LOS ANGELES, June 21, 2008
Heat Wave Blisters Southern California
Triple Digit Temps Setting Records; Energy Demand At Peak Levels
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Jose Rodriguez 10, left plays with his friend Gilbert Ruiz 10, as the two boys try to cool down in the heat on a sidewalk in Los Angeles Friday, June 20,2008. A crackling heat wave sent the mercury bubbling into triple digits again Friday as Southern Californians sought ways to keep cool. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
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Photo Essay East Coast Simmers Temperatures rise toward century mark, records expected to fall.
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Photo Essay Summer Scorcher As temperatures soar around the world, everyone's looking for ways to keep cool.
Power was restored Saturday to almost all the 8,000 customers that were blacked out the day before when electrical demand skyrocketed because of the heat, said Terry Schneider, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Energy demand was expected to remain at peak levels into the weekend and the department had about 50 crews standing by to handle any overload problems, Schneider said.
"The system is under tremendous strain to meet the energy demand," he said.
Temperatures hit record highs up and down the state Friday, including 103 degrees at San Jose, 105 at Escondido, 106 at Burbank and 108 at San Luis Obispo.
The heat wave has been caused by northeasterly wind preventing sea breezes from penetrating a high-pressure system that has settled over the West.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the state Office of Emergency Services to be on standby through the weekend.
One death has been linked to the heat, a 77-year-old woman who apparently left her car near the California-Arizona line south of Lake Havasu, Ariz., on Monday in search of her elderly husband, who was hospitalized for treatment of burns. Temperatures hit 116 in the area Monday.
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See all 33 CommentsYipes, here we go again with a person who listens to Rush, "sometimes". The US is the ONLY developed country that still has a debate about climate change. We are the only developed country has has over 40% of the population that believes in creationism. In fact, we have more in common in terms of science literacy with Saudi Arabia and the Taliban than with the countries of wstern Europe. You are a perfect example of the willful ignorance and reality challenged populace that is blinded by their myopic views. Please stop listening to the Rush''s view of the world and be a bit more humble and listen to people who have studied climate change for decades and who also publish in peer reviewed journals. Not the quacks that have never published in respected journals who often show up on the right wing (e.g., fox Tv, etc.) medial.
Yipes, here we go again with a person who listens to Rush, "sometimes". The US is the ONLY developed country that still has a debate about climate change. We are the only developed country has has over 40% of the population that believes in creationism. In fact, we have more in common in terms of science literacy with Saudi Arabia and the Taliban than with the countries of wstern Europe. You are a perfect example of the willful ignorance and reality challenged populace that is blinded by their myopic views. Please stop listening to the Rush''s view of the world and be a bit more humble and listen to people who have studied climate change for decades and who also publish in peer reviewed journals. Not the quacks that have never published in respected journals who often show up on the right wing (e.g., fox Tv, etc.) medial.
Which is it? If you''ve never seen concrete proof, then how do you know they are growing? The data I''ve seen (and posted to you) is that they are shrinking.
"a great amount of this is guess work and could go either way"
Again, why take the chance if the solutions are so benign? ''go either way'' may bring you comfort. It doesn''t for me. Actually, it sounds pretty ominous.
Destroy the planet? We''re talking about your right to drive a Hummer to get from A to B instead of a Prius. We''re talking about whether we should put solar water heaters on our roofs (you know, the ones that use 19th century technology to lower our home oil usage by 20-40%). We''re talking about whether the technological edge in wave power will come from Australia, Scandanavia, and Scotland (as seems currently to be our fate: they are DEPLOYING these MATURE technologies now ALL OVER THE WORLD) or the U.S.
Who has ever been talking about destroying the planet?? Have you been drinking the Limbaugh Kool-Aid again??
Hence the focus on Antarctica, Greenland, and Alaska. Easily checked by examining the GNC records (guidance/navigation/and control records) of polar satellites flying overhead for the last few years (if ice is melting, the redistribution of mass away from these land areas will show up in the gravitational impact earth has on these satellites trajectories). Result: 100s of thousands of tons of LAND ice is melting from each of these continents every year (although the middle of Greenland and Antarctica are actually growing by snow/ice deposition its MORE than made up for by losses near the coastlines).
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0216_060216_warming.html
What scares me is that for ten years scientists have continually UNDERESTIMATED the extent of melting ice at the poles, they are constantly revising their projections of ice melt UPWARD.
Your time frame is too small to be significant. You might as well be saying, "In my 78 years, everywhere I''ve been the earth is flat!" But the knowledge gained through science always trumps the limited experience of the yokels.
BTW, the water IS RISING in FL, which is the same as saying FL is "sinking". Here''s the truth: (Look it up on the Big Trivia Machine if you don''t believe me.)
The sea that receded from Florida''s shores thousands of years ago was beginning to come back, naturally and slowly, until the Industrial Revolution began filling the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, warming the oceans and speeding up the process. Prior to the 1800s, the rates are fairly constant, varying from about 1 1/2 to 3 inches a century. But now, thanks to the warming of the planet, sea level is increasing by a rate of 15 to nearly 20 inches per century along the Ten Thousand Islands area of Everglades National Park.
