Robins are back - I hope they survive this late winter storm

Three days ago I was listening to robins singing in my yard, watching a flock of juncos passing through on their way to Canada, and hearing flocks of geese overhead, honking their way back north.  Today we are getting buried in snow again -- at the same time Washington D.C. is having record breaking 90s -- in April!  Talk about global weirding.

Jet Stream, April 11, 2013
(Map courtesy of acuweather.com) 

The instability of the Jet Stream is a big contributor to all this strange weather.  I can remember when it pretty much stayed put up in there Canada, circling the arctic and dipping occasionally into Minnesota but no further south.  Now, as you can see from this map, it has gone crazy.  And with it comes all this weird  weather.  That huge dip is pulling cold air south, where it meets warm air from the Gulf and produces severe storms, including early tornadoes along the front.   It also traps warm air on the East Coast, resulting in those record-breaking 90s yesterday. (For more on how the Jet Stream is causing more severe weather lately, read this article on Climate Central.)

Last year's crab apples provide
food for spring birds

Meanwhile, birds on migration are getting caught in the storms.  The winds have been very strong today, so I suspect we will have a major bird drop around here (which is different from a bird dropping!)  A bird drop is when migrating birds come down to wait out the bad weather.  Sometimes you get to see some unusual species when the weather clears -- if the birds survive.

I find myself wondering what those robins on my land are eating today.  The Juncos can find seeds on tall grass stalks and the harrier hawk who returned a few days ago will no doubt find a rodent or two around the chicken coop.  But the ground is still too frozen for those robins to find any worms.  In the past I have seen them picking on frozen crab apples still on the trees.  So maybe that will help.

Minnesota drought map 4/11/2013
(Click pic to enlarge)

In spite of this snowstorm, we are still in the midst of a serious drought here.  Today's drought map shows my county, Pine, in the "severe" category.   (For more on the drought, click here.)

Last year it was so dry in late summer-fall that we headed into winter about 7 inches below normal in precipitation.  With the ground still frozen, all that this snow will do is run off -- which helps the wetlands downhill from my place, but won't do much for the garden.  In fact, it is so dry that, for the second year in a row, I decided not to tap my trees for maple syrup.  They grow along the edge of seasonal woodland wetlands that normally provides them with plenty of spring moisture during the melt-off, but this year it is bone dry.  I saw on the news that some syrup producers are getting a decent run -- guess it depends on where you are.  But for everybody it is very late, because of the abnormally cold spring.  In the past, syrup production would begin in mid-March and be over by now.

All of which goes to show that the climate is indeed changing.  Better get used to the new normal -- whatever that turns out to be...

Vote Romney-Ryan and Kill the Planet!

I don't usually do a lot of politics on this blog, but Mitt Romney is so dismissive of clean energy initiatives, and Paul Ryan's record on environmental issues is so shockingly abysmal, I feel I must speak up in defense of the natural world.  Because if the Romney-Ryan campaign has its way, there won't be very much nature left for our descendants to see or enjoy. 

Paul Ryan, Conspiracy Theorist

Ryan is as clueless about environmental science as he appears in this photo.  In a  December 2009 op-ed  that he wrote during international climate talks (and still proudly displays on his official Washington website), Ryan made reference to the hacked University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit emails (so-called "Climategate") and accused climatologists of a “perversion of the scientific method, where data were manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion,” in order to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” Because of spurious claims of conspiracy like these, several governmental and academic inquiries were launched, all of which found the accusations to be without any merit.  (See Debunking Misinformation about Stolen Climate Emails in the Manufactured Climategate Controversy for further detailed information.)

There was no "climate conspiracy" outside of Paul Ryan's head.  Nobody was perverting the scientific method, they were using the scientific method to peer review and critique various articles that had already been published in respectable journals.  Granted, some scientists were rude to each other in their emails (and who among us hasn't done that?) but Emily Post has nothing to do with the accuracy of the science.

