I bless the rains down in Africa.

[Workingman]

There is an ongoing weather event that started last year.

Towards the end of 2019 northern South America and parts of Central America saw almost unprecedented winds and rain causing landslides, floods and other damage to buildings, road and bridges. It stretched from Brazil through Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.

It then tracked across the Pacific where the Eastern region from the Philippines to S. Korea and over to Indonesia has had one of the worst typhoon season on record.

Then it moved on to Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran with more floods and landslides.

Now it is hitting a belt of Africa from Sudan through Chad, CAR, DR Congo, Niger and Burkina Fasso, and it is still moving east.

The hurricane season is now building up in the Carribean and the Gulf and it looks likely to be a bad one. There are currently four storms / hurricanes heading for the Gulf states, Florida and the Carolinas.

All of the places that have been hit have uses such phrases as "worst in 100 years", "worst in living memory", "worst since records began". "unprecedented" and so on. Homes and livelihoods have been destroyed, hundreds have died, but the most telling thing of all is that crops have gone causing food shortages.

Then there are the fires in the US Pacific states.

They might all be weather events, but they are underpinned by climate. We are going to see more of these, and not just in the tropics.

[Suff]

Absolutely. My own tracking of what is going on in the Arctic tells me we are in for 3 years of unprecedented melt.

This plays havoc with the jet stream and affects all world weather.

Solar cycle 25 is just kicking off and we are in for another 11 year roller-coaster.

At the same time CO2 levels continue to rise, decade on decade, at record levels.

[Suff]

2 additional points,

Sea levels rose 6.1mm between 2018 and 2019. The average was 3.6mm per year, up from the annual average of the 20th century of 1.4mm.

In 2010 global sea levels dropped by 6mm. Over the next year, it all fell to ground with the expected havoc.

As the climate warms, the atmosphere can absorb more moisture. This, however, ensures more energy and moisture for bigger storms.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/u ... -sea-level

[cromwell]

You both know a lot more than me about this, but I will say that we have had wind and rain to a very unusual level over the last few years, especially at times of the year when you wouldn't expect it.

[Workingman]

Cromwell, it is not that we know more, but we probably do follow things more closely than some.

Your observations about the winds and rain confirm that you (and others) do know, and those observations tie in perfectly with the 'bigger picture' events from my OP and Suff's link. The thing is that thanks to the Internet and worldwide news feeds we are seeing these things first hand - as they happen. They are no longer academic.

Where we once only got reports of..... we now get drone footage of people up in trees, on rooves, up to their armpits in muddy water, live pictures as the eye of the storm approaches, whole areas of buildings blown down. For me they are more powerful than the science behind the events and allow us all to learn something.

[Suff]

There had to be a change in communication from the scientists because the press was using their precision against them and to play both ends against the middle. Now who would have thought they would do that?

When a scientist is asked if a specific event is absolutely caused by Global Warming, they will equivocate. Because weather cannot solely be based on one trigger.

So they were asked to change the question around. The answer is, ask me if the storm would have happened if Global Warming had not happened. The answer is almost certainly not. Put it the other way, Yes the storm Almost Certainly was caused by GW, but you can't prove it. However there is ample proof that all storms are increasing in intensity and frequency. That can be proven over the decades. They can prove the "almost certainly not" but cannot prove "almost certainly so".

People see these pictures and the anguish and then they are told "it was a 100 year storm or a 1,000 year storm". What these pictures do is to bring awareness world wide. So when Bangladesh gets clobbered every other year, Australia every 5 years, the US every 5-6 years and Pakistan every 2 years, people begin to see the bigger picture. Which equates to "almost certainly not".

It is almost impossible to prove what we know to be true. But as time goes on, people are already becoming aware that they are being lied to and it is not the scientists doing the lying.

[Workingman]

Unfortunately it is a truism that most people cannot handle the scientific message. The graphs, the numbers, the quotes are just white noise for ever so many, and it is the many who need persuading.

Then there is the media. One side is the social media echo chambers where conspiracy theories and the 'bloke-down-the-pub-said' opinions are hard to escape and it is difficult for some to sort out the wheat from the chaff. The other is the images shown of families sat on the roof of a shack surrounded by water with the tops of a few trees poking up here and there; or the raging river tearing at the banks with houses collapsing in and floating away; or the hectares of flattened buildings when a hurricane has torn through: and such like.

For me the images win hands down at getting the message across to the many.

[Suff]

Agree, the images are potent. But given that this used to happen twice a decade and is now happening every 2 years or so, it is still too far apart for the people who do the images but not the numbers.

By the time it is fast enough for the average image punter to really take up and notice, (every other month), it will be half a century too late to fix it. S.O.O.L.

Below is the Arctic ice image for yesterday. Notice where the ice has withdrawn to 85N. This year is second only to 2012 for catasrophic loss and there was less sun, insolation and storms than 2012. The ice is just not there any more.

It should be blindingly obvious to everyone but, it appears, the fact that the Arctic Ice Cap is no longer an Ice Cap appears to have passed most people by.




Here is a thought for you. Create a closed loop of water in a square of pipes and pump the water around the square. At the bottom left put a heat source. At the top right put ice. The water temp will not raise very much so long as there is ice. But once the ice is gone, then watch the temp rise, rapidly.

We are melting our cooling source. When it's gone, all hells out for noon.

[Workingman]

I also agree, Suff, but you have falen into the trap of knowing too much.

You know what you are on about, but to the average bod it is largely meaningless. Take your Arctic image. For those of us who have been following events it makes perfect sense, but for the average Brenda and Bob it has no context, it is just a nice map, minly white, blue and green, and of some islands? Then they move on.

My feeeling is that if you show them something like these:







and add a 'before and after' script explaining them in layman's language you get a more sympathetic response. They are all taken from roughly the same view point.

The converted are already converted, it's the millions of Brenda's and Bob's we have to win over. We need to use the media's tried and tested tactics of persuasion if we are to do so.

[Suff]

Well I guess I could go look in the archives an drag out a 1980's picture. 2004 is dramatic but hardly world shaking for the uninitiated.