On 2016-04-23 3:34 PM, John Newman wrote:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/storms-bring-life-threatening-flooding-to-texas/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/18/us/houston-texas-flooding/ At least 5 dead, hundreds rescued from high water in Houston flooding
These horrific spring floods weren't common in the 90s when I was in Texas. Or maybe I was too stoned to notice.
We got 30 inches of snow just outside DC in MD this winter, something that hasn't happened in... well, since before I came up here.
Greenland permafrost is fucking melting. But I've only born witness to that indirectly.
I think it's pretty obvious we are fucked here if we don't make some changes. Maybe this is fermi's great filter.
There are always unusual weather events of some form somewhere. In the 1950s the North pole melted in summer. Has not happened in recent times. There are four thousand year old sand dunes on the shores of the arctic ocean, indicating that four thousand years ago the arctic regularly melted completely for a large part of the summer. Similarly, the antarctic ice sheet is substantially larger than it was when the first explorers mapped it. When people get excited about unusual melting of artic ice, they ignore unusual freezing of antarctic ice. Cherry picking. There have been colder years and colder decades before, and warmer years and warmer decades before. There will be colder years and colder decades in future, and warmer years and warmer decades in future. We are no where near as warm as things were during the height of the Roman Empire, and nowhere near as cold as things were during the little ice age. Yes, the glaciers in Iceland are retreating - to reveal the ruins of farmhouses.