When climate change becomes the new terrorism

I don't know if anyone has noticed this recently, but it's hot outside. "Unseasonably warm" Augusts are nothing new – as John Sebastian reminded us back in 1966* when he sang about the "hot town…summer in the city." In 2016, though, running upstairs to meet somebody on the rooftop might result in heat stroke or a minor heart attack. Even in the dead of night, it's not a different world – the mercury struggles to drop below 80, and the air is still thick and oppressive.

One reason that it's felt like 105 or even 110 most days this month is that the humid sponge of air is fed by an usually hot Atlantic Ocean, setting a record last week of 83 degrees at Atlantic City -- a problem there that even I can't blame on Donald Trump. Weather experts also say that months of record warmth has turned big cities like Philadelphia into "urban heat islands," and the trapped heat is what's causing the hot nights. And, yes, it does point to a warming planet.

In many areas, the heat and humidity during the day is not being offset by relatively cool weather at night, leading to greater public health concerns.  This is part of a trend toward higher overnight low temperatures as the climate warms. Urban heat island effects from the insulating influence of paved areas and buildings also plays a role, though a comparatively minor one relative to global warming. 

Heat waves kill. Four elderly folks have died in Philadelphia during the current blast of hot air. Floods also kill; in Louisiana, where the recent inundation has claimed at least 11 lives and caskets are floating down what used to be highways, officials have described the flooding that's damaged more than 40,000 homes as "historic" and "a 500-year-storm."

If the phrase "500-year storm" seems oddly familiar, it means either a) you've been alive for a very, very long time or b) you follow the news and know that there's been eight -- eight! -- of these supposedly once-in-five-centuries events in the United States, from West Virginia to Texas, in just the last couple years. And that's because climate change is making storms more intense:

This storm's tropical nature, in combination with record-warm water temperatures just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, are creating a nearly perfect environment for extremely heavy rain and record flooding in one of the wettest places in the country. As the atmosphere warms thanks to greenhouse gas emissions, it can hold more water vapor — and this effect makes it exponentially more likely that extreme rainfall events will occur. The weather balloon released on Friday morning from the New Orleans office of the NWS measured near all-time record levels of atmospheric moisture, higher than some measurements taken during past hurricanes. The NWS meteorologist who reported this morning's reading remarked simply, "obviously we are in record territory."

An instant analysis from Climate Nexus refers to today's Louisiana rainstorm as a "classic signal of climate change." It's right. The NWS maintains a statistical database used to calculate the "annual exceedance probability" of a given rainfall event — basically, the expected frequency this event would occur in any given year.

Today's rainstorm in Louisiana is at least the eighth 500-year rainfall event across America in little more than a year, including similarly extreme downpours in Oklahoma last May, central Texas (twice: last May and last October), South Carolina last October, northern Louisiana this March, West Virginia in June, and Maryland last month.

It wouldn't be global warming if it was only hot in Philly, or Baton Rouge. But it's hot everywhere:

Yes, it's hot out there thanks to global warming. NASA reports that last month was the hottest July on record. That follows the hottest June or record, hottest May, April, March, February, and January. It's almost like there is a pattern…. How hot was it last month? As the map above shows, parts of the Arctic and Antarctic averaged as high as 7.7°C (13.9°F) above average. No wonder we've seen records broken for the melting of the ice sheets and Arctic sea ice.

So as you might imagine, the 2016 presidential race has gone into total panic mode. This week, Donald Trump went to Youngstown and stood in front of a Teleprompter to deliver a major speech on the war he'll wage against "radical greenhouse-gas pollution," which he said would include "extreme vetting" of any new power plants. In Scranton, Hillary Clinton scolded Trump for not going far enough on carbon reduction, while Joe Biden compared Trump's environmental policies to Stalin.

Ha -- who am I kidding? Both candidates didn't talk much about the climate crisis. Trump, who on some days believes man-made climate change is a hoax, barely mentions it at all. The cable networks didn't really give that much coverage to the tragic events in Baton Rouge, despite several dramatic rescues captured on video. Maybe that's because the Weather Channel didn't give this storm a cute name.

I guess the only way Americans will take global warming seriously is if and when we consider this the new form of terrorism. And the truth is, what could be more terrifying than going to bed one night and waking up with the floodwaters pounding on the front door, or trying to survive a 110-degree heat index day when you're old and sick in a North Philly walk-up that's not air conditioned? Americans have become so conditioned to the threat of  a 9/11-style attack that JFK Airport was evacuated the other night when someone panicked over loud cheering for Usain Bolt and thought it was gunshots. Maybe it's time for the public to fear things that are actually happening.

* For all my fans who check off the obligatory 1960s reference. Got it out of the way early this time!

Blogger's note: I'l be gone until Sunday. See you then!