Why is the Northwest so warm?

The author's assertion that this is not anthropogenic is laughably ridiculous. Robert Scribbler writes (https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/strong-west...) that since the last El Niño of similar magnitudes atmospheric CO2 has increased by 45ppm. Global ocean temperatures are much higher and it is definitely causing shifts in air currents all over the world. The Pacific Northwest is just one area out of many that is experiencing considerably higher temperatures.

The fact that we're having two mega El Niño events in the past 17 years is indicative, amongst hundreds of other observations, that the climate is changing at a speed we should be terrified of. The number of global temperature anomalies going is pretty staggering.

Sam McNamara has written (http://arctic-news.blogspot.nl/2015/07/east-siberian-heat-wa...) about 20+ degree anomalies in the Arctic. This is the part where we're playing with the possibility of destabilizing underwater methane clathrate reserves. If that happens, we can just call of all climate change prevention efforts, because that's extinction-event level shit.

> Here is a thought to keep in mind: the more extreme the weather anomaly, the less likely it is to be caused by human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming. The current situation is mega extreme in terms of our temperatures. The reason this aphorism makes sense is that global warming due to increased greenhouse gases should warm the earth in a progressive, slow way---not in huge jumps. Here in the Northwest, temperature increases have been particularly slow (about 1F over the past century) because of the huge thermal inertia of the Pacific Ocean.

> And there is something else: the warming influencing our region is localized and does not have the characteristics of the global warming signal seen in climate models. While the Northwest has been hot and dry, much of the eastern U.S. has been much cooler and wetter than normal. Even the Rockies have been wetter than normal. Global warming would warm them as well. This week I was at a weather conference in Chicago....it was quite chilly there at times.

I think this section, particularly the second paragraph, shows the writer has a very poor understanding of what global warming is and how it can and will have different localized effects across different timeframes.

"Let's take a look at a comparison of the temperatures (yellow lines) on both sides of the Cascades (Sea Tac and Yakima) with the normal highs (red lines) and low (blue lines) for the past year."

I assume the author means the average over many years for the "normal." The current phrase is like saying "the normal temperate for 1980 did not match the actual temperature for 1980." Or, "1980 was not a normal 1980." Also annoying that the graph has incomplete labels, with the full explanation buried in text.

At some point, an effect that persists and repeats over an extended period of time ceases to be anomalous and becomes the new normal. We are at (really, well past) that point with hot, dry weather in the West. One could even argue that the hot West/cool East pattern as a whole has become the new normal. Dismissing it as normal variation just means you haven't yet understood a causal link with anything else.

There's no shame in not knowing how something works, especially something that is both complex and chaotic. There is, however, shame in asserting that you do when you don't. The author cannot (or at least does not) explain the root cause of this pattern; therefore he cannot know whether its increased prevalence is ultimately anthropogenic or not. The smart money is on the humans here, but what really matters is figuring it out, not making unsubstantiated assertions as to what it is or isn't.

Supposedly currently there is a sea floor volcano in the western Paciffic that has warmed waters in a Pacific current that flows east

Indeed, in one of the author's graphs, can see a long, line of warmer water from the western Pacific all the way east to the Americas.

I've found this way of thinking helpful:

"The idea is not: radiative imbalance causes warming everywhere which nudges the climate a bit. So many people think like this but it is wrong. Radiative imbalance pushes the climate around so much that eventually it changes enough to restore the balance. Almost surely surface warming is part of that. But a lot else is part of it."

Michael Tobis at http://initforthegold.blogspot.fi/2011/05/black-birds.html

> the more extreme the weather anomaly, the less likely it is to be caused by human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming.

Why is that the case? My knowledge is not based on much better sources than this blog post, but isn't the warming of the oceans believed to cause extreme weather anomalies?

> the more extreme the weather anomaly, the less likely it is to be caused by human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming.

