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Follow @Uncle_Ernie How Hot Was It, Johnny? By Ernest Stewart "It was so hot today that Burger King was singing, "If you want it your way, cook it yourself.'" ~~~ Johnny Carson Not just in the US, or according to NASA, the U.K.-based Copernicus Climate Change Service, CCCS head Jean-Noel Thepaut said, "July 2016 was the warmest month of any in a data record that can be extended back to the nineteenth century, hot enough to fry an egg. Global temperature usually peaks in July, when the land masses of the northern hemisphere are on average at their warmest. It varies by more than 3 C over the course of each year. The largest recent deviation from this annual cycle occurred in February this year, but July was still more than 0.5 C warmer than the 1981-2010 average for the month. This made July 2016 the warmest month of any in a data record that can be extended back to the nineteenth century.Climate Central Andrea Thompson reports, "Every month so far this year has been record hot. In NASA's data, that streak goes back to October 2015, which was the first month in its data set that was more than 1C hotter than average." The year 2015 was declared the hottest on record; and scientists have said that 2016 will likely be even hotter; so I guess the climate deniers will claim this is just some statistical fluke, as the Earth is really getting colder. Can't you just hear that song and dance now? Meanwhile, a-way-up-north, July was the warmest month ever recorded in the state's largest city, viz., Anchorage. Temperatures from the southeastern portion of the state all the way up to the town of Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean broke records; the airport at Deadhorse hit a stunning 85 degrees. Rick Thoman, a climate science and services manager with the National Weather Service in Alaska, told the media that, "One of the drivers of the unusually warm temperatures across the state is abnormally warm sea surface temperatures. In the Bering Sea, especially south of St. Lawrence Island or so, they're really outrageously warm compared to normal." And just across the straight, in Siberia, thawing permafrost caused an anthrax outbreak that led to dozens of people being hospitalized and at least one child dying. Two thousand reindeer have been affected thus far; and the Russian government has airlifted several families out of the area. The cause of the outbreak? The thawing of a reindeer carcass that had been infected with anthrax decades in the past. This type of disease outbreak in the Arctic was previously the stuff of science fiction -- but no longer. Climate scientists fear it may well be a harbinger of things to come as the Arctic continues to warm at a record-breaking pace. Given there's no way to know what other kinds of deadly bacterium remain frozen in the Arctic's permafrost, we'll find out only as the ice melts the bacteria -- which will then re-animate as it did in Russia. Twenty years ago or so, the X-files did a show about a similar thing happening in Alaska; of course, the X-files had it as an ancient alien crash infecting everyone. I wonder what wonderful new diseases will spring forth with the melting ice and permafrost, don't you, America; you know you should care, right? A new disease that we have no immunity from could wipe us all out. Do you remember the so called "Spanish flu" of 1919 -- a flu that killed more people world-wide than all the sides of WWI! *****  02-24-1922 ~ 08-23-2016 Thanks for the film!  01-24-1927 ~ 08-25-2016 Thanks for the laughs! ***** We get by with a little help from our friends! So please help us if you can...? Donations ***** So how do you like Bush Lite so far? And more importantly, what are you planning on doing about it? Until the next time, Peace! (c) 2016 Ernest Stewart a.k.a. Uncle Ernie is an unabashed radical, author, stand-up comic, DJ, actor, political pundit and for 14 years was the managing editor and publisher of Issues & Alibis magazine. Visit me on Facebook. Follow me on Twitter. Email:uncle-ernie@issuesandalibis.org
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