December Heat Wave

We’ve been having strange weather this year. A couple of heat waves down in the South, the rash of tornadoes in the Midwest, including a long track tornado on December 10-11, and an ongoing drought in the West that provided the fuel for a damaging fire in Boulder, Colorado.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another very warm day with a possibility of becoming a record breaker.

Strangely enough, other than the heat wave, the tornadoes and the fire cannot be laid at the door of climate change. I’m no expert on weather but from my readings about tornadoes or climate change, tornadoes are typically not part of the conversation. Usually, hurricanes or tropical cyclones get tagged with climate change. One of the meteorologists who follows tornadoes very closely says tornadoes are very complex and a lot of factors need to be in place before tornadoes come into being. Hurricanes develop over a large body of water and involves warming water and warming air whereas it seems like tornadoes include other factors besides moisture such as jet streams.

So, even though the December 10-11 event was a historic event, scientists and meteorologists are not tying in climate change; it is just one of those freak events. If we were to start having these freak events every year rather than once every decade, then maybe scientists and meteorologists would start thinking otherwise.

The fire in Boulder – while the drought and strong winds provided the fuel for the devastating fire – it turns out humans may have started the fire. The investigators have just started so it is not certain that is where the conclusions will land. At first, the police and investigators thought the fire was precipitated by a line downed by strong winds. They later found out that the downed line could not have started the fire (mainly due to the type of line it was). So, the investigation has landed upon a burning shed.

But it is too early to say that is the definitive cause.

And nowhere does the media says climate change is involved.

But still, it was a strange and warm December.

Speaking of climate change, I’m noticing that the climate deniers have been mute. I’m not sure if that is real or if they have something else to attend to. There is a lot of stuff going on now-a-days (like the pandemic), so maybe the topic of climate change is not very important at the moment.

I do get the sense that more and more people are coming around to the idea that there is something going on with the weather. The last few years have been relentless in the disasters, covering almost the entire US. There doesn’t seem to be a safe place to hide from the impact of climate change.

And also, I think people have come around to the idea that climate change is NOW, not ten years in the future or in 2050. It’s happening now. The imbalance has been swinging for a while now and won’t stop until the environment settles at a new level of heat, moisture and air flow. We won’t be able to prevent the climate change from happening because it is already in progress. All we can do now is to try to mitigate the severity.

The die has been cast.

And Joe Manchin is going to be one of those guys who is going to go down in history as the obstructionist killing bills designed to address climate change, encourage clean energy, and build infrastructure that can save people lives. He is going to be that face in history books.