January brings record warmth to southern hemisphere

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Global land and sea surface temps tied with 1995 as ninth-warmest

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January 2013 marks the 335th month with global temps above average.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Southern hemisphere land areas reported their warmest January readings on record, including Australia, where January 2013 was the hottest month ever recorded, according to NOAA climate scientists, who released the global state of the climate report this week. A slide show from the presentation is online here.

The Southern Hemisphere was record warm over land for the second month in a row. Record high monthly temperatures were observed over northeastern Brazil, much of southern Africa, and northern and central Australia. No land areas in the Southern Hemisphere were cooler than average.

While some northern hemisphere land areas reported below-average temperatures for the month, global land and sea surface temperature averaged out to tie with 1995 as the ninth-warmest on record, at .97 degrees above the 20th century average of 53.6 degrees. Even with cooler than average readings in some parts of the northern hemisphere, the average temperature was still 1.48 degrees above average, the 21st-warmest January on record.

(more…)

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Climate: Study suggests recent West Antarctic glacier changes are nearly unprecedented

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Data to help refine sea level rise forecasts

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West Antarctica‘s Pine Island Glacier. Photo courtesy European Space Agency.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — After studying the paleoclimate record of West Antarctica, an international team of scientists say some of the recent observed changes in the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers may well be exceptional and are unlikely to have happened more than three or four times in the last 10,000 years.

Radiocarbon dates of tiny fossilized marine animals found in Antarctica’s seabed sediments offer new clues about the recent rapid ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and help scientists make better predictions about future sea-level rise.  This region of the icy continent is thought to be vulnerable to regional climate warming and changes in ocean circulation. (more…)

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2012 likely to end as one of the warmest year on record

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

World Meteorological Organization releases provisional annual climate statement to inform Doha talks

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A polar satellite view of Earth.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — 2012 will likely end up as one of the warmest years on record and will also go down in the history books as the year that Arctic sea ice extent dwindled to a new record low level, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which last week released its provisional annual statement on the state of the global climate within the framework of the COP 18 climate talks in Doha, Qatar.

The first nine months of 2012 were the ninth warmest January to October period since records began in 1850. The global land and ocean surface temperature for the period was 0.81 degrees above the 1961–1990 average, according to theWMO  statement.

Early in the year, a moderate to strong La Niña kept things from heating up too much, but when La Niña faded in the spring, parts of the globe heated up dramatically, including a large part of the U.S. which saw record heat waves from early spring through summer, including the warmest March on record in Colorado. The six-month average of May–October 2012 was among the four warmest such period on record. (more…)

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British Isles hit by strong, wintry blast

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Bob Berwyn

Only a few coastal areas of the UK and parts of Ireland are snow-free in this late November satellite image, courtesy the European Space Agency.

SUMMIT COUNTY — For the second year in a row, the British Isles are experiencing a spate of wintry weather that’s been uncommon in recent decades. The snowfall in late November and early December caused airport delays and highway gridlock, as heavy snowfall blanketed much of the region. Earth observation scientists at the University of Leicester have recorded stunning images of the UK’s winter landscape by orbiting satellites.

Leicester scientists have used two instruments, MERIS and AATSR, which have returned stunning images of a snow-bound UK from observations on November 29th and December 1.

In the MERIS images, the colour scale runs from white snow and clouds to green vegetation. In the AATSR images, the non-snow areas are coloured red to highlight differences to the white snow. The change in snow cover within two days is clearly visible.

The satellite images area part of a new exhibit at the London Science Museum, entitled ‘Atmosphere … exploring climate science’. The exhibition was formally opened by Prince Charles Dec. 3. (more…)

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