Geologist James Powell points out that the peer-review process keeps finding in favor of climate change:
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The most obvious criticsism—that this is an argumentum ad populum—only works if you misunderstand how science works. Every scientist has an implicit incentive to prove some other scientist wrong. You can make your career in science by showing that the received wisdom doesn't fit all the evidence. So the numbers in that pie chart have to raise eyebrows, even if the eyes under them have blinders on.
Since the planet has been hotter in the past, I don't worry that global climate change will kill everyone. In fact, Chicago will probably do fine, as will the Canadian plains and much of central Asia.
The problem with the American right wing, not to mention other governments worldwide, is that by refusing to believe the climate is changing—regardless of the cause—they're refusing to take simple actions against the predictable consequences of it. Ostriches don't stick their heads in the sand in real life, because if they were to do that, they'd be killed by the things they were hiding from. Of all earth's species, only humans can look at impending doom and ignore it. Or, to put it another way:
No, I don't mean "will we have to endure another six weeks of an election." I mean that Chicago today hit 17°C, not a record (22°C in 1982), but also more normal for mid-October than for the second day of meteorological winter.
Tomorrow may be warmer. The Climate Prediction Center forecasts a warm December followed by more normal temperatures through March, so we might get a good Chicago winter anyway.
Remember, though, that warm winters lead to warm summers (though not necessarily the reverse), so I sincerely hope it cools off a bit before April. I'll take a couple of frigidly-cold months in exchange for a cool summer.
Via Sullivan, a new variety of bear has appeared in Canada because of climate change:
One such sign [of environmental pressure on bears] is the emergence of a new creature in the polar bear’s range, first spotted in the wild in 2006 near Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories. It’s got a long neck like a polar bear, but it’s smaller. It lies and behaves like a polar bear, but it has shoulder humps. The new creature has hairy paw soles like a polar bear, but its hair is mostly solid, with only patches of hollow hair.
As caribou migration routes have moved North, grizzlies have followed and started mating with polar bears. Not only have they produced hybrid young, but those young are fertile. Polar bears and grizzlies only diverged about 150,000 years ago and haven’t developed many genetic differences, despite quite dramatic visual dissimilarities. Second-generation hybrids have now been confirmed in the wild.
This kind of thing isn't new, but we don't often see it with large predators. On the other hand, about 30,000 years ago, another large predator moved into a cousin species' territory as the earth warmed up, and interbred, and went on to invent blogs.
Yesterday got up to 17°C, making it the warmest Chicago Thanksgiving since 1966. And then this happened, as predicted:
It's now -1°C with 40 km/h wind gusts and a wind chill of -8°C. Even Parker looked annoyed this morning on his first walk, squinting into the wind with his ears flopping behind his head. It's amazing how little time he wastes in this kind of weather, compared with his need to sniff every square centimeter of Lincoln Park when it's nice out. (Or raining, for some reason. Must be nice, having a fur coat.)
We probably won't hit the record November 22 temperature (21°C, set in 1913), but we'll get awfully close. It's already 15°C at O'Hare, with a forecast of 18°C—followed by a cold front and 0°C by morning.
Parker and I will therefore now go for a long walk.
Chicago is enjoying its 14th consecutive month of above-average sunshine, along with some unseasonable warmth leading into Thanksgiving (13°C right now, 17°C on Thursday).
Earlier today the NWS Climate Prediction Center released a new 90-day forecast predicting normal temperatures and precipitation in Chicago through February:
This is all fine by us. Though we do hope for a mild winter...
Starting before 8am with an international conference call usually means I'll have a full day. Fortunately there's Instapaper, which lets me shove all the interesting things I find during the day onto my Android pad for tomorrow's bus ride to work.
So far today:
- The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald worries more about surveillance than any other part of the Petreaus scandal.
- Wunderground's Jeff Masters explains all the superlatives around Hurricane Sandy.
- Philip Bump, writing at Gristmill, thinks politicians should pay more attention to climate change.
- Nate Silver, having put the election behind him, turns his attention to the American League MVP race.
- The Chicago Board of Elections apparently exposed my personal information along with that of the other 1.7 million voters in the city. (Since voter registration information is public in Illinois, this is actually not a real story. But oooooh! Information breach! Scary hackers!)
- Chicago restaurant L20, which shares an alley with my apartment building, got its second Michelin star back. I ate there once, last May, and was very impressed. Not as impressed as the check would have suggested, but impressed nonetheless.
And...now back to work.
In the past 24 hours, the temperature here dropped from 21°C at 2pm yesterday to -2°C at 8am today. The cold front responsible drove the temperature down 6°C in three hours at one point, making for uncomfortable walks home from dinner.
We had two delightful September days, but now it's November again. The Climate Prediction Center expects normal temperatures in Chicago through the end of January. Winter is coming...
NOAA has put up an interactive map of aerial photos they took Wednesday, Thursday, and yesterday.
The Weather Channel has some doozies.
And the Peoria Journal has a round-up of photos as well.