WILL THIS BE THE SUMMER WHEN THE WORLD REALIZES GLOBAL WARMING IS TRULY REAL?

The continuing saga of the Russian mini-revolt is well-explained by Leonid Bershidsky, a former columnist of Bloomberg Europe. He is a 51-year old Russian journalist now based in Berlin, having moved there in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. Has previously worked at Newsweek and The Moscow Times. He has written several books.

But to the topic of the day, is this that impactful summer that will finally convince decision-makers to take global warming seriously? Possible, but unlikely, for a key reason to be provided.

The New York Times yesterday said:

Today, New Orleans will reach 113 degrees in the heat index. Houston will reach 111. Mobile, Ala., and Jackson, Miss., will also surpass 110. And those are only a few of the places that will experience dangerous heat this week.

Summer technically just began, and parts of the U.S. are already seeing the unusual heat that experts warned about and that is becoming more common as a result of climate change. About 45 million people — or 14 percent of the U.S. population — live in areas that are expected to reach dangerous temperatures in the coming days.

Today and tomorrow, the heat will be concentrated in Texas, Louisiana and parts of the South. By the end of the week, it is expected to spread in the South and to the West, as these maps show:

Last week India got up to 116 F, and people began to die. China is sweltering:

Between 1990 and 2020 Beijing averaged 10.6 days where temperature got up to 95 F or higher.
June is not over and the city went past this temperature for the 11th time.

Texas has a heat dome, and this week 45 million Americans live where some level of heat alert is in effect. Several Texas cities were in the range of 115 F, and Corpus Christi might have reached 125 F. A heat dome occurs when a persistent region of high pressure traps heat over an area. Keep in mind that crops and animals also are suffering.

The following heat index factors in relative humidity to indicate the danger point.

Death Valley reached 134 F, but that was in 1913. Officially the highest world temperature ever. And, incidentally, 1913 is the year when this area dropped to 15 F, its coolest ever. But death valley in 2001 reached 110 F or above for 154 days in a row. The ground temperature at Furnace Creek in Death Valley had an air temperature of 128 F in 1972, but the ground temperature was 201 F! They had no rain in 1929 and 1953.

The 12 hottest places on Earth:

#1 Death Valley
#2 Kebili, Tunisia
#3 Mitribah, Kuwait
#4 Turbat, Pakistan
#5 Dallol, Ethiopia
The rest are in the Middle East and Africa. Only been to Death Valley, in the summer, and you worry, a lot, if your car will die on the road getting there and out.

The list of the ten hottest cities in the world is rather surprising, as I have regularly traveled to most of them, and didn't realize they were so.

#1 Jazan City (right), Saudi Arabia, with a population of 2 million.
#2 Bangkok, Thailand, where the temperature routinely rises to 104F.
#3 Las Vegas also regularly gets to 104 F, and higher.
#4 Hong Kong, where the humidity makes the difference.
#5 Mexicali, #6 Melbourne, #7 Kuala Lumpur, #8 Phoenix, #9 Athens, and #10 Cairo.

However, the past eight years have been the hottest ever.

2022 was Europe's warmest, surpassing the previous all-time high, which was in 2021.
Last year the U.S. surpassed the heat from the 1936 Dust Bowl summer. But 2022 was only the third-warmest.

So is this the summer that the world finally realizes that global warming is truly real? Still got two months to go, I think not. Why? Only perhaps a hundred died in the recent India heat wave. Decision-makers won't take note unless millions, and maybe it will need tens of millions, perish. Until that happens, humanity will be testing Mother Nature awaiting a possible crescending doom.

Don't want to alarm anyone in Hawaii, but our first hurricane of the season, Adrian, just formed off Mexico and is headed our way. However, the prognosis is for an early weakening.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

Search This Blog