Photos from Climate Impacts Day
On Saturday, May 5, the activist group 350.org, founded by Bill McKibben, launched a new effort to "connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather." They declared May 5 Climate Impacts Day, and coordinated an impressive global effort of nearly 1,000 events in 100 countries to draw attention to the links between climate change and extreme weather. Their new climatedots.org website aims to get people involved to "protest, educate, document and volunteer along with thousands of people around the world to support the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis." Below are photos from some of the many events on Climate Impacts Day as archived on the climatedots.org website. It is remarkable to view the slide show on their web site and see the degree of global participation this event had; 350.org has created a dedicated and creative global climate movement that will be a major force to reckon with in the coming years.
Figure 1. Volunteers in the city of Salvador, Brazil, have connected the dots have and drawn people's attention to sea level rise and what it impacts in our life.
Figure 2. Madaba, Jordan. "Drops (of water) are dots of hope". A beautiful message from King's Academy in drought-prone Jordan.
Figure 3. Activists hold a banner in front of a damaged coral reef in the vulnerable Marshall Islands. Rising temperatures and increased CO2 uptake are raising the acidity of the ocean, which bleaches and ultimately kills fragile coral reefs.
Figure 4. One thousand students in Bekaa, Lebanon make their dots into the wheels of a giant bicycle to raise awareness about the threat of air pollution, and to advocate for bike lanes.
Figure 5. In 2009, at 17,785 feet in Bolivia's Cordillera Oriental was the Chacaltaya Glacier. Before its unexpected melting, it was home to Bolivia's only ski resort and the first tow-rope ever to be built in South America. Today all that remains is a rocky mountain-top that only receives seasonal snowfall. Photo by Lauren Farnsworth.
Figure 6. Ausable Valley, NY, USA: Young people in New York understand the first-hand impacts of climate change. Hurricane Irene, the third five-hundred-year climate event in the last twelve months, devastated communities in the region and pummeled the beachfront with debris.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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I can't believe there's been two tornadoes on the other side of the world in a matter of two weeks, which are very rare events in those areas. North America is the only continent to frequently have tornadoes at a frequency of normal basis. All other places, its a very rare event, like last year when Argentina had a Tornado, and then this year, France and Japan... I don't know what's wrong with this world, but something ain't right.
April 2012 is now, unbelievably, our 30th month in a row where the mean temperature has been above the 1971-2000 averages.
Believe me, its already gettin ugly here, i can't imagine what summer's gonna be like if we can't get some tropical systems this way. its been in the 90's since last saturday, and yesturday and the day before it was 98 as a high. Also, before the pattern shifted briefly in March/April and brought us more average temps, in February we got up to 90 for three days. one day reached a peak of 99, and the other days surrounding were in the low 90's, and upper 80's. I hope the climate forecasts are correct and the temps don't go any higher for the summer, cause i don't think I can take a summer with temps in the 110's it was bad enough last year with the drought choking any moisture to limit temps like in 2010. 2010 was heaven for us here, had many tropical systems, average temps, no drought... Crossing my fingers maybe, just maybe, it'll happen again.
Nothing is wrong, it's called weather - it happens. Here is a list of documented tornadoes in Asia, including a deadly outbreak in Moscow which killed over 30 people, oh by the way, that happened in 1904.
Link
All i'm saying is that they're rare occurences and other places of the world, mainly due to the fact most places worldwide don't have wide open plains, and gulf moisture that fuels many of the big supercells one way or another.
As it stands, I think we will see Aletta between May 15-25.
Alberto between May 21-June 2.
Especially Japan!!
Hey you beat me to it! I thought I was the only one checking the long range GFS
That's especially favorable
I love that song.
I'm so ready for it.
Shoot that's a cane! 991 millibars
325th? Really? Wow. Is that for the whole U.S.?
My post refers to my local area, in Montreal, Quebec.
