or higher, with sustained winds greater than 110 miles an hour, by about 8 percent a decade. “The trend is there and it is real,” said James P. Kossin, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lead author of the study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “T...

  Climate Change Will Increase the Number and Severity of Tornadoes Black tornado funnel and lightning on road from 123rf.com Pro: Tornadoes are Getting More Dangerous While there have been no long-term trends in the frequency of tornadoes, there have been changes in tornado patterns in recent years. Research has shown that there are fewer days with at least one tornado but more days with over thirty, even as the total number of tornadoes per year has remained relatively stable. In other words, tornado events are becoming more clustered. There is also evidence to suggest that tornado patterns have shifted geographically. The number of tornadoes in the states that make up Tornado Alley are falling, while tornado events have been on the rise in the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky.  There is speculation that some of these changes are linked to climate change and its effect on the jet...

  Increase in U.S. Wildfires Due to Climate Change Image: Dixie Fire in California approaching Indian Ridge lookout. Image from PGE wildfire camera on 7/24/21 Pro: Many media outlets are blaming “climate change” for the increased wildfires in the western United States. For example, this article from Vox: The West is burning. Climate change is making it worse. In the article they say: Climate change is supercharging wildfire season Like  most of the West , drought conditions in California and Oregon have fueled the Bootleg and Dixie Fires, resulting in a fire season that is far worse than usual, far earlier. According to the US Drought Monitor , major swaths of Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico are all in the midst of a drought, as are other parts of the US. More than 95 percent of that region is experiencing at least “moderate” drought conditions,  according to a map produced by the U...

  Sea Level Rise is Accelerating Dramatically Coastal erosion – houses built on weak clay soil slide down to the sea and collapse near Odessa, Ukraine 123rf.com The arguments and claims for this being an issue of concern: Climate Change is causing rising sea levels to accelerate, threatening to displace millions of people. From NASA Global sea level rise is accelerating incrementally over time rather than increasing at a steady rate, as previously thought, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. If the rate of ocean rise continues to change at this pace, sea level will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100 — enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities, according to the new assessment by Nerem and colleagues from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; CU Boulder; the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. https://climate....

Greenland Ice Loss Will Cause Dangerous Sea Level Rise Greenland’s Ice Sheet – The thickness is generally more than 2 km (1.2 mi) and over 3 km (1.9 mi) at its thickest point.  Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Pro: the Greenland Ice Melting Will Cause Disastrous Sea Level Rise. From early 2003 to mid-2013, the total mass of ice in Greenland declined at a progressively increasing rate. In mid-2013, an abrupt reversal occurred, and very little net ice loss occurred in the next 12–18 months. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and global positioning system (GPS) observations reveal that the spatial patterns of the sustained acceleration and the abrupt deceleration in mass loss are similar. The strongest accelerations tracked the phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The negative phase of the NAO enhances summertime warming and insolation while reducing snowfall, especially in west Greenland, driving surface ...

  Antarctic Ice Melt Icecaps in the Antarctica with icebergs melting in the sea Photo by   Sarah Atoui  licensed from 123rf.com Pro: Antarctic Ice Melt is Dangerous Climate Change is causing accelerated ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland. This is causing sea level rise to increase dangerously. This rising sea level threatens the homes and livelihoods of 100’s of millions of people living on coasts and low-lying islands. NASA presents this graph showing sea level rise plotted by satellite data, and suggests Downloaded from NASA Global Climate Change 4 Accessed 6/19/2020 From USA Today Greenland and Antarctica have lost 6.4 trillion tons of ice in the past three decades; unabated, this rate of melting could cause flooding that affects hundreds of millions of people by the end of the century, NASA said in a statement . Satellite observations showed that the regions are losing ice six times faster than they were in the 1...