Tuesday September 15th… 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).😉
Main Topic: Climate Change Checklist For Tropical Systems
Dear Diary. We are now past the climatological peak of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, so it’s time to make an assessment of how organized tropical systems stack up to my climate change check list. I came up with this in 2017 when the truly eye opening hurricanes of Harvey, Irma and Maria took place:
Here are attributable climate change factors researchers are looking with any tropical cyclone:
1) Record strength per relatively high latitude (For example, if Florence had moved near Wilmington, NC or further north as a cat 4 this would have been the farthest north a cat 4 or higher system had made landfall in the U.S.)
2) Record or near record low pressure and corresponding record high sustained wind speed (Wilma from 2005 holds that record over the Atlantic Basin at 882 millibars.)
3) Longevity of maintaining a relatively high wind speed. (Irma set some records for this over the central Atlantic last year.)
4) Record rainfall after landfall (Harvey set many records for totals last year.)
5) Stalling, becoming trapped underneath a warm ridge either before or after landfall. (Harvey was the poster child for this effect.)
6) Record or near record rapid intensification
7) Record late or early season tropical cyclones for any given ocean basin
8) Record length of time a tropical system is able to maintain depression status or higher once moving inland
9) Forming over “odd” locations of an ocean basin not traditionally seeing tropical development
10) Seeing numerous simultaneous systems over the world’s oceans
So far, I can check off items 1 through 5. None of the hurricanes that have formed so far have exhibited high latitude, record low pressure, longevity at a high sustained wind speed, produced record rainfall, or stalled similar to that of Harvey or more recently Dorian in the Bahamas in 2019. Sally may produce record rainfall in the next day or two due to its slow speed by mid September standards, so researchers may point to its turtle-like nature for attribution.
As far as item 6 goes, we did see rapid intensification with Laura, but within historical precedents.
Per Item 7 we keep seeing record earliest alphabetical storms, so we can flag this item as attritubal to climate change.
No system yet has had a record existence over land, although Cristobal nearly had a record for moving farthest north and west into the Great Lakes area, which did raise a few eyebrows as far as item 8 goes.
No system has developed in an odd location, so we can check off number 9.
Bingo for item 10. As of September 14th the Atlantic Basin was teeming with activity, the most since 1971:
The 2020 season has acted much like that of 2005 since we are headed towards a list involving the Greek alphabet. This year’s Katrina, so far, was Laura, but that hurricane happened, fortunately, to make landfall in the relatively low populated area of Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Should any of my readers think if more climate change attritubal factors, please let me know and I will add them to the ten listed on this post. After Sally the U.S. may get a week or two break from tropical threats with typical fall weather settling into the eastern U.S.
Here is more information on the Sally. The most current and pressing news from Tuesday is at the top of this list:
Here is more information on the current western wildfires. The most current and pressing news from Tuesday is at the top of this list:
Here are some overseas “ET’s from Tuesday:
Here is more climate and weather news from Tuesday:
(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”