July 2015 was very likely Earth's hottest month on record
The
warmest year on record so far may have claimed another milestone, and
this time it's a big one.
According
to preliminary
data from
NASA along with information from the Japan
Meteorological Administration,
July 2015 was the warmest month on record since instrument
temperature records began in the late 1800s.
Research
using other data, such as tree rings, ice cores and coral formations
in the ocean, have shown that the Earth is now the warmest it has
been since
at least 4,000 years ago.
Global
average temperature anomalies for July 2015, according to NASA data.
IMAGE: NASA GISS
According
to NASA's data, which is subject to refinement in coming weeks and
months as more is analyzed, July 2015's average temperature nudged
past July 2011 by 0.02 degrees Celsius, or .036 degrees Fahrenheit.
Every
month this year has ranked in the top four warmest months, according
to NASA's data.
2015: Climate Change Goes Past Point Of No Return
A Rolling Stone article by Eric Holthaus has painted a grim picture of climate change in the world, stating that 2015 has seen a transition to the kind of grave environmental catastrophes that mark the beginning of the end for life on Earth. With climate change, sea levels, drought, and storms becoming more destructive than ever, and all indicators saying conditions will only deteriorate, we react to the story with Nik Zecevic and Jose Marcelino Ortiz on the Lip News.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/...
Signs Of Change 2015 Part 5 August | Flooded Inferno
Climate
Chaos : Climatologist warns of a Godzilla El Nino affecting Global
Weather (Aug 17, 2015)
Papua
New Guinea has been hit by the worst frost in over 40 years,
affecting 300,000 people, as El Nino continues to wreak havoc,
bringing drought and Tasmania-like temperatures to the normally
tropical region.
One of the world’s fastest melting glaciers may have just lost its biggest chunk of ice on record
While examining satellite images of Greenland’s massive Jakobshavn glacier over the weekend, members of the Arctic Sea Ice Forum noticed something odd: Between August 14 and August 16, it appeared as though a huge chunk of ice — which some guessed might be the largest ever observed — broke away from the glacier’s face.
Members
of the forum estimate that the total area of ice lost from the
edge of the glacier (that is, the area lost when looking at the
top surface of the glacier from above, using the satellite images)
was around 12.5 square kilometers, or nearly five square miles,
according to a post
on the Arctic Sea Ice Blog,
which is operated by ice enthusiast Neven Curlin. If correct, this
would be one of the largest such chunks of ice ever to split from
the glacier.
World on course to miss 2ºC climate goal despite new emissions pledges, study warns
New
LSE report shows current package of national GHG action plans still
insufficient to tackle climate change
The
greenhouse gas pledges countries have submitted in a bid to deliver a
new climate change treaty will not be enough to stop average global
temperatures passing the international target of two degrees of
warming, new analysis has warned today.
A
paper published by researchers at the London School of Economics
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change found the pledges made
by countries ahead of the Paris Summit through the UN's system of
Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) would reduce
emissions by about 10 billion tonnes by 2030 compared with a
business-as-usual scenario.
Lima
Summit: Late deal paves way for global round of national climate
action
The
paper analysed pledges from 46 countries and found they would lead to
annual global emissions of 56.9 billion to 59.1 billion tonnes of
carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2030.
Typhoon Atsani is now a super typhoon in the Pacific
Typhoon
Atsani — one of a pair of typhoons churning over open water in the
Pacific Ocean — has now intensified to a super typhoon. Atsani’s
new super typhoon status (meaning the storm has sustained winds of at
least 150 mph, or 130 knots) makes it the seventh Category 5
hurricane-equivalent storm that has formed on Earth so far this
year.
Currently,
the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) is predicting that Atsani
will move north toward Japan over the next week. The JTWC track also
has Atsani curving away from the country before making direct
landfall, though there is some uncertainty with that forecast. FULL
REPORT
Atlantic may see first 2015 hurricane as 'Danny' strengthens -U.S.
