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Wednesday, August 08, 2018

Interesting Things, August 8 2018

California has it highest average July temperature since records started in 1895, and also its hottest month ever. In the last 30 years it has warmed at an incredible +0.35 °C/decade (+0.64 °F/decade).

(Granted, California is large and has several different climate zones. If I get to it I'll look at some specific weather stations.) (But I probably won't get to it.)

Overall the continental US had its 11th warmest July (NOAA). Its 30-year warming trend is +0.28 °C/dec (+0.51 °F/dec).
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NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) has been cancelled, assumedly by the White House. But it hadn't been funded by Congress. It cost $10 M/yr. A scientist said, "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the [Paris] agreement." But how accurately can emissions be measured from space? I'm dubious.
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Climate Researchers Warn Only Hope For Humanity Now Lies In Possibility They Making All Of This Up (The Onion)
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A satellite picture of smoke over USA48, via the HERR model. Via Eric Snodgrass's weekly discussion of Pacific NW weather. (I don't know what the units of the scale are.)


7 comments:

  1. This site gives up to date info on California fires https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/fire-tracker/

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  2. David, are you close to the fires?

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  3. I am in Menlo Park, about 30 miles south of SF. No fire is nearby, although the smoke affects us some.

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  4. Hey, I've been to Menlo Park.

    Are the fires big news in the San Fran area, even though they don't threaten that it?

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  5. Sure they're big news here. And, deservedly so IMHO. The amount of destruction is huge. The total damage from wildfires this year will probably be comparable to a major earthquake.

    Cheers

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  6. I have read opinions as to the cause of the large number of wild fires in the last 2 years and what can be done to reduce the number. The dumbest "cause" was Trump's blaming of allowing certain fresh water to flow into the ocean. Other supposed causes include
    -- higher temperatures due to global warming
    -- higher American temperatures due to local trends
    -- dryer than normal weather during last few years (whether or not caused by climate change)
    -- lack of forest thinning
    -- lack of other forest management, such as fire breaks, controlled burns
    -- reduced spending on forest management

    I am not certain that all these things are even true, let alone just how significant each of them is. I would say that few, if any, of the media stories I read seem to deal intelligently and knowledgeably with the question. I hope that somewhere there are experts without an axe to grind bringing their knowledge to bear on the matter of how to ameliorate wild fires.

    Cheers

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  7. Looks like Canada has it worse (not a contest, but... click on modeled fires and it looks like BC is one big BBQ) http://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/viewer/run/ops/BSC-CA-01/2018081509

    Here's the current forecast: http://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/viewer/run/ops/BSC-CA-01/current/

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