Climate change denial and the Ryan "snow" argument

The problem is, Ryan himself doesn't understand climate science.  In the same op-ed, he stated, "Unilateral economic restraint in the name of fighting global warming has been a tough sell in our [Wisconsin] communities, where much of the state is buried under snow."  He and other climate deniers who use snowstorms as proof that the planet is not getting warmer do not understand a basic fact of physics, namely, that warm air holds more moisture than cold air.  This is why the worst storms usually come in March-April, when the northern hemisphere is warming up.  Warm air from the south hits cold fronts from the north and bam!  We get buried.   When the Jet Stream abnormally dips all the way south to Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, it will pull lots of moist air northward, resulting in even more snow.

Yes, it is true that the winter of 2009-2010 had record snowfall in Wisconsin (and also here in Minnesota, Ryan's neighbor state) but it is ALSO true that the average temperatures have been getting steadily warmer for decades.  When I first moved to Minnesota in 1973, I regularly saw temps of 40 below zero (F) on the winter weather map -- something I have NOT seen on any map around here for at least two decades.  Instead, the winters have been so warm -- with or without snow -- that the lakes no longer freeze hard enough for safe ice fishing in many parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  This, in turn, is hurting tourist industries that rely on snow and ice for winter sports.

I am wondering if Ryan is still sticking by this snow argument now that climate patterns have shifted again. Wisconsin is in the midst of a severe drought that is devastating crops across the Midwest.  Neither Minnesota nor Wisconsin had much snow at all this winter (2011-2012).   Instead, it all went south and buried places like Tennessee that normally don't have much snow.  And how does Ryan explain all the record 100-degree temperatures we had across the continent this summer, and the thousands of broken heat records every day?

Climate change is not the only area where Ryan fails on the environment.  He has voted to eliminate the EPA regulations on greenhouse gases, to block the US Department of Agriculture from preparing for climate change, to eliminate light bulb efficiency standards and slash clean energy investment.  On the other hand, he voted FOR keeping oil industry subsidies and is a big supporter of coal.  (For refs in the congressional record on all these issues, click here.)

Mitt Romney, Energy Luddite

Mitt Romney isn't any better.  He not only comes down 100% on the side of Big Oil and Big Coal, he ridicules developing new energy technologies.  On the campaign trail last week, while speaking to coal miners in Ohio, he said that Obama "is only interested in energy above the ground," by which I assume he meant solar and wind energy -- something he has previously mocked by saying "you can't drive a car with a windmill on it."  (Although you can drive a car with a dog kennel on it -- something he has personally demonstrated.)

On that same day, Obama was campaigning in Iowa, which gets 19% of its electricity from wind power, ranking second in the nation for that industry.  Wind farms, Obama pointed out, have already generated 7000 new jobs in Iowa. 

With all his focus on jobs, you would think that Romney would applaud that achievement.  But no, he retorts that wind turbines -- he called them "whirlybirds" -- won't generate energy when the wind is not blowing.  (Maybe not -- but when we run out of coal and oil, nothing will be generating energy if we do not plan ahead.  And hasn't Romney ever heard of storage batteries?)

"We have 250 years of coal," Romney says, "Why in the world wouldn't we use it?"   Even if better technologies are developed?  After all, the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of rocks.  And there were probably flint-chippers who objected to using metal-tipped spears because it would put them out of work.  "We have tons of rocks, why in the world wouldn't we use them?"  But the smarter cavemen embraced the new technology and the rest is, well, history.

In that same speech, he apparently thought it more effective to use sensationalism rather than science, misquoting Vice President Biden as saying that "coal is more dangerous than terrorists."  Biden never said that!  What he did say, in a 2007 interview, was that "hundreds of thousands of people die, or their lives are shortened, by coal plants."  Which, when you consider the pollution these plants produce (not to mention black lung disease among coal miners and other unsafe conditions), is perfectly true.  Asthma and lung cancer may not be as dramatic as a terrorist attack, but they kill far more people in the long run.  And guess what?  When Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he said much the same thing, stating that a coal plant "kills people." (Yet another flip-flop.)

I could go on and on, but I'll end with this thought:  Is Mitt Romney really a man you would want in the White House?  And do you really want Paul Ryan to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency?

* * *

(If you happen to be a Republican and still think climate change is a hoax, please read this excellent article by Republican meteorologist Paul Douglas (founder of the WeatherNation Channel) about how he came to believe it is true -- and it had nothing to do with Al Gore, just science:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-douglas/republican-climate-change_b_1374900.html? )

If the Earth is warming up, why are we getting so much snow?

