chubbs

Here's a map of Jan temperature anomalies through Jan 25 (JRA reanalysis). Very cold in SE quadrant of US, but there are several very warm areas scattered around the planet to balance. For northern hemisphere land, Eurasia and Canada more than offset a cold US. The JRA record for Jan is 0.64 set last year, currently 0.71 and likely to be broken this year. Very unusual to break a winter monthly average temperature record in a La Nina, not sure it has ever happened before.

Yes, there has been an explosion of life after every mass extinction. It won't happen though until climate conditions stabilize, 10,000 to 100,000 years in the future perhaps; and, will depend on how humans shape the planet.

The current "scientific understanding" includes all the previous work plus new information. That's how science works. The biggest recent advances are ice sheet, ocean, and lake sediment cores and water isotope ratios which provide temperature in the core samples. All of these are accurate, can be dated, and paint a consistent picture. We are warmer now than anytime in the past 120,000 years. Note that the chart doesn't include the recent spike to 1.5+C higher than pre-industrial on a global basis, or roughly 2C warmer in the northern Hemisphere, off the chart warmth. We have already left the holocene (last 10k), now in the eemian (120-130k ago), and in a couple of decades will reach the Pliocene.(1.8-5 million years ago). A different climate than the one we were born in.

This is a good video with info on LA's unique fire ecology, fire fighting infrastructure and historical housing development. There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, until we can focus on the true root causes we probably will end up repeating the same mistakes. Even as climate change ratchets up the risk for bad public policy.

Article putting California fires in perspective by a wildfire historian. Its a little dense, but the message comes through, we are in the Pyrocene. https://theconversation.com/human-use-of-fire-has-produced-an-era-of-uncontrolled-burning-welcome-to-the-pyrocene-247195

Interesting to see the different political prospectives. I found the Trump executive orders to be contradictory and not meeting the stated objectives. If we have an energy emergency, why deep six offshore wind and light bulb and car efficiency standards. The car standards do more to lower gas prices than any drilling incentives for the depleted US resource base. That's why they are high on the oil lobby hit list (see article below). The rest of the world, ex Russia and middle east, will continue to shift to renewable energy which will become increasingly less expensive than fossil fuels. We will hang on to oil and coal a little longer than we would have, but more importantly will fall further behind China and other countries in batteries and other key industrial technologies. At least US oil demand will not fall as fast as it would have which will make the oil barons happy. Don't expect relief at the pump though, you will still be at the mercy of OPEC and Russia for pricing. https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/trump-oil-gas-policy-drilling-donors-3438e99e

Yes, its clear that warming has accelerated compared to the linear trend from 1970 to 2019 (or 2010). One implication is that our climate future will happen sooner than anticipated. For instance, using the old linear trend 1.5C would have been reached in the late 2040s. Instead we exceeded 1.5C last year and will exceed 1.5C on average in the near future. Means that the physical and man-made world will be increasingly out of sync with the climate.

This year it has snowed 7 times in Philly for a total of 4.8". At this point in 2013/14 it had snowed 8 times for 33.7". Precipitation since Dec 1, is only 3.84" vs 8.49" in 13/14. The temperatures are a good match to 13/14 but it has been much drier/less snowy this winter.

Whenever there is a climate-related catastrophe, deniers have to develop a story-line to protect their followers worldview. The story only has to be credible to skeptics/deniers, a low bar. Martz and Mass, are missing the main climate drivers for this event, but that's OK, their followers don't know the drivers either, and they readily accept any excuse to deny. Of course climate change isn't the only factor or the "cause" for this event. People do risky/dumb things and are always going to do dumb things. The fact that people do risky things is another reason to avoid climate change, just makes the risky things worse. Denying climate change encourages risk taking. Not a good approach when climate impacts are ramping and our infrastructure is becoming increasingly unsuitable for the climate we have.

Good news, getting a range of findings on the overturning circulation. Hopefully someone can find some consistency in the various studies.

Yes, the Pacific is probably playing a role. Funny how things have flipped since the hiatus. Then the deck was stacked against warming due to: the Pacific, aerosols from China, the sun, volcanoes and possibly other factors. Now the factors that slowed warming have reversed. Not aware of anyone who anticipated the rate of warming we have seen in the past 10-15 years. Even nflwxman's excellent prognosis was too low. The rest of us weren't even close.

2025 is starting off warm, record warm in recent days. The closest years are 2016 and 2024. Very unusual for a La Nina winter month to be in record territory. Could be a first.

I moved my family away two years ago because, as California’s climate kept growing drier, hotter and more fiery, I feared that our neighborhood would burn. But even I didn’t think fires of this scale and severity would raze it and other large areas of the city this soon. And yet images of Altadena this week show a hellscape, like a landscape out of Octavia Butler’s uncannily prescient climate novel “Parable of the Sower.” One lesson climate change teaches us again and again is that bad things can happen ahead of schedule. Model predictions for climate impacts have tended to be optimistically biased. But now, unfortunately, the heating is accelerating, outpacing scientists’ expectations. We must face the fact that no one is coming to save us, especially in disaster-prone places such as Los Angeles, where the risk of catastrophic wildfire has been clear for years. And so many of us face a real choice — to stay or to leave. I chose to leave. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/opinion/la-fires-los-angeles-wildfires.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oU4.uI8e.voMxKYiiN72M&smid=bs-share

David Swain has a number posts which describe the role of climate change in the LA fire. He references a couple of additional papers: 1) Fire growth speed is increasing in the US; and, 2} A new paper on hydroclimate whiplash, either wet-to-dry or dry-to-wet cycling. As expected, hydroclimate whiplash is increasing around the world with climate change. Per graphic below, The LA fires are a good example. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk5737 https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-024-00624-z

Site below bundles sea ice information including charts and data. Chart below as an example. https://sites.google.com/view/arctic-sea-ice/home