Wednesday June 19th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog 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).😉
For The Summer Solstice #MetsUnite For The Climate
Summer officially starts in the Northern Hemisphere on Friday the 21st. Residents are beginning to dread the possibility of deadly heat during the summer as of 2019, especially after what happened last year in Europe and the western U.S. We will report any extreme heat this year, of course. The solstice this year also marks the second anniversary of #MetsUnite in which meteorologists show climate strikes depicting the planet’s warming trend. What better time of the year than the beginning of summer to show unification of those on the front line of weather and climate.
I sure wish that meteorologists had united with climatologists in unison to warn folks of the dangers of carbon pollution back in the 1980s and 1990s when I was becoming very concerned about the problem at The Weather Channel. On air mets failed to warn people about the coming climate problem, becoming stubbornly adamant in some instances on unscientifically grounded positions. For various reasons most meteorologists did not believe what climatologists were telling them before the turn of the century. Well, better late than never. Most on camera mets and those within the National Weather Service have come to believe the science in the 2010s and are beginning to educate the public on the changing, warming climate.
Climate Central has come up with an article explaining what #MetsUnite represents. Take a look:
Friday marks the summer solstice — and with it, the second year of #MetsUnite. Last June, more than 100 meteorologists across the planet took part in sending a united message on climate change. Sporting the now-iconic “warming stripes” pattern on items like neckties and necklaces, they communicated a clear concept — Earth’s warming is accelerating fast!
This year, Climate Central and scientist Ed Hawkins have expanded on the original blue-to-red visual. Each stripe represents a yearly temperature anomaly, trending red-hot towards the data’s end in 2018. These “warming stripes” are now available for 160 of our 244 regularly analyzed cities. For cities that lacked a sufficient period of record, graphics for U.S. states are also available. Most places depict a clear warming trend, especially in the Southwest, Northeast, and Alaska — in line with our previous analysis of the fastest-warming cities and states.
Warming provokes a wide range of climate impacts, both local and global. It’s already increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather, harming health, stressing food and water supplies, shifting seasons and ecosystems, elevating sea levels, damaging infrastructure and economies, and threatening ways of life. Curbing these hazards may be the greatest challenge of our time, but mitigating solutions exist from renewable energy to cleaner transportation and agriculture.
Talking about climate change can help, too. About two of three Americans are interested in learning more about climate change, but fewer than half think it will harm them personally. Meteorologists are uniquely positioned to improve viewers’ understanding.
Here’s how you can get involved on Friday, June 21:
- Download and display your area’s “warming stripes” on air and/or social media with a message about climate change in your community — from impacts to solutions. Use the hashtags #MetsUnite and #ShowYourStripes.
- Update your social accounts with “warming stripes” graphics including a Facebook camera filter, a Facebook profile image frame, and cover photos for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
- If you’d like to join your fellow meteorologists in showing “warming stripes” ties, earrings, coffee mugs, and more on air, click here to purchase a stripes item.
- Explore this interactive developed by Jared Rennie from North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, showing your warming stripes down to the county level.
- For more information on the “Show Your Stripes” initiative, visit https://showyourstripes.info/ (international stripes) or MetsUnite.com
METHODOLOGY
Stripes for stations and states are based on the anomaly from the 20th century average. For a subset of locations where there was no data until after 1901, the anomaly is based on the oldest 100-year average available for that city. Stations with less than 100 years of data were not included. Station data was obtained from the Applied Climate Information System and state data was obtained from NOAA/NCEI Climate at a Glance.
Show Your Stripes
Join your fellow TV weather presenters on June 21, 2019 as #MetsUnite to #ShowYourStripes!
Many of you remember last June when hundreds of TV meteorologists from all around the planet took part in #MetsUnite to send a united message on climate change – Earth’s warming is accelerating fast! This year, we hope even more of you will join in. There are many ways to participate below:
Download Your City or State Warming Stripes
Download and display your city and/or state’s warming stripes on on June 21 for TV and/or social media with a message about how the climate is changing in your local area. Use the hashtags #MetsUnite and #ShowYourStripes.
Order Your Own Stripes Gear to Wear & Share
Get ready to #ShowYourStripes on air! Stripes items are available for purchase including ties, coffee mugs, pins, scarves, flip-flops, notebooks, towels, jewelry and eco-friendly water bottles – and more! (this effort is not generating revenue for Climate Central)
Start a Conversation with the Warming Stripes
Update your social accounts to #ShowYourStripes with ready-to-use graphics including a Facebook frame for your profile image, a Facebook camera filter, cover photos for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
The international set of images can be found here: http://showyourstripes.info The stripes set of visualisations is intended to highlight how we have witnessed temperatures change across the globe over the past century or more. The color of each stripe represents the temperature of a single year, ordered from the earliest available data at each location to now.
The Climate Guy will be show his stripes on social media Friday. I hope to report on this big day for meteorologists, adding news media and tidbits in the News section of this blog. Speaking of that:
Here is more climate and weather news from Wednesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article.)
Here is the direct link to the above article:
http://climatestate.com/2019/06/19/new-mechanism-for-methane-hydrate-dissociation/
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Guy Walton- “The Climate Guy”