Globally, Last Month Was The Fourth Hottest July On Record

Globally, Last Month Was The Fourth Hottest July On Record

This July was the fourth-hottest July on record, and 2014 so far is tied for the third-hottest January-July period on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The rankings, which take into account average temperatures on land and ocean surfaces across the globe, come after a string of heat records from this spring and summer. NOAAranked June 2014 as the hottest June on record, with especially high ocean temperatures adding to the overall global heat, and May 2014 also ranked as the hottest May on record — the 39th consecutive May with warmer than average temperatures.


The Eastern half of the U.S. experienced lower-than-average temperatures this July, but the Western U.S. — along with much of the rest of the globe, was hotter than average. Warm temperatures in the Western U.S. combined with major drought in some places — California is in the midst of an extreme drought right now, and overall, the drought in the Western U.S.cost the U.S. $4 billion from January to May 2014.

Overall, July temperatures were 1.15°F above average for the globe. For comparison, the hottest July on record, which according to NOAA’s measurements occurred in 1998, had temperatures that were 1.31°F higher than average.

“Overall, 32 countries across every continent except Antarctica had at least one station reporting a record high temperature for July,” NOAA writes. “The United States and the Russian Federation each had several stations that reported record warm temperatures as well as several stations with record cold temperatures for the month. No other countries had stations that reported a record cold July temperature.”

This April also tied for the hottest April on record, with warm temperatures that are becoming common — according to NOAA, the last time the earth experienced a cooler-than-usual April was 1976. This April was also the first month in recorded history with carbon dioxide levels above 400 ppm. May and June continued that trend, with both months

This spring overall has also broken records — according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, this March-May period was the warmest ever recorded.

NOAA isn’t the only agency taking measurements of global temperatures, however, and rankings differ slightly from agency to agency. NASA’s temperature data ranked July 2014 as the 11th hottest on record, rather than the 4th.

This Is Why Canada and The West Are Burning - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal - AGU Blogosphere

This Is Why Canada and The West Are Burning - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal - AGU Blogosphere

Deep Cold: Interior and Northern Alaska Weather & Climate: June-July Anomalies

Deep Cold: Interior and Northern Alaska Weather & Climate: June-July Anomalies: Here's a graphical representation of the temperature and precipitation anomalies in the June-July period for 17 first order observing st...

California Has Hottest Start to Year While Midwest Chills | Climate Central

California Has Hottest Start to Year While Midwest Chills | Climate Central

Reaping the Whirlwind: Wildfire and Climate Change in the Western United States

Graphic: Public Health

Multiple metrics of climate change reveal unappreciated impacts on biodiversity

Multiple metrics of climate change reveal unappreciated impacts on biodiversity

Gail Wilson, 01 May 2014

A new study has shed fresh light on how climate change will affect global biodiversity by exploring different measurements of climate change together.

Scientists use climate change metrics, such as changes in seasonality or the emergence of new climates, to predict how climate change will impact biodiversity levels. These climate change metrics are typically studied in isolation, so it is difficult to accurately predict how changes in climate might impact levels of biodiversity.

For the very first time, a study published today in the journal Science has compared climate change metrics together, instead of in isolation, on a global scale, to look at how biodiversity will be impacted.

This unique comparison reveals that when multiple dimensions of climate change are studied together, different regions emerge as threatened by different aspects of climate change. For example, this new research predicts that tropical areas are set to experience novel climates, much hotter than today’s tropical climates, that are not currently experienced by species anywhere on Earth. Such climates are projected to affect up to 62 per cent of the world’s tropical areas.

Lead researcher Professor Miguel Araújo, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, said: “Polar regions have gained substantial attention because they are experiencing a very high temperature increase. Polar climates will shrink by up to 66% in area, providing reduced habitat for arctic and subarctic species, but climate change is more than melting ice. Warming in the tropics will create entirely novel climatic conditions, owing to increased temperatures. Whether species will be able to adapt to them is an open question. By building an overall picture of the likely changes in climate and the ways in which these changes will affect biodiversity, as we have in our new research, we can get a much more rounded insight into how the world’s species are likely to be affected.”

