Why Summers May Never Be the Same

[Fresh Water Falling]

Julie Bosman
Thu, October 5, 2023 at 5:40 AM PDT

CHICAGO — It felt like the opening minutes of a disaster movie.

This summer, Trevor O’Donnell, 64, had been reading the cascade of news about extreme weather: wildfire smoke covering the country, deadly flooding in unexpected places, record-breaking heat. To O’Donnell, a tourism executive who splits his time between Palm Springs, California, and Douglas, Michigan, American life now resembled a scene straight of out a Hollywood film, when the hero’s family is making breakfast as alarming television news bulletins play in the background.

“There’s an ominous feeling,” he said. “You notice that something’s fundamentally off. It just struck me that what we’re experiencing right now is so similar to that prelude.”

Globally, average temperatures broke a string of monthly records this summer, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: June was the warmest June, July the warmest July and August the warmest August. September was also, by a record margin, the warmest September, the European Union climate monitor said this week. As humans continue adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, record-breaking heat will become even more common, as will extreme weather events such as droughts, wildfires and floods.

This summer alone, floods ravaged Vermont and upstate New York; the seawater in South Florida was so hot it felt like a Jacuzzi; choking smoke from vast Canadian wildfires enveloped the skies over the Northeast and Midwest. Even the mosquito population in Texas suffered. In cities like New York and Chicago, a wave of summerlike temperatures flowed into September and October.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-summers-may-never-same-124044336.html

Later in the article, there is reportage on individual Americans that clearly illustrates how older people have had to watch the changes that have degraded the quality of their lives over the decades.

[DFW]

1. It looks like we landed at an oasis

The outer tip of Cape Cod this past summer, while with warmer ocean water than normal, had the usual climate: days between 75°F and 85°F, with the evenings ten to fifteen degrees cooler. Rain was mostly in the evening.

When we read about what was going on elsewhere around the country, as well as back in Europe, we felt like we had won the summer weather lottery this year.

[callous taoboy]

2. Same with my friends in Anchorage.

Lovely summer up there, though maybe a bit too rainy. I’m in Texas, and I spent the whole summer going from one air-conditioned space to another instead of enjoying my usual hiking habit at a favorite State Natural Area.

[Blues Heron]

3. 3 watts per square meter is like home furnaces 200 feet apart, cranked, running 24/7

over the entire surface of the earth. Eventually you are going to feel the heat from that climate forcing and all the ice will melt. The end.