Heat waves and extremely high temperatures could be commonplace in the U.S. by 2039

I guess i’m too focused on the local warming to be able to understand the global warming. But check out what Stanford Researchers discover!!

Mark Schwartz has the story via @DaChesterFrench’s Twitter Acct.

Exceptionally long heat waves and other hot events could become commonplace in the United States in the next 30 years, according to a new study by Stanford University climate scientists.

“Using a large suite of climate model experiments, we see a clear emergence of much more intense, hot conditions in the U.S. within the next three decades,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford and the lead author of the study.

Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Diffenbaugh concluded that hot temperature extremes could become frequent events in the U.S. by 2039, posing serious risks to agriculture and human health.

“In the next 30 years, we could see an increase in heat waves like the one now occurring in the eastern United States or the kind that swept across Europe in 2003 that caused tens of thousands of fatalities,” said Diffenbaugh, a center fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “Those kinds of severe heat events also put enormous stress on major crops like corn, soybean, cotton and wine grapes, causing a significant reduction in yields.”

The GRL study took two years to complete and is co-authored by Moetasim Ashfaq, a former Stanford postdoctoral fellow now at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The study comes on the heels of a recent NASA report that concluded that the previous decade, January 2000 to December 2009, was the warmest on record.

Read more after the jump!

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DJWillieShakes

Van Jones Debates @ Economist.com

Van Jones has sure come out punching like a love warrior. He is debating Andrew Morriss at Economist.com. He is arguing that creating green jobs is part of the government’s responsibility. Morriss argues that only the market should dictate. It’s a really interesting debate. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/dgs3EJ

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The Editor

Navajo Nation’s Water in Danger

Federal appellate judges have upheld a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision to issue permits allowing a company to leach uranium at an aquifer that supplies drinking water to thousands of Navajos in northwestern New Mexico.

A panel of the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 opinion Monday that concluded the NRC took the “hard look” required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

Eastern Dine Against Uranium Mining, Southwest Research and Information Center and ranchers Grace Sam and Marilyn Morris challenged the NRC’s approval of permits for Hydro Resources Inc. to do in-situ leach mining near the Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock.

The opponents contend the NRC violated federal law in issuing the permits.

Jacked via KOB.com

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The Editor

Secretary Steven Chu Discusses Climate Science

Secretary Chu discusses the climate change debate.

Posted by:

The Editor

Enviromental Protection Agency Getting Its Bars Up!

Just hopped off a video announcement from Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency and definitely a top pick on the short list of D.C. insiders who are really taking their title/mission to heart.

On what is coincidentally (purely surely) the first day of the international COP15 summit, the EPA announces that their thorough (musta been really thorough) analysis of all the available facts leads to one simple conclusion: greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of the American people.”

There’s more:

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

Great talking point from Mrs. Jackson and my instinct thinks she’s legit. When asked on the call about the timing of the EPA’s announcement, when House reps have indicated no movement on environmnetal legislation until early Spring (months from now), Lisa Jackson said the EPA did not want to wait to get the ball rolling and hoped that Congress would “follow the ball.”

Translation: watch out, world. Apparently it’s not a pre-requisite of American political power to actually lose total touch with the land and your people!

Keep it up, Mrs. Jackson.

Posted by:

Sam Patton