2007 - The Weather Got Extreme, and it's Heating Up In A Big Way!

by Robert Wilkinson

Well, I've been telling everyone for quite a while that the weather is getting weirder! If you need verification, here's a recent article from the AP that may help to firm up your opinion if you're still sitting on a fence. Of course I'll be posting more metaphysics forthwith in the next few dozen hours. For now, welcome to our future of a much hotter Earth....

Although I loathe to quote another article in its entirely, this one is so important that I figured Seth wouldn't mind. If he or the AP objects, of course I'll delete this one since I wouldn't want to jack with their copyright. Still, blessings to Seth for this very important report, and muchas gracias para the straight story...

2007 - A Year of Weather Records

Dec 29, 12:15 PM (ET)

By SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder. January was the warmest first month on record worldwide - 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.

And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather data. England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping there, shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

It wasn't just the temperature. There were other oddball weather events. A tornado struck New York City in August, inspiring the tabloid headline: "This ain't Kansas!"

In the Middle East, an equally rare cyclone spun up in June, hitting Oman and Iran. Major U.S. lakes shrank; Atlanta had to worry about its drinking water supply. South Africa got its first significant snowfall in 25 years. And on Reunion Island, 400 miles east of Africa, nearly 155 inches of rain fell in three days - a world record for the most rain in 72 hours.

Individual weather extremes can't be attributed to global warming, scientists always say. However, "it's the run of them and the different locations" that have the mark of man-made climate change, said top European climate expert Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in England.

Worst of all - at least according to climate scientists - the Arctic, which serves as the world's refrigerator, dramatically warmed in 2007, shattering records for the amount of melting ice.

2007 seemed to be the year that climate change shook the thermometers, and those who warned that it was beginning to happen were suddenly honored. Former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar and he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group of thousands of scientists. The climate panel, organized by the United Nations, released four major reports in 2007 saying man-made global warming was incontrovertible and an urgent threat to millions of lives.

Through the first 10 months, it was the hottest year recorded on land and the third hottest when ocean temperatures are included. Smashing records was common, especially in August. At U.S. weather stations, more than 8,000 new heat records were set or tied for specific August dates.

More remarkably that same month, more than 100 all-time temperature records were tied or broken - regardless of the date - either for the highest reading or the warmest low temperature at night. By comparison only 14 all-time low temperatures were set or tied all year long, as of early December, according to records kept by the National Climatic Data Center.

For example, on Aug. 10, the town of Portland, Tenn., reached 102 degrees, tying a record for the hottest it ever had been. On Aug. 16, it hit 103 and Portland had a new all-time record. But that record was broken again the next day when the mercury reached 105. Daily triple-digit temperatures took a toll on everybody, public safety director George West recalled. The state had 15 heat-related deaths in August.

Portland was far from alone. In Idaho, Chilly Barton Flat wasn't living up to its name. The weather station in central Idaho tied an all-time high of 100 on July 26, Aug. 7, 14 and 19. During 2007, weather stations in 35 states, from Washington to Florida, set or tied all-time heat records in 2007.

Across Europe this past summer, extreme heat waves killed dozens of people. And it wasn't just the heat. It was the rain. There was either too little or too much.

More than 60 percent of the United States was either abnormally dry or suffering from drought at one point in August. In November, Atlanta's main water source, Lake Lanier, shrank to an all-time low. Lake Okeechobee, crucial to south Florida, hit its lowest level in recorded history in May, exposing muck and debris not seen for decades. Lake Superior, the biggest and deepest of the Great Lakes, dropped to its lowest August and September levels in history.

Los Angeles hit its driest year on record. Lakes fed by the Colorado River and which help supply water for more than 20 million Westerners, were only half full. Australia, already a dry continent, suffered its worst drought in a century, making global warming an election issue. On the other extreme, record rains fell in China, England and Wales.

Minnesota got the worst of everything: a devastating June and July drought followed by record August rainfall. In one March day, Southern California got torrential downpours, hail, snow and fierce winds. Then in the fall came devastating fires driven by Santa Ana winds.

