"Peak Water," Methane Blowholes and Ice-Free Arctic Cruises: The Climate Crisis Deepens

[marmar]

Dahr Jamail | "Peak Water," Methane Blowholes and Ice-Free Arctic Cruises: The Climate Crisis Deepens

Monday, 18 August 2014 11:05
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."
- Mahatma Gandhi

We begin this month's climate disruption dispatch with comments from NASA's Earth Observatory about the extreme juxtaposition of temperatures we are experiencing in North America this summer.

"If you live in the northern hemisphere, the past few weeks have been strange," NASA states. "In places where it should be seasonably hot - the eastern and southern United States and western Europe - it's just been warm. In places where weather is usually mild in the summer - northern Europe, the Pacific coast of North America - it has been ridiculously hot."

NASA continues:

Records for high temperatures (mid-30s°C, mid-90s°F) were approached or broken in Latvia, Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, and Sweden in late July and early August. Searing temperatures also dried out forests and fuelled wildfires in Siberia; in the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, and California; in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Northwest Territories; and even in Sweden. At the same time, cool air moved from high northern latitudes into much of the U.S., setting record-low daytime and nighttime temperatures as far south as Florida and Georgia. Temperatures dropped to the winter-like levels in the mountains of Tennessee.

The extremes generated by anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) were off the charts last year, as well, according to a recently released report from Live Science.

In 2013, global temperatures continued their long-term rising trend as the planet hit new records for greenhouse gases, Arctic heat, warm ocean temperatures and rising global sea levels. Additionally, Arctic sea ice extent was its sixth lowest and continued to decline by 14 percent per decade, Super Typhoon Haiyan recorded the highest wind speed for a tropical cyclone with sustained winds reaching 196 mph, record high temperatures were recorded in the Arctic, including record temperatures being recorded 60 feet down into the permafrost. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/25646-peak-water-methane-blowholes-and-ice-free-arctic-cruises-the-climate-crisis-deepens

[AgingAmerican]

1. This is just the beginning

It will keep worsening for many decades.

[Mnemosyne]

2. K&R for more visibility. nt