BREAKING: July Hottest Month on Record

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.cnn.com/

The July heat wave that wilted crops, shriveled rivers and fueled wildfires officially went into the books Wednesday as the hottest single month on record for the continental United States.

[Ezlivin]

1. I fear the upcoming years

If the heat continues its slow creep upward the South will be unlivable.

The infrastructure can't take the heat and we are short of funds to maintain it. Our future does not look very bright.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. The South is already unlivable for about four or five months out of the year.

If not for air conditioning would six million people live in the Atlanta metro area? I think not.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Texas and Oklahoma baked in higher temps than we had here ( SW Ala.)

What saved us this year was plentiful showers starting in June, and July.
Cools down the afternoons wonderfully.
Its our heat index that makes it miserable...real temp was 96, but "feels like" 111, with the humidity.

[magical thyme]

14. I seriously expect to see climate refugees coming my way soon

I moved north to Maine 9 years ago in part because I expected things would be heating up, and I knew there would be water here.

When I moved here, they barely knew what a tick was and we always had several days or more of 15 below in winter.

Now ticks are endemic. We haven't hit 15 below in several years, and I don't believe we even got below zero the last 2-3 winters.

I was talking to the forester who cut down a dying maple in my front yard a few weeks ago. He's 50ish and moved his family up from the south just 2-3 years ago to start a business from scratch up here. He didn't say it outright, but I suspect from our conversation that he is another early "climate refugee."

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. Wonder what all the, "sure it's hot, but it's been hot like this before" people are going to say?

They're not going to be able to stick their heads in the sand too much longer without getting third degree burns.

[BlueStreak]

6. Cat's got their tongue right now

They are hiding out, hoping for a nice winter snowstorm so they can pop up with "Where's your Global Warming now, Al Gore?"

This is scary. Temperature rise is happening MUCH faster than the 1990ish models predicted. We are today where they though we might be by about 2040.

And these temperatures are exposing some additional tipping point items that weren't factored into the earlier climate models, such as the death of forests due to the heat. That releases CO2 and kills the plants that absorb CO2.

[bongbong]

13. Cooling

There was a secondary cooling effect (La Nina) from 2000 to 2011 that masked the warming in that period. Now we have swung over a medium-term La Nino pattern and all hell is breaking loose.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm

Best climate change website in the world, if for nothing else than their links of evidence for direct refutation of dozens of the most common lies from repigs/the 1%/the sheep/Human-haters/denialists.

[lunatica]

17. Dead trees are also fire hazzards

If many of the trees and forests die we will have massive fires for a while.

[valerief]

3. The GOP tells me it's god's will, not climate change.

[Quantess]

5. Okay, I am no meterologist, but, it is not quite that simple.

It is not a simple equation of climate change = hotter summers

I mean, that is part of it, but it also results in colder winters, storms, and weird weather in general. I wish Sweden and Japan and Russia could give some of their rain to the USA. Some places of the world have had inordinate amounts of rain this summer.

[BlueStreak]

7. That is all true, but

one of the big picture measurements is an overall increase in global temperature. Yes, this change in temperature triggers all sorts of secondary effects that are difficult to predict. But the overriding factor is overall temperature increase on a global, annual basis.

And really, what difference does it make exactly how well we can predict the secondary effects if we don't deal with the underlying problem?

[Quantess]

10. The thing is,

whenever it snows out, like clockwork, the deniers say "Hah! What global warming!?" out of ignorance.
That is why people need to know that it is not just about hotter temperatures. There are too many Americans in denial about climate change.

But yes, absolutely the most important part is dealing with the underlying problem, as you say.

[BlueStreak]

12. It is frustrating

that so many people are willing to believe such nonsense.

The changes are plain to see. Anybody who is at least 30 years old has seen significant changes. Here are some that I have seen:

1) When I was growing up, there was ALWAYS at least a 5-day period in January where the temperature got below zero every night, and in the coldest years, it might not make it above zero for a couple of days solid. That hasn't happened for 15 years now, and the last 3 or 4 years, we have never gotten below zero.

2) We have a high school basketball tournament that always starts the same week in early Spring. The folklore was that "sectionals week" would always bring a bug snowstorm, and after that, there would be little wintery weather. And that is exactly what happened most years. But that pattern stopped 15-20 years ago. Nobody even repeats that old folklore now. Now, by sectionals week, there are usually spring flowers starting to come out. In other words, the season has shifted an entire month.

3) Likewise, leaved dropped in late September and the first half of October. You were always done raking leaves by Halloween, although you might have left a few around on Halloween as a decoration. Now a lot of leaves are still in the treets on Thansgiving -- again a seasonal shift of a full month.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. did you see this temp change map?

you can click on it to watch the temp zones change from 1990 to 2006.

http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm

Now, 6 years later than 2006....wonder what it would show.

[raouldukelives]

20. Thanks for this. Its the same thing here.

Started 15-20 years ago. Slightly at first. Little less rain, little more summer. We used to get torrential rains here that fed the Redwoods and kept the streams full of salmon.
They are long gone. From a standard of 4-5 months of rain to maybe one, two if were lucky. Most of that rain being followed by warmth and dry stretches so there is no time for the water to seep down. It gets damp and cracks. The year round streams now run underground parts of the year.
About 10 years ago I started seeing a lot of disease spreading through the oaks. It has struck swiftly and they are all over the hills now. Silent white trees waiting for a spark.
We have also started experiencing lightning storms that are unprecedented here the last few years. They remind me more of the desert lightning storms I saw in Arizona.
Its just a matter of time. San Joaquin North here we come.
The only people who don't recognize the reality of what is occurring are those most insulated. The people who go from climate controlled high rises, autos & homes and shopping malls. Never considering the impact on the world around them or allowing the honest appraisal of the fruits they have borne.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Anchorage had record snowfall last winter,

one of the coldest Julys on record and a wetter than normal summer so far. I wish we could share, too.

[nichomachus]

8. Sign of the times

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Or these. Happening all over.

http://share.wsbtv.com/Media/View/2450794

[Comrade_McKenzie]

11. Just an anomaly.

[Blue_In_AK]

15. July was one of the coldest months on record in Anchorage.

Jet stream, La Nina.

(I'm certainly not denying climate change, though. This is unusual.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. One year does not proof make

the last ten years of a trend are far more convincing.

[blueamy66]

22. Ya think

I went to 3 stores today and had to sit in a darkened room for 15 minutes with a gallon of water upon my arrival at home. I was light-headed and sick. It went away after about 10 minutes.

Oh yeah, I live in PHX 115 today!