Extreme Temperature Diary- May 14th, 2018/ Topic: Disturbing Images

Monday May 14th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😊. Here is today’s main climate change related topic:

Disturbing Images

As the old proverbial saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words. One of my first posts last year presented some relatively new pictograms showing the planet’s and U.S. warming trend. Over the weekend one of my followers showed me this series of images from Zack Labe:

Zack Labe‏Verified account @ZLabe

+ Graphic: http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/ …
+ Data: GISTEMP (@NASAGISS) https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

7:06 PM – 13 May 2018

In a nutshell these decadal images are the most profound yet that I have seen depicting the warming trend since 1900. Notice since 2000 the dark reds over the Arctic which are indicative of increasing anomalous warmth, more so than at lower latitudes. Truly the ice over Greenland is under siege from this warmth, so expect higher sea levels as a consequence later this century. Yes, this pictogram is alarming.

Here is a great set of national pictograms updated through 2017 from the National Center for Environmental Information:

This pictogram shows how annual extremes in maximum temperatures have been rising, particularly since 1990. Most of the time cooler than average conditions are represented by blue colors and hotter red. Most disturbng, 2016 had the highest values since 1910 from coast to coast, and that can readily be seen with just a glance at the maps. My friend Deke Arndt from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, who is in charge of disseminating climate reports at NCEI, can be quoted, “As far as temperatures go, and especially “extreme” temperatures go, minimum temperatures (a.k.a. “Tmin”, “morning lows”, “overnight lows”, etc.) are increasing more than maximum temperatures (a.k.a. “afternoon highs”). This last year was the 2nd warmest for the US overall, but the warmest for minimum temperatures. I like this composite map, which shows which parts of the US have had extremely warm Tmins since 1910. The last two or three decades have really seen an expansive growth of warm Tmin extremes (in red – extremely cool Tmins are in blue). If you have plants or livestock, you know what warm summer nights mean. If you don’t have A/C, it’s rough. If you *do* have A/C, it’s expensive.”

Here is the same pictogram for overnight lows:

One can definitely see a marked increase in temperature since 1980 from these images. I wonder what could be the cause?😉

Here is one last disturbing image from Alaska:

Rick Thoman‏ @AlaskaWx

Large area of open water in the Chukchi Sea near Alaska from the @NWSAlaska Sea Ice Program analysis. @NSIDC shows total Chukchi ice extent for May 13th is lowest in satellite era record: 755,000 km² would be the median extent June 15th. #akwx #Arctic @CinderBDT907 @lisashefguy

6:34 AM – 14 May 2018

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‏Verified account @NWSAtlanta

1:45 PM – 14 May 2018

I’ll add reports of any more ETs for today in the space below.

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The Climate Guy

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