Here's the temperature anomaly map for North America Dec 3-10:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82604&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_grid
We're looking at very cold temperatures tonight here in Minnesota: -26 C (-15 F) with wind chills down to -34 C (-30 F).
Wili...First, Thanks for the weather anomaly map. The information displayed all points towards the bigger picture of Global climate change.
My point in posting the newspaperarticle was poorly explained (by me).
In that these type of damaging weather events are increasing, as everyone here knows. In a weather climate like we have now, which is very rapidly changing, society is running from one weather related catastrophe to the next and we are subsidizing the FF industry by paying for the damage. Thus perpetuating our own "to comfortable to give up" life style.
This activity(noise) is a prelude to the second step on the ladder of Global warming. We all, including everybody has witnessed the first step with a collective yawn, put a convenient name on it and stuck in the back drawer of forgotten issues. The first step as a Globally recognizable event was the destruction of the planets coral reef systems. So what, a few distinct creatures and some fish died...but it was non the less a global warming related event.
The second step (the collapse of the WAIS) will happen soon enough and in my opinion much quicker than the models are predicting today. It will have a high impact on the planets economy and as a result of this event hundreds of millions of people will die. Mass migration, food and redistribution of energy will fall into the garbage patch of global warming. Sea level rise in the Northern Hemisphere will lead to a catastrophic chain of events in the Arctic as warm Atlantic and Pacific waters surge into the Arctic Ocean. The tiny amounts of methane release we are seeing today will escalate accordingly.
The "noise" will escalate to calamity and geo-engineers will frantically spray all kinds of toxic brews into the atmosphere trying to protect what's left. Sea Levels will continue to rise and economic conditions will continue to deteriorate. By this time society will have no basic human services...at all. Folks will be left to their own devices for survival, accordingly, compassion and brutality will be evidenced at every turn.
Unfortunately the GW ladder is a short one as the third and forth steps will melt in a ever increasingly hot planet.