And yet none of those events worried scientists as much as what was going on in the Arctic in the summer. Sea ice melted not just to record levels, but far beyond the previous melt record. The Northwest Passage was the most navigable it had been in modern times. Russia planted a flag on the seabed under the North Pole, claiming sovereignty.

The ice sheets that cover a portion of Greenland retreated to an all-time low and permafrost in Alaska warmed to record levels.

Meteorologists have chronicled strange weather years for more than a decade, but nothing like 2007. It was such an extreme weather year that the World Meteorological Organization put out a news release chronicling all the records and unusual developments. That was in August with more than 145 sizzling days to go.

Get used to it, scientists said. As man-made climate change continues, the world will experience more extreme weather, bursts of heat, torrential rain and prolonged drought, they said.

"We're having an increasing trend of odd years," said Michael MacCracken, a former top federal climate scientist, now chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington. "Pretty soon odd years are going to become the norm."

U.S. National Climatic Data Center's searchable records web site

U.S. National Climatic Data Center on August heat wave records

World Meteorological Organization on 2007 weather extremes

The record for shrinking sea ice

© Copyright 2008 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Jilly]

Here in the Nashville area this month we had tornadoes and then a week later, snow and ice.

[Aditya]

Wow! so much bad news to come, don't know what to do. What do we do, Robert? Carry on as usual hoping for the best and never give up on our dreams?

[Felita]

Hi Robert What's frustrating is Environmentalist warned of this 25yrs ago, and many fought to get this information through, yet money ruled the outcome.Australia was always known for drought and flooding rains,now it's extreme. Victoria and Tasmania also deal with a hole in the ozone,The sun even burns in winter here when it's low on the horizon. Cyclones have moved down lower on northern coastlines,and closer to coastlines as sea temperatures rise.30 yrs ago I was at uni was going to be an ecologist and save the world(so I thought). I think mother nature will sought it,as for the inhabitants of this planet we will have to act soon and pray earnestly that world leaders see their past folly towards the environment. I live in hope and positivity, yet reality still tells me to be cautious in all ways. Appreciate this renewal of information. Thanking you Aum Namah Shivaya Felita

[Henry]

It's at least curious than some people are making business on this:

www.weathermod.com/

Well, only for you to know.
Blessings.

[Felita]

Also..www.energyandcapital.com/ very informative.

[susannah]

Normally our February and March is a journey to hell with no seeming respite. Temperatures up to 40 degrees in the shade. Today, when it should be its hottest I am sitting in long pants and a warm shirt. The whole summer has been like this.
Robert, I know absolutely nothing about astrology but am drawn to your writing and your sense of the larger essence. Your by-line is "move and groove through the intersection of fate and free-will". Now I know this is the most argued issue in history about which one is true and only one can be true. At this moment in time I am in two very separate camps. One aspect things I must just blast out for change and the other aspect urges me to be present, in the moment and accept completely everything as it is.
I know there is no answer or solution, it is just about a happening - and then again perhaps I tuned in here to hear something that might be to my highest benefit.

[Micheline]

Robert, timely article. You know we had to heavish snowfalls in Tokyo and surrounding areas this last month. It never snows at this time of the year... since, I have lived here for the past ten years we will get a snowfall the day or so after new years day and thats it.
It is so cold. Not normal at all. I also noticed that cherry blossom viewing happens earlier and earlier every year here. That is not good i feel either. Last summer it was so hot, that in Saitama city, it went up to almost 50 d c. Thats super high. Not to mention a few people died.

Did you know that when Ford came out with his gas combustible engine way back when that there were a group of scientist who protested the engine telling that it would ruin the environment and guess what has happened!!!!

[Robert]

Hi Jilly - When you see the funnel clouds, head for the storm cellar! Hang in there!

Hi Aditya - Well, I don't think it's bad news per se, but just another big step in some old things shutting down. All of us are learning not to give up on our dreams and persevere despite the outer disturbances.

