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North America's Weather Turns Weird, Wild, and Extreme. Here's Why

 1 year ago
source link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/06/17/0240254/north-americas-weather-turns-weird-wild-and-extreme-heres-why
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North America's Weather Turns Weird, Wild, and Extreme. Here's Why

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North America's Weather Turns Weird, Wild, and Extreme. Here's Why (msn.com) 65

Posted by EditorDavid

on Saturday June 17, 2023 @12:34PM from the cruel-summer dept.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: An outbreak of severe storms, including deadly tornadoes, hail bigger than DVDs and life-threatening flooding, has ravaged the South, coming amid a month of wild weather across North America. Texas is baking beneath heat indexes as high as 120 degrees, the coasts are cool and mostly calm and Canadian wildfire smoke is suffocating much of the northern U.S.

If it seems the weather has been a little bit "off" since the calendar flipped to June, you're not imagining it — things have been downright weird. It's all linked to a bizarre jet stream pattern, which is displacing air masses from their typical positions and disrupting the movement of weather systems across the continent.

Among other things, the jet stream created a sprawling heat dome in Canada which "helped sap the landscape of moisture, leaving it ripe to burn," the article points out.

"Meanwhile in the southern U.S., the roaring southern branch of the jet stream has been energizing storms. That's brewed back-to-back rounds of severe weather, complete with strong winds, tornadoes and 'gargantuan' hail — and the pattern doesn't look to budge soon." [El Niño] historically, has been linked to split-flow jet stream patterns like the one driving wild weather across parts of the Lower 48. Natural variability, a.k.a. randomness, is also a big player, but it stands to reason that the two factors, overlapping together, are in large part culpable for what we've been facing.

Some scientific research also suggests human-caused climate change may increase the chances of slow, wonky jet stream patterns such as the one being observed this summer. The idea is that the disproportionate warming of the high latitudes is reducing the temperature contrast between the north and south, weakening the jet stream and thus causing it to take bigger dips and meander more. It remains a controversial idea.

  • It is fun to have unusual weather, as long as it is not dangerous, and we do not have to scream about anthropogenic climate change ever time.
    • It is fun to have unusual weather, as long as it is not dangerous.

      I assume you were born after DVDs became obsolete.

      • Re:

        I think it's more likely he was born before viewmasters became obsolete. Have yet to meet a kid who didn't know what climate change was and didn't know it was a real. Plenty of Old folks refused to believe in it. Coincidentally they'll all be dead before the worst of the effects hit...

        As for fun unusual weather go look up what a water cycle is. The entire Southwest America is running out of water because it's out of whack thanks to climate change.
        • Re:

          Only partially. One reason it's running out of water is that a vastly increased population likes to water their lawns and grow crops that require lots of irrigation. That would do it even without any extra changes. And the SouthWest has long experienced periodic droughts that have been long enough to kill civilizations. That's probably what happened to the Anasazi. This doesn't mean or imply that climate change isn't making things worse, just that it's only happening a bit more quickly than should real

        • Re:

          You'd think they'd be the ones who'd see it more clearly but there's probably something to that "coincidence". Get off their lawn.

          He's probably one of those who let their Viewmaster lever twang upwards and crack the plastic at the top of the slot.

          I don't think Viewmaster size hailstones would be fun though.

        • Re:

          kids today are brainwashed (miseducated) for 20 years about "climate change" but according to you they "know it was a real".

          go figure.

          here's a hint: when the government is trying to push something into your brain, into your body, or into your home.... it's gonna be in your best interest to question it.

          but hey, you do you.

    • Re:

      Well, it is dangerous, and it's not fun.

      • Re:

        Repeat after me.

        Weather is not climate.
        Weather is not climate.
        Weather is not climate.
        Weather is not climate.
        Weather is not...

        Okay. Okay. Enough weather IS climate.

    • Re:

      Sure, but increasingly violent weather is dangerous (as well as being the canary in the coal mine for anyone unconvinced by their ski resort having no snow, etc).

      Ocean surface temperatures are much higher than normal this year - huge amount of energy in the system - that will manifest as more violent hurricanes etc as the year progresses.