Tropical Storm Danny is on track to become the first hurricane of the 2015 Atlantic season by Friday and could approach the Caribbean islands by the late weekend, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday.
It is still too early to predict whether Danny, currently a tropical storm with winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour (85 kph), will impact the United States, said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the hurricane center in Miami.
Danny is the fourth named storm of what is expected to be a quieter-than-normal Atlantic hurricane season, he said.
Fire alert as Sweden sizzles in heatwave
Swedish
authorities issued a warning of forest fires on Wednesday across
large parts of the country as meteorologists predicted the current
summer heatwave should stick around until at least the weekend.
The
Swedish fire and rescue service issued a total ban on lighting fires
– including privately held barbecues – in several areas on
Wednesday, including the island of Gotland and Kalmar county in
southern Sweden.
“There
has been no precipitation and warm weather for a while now. (…) The
more it dries up the greater the risk [of fire],” said Leif
Sandahl, fire engineer at the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency
(Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap, MSB).
“You
should possibly even consider whether or not you should completely
refrain from lighting a fire or barbecue,” he added in a statement.
People
living in the Stockholm area were also advised to avoid lighting
fires, although an outright ban had not yet been announced by
Wednesday afternoon.
“Even
if the ground feels damp in the morning it is in fact extremely dry
right now. One should be wary of lighting any fires in the forest and
if you organize a barbecue, do it at home or at official barbecue
spots,” fire and rescue services control room officer Per Johansson
told the TT newswire.
According
to Swedish weather institute SMHI, the Blekinge, Västergötland and
Värmland regions, as well as eastern parts of southern and central
Sweden and along the northern coastline were also at risk of forest
fires.
“There
is a dominating high pressure front in all of Scandinavia and it
looks as though it is going to stick around over the weekend. Next
week the weather may shift, but it is difficult to say at the
moment,” said meteorologist Marcus Sjöstedt.
Although
forest fires are relatively rare in Sweden, Wednesday's warning comes
just over a year after one of the largest
blazes in modern times ripped
through Sala, north-west of Stockholm, forcing thousands to leave
their homes.
For
most Swedes, however, news of the ongoing warm weather will come as a
welcome relief as after weeks of rain an thunderstorms earlier this
summer, resulting in a much wetter
July than normal,
following the wettest
May in decades.
The hottest
day of the year was
at the start of July, with the Swedish weather agency issuing a
shortlived weather
warning,
calling on people to drink extra water and be on the lookout for
forest fires.
A strong link discovered between high wildfire risks in Amazon and devastating hurricanes across the North Atlantic coast
The team worked on years of historical storm and sea surface temperature (SST) data provided by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and fire data gathered by NASA satellites. A clear and strong pattern of progression over a few months was discovered to connect the warm waters in the tropical North Atlantic to a dry and fire-prone southern Amazon and more destructive hurricane landfalls in North and Central America.
Why parched California land is collapsing at rapid rate
Lobsters in New England shift north as ocean gets warmer; boom in the north, bust in the south
The lobster population has crashed to the lowest levels on record in southern New England while climbing to heights never before seen in the cold waters off Maine and other northern reaches — a geographic shift that scientists attribute in large part to the warming of the ocean.
The
trend is driving lobstermen in Connecticut and Rhode Island out of
business, ending a centuries-old way of life.
Methane Is Leaking From Natural Gas Processing Plants At Much Higher Rates Than Reported
Natural gas gathering and processing plants leak much more methane than producers have reported, and even more than the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated, according to a study released Tuesday.
Researchers at Colorado State University found that U.S. gathering and processing facilities — where natural gas from nearby wells is consolidated for distribution through pipelines — leak 2,421,000 metric tons of methane each year. The facilities emit 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas every year, roughly eight times the amount previously estimated by the EPA.
Gathering facilities “could be responsible for something like 30 percent of emissions for all natural gas production,” the study’s lead researcher, Anthony Marchese, said on a press call Tuesday.
