'Our Atmosphere Is Broken': US Tops Record for Hurricane-Force Winds in a Day

[jalan48]

Writing Wednesday at his Substack "The Crucial Years," McKibben framed Wednesday's storm system as an unsurprising outcome of the climate emergency:

It's hard to overstate how hellish the storm now raging across the central plains really is: half the lower 48 is under a weather warning of some kind, as the National Weather Service describes a "historic weather day," with tornado warnings extending farther north than we've ever seen in December. In Colorado winds as high as 107 mph swept down the Front Range of the Rockies. "Amid the high winds, blinding dust storms have swelled over parts of southeast Colorado and western Kansas, with wildfires erupting in Kansas and the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles."

None of this comes as a great surprise—it's been a record hot December across much of the continent, with temperatures in the 70s across the northern midwest. This is just the kind of thing that happens when you're in the process of breaking the planet's climate system.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/16/our-atmosphere-broken-us-tops-record-hurricane-force-winds-day

[Submariner]

1. Mother Nature is just toying us

letting us know what's coming.

In the past few years we have witnessed storms once called the 100 year storm by NOAA, or even the 500 year storm, showing up almost annually.

The 400 mph tornado may show itself in this decade. Another 25 ppm shot of CO2 into the upper atmosphere, should give our hurricanes and twisters a real kick start of storm horrors to come.

[jalan48]

2. I don't think the majority of Americans have a clue of what is about to hit them. Our current

media attractions will suddenly become absurd to the max.

[Metaphorical]

3. Wildfires in the panhandles

There really isn't a lot to burn in Oklahoma or Kansas, so wildfires there is a pretty strong indication of how dry it really is right now.

I've also noticed that the most vociferous climate deniers have gone quiet.

[Initech]

4. Keep denying climate change, assholes. You're only making it worse!

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. At this point I've of the belief that there is ANY 'climate conspiracy', it's one to DENY

just how fucking bad, just how fucking QUICKLY ... the disaster is about to occur.

And given the overall stakes, there would have been some possible motivation among a great many people to 'cushion' the bad news.

Not saying there IS any such conspiracy, but it's looking more and more like many 'worst-case' estimates proposed over the past 20 or so years ... were more likely better referred to as 'probable estimates' all along.

I also won't be at all surprised to soon see the disingenuous fucks that have been calling it a 'hoax' ... to suddenly switch tacks, without irony, and try to say we were all lied to about how bad it was going to be, how quickly. Because they're a contingent of intellectually dishonest shitbags who love nothing more than dreaming up conspiracy theories than in some way denigrate 'the left'.

[Justice matters.]

6. 66 F in upstate New York on Dec.16...

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/weather/

Never seen before!

[Johnny2X2X]

7. You always think it won't effect you

I live in West Michigan. We don't get much for wildfires, don't get hurricanes, and Lake Michigan really takes the steam out of some storm system, so the tornadic activity we get is usually F0 or at most F1. The Lake warms the air in the Winter causing us to have slightly warmer temps than Wisconsin and Minnesota. It can lead to more snow though, my city averages 70 inches a year. No earthquakes.

But wind, you don't think about wind. If global warming creates more powerful wind storms, no area will be safe. We've had a couple big wind storms the last few weeks. Really causing problems.

People also don't take into account other aspects of global warming. Does it effect your ground water? How about soil which in the North gets tilled by water freezing and expanding and melting all Winter. Not to mention insect and animal life. Some pest insects are controlled by the cold, milder Winters can stop checking them, they can destroy trees, destroy crops, and make things miserable for people.

We've reached the tipping point, it's not going to start getting better for a long time.

[bullwinkle428]

8. I live 3 miles from the Mississippi River, and SMELLED the smoke from the

wildfires in western Kansas.