      • Re:

        Add random energy to most systems and you’ll get increased noise, many people make a living off of properly balancing these kinds of system. It’s just when tiny changes are gigantic and humans are so small individually they don’t factor in by a few orders of magnitude. Even the rate of change it experiences is like a bus on a slightly tipped ice rink submerged in cold molasses it’s very easy to not see things coming until just one of those “little” fluctuations ruins t
      • Re:

        Forget the increasingly violent weather small changes to temperature affect the water cycle and are causing massive droughts. It would be nice if we had a news media that would explain things like that.

        Not that the big stuff doesn't suck, but the small stuff is a lot more damaging than people realize. To be honest I forgotten my high school or hell let's face it grade school science with regards to the water cycle
  • So, you're telling me it gets hot in the summer, and cold in the winter? [Shoked Pikachu face]
    • Re:

      this guy gets it

      • Re:

        Wow, even the comic strip uses those scary words ("Polar Vortex"). Back in my day, it was called a Nor'easter.
  • but MAYBE it's because of Justin Bieber.

    Maybe.

  • Hailstones bigger than DVDs?

    Are these ultra-thin, disc-shaped hailstones?

    If you really wanted to give an impression of size without resorting to standard units of measure (12cm or slightly less than 5 inches in diameter), maybe cantaloupe-sized? I don't know.
    • Re:

      It was the ribbed versions of hailstones...not the ultra-thin type.
    • Re:

      Presumably this is after they have hit the ground and gone splat.

      It would be more useful to talk about how much they weigh.

    • Re:

      More to the point, how much did they weigh. It's the momentum that counts, and for falling ice that's usually mainly weight dependent. (Yeah, you COULD build a lifting body out of ice, but you'd need to do it on purpose.)

    • Re:

      Clearly they were referring to storage capacity. DVDs are quite outdated, so these days even a good size hailstone contains more data. Problem is, they melt before you get halfway through watching the movie.

  • Yeah no wonder. There are like 0 trees in the US. All been replaced by a concrete wasteland. Look at Asian countries and then compare to Africa or America on the same latitude. The difference should be obvious
    • Re:

      You could not be more wrong. Step out of a fucking city. Trees(*). This is not hard unless you are scared of nature and open expanses.

      (*) Well ok, maybe no trees if you are in a city built where it should be nothing but desert. But hey that's your problem don't make it mine.
      • ãS~~Trees~~ Clearcuts.ã

        Can I fix that for you?

      • Re:

        There are actually a lot of trees in the USA, but the total biomass is less because so little forest is old growth. For the majority of species, older trees fix more carbon because they actually grow faster — all growth occurs in a layer just below the bark.

    • Re:

      We have a lot of trees in Canada. We tried to share the benefits with USA for free but it wasn't appreciated and we got hit with "Blame Canada" again. Go figure!

  • First three posts are all "this isn't climate change" and also "stop talking about it".

    Guys, you've gone from frustrating and aggravating to eye-rolling to kind-of-funny. Not because the debate has changed - we've been pretty clear all along on our side, though your reasons have shifted (away from solar cycles, after two of them) -- but because you've lost. People are barely listening any more.

    At least, the ones who make the real decisions. The private backers of $20B renewables+powerline projects in North Australia, Morocco, Libya are not betting tens of billions of dollars on a fairy tale. They believe. So do all the people who just voted in the three giant climate acts (Infrastructure, IRA, and CHIPS are all climate acts) and failed to more than scuff the paint on them with the debt hostage demands.

    This very year is estimated to be Peak Gasoline. Peak Transportation Fuels hits in 2026. Less oil will be sold, worldwide in 2030 than 2028. It's already happening. And weather like this is just going to usher that along. The dates I just gave may even be timid, because every time somebody has predicted the pace of renewables and batteries they've been too timid. (That said, we're down to such sort timelines, they're probably accurate.)

    You've lost, it's all over but the shouting. Can you please stop shouting?

      • Re:

        Name checks out.
      • Re:

        Guy who spreads misinformation has a handle named the same. Fitting.

