Danny Baza Blas

Report's cover (NOAA & NDCC) Weather and climate are words with different meanings. Weather refers to what's happening in the atmosphere in the short term. Climate refers to long-term weather trends. In the year 2012, many people who were living in different places experienced extreme weather events. The record-hot American summer of 2012, according to a new peer-reviewed NOAA report , has links to human-induced climate change. In the USA Today , Wendy Koch wrote: "July 2012-like heat is now four times as likely to strike the Midwest and Northeast as it was in pre-industrial America when less carbon dioxide warmed the atmosphere, according to a Stanford University study. Last year's heat wave, which peaked in July — the warmest month on record for the contiguous USA — exacerbated the nation's drought, ruined crops and contributed to more than 100 deaths" The report states that effects from "natural weather and climate fluctuations...

Could a rapidly warming Arctic create crazy storms? (Fox41 Blog) In an article written by Stephanie Paige Ogburn in Scientific American , a question was poised: Does a warming Arctic affect mid-latitude weather? Sandy-like events are receiving a lot of media attention, and many are wondering if there is a link to climate change. "R apid warming in the Arctic is changing the way the jet stream behaves. Since the jet stream is a driving force behind weather over the temperate part of the Earth, also known as the mid-latitudes, many people would be affected by this switch." Jennifer Francis , a climate scientist at Rutgers, has been working on this hypothesis that a warming Arctic has a link to crazy weather events. Though she admits the signal is somewhat weak at this point, the body of evidence is gathering. "Arctic sea ice extent continues to plunge below average each summer. Measurements have shown that the winds that blow west to east and drive the jet ...