A climate change and consequences article written for "laymen" by a paleoclimatologist. A good overview.



<a href="http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-1om/deMenocal.html"> Orion climate article </a>

---

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

Hi Astro

It's the first time I've seen anything from Orion magazine. As much as for the lucid article, it's well worth while for Amenoff's paintings which remind me of 'The Scream' in style and mood. Does anyone know the Norwegian title?

---

__________________________________________________

James Kunstler, of Cl*st*rf*ck Nation fame, occasionally contributes a Curmudgeon piece.

---

Excellent article Jim, thanks.
I hadn't specifically encountered the 'megadrought' scenario before, presumably from what he says such events would be very similar to the African droughts only on a much bigger geographical scale and lasting for longer. I wonder what the likelihood of it happening would be? 0% - 50% maybe like the THC slowdown?
Even assuming the world's politicians were convinced (a leap of the imagination I know), the resources needed to realistically cope with it would be enormous. Even a cursory glance at history doesn't leave much room for hope that the world would deal well it.

Marj

---

_________________________________

&gt; Hi Astro
&gt;
&gt; It's the first time I've seen anything from Orion magazine. As much as for the
&gt; lucid article, it's well worth while for Amenoff's paintings which remind me
&gt; of 'The Scream' in style and mood. Does anyone know the Norwegian title?
&gt;

Hi!

The painting by Edvard Munch is called "Skriet", som more info can be found here:

http://www.hubin.org/news/column/lucc_munch/page_3_en.html

/Egon, who still has a jetlag from returning from a warm and sunny San Francisco :-)

---

<A href='http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2177'>Tom Dispatch</A> wrote at length about American indifference to climate change. He even cites the Nature paper and gets typically alarmist about the 11C tail of the PDF.

There are signs, though, it seems, that the USA is slowly yielding to the barrage of evidence that change is happening and could accelerate and might prompt positive feedbacks of the sort that portend true catastrophe.

I read the after tomorrow article too. On average, though, I don't understand the world to be drier in most conceivable scenarios. What is the scientific explanation for greater precipitation extremes accomanying what is likely a net increase in world precipitation? Will places where rain happens be all the more violent? Will oceans see more of that rain, starving the land of it?

---

NOW what's happening! I just typed several sentences, and it posted a blank message.

Les

Trying again.

quote:
Will oceans see more of that rain, starving the land of it?

This is what has been happening in Australia for the past few years.
The rain which used to fall across the southern areas has moved further
south, and falls over the sea.
The explanation given, (can't remember by whom), is that the equatorial regions are heating up, and pushing
the moisture south.

But for the past few months I have noticed something interesting happen. Several times, a long band of low pressure zones
has extended around Australia like a horseshoe; from the sw, up to the north, east, then down to the se.
And this has dropped useful amounts of rain across inland NSW. (on the eastern side of Australia).
Usually, the rain in this area comes from a monsoonal trough extending, eventually, in a mostly straight line,
from the nw across to the se.
Any weather coming from the east gets blocked by the Great Dividing Range, which runs down the eastern side of Australia.
And drowns parts of the coastal strip, while leaving other parts mostly dry.
This happened a few days ago: a low zone came in from the east, sat off Sydney for a few hours dropping heavy rain,
then "rolled" down the coast, turned west, and sat over Melbourne for ages. And flooded them.


And the summer heat, which has been starting about October and extending through to March/April for 5 or 6 years,
seems to be decreasing already. Although today was blisteringly hot.

I'm SO glad that there's "nothing strange going on with the climate", and that we don't have to worry.

Got it! Finally! (Stupid computers).

Les

&gt; I read the after tomorrow article too. On average, though, I don't understand
&gt; the world to be drier in most conceivable scenarios. What is the scientific
&gt; explanation for greater precipitation extremes accomanying what is likely a
&gt; net increase in world precipitation? Will places where rain happens be all
&gt; the more violent? Will oceans see more of that rain, starving the land of it?
&gt;

In general there will be more rain, see almost any cpdn result, average rainfall seems to grow linearly with temperature rise (at least up to ~5C, I think there is evidence of a tail off in the rainfall rise after then). However evaporation will grow even faster leading to a net decrease in the available water.

Where the rain falls is important and something I would hope that cpdn would look at. I think there will be reductions in the mediterranean basin, near east, Indian subcontinent and China, possibly central America and southern Africa as well. The <a href="http://www.stabilisation2005.com/day2/arnell.pdf">Nigel Arnell</a> paper at the conference on water resources gives a good overview of potential water water stress. I would have liked to ask about some of the details, particularly as regards to rainfall variability and increased evaporation rates. Looking at the various maps shown, it seems that increased rainfall leads to increased runoff, but does this take into account increased evaporation.

I believe that rainfall events are likely to be more severe with increasing temperature, everything I've read points that way.

---

____________________________<br>
<a href="http://www.boincforum.info/boinc/">boinc forum</a> and <a href="http://www.uk4cp.co.uk/">United Kindom</a> team, my climate change <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/mike_atkinson/">blog</a>.