Record Heat Bakes #Australia - #GOP Climate Experts say..."Uh!"

Australia experiences its hottest two years on record

High temperatures, which are forecast to continue through winter, are a clear sign of climate change, report warns

 heguardian.com,

Press) – Australia has experienced its hottest two years on record and high temperatures are set to continue through winter in a clear sign of climate change, a report warns.
May 2012 to April 2014 was the hottest 24-month period ever recorded in Australia, but that is likely to be eclipsed by the two years between June 2012 and May 2014, according to the Climate Commission's latest report, Abnormal Autumn.

"We have just had an abnormally warm autumn, off the back of another very hot 'angry summer'," Professor Will Steffen of the Climate Council said.

"The past two-year period has delivered the hottest average temperature we have ever recorded in Australia.

"Climate change is here, it's happening, and Australians are already feeling its impact."

The average temperature across Australia in April was 1.11C above the long-term average, the report says, citing Bureau of Meteorology figures.

The average minimum temperature was 1.31C above normal.

Unseasonable temperatures in the autumn "warm wave" set records, with Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne setting benchmarks for the consecutive number of May days when the mercury reached 20C or higher.

In its report, the Climate Council says the abnormally warm weather in April and May "are part of a longer-term trend towards hotter conditions in the summer months and more warm spells in autumn and winter"


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Hottest Summer on Record!

A NEW ATLANTIS- #MIAMI Sinking!

Miami’s rising sea level is an enormous problem







In Miami Beach, Henry Briceño, a professor at Florida International University’s Southeast Environmental Research Center has been trying to raise awareness on how global warming is affecting his own community.

By Chiamaka Nwakeze

(Science Recorder ) – Eighteen American scientific societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have reached a consensus on global warming, namely that it is occurring and is largely attributable to human activities. These rising temperatures create significant changes in weather patterns across the globe, resulting in stronger hurricane storms, loss of natural habitats, species extinctions and rising sea levels.

In Miami Beach, Henry Briceño, a professor at Florida International University’s Southeast Environmental Research Center, has been trying to raise awareness on how global warming is affecting his own community.

Briceño has begun to sample the water around Miami Beach and has found high levels of nutrients such as nitrogen, which indicates that the quality of the water is poor. And like many scientists, Briceño, believes that the poor water quality is a result of climate change and global warming.

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Paradise in Peril

#GOP Village Idiots Say IPCC Science Is #HOGWASH - Really it's True????

Science Does Not Exist In My Mind

The House Science Committee Declares The IPCC Report Is Not Science

By Mark Strauss



(io9) – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warned that more intense droughts and heat waves will cause famine and water shortages. But, don't worry! Yesterday, the GOP held a hearing to tell us the IPCC is, in fact, a global conspiracy to control our lives and "redistribute wealth among nations." [Archived webcast]

GOP at Work???

The hearing, titled "Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Process," was convened by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology—the same folks who recently demonstrated their inability to grasp the idea that the world's climate varies across different regions and who informed us that warmer weather didn't bother the dinosaurs, so what's all the fuss about? 

GOP Intellectual Discourse?

In principle, there's nothing wrong with assessing the methodology of such an important and influential report. But, in one of those quintessential moments of Washington double-think, Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX)—who accuses the IPCC of creating data to serve a predetermined political agenda—summarized the hearing's conclusions a day before it even began. "The IPCC does not perform science itself and doesn't monitor the climate," Smith told a reporter, "but only reviews carefully selected scientific literature." 


So, small wonder that Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the ranking Democrat on the committee, offered the opinion: 

Take me to your leader. Who? That's what I asked?

While the topic of today's hearing is a legitimate one, namely, how the IPCC process can be improved, I am concerned that the real objective of this hearing is to try to undercut the IPCC and to cast doubt on the validity of climate change research. 




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GOP SCIENCE COMMITTEE

Declares Formula  for Ice Cubes Will Save Ice Caps

Climate Poster Child - Norfolk, #Virginia

In Norfolk, evidence of climate change is in the streets at high tide




By Lori Montgomery





NORFOLK

(Washington Post) – At high tide on the small inlet next to Norfolk’s most prestigious art museum, the water lapped at the very top of the concrete sea wall that has held it back for 100 years.





It seeped up through storm drains, puddled on the promenade and spread, half a foot deep, across the street, where a sign read, “Road Closed.”   The sun was shining, but all around the inlet people were bracing for more serious flooding. The Chrysler Museum of Art had just completed a $24 million renovation that emptied the basement, now accessible only by ladder, and lifted the heating and air-conditioning systems to the top floor. A local accounting firm stood behind a homemade barricade of stanchions and detachable flaps rigged to keep the water out. And the congregation of the Unitarian Church of Norfolk was looking to evacuate.