I'm not an expert in this field by any measure. However, this assumption goes against everything I've read from people who are experts.

Tell me about it. Here in Portland temperatures have been in the 90's, prompting complaints, but nothing to do about it. OTOH relatives in Texas are complaining about unusually rainy weather in recent weeks, like our respective typical conditions have been exchanged.

I'm guessing in both regions it's associated with El Nino effects. Also now wondering if the drought south of us is an El Nino effect as well. Looks like the drought is creeping its way north, and when it does, it's definitely going to be a source of serious trouble in this part of the US.

I've noticed the jet stream is shifted. It normally would dip down over the pacific ocean and then back up towards the pacific northwest. Now it's shifted east and the dip down happens over the pacific northwest.

I'm no meteorologist, but it seems like if it were over the ocean there would be wetter and cooler weather on the west coast.

Those graphs are useless wiithout standard deviation intervals. The argument that "it's hotter than normal" can't be made without knowing the bounds of normal. The long term average doesn't show that.

Here in Boise, ID it's been between 100 and 110. I remember these temperatures 15 years ago when I worked outdoors but what I don't remember is the humidity. It's odd to be sitting outside at midnight at 90 degrees and 30% humidity, which feels like midwest weather. It's more usual for the high desert to get down to the 70s or even 50s at night with any altitude.

While this may be more of a random fluctuation than full on global warming, I’m concerned because weather has been strange for years now. We often get excessive rain for months in the spring, which didn’t used to happen. The weather in this location is getting more moderate, while the rest of the country seems to be getting more extreme (this is one of the long term predictions of global warming).

IMHO there is a connection between widespread die offs and weather that hasn’t been studied well yet. I’m too young to remember what the northwest was like before things like wildfire control threw everything out of balance. Imagine 150 years ago - there were large animal herds, dense lush forests, pristine waters, and one of my favorites: 10 foot tall sagebrush as far as the eye could see where now we only have cheatgrass.

If you go out in the wilderness today, there is so little wildlife. Big game is rare, no wolves, a handful of bears, few to no birds, orders of magnitude less fish due to dams. We really have no frame of reference for what settlers witnessed, when life was everywhere they looked.

In these death zones, we are seeing some pretty apocalyptic $#!@:

http://www.cdhd.idaho.gov/news/current/groundsquirrelplague....

The world is so much sicker than anyone realizes. All areas are in decline, so if you look at things like timber and fishing, the numbers are down 50%, even 90% of where they started. What we do have in abundance now is pests. Mosquito abatement for West Nile virus is a requirement here now. Pine beetles scurry everywhere you look, leading to the not-so-distant demise of rocky mountain forests. So it makes sense to me that global warming may show a blip of 3% off normal and result in these wide swings. Think of how missing wetlands affect hurricane flooding, but now apply that to all chaotic systems everywhere. I don’t know how anyone could come to the conclusion that everything is fine (in other words, that chaos is at a stalemate or diminishing).

So that’s my radical environmentalist explanation. Global warming is one thing, but the widespread famine of the natural world is looming within our lifetimes and I find that really uncanny. Unfortunately people generally only ponder what’s right in front of their faces rather than extrapolating how it all plays out. Although in fairness, if doing the projections leads to the same hollow realization that nothing can be done, then there’s something to be said for denial. At least we still have good beer! It’s important to keep a balanced perspective on these things and not let them get you down too much.

My personal solution to this is to live as a hipster and try to make enough money that I can not be too much of a burden on the planet (living close to work etc). Unfortunately there’s a case to be made that income and carbon footprint are relatively synonymous, due to the level of infrastructure needed to acquire it. Living as a hermit doesn’t really help either because we are capable of contributing more than 0 solutions to the problem. So I always find myself back at square one with the struggle against ineffectualism. This may be a natural evolution in global consciousness, but I just hope that it happens fast enough that it’s not all gone before we have the spiritual means to step outside the consumer capitalism matrix and do something.