Tuesday, July 22, 2014

June global temp record broken—Lake Mead drying up

We will never be short of evidence for the fact of global warming.  June just set the record for the warmest month in recorded history and Lake Mead, the reservoir behind the Hoover Dam (the project that made possible Las Vegas and much of southern California urban development) is now at its lowest level ever.

You see, the deniers can deny all they want, but that doesn't change anything important.  The globe will go on warming in spite of their ignorant bleatings.  So one by one, they will just have to accept some new evidence that can break through their delusions.  In the end, the only deniers left will be those who deny for hire—and even they won't believe their own useless bullshit.

The only real issue is if the sane folks, who actually have the possibility to do something meaningful, can chart a new course in time.  For years, as the Democratic Party became the Republicans of Eisenhower (I am being generous here) while the Republican Party was philosophically taken over by nutjobs who were getting their political ideas from Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, I assumed that the sane folks were still in the Democratic Party.

I guess that is my form of denialism.  Climate change is mostly a technological issue and the left is actually awash in folks who wear their technological illiteracy proudly and openly.  I know dozens of lefties who believe we could instantly solve our energy / climate change problems if we could only get our hands on those 200 mpg carburetor designs the oil companies bought up on the sly so we would keep buying their products.  Heck, I know lefties who consider the process of assembling something from IKEA as an ordeal (I am NOT making this up.)

It is a LONG journey from admitting that the planet is warming dangerously to having any useful ideas on how to reverse the process.

World breaks temperature record for June after hottest May

Last month's average global temperature was 16.2C, 0.7C higher than 20th-century average, says NOAA

Associated Press in Washington  The Guardian, 21 July 2014

The globe is on a hot streak, setting a heat record in June after it also broke the record for May.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on Monday that last month's average global temperature was 16.2C (61.2F), which is 0.7C higher than the 20th-century average. It beat 2010's record by one-twentieth of a degree.

The NOAA's climate monitoring chief, Derek Arndt, said the record was driven by unusually hot oceans, especially the Pacific and Indian oceans.

Heat records were broken on every continent apart from Antarctica, especially in New Zealand, northern South America, Greenland, central Africa and southern Asia.

Global temperature records go back to 1880 and June was the 352nd hotter-than-average month in a row. more

Lake Mead Drops To Lowest Levels Ever As 14-Year Drought Plagues Southwest

Last week, Lake Mead dropped to the lowest levels since the reservoir was filled upon the completion of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. The Southwest has remained in the grips of an everlasting drought for the past 14 years, forcing waters down more than 130 feet since a high-water mark was last reached in 2000.

As entire marinas run dry, the Bureau of Reclamation fears that an ongoing drought could force the agency to declare a shortage by 2017, which could ultimately affect the more than 40 million people that rely on Lake Mead for water. Take a look at some startling photos of the nation's largest reservoir, now just 39 percent full, below.


Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Boaters near Horsepower Cove pass in front of a white "bathtub ring" on the rocks on July 13, 2014 in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada.


Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Dry cracked earth is shown in an area that used to be underwater near where the Lake Mead Marina was once located on July 17, 2014 in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada.


Ethan Miller / Getty Images

The Arizona Spillway at the Hoover Dam is shown on July 17, 2014 in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Arizona.  more

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