Diving into green water not so good for Sen. Inhofe

by suavehouse113

After Getting Sick From Algae Bloom Exacerbated by Heat Wave and Drought, Inhofe Jokes the “Environment Strikes Back”
[Via Climate Progress]

Irony can be so ironic.  A day after cancelling his keynote address at the Heartland climate denial conference because he felt “under the weather,” Republican Senator Jim Inhofe today insisted his sickness was due to a toxic algae bloom on the Grand Lake in Oklahoma where he has a home – joking to a local newspaper that “the environment strikes back” and ”Inhofe is attacked by the environment.”

“There is no question,” the Oklahoma Republican said, linking what he thought was a routine dive into the lake last Monday morning to a severe upper respiratory illness.

“That night, Monday night, I was just deathly sick.”

Inhofe and his wife, Kay, have had a home on the lake for decades, and he has never seen that kind of algae in the water previously.

[More]

The high temperatures plus fertilizer-based runoffs are causing these blooms. And the blue green algae can be deadly, killing cattle that drink the water.

Inhofe was lucky. But his granddaughter seems to have more smarts than he does:

Environmental officials in Oklahoma sent out a warning today about major blue-green algal blooms around the Northeastern portion of the state, saying this is the largest bloom the area has ever seen.  Because “toxins harmful to humans and animals can be produced in some algae blooms,” it is strongly recommended you do not swim in places where there are visible blooms.  Ironically, Inhofe, who has chaired the Senate Environment Committee, didn’t know that, but even his teenage granddaughter figured it out.

“I didn’t think anything about it,” he said, recalling that he had encouraged his 13-year-old granddaughter to join him in the water but she declined.

“She didn’t want to get in that green stuff.”

Maybe she should be Senator.

Algal blooms are a real problem of warming waters. I hope he takes precautions next time he decides to swim in the lake.

 

‘Normal’ temperatures are about to get much warmer

by SashaW

Updated Statistics Show the “Normal” US Climate is Getting Warmer
[Via Climate Central - News, Blogs & Features]

If Philadelphia has a run of abnormally hot weather this summer, it will be considered less unusual than it would have been a year ago. That’s because “normal” now has a new definition. A set of updated national climate averages due to be released this week shows that average summer temperatures in the city are nearly 2°F warmer than the benchmarks meteorologists have been citing for the past decade.

The updates come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which will impliment its new 30-year “Climate Normals” on July 1. When weather forecasters use terms like “above normal” or “below normal,” they’re referring to average temperatures and precipitation figures compiled from daily, monthly and yearly readings at thousands of locations across the country during the previous three decades. The normals that are about to expire are based on conditions from 1971–2000; the new ones start in 1981 — and unlike their predecessors, they include the first decade of the 21st century, which was among the hottest on record for the country (and was the hottest on record globally). They also exclude the 1970s, which was a particularly chilly decade in many areas. As a result, the new normal temperatures for Philadelphia and the rest of the nation are higher than the previous set.

[More]

So now you know how the average temperature is calculated. And every state in America is about to see the average temperature go up.

Winter temperatures showed more warming than the summer temperatures. Night temperature increased more than day time temperatures. Both bits of data that support human-caused climate change.

Just another indicator of how much warmer things are getting. And that we have a role.