Atmospheric Convulsion / #ChangeTheDebate

As wave after wave of severe storms with heavy rains, causing more flooding, and dozens of tornados sweep across the country, we still hear almost no mention of climate change. This week’s storms were predicted last week after extreme heat over the poles pushed cold air away from the polar regions. These extreme weather conditions are the result of atmospheric convulsion, a term I haven’t heard before.

The atmosphere had a convulsion at the end of April in the transition from winter to summer. The cold polar vortex in the stratosphere did not go gently into summer. Instead of fading slowly into a dome of warm air the whole atmosphere from the surface to the top of the stratosphere convulsed with wave energy driven upwards by an atmospheric dome over Scandinavia. Extraordinary atmospheric heating took place in the over the pole and cold air was pushed towards the temperate latitudes especially over the Pacific ocean. A dome of hot sinking air formed at very high levels over the Arctic pushing cold air and the jet stream south causing unseasonable storms to track across the Pacific ocean into California in mid May.
Atmospheric Convulsion Will Cause Historic Disasters of Arctic Melt & U.S. Storms Next Week, Daily Kos, May 15, 2019

A heat dome over the Arctic caused by an atmospheric short circuit will create a catastrophic collision between cold air pushed out of the Arctic into the mountain west with Gulf of Mexico air over the midcontinent over the next ten days. While the Arctic sea ice melts at extraordinary rates under the heat dome a series of tornado outbreaks will ravage the plains and farm belt from Texas to Ohio. This map shows temperature departures from normal at about 85% of sea level pressure – about 5000ft elevation.

This animation shows 8 days of forecast atmospheric circulation at the level of 50% of surface pressure. Extremely intense waves on the jet stream will cause severe storms to track from Texas to the Canadian border in the midcontinent region while an extraordinary meltdown hits Arctic sea ice at the worst possible time early in the melt season when it will cause maximum “Arctic amplification” by increasing adsorption of heat by dark open water.

How do we get people’s attention to the fact that we can no longer delay the need to do the multiple, drastic things that will have to be done if we want our children to have a future?

I’m proud of the creativity Bold Iowa brings to bird dogging the presidential candidates who come to Iowa. The following is from an article in the Des Moines, Register, Penguins plus presidential candidate Andrew Yang equals climate change talk, Robin Opsahl, Des Moines Register, 4/29/2019

But half a dozen people dressed as penguins to ask Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang about climate change Sunday in Des Moines at a Franklin Junior High town hall event.
The penguin outfits were a response to a Yang quote from another campaign event where he said “people with financial struggles have the attitude that the penguins can wait in line.” Activists asked Yang to make climate change his top priority.
Yang responded that climate change is important but helping people with financial needs, through his plan to give all citizens a basic income, is the way to start fixing it.
“Climate change is an existential threat to our way of life, humans and penguins alike,” Yang said.
Penguins plus presidential candidate Andrew Yang equals climate change talk, Robin Opsahl, Des Moines Register, 4/29/2019

You can join these bird dogging efforts. For more information: http://boldiowa.com/climate-bird-dogs/

Another way to bring attention to national politics will be to #ChangeTheDebate, organized by the Sunrise Movement. More information here: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/changethedebate

Last November, we challenged Democratic leadership with a simple question: What is your plan? That question shook the world.
Since then, presidential candidates have been racing to back the Green New Deal, the first plan to treat climate change like the emergency it is.
But others have doubled down on the same corporate-driven policies that have failed for decades. This approach is a death sentence for our generation.
On July 30-31, 20 candidates will walk onstage in Detroit. They’ll ask for our votes. We’ll ask them to give a damn about our lives.
Join us in Detroit to turn the tide of history together. For our future. For justice. For humanity. Let’s #ChangeTheDebate.
#ChangeTheDebate

There are presidential candidates that do not support a Green New Deal. Many have weak plans for small, incremental changes. Joe Biden says his climate plan is to defeat the current president. Many people believe that is an acceptable position. But no, that is simply unacceptable to me and my friends in the Sunrise Movement. I know this is a controversial position. But if a Democrat wins the election, who will not be committed to the dramatic changes required to address climate change, who will not commit to a Green New Deal, then climate catastrophe is assured.