Tuesday, January 03, 2023

(Sort of) lucky Europe

A combination of the American winter blizzard, Australia's rather cool and wet spring (and summer?) and Elon Musk revving up ignorance on Twitter means that it seems climate change "skeptics" think they are are having a resurgence.

I haven't noticed them commenting on this, though:

As 2022 turned to 2023, an exceptionally strong wintertime heat dome pounced on much of Europe, producing unprecedented warmth for January. As temperatures soared 18 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 20 Celsius) above normal from France to western Russia, thousands of records were broken between Saturday and Monday — many by large margins....

On New Year’s Day, at least seven countries saw their warmest January weather on record as temperatures surged to springtime levels: Latvia hit 52 degrees (11.1 Celsius); Denmark 54.7 degrees (12.6 Celsius); Lithuania 58.3 degrees (14.6 Celsius); Belarus 61.5 degrees (16.4 Celsius); the Netherlands 62.4 degrees (16.9 Celsius); Poland 66.2 degrees (19.0 Celsius); and the Czech Republic 67.3 degrees (19.6 Celsius).

Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks global weather extremes, called the event “totally insane” and “absolute madness” in text messages to the Capital Weather Gang. He wrote that some of the high nighttime temperatures observed were uncommon in midsummer.

It’s “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology,” Herrera wrote. “Nothing stands close to this.”

Guillaume Séchet, a broadcast meteorologist in France, agreed, tweeting that Sunday was one of the most incredible days in Europe’s climate history.

“The intensity and extent of warmth in Europe right now is hard to comprehend,” tweeted Scott Duncan, a meteorologist based in London.

Of course, it will turn cold again, but still, I bet that politicians are welcoming any exceptionally warmer weather as a means of ensuring they are going to get through the winter without running out of gas.

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