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).😉
Main Topic: Globally The Last Three Of The Last Five Julys Were The Hottest Julys On Record
Dear Diary. Around the first of each month Europe’s Copernicus organization determines how warm the planet was for the prior month. Apparently July 2020 was third warmest next to July 2019 and July 2016. Think about that for a moment. Three of the last hottest Julys on record have happened in the last five years. This can’t be a coincidence. Obviously in the Northern Hemisphere these record average temperatures have heightened heat waves and have played havoc in the Arctic.
For some detail on these hot Julys here is a recently published Reuters article:
ENVIRONMENT AUGUST 6, 2020 / 12:30 PM / 2 DAYS AGO
World’s three hottest Julys happened in the last five years
3 MIN READ
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Last month was the world’s third-hottest July on record, new data show — the latest milestone in a global warming trend that has seen the three hottest Julys within the last five years.
FILE PHOTO: People cool off at Nova Icaria beach, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Barcelona, Spain July 30, 2020. REUTERS/Albert Gea/File Photo
With the heat has come a high level of ice melt in the Arctic, where the extent of sea ice last month hit the lowest level for July since the polar satellite record-keeping began four decades ago, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The new findings come as France and Belgium brace for a possible weekend heat wave, while Italian roads near an Alpine glacier were closed amid warnings that high temperatures could cause ice to collapse.
“It’s not just a summer thing,” said Copernicus senior scientist Freja Vamborg. “It’s on a global scale, and all months are warming.”
Atmospheric temperature records dating back to the mid-19th century reveal the last five years to be the hottest yet. In terms of records for the month of July, only 2019 and 2016 were warmer than last month.
Last month, the U.S. states of New Mexico and Texas posted record highs. The Middle East also saw record heat, with Bahrain recording its hottest July since 1902.
Even above the waters of the northeastern Pacific Ocean, sea surface temperatures reached nearly 5 degrees Celsius above the 40-year average in some places, the data show.
In the Arctic, which has been warming at more than twice the global rate in recent decades, the expanse of sea ice shrank to its lowest level recorded for any July since 1979. The data service said satellite images reveal ice-free conditions “almost everywhere” along the Siberian coastline – a shipping route that, until a few years ago, could be crossed only with an ice-breaking vessel.
“It’s difficult to talk about average conditions in the Arctic,” where ice cover fluctuates from year to year, Vamborg said. “But this is a very, very clear downward trend over the last 40 years.”
The heat has also been linked with wildfires that have been scorching patches of Siberian forest and permafrost since mid-June. An image on Wednesday from a Copernicus satellite showed a massive smoke cloud over the remote Russian region.
Carbon monoxide levels over Siberia suggest the wildfires “really took off” in the last two years, said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at Copernicus tracking wildfire emissions. Meanwhile, the Siberian fires this year have already released roughly 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide — more than in any of the previous 17 years, he said.
Reporting by Kate Abnett; additional reporting by Antonio Denti; editing by Katy Daigle and Lisa Shumaker
Here is more climate and weather news from Saturday:
(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. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”