A team of US climate scientists using computer models has determined that there is no flexibility in how much greenhouse gas emissions we can continue to emit if we want to stop warming. The only viable goal is zero emissions. The value of this is that it gives us an unsullied goal, one that is easy to measure but very difficult to achieve. In fact I suspect the target we really have to shoot for is a negative emissions goal, one in which sequestration is an equally important part of the total number. This will be necessary to offset the growing demand for and use of energy worldwide by a rapidly growing global population. Those of us in the Western world have a responsibility to go beyond zero in our carbon emissions.

I did a little research to see if the phenomenon of deadly tornadoes during the winter months is normal or related to warming. There are differing opinions but the consensus is that tornado season can start in January in the Southern states and extremely dangerous tornadoes are not uncommon during winter months. Dot Earth has more info and stats on the frequency of dangerous storms that show little definable connection between warming and these weather phenomena.

Here in Rochester (NY) the winter pattern is much different than in the past and it is definitely a warming pattern. However this has not resulted in better weather- it has been different weather. We’ve had a lot of big fluctuations in temperatures. Tuesday it was 55 degrees F, this Sunday we will be lucky to see 10 degrees. Last week in a ten minute period the temps dropped 35 degrees.

The effects of these swings are extreme: very high winds (70 mph gusts during that rapid drop), heavy ice storm-style icing which we seldom saw before the end of March and heavy, wet lake affect snows. Most of us would much rather have a 25 degree dry humidity powder snow day anytime over 35 degree damp slush weather which has been the story most of this winter.

It’s official: We’ve entered a new epoch called the Anthropocene Epoch which means ‘human influenced’. The previous epoch, the Holocene lasted ten thousand years and is estimated to have ended around 1800. The new epoch is measured as beginning due to the industrial revolution and its attendant pollution and enormous use of fossil fuels.

“The geologists believe that human activity over the past 200 years has transformed the worldwide patterns of sediment erosion and deposition, disturbed the carbon cycle and global temperatures, triggered a mass extinction of animals and plants, and has caused the acidification of the oceans.”

Way to go humanity! We now have permanently altered geological time.