  “We don’t like being the poster child for climate change,” said the Rev. Jennifer Slade, who added that the building, with its carved-wood sanctuary and soaring flood-insurance rates, would soon be on the market for the first time in four decades. “I don’t know many churches that have to put the tide chart on their Web site” so people know whether they can get to church.


On May 6, the Obama administration released the third National Climate Assessment, and President Obama proclaimed climate change no longer a theory; its effects, he said, are already here. This came as no surprise in Norfolk, where normal tides have risen 1¹ / ₂ feet over the past century and the sea is rising faster than anywhere else on the East Coast.



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And when the storms come - look out!

Doc's Comments

Perhaps this futuristic picture of Norfolk is a little dramatic, but then again maybe not. One thing is for certain though no one wants to be a "poster child" for climate change. Particularly when the storms unleash their furies.

 

Dr Peter G Kinesa

June 2, 2014

#Forbes - BIG #OIL Battles #Insurance Over Climate Hoax?

Rift Widening Between Energy And Insurance Industries Over Climate Change

By Ken Silverstein


(Forbes) – Being a big business, the insurance industry is a strong backer of free enterprise and its laissez-faire leaders. But a rift could be developing now that some major carriers are staking claims in the climate change cause while many of their congressional backers have remained skeptical of the science.


For insurers, it’s not about the political machinations but rather, it’s about the potential economic losses. If even part of the predictions hold — the ones released by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change that ascribe temperature change to humans with 95 percent certainty — then the rate of extreme weather events will only increase and the effects would be more severe. That, in turn, would lead to greater damages and more payouts.


“The heavy losses caused by weather-related natural catastrophes in the USA showed that greater loss-prevention efforts are needed,” says Munich Re Munich Re board member Torsen Jeworrek.


He says that the United States suffered $400 billion in weather-related damages in 2011 and insured losses of $119 billion, which were record amounts. In 2012 — and despite Superstorm Sandy — losses were well above the 10-year averages at $165 billion total, of which insurers paid $50 billion. In 2013, insurance companies paid out, globally, $45 billion in claims, says Zurich-based Swiss Reinsurance Co., adding that the United States accounted for $19 billion of that.


Meantime, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services just issued a report saying that the credit ratings of sovereign countries would be affected by global warming. It pointed to Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, heavy flooding in Great Britain and the record cold temperatures this past winter in the United States, all of which caused economic damages and disrupted business practices.

But it adds that the developing nations in Africa and Asia are most at risk, namely because they are low-lying regions that are heavily reliant on farming and agriculture. At the same time, they are not in a financial position to handle catastrophic events. 



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By the way...

It is all just a Hoax?

 

Doc's Comments:

Two titans are in conflict over the economic implications of climate change. Big OIL takes the sick position that all the science is just a hoax, while Big INSURERS are saying it is very real. We know - because we are paying out the claims that are beginning to rise dramatically.

 

The time has come to nationalize all oil companies worldwide in order to bring a sense of human responsibility to the activities of this industry. The TIME  has come  to slay the Six Evil Dragons. Period!

 

Dr. Peter G Kinesa

May 23, 2014  

More #Climate Floods Shock Balkans - Thousands Flee!

Thousands flee, 25 die in record Balkan floods

By JOVANA GEC and ALMIR ALIC, with additional reporting by Aida Cerkez and Sabina Niksic from Sarajevo, Bosnia; Irena Knezevic in Banja Luka, Bosnia; and Marko Drobnjakovic in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia



MAGLAJ, Bosnia (AP) – Packed into buses, boats and helicopters, carrying nothing but a handful of belongings, tens of thousands fled their homes Saturday in Bosnia and Serbia, seeking to escape the worst flooding in a century.


Authorities said 20 people have died but warned the death toll could rise further.
Three months' worth of rain has fallen on the region in just three days, creating floods that meteorologists say are the worst since records began 120 years ago.
Observed from the air, almost a third of Bosnia, mostly its northeast corner, resembled a huge muddy lake, with houses, roads and rail lines submerged under water. Admir Malagic, a spokesman for Bosnia's Security Ministry, said about a million people, or over a quarter of the country's population, live in the affected area. 




Surging water reached up to the second floors of homes at times, sweeping away traffic lights and signs as it coursed through villages and towns in the two neighboring countries. Roads were blocked and metal bridges crumbled at the onslaught. 







In the eastern Bosnian town of Bijeljina, some 10,000 people were being evacuated Saturday after the rain-swollen Sava River pushed through flood defenses.


"We need everything, we are underwater," mayor Mico Micic said as he appealed for help. 












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Balkan Flood Havoc and Devastation