Two interrelated stories concerning the unusually violent weather across the US this spring. First, looking at the effect of the warming temperatures in the Arctic on the jet stream:
The immediate driver of the violent weather is the jet stream, the powerful winds at high altitudes that sweep west to east across North America. The jet stream since May 14 has created conditions ripe for twisters. Seven deaths have been reported so far in the tornado assault of May. That’s a low death toll compared to some tornado seasons, but the steady, percussive nature of the storms — the daily pounding — has been anomalous. [snip]
There’s plenty of water in the mix, too. The Mississippi River is projected to reach 14 feet above flood stage in St. Louis, the second-highest on record. The river has been above flood stage at Vicksburg, Miss., since Feb. 17, the longest stretch of flooding since 1927, the year of the famed “Great Flood.” And the Arkansas River is rising rapidly and poised to approach record flood stages in Tulsa and other cities. There’s been too much rain and not enough places to put it.
Meanwhile it’s been so cold and wet in California that the ski resort of Mammoth has seen more than two feet of snow this month and may stay open until August.
What's going on? Here's Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center:
"... [S]omething is very different about climate these days." Gee. What could it be?Francis believes there’s a climate change signal in the extreme weather, including the tornadoes. Extreme warmth in and around Alaska, along with the reduction of Arctic sea ice, affects the flow of the jet stream, she said. A blob of warm air, and high atmospheric pressure, near Alaska has been fingered by many meteorologists as a flashing red light that something is very different about climate these days.
The klaxon horns have been sounding for decades.
Meanwhile, the Trump regime is accelerating our march into ignorance and a dystopian future:
In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.
And, in what could be Mr. Trump’s most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests. [snip]
As a result, parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels. (our emphasis)Layering upon the undying fealty of the rotted out Republican Party to the fossil fuel industry, the shitheels now have a narcissistic moron in the highest office in the land whose main motivation seems to be undoing any achievement of President Obama that could be measured against that same sick, weak, narcissistic moron. No matter what the consequences.
You might call it the perfect storm.