The researchers argue that understanding this contrasting, but complimentary, information is crucial to understanding the threats and opportunities for biodiversity. They hope this will ultimately improve natural resource management and conservation efforts.

The results published expose the complexities of climate change effects on biodiversity and the challenges in predicting and preserving natural ecosystems in a changing Earth.

To examine how changes in temperature and precipitation could impact the biological diversity of the planet, the scientists reviewed the most commonly used climate change metrics used in biodiversity assessments and applied them to 21st century climate projections using 15 climate change models used by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change). The scientists also present a conceptual framework that describes the links between climate change metrics, and their resulting climate change patterns, and expected threats and opportunities for biodiversity.

The study is the first to provide a detailed global overview of the threats and opportunities for biodiversity arising from different measurements of climate change. Raquel Garcia, the first author and a researcher from the CSIC National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and the University of Copenhagen, said: “Climate change can be measured in many more ways than is traditionally done in studies of climate change impacts on biodiversity. For example, we can measure whether extreme events will become more or less extreme, whether given climatic conditions will become more or less available, and how far climatic conditions will move from their current locations. When we compare this variety of measurements into the future, it becomes apparent that biodiversity will experience different climatic challenges in different regions. Extreme warming and drying events, for example, are projected to mainly affect the tropics, causing a severe threat for sensitive species. When we consider how far the current climatic conditions will move, the distance is greatest in some regions of cold and polar climates. Species in such regions will thus face greater difficulties in tracking the types of climates they have adapted to.”

The results of the study emphasise that there is not a ‘one size fits all’ way to address the impacts that climate change will have on levels of biodiversity. Professor Carsten Rahbek, co-author of the paper from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, said: “These results provide us with a much more nuanced picture of the implications of climate change for biodiversity. Although climate change is a global phenomenon, it is expressed in many different ways, varying from region to region and thus there is no single cure to apply to all areas.

“We need to consider the consequences according to the main regional effects. The good news is that the better we understand the implications of climate change, the better we can design management actions to preserve biodiversity and ecosystems,” concluded Professor Rahbek, who is also Director of the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen.

Professor Araújo who also holds a joint appointment with the CSIC National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and a temporary visiting appointment at the University of Copenhagen highlights why accurate predictions are crucial for responding to changes in biodiversity: “Scientists are still far from being able to accurately predict the impacts of global environmental changes on biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide. It is extremely difficult to predict the future effects of climate change on species and ecosystems because there are so many complex factors involved. This new research will help us to better understand the complexities of climate change and what climate change is likely to mean for biodiversity on our planet.”

The study is an outcome of an international collaboration involving theGrand Challenges in Ecosystems and Environment based at Imperial College London, the CSIC National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, and the Universities of Copenhagen, Évora, and Helsinki.

Climate change and health: Extreme heat a ‘silent’ killer

Climate change and health: Extreme heat a ‘silent’ killer
KAREN MCCOLL, Apr. 30 2014 The Globe and Mail

Julien Weber didn’t realize it was a “life or death” situation for his grandmother during the summer of 2003, when a severe, weeks-long heat wave swept through Europe. The 81-year-old lived alone in a small house in the Alsace region of France, where temperatures are not generally hot enough to warrant having air conditioning. Despite their invitations that she stay with them that summer, his grandmother chose to remain on her own. Had the family known that more than 35,000 people across Europe would perish from the heat, they might have insisted.

Before the heat wave, Weber’s grandmother was a “quick thinker,” he explained, but by the end of the summer, she was noticeably slower, sometimes taking 10 to 15 seconds to answer a question. She never regained her sharpness or her health.

In Toronto alone, an estimated 120 people a year die from extreme heat, which is known as a “silent” killer because it’s not a visible threat like fires and floods. Peter Berry, a senior policy analyst with Health Canada, says extreme heat is a “significant risk” to Canadians and especially to seniors, young children and people with chronic illness. Even healthy people can suffer from heat stroke, heat exhaustion, cramps and edema (swelling).

