We're having a(nother) heat wave

...the sixth this year, and just the first of the summer.  So you won't think I've gone completely Chicken Little on you, here are some of the things Californians should expect by 2070 under even a relatively optimistic emissions scenario (according to a document prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists):

• 2-2.5 as many heat wave days in major urban centers
• 30-60% loss in Sierra snowpack
• Up to 1.5 times more critically dry years

The only problem is that it's 2008, not 2070, and all of these are happening right now (and the latter two have been happening for the past two years).

Now, it's possible that this is just be a statistical anomaly; maybe next year we'll see record rainfall, an increased snowpack, and a return to the normal pattern of about three heat waves per year.  But I can't help but notice that it sounds awfully similar to this:

"We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is 'does the North Pole melt out this summer?' and it may well," said the center's senior research scientist, Mark Serreze.

It's a 50-50 bet that the thin Arctic sea ice, which was frozen in autumn, will completely melt away at the geographic North Pole, Serreze said. [...]

"If you talked to me or other scientists just a few years ago, we were saying that we might lose all or most of the summer sea ice cover by anywhere from 2050 to 2100," Serreze said. "Then, recently, we kind of revised those estimates, maybe as early as 2030. Now, there's people out there saying it might be even before that. So, things are happening pretty quick up there."

And down here too, Mark.

So maybe 2007 and especially 2008 are statistical outliers where California's concerned (and hey, maybe seals with blowtorches are secretly working to help Serreze win his betting pool).  But the pattern lately is that predictions of climate change effects have been too cautious, targets have been too high, and timelines have been too generous; I don't know of a single case of a climate scientist pointing to anything that's turning out better than expected.  So as I sit here sweating and sucking down smog-filled air over the next few days, I'm going to throw caution to the wind and blame the whole damn thing on anthropogenic global warming.

Comments

[angryman@24:10]

That long horizon has done us a great disservice by allowing the notion that technology will be timely enough such that we don't need to adjust our lifestyles; in other words if we wait long enough something (market driven) will come along that will allow no loss to standards of living or quality of life.

I have long supported what is known as "Quonset Hut" outlook -- that we need to make our lives sparser in order to combat anthropogenic climate change. To make that work, the notion of borders and individual over collective must be addressed.

The thing is -- unless general redistribution occurs, I won't live in a Quonset on 300 sq/ft allocation unless Bill Gates (or his ilk) joins me in the adjoining 300 sq/ft allocation.

No way I'm going to chump up for them so that the oligarchic lifestyle can continue. Let the aliens whisk them away if they want to stick to their ideologies.

[John Caruso]

Agreed about the "long horizon", though I think those were the best conservative estimates at the time (influenced in some part by the political climate, though, I'd guess). And on the flip side, the short-term obsession that corporate capitalism breeds—in economic terms and and more broadly—means that our society is almost incapable of responding appropriately to anything with this kind of timeline.