Climate Change Is Here.

I know that I keep writing about the weather, but the news just keeps bringing forth all of the records being broken, the extreme weather hitting everywhere, those multiple heat domes hanging over the Western US, Europe and India/China, and the waters off of Florida hitting the high 90’s. Today, it supposedly hit 100 or 101 degrees although scientists are not ready to claim such temperatures because they need to verify it.

And August hits next week. I think hurricane season starts to rapidly ramp up, peaking in September before slowly dropping off in October. I’m not looking forward to that with the exceedingly warm waters in the Atlantic, Caribbean and the Gulf.

So, a couple of brief recital of news that I came across:

• A couple of insurers left Florida and California due to climate change concerns. If insurers are citing climate change, then you know climate change is real.
• Greece is right now undergoing lots of fires.
• I believe Portugal, Spain and Italy have seen temperatures breaching over 100 degrees. Southern Italy saw 118 degrees.
• Heat records are being broken all across the world, judging by the news.
• I believe last month was the hottest month on record and it looks like July will be too.
• Vermont had that 1000-year flooding, either in June or July. But they had the 500-year flooding back in 2011. Having these massive flooding events in almost the same decade is unnerving.
• I believe about a week before Vermont, Pennsylvania and New York had some serious flooding. It’s hard to remember because there are just so many serious weather events.
• I read a headline that said there is no safe place because even places deemed to be possibly safe have undergone some form of extreme weather event.
• As I mentioned earlier in this post, the water temperature of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf are extremely elevated – above 80 degrees, the minimum required for hurricane formation.
• Down at the southern tip of Florida, the water has been measured to be over 90 degrees. It is said that the coral reefs – a large part of it – are bleaching and thus are dying. I believe these are sea habitat sustaining sea life.
• Based upon my reading of the weather news, it sounds like scientists are shocked at the duration and intensity of these heat waves. They sound like they are getting really worried. They hadn’t expected this to be happening so soon.
• Today, I saw a couple of articles saying the northern Atlantic circulation could collapse in this century, and it could happen as early as 2025. What could happen in the event of that collapse? Well, more extreme weather. I truly don’t know but it sounds like more of the extreme weather. This is all speculation and theory – we don’t really know. Okay, here’s a link to an article that describes this new report on the collapse. It gives some idea of what could occur.

With all of that going on and the shock from the scientists, it sounds like climate change is here, not in 2030. It’s here now.

I was in a meeting with a group of people, and a lady mentioned that we’re in the early stages of climate change and it will get worse. So, people are starting to talk about it outright. Most people I know don’t talk about climate change because of the political environment we’re living in but the weather, especially the heat, has been so concerning this summer that they are now talking about it.

I don’t know how the climate deniers feel, but I would hope these weather events are starting to impinge on them and cause them to question their beliefs and say, “maybe there is something to the climate change theory”.

It may still turn out to be a huge blip or an outlier in the history of the weather. I keep my mind open and realize that this could all be a historical oddity, but it sure does feel like the weather is getting hotter with more extreme flooding. It just doesn’t stop.

So, climate change is here, NOW, not in 2050 or 2030. It’s now.