The high on Christmas Eve is forecast to hit 67 in Boston, which would obliterate the old record high of 61. It’s part of a pattern of warm weather that’s set to break records across the country. The National Weather Service confirms December to-date has been insanely warm across New England:
- Boston +9.2 degrees F
- Worcester +10.2
- Hartford +9.8
- Providence +9.7
- Portland, ME: +8.2
- Burlington, VT: +11.9
With a week of 50s & 60s on tap, those numbers will only go higher. As Dave Epstein reports for WBUR, Boston is on pace to shatter the record for warmest December set all the way back in … 2006. Records fall fast in the Anthropocene.
It follows a November that burned up records globally, according to NOAA:
- The November average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.75°F (0.97°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for November in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2013 by 0.27°F (0.15°C), and marking the seventh consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken.
- The year-to-date temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.57°F (0.87°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for January–November in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2014 by 0.25°F (0.14°C). Nine of the first eleven months in 2015 have been record warm for their respective months. The December global temperature would have to be at least 1.46°F (0.81°C) below average—or 0.43°F (0.24°C) colder than the current record low December temperature of 1916—for 2015 to not become the warmest year in the 136-year period of record.
Some journalists and meteorlogists are properly linking the warmth to the natural cycle of El Nino, the primary driver of the heat. But as I reported for FAIR recently, very few are connecting the dots to global warming, the steriods helping this year’s El Nino smash records.
Many meteorologists fret that they can’t draw a straight scientific line from any one record to global warming. But nobody worries about exactly which home runs that steriods allowed Mark McGwire & Barry Bonds to hit. As climate scientist Kevin Trenberth once told the New York Times, “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”
Some journalists think they’re maintaining their “objectivity” by not mentioning the politically-charged issue of global warming. But in reality, they’re doing the opposite – protecting polluters by failing to inform the public about the consequences of our dependence on climate-disrupting fossil fuels.
As Beacon Hill prepares to take up comprehensive energy legislation in 2016, shouldn’t our voters & elected officials hear about what’s causing this absolutely mind-boggling white-hot Christmas?
Please take a moment to tell our legislators that in 2016, we need a strong new state commitment to clean energy.
Nobody disputes that we’re in a very strong El Nino (historically intense, in fact). As you observe, nobody wants to connect that intensity to anthropogenic CO2.
The claim (hope?) of some deniers is that the subsequent La Nina (each El Nino is typically followed by a La Nino) will be similarly intense and will somehow undo the effect of this spike in surface temperature.
It won’t.
Beyond lobbying our legislatures, another step we can take is to make our BROADCASTERS understand that 67 degrees on Christmas Eve day is not “nice” weather. For example (from NECN’s Matt Noyes):
“At least it’s not cold”
“Christmas day, save for maybe a pre-dawn shower, you’re talking about a GREAT DAY and highs around 60.”
When our media incessantly tell us that these symptoms of global warming catastrophe are “GREAT” days and “nice” weather, it will be that much harder to persuade legislators to do anything.
to pretend that pleasant weather isn’t, then you need a new strategy. Maybe we should start a movement to get everyone to install backyard skating rinks– these are the only people I know who are genuinely frustrated with this weather.
You like warm winter? So do ticks! Lyme disease comes with it.
And purchase DEET [products by the case. A doubling of the incidence to 8/100K people/year, vs. 100% chance of seasonal depression, and I will take the ability to spend a little time outdoors without needing snowshoes.
Not every effect of climate change is negative in every way. If you try to make it otherwise, you just seem like a scold.
When the eye of a hurricane passes over, there is a brief period of bright sun and blue sky.
Do you run out to the beach to enjoy the glorious weather?
Pretending that 70 degree Christmas days in New England are “pleasant” is like those who stroll out on the expanse of beach exposed during the few-minute run-up to a tidal wave, when the incoming wave sucks all the water from the about-to-be-indundated shoreline.
Shall we also comfort ourselves with promises that elevated CO2 isn’t a problem because “plants love CO2”?
I encourage those who want 70 degree “pleasant” days at the winter solstice to locate themselves somewhere nearer the equator where such weather is normal and expected. New England is NINETY THREE PERCENT SNOWLESS in mid-December — highly unusual. On this “pleasant” Christmas day, a heat map shows that much of the nation, including New England, will be MORE THAN TWENTY EIGHT DEGREES above normal highs.
When schools close because of tragedy, our media is somehow able to convey a somber tone without chirping about how great it is for the “kids to have a day off”.
