And you thought it was Hot in your neck of the woods, this summer. Just take a serious look at the Texas Broiler that's been set on Scorching all summer ...
Texas summer may be warmest in U.S. history
by Eric Berger -- mysanantonio.com -- September 2, 2011
Texas and Oklahoma have just endured the warmest summers on record for any state, climate officials say.
Preliminary estimates for both Texas and Oklahoma suggest they have blown away the warmest summer temperature ever recorded, 85.2 degrees, by Oklahoma in 1934.
[...]
That's their average temperature. Must not cool off overnight much, eh?
Hmmm? What happened back in the Mid-30's down Oklahoma/Texas way?
Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, Dodge City, Kansas -- Dust Bowl History
Is History repeating itself. Or is History just creating a new epic cycle of inhabitability?
Dust Bowl 2: Drought detective predicts drier future for American Southwest
by Seth Shulman, grist.org -- Aug 12 2010
[...] The Southwest is as dry as it is because the local atmospheric flow tends to export far more moisture than storms can carry into the region. This is the case in other parts of the so-called subtropics, those areas directly north and south of the equatorial tropics. But as earth's atmosphere becomes laden with heat-trapping greenhouse gases, it will be able to retain even more moisture. That means more evaporation from lakes and rivers, more moisture loss from plants, and drier soil.
A critical player in this drying cycle is the planetary-scale circulation system known as the "Hadley cell." This vast atmospheric system links rising air near the Equator with descending air in the subtropics, giving rise to the subtropical jet streams.
[...]
The Hadley cell is growing. Its expansion above a larger swath of the American Southwest, along with a shifting of the jet stream and many storms northward, is a worrisome trend, says Seager. It means there is little chance that the Southwest can avoid becoming drier in the coming decades. In fact, when Seager's team analyzed some 49 computer projections of the region's likely future climate, using 19 major climate models, all but 3 scenarios agreed: drought ahead.
[ That's the message from Richard Seager, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The American Southwest, says Seager, is soon likely to experience a "permanent drought" condition on par with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.]
"Permanent drought" otherwise known as "the New Normal".
Welcome to the 21st Century people.
Sinking air -- is usually "drying air" ... as anyone who has experienced "Santa Ana Winds" can attest. It's just Physics ...
The Hadley Cell, is also known by its more common names: The Trade Winds, the Horse Latitudes. They have a very dramatic and often desperate history, in the tales of sailing lore ...
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The Hadley Cell is growing -- that Creator of Deserts, that driver of the Horse Latitudes winds ...
What if someday this Hadley Cell -- this Subtropical Bubble -- becomes more or less a permanent fixture? What if it "decides" to move its edge northward several hundred miles-- right smack into the middle of one of the World's major "Bread Baskets" -- What then?
[the Heat Wave of 2011: ]
larger CNN Link
What then? Do we all move to Canada?
There are reasons Climate Change advocates like Al Gore, get worked up about the effects of Climate Change -- it's serious business. Serious Dollars and Cents business if we just sit back and ignore the many tolls extreme weather events will keep extracting, from our once "Normal Eco-Economy".
Exclusive: Al Gore On His 'Climate Reality Project' Launch: "It's Urgent To Rendezvous With Reality To Save The Future Of Civilization As We Know It."
by Joe Romm, Climate Progress, thinkprogress.org --- Jul 12, 2011
Today, Former Vice President Gore launched The Climate Reality Project "to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis and mobilize citizens to help solve it." [This Sept 14th]
Al Gore:
[...] This crisis is very threatening, very urgent. We know the solutions require broad changes and we know it's a fight that won't be won overnight. And the politics, the campaigns, the media cycle, will all ebb and flow on this issue. But the reality of the crisis marches on. If we keep focusing on that reality, it is only a matter of time before we reach a tipping point with the public, beyond which inaction is no longer an option.
24 Hours of Reality
ClimateReality
http://www.youtube.com/...
[Al Gore:]
It's been called the 'New Normal' -- but there's nothing 'Normal' about.
[...]
Big Oil and Big Coal are spending Big Money -- to spread Doubt about Climate Change, they've been able to do so quietly. But not anymore [...]
Together we have something they don't -- Reality.
The residents of Texas, suffering under that record-setting Hadley Cell Drought this summer -- Today are now experiencing firsthand another terrible side-effect -- which is the simple result of such "New" Weather Extreme realities ... sadly.
Two Die in Texas Wildfires
The worst of the fires stretches 16 miles across the center of the state.
ABC News -- 09/05/2011
One official called this Fire "a Monster". So far it has consumed 500 Homes.
May the rains of fall and winter return quickly to Texas and Oklahoma. If they are indeed to return at all this year. Hurricane Lee just skated right by, to the dismay of those oh-so-parched people. Happy Labor Day.
"Hey 'Subtropical Bubble' why don't you go back, where you came from?" Enough with the New Deserts Zones, already. We get it. We get it.