If you''d been paying attention, dmw1167, you should have noticed that much "sinking" even in your limited timeframe!
You don''t want to be near sea level when the ice shelves give way. I know that snow levels are rising in the centers of these bodies, but that''s not where the ice is perched over the ocean. THere, its melting.
Global warming was never about warming, its about heating. There are two ways something can heat, it can warm, and it can change phase. Phase change is the actual concern with global warming as it affects rainfall patterns and the sizes and frequencies of storms. It affects whether that precipitation falls as snow or rain, and how long it sticks. It affects whether ocean water is retained as water or ice. The northward expansion of tropical and sub-tropical critters, like the one killing Alaskan salmon, is a consequence of lack of killing frosts in areas once subject to them.
I''m a GMO fan, although I don''t think enough has been done to make sure engineered genes don''t migrate to the natural ecosystems around them. They have the potential to vastly increase crop yields, allow safer production without chemicals, etc.
GW Deniers are quick to point out that we don''t know all the consequences yet, but I don''t see that as cause for celebration. One unintended consequence could be the melting of Arctic permafrost (phase change again), causing release of huge quantities of potent greenhouse gas, methane, into the atmosphere, accelerating the effects of GW.
BTW, a theory has been tested over and over by the acquisition of new data.
The data clearly shows a link between CO2 and climate throughout history. Go to the best science journals in the world and read (Nature or Science).
Second, when it suits your whims, you move to inaccurate data or out right lies. The IPCC report indicates at least a 5 F (or 3 C) global temperature change. Also, the high end of the report, which indicates a global temp increase of nearly 10 F, is becoming more realistic. This is the case as the IPCC underestimated the rate of change , because all of the countries including the US (and the Bushies) had to approve it. There have been over a half of dozen peer reviewed papers that have come out since the report that have shown that the IPCC grossly UNDERestimated the change. And BTW, this will be felt more at the high latitudes where all of ice sheets reside. It is a shame that your close mindedness has blinded you to finding data that fits your world view.
The Earth is not even a blip in the Universe and man is not even a blip when it comes to the weather. People keep yelling about CO2, man would not even exist without it. A ton is 2000 pounds why aren''''t we being crushed by these trillions of tons of CO2 in the atmosphere or why hasn''''t the atmospheric pressure changed?
Posted by dmw1167
Yipes, what sort of rambling idiotic nonsense is this? With a discourse like this, either go back to grade school and take some basic science classes or just stay quiet. It is extremely embarrassing to think that you live in the same country as the rest of us.
If a similar model tells you a Katrina Hurricane is heading your way, my guess is you''ll believe it and leave, just to be on the safe side. That''s what''s going on here. Because of the uncertainties surrounding how the oceans will ultimately react to this heat-forcing, we should take prudent action NOW. If we wait until the oceans make their changes, we''ll be pushing to reverse course for 50 years before the ocean even realizes we''ve changed our minds.
One of the saddest aspects of the whole Global Warming debate is the number of Scientists with perfectly good degrees, just NOT in climatology, who are willing to opine on climatology. Their PhD makes them a darling candidate for the right. Their lack of climatological training means they can actually deny later having known what they were saying. I just direct people to www.RealClimate.org, with its useful (almost disheartening) byline: ''Climate Science by Climate Scientists''.
Climate Science by Climate Scientists! Who woulda thunk it?
Once again you have demonstrated that a little knowledge used by someone who holds a closed minded view can sound so arrogantly dumb. The high CO2 levels of the past were fine for Mother Nature, but they would be disastrous for humanity. When the climate got warmer and sea levels rose, what happened? The dinosaurs in the Mesozoic and the mammals in the Cenozoic migrated inland or they moved to higher latitudes. We can not move our cities inland and it would be extremely difficult move our farms to higher latitudes (unless you want to give Nebraskan farmers Canadian citizen). Also, deserts will expand into once was farmable land, rainfall and storms will change dramatically as we return for the first time into a greenhouse world.
BTW, the entries in wikipedia are NOT peer reviewed, although your quote is partially accurate. I have written about 45 peer reviewed papers on past climate change. The ignorant blustering climate change deniers (e.g., Rush and Fox TV) typically have so called experts that may have PhD but never are writing peer reviewed papers in high level journals on climate change.
Someone should tell these folks:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/98/10/5466
Its titled ''The current biodiversity extinction event: Scenarios for mitigation and recovery'' PNAS= proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Since you like ScienceDaily, here''s what they think CO2 is doing to coral reefs around the world:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060515232529.htm
It takes more than CO2 to green the planet. To suggest that limiting CO2 to 350ppm is a disservice to our biosphere is taking huge license.
You global warming people really need to do your own research and stop letting the media and the Al Gore types tell you how to think.
I find it a little disconcerting that your idea of ''normal'' is an age when mosquito''s the size of birds roamed the land.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ichfish15-2008jun15,0,587682.story
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