"Adaptation" is the buzzword in the climate change world, along with "mitigation." Even if we were to stop emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, temps would continue to rise for decades. And of course we're not going to do that.
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Yes.
Continually rising temperatures - even if new C02 emissions were eliminated today - are caused by atmospheric and thermal inertia. Because of this inertia, we are in for significant changes and must prepare even while we struggle to reduce carbon inputs.
Thermal inertia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volumetric_heat_capacity>
Hopefully, "adaptation"'s current vogue as a climate change buzzword will prevent a replay of the sort of onlist hyperventilating that happened the last time I mentioned this topic (i.e., infrastructure retrofit).
As I remember, I was accused of not caring about the future and having a cavalier attitude about the situation today's children will face in decades to come.
Spectacularly wrong and head throbbingly annoying.
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Robert Wrubel wrote:
New Yorkers never seem to be happy with the weather. Hasnt the East been in a drought for the last few/couple of years?
And F replied:
No rain except for occasional deluges is characteristic of deserts.
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Andy's observation is important and bears both repetition and amplification.
The ideal rain pattern is a steady, gentle downpour spread out over several days. If you're experiencing drought conditions and pray for rain, a torrential burst is not an answer to your prayer. (Think farmer whose fields go from parched to flooded to parched again; not a good growing environment).
To the extent we move from reasonably predictable patterns of rainfall to these sudden, violent explosions of rain we're migrating from temperate to extreme conditions.
.d.