Researcher says climate change may be cooling California

[warrior1]

Spring passed California by, and summer remains in hiding.

Nine tornadoes have torn up the Sacramento Valley from Oroville to Fairfield. A giant Sierra snowpack, still frozen fast, has put innumerable summer adventures on hold.

The Golden State's weather has gone haywire.

And it's not over yet: Sacramento can expect as much as another 1.4 inches of rain this weekend and temperatures 20 degrees below normal, with more mountain snow.

"It's what I call global weirding," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "This has been a very strange year all over the planet."

What's going on?

snip

It's been raining all night in Sacramento. Rain is expect through the weekend. It's depressing as hell.

[rfranklin]

1. Look how warm the Arctic is getting...

Sarah Palin will soon have tropical property. Is she moving to Arizona for the cooler weather?

[IDemo]

2. It is definitely affecting Idaho

There is still some snow on the local ski hill and I'm still wearing the winter jacket for the morning motorcycle commute. But I think my tomato plants may be developing a bark layer. :)

[kestrel91316]

14. Heck, it's STILL sweater weather in the morning and evening here.

Utterly bizarre.

[EFerrari]

3. The humidity here is weird. I have to look but it seems 'way more humid

than it used to be. We used to have a humidifier going all day or your skin would turn to parchment. Not any more.

[AsahinaKimi]

4. dude, California has AWAYS been cool!

[defendandprotect]

5. "What's Causing It?" ... ??? Global Warming is causing it --

El Nino and La Nina were once rare events -- once ever 1,000 or 2,000 years --

they're now common events caused by Global Warming.

Global Warming has changed wind patterns -- is causing more droughts/floods --

more storms, hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes -- and not only increasing in

numbers, but in severity.

Global Warming is also causing more earthquakes and of greater intensity.

Earthquakes in turn create volcanic activity.


And there is no way to say how all of this is going to compound.

Scientists have recognized for more than 100 years the negative effects of human

activity on nature. And, certainly, we have known about Global Warming since the

mid-1950's.


What many don't know is that there was a 50 year delay in our feeling the effects

of Global Warming -- therefore, what we are feeling so far only reflects our activity

up to about 1960.


As one scientist put it -- as long as the glaciers are still melting, it's like having

your freezer door open.

Here in NJ we have long been 25 degrees and more over normal temps --

this year 90 degrees in May.

[warrior1]

6. the comment section at that

site, the stupid is strong. A lot of global warming poopooers. Shit, nothing sinks into to their reptilian brains.

[pintobean]

22. Do you just paste that

into as many threads as possible?

[warrior1]

23. are you talking to me?

[pintobean]

25. No.

defendandprotect.
Directed at reply #5. The same text, by the same poster, shows up over and over again.

[warrior1]

26. ok.

never noticed before.

[Odin2005]

33. I have her on ignore because she is so tedious and predictable.

[meow mix]

7. k&r

[lunatica]

8. A cement brained staff worker who thinks it's all a hoax

Was complaining about how cold it's been here in California (we work at UC Berkeley) said we need to put more emissions into the air so it'll get warmer. I know better than to remind her that she claims not to believe in global warming, except as a ploy for Al Gore to get rich. She's what those mean girls in high school grow to be when they get older. Mean grandmas.

[Snoutport]

9. Will Sacramento flood?

That's a LOT of snow in the Sierras!

Oregon pretty much didn't have a spring... just rain and gloom too. On Wednesday they were calling for rain and possible thunder showers....instead it cleared and they are saying it might be 84 degrees today.

84 on June 4 is unusual, to say the least.

[warrior1]

10. It's possible

It's not like they haven't been preparing for this, but it's still a huge risk.

[warrior1]

11. 100 Year Floodplain map at site

http://www.msa.saccounty.net/waterresources/stormready/default.asp?page=history

[Le Taz Hot]

12. I've never seen it this mild in the San Joaquin Valley.

We've had the WEIRDEST weather this year. It snowed like mad in the Sierras on Memorial Day weekend and it's raining today. In June. By now we're usually inching up to the upper 90's in anticipation of weeks' worth of 100+ degree weather. I haven't had heat/air conditioning on for more than an hour at a time for 6 months. And all of this is wreaking havoc on my garden. It's not hot enough for my tomatoes to set and my pepper plants and cucumbers won't grow when it's cool. Global Weirding is right.

[Xithras]

39. I have, but it's rare.

We had a year in the early 80's that was a lot like this one. The difference is that we've really had a few mild years in a row, when years like this one are usually a one-off.

BTW, my poor garden is suffering too. I do have a couple of tomatoes, but I usually have a whole crop of them by now. My zukes and peppers are stunted and haven't even flowered yet. It's pathetic. My understanding is that local farmers are having the same problem. Expect local food prices to go UP.

[kestrel91316]

13. NO COMPLAINTS HERE. I was getting tired of summers with too many days

over 115F.

The cold winter was a bitch, though.

[petronius]

24. We were pretty stoked to make it through the academic year without

any of those melt-the-students-to-the-seats heat waves this term (last September was enough). Still, I'm worried that the summer heat will come on more abruptly as a result - my old cat does not handle that well at all...

[kestrel91316]

35. My elderly feline patients don't handle it well at all either. I always lose a couple

in the wake of our late June/early July heat onslaught. Comes on way too fast and they don't have time to adapt.

[Duer 157099]

38. None here either. I'm loving this weather.

My biggest complaint about living in CA is how hot it gets here in the summer, so any number of days that summer is shortened is good with me. Unless we end up getting them in December or something.