Climate change refugees' plea to stay in NZ
Kiribati
has made an urgent appeal to the UN Security Council for help in
combating climate change.
A
family seeking to be the world's first climate change refugees are
pleading to be allowed to stay in New Zealand while the United
Nations considers their case.
Kiribati has made an urgent appeal to the UN Security Council for help in combating climate change.
A family seeking to be the world's first climate change refugees are pleading to be allowed to stay in New Zealand while the United Nations considers their case.
Idaho, Washington towns evacuated as worsening wildfire conditions anticipated
Firefighters braced Wednesday for high winds in the forecast through Friday that threatened to stoke wildfires burning across eastern Washington.
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for the eastern portion of the state from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 5 p.m. Friday. Winds were expected to increase to 20 mph by Wednesday afternoon.
Officials said temperatures will climb above 90 degrees and relative humidity will drop as low as 14 percent.
Wildfire claims apple packing plant
Wildfires that quickly grew out of control around Chelan, Wash., on Aug. 14 destroyed a major apple packing plant, homes and businesses.
Video: Alaska permafrost threatened by intense fires, rapid climate change
By Trevor Hughes
14 August 2015
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (USA TODAY) – One of the state’s worst wildfire seasons in history has scorched 5 million acres of tundra and forests across Alaska, and experts here fear climate change will cause even more devastating fires through a combination of lower snowpack, drying tundra and melting permafrost.
Like an insulating blanket, snow reduces fire risk by keeping trees and grasses cold and damp. If less snow accumulates, or worse, snow covers less of the state than normal, there will be nothing to stop the near-constant summer sun from drying out the tundra and the permafrost layer below it. Permafrost, which is mostly composed of organic material, burns easily once thawed and lightning strikes.
Anchorage, for example, had its least snowy winter on record, with just over two feet of snow, the National Weather Service reported.
“We’re looking at, potentially over time, more fires burning more area,” said Kent Slaughter, the manager of the federal Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska Fire Service.
From the U.S. Army’s Fort Wainwright, Slaughter commands an army of firefighters, smokejumpers, logistics experts, pilots and supply clerks to coordinate battles most residents of the Lower 48 don't know are even happening. At the height of the fire season in early July, Slaughter and his teams were battling two wildfires that were each nearly three times bigger than any blaze in the rest of the country.
“We weren’t able to respond to every fire in the way we normally would,” he said.
The number and size of the fires in the drought-parched West are pushing lawmakers to ask Congress to change the way it funds firefighting. This week, senators from Oregon and Idaho said they would propose bipartisan legislation that would allow firefighting agencies to use federal disaster funds to fight fires.
Such efforts have stalled in the past. But the severity of the fire season in Western states is setting off alarms.
For the first time in two years, the level of firefighting readiness was raised to a 5 on Thursday – the highest level possible. It’s only the fifth time in 10 years the level has been raised to the top, and puts additional firefighters and equipment on standby to help fight fire.
In some years, Alaska only sees about 1 million acres burn. Of the 6 million acres wildfires burned in the U.S. so far in 2015, 5.1 million acres have burned in Alaska, mostly in remote areas where they pose little immediate risk to homes, roads or oil infrastructure. […]
One of the jumpers who deployed on Aug. 4, Fort Collins, Colo., native Kael Donley, said his second year as a jumper has been challenging. This was Donley's fifth drop of the year, although one of his previous drops lasted 14 days as he parachuted in and then managed a large crew of ground-based firefighters who arrived later.
"It's been really busy, compared to last year," he said. "It's been pretty hot and dry. Usually our season is kind of on the way out a couple of weeks ago, so to still be getting fires, to have these large fires burning, has been unique." […]
“We really need to start considering the long-term implications of big fires that are being predicted," said Nicky Sundt, a former smokejumper turned climate change expert for the World Wildlife Fund. “In the Arctic, you have a lot of carbon locked up, and the fires will release that. We need to start thinking seriously about the carbon emissions from these fires.” [more]
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