Climate change deniers have been having a field day with all the snow this winter.  If global warming is real, they say, then why are we getting buried in so much snow?  Sunday, February 20, 2011 was the largest snowfall in a single 24-hour period ever recorded in Minneapolis, and in Minnesota overall, this has been the second snowiest February on record -- and the month isn't over yet.   So, the skeptics say, how can it be getting warmer if we are buried in blizzards?  And even if it is getting warmer, how can a few degrees make any difference?

Apparently it is making a big difference.  Normally, we get cold weather in January and February here, but not much snow until March-April. But this winter, it has been as if the calendar moved up a month or two, and we are getting April's weather in February.  And this, the scientists say, is indeed due to global warming.

To understand how global warming can produce more snow, we need to understand a  basic fact of physics: warmer air holds more moisture!  More moisture can mean more precipitation, either as snow or as rain.  If you look at the Jet Stream on recent weather maps, you will see that it has repeatedly dipped way down south toward the Gulf of Mexico -- where the air is very warm and moist -- then it swings back up north, dragging all that extra moisture with it.  The warm damp air hits the cold arctic air and whammo!  Lots of snowfall on the good ol' USA.

But hasn't the Jet Stream always done this?  To some extent, yes.  But I'm over 60 years old and I can't ever remember it going down way into Texas like it has done recently.   In the past, the Jet Stream remained pretty much up in Canada, with an occasional dip into Minnesota.  It formed a relatively stable circle of air flowing around the arctic that fenced in the really cold air up there.  Now, however, the Jet Stream has become unstable and is moving up and down the northern hemisphere rather erratically, causing extreme temperature swings (here in Minnesota, we have had a range of 35 below zero (F) to 60 above in a period of a mere two weeks) and a lot more precipitation. 

Why is it doing this? According to a recent study released in January 2011, the melting of ice in the arctic is allowing the Earth to absorb more heat from the sun instead of reflecting it back into space like it used to.(Second basic physics fact: dark ocean water absorbs more sunlight that light snow and ice.)   And it is doing this at a much higher rate than previously thought.  Now, 32-degree sea water might not seem very warm to you and I, but it is a heck of a lot warmer than the below-zero snow and ice that used to be there.  And once it absorbs that sunlight, it holds the heat, melting still more ice.  This warming of the arctic is destabilizing the Jet Stream, which, as I explained above, results in more snow further south.

So, although it may seem paradoxical for warmer air to produce bigger snowstorms, the phenomenon is scientifically sound.  You can't just look at a few local storms, you have to take into account the whole pattern of changes globally.   And while a few degrees might not seem like much, we are not really talking about the difference between a 70 degree day and a 74-degree day.  We are talking about the overall warming of the entire planet.  It doesn't take much to alter the ocean and wind currents.  Scientists say an overall change of 6 degrees can be disastrous.  Already there has been a rapid increase in volcanic activity, earthquakes, severe hurricanes and other storms -- including snow! -- yet so many of us are still in denial about this!

How much do we humans contribute to climate change?  Quite a lot, according to most climate scientists.  Yes, the earth goes through natural cycles, but since the Industrial Revolution the greenhouse effect has accelerated at an unprecedented rate.  The science is pretty firm now, with the vast majority of climate scientists agreeing there is a rapidly-accelerating problem.  Yet I am often appalled at how many of people not only don't believe the science, they think it is merely a matter of politics, a sort of left-wing hoax perpetrated by the Democrats.  (If Ronald Reagan had produced An Inconvenient Truth instead of Al Gore, would the right-wingers take global warming more seriously today?  I wonder.)

James Hoggan, in his book Climate Cover-Up, presents a well-researched argument that from the 1980s onward, there has been an organized campaign on the part of Big Oil and Big Coal to convince us that global warming is a hoax. (Remember that notorious ad trying to convince us that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was good?)  I'm not normally into conspiracy theories, but this one is pretty convincing.  Unfortunately, a lot of people have bought that argument, which delayed us doing anything about changing our lifestyles or lowering our carbon footprints.  But I think it is becoming pretty evident that global warming is real -- even if is does produce more snow sometimes.  Next time you are shoveling the stuff, blame it on that melting arctic ice.