Climate changes every day [Dec 16]
Looking at the storm last night and explaining what we learned as a result
After a night of storms, let’s look at the damage.
It looks like about 350,000 people (around 1 in a 1000 Americana) are still without power.
Another from (sarcastic) snapchat in Kansas.
This doesn’t even include tornado damage or other events. Once the residents get power again I’m sure we will see a lot more footage. Good to note that modern technology has made these events less impactful. We have AC, strong building codes, and air filters and all sorts of stuff, imagine what these storms would be like without them.
A changing climate
The world temperature has not dropped below average for 443 consecutive months.
The biggest key takeaway is that this freak December weather I talked about in my other post is already a piece of the past. In the past 24 hours, our planet has seen an increase in 100 million tons of CO2. That’s a lot of gas! At the point of repeating myself, there is now 100,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that was not here yesterday. Knowing that these extreme weather events are made more likely and made more extreme by human emissions, it’s startling that as a species we have released so much in the past day.
This is intense because the storms of yesterday are now not only more common but also more likely to be more powerful when they happen again as a result of these emissions.
All in all, don’t worry too much. It’s easy to get anxious and paralyzed into inaction. Instead, keep your head up and learn. The key idea from my earth system adaptation classes is that if you are prepared and adapt in advance, extreme weather can be significantly less harmful. What this means is, if you are in California, prepare for bigger wildfires and a longer season. If you are in Ohio, prepare for larger and more powerful Derechos, and if you are in Florida, be ready for flooding. That doesn’t mean anything more than it does. It’s not the end of the world by any means. But seriously, these events are not one time events. They are becoming stronger and more common every day our society emits more greenhouse gasses.
I’ll leave you with these:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/weather/2021/12/15/extreme-weather-threatens-midwest-vpx.cnn
https://apnews.com/article/tornadoes-iowa-nebraska-storms-kansas-ee9378aae1cb74911e0f9842a01ccaa1
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