The Autumn Spring of Heat Waves in Perth to Snow White in London
No there is no climate change, it is just a glitch on the records, human’s have not impacted the climate. I love denial there is great statement that goes – denial is not a river in Egypt!
I spoke briefly to a shop assistant from London here in Perth who informed me it was snowing at record levels in London. I used to live there and it is occasional snow at best in winter, this is April and they are having extreme weather. I checked the Guardian and yep she was right, record levels. So will post their evaluation of what is happening to the weather.
I am sitting in an airconditioned library in Perth and it is hot outside. According to the weatherzone news the April heat we are experiencing here is the hottest start to April for over 137 years of records. We are experiencing summer maximums, so you can imagine how the plants are responding – confusion. The temperature is the signal to nature of when to drop leaves or start budding for the next season, but it feels as if the seasons are shifting.
So it is clear there are extremes happening on this side of the world and the other. Should you lift your head out of your computer and look outside? YES!! I said to the shop assistant it is interesting to note that governments have not made significant changes. In fact our government in Australia has been improving the relationship with China in the belief of the Asian Century, to hook our wagon to the Chinese to ensure economic growth. They would be interested in Australian resources, not because they see a common ally or global partner, it is strictly business. The government is looking short term and that is the nature of both politics, business and the theory of economics, just make money now. The fear is if we stop economic growth social unrest will occur and panic. Yet why not start to educate the public with alternatives and help them to become sustainable and self reliant. The governments have touted the mantra of jobs and economic growth for so long, they can’t see any way to jump to a new track. It is hard to break the addiction of a material world that has plugged the gaps for people for so long and kept them productive. So the strategy is to keep it stable and the ship on course when in truth the ship needs to be turned around, in my view.
What I have realised when blogging yesterday is that we must live sustainability in order to adapt to living in harmony with nature. I would say to Bill Gates and the wealthy billionaires seeking to invest in technology to extract CO2 or geotechnology applications, that technology will not solve the climate change issue, a shifting world paradigm will. We are not in control of nature and we certainly are not adapting to changes in nature, it is our species that is out of step with change. We are realising we are not in dominion over nature, we are dependent upon natural systems more than economic systems. This is the pink elephant. We are standing with our blindfolds (education, group think) and seeing the economy on our patch without seeing the whole elephant which is the earth. We have no connection to that wholistic thinking and see ancient belief systems as primitive rather than a different psychology that mirrored nature. That is why the indigenous saw nature as themselves, they saw a oneness, they could not own nature, it was their mother, part of who they are. That is the reality we cannot see because we are educated to see nature as a resource that feeds our demand not a natural system that operates for the whole, that sustains all life forms through interdependency of all parts as the whole. Until we start to drastically alter the way we live and work, ineffect a paradigm shift, the weather will continue on its path.
What can governments do? Well for a start they do offer subsidies for solar panels. Make them free so people can start to generate their own energy and nationalise energy companies. The latter is important as competition is driving consumption and they are basically extracting until it is gone. Nature has no concept of profit, it only knows survival so the changes taking place are adjustments to our impact which has stretched natural tolerances beyond some tipping points. What else can be done. We need to start public forums on a) accurate and credible science on climate change b) community action c) seeing our relationship to nature differently (not a resource to be exploited but a life support system). We need to start sustainability/peace education in schools to help children connect to their true nature which is in harmony with nature. These are our innate abilities that are naturally coded in the DNA of our species. The aspects of our humanity that harmonise – values are very important (universal vales) as they naturally move us to unity. An example of universal values is my REAL HOPES model – Responsibility (the ability to respond), Empathy (imagining planetary strains, human suffering), Awareness (the real facts without spin and awareness of ourselves), Love (unlocking feelings which connect to others and build a strong social fabric), Honesty (truth in disclosures of our situation), Oneness (we are one species and working together), Peace (balance, harmony), Enjoyment (happiness and joy) and Service. The last one occurs naturally when we are in alignment with our values, we naturally will serve humanity. Profit maximisation encourages self interest which is why change is not happening at the speed it needs to in order to ensure our civilisation is balanced, that is, recalibrated to natural rhythms. So we are really placed in the truest moment of – who are you and what will you do? It is a choice point which is the real tipping point for humanity. My work is to promote peace as my contribution to climate change, peace within leads to peace and harmony outside ourselves. All real change occurs within each person or they maintain the status quo out of fear.
