The Climate Crisis is now termed “Gobsmacking”
Climate Chaos Is Now (Gobsmacking, But So Is Progress): When Climate Change Goes Beyond Tropical Storms
There isn’t enough words to properly describe the world’s climate chaos. The National Weather service said earlier thismonth that there was almost 100 percent chance that 2023 was the hottest year on record. The average temperature for the month of September was, according to one climate scientist, absolutely gobsmackingly bananas. One scientist simply twibbed: “Wait, what???” when one of the rapidly intensifying hurricanes went from a 60-knot tropical storm to a 140-knot Category 5.
“We’ve been trying to figure out how to communicate the urgency of climate change for decades,” says Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist for the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The balance of being scientifically accurate is something that you must find if you want to be a scientist. You also have to communicate in ways that are powerful.
There’s another problem: Pick your superlative, and it’s probably growing increasingly deficient for characterizing a given disaster. A phrase like “mega,” for describing climate- related catastrophes, is used. “We tack ‘mega’ on everything,” says Heather Goldstone, chief communications officer of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. It is a megastorm, a mega heat wave, and a megadrought. And it just kind of loses its punch after a while. It still fails to convey the true enormity of what we’re facing.”
The Hottest Year On Record: Twenty-Eight Years of Climate Change in a Ten-Year-Old Future, Not Just a Cold Day
And scientists are also just people. It is a challenge to balance being a scientist and feeling human being says Kate Marvel, a senior climate scientist at Project Drawdown which advocates for climate action. “Because we are all conflicted. We’re not neutral observers—we live here.”
The last eight years have been the hottest on record. Some scientists see evidence that climate change is getting worse, though others don’t think enough years have passed to show it.
Extreme heat in Arizona for weeks, devastating floods in Libya and record-hot oceans in Florida were all caused by the record-breaking year. The forecasts for how the planet will warm are in line with the extreme temperatures.
If we don’t change things, if we keep going on the same trajectory that we’re on, we will think of that year as good, remember? says Tessa Hill, marine scientist at the University of California Davis
“We know why this is happening,” Hausfather says. A year like this could not have happened without the carbon we’ve put into the atmosphere over the last century.
“How unprepared we are is the biggest lesson,” says Kristie Ebi, a researcher at the University of Washington. “There are places with heat wave early warning and response systems. They certainly saved lives. They didn’t save enough.”
Source: 2023 will be the hottest year on record. Is this how it’s going to be now?
Heat waves and coral deaths off the coast of Florida: A study by the Lifshitz observatories in St. Augustine, Florida
The ocean has heat waves as well. Off the coast of Florida, the water temperature reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the same conditions as a hot tub. Many corals can die from being exposed to heat, turning a white color, or dying completely.
