“The Blob” is the term used to refer to a large mass of relatively warm water in the eastern Pacific that contributed to the peculiar weather conditions on the West Coast of the U. S. from 2013 to 2016. The Blob was related to the even more amusingly-named Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, a static upper layer of water attributed to a static high pressure system. Some think these phenomena are related to the Pacific decadal oscillation, a cycle that repeats over irregular intervals. IMO it is almost certain that the Blog is back and is contributing to the extremely hot weather in the Pacific Northwest.
The Biden Administration attributes the weather to global warming and, indeed, the weather on the Pacific Coast may be affected by human behavior. Contrary to some of my readers I do believe that human factors are involved in what’s been going on. I differ from the administration, however, in that I think that human influence is much more notable in influencing local weather conditions than it is in global conditions and that the proposed strategy and timeframe are completely wrong.
On questions about the climate and weather of the Pacific Northwest; I always refer to Cliff Mass, professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington.
His blog had multiple posts on the recent heat wave. This one is worth quoting on the role of climate change with the heat wave
(https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/06/incredible-temperatures-are-being.html).
“Finally, a number of people have asked about the role of global warming on this event. Is global warming contributing to this heatwave? The answer is certainly yes. Would we have had a record heatwave without global warming. The answer is yes as well.
Our region has warmed by up to 1-2F during the past fifty years and that will enhance the heatwave. Increasing CO2 is probably the biggest contributor to the warming
But consider that the temperature anomalies (differences from normal) during this event will reach 30-35F. The proximate cause of this event is a huge/persistent ridge of high pressure, part of a highly anomalous amplification of the upper-level wave pattern.
There is no evidence that such a wave pattern is anything other than natural variability (I have done research on this issue and published in the peer-reviewed literature on this exact topic).
So without global warming, a location that was 104F would have been 102F. Still a severe heat wave, just slightly less intense.
Let me end with the golden rule of temperature extremes: the bigger the temperature extreme the SMALLER the contribution of global warming. Think about that.”
Not to get hyper technical, but by definition any outside agency influences a system. CO2 is a greenhouse gas; as such it affects heat transfer mechanisms in the atmosphere. The real issue is and always has been the magnitude of human effects compared to natural ones, and our ability to isolate and measure them to the point of useful predictive models. We are nowhere on that score.
Curious, and his/her citation, get to this point. I don’t believe Prof Mass has a clue as to whether current effects are .2 or 2 degrees. But he makes the essential observation: the degree is third, fourth, fifth….. order, and dominated in any practical sense by natural variables.
The charlatans are still charlatans. Motivated by grant money, ideological issues, tax revenue, political power etc. They give themselves away, as Dave alludes to, by their proposed solutions. Now, about perpetual Covid hysteria………..
Again, my view is that there is a risk but not an issue. There are presently too many people treating it as an issue. I think that local effects are present issues in some places.
Here’s an example. I believe that different places have different carrying capacities for population and that history is a good gauge for that. IMO Florida and Southern California have too many people in them. In Florida that is manifest by falling water tables and sinkholes. Was the condo collapse in Florida due to bad design and construction from the start or could it have been due to the changing hydrological conditions in Florida? That’s an example of local impact.
I also think that means must be suited to ends and too many of the means I see being proposed do not meet that test. Plus they need to be cost-effective relative to other alternatives.
“Was the condo collapse in Florida due to bad design and construction from the start or could it have been due to the changing hydrological conditions in Florida?”
Only time will tell. For right now it looks awfully likely that water leaked from a poor pool design (or maintenance)…………..which led to rebar corrosion………….which led to a general failure of an engineering material (RCS). Hydrological conditions are one of those conditions that have huge variation year to year, decade to decade and have been fluctuating long before industrialization. That’s going to be a tough one to pin onto the fate of a 40 year old building.
For those technically inclined. Concrete is good in compression, but not tension/shear. Its the rebar that reduces/carries the tension/shear loads. Lose the integrity of the rebar and the material is fundamentally compromised.
High variability seems to me a counter-indication for large populations. Also persistent lack of water (Southern California). I would think that the optimal conditions would be sufficient water to sustain a population and variations within a limited range. Those do not characterize either Southern California or Florida.
Changes in rainfall and water runoff don’t care how many people live there. Most people do not know but the lower east coast actually had a drought a couple years ago.
University of Florida, as one might suspect, publishes some good analyses on the subject if you are interested. BTW – if you are looking for a population related water management issue in Florida look no further than central Florida/Lake Okeechobee and the issues surrounding agriculture use and related fertilizer runoff and its effects such as algae blooms, or, relevant to the topic at hand, salt water intrusion secondary to replenishment dynamics of the Biscayne aquifer. It’s manageable, but its a real problem.
BTW II – there is a fascinating book that serves as a history of Florida, from the time the Spanish met the Indians, by describing the issues and attempts to manage the Everglades from Lake O down. I believe it is simply titled The Swamp.
No but ground water levels do. When people are pulling water out of the ground faster than rainfall and water runoff are putting them back and the surface floats on a layer of water, building problems are inevitable.