MORE WEATHER 'EXTREMES' ARE EXPECTED
By Climatologists Cliff Harris and Randy Mann (07/25/2011)
Since mid-1967, we have seen more long-standing weather records broken worldwide for both temperature and precipitation than we did from the end of the Civil War until the late 20th Century. Based on our long-term weather charts that date back to 600 B.C., we may be only halfway through a long-term 70-YEAR GLOBAL CYCLE OF WIDE WEATHER "EXTREMES" that began in the late 1960s and probably won't end until at least the late 2030s.
The weather, like many other things does appear to go through a variety of short and long-term cycles. Have you ever noticed that rain will fall on a particular day during the week (usually the weekend days from what I hear) for about a month? Or, we'll notice one region getting deluged from record precipitation while other parts of the country are suffering from parching drought? Well, we believe that the weather does have a number of cycles that range from nearly 7 days to 6 weeks and much longer.
This particular global cycle of wide weather EXTREMES seems to occur about every 500 years. Since this cycle began, we've seen at least well over a hundred thousand worldwide records fall that once stood for over 200 years.
Since we're only about half way through this cycle, we can obviously expect more extreme weather conditions.
During the first six months of 2011, we’ve seen the worst tornado outbreaks in recorded history. Severe dryness has led to the most intense wildfire in the Southwest. By contrast, some northern regions have seen their wettest 6-month period in history. More 500-Year Floods are being reported along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Since the early 1990s, we've experienced the WARMEST period overall since the last cycle of global warming about 1,000 years ago. Believe it or not, temperatures were even milder than what they are today. During that time, it was warm enough that the Vikings were farming parts of southwestern Greenland. But, 200 years later, the climate drastically changed and the so-called LITTLE ICE AGE brought bitter cold and snow to that region forcing the Vikings to evacuate.
But, in early 2008, global temperatures had dropped approximately seven-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit since August of 2007. Sunspot activity was noticeably quiet in the last several years, but has rebounded a bit in recent months.
We eventually see more sudden shifts in the fast-moving upper-level jet stream winds that help steer weather systems around the planet. These global shifts in climate tend to occur with the arrival of the virtually every El Nino, the abnormal warming of ocean waters, or La Nina, the abnormal cooling of sea-surface temperatures in the South-Central Pacific Ocean along the Equatorial regions near the West Coast of South America. Within the last several years, we've seen dramatic warming and cooling of ocean temperatures within very short periods of time.
So when will we finally get out of this Cycle of Wide Weather Extremes that's the strongest in about 1,000 years? Well, this particular cycle usually lasts about 70 years. Since it started around 1967, it probably will not peak until at least 2038 and possibly will become the worst such climatological cycle in at least 6,000 years.
Until then, expect more long-standing weather records to fall. But, there may be a brief break in this weather pattern in the next few years. However, the EXTREMES are expected to continue and perhaps become even more severe from about 2017 to 2038. Only time will tell.
