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Record warmth continues to bake US West
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on July 9th, 2015
Climate Central: The U.S. West is still baking. The temperatures for June are in and five Western states saw their warmest June ever (helping to make the month the second warmest June for the contiguous U.S.), and four continue to see their warmest year-to-date, just as 2015 hits the halfway mark.
In drought-plagued California, "we're beating the record set just last year' and "not by a razor thin margin,' Daniel Swain, a PhD student at Stanford University, said.
The huge area of considerable warmth in the...
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Record Warmth Continues to Bake U.S. West
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on July 8th, 2015
Climate Central: The U.S. West is still baking. The temperatures for June are in and five Western states saw their warmest June ever (helping to make the month the second warmest June for the contiguous U.S.), and four continue to see their warmest year-to-date, just as 2015 hits the halfway mark. In drought-plagued California, “we’re beating the record set just last year” and “not by a razor thin margin,” Daniel Swain, a PhD student at Stanford University, said. The huge area of considerable warmth in the Pacific...
Climate context for India deadly heat wave
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on June 4th, 2015
Climate Central: The broiling heat wave that suffocated parts of India with temperatures regularly above 110°F at the end of May -- and killed around 2,000 people in just a few days according to estimates -- has finally waned. But the deadly episode has focused world attention on the plight of vulnerable populations during such extreme events and raised questions about how to better prepare for such disasters when the climate could be tipping toward more of them.
While India is no stranger to heat waves this time...
Drought takes $2.7 billion toll California agriculture
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on June 3rd, 2015
Climate Central: The record-breaking drought in California — brought about by a severe lack of precipitation, especially mountain snows — has exacted a $2.7 billion toll on the state’s economy because of agricultural losses, researchers said Tuesday. During a briefing for the California Department of Food & Agriculture, scientists from the University of California, Davis, told officials that based on their preliminary research and modeling, the drought is resulting in a harder economic pinch this year than it was...
Are extreme blizzards the new normal?
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on January 27th, 2015
Climate Central: An intense nor’easter is blasting parts of New England with up to three feet of snow, along with strong winds and storm surge in coastal areas. It might seem strange to talk about a major winter storm in the context of a warming world, but as the climate changes, extreme snowfalls may become a bigger proportion of all snowstorms.
Simply put, the warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which can mean more snow as long as temperatures remain cold enough; average snow amounts are actually expected...
WMO Warns Lima Delegates 2014 May Be Hottest Year
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on December 3rd, 2014
Climate Central: As negotiators at the latest global climate meeting gather this week in Lima, Peru, to hammer out a new international agreement to limit emissions of the greenhouse gases fueling global warming, they are receiving a stark reminder of that warming.
Global annual average temperature anomalies (relative to the 1961-1990 average) for 1950-2013, based on an average of the three data sets from NASA, NOAA and the U.K. Met Office. The January-to-October average is shown for 2014. The colouring of the...
Lightning May Increase with Global Warming
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on November 13th, 2014
Climate Central: While severe weather like hurricanes and tornadoes typically only hit particular areas of the globe, lightning can strike anywhere. And it does, a lot. A bolt of lightning flashes through the sky and hits the ground somewhere around the world about 100 times every second. That's 8 million lightning strikes in a single day -- yes, you read that right: just one day.
Now, a new study finds that lightning strikes could flash through the sky even more often than that as the planet warms, at least over...
What Will Winter Hold for Drought-Plagued California?
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on October 23rd, 2014
Climate Central: California really needs this winter to be a wet one.
The state is now at the beginning of the fourth year of one if its worst droughts on record. The drought has been fueled by a spate of disappointing winter rainy seasons that have left meager snowpacks and diminished reservoir levels, combined with record-warm temperatures that have driven demand for the increasingly precious resource, and spurred a series of conservation measures around the state.
Shasta Lake, the largest manmade lake in...
What Global Warming Might Mean for Extreme Snowfalls
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on August 27th, 2014
Climate Central: So if the world is warming, that means winters should be less snowy, right? Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. OK, it's a lot more complicated.
Boston's North End neighborhood amid the snow drifts after a February 2013 blizzard.
While the average annual snowfall in most parts of the world is indeed expected to decline, the extreme snowfalls -- those that hit a place once every 10 or 20 years and can cause major headaches and economic impacts -- may decline at a slower rate, and could...
Humans to Blame for Much of Recent Glacier Melt
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on August 14th, 2014
Climate Central: From Alaska to the Alps, photos of today's diminished glaciers contrasted with grainy black-and-white images of their former, more massive states are some of the most widely used examples of the impact of human-caused climate change, with their melt threatening water supplies, enhancing sea level rise, and posing threats like floods from bursting glacial lakes.
"Everybody is using [these photos],' said Ben Marzeion, a climate scientist with the University of Innsbruck in Austria. "But nobody actually...