The warning signs are there and of course we can turn this earth ship around, but it would be wise to start now. I dreamed I was teaching peace, so for me because I had the dream I have faith that we can achieve it. Otherwise my life would have been as an economist/analyst and earning lots of money consuming more CO2. So I have REALHOPE we can change (go to http://www.worldpeacefull.com schools programs to find out more).
I think it is time for the climate skeptics to let go of their self interest and fear and to embrace change, help the community to respond to how we need to change. The challenge for you is to rise above self interest. As Al Gore said ‘the gold bar or the planet’. Your children or your bank account is another way of seeing it.
Here are the articles which prompted this blog.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/perth-sweltering-through-record-april-heat/24211
Perth sweltering through record April heat
Ben McBurney, Monday April 8, 2013 – 16:22 EST Perth is currently sweating through an unseasonal spell of April heat, with the city seeing its hottest start to April on record.
The Western Australia capital has so far averaged a summer-like maximum 32.4 degrees over its first eight days, well above its long-term average of 26 degrees. This also makes it the hottest start to April in 137 years of records. The last time it got even close to being this warm to kick off April was back in 1949, when the first eight days averaged 32.1 degrees.
Today the mercury soared to 37.3 degrees at 1pm, which makes it the hottest April day in 103 years and second hottest April day on record. The April record is 37.6 degrees, set in 1910 on the 9th day of the month.
Perth has already seen 36-degree heat just four days ago, which has only happened seven times in April in over 100 years of records. The city has already seen 36-degree heat twice this month already, the first time this has occurred in April.
The cause of the heat has been a low pressure trough sitting just off the WA coast and a high pressure system over the Bight. These have combined to direct northeasterly winds sourced from the interior, where heat has has been building due to relatively clear skies and a lack of strong cold fronts.
Heat lovers will be glad to know that the warm weather is going to stick around for a few days yet. While the mercury should not soar to the heights seen today, the next three days should reach the low 30’s.
A weak cool change should bring maximums down into the high 20’s from about Friday, before a stronger cool change should see temperatures drop close to average from Sunday. Unfortunately, these systems are unlikely to bring much in the way of rain, with only a few light showers likely.
– Weatherzone
There is an interesting comment below by a Leeds Professor urging caution. My response to his caution is that we need to err on the side of effective action. How many reports do you need, it is evident the climate is changing. If our industrial life is causing it, clearly we must change. Putting it off will only intensify problems down the track. Effective leadership is required and I see this is in the form and shape of every person on this planet. We are all responsible therefore it is up to us to change our ways, starting from now. Don’t be afraid of change, it is very exciting. We are being tested by life itself. Can we rise to the occasion?
The northern hemisphere will be most affected (ice age) if the Gulf Stream stops due to melting in the Arctic, so they are the ones initially that should be feeling active for change. To do nothing means more change. To change means more empowerment and the ability to find ways to adapt to change. Let’s get active and find your power, you have untapped power, within. I know what I am choosing. Enjoy the ride.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/07/science-behind-britain-coldest-easter
Here is the Guardian article
Why our turbulent weather is getting even harder to predict
The cold snap, fingers crossed, is about to end. But extreme weather – snow, floods and drought – is the new norm.
Britain’s weather excelled itself last week. It produced an Easter Sunday that was the coldest on record in the UK. Temperatures stuck below zero in many regions; freezing conditions continued to disrupt transport; and experts warned of increasing threats to animals and birds already struggling to survive loss of habitat and climate change. The start of British Summer Time last Sunday night was marked in Braemar by temperatures that fell to -11C. For good measure, an unappetising April looks likely to follow this misery.
The persistence of the spring’s grim weather is particularly striking for it comes after a series of other extreme meteorological events in recent years. Last winter, a severe drought triggered stern warnings by the Environment Agency that water rationing and hosepipe bans would soon have to be introduced – until several months of torrential rain produced widespread flooding.
Our weather, always unpredictable, is now fluctuating on a grand scale and becoming increasingly hard to forecast long-term. The challenge for meteorologists is to explain these unexpected outbreaks of climatic unpleasantness.
“There is no doubt that the recent weather has been highly changeable – on both sides of the Atlantic,” said meteorologist Nicholas Klingaman of Reading University. “We have blizzards and flooding. America has had droughts and scorching temperatures.”