If our political strategy is to pretend that the early-warning symptoms of climate catastrophe are “pleasant”, then our progeny — like the proverbial frogs in the beaker with the Bunsen burner underneath — are doomed to die at OUR hands.
Those who came before us in this nation rose to face great challenges. They overcame the scourges of the Gilded Era. They overcame the Great Depression. They faced down and defeated Adolf Hitler. They faced nuclear-armed hostile enemies and avoided nuclear catastrophe.
OUR generation is doing ABSOLUTELY NONE of this. We are resolutely destroying the world we hand our progeny, while lying to ourselves and each other about what is and is not “pleasant”.
We are failing the tests that those who came before us passed. Until you offer a political strategy that doesn’t simply perpetuate and encourage the suicidal behavior we now practice, you are simply deluding yourself.
It is so easy right now for me to imagine an SNL sketch with Rachel Dratch where someone makes a comment about comfortable winter weather and she chimes in with, “All warm weather does is make the ticks and rats come out,” followed by the camera zooming in her face and hearing that nasally wanh, wanh, wanh.
We absolutely can and should do more, but overriding human nature isn’t going to work. I reject your invitation to move to warmer climates because this is my home and I don’t like hotter weather in the summer. Plus I’m pretty sure nobody is citing these temperatures as a reason to deliberately ignore climate change.
When the comment rating says “Recommended by: Christopher and thebaker.”
He has always struck me as dead center on the political spectrum among regular BMGers so having a left-leaner and a right-leaner recommend his comment isn’t THAT odd. Besides, I’m happy to let the attitude of certain people should always disagree stay in Washington, thank you very much.
I like much of what CMD posts here. I think he, and you, are wrong about this. When you tell us that reminding us of reality is “being Debbie Downer”, you sound like those who also say that those of us who rely peer-reviewed science are “liberal”.
It doesn’t matter who we sound like. If you don’t like my political strategy, choose another. The fact remains that we are doing NOTHING — absolutely NOTHING — about climate change. A significant factor in that political reality is the relentlessly upbeat media characterization of weather like this.
“Debbie Downer” or not, this is bizarre weather. We are seeing El Nino peaks that get more and more extreme, while the deniers behave as though simply labeling it “El Nino” explains everything.
I predict that our progeny will cite Climate Change as an utter failure of the American political system, just as we cite the rise of Adolf Hitler as a sign of the utter failure of the German democratic system in the 1930s. The science was irrefutable, the rest of the world looked on in horror, and we wasted two precious decades doing absolutely nothing.
Sorry, but it’s FAR too late to whine about “Debbie Downer”.
I just don’t like you scolding us for thinking high sixties are comfortable, because that’s what human bodies are designed for. I think the claim that we are doing “absolutely nothing” about climate change is an exaggeration. Last I checked we still had a Clean Air Act and some pollution standards. It is NOT some big conspiracy of climate denial for a news weatherman to comment that it’s nice out. Please do find another strategy, one more optimistic about our ability to solve problems rather than complain about them.
The 2nd IPCC report was published in 1995. Recent EPA data shows that US CO2 emissions in 2013 remain at about 5,500 metric tons — the same as 1995.
Our current behavior does not merit optimism. The Clean Air act and “some pollution standards” are not nearly enough, as the data shows. The unwillingness of our media to accurately characterize the warning signs of global warming is not a “big conspiracy”, it is a simple and sad fact.
I don’t see a substantive difference between your desire for “optimism” and the denial that has dominated our energy policy for the past twenty years. We MUST reduce our carbon emissions, and our current political strategy has failed to accomplish that.
My comment was directed at political strategy rather than whether climate change is a thing.
To the extent one advocates policy that would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, the tack taken in this thread is completely counter-productive. “Last week’s cold snap is NOT evidence that climate change isn’t happening because weather is NOT CLIMATE, you ignorant moron, but this week’s warm spell is a DIRECT RESULT of climate change.” To anyone other than those already devout members of the choir, this is credibility-destroying doublespeak.
Likewise pretending that the phenomenon of climate change is all harm and no benefit simply ignores reality. “We should be terrified, horrified, and appalled because the weather is pleasant, you can be outside comfortably, and because we aren’t paying a fortune for heat so far this year” just isn’t going to sell anyone.
In my view, the environmental movement always loses in the long-term when it decides to over-amplify the fear factor beyond the science in an effort to get a panic political reaction, because people eventually consider the entire movement as the boy who cried wolf. This has long been a real problem, from everything to Three Mile Island, to Alar in apples to climate change.
