Climate Change and Extreme Weather: Prof. Jennifer Francis (2013)

Climate Change and Extreme Weather: Prof. Jennifer Francis (2013)
Published on Feb 17, 2013

Superb educational video summarizing climate change evidence through 2012. Click on blue time codes to advance to these topics:

Note: The original 112-minute conference video of Jennifer Francis's presentation is the official product of StormCenter Communications Inc. It is posted on their StormCenterInc youtube channel at http://youtu.be/xugAC7XGosM

Prof. Francis' talk was filmed at the 24th annual Glen Gerberg Weather and Climate Summit, held in Breckinridge (Colorado) January 2013. You can view all videos from that conference and download the ppt presentations athttp://www.stormcenter.com/wxcsummit/

ADVANCE TO TOPICS by clicking on the blue time codes below:

00:35 - Scientists and the public now link extreme weather events to CO2 rise.

07:19 - Overwhelming evidence that climate change is human-caused.

14:23 - "We have changed Mother Nature's deck of cards."

15:32 - Effects of increased CO2 levels on the Arctic: "Arctic Amplification."

23:49 - Understanding the jetstream. Note: A superb webpage (text) intro to the jet stream and how a warmer Arctic disrupts it is "A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream" athttp://www.skepticalscience.com/jetst...

24:44 - A warmer Arctic causes the jetstream to weaken and meander.

29:21 - The jetstream now "blocks" over Greenland in summer.

30:03 - Greenland ice melt is increasing.

30:55 - Examples of extreme weather events correlated with a weak, meandering jetstream.

34:53 - Superstorm Sandy's connection to a warming, melting Arctic.

37:18 - Summary and conclusions: "The public is listening now."

Note: This video is a composite of six excerpts drawn from the original, "Weather and Climate Summit - Day 3, Dr. Jennifer Francis" (published on Youtube 25 January 2013). Freelance youtuber Connie Barlow (aka "ghostsofevolution") produced this richly educational and illustrated video as a public service that is unaffiliated with the host organization (StormCenter Communications, Inc). Feel free to use or download this version for increasing public awareness of the fact and scale of ongoing climate change. Please credit "StormCenter Communications, Inc" as the original source of the full-length video, and reference their conference website: http://www.stormcenter.com/wxcsummit/

Two still photos were added into this new video version that did not also appear in the original video:

0:55 - image of 2012 Colorado wildfire, credit: ABCNews.com
1:03 - image of 2012 Phoenix dust storm credit: Associated Press

SUPPLEMENTAL VIDEO: Educators note that you can find an even more instructional video by Prof. Francis of the same material (and with even more charts, and of high resolution). She presented this 42-minute program as a webinar-skype on 30 Oct 2012 for an Arctic climate seminar at the University of Alaska (Fairbanks). Here is the webinar archive link:
http://ine.uaf.edu/accap/telecon_arch...
Then scroll down by date to her title, "Wacky Weather and Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice: Are They Connected?" I recommend, however, that students first watch the "Climate Change and Extreme Weather" video that I posted, as only this video lets the viewer actually see Dr. Francis presenting. The "Wacky Weather" video is entirely a slide show, with a few embedded videos. You never get to see Jennifer Francis, and you have to concentrate a lot more to follow along. But it is superb resource for in-classroom or home-study for college-level students.

NEW RESEARCH by J. Francis (and colleagues) on effects of winter sea ice loss in Arctic: Published 12 March 2013: "Cold winter extremes in northern continents linked to Arctic sea ice loss":http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8...

SUPERB PRIMER ON THE JETSTREAM:http://skepticalscience.com/jetstream...