Hi Felita - I was trained in Oceanography and Marine Biology back in the late 60s, and yes, it's been known for decades that fluctuations in temperature would upset ecosystems and mess up the balance between higher and lower level sea organisms. We just never thought it could happen so quickly. Where once we calculated sea levels rising at a rate of about 1 inch per century at most, now it's all been blown wide open. The ozone hole is gradually shrinking due to the phasing out of CFCs, but that will just allow us not to get skin cancer as the oceans rise, which is more due to particulates in the atmosphere trapping gases like CO2. It certainly sounds like Australia is a lab experiment in global weather shifts! World "leaders" will soon have to address the larger needs of their people everywhere rather than argue stupid points of view positing false dualities (jobs vs environment and other such ridiculous arguments.) Saving our Earth will be THE cause of this century. The site link was interesting. I'll have to explore it further when I have some time.

Hi Henry - Yes, weather control experiments and technology have been part of the toolkit of the major powers for several decades. It was the primary reason for the Falklands War. And the profiteers are always looking for a way to make a quick buck however they can, while conveniently ignoring the downside of their activities.

Hi Susannah - Yes, years ago I KNEW it was good that I had left central Texas when it hit 100 degrees F. the following February! As for "fate and free will," they coexist. Both are true simultaneously, but each operates in their own specific field. Everything is "free will" except two things - one is to be born when and where we were, the other is the timing on when we have to make certain choices to act or not act. Not what choice we make, but the necessity to confront choice at critical moments. Our choice is free will - that we must make some choice at a certain time is "fate," or "destiny," itself the result of prior choices made at times that helped to create our future.

Hi Micheline - I suspect the weather patterns will become more extreme as the global ice continues to melt. Didn't know about Ford, but it doesn't surprise me. He and Rockefeller conspired to thwart alternative fuels, and this is the result.

[Popplagid]

Its not just what you mentioned Robert!
Look at more on 2007-2008.
Heavy snowfall has hit Iran and Iraq for the first time, extreme cold and snow in Turkey and Greece now, very cold and disruptive snow in China last month, very abnormal warm here in Portugal and western europe (seems like May), it was -60ºC in Greenland last month and it continues, it snew for the first time in Buenos Aires last july, it snew heavily in Jesuralem, and there was extreme hot in eastern europe last summer and cold and heavy flood in western europe last summer.

I am confused about the origin of this.
Humans have for sure one impact. The sun has another. Solar activity was highest for centuries during last years and now is low. And dont know for sure how much greenhouse do humans contribute if they are or not comparable to the ones release in vulcans.
One thing is for sure, we must care much more about earth, starting living with a ecological and humble lifestyle, and away from the consumeering, profit-making lifestyle. This is not politics but a question of our survival.
Fore sure, Pluto in Capricorn will bring more extreme weather, it will want to dismantle the rubish side of our societies. I believe Earth once in a while passes through such hard cleanings and now its one of those times.
I guess we will see a part of our society at least disappearing in next years, in not a significant part. And as a scientist said last month, I think we are underestimating the predicted sea level rise. Earth sometimes rises or falls its sea levels in dramatic ways and in short amounts of time, and the same is for huge weather shifts, even with no human intervention.
I believe at least in Gaia and her kind life-supporting spirit, even if it implies big changes.

[Robert]

Hi Popplagid - Yes, I know there are many more things that are happening - it just seemed this was so succinct that it gave a pretty accurate picture of what's up globally. Everything is in fact getting more extreme by the month, and despite the naysayers who insist that it's not humanity's fault, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Our obsession with industrialization has in fact altered our ecosystem in countless ways, regardless of other "natural" factors. At this point, it almost doesn't matter what combo of forces caused it, since regardless of causes we MUST alter course and implement corrective actions any way we can. And yes, the Earth has its own corrective measures it IS taking, much to the chagrin of humanity.

[Felita]

Hi Robert and others. Good Lunar virgo action released today around eclipse time. Garnauts report on Australia's response to climate change.
www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.

A positive thing! Aum Shanti Felita

[Robert]

Hi Felita - The link doesn't take me to a current article. Perhaps you can make sure of the address, or at least summarize the main points?