Global Warming/Climate Change/Global Weirding?

[swake]

Years ago in my telecom days I had a DSL/VPN tech working for me that would talk to customers on the phone in a perfect Hank Hill voice.

Hilarious. Funniest thing ever.

[Conan71]

Years ago in my telecom days I had a DSL/VPN tech working for me that would talk to customers on the phone in a perfect Hank Hill voice.

Hilarious. Funniest thing ever.

I've been told I do a pretty good Hank Hill, my boss can riff on Boomhauer pretty well too.  We get started and we can get people around us laughing pretty good.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Years ago in my telecom days I had a DSL/VPN tech working for me that would talk to customers on the phone in a perfect Hank Hill voice.

Hilarious. Funniest thing ever.

My imitation of Hank wasn't bad and I had a guy named Bobby one of my cabling crews that was always getting "AAAAHHHHH DAMMIT BOBBY" he was from Abilene and had more fun telling people that the show is a lot like small town Texas.

[Hoss]

My imitation of Hank wasn't bad and I had a guy named Bobby one of my cabling crews that was always getting "AAAAHHHHH DAMMIT BOBBY" he was from Abilene and had more fun telling people that the show is a lot like small town Texas.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

^^^ Now that's funny!

[patric]

Center Of 'Tornado Alley' Shifting To Green County, Research Shows


TULSA, Oklahoma - Scientists are pouring over new models pointing to more extreme weather in Oklahoma's future, including an increase in tornado outbreaks.

Severe weather patterns are changing according to a noted scientist with the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, and it could put Green Country in line for even worse tornado outbreaks.

In fact, some of the most violent storms that typically start west of Oklahoma City could start firing up immediately west of Tulsa.

Dr. Harold Brooks said alarming evidence shows a semi-permanent drought developing over the high plains is pushing tornado alley east, putting Green County closer to the bull's-eye.
"Many of the climate models project that drying will move east, and, as a result, that'll have a huge impact on where we see storms, because storms essentially happen where it rains," he said.

That's because moisture is the lifeblood of thunderstorm and tornadoes.

"Does the dry part in western Oklahoma move east? And the most likely answer is probably 'yes.' And at that point, if we move the average position of the dry line from the middle of the Texas Panhandle to central Oklahoma, which, as far as the earth is concerned isn't a big difference, then storms will move east along with that," Brooks explained.

He said Tornado Alley has shifted about 50 miles east since the 1950s, and now the shift could be accelerating; and that's not the only change he's finding in our weather patterns, there's an alarming trend on when tornadoes are happening.
"The big days have gotten bigger, and so we're distributing tornadoes in different ways. It's like we're having more outbreaks, but fewer days in which tornadoes occur," Brooks said.

More days with dozens of tornadoes mean wider-spread damage, and that adds up to a bigger strain on resources for homeowners and emergency management.

The differences are also greater year-to-year.
In just the past five years, we've set the record for the most number of tornadoes and a record for the least number of tornadoes in a 12-month stretch.

It's not clear why, but Brooks said the likely culprit is global warming; and the rising temperatures are also changing the start of severe weather season.
"The season may be happening as much as two or three weeks earlier than it did 30 or 40 years ago," Brooks said.

That's because warmer winter months leading into spring tend to produce severe weather sooner.

And here's the other issue researchers are warning about, the drought expanding eastward.
"That's, in some senses, the single biggest and scariest question, is if we move the dry part of the United State east by, say, 250 miles, that has huge impacts on what we can do with agriculture," Brooks said.

The impact on central and western Oklahoma could be crippling.
"It affects what we can do with our land, and we can't run near the number of cattle that we'd like to if there's a long-term drought out here," said Charlie Coblentz with Coblentz Farms.

Some of our driest years in the past decade have only produced between five and ten inches of rainfall to parts of western Oklahoma.
"If you're not even getting five inches rainfall total a year, there's no water to water the stock, there's no water to grow the grass, and the wells are drying up so there's no water for irrigation if it continues like this," Coblentz said.

It's important to keep in mind that we've always had bursts of extreme weather like major dry spells, tornado outbreaks and flooding rains, but the bottom line, according to Brooks, is that with earth's weather patterns changing, extreme events like a 100-year flood or drought will now likely happen every ten years.
http://www.newson6.com/story/29010930/center-of-tornado-alley-shifting-to-green-county-research-shows

[Hoss]

Wow.

https://news.vice.com/article/as-carbon-pollution-hits-record-level-senator-james-inhofe-says-climate-change-is-greening-the-planet

If he's a product of Oklahoma public education (ha) then no wonder we suck.

