Climate

From NOAA’s Global Climate Report – November 2020: The combined global average temperature over the land and ocean surfaces for November 2020 was 0.97°C (1.75°F) above the 20th century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F). This was the second warmest November in the 141-year global record, behind the record warm November set …

The climate.gov article A warm pool in the Indo-Pacific Ocean has almost doubled in size, changing global rainfall patterns by Alison Stevens (12/3/2020) is your primer on the Indo-Pacific warm pool. Due to human-caused climate change, our planet’s ocean has been heating up at a rate of 0.06 degrees C (0.11 …

This is not my typical post with charts, graphs, and data, but as a fan of both wood and boats the BBC article The futuristic cargo ship made of wood by Jocelyn Timperley (11/17/2020) is one I had to share. In a small, rustic shipyard on the Pacific coast of …

From the NOAA Global Climate Report – October 2020: The October 2020 global land and ocean surface temperature was the fourth highest for October since global records began in 1880 at 0.85°C (1.53°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F). Only Octobers of 2015 (+1.03°C / +1.85°F), 2019 (+0.95°C …

NASA’s Vital Signs of the Planet article Beating Back the Tides by Jenny Marder (11/11/2020) provides an update on the increasing frequency of high tides (see the graph copied here for one example). Between 2000 and 2015, high-tide flooding in the U.S. doubled from an average of three days per …

From NASA’s Vital Signs of the Planet feature Greenland’s Retreating Glaciers Could Impact Local Ecology (10/27/2020): A new study of Greenland’s shrinking ice sheet reveals that many of the island’s glaciers are not only retreating, but are also undergoing other physical changes. Some of those changes are causing the rerouting …

From the NOAA Global Climate Report – September 2020: Averaged as a whole, the September 2020 global land and ocean surface temperature was the highest for September in the 141-year record at 0.97°C (1.75°F) above the 20th century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F). This value surpassed the previous record set in …

Climate Central provides some graphs and facts related to hurricanes in their article Stronger Hurricanes (9/23/2020).  The graph shows the trend in Atlantic water temperature and here are the related key concepts from the article: Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, known as the Main Development Region for tropical …

The climate.gov article 2020 Arctic sea ice minimum second lowest on record by Michon Scott (9/21/2020) reports: On September 15, 2020, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) announced, Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its annual minimum extent. At 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers), this …

From the NOAA Global Climate Report – August 2020: Averaged as a whole, the August 2020 global land and ocean surface temperature was 0.94°C (1.69°F) above average and the second highest August temperature since global records began in 1880. Only August 2016 was warmer with a temperature departure from average of +0.98°C …