Nor is it difficult to pinpoint the immediate cause, Klingaman said. The problem lies with the jet stream, a narrow band of strong winds that sweeps round the planet between the tropics and the Arctic. “Its behaviour has changed dramatically in the past few years and has produced these lengthy bouts of extreme weather. The real question, of course, is an obvious one: why has the jet stream changed its behaviour?”
The answer is very worrying, for it transpires that meteorologists may find it increasingly hard to make long-term assessments of future weather with their former confidence. The planet’s weather systems are being stirred and shaken and the cause is closely linked to climate change, the result of the trillions of tonnes of carbon that we have been pumping into our atmosphere.
The jet stream gets its name because its circulates at an altitude of around 10km to 15km, the height at which most jet planes fly. It runs from west to east, a feature that can give aircraft significant boosts on eastbound flights across the Atlantic and Pacific. However, in recent years this giant river of air has begun to meander and to slow down, trapping regions of high or low pressure over the same part of the globe, including the freezing air that has hung over Britain for the last six weeks. As to the reason for this change in the jet stream’s flow, more and more meteorologists now point to global warming. In particular, they pinpoint the most dramatic manifestation of climate change on the planet today – the warming of the Arctic – as the most likely culprit for the destabilising weather patterns we have been experiencing.
“The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth,” said meteorologist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, New Jersey. “Arctic temperatures have increased at more than twice the global rate. You can see this in the sea ice in summer there. In just the three decades, it has declined by 40%. About 1.3m square miles of sea ice have disappeared. That is an astonishing amount of ice to lose and it shows just how much heating is going on up there. More to the point, that warming is now changing weather patterns across the northern hemisphere.”
How the warming of the Arctic affects our weather has much to do with the origins of the jet stream. Air in the tropics is warmer than the Arctic and it rises. As a result, the atmosphere there is higher than it is over the Arctic. “A gradient is created and air slides down this atmospheric hill towards the Arctic,” said Francis. “This flow of air, high up in the atmosphere, from the tropics to the Arctic, is the crucial ingredient in the creation of the jet stream.
“The world rotates from west to east, however, and that rotation whips up this northward flow of air that descends over higher latitudes and sends it flying east round the globe as the jet stream. Earth rotates from west to east and that is what drives the jet stream in the same direction.”
Until recently, this mighty stream of air flew round the planet, in a slightly wavy path, between 30 and 60 degrees north. However, times are changing – and so is our atmosphere.
“The trouble is that the gradient between the atmosphere in the lower latitudes and in the Arctic is being disrupted by global warming,” said Francis.
“As the Arctic heats up disproportionately, so does the atmosphere at the north pole and as it warms up, it rises. The net effect has been to erode the gradient between the top of the atmosphere over the tropics and the top of the atmosphere over the Arctic. Less air pours down towards the north pole and less air is whipped up by Earth’s rotation to form the jet stream. It is becoming less of a stream and is behaving more like a sluggish estuary that is meandering across the upper atmosphere at middle latitudes.”
The effects of this meandering are now being felt. As the jet stream slows, weather patterns tend to stick where they are for longer. In addition, the modest waves in the stream have increased in amplitude so that they curve north and south more frequently, bringing more weather systems northwards and southwards. Hence the cold conditions that have been brought south over Britain and which have persisted for so long.
Most scientists believe the link between rising Arctic temperatures and the resulting disruption of the jet stream is the most convincing explanation for the increased bouts of extreme weather in the northern hemisphere. However, some sound notes of caution. “I think the link between Arctic warming and weather disruption is convincing but it is not the only possible explanation,” said Klingaman.
“For example, there is a phenomenon known as the Madden-Julian oscillation which controls how rainfall is distributed around the tropics on a weekly and monthly basis and it has been shown to influence the position of the jet streams. It is possible this oscillation may been involved in some way in our changing weather patterns.”
Professor Piers Forster of Leeds University also urged caution. “I think it is too early to say that climate change is definitely involved in all the extreme weather events we have seen. The evidence suggests it might well be but we need more studies to confirm the link.”
But Francis said she was confident of the link.
“The droughts, heatwaves and freezing weather of recent years are just the types of phenomena that are expected to occur more frequently as the world continues to warm and the Arctic continues to lose its ice,” she said.