"People don't realize you can't grow things without CO2," Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said on the chamber's floor Wednesday. "CO2 is a fertilizer. It's something you can't do without. No one ever talks about the benefits that people are inducing from that as a fertilizer." That buildup has led "to a greening of the planet and contributed to increasing agricultural productivity," he said.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Wow.

If he's a product of Oklahoma public education (ha) then no wonder we suck.

"People don't realize you can't grow things without CO2," Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said on the chamber's floor Wednesday. "CO2 is a fertilizer. It's something you can't do without. No one ever talks about the benefits that people are inducing from that as a fertilizer." That buildup has led "to a greening of the planet and contributed to increasing agricultural productivity," he said.

It's just a 'little' more complicated than that, Jim.  But would never expect him to understand that.....


After having spent Wednesday afternoon out driving around through all that - trying to dodge the tornadoes - it was notable by the way all those storms were so different from most past events.  Every single thing that happened has occurred before, but the way it all came together was odd.  At the fringe...

[patric]

It's just a 'little' more complicated than that, Jim.  But would never expect him to understand that.....

Sen. Inhofe throws Pope under the bus, gets on Daily Show again.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/26/jon-stewart-gop-pope-francis/

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/4iq5sj/popeular-science

[heironymouspasparagus]

Sen. Inhofe throws Pope under the bus, gets on Daily Show again.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/26/jon-stewart-gop-pope-francis/

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/4iq5sj/popeular-science

What is so breathtakingly stupid about Inhofe is that he doesn't even bother to find out anything about the people he spews about.  As it turns out, even just the tiniest, most cursory look into the Pope's background would cause information to move into Inhofe's head - and we can't have that...

The Pope is a Chemical Engineer.  Something that puts him about half a galaxy in light years ahead of anything Inhofe will ever be.  And vastly more qualified to say something about science topics than Inhofe will ever be about ANYTHING!! 

[Townsend]

Oklahoma Officials Vow To Keep Fighting Obama Plan To Cut Power Plant Pollution

https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2015/08/03/oklahoma-officials-vow-to-keep-fighting-obama-plan-to-cut-power-plant-pollution/#more-24657

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday finalized its Clean Power Plan, the Obama Administration's attempt to cut carbon emissions from power plants by more than 30 percent nationwide.

Though just finalized, the plan has been in the works for two years, and Oklahoma officials have opposed it every step of the way.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has already filed two lawsuits against the EPA over the Clean Power Plan, in July calling it "an unlawful attempt to expand federal bureaucrats' authority over states' energy economies in order to shutter coal-fired power plants." Both lawsuits were dismissed, but are being appealed now that the rule is final.

In April, Governor Mary Fallin issued an executive order pledging not to comply with the new rules. States are supposed to come up with their own plans to meet the carbon reduction goals, but the federal government will do it for states, like Oklahoma, that refuse.

as The Oklahoman's Chris Casteel reports, it all adds up to a protracted legal fight:

A White House official said Sunday that the rule represents "the single biggest step any president has made to curb carbon pollution that is fueling climate change."

The rule could be tied up in court for years and may ultimately be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. [EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy] said Sunday it is a "legally very strong rule."

If this all sounds familiar, that's because it is. Whether the issue is the EPA's Regional Haze Rule, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or any of the environmental regulations pursued by the Obama Administration, Oklahoma can be counted on to fight against it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

In the meantime, Oklahoma's largest utility companies are already busy upgrading coal-fired power plants or converting them to natural gas to comply with previous EPA regulations.

[Conan71]

Oklahoma Officials Vow To Keep Fighting Obama Plan To Cut Power Plant Pollution

https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2015/08/03/oklahoma-officials-vow-to-keep-fighting-obama-plan-to-cut-power-plant-pollution/#more-24657

Pruitt does a great meerkat pose.

[Hoss]

Pruitt does a great meerkat pose.

Sorry, all I see in this picture here is 'derp, derp...derpity, derp..derp...derp'.

[swake]

Let me get this straight, and pollution aside, we are going to fight regulations that will force power plants to use less coal and more natural gas. Coal is a product that we in Oklahoma import and natural gas is our leading export. These regulations should help Oklahoma's economy but because Obama, we say no?

[cannon_fodder]

Nothing to worry about, Pruitt's track record on lawsuits on behalf of the State of Oklahoma is about as good as Inhofe's arguments against Climate Change.