Extreme Weather May Be The New Normal

This frame grab from video shows a massive tornado on May 22, 2011, outside Joplin, Mo. The tornado tore a 6-mile path across southwestern Missouri killing at least 89 people. (AP/tornadovideo.net)

Here & Now Guest:

Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist at the Weather Channel

From floods to blizzards to wildfires, droughts and tornadoes, 2011 has seen some of the most extreme weather in decades. What’s fueling Mother Nature’s fury?

Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel tells Here & Now, “I’m skeptical by nature. It’s a healthy part of the scientific process and we’ve had wacky weather since the beginning of time, but I started seeing patterns in weather that were not explained by natural variability.”

Google Map of Recent Disasters

Ostro says climate and weather are fundamentally linked.

He adds, “It makes sense that if the climate is changing, the weather will change. And what were seeing today is consistent with what we would expect to see in a warming world.”

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1408098372 Mari McAvenia

The gentleman just stated that something happened sometime in the past decade to change the weather patterns. Then he described chemtrails, without using the term. Please address the “milky white” cloudlike haze that now covers our skies and the stuff that is being sprayed by high altitude jets, worldwide. Look it up: chemtrails. Then, do more research about it.
PS Frog

Oh man! There may be climate change but…CO2 is colorless. That milky white haze you didn’t see way back in the sixties and seventies….that’s more likely a cataract. Time to see the eye doctor.
- Stu Ostro
  
  Yes, of course CO2 is colorless and that’s what I said on the show. But the increased hazy appearance is representative of an overall increase in pollution, both that which can and cannot be seen.
  - PS Frog
    
    http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html
    
    “The table below shows that air quality based on concentrations of the common pollutants has improved nationally since 1980.”
    
    Shouldn’t we be seeing less haze?
    - Diogenes
      
      It’s one thing to thoughtfully consider data when explaining phenomena. It’s quite another to splash around among data, obviously misunderstood, and largely irrelevant to an issue. To illustrate, the EPA data referenced by froggy is based upon ground level pollutant readings, not upper atmosphere pollutants that were discussed by Stu Ostro, and it’s the upper atmosphere pollution which can be more serious in terms of global warming. Further, the referenced EPA table doesn’t include carbon dioxide, the pollutant emphasized by Ostro, since carbon dioxide is not, in general, a ground level pollutant. I suppose we can forgive smug little green terra-bound observers for their myopic viewpoints as well as their failure to comprehend the irrelevance of data they cite.
    - Stu Ostro
      
      I don’t think that what I think I’ve observed as a trend since the 1960s/1970s when flying is my imagination nor my understanding of it vs. CO2 wrong. See http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/science/13DARK.html . It’s what came to be known as “global dimming.”
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DPKS3HUGQBPILPIU7IVZSHGXLI Robert_N
  
  If memory serves, smog and ground-level ozone pollution are also expected to worsen as temperatures rise.
Joseph Fortier

Stu Ostro’s explanation of his “conversion” to accepting the scientific consensus that global warming/climate catastrophe is here was a helpful angle.
http://twitter.com/archweek Kevin Matthews at AW

I was wondering if we know whether it’s just a coincidence when a major tornado hits a city, as opposed to the cornfield next door, so I asked the Google, “”are tornados attracted to urban heat islands?” and got this..http://www.meteorologynews.com/2009/03/19/study-links-tornadoes-to-urban-heat-island-effect/
http://twitter.com/archweek Kevin Matthews at AW

I was wondering if we know whether it’s just a coincidence when a major tornado hits a city, as opposed to the cornfield next door – as touched on in the interview – so I asked the Google, “”are tornados attracted to urban heat islands?” and got this..http://www.meteorologynews.com/2009/03/19/study-links-tornadoes-to-urban-heat-island-effect/
Tinomax

Stu Ostro’s credentials add great crediblilty to his opinion that climate change is occurring. I agree that “something is changing,” especially when our current situation is described as “the new ‘normal’.” Let’s get to work to reverse this ominous trend.
Buckeyeweather

We did not have daily weather records 200 years or longer ago to compare our records of the last 135+ years to, how can anyone say this is “climate change”? It’s what I would call “cyclical” meteorological trends. Remember back in the mid and late 1970′s when it was bitterly cold? How many were saying we were on the verge of a new “Ice Age”? Yea, though so. Ask Mr. Ostro if it is true that the “powers that be” have threatened to terminate anyone at TWC if they dare go against Dr. Heidi Clum (sp?) if they argue there is not “Climate Change”. By the way I’m a big fan of Mr. Ostro’s; I just disagree with his opinion / theory. I am very good friends with former TWC OCM Bill Schubert. I’m not sure of his ‘current’ view on the situation but will ask him next time we speak. Onward!
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DPKS3HUGQBPILPIU7IVZSHGXLI Robert_N
  
  It was never a mainstream scientific prediction that we were “on the verge” of an ice age in the 1970′s. Actually, the bulk of the scientific literature discussed the potential for future global warming, assuming that CO2 buildup would become the dominant climate forcing:
  http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
  
  As it has:
  http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-basic.htm
  http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-do-we-know-CO2-is-causing-warming.html
  
  As for cyclical variability, there’s that (with most of it occurring on sub-decadal timescales or as regional change). And then along with the absence of any natural forcing sufficient to explain it, and the solid science behind the fossil CO2-enhanced greenhouse effect, there’s the “trend” in the global averages (both oceanic and atmospheric):
  http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DPKS3HUGQBPILPIU7IVZSHGXLI Robert_N

The problem with accelerated climate change is that it doesn’t seem like an imminent threat to most people in temperate regions. But thermal inertia and the dominance of amplifying feedbacks in the climate system mean this is just the beginning. Today’s quickening fossil carbon accumulation is tomorrow’s problem, both in terms of global warming and ocean acidification. It takes decades for the system to fully respond, and once in the system, excess carbon remains for a long, long time (it’s not just a simple matter of “residence time” when large amounts are being injected on top of the natural carbon exchange).