If you feel like the weather has been getting a lot weirder and wilder lately, you’re not alone. While it’s easy to blame climate change, we need to dive deeper. There has been a recent increase in polar vortex events bringing arctic air far enough south to cause snow in places like Texas, extreme heat waves like in the Pacific Northwest, and extreme rain like we saw after Hurricane Ida. Even fires in Siberia and drought hint at a new dust bowl. NOAA’s 2020 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster report showed a notable uptick in extremes. And 2021 was no exception, with 10.6% of all weather stations reporting record temperatures. And with the continued emission of carbon into the atmosphere, this should come as no real surprise.

But some new scientific research shows that there is a surprising thread that connects nearly all of these weather events. Tune in to learn why it feels like our weather is spiraling out of control and what we might have in store.

Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.

Greenland photo/video credit: Dr. Sarah Das, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Subscribe to PBS Terra so you never miss an episode! https://bit.ly/3mOfd77

And keep up with Weathered and PBS Terra on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PBSDigitalSt…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbsds
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pbsds

Thank you Margaret A. Carghill Philanthropies for supporting PBS.

source

This video was recorded on April 16th, 2021, and was first published on this channel on July 14th, 2021.

Items discussed include the following:
– Given the land and oceans continue to warm, EWEs will increase in frequency, severity, and duration.
– The toll EWEs are placing on our infrastructure and food supply.
– Both Hurricane Harvey and Katrina are discussed.
– The inevitable need for people to migrate inland from coastal cities as a result of Sea Level Rise (SLR) and EWEs.
– The reasons for the increase in EWEs is discussed.
– The EWEs we are seeing today can no longer be considered ‘natural.’
– The fact that according to the UN, EWEs have doubled in frequency over the last 20 years
– The fact that we can no longer count on the relatively stable climate of greater than 50 years ago, ‘The Holocene’, and that we have moved to a new age, ‘The Anthropocene’, where the climate will be much less stable
– The need for more aggressive activist movements to spur government action such as Extinction Rebellion.
– The impact of EWEs on crop yields

Articles, Papers, Links from Blue Slides:
– Global Trends 2040 from the National Intelligence Council
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends-home
– ‘Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in last 20 years, new disaster research shows
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/10/1075142
– Tropical nations aren’t ready for fish stocks to vanish
https://www.futurity.org/fish-stocks-climate-change-2288952/
– Floodlines, The story of an unnatural disaster
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/floodlines/
– Extreme weather hits western farmers harder, UBC study finds
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/extreme-weather-hits-western-farmers-harder-ubc-study-finds
– Global energy investments set to recover in 2021 but remain far from a net zero pathway
https://www.iea.org/news/global-energy-investments-set-to-recover-in-2021-but-remain-far-from-a-net-zero-pathway
– Global migration, by the numbers: who migrates, where they go and why
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/iom-global-migration-report-international-migrants-2020/

Panelists:
Dr. Peter Carter
– MD, Expert IPCC Reviewer and the director of the Climate Emergency Institute

Paul Beckwith
– Climate Systems Scientist. Professor at the University of Ottawa in the Paleoclimatology Laboratory as well as Carleton University

Regina Valdez
– Program Director, Climate Reality Project, NYC, GreenFaith Fellow and LEED Green Associate

Video Production:
Charles Gregoire
– Electrical Engineer, Webmaster and IT prime for FacingFuture.Earth & the Climate Emergency Forum; Climate Reality Leader

Heidi Brault
– Video production and website assistant,
– Organizer and convener, Metadata technician, COP26 team lead for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum; Climate Reality Leader

Our Website: https://climateemergencyforum.org/

Attributions
Background Music:
– Title: Through the City II
– Author: Crowander
– Source: Free Music Archive
– License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Image and Video:
https://climateemergencyforum.org/assets/attributions/2021-07-14-extreme-weather-events.html

source