I don’t see anybody talking about “this week’s warm spell” or “last week’s cold snap”. When was the last time you heard a broadcast meteorologist even mention the stark disparities between the number of record lows and record highs in the past decade?
Suppose the media was reporting on a gambling game (so that real money is involved) involving a daily coin toss, and the data showed that in the past ten years (3,650 days, I’ll ignore leap years) the result had been heads 3,645 times.
It is true that if the coin was fair, the odds of heads or tails on the next day is 50/50. It would certainly be factual for the reporter to announce “we had a lovely display of heads today” (everybody loves heads for some reason).
In my view, game reports that NEVER MENTION the grossly disproportionate results of the coin tosses are themselves dishonest.
It isn’t clear to me what “fear factor” you feel is being “over-amplified … beyond the science” when it comes to climate change, or for that matter nuclear power.
The “fear factor” about nuclear power led us to be MUCH more cautious about nuclear power plants than Japan. The science that backed that fear factor was validated by the catastrophe of Fukushima — a disaster that wasn’t supposed to be possible. The proponents of nuclear power, during the 1970s and 1980s, discounted concerns about hazardous waste storage — the loss of cooling systems for the on-site hazardous waste storage at Fukushima contributed ENORMOUSLY to that disaster.
The science of climate change is real and compelling. Most of the media understate, rather than overstate, the consequences of what we are already doing (and not doing) right now. The rest of the world is decades ahead of us.
I invite you to cite ANY local mainstream media pieces that connect the long string of record highs here in New England with climate change.
… about a 20 degree (or greater) swing in temperatures between night and day? I don’t know if set of hours can be called ‘pleasant’ if the hours on either side of it aren’t and, indeed, represent wild swings in temp.
I left the house yesterday swaddled in layers of protective warmth only to have to pull most of it off and schlep it around when it got too hot. I didn’t want to have to do that again today so I left the house seriously underdressed in the hopes it’ll warm up enough to be comfortable. I’ve been sneezing all morning and I may have given myself a cold. There’s nothing particularly pleasant about a daily crap shoot to figure out if you’re going to be comfortable or not.
On December 12, I spoke with a friend from Burlington, VT, mentioning that we had not had a hard frost in Cambridge, MA yet. He told me that there had not been a hard frost in Burlington by then either. Thought we might have had one here over Saturday night but was able to pick sorrel from my garden on Sunday, December 20. This is the latest that I’ve ever seen it go before a hard frost.
Gardeners know that the climate has changed. We’ve seen our growing seasons over even the last decade expand in the Northeast and know that the USDA has had to update their planting zone maps for the warmer weather. There is no debate about this but I have not seen it brought up as part of the political/theological “debate” on climate change.
As for promoting clean energy sources, yes. Yes for that and yes for soil carbon solutions that can sequester up to 1 ton per year of carbon per hectare as is being done now in the Marin Carbon Project (http://www.marincarbonproject.org) under the new CA carbon trading regime. We tend to talk only about greenhouse gas sources like cars and power plants and ignore the sinks like the soil, vegetation, and the oceans, all of whose carbon-carrying cycling capacity can be enhanced by ecological systems design or geotherapy (NOT geoengineering). Check out the videos from the conferences Biodiversity for a Living Planet has sponsored to learn more about these techniques at http://bio4climate.org
Don’t forget that Solar IS Civil Defense – the flashlight, radio, cell phone, and extra set of batteries you should have on hand in case or emergency can all be powered by a few square inches of solar electric panel. Add a hand-crank or pedal-powered generator and you have a reliable source of survival electricity day or night, by sunlight or muscle power. Incidentally, this is also entry level electricity for the 1.4 billion people in the world who don’t yet have access to reliable electricity and a potent platform for economic development all around the world. I’ve been talking about this idea for close to 25 years now and haven’t found more than a few people who understand that ready answers are right under our noses.
Last year’s record cold and snow were NOT proof global warning isn’t happening.
So this year’s record heat is not proof that it is.
(CLIMATE CHANGE is happening. The extent to which it is caused by human activity is debatable, but the change is real and renewables should be pursued. The single dumbest thing Al Gore ever did was his whole Planet Has A Fever thing, which trivialized the problem for many. Don’t make the same mistake)
The word “proof” does not appear in thegreenmile’s post. Not anywhere — not even in Bob_Neer’s promotion.