[Mz Pip]

15. Usually by this time of year

it has stopped raining and the golden hills of CA become miles and miles of dead grass. All records for rainfall will be broken this weekend when we get another 2 - 4 inches. And it's cold. We usually have a pretty nice April and May, before the summer fog comes in. Now it looks like we will just jump right from winter weather into summer fog.

I hate this but I prefer it to the hot hot weather other places are facing.

[MindPilot]

16. Yep, my furnace still runs in the morning and evening.

I was laying bed this morning thinking that even with all the CFL lights I put in, my electricity usage has not gone down because I have t run fucking furnace eight months out of the year!

[NutmegYankee]

27. That sounds familiar.

It's like living in Connecticut, but without the bone chilling cold winter;-)
I had to run the heat yesterday because the low was 44 and I had left a few windows open. I use windows because I don't have Air Conditioning.

[Skink]

17. Texas seems to be turning into Southern Cal.

Hot and dry and an increasing fire season. Hot winds to like Santa Annas seem to be the norm now.

[rufus dog]

18. It is not only this year, but the last few

And it appears directly related to the Jet Stream moving south. Sacramento has been getting the typical Oregon rain and down in Southern Cal we have seen increased rain and in August the slightest forming of Monsoons, due to warm water from the Gulf moving north. Although Monsoons are typical in AZ I had never seen the event in SoCal until a few years ago.

Also a few years ago in SD they had a near record low for Barametric pressure, we will likely see a low level hurricane hit San Diego.

[Odin2005]

34. That is very odd, I would expect GW to shit the Mediterranean climate zone northward.

Not push the oceanic climate of the PacNW southward.

The boundary between the Oceanic and Mediterranean climates in governed by the movement of the arid subtropical high-pressure zones north in the summer and south in the winter.

[kestrel91316]

36. The trouble with climate change is, we just don't know what to expect anymore.

The models are broken and the old rules don't seem to apply. It's gonna be a long, steep learning curve.

Heck, on a personal level I would be thrilled if our ghastly long, hot summers here in the SFV came to an end. I just don't like what it means for the planet as a whole, or our ability to produce adequate food crops.

[Odin2005]

41. The projections I've seen have Fargo having the climate of Topeka in 50 years.

:scared:

[proud patriot]

19. It should be in the 80s or 90s by now and it's in the high 50s today

and raining ... The Eat Bay where I live usually gets HOT .
It's suppossed to be swimming weather

[slor]

20. This post spooked me a bit...

I moved to Nor Cal about 5 years ago from Ohio. I was old enough to watch the news of the Xenia Ohio tornados, and have even seen one with my own eyes, from distance, which is how I liked it. Seeing all of the destruction caused by tornados this year made me think about what I would do if one struck the town in which I currently live. I cannot think of a single place that would seem suitable shelter from a tornado. As I said, I grew up in Ohio, and remember running into basements or hallways many times after hearing the sirens warning of severe weather. I was always a little scared, but the concrete walls of a basement and their ability to muffle the sound of the storm above did offer some comfort. I have yet to be in a building out here that even has a basement. And the apartments I can afford out here never seem as solid as what I have occupied in Ohio because, quite frankly they are not. And here I was worried about earthquakes ;)

[ej510]

21. In Tracy, Ca the weather is normally in the mid-90's by now.

Oakland should be seeing some mid-70's.

[kestrel91316]

37. We get small tornadoes every winter here in SoCal. Just F0-F1.

Them come in off the coast, usually Orange County but sometimes LA County or even Ventura County, and wreak minor scale havoc with storage sheds and mobile home roofs.

But who knows? They could get worse.

[sakabatou]

28. It's overcast, raining... but it's fucking JUNE!

WTH, nature?

[senseandsensibility]

29. Blackout by the local media, too.

Here in the California Bay Area the local news has NOTHING to say about these incredible changes in our weather. All the local stations hire meterologists and spend a quarter of their broadcast time on the weather. No word about what is causing these bizarre conditions.

[Retrograde]

30. It's like March

Chilly, wet, overcast (although I did get a glimpse of the sun on Thursday).

One of California's biggest industries is agriculture. I don't know how much of an effect this weather's going to have on crops - leaf crops like these conditions, if the seeds don't drown first, but fruit crops are already late.

[OnionPatch]

32. Yep. I haven't turned my AC on yet, and it's June!

I'm in semi-arid southern CA, and this year it's been like living back in Ohio again. I'm in some foothills, where it's always a little cooler than the valleys, but still, it's been unusually chilly this year and raining almost weekly. That's just downright weird. Today is feeling pretty warm, though, so maybe summer is finally setting in.

[Odin2005]

31. The weather has certainly gone insane.

We have had only 2 days over 80F so far this year in Minnesota.

[Xithras]

40. Food prices will be going up in coming months.

I live in the SJ valley, which obviously produces a lot of food, and listen to ag radio now and then. There have been a lot of discussions about the impact of this weather on our growing cycles, and most people are talking about crop yields that are 10-20% off, or crops that are at least a month behind in their development cycles. This is going to start hitting our pocketbooks in the supermarket fairly soon.

On top of that, there's a lot of discussion that the water project managers are seriously downplaying the valley's flood risk right now. They're dumping water from the reservoirs as fast as possible, because our snow pack is 250+% of normal. They're terrified that this cold weather is going to shift into a summer cycle all at once, which could potentially cause the temps in the Sierras to jump 20 or more degrees overnight. If all that snow melts quickly, our dams are going to have a hell of a time keeping control of it. We might see widespread flooding...in June or July. That would be unprecedented.