Summary: SHOW SUMMARY: Thomas Peterson from World Meteorological Assoc. and NOAA on science of extreme weather events hitting us. Jonathan Bates, co-author of "Paradise Lot" on permaculture on a small lot in New England. Whether you are freezing in North America, drowning in Britain, or roasting in Australia, extreme weather is hard to miss. Thomas Peterson leads a team of scientists studying the role of climate change in messing with our weather. We talk about the drought of 2012 in the States, Hurricane Sandy, wild rainfall in Britain and N. Australia, and more. Then to solutions. Jonathan Bates and his co-conspirator Eric Toensmeier turned an unpromising small lot in Holyoke Massachusetts in "Paradise Lot". It's famous small-scale homestead of permaculture. You could do it too. Plus new music from Neil Young, "Mother Earth" recorded live on his recent Honour the Treaties" tour, against the Tar Sands and damage to First Nations people. You'll also hear a short remix by Alex of "Into the Blue", sung by Lokka. Troubles and solutions: it's Radio Ecoshock. Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) THOMAS PETERSON - EXPERT ON EXTREME WEATHER Can scientists finally say "this extreme weather event, that flood, this storm, was caused by climate change"? Not so fast. Nothing is simple about the way this Earth works. The planet's top weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization, set up a special branch looking into this. Dr. Thomas C. Peterson is President of the WMO Commission for Climatology. He's also the Principal Scientist for the National Climactic Data Center at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in Ashville, North Carolina. For the past two years, Dr. Peterson helped gather up scientists to examine the links between human influences on the climate, and the extreme weather events that dominate the news and millions of lives. Here is a helpful article about this: "Global Warming, or just the weather?" by Revecca Lindsey, published at climate.gov September 3, 2013 The new report we discuss in this program is here: "Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 94, No. 9, September 2013." The 2011 version of this paper was among the most read articles in the American Meteorological Society Bulletin. Download/listen to this interview with scientist Thomas Peterson in CD Quality or Lo-Fi. We talk about Hurricane Sandy, the U.S. drought of 2012, floods in Northern Australia and England, extreme weather in China, and their connection to climate change. In some cases scientists concluded warming made the event worse or more likely. In other cases, they were unable to find a link, chalking it up to "natural variability". I want to add a footnote to my conversation with Dr. Peterson. He explained it's early days trying to narrow down the climate influence on crazy weather events. It's also hard to find scientists who can devote more time to short-term projects like the WMO annual survey of extreme weather. Still, I came away from that report with some doubts. Too many times, the authors decide climate change was not an important factor. For example, the paper on the record wet summer of 2012 in Britain concluded there was no link to the concurrent record melt back of Arctic Sea Ice. The paper was titled: "Are recent wet northwest European summers a response to sea ice retreat?" ed by F.B. Simon. Their conclusions that melting sea ice was not a factor directly contradicts other published science. I'm hoping to interview a British expert with a different opinion. The case of extreme rainfall in Northern Australia in 2012 was even more bizarre. First that paper says climate change models show only a 10 to 15% influence on rainfall in that region. Since the 2012 rains far exceeded that, the authors say it must be natural variation, and not climate change. If it doesn't fit the models, or is more extreme than we expected, that's not climate chan
