The Name of the Same is "Athena"

gt = sl - ro

One thing that the residents of New Jersey, Virginia, New York, as well as their bordering states, do not need is another storm coming down on them while they are recovering from the last one.

Nevertheless, a new storm is now in fact bearing down on those victims of the very recent Hurricane-Superstorm Sandy.

Fortunately, from what I can see, the officials in those areas are taking this new storm (which has a name) quite seriously, because they are preparing for it even though it is "tame" compared to Sandy.

To help with the new stormy climate the Weather Channel's new policy of naming winter storms has a purpose:

During the upcoming 2012-13 winter season The Weather Channel will name noteworthy winter storms. Our goal is to better communicate the threat and the timing of the significant impacts that accompany these events. The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.

Naming Winter Storms

Hurricanes and tropical storms have been given names since the 1940s. In the late 1800s, tropical systems near Australia were named as well. Weather systems, including winter storms, have been named in Europe since the 1950s.  Important dividends have resulted from attaching names to these storms:

• Naming a storm raises awareness.
• Attaching a name makes it much easier to follow a weather system’s progress.
• A storm with a name takes on a personality all its own, which adds to awareness.
• In today’s social media world, a name makes it much easier to reference in communication.
• A named storm is easier to remember and refer to in the future.

(Why We Now Name Winter Storms). The storm that is bearing down and threatening them with even more damage has been named Winter Storm Athena.

Why two hurricanes two years in a row, in that area, heaping repeated damages on those victims, why a follow up storm now, why the great drought in the mid-west, why great flooding one year - drought the next, and why widespread tornado out breaks like never before?

Regular readers know that we talked about our damaged global climate system recently (How Fifth Graders Analyze Hurricane Sandy).

Today, I want to explain how a Fifth Grader might choose to talk about the way the damage is being done to our global climate system, the system that makes all global and local weather around the Earth.

The simple formula we can use is:

gt = sl - ro

Where "gt" is the global temperature equilibrium, "sl" is sunlight energy coming from the Sun to then enter the Earth's climate system, that is to enter the atmosphere, and "ro" is the radiation of the Earth's heat back out into space.

If we use "100" as the amount of sunlight entering the system from the sun (sl = 100) and we also use "100" as the radiation back into space (ro = 100), we derive:

gt = 100 - 100
gt = 0

This tells us that under such conditions the Earth is balanced at zero, neither cooling nor warming, which is as it should be (stable).

However, if the "ro" is weakened to the value of "50" because the green house gas carbon dioxide stops heat from radiating back out into space, then we have a global warming scenario:

gt = 100 - 50
gt = 50

The global temperature equilibrium ("gt") is damaged when it is not at zero, so let's consider just how much it ("gt") is moving away from zero in our world today, due to the decreasing ability of "ro" (radiation of heat out into space):

"The total energy imbalance now [not enough heat radiating into space because of green house gases] is about .6 watt per square meter. That may not sound like much, but when added up over the whole world, it's enormous. It's about 20 times greater than the rate of energy used by all of humanity. It's equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day, 365 days per year. That is how much extra energy Earth is gaining each day. This imbalance means, if we want to stabilize climate, we must reduce CO2 ..."

(Mother Nature Is An International Woman, emphasis added). The global warming, which that condition of being out of equilibrium causes, will in turn eventually be detrimental to the global climate system, and the more that "gt" is out of equilibrium, the more the global climate system will change for the worse.

Fifth graders know that is where we are at the moment, and therefore Fifth Graders know that we must stop pumping green house gases into our atmosphere, because they prevent heat from properly escaping into space as it should.

Thus Irene, Sandy, and Athena, etc., show up in the global climate system as "climate change" to do great and repeated damage to our people and property.

The U.S. Military asked the National Academy of Scientists about the military's current climate change policies, and were told:

The Pentagon was warned ... to stand guard against “climate surprises” which could throw off its efforts to secure America’s future.

An expert report, prepared for the intelligence community by the National Academy of Sciences, warns that the security establishment is going to have start planning for natural disasters, sea-level rise, drought, epidemics and the other consequences of climate change.

The Pentagon already ranks climate change as a national security threat, putting US troops in danger around the world and adding fuel to existing conflicts. More than 30 US bases are threatened by sea level rise.

...

The military [#1 fossil fuel user] is also working to cut back on its fuel costs in an age of budget austerity, by installing solar arrays and wind turbines, and monitoring electricity use.

But Friday’s report suggests strategic planners are going to have make sweeping adjustments to their planning to take account of climate change over the next decade and beyond.

(U.S. Military Warned, emphasis added). Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has pointed out that the military is way ahead of the civilian nutjobs in congress who are climate change deniers (example Has The Navy Fallen For The Greatest Hoax?).

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