Despite it being cold in the Northeast US, 2014 was the hottest year on record (until 2015 came along).
…and we can always point to rising average global temperatures.
Increased snow is often a symptom of warming. Warm air is able to hold more moisture than cold air. Snowfall in New England, especially northern New England, was historically often limited by moisture starvation caused by extremely cold air. When that air is not as cold, it holds more moisture and produces more snow.
The number of record cold events is dwarfed by the number of record high events. We are reaching the point where in many regions the “record highest low” (the record for the warmest overnight low temperature) events are now above record high temperatures for the same dates in the not too distant past. We are warming, and warming rapidly.
There is no scientific debate on the “extent to which it is caused by human activity”. There is a mountain of peer-reviewed science, and there is a similar mountain of denialist rubbish and claptrap put forward by the GOP, especially deniers like Senator James Inhofe.
We are surrounded by the symptoms of runaway anthropogenic climate change. Some of us are still turning handsprings trying explain away the evidence that is all around us.
I’ve just taken possession of a VERY expensive 2016 Mercedes-Benz C-Class 4MATIC. I plan on giving it to Mrs. Baker for Christmas. I just love the big red bow! Can’t wait to drive this beast Christmas morning with my wife and 3 month old watching in admiration.
n/t
N/T
…to a troll who was active before you joined us named DanFromWaltham, who seemed to enjoy using the dirtiest fuel possible just to get the goat of those of us with an environmental conscience.
n/t
People are more likely to complain about consistent 90s/100s in the summer because frankly many of us, myself included I have to admit, LIKE that we have temperatures this comfortable this late in December.
There are real consequences for this warmth – mild winters make a wide range of summer pests much worse.
And in New Bedford, when it gets above 50 in winter, it just rains anyway. Yay, maritime weather …
I understand the science, consequences, etc., but I am also human and there is a reason 68F is called room temperature. Like CMD says above, if the strategy is to pretend pleasant weather isn’t pleasant, a new strategy is needed.
LOL
Can’t I enjoy today’s weather and then, seven months from now, when heading out through a swarm of mosquitoes to see my doctor for the Lyme disease of contracted, dislike that we had a warm December?
It is a very special human indeed who always takes the long view.
So special, in fact, that I’ve yet to meet such a person.
In urban areas, winters that never get cold cause the population of rats and other vermin to skyrocket.
… your link is to the Institute for Energy Research, which is a Koch front group: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Energy_Research
I’ll stick with 350, thanks.
We have them now. Onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar PV are all less expensive than oil. What we need to do is actually build those generators.
But the reality is that all of the energy and political effort poured into conservation, canceling Keystone etc. — 350.org et al’s primary focus — won’t change the current carbon paradigm: more every year. They are consequently, as I said, “arguably a counter-productive time-consuming distraction,” just like this exchange (with all respect and noting that we share the same objective). Because the Kochs are right that a lot of coal plants are coming online. Here’s The Guardian with the same story. stomv’s comment is more to the point, but assuming it’s true, it’s not true enough: the day electric cars that can travel farther on a single charge than gasoline vehicles can on a tank are significantly cheaper than their petroleum-powered rivals is the day we may have some hope of slowing the rate of carbon in the atmosphere. (That’s a metaphor, or example, for my point: only a carbon-neutral energy source that is significantly cheaper than fossil fuel will prompt a global change). Everything else is more or less spiritual, as opposed to meaningfully practical, because it doesn’t address the essential problem.
This is the wrong metric, wrote metaphor, wrong everything for a real discussion on climate change.
First, transportation is only one-quarter of the US GHG emissions profile. Winning the battle to make EVs travel further than a gas powered vehicle means we still lose the war. We need conservation in all sectors.
Second, most Americans rarely take trips that require using a full tank of gas. Most of us can get by with off the shelf technology of high efficiency vehicles including gas burners, hybrids and EVs with and a robust public transport sector. We need to create policies that internalize to hydrocarbon consumption the real cost of inefficiency, rather than dismiss the easiest and cheapest way to reduce GHG output.
Third, there are policies and technologies that make even the outlier example you suggest irrelevant. For example, a requirement by the states and federal government that vehicle fuel stations offer multiple fuel sources at every one of the places we call “gas stations.” Let’s require that all “fuel stations” serve at least three fuel resources by 2018. Most already serve gas and diesel. Everyone would have to add a third, probably CNG or fast-charge for EV batteries. Let the station owners choose which, that so-called free-hand of the market, would be more profitable. Let the consumers be able to buy their transport power source as easily as our gas is sold.
