Mary Ellis Stevens, American Hero

Mary Ellis Steven is excited about meeting Greta Thunberg this Friday, at her climate strike in Charlotte, North Carolina.

So excited to have the one and only @GretaThunberg join my strike this Friday!
See you there, Charlotte! https://t.co/lgsrFLeOs8
— Mary Ellis Stevens (@_Mary_Ellis) November 7, 2019

Mary, you are Greta Thunberg.

Sea Level: Align the Aligned

A new paper by Nauels et al. concludes that even if the U.S. stays in the Paris agreement and all nations make good on their pledges, our greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030 will be enough to guarantee at least three feet of sea level rise by the year 2300.

Unfortunately some journalists have difficulty with numbers, reporting that we’ll have three feet of sea level rise by the year 2030. Dum dum dum dum dum…

Sea Level PCA, from the Baltic Sea to el Niño

I’ve made a new estimate of global sea level based on a subset of all the tide gauge data in PSMSL (Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level). I’m just doing the 20th century, and I’ve used only those data sets with a decent amount of data, at least 360 monthly values since the year 1900. That leaves a “mere” 723 tide gauge stations to work with. Here’s where they are located:

And here’s the estimated global average sea level since the year 1900:

California Wildfire Denial

Roy Spencer has joined the chorus of those denying the link between climate change and California’s wildfire crisis. But rather than share scientific insight, Spencer inflicts on us his brand of superficial, crude thinking through his inevitable confirmation bias, which, when examined closely, is an object lesson in how Roy Spencer got the label “climate denier.” The old-fashioned way: he earned it.

I took a look at relationships between California wildfire burned area, and the weather variables featured in the research on California wildfire from Williams et al.. Mine is a crude analysis compared to theirs, but yielded some interesting things.

We’ll start with total acres burned by wildfire in California since 1972 (the time span studied in Williams et al.).

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

This wedding photo from California went “viral” in a visible sign of how there’s no escape from California wildfires.

Western Wildfire: Climate Change is Serious Business

Over the last few years we’ve heard story after story about massive wildfires in the western USA which threatened thousands of homes and lives and cost people billions of dollars. California seemed especially hard hit, especially last year. For me, the story of a great-grandmother dying in a fire with her two great-grandsons in her arms, is a sadness too great to bear.

So I’ve been glad that this year, I haven’t noticed such news stories about truly horrific gargantuan western wildfires. Until … now. In California.

Secret Agreement lets homebuilders prevent energy efficiency

A fascinating story in the NY Times tells how the National Association of Home Builders got a special deal which guarantees them — the industry supposed to be regulated — 4 out of 11 seats on two committees responsible for updating building codes. They’ve used that power to block almost all progress in energy efficiency for U.S. homes.

Of course they claim the agreement is “appropriate.” Which makes me wonder, if it’s so appropriate, why LIE about it?

Climate Change Threatens the Corn Belt

While American farmers are still suffering from recent severe flooding, historically our “corn belt” has done a remarkable job increasing food production. The main reason is of course the advances of farming chemistry, genetics, and technology, but throughout the 20th century the U.S. corn belt went farther and faster than other regions of the world (even other regions of the USA).

New research from Partridge et al. might explain why. Climate change has been raising temperatures around the world and across the USA, but while other areas had to contend with the bulk of it, during the growing season our corn belt has heated up much less than most places, while precipitation increased slightly. In other words, we got lucky.

Sea Level: Eastern North America

Since Dave Burton was kind enough to remind us how great the danger of sea level rise is, I’m enjoying the recent focus on the topic. I’d like to apply my new alignment technique (including variable station weights) to several regions of eastern North America, to see how they differ and what they have in common in their sea level history.

Sea Level Rise: Regional

I’ve decided to apply some area weighting to my sea level estimate based on my new method.