        Stolen election... 6000 yr old earth... (or do you believe its flat?)... we've heard all of your nonsense before.

    • Re:

      If Obama and Biden put out a joint statement that they were mistaken about climate change, what do you think the republicans would say?

      1) They would agree
      2) They would say something about being "woke" and say yes climate change is real

    • This very year is estimated to be Peak Gasoline. Peak Transportation Fuels hits in 2026. Less oil will be sold, worldwide in 2030 than 2028.

      People have been predicting peak oil my entire life. I don't take them seriously for obvious reasons.

      • Re:

        Very different.
        This is a prediction of peak oil *sales*, not production. It does not attempt to predict mother nature, just the human energy economy, which has 1% as many variables. We can only make so many cars per year, it takes years to build a factory, so 2030 is highly predictable.

    • Re:

      You've got your religion, clearly nothing is going to change your mind so why let people talk about other points of view?

    • Re:

      They show up every thread and they get modded up to +5 until actual mods instead of sock puppets come in and mod them back down. But by the end the damage is done because people have moved on from the thread and the majority of eyeballs have seen it.

      What shocks me is that/. Still has astroturfers. It's been over a decade I think since this website was a significant part of the internet. I can't help but Wonder if the reason they're here is because this website is just on a list from years ago when it
  • This is impressive to people who have no historical context. For those of us who have been around for more than a few decades, it's not.
    • Re:

      Well, duh.

      If you've been around for more than a few decades, it won't affect you, you'll be dead before the planet becomes uninhabitable.

      • Unless the first billion year old man is already walking among us, all of humanity will be dead and gone long before the planet becomes uninhabitable.

        • Re:

          Mmm, dunno if that's true for those that are now around 20.

          I mean, it's not like I would have to care. I have no kids, I'm 50, I'll be out of here before the big shit hits the fan. But if I had kids, I'd really hate how they'd probably and justifiably piss on my grave for dumping my mess on them.

          • I do have kids. And I will look you straight in the eye and tell you I don't think anything humanity is doing right now, short of global thermonuclear war, is going to make the planet uninhabitable within their lifetimes and far, far beyond.

            Look at the totality of the science, not just the scary headlines written in the service of economic and political agendas.

            • Re:

              You are right, but you are missing an important bit in your argument. Let me fix that for you:

              What that means is that there is a high probability (keyword here being probability, not certain) that you and they will be on the winning side of climate change:
              - you are likely at latitudes less impacted by climate change (if you are near the equator, then some parts will indeed become unsuitable for outdoor human life for more than half the days in a year; by unsuitable, we mean too hot and too humid to allow sw

    • Re:

      This one is for all your smooth brains out there. https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]

      Can you point out which historical context you're speaking about?

      • Re:

        This one is for all your smooth brains out there. https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]

        Yes, it's gotten a little warmer as we came out of the last glaciation.

        If you're going back beyond old-farts' lifetimes, though, try expanding your horizons a bit - back to the carboniferous, at least. And look at the ongoing drop in the carbon dioxide level during the deep ice ages, its failure to fully recover during the intervening periods of glacial retreat/advance combs, and the fact that the LAST deep glaciation ALMOST hit the l

    • Re:

      Lemme fix that for you...

      California...it is weirder than the weather.

  • Will all these southern states be applying for federal disaster relief? They're all too happy to vote against northern states asking for money.

  • I had six tornadoes come through my area in Northwest Ohio just a few days ago, the closest only five miles away (I saw the rotating wall cloud forming as it passed by, mother nature is awesome). It's going to be an interesting summer this year. The local weather stations were completely surprised by the storm's development. It was a much cooler than normal day making the appearance of tornadoes even that much more surprising.

  • If you look at the actual air circulation patterns, we see patterns like cyclones forming right in the middle of where the jet stream traditionally flows. These cyclones contribute to Arctic Amplification by mixing southern and northern air -- doing the opposite of the jet stream which normally works to isolate polar air from southern air. Cause and effect can be hard to suss out in a complex set of differential equations, but the fact is the jet stream is routinely breaking into huge 1000km across eddies

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