Apocalypse Ahead — A California Megastorm.
Writing about the apocalypse always makes good reading. The same applies to science for drawing attention. With the topic of global warming, climate science found a compelling and a lot of money-generating topic. It sells this under the term ‘climate change’, because climate is a term from the lay sphere and completely unsuitable for scientific work and reasonable discussions. Now California must reckon with apocalyptic events. Not why what many would suspect, an eruption from below the ground, but coming from above, by storms and plenty of rain. According to new research the threat is caused because of climate change, which would be worse than any in living memory, reported The New York Times recently (12 August 2022) and in its International Edition (22 August 2022). The articles refer to the work of Huang and Swain, Sci. Adv. 8, (2022), according to which near Hawaii, the atmospheric currents will pluck out a long tendril of water vapor and funnel it toward the West Coast.
This vapor plume could be about 26 times what the Mississippi River discharges into the Gulf of Mexico at any given moment. This is deliberately presented in a very frightening manner and is therefore scientifically unworthy. The danger invoked is essentially based on using a combination of climate model data and high-resolution weather modelling. It is not explained how such a quantity and concentration of water can occur in the Pacific. Reference is made to “The Great Flood of 1862”, a 30 day rainfall for California (in Dec. and Jan), which was the equivalent of at least a 30'000 years event. That’s an impressive number, but with all due respect, not very useful for research these days. Instead the research refers to two megastorm scenarios applied capable of causing a megaflood in California — one drawn from the recent historical climate (circa 1996–2005) and another from a hypothetical warmer future climate (2071–2080 in the “high warming” emissions scenario. There is no trace of a hint of an attempt to say the physical conditions between the water masses of the Pacific and from there to the atmospheric conditions. There are plenty of options. For example, there was a notable Blob anomaly north of Hawaii a few weeks ago, see image.
Considerably promising and necessary are investigations into prominent and already well-documented events in the past, for example how in September 1939 when record rain fell in Southern California. After an eight-day-long heat wave in early September 1939, a former Hurricane hit California, at San Pedro on the 25th with winds of severe gale force. The up to 11 Beaufort strong winds were the only tropical storm to make landfall in California in the twentieth century. The air pressure went down to 971 mb, and the excessive rain caused heavy flooding, e.g. September records in Los Angeles (5.24 inches in 24 hours) and at Mount Wilson, 295mm/11.60inches). It was the heaviest September rain in Los Angeles’ weather history and it broke the worst heat wave in Weather Bureau records, as measured by intensity and duration. (NYT, Sept. 26, 1939).
Even of more interest is the question, whether there was a link between the weather events in California and the war activities between Japan and Russia since 20the August in East-Asia, and in Europe since 1st September.
Only ten days before WWII started, on August 20, 1939, the Red Army with 100,000 troops went into combat with the Japanese Army comprised of 70,000 soldiers (Kwantung Army) at Nomonham, a place on the boarder between Outer Mongolia and Manchuku in fine weather (NYT, Sept.17, 1939). The Soviet forces had brought with them more than 400 tanks, 200 heavy guns, 400 armoured cars, 500–700 airplanes and several thousand tons of ammunition, shells and bombs to the Far East, over a distance of 3,000 kilometres. Presumably not less military equipment would have been available for the Kwantung Army, which eventually was the loser in this event with 20,000 men dead, when truce was signed on September 16. http://www.seaclimate.com/c/c4/c4.html
The war efforts in Europe had been several levels more severe. Only few days in war Warsaw was permanently bombed, burning for weeks, forcing Poland to surrender. In the first months of war against Poland, the German Army, Air Force and Navy with 10,000 guns, 3,600 armored vehicles, 1,900 aircraft, and dozens of warships and a force of more than 1,600,000 men had kicked up dust and ashes, which orbited the Earth during the coming weeks. http://www.seaclimate.com/c/c4/c4.html
The massive war efforts in Europe and Manchuku inevitable have and an enormous impact on the entire Northern Hemisphere. Instead of going behind the likely links with the September weather in Californian, Dr. Swain and Dr. Huang looked at all the month-long California storms that took place during two time segments in the simulations, one in the recent past and the other in a future with high global warming, and chose one of the most intense events from each period. That is defiantly not enough for reliable science, because September 1939 was too special for California that it should be submerge in statistics.
The unanswered question until today is what role that place at that time, and the contribution of war activities in China and Europe, due to the excessive release of condensation nuclei, contributed to the weather extremes in California. Much too extraordinary and seldom was the situation that caused high precipitation during September with 370% above normal in California (Alabama, 119%; Arizona, 335%; Nevada 327%; Utah 261%).
The ‘timing’ between excessive rain in Europe and the dry months in the United States is a perfect indication of the relationship between both events. Any ‘interchange’ between dry and wet air takes its time. A dry or humid air body can exist from up to several days to a few weeks. An ‘air body’ needs a couple of weeks to circle the Northern Hemisphere.
The warning about the „The Coming California Megastorm“, would bring more hindsight and understanding, if science would do what they should have done since September 1939, explaining thoroughly what caused the special weather in September 1939 in California, and whether the war in Europe and East-Asia contributed or had had nothing to do with it.
NYT: „The Coming California Megastorm“(08/12/2022): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/12/climate/california-rain-storm.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Climate%20and%20Environment
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