Bangladesh gets the 3rd most Tornadoes after the US (1) and Canada (2)
5 days ago there was a tornado in Tripura India. (Which borders Bangladesh and is similar in climactic/geographic terms. No video or confirmation though that it was a tornado and not another type of wind. It's very isolated.
The UKMET is now onboard with the GFS's timing of the MJO getting into the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, but the JMA and ECMWF are still slow to bring it out. That is, the pattern should eventually favor tropical/monsoonal stirrings in this area of the world near the latter portion of May and early June, but until the GFS starts showing a consistent time period for activity in the area, its time table can't be trusted.
PS. Nice to see a hurricane in EPAC on GFS run. Wishing for one in the Caribbean!
My first numbers for season(can change):15-8-3
I agree they are rare, but just because one happenned yesterday has no connection to what everyone is calling "new extreme" weather. If this happened in 1930, would we even know here in the states or other parts of the world. Probably not because there would be no proof except from the eyewitness accounts and those that were directly affected. Today's technology allows this documentation to become instantaneous and available to practically everyone. This is my opinion as to why we are "seeing" more extreme weather around the globe, not due to any sort of climate change.
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
1204 PM CDT SUN MAY 06 2012
AREAS AFFECTED...WRN GA...FL PANHANDLE...SRN AL...CNTRL MS
CONCERNING...SEVERE POTENTIAL...WATCH POSSIBLE
VALID 061704Z - 061830Z
PROBABILITY OF WATCH ISSUANCE...40 PERCENT
SUMMARY...THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO INCREASE IN AREAL
COVERAGE/INTENSITY FROM WRN GA...ACROSS SRN AL INTO CNTRL MS OVER
THE NEXT FEW HOURS.
DISCUSSION...REMNANT MCS THAT HAS DRIFTED ACROSS THE TN VALLEY INTO
CNTRL AL HAS FORCED AN EFFECTIVE BOUNDARY INTO WRN GA...ARCING
ACROSS SRN AL INTO CNTRL MS. STRONG HEATING ALONG/SOUTH OF THIS
FEATURE HAS CONTRIBUTED TO A DEEPENING BOUNDARY LAYER WITH SFC-3KM
LAPSE RATES NOW APPROACHING 8 C/KM. WHAT LITTLE INHIBITION THAT WAS
OBSERVED THIS MORNING IS EFFECTIVELY GONE AND SFC PARCELS SHOULD
FREELY CONVECT ALONG THE AFOREMENTIONED OUTFLOW GIVEN THE
MOIST/UNSTABLE AIRMASS. IN ADDITION...MID LEVEL TEMPERATURES ARE
QUITE COOL ACROSS THIS REGION WITH 500MB VALUES BETWEEN MINUS
12-14C. THIS SHOULD CONTRIBUTE TO ROBUST UPDRAFTS DESPITE THE
MARGINAL DEEP LAYER SHEAR. LATEST THINKING IS TSTMS WILL CONTINUE
TO DEVELOP ALONG THE BOUNDARY AND UPWARD GROWTH/STORM MERGERS WILL
LIKELY AID IN A FAIRLY EXTENSIVE ARCING CORRIDOR OF CONVECTION THAT
SHOULD PROPAGATE SWD INTO THE MID-LATE AFTERNOON HOURS. HAIL/WIND
ARE THE PRIMARY THREATS WITH THIS ACTIVITY.
..DARROW.. 05/06/2012
Japan gets hit by an average of 20 tornadoes every year. Rare indeed, but not the first time the island has been hit.
That's an interesting page.
In the 1800s two tornadoes were reported in all of Asia.
=== 0.02 per year.
(Yes there were lots of people living there and people knew how to write.)
Between 1900 and 1950 there were 3.
=== 0.06 per year.
Between 1900 and 1990 there were 19.
=== 0.2 per year.
Between 1990 and today there were 29. Including the two that were just reported.
=== 1.3 per year.
Might there be a trend?
-------------
Note: Those are days on which tornadoes were reported. Not the number of tornadoes total, the data on the page is not accurate enough for an actual count.
