By Jeff Masters / Wunderground: May 2013 was the globe’s 3rd warmest May since records began in 1880, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). NASA rated it the 10th warmest May on record. The year-to-date period of January – May has been the 8th warmest such period on record. May 2013 global land…
The Independent – June 19, 2013: Bleak assessment of climate change means world was facing ‘a lot more unanticipated events’ Britain faces a wave of deadly new animal and plant diseases that threaten to wipe out crops and livestock as a direct result of global warming, the World Bank’s top agricultural expert has warned. The…
From last week Fort McMurray Flooding Emphasizes Tar Sands’ Threat to Mackenzie River Basin Desmog Blog – June 13, 2013: Record flooding in the heart of the Alberta tar sands dramatically illustrates their threat to Canada’s ‘Serengeti’, the Mackenzie River basin. Only days before this week’s flooding in Fort McMurray, a panel of international science…
PIK June 20, 2013: Day-to-day rainfall in India might become much more variable due to climate change – potentially putting millions of poor farmers and the country’s agricultural productivity at risk. The Indian monsoon is a complex system which is likely to change under future global warming. While it is in the very nature of…
South Asia will be among the regions hardest hit by climate change. Higher temperatures, more extreme weather, rising sea levels, increasing cyclonic activity in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, as well as floods in the region’s complex river systems will complicate existing development and poverty reduction initiatives. Coupled with high population density…
By Joe Romm / Climate Progress: New research finds that “unusual changes in atmospheric jet stream circulation caused the exceptional surface melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) in summer 2012.” Prof. Jennifer Francis tells me these changes are consistent with those caused by warming-driven “Arctic Amplification.” And that means GrIS may melt faster than…
Unusually high frequency points to human influence | NASA climatologist James Hansen made headlines during the US heatwave of 1988, declaring in testimony to Congress and during interviews on prime-time television that a build-up of greenhouse gases was increasing the probability of weather extremes. Now, as much of the United States sizzles through another torrid…
An analysis of a decade’s worth of tropical cyclones shows that when hurricanes blow over ocean regions swamped by fresh water, the conditions can unexpectedly intensify the storm. Although the probability that hurricanes will hit such conditions is small, ranging from 10 to 23 percent, the effect is potentially large: Hurricanes can become 50 percent…
Cyclones are key weather elements that make a major contribution to climate trends and variability, and that also bring intense high-frequency changes in wind, temperature and precipitation. Given the recent dramatic change of the Arctic climate, Arctic cyclone activity has attracted an increasing amount of attention. We investigated the Arctic cyclone activity in the context…
2008: West Nile virus (WNV), a flavivirus maintained in the bird-mosquito transmission cycle, first arrived in Canada in the summer of 2001. In 2003, due to growing concern about the impact of WNV in Canada, the Canadian Paediatric Society issued a Paediatric Infectious Disease Note followed by an Update in 2004 (1,2). The present Paediatric…
ClimateCrocks.com: Ok, let me apologize for the sound of my questions – I’m getting a second lavalier so that won’t happen again. That plus altitude induced hoarseness.
I was interviewing Richard Alley at a conference in Colorado last week. This is part of what he said. More later.
A global data set of fatalities from nonseismically triggered landslides that resulted in loss of life between A.D. 2004 and 2010 permits for the first time proper quantification of impacts and spatial distributions. Global loss of life from landslides is poorly quantified. A global data set of fatalities from non seismically triggered landslides that resulted…
Hurricanes, whose development tends to be inhibited by jet streams, may become more powerful and more frequent as the jet streams move away from the sub-tropical zones where hurricanes are born. Stanford, CA—The Earth’s jet streams, the high-altitude bands of fast winds that strongly influence the paths of storms and other weather systems, are shifting—possibly…
Hurricanes and Ozone June 11, 2005 Ozone levels drop when a hurricane is intensifying. Xiaolei Zou and Yonghui Wu, researchers at Florida State University found that variations of ozone levels from the surface to the upper atmosphere are closely related to the formation, intensification and movement of a hurricane. They studied ozone levels in 12 hurricanes…
The “Arctic Paradox” was coined during recent winters when speculations arose that the dramatic changes in the Arctic may be linked to severe snowstorms and cold temperatures in mid-latitudes, particularly along the U.S. east coast and in Europe. Recent studies have illuminated these linkages. Evidence is presented for a physical mechanism connecting Arctic Amplification —…
