Fascinated by Olympic Record-breaking? What About Record-breaking Climate Change?

Millions (perhaps billions) around the world hold their breath during Olympic events, watching the seconds fly with their eyes on the "OR" (Olympic Record) and "WR" (World Record) numbers in the corner of the screen. And, moving past the nationalism of "our" (whichever nation's) athletes, it is a hold the breath amazing moment when a new record tumbles.

Sadly, however, the Olympics are far from where the most impressive and most important record-breaking is occurring. Instead, it is in our backyards and communities.

In the United States through August 6, with over 35% of the year still to come), there have been 27,042 high temperature records broken in 2012.

To provide a context, "2011 had the second-warmest summer on record for the lower 48 states."  And, with that "second-warmest summer on record", the United States broke or tied 26,674 daily record highs -- through all 12 months of 2011.

Let's be clear, just like in athletics, many "records" are "made to broken."

However, just like in athletics, 'steroids' can have their impact on weather. With droughts, heat waves, flooding, storms and other mounting extreme weather, the United States -- and the rest of the planet -- is seeing the impact of a climate on the steroids of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions and other impacts on the climate system.

With the Olympics in mind, what we're seeing is the climate's equivalent to East Germany's "women" breaking Olympic swimming records.

Simply put, hot and cold records should roughly balance over time.  We are, however, seeing a drastically skewed set of record-breaking that is worsening in an almost exponential fashion. While recent decades have seen a growing proportion of more "hot" than "cold" records, rather than something close to an even balance, 2012 is seeing something more like a 7.5 to 1 imbalance of more hot rather than cold temperature records.

This is neither accidental nor natural nor cyclical nor normal, as anti-science syndrome suffering haters of a livable economic system (e.g., climate deniers) want you to think.  As Senator Reid laid out so eloquently,

It's time for us all -- whether we're leaders in Washington, members of the media, scientists, academics, environmentalists or utility industry executives -- to stop acting like those who ignore the crisis or deny it exists entirely have a valid point of view. They don't.

The international community -- and the United States and the United States Congress -- reacted with disgust at the impact of steroids on sports (especially the Olympics).  And, there has been action to reduce that impact with severe penalties to those who violate the rules against steroid use.

With all due respect to the personal achievements of Olympic and other athletes, sports record-breaking is meaningless in comparison to the real-world impacts that we are already seeing from climate change and the spectre of what might happen with unchecked catastrophic climate chaos.  It is well past time to move our attention off the sports pages and to treat climate statistics with the same seriousness and passion as sports records.

Key source article: Andrew Freedman, More record highs during 2012 so far than all of 2011, Climate Central

Related:  Seth Borenstein, Ouch! July in US was hottest ever in history books

And, as long as we're talking "Olympics", want to learn about some minimally discussed Olympic Greenwashing?

 

Follow A. Siegel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/A_Siegel

Comments

[atexasdem]

10:58 AM on 09/26/2012

But Republicans claim that climate change is a myth. Besides that even if it's real God will save us if we only vote republican. Climate change? It's all a left wing liberal conspiracy to damage the nuclear power industry and steal your freedoms.

[John Shuck]

09:23 AM on 09/03/2012

We obviously don't know what we're doing but will continue to do it...

[Tony Dickey]

02:51 AM on 08/11/2012

The record number fewer lows implies another scary implication of AGW. Fewer lows means the earth is not cooling off enough at night. not enough temperature differential will certainly throw much in our ecosystem out of whack.

[Bill Crofut]

01:38 PM on 08/10/2012

Re: "Simply put, hot and cold records should roughly balance over time."

In central New York, according to the information available to me, we've experienced the hottest, driest summer since 1955. Yet, the winter of 2010-11 was the fourth snowiest since records have been kept. Is climate change (more specifically, agw) responsible for each condition?

[Tony Dickey]

02:46 AM on 08/11/2012

Yes.

[Bill Crofut]

11:03 AM on 08/11/2012

It that an admission that agw is responsible for diametrically opposing weather conditions?

[jonainpdx]

03:50 PM on 08/09/2012

We need to petition the U.S. Government to pump Billions of $ into Clean Nuclear Fussion research. Like the Department of Energy did with the Manhatton Project on that scale, with that level of dedication.

[silverwolf13]

06:58 PM on 08/11/2012

We have now available to us ample resources of wind and solar power and the means to capture that power, as well as ways to capture tidal, wave, and river current power. Fusion is the energy of the future and always will be.

[sheila]

01:18 PM on 08/09/2012

How about records being broken in Germany for installation of clean, non-deadly ROOFTOP solar that is owned by regular people who are paid fairly:

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/feed-tariffs-proven-road-not-taken/2012-08-09?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#jump

While America slaughters ecosystems for Big Solar and Big Wind, other countries are proving that rooftop solar is the salvation of their economy AND their environment. Do we want to re-monopolize the grid and re-empower the Big Energy robber barons (yes, Big Solar and Big Wind are the same fine folks who brought you Big Oil, Big Gas, Big Coal and Big Banking), or do we finally want to grow up and decentralize, clean and democratize the grid.

The 21st century grid should be like the INTERNET, not like the dead-end streets Big Energy and Big Banks want to build, so why are all of our financial and ecological resources being squandered on Big Energy boondoggles?

FITs for rooftop solar under 100kW, PACE loans, energy efficiency - Focus our energy there and global warming will take care of itself.

[Dazed not Confused]

11:50 AM on 08/09/2012

I could not agree more. If people channeled the interest they have in sports, celebrities and religion into the environment, we'd be in a very different (cooler) place.