Dismissing conservation is just stupid. Sure, bring on the new tech stuff like battery capacity, but let’s not dismiss the cheapest, most immediate and most obvious solution because the Koch’s say we should.
I don’t dismiss conservation. I practice it, and I support it, as a matter of aesthetics. But I have no expectation it will solve, or even significantly impact global warming so long as fossil fuel has a cost advantage — or even rough cost parity given the massive political power the fossil fuel industries have accrued. Thinking anything else, in a world with billions of people surviving on a pittance, strikes me as ill-informed, to say it politely. Just look at reality: carbon emissions are increasing, more fossil fuels are being burned and the climate is warming. Conservation, at best, is slowing things down a little bit: a gesture. It is extremely improbable that national regulations will resolve a global crisis: increase the cost of carbon here and production will move to Mexico, or Sri Lanka, or wherever. The Paris accord supports this point: it won’t stop those new coal plants. We have no global government. An alternate energy source with a compelling financial advantage is the only realistic solution.
Clearly you have no real experience in this field. 350.org does not preach conservation as a “primary focus” as you claim. I find their self-righteous youth and media shit annoying, but they put “leave it in the ground” as their primary mission on carbon fuels. That is one hell of a lot different than your claim that they only push conservation.
I don’t support conservation as “as a matter of aesthetics,” as you wrote. I practice it as a way of life that the whole planet needs to follow. We need to get past the pending climate debacle with a mix of conservation, new renewable technologies and aforestation, with the policies that support all, not your dismissive attitude.
Yeah, I have been party to four rounds of the UNFCCC and do this work around the world so please don’t insult me by citing the Paris round, COP 21, as support of your argument.
when Chrisopher downrates me on a subject he has no adult experience.
You just can’t seem to disagree without being disagreeable. You don’t know me well enough to know what my experiences have been. I likewise have learned to take your downrates as a badge of honor on par with those from trolls., though I’d take a troll over a bully any day.
I am glad you find some of my posts disagreeable. When people make up shit, as Neer did in claiming that 350.org only cares about conservation, he needs to be called out on it. It was a flat out lie that comes from garnering your expertise by reading newspapers, not working in the field, or even going to their web site.
When he ignores the real science of climate change (conservation, renewables and aforestation as the mitigation part of the mitigation and adaptation equation) he demonstrates his dilettante predilection and shocking ignorance in this field. Truly, it is hard to understand how someone with his level of education could be so clueless on the current understanding of climate change. That he abuses his position as a moderator makes corrections especially needed.
His use of the phrase “promoted for glory” when applied to his own posts should be auto-corrected to “promoted for ego stroking.” I still remember when he promoted his post on the US soccer team as “Team Freedom,” as if England, France, Germany and Japan have less freedom than we have. I expect better than that from somebody who went to school in a different country. You gave him a thumbs up for that one.
When he, or anybody, pretends to knowledge in a technical field, then they need to be called out when they make up shit. Posting junk does not make you right.
If someone posts something you believe to be inaccurate, by all means say so, but you can do it without calling them liars or accusing them of making [stuff] up. There are such things as mistakes or differing interpretations. Note how I handled a mistake about the constitutionality of two people on a presidential ticket being from the same state. I didn’t browbeat Sabutai, call him names, accuse him of lying or making stuff up, etc, but rather just calmly stated the facts. You should try it sometime.
As for Bob, he is an editor and you are not. Yes he might bump his own posts for glory or any other reason. If you object that much to how this blog operates, start your own! Plus since you do seem to credit him with a certain level of education quite possibly he has some idea of what he is talking about after all.
I uprated a couple of Bob’s comments to show I have his back, but then I noticed that your first response beginning with, “that’s the wrong metric…” was nicely done and what I want to see more of, so I uprated that to show my appreciation as well.
Look it up. Why does anybody give a damn if you have Neer’s back when his comments are wrong. Defending something that is obviously false (look up his assertion about “More evidence that the conservation-based strategy of 350.org et al is not working at all” on 350.org). Again, I don’t really like the self-righteous bunch of young media seekers that are 350.org, but I don’t make up shit about them and neither he nor you should either. When you are wrong, sometimes you just should silence yourself. He seems to know that lesson. And you?
The first ever tornado recorded in December in Michigan hit the western suburbs of Detroit, not far from where I grew up.
Luckily, it doesn’t sound like anyone was hurt and the damage wasn’t very widespread.