Like heck. You sound more like a carpetbagging newcomer of the type that ends up voting in Arizona toward pariah-hood.
Overwhelmingly, those who grew up in Calgary are as proud of being a redneck as a native-born Texan; even when it is closer to an affectation than arising from a lifestyle. Admittedly the liberal amongst them also have a touch of embarrassment about Alberta being politically the northernmost section of the contiguous American BibleBelt.
Far more likely than not, the surviving old shoji-screened homes are more strongly framed than nearly all of the newest-hurricane-code houses built along or near the US coastline. Except in some rural areas, the ones that weren't also weren't valuable enough to be worth saving from postWWII housing developers.
And in areas somewhat close to the coastline, all of the newer shoji-screened buildings are as "hurricane proof" as anything put up by those wealthy enough and hurricane-wary enough to indulge in building/rebuilding well beyond the minimums of the newest-hurricane-code standards. And the rest would at least meet those hurricane-code standards.
Here's one:
Excuse me while I pick my mouth up from the floor.... WOW
Posted that yesturday, yep... i agree
Well looky there...
No... more like strong TS, close though. Probably 70 mph.
Yea, the trend is more people are now on this planet and there are more eyes to see what is happening. Not a day goes by here in the US that a tornado is "missed" by the public or a local NWS. Lets go back to the May 1910 tornado outbreak over western Nebraska, wait, was there a tornado outbreak over western Nebraska in 1910, i don't know, but I can guarantee that there were tornadoes that year in tornado alley that went uncounted, maybe several. Don't you think that this may be a reason why the frequency of "these weather events" is increasing world wide? Its just common sense.
Still sticking to 14-6-2 for now, if we get a storm or two in late may to late june, then ill be willing to change it. :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQtFyvqqnj4
Yes, we most likely would.
All over the world people have been collecting weather data for a long time. Weather historians are quite good at digging out data from all sorts of sources.
A lot of our early weather information comes from ship logs.
The Central England temperature record started in 1659.
Newspapers appeared in China in 1582. In Japan newspapers began in the 1600s.
Does this mean, you'll make a video? Pleaseeee tell me it does. lol
You can argue that some of the US was sparsely populated in the 1800s, but that is not true of most of Asia.
And how do you deal with the increasing occurrence of extreme weather over the last few decades in the US? Are you going to try to tell us that people were not paying attention to the weather in the 1970s and 1980s?
Thanks, aspectre, but beyond 300 years ago, my memory is a little rusty.
I'm sticking with 12-6-3 for now.
A full blog covering my predictions for the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season will be released by Thursday...I'm in the process of making it now.
Thats all well and good, but these were centralized locations and weather reports and events were very vague back then. Weather stations and reporting ASOS are everywhere now, and don't forget backyard weather stations. All that I'm saying is that nothing gets missed today, every weather event is documented and that of course includes what we have pegged as extreme. Also the media loves to blow this stuff up. I am part of the media, and therefore part of the problem, although I'm on the forecast side, not the reporting side of things. Diane Sawyer of ABC News took some heat back in January when she reported that "tornadoes struck without warning". This couldn't be further from the truth as most had ample warning of 20-30 minutes.
Link
Japan's east cost gets hit on a regular basis with strong winds and hurricanes and in the north by extremely heavy snow and winds. All of Japan shakes on a regular basis. No matter what criteria one uses, their buildings are built to withstand some forces.
After the 95 Kobe Earthquake I recall reading a lot of follow up studies that noted how many of the older buildings were top heavy, with the roofs pancaking down during an earthquake. Lots of recommendation and changes came out of that to retrofit frames to hold up in swaying/jiggling conditions. But for winds it seems that these are heavy and sturdily anchored roofs. A quality (along with anchoring mechanisms) that could prevent them from being pried up and lifted off by the same sort of winds that blow standard American roofs off? (Conjecture here. I have no idea really.)
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