Clouds Tracking Further North Just as Predicted by the 'Warmists'.

Thanks to the Fossil Fuels Derivatives Beast.

The Fossil Fuels Derivatives Beast.

Yes, I'm using the Denialists' term for climate scientists and others concerned about global warming.  It ought to get the Denialists' goat to be proven wrong!  See below.

Now from the Washington Post, a new analysis of satellite photo records shows that over the past four decades, since 1983 in fact, the cloud and storm tracks have been adjusting their positions poleward.

‘The most singular of all the things that we have found': Clouds study alarms scientists

Chris Mooney - The Washington Post - 14 July 2016.

[A]ccording to leading climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan — credited with discovering that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, are actually a greenhouse gas, among other major findings — a new study this week showing that clouds already are shifting their distributions across the Earth, and in a way predicted by climate change models, stands out. And not in a good way. 

The study was led by Ramanathan’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography colleague Joel Norris, though Ramanathan said he was not involved in the work and didn’t know about it until shortly before publication. But Ramanathan said that the study basically confirms that there’s nothing to prevent the world from reaching the high levels of warming that have long been feared — except for our own swift policy actions, that is. 

“My reaction was, my goodness,” Ramanathan said. “Maybe the 4 to 5 degree warming, certainly we were all wishing there was some certainty that would make it go away. So I consider the findings of this paper, the data shows major reorganization of the cloud system.” 

This matters because clouds are fundamental regulators of how much solar radiation makes it to the Earth’s surface (rather than being reflected back to space by white cloud tops), and how much infrared or “longwave” radiation escapes back to space once again.

For more information, click here, here and here.

But you know, what really grinds my gears is that people are still saying that "our own swift policy actions" can "prevent the world from reaching the high levels of warming that have long been feared." How are we going to do that? According to Robertscribbler, "Current greenhouse gas levels — topping out near 408 parts per million CO2 (and 490 parts per million CO2e) this year — will need to fall in order to prevent 1-3 C of additional warming." We're approaching 2 degrees C above 1880s levels already -- and although the planet's temperature will probably retreat to give us a 1.2 deg C avearge for all twelve months this year -- Ramanathan is right that current CO2 / CO2e levels are going to ramp warming up to the 4-5 deg. C mark.  We'll need to reduce the CO2 / CO2e levels. How are we going to avert that? Plant lots of trees even as multiple demands are causing deforestation all over the planet?

We need clean fuels to replace fossil fuels now and wind and solar may not be enough. How are we going to do that?  It seems right now, despite their ongoing financial troubles (which may cause fossil fuel production to remorselessly decline by way of disinvestment over the next several years), the fossil fuel industries and their bought (mainly "conservative") politicians are in the catbird seat right now, driving our fossil fuel dependency and this whole climate mess!