Heath Canada describes extreme heat as the potential for hot weather conditions to result in an unacceptable level of health effects, including increased mortality. Clean Air Partnership, a non-profit that addresses climate-change issues, says maximum temperatures in Toronto are expected to rise 7 C over the next 30 to 40 years and a fivefold increase in extreme heat events is predicted over the same time period.

“This is major,” said CAP deputy director Kevin Behan, adding that by 2040, Toronto may jump from having one heat wave every other year, on average, to two or three heat waves each year.

“Looking forward, everywhere is going to get hotter in Canada,” said Ewa Jackson, director of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, an organization that works with about 250 Canadian municipalities. “It’s just a matter of how much of that will be in the form of extreme heat – more intense heat for longer periods of time versus just average increases.”

In 2009, Health Canada worked with four pilot communities to develop heat-alert and response programs. Windsor, Ont., is expected to be particularly hard hit. Its program includes information about heat alerts and where people can access pools and public cooling centres. Karina Richters, the city’s environmental co-ordinator, said developing consistent heat-alert messaging with their Michigan neighbours was essential “because a lot of our population gets their weather information from the city of Detroit.”

A key aspect of extreme-heat planning is identifying vulnerable populations – older people, people in lower income groups who may not have the means to cool themselves and immigrant populations who may not understand English heat-alert messaging. Another critical component is vulnerability mapping – identifying areas that are most susceptible to the urban heat-island effect, the increase in temperature caused by concrete, building materials and a lack of vegetation. That information is then used to develop response plans and determine the locations of cooling centres.

But Jackson said adapting to extreme heat isn’t as simple as installing air conditioning in homes and public spaces. Too often, the way we respond to extreme heat actually increases our emissions, she says. “People turn on their air conditioners more and then you have brownouts. It’s a true Pandora’s box: It’s hot, but then all these other things could happen because it is hot.”

Of particular concern are people with mobility issues living in high-rises – what happens if the elevator stops working?

“If you’re living on the 20th floor and you’re an 80-year-old person … it’s a real difficulty,” she says. “You can’t pump water past the sixth floor of a high-rise if there’s an electrical failure. So people are stuck without water [and] it’s the middle of a heat wave.”

(During Toronto’s 2013 ice storm, thousands of homes and residential buildings lost power and some people were unable to leave their apartments due to mobility or other issues.)

Long-term care facilities have to take special precautions to protect their aging residents. Although many provinces have temperature-range guidelines for these facilities, with 22 C the most common cutoff point at which some kind of cooling protocol is required, there doesn’t appear to be a standardized, nationwide regulation on when air conditioning is required.

Donna Rubin of the Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes and Services for Seniors said most of their facilities have air conditioning, but there’s still a “chunk of homes” that do not, though they all have to have protocols for dealing with extreme heat.

While air conditioning, which increases greenhouse-gas emissions, may be a necessary short-term solution, long-term measures include increasing urban green spaces. Planting trees lessens the effects of climate warming and is also a way of dealing with extreme heat when it happens, Jackson explained. “I much prefer to stand in a park under a tree than in a parking lot if it’s really hot.”

Richters says the city of Windsor has identified urban “hot spots” and will prioritize tree planting in these areas. It is also looking at retrofitting buildings with white roofs that help reflect heat. Green roofs, though more expensive, are also being considered.

Peter Berry said Health Canada’s pilot program in Fredericton was completed and its project in Winnipeg and the Assiniboine region of Manitoba was adopted by the entire province. And, as Health Canada continues its work with provincial and local groups across the country, more municipalities are developing plans.

Vancouver moved to adopt extreme-heat measures in 2010 following the death of a homeless person from heat exhaustion, and Montreal developed its plan more than a decade ago. Toronto has completed vulnerability mapping but is still in the process of developing its response plan, due out in June.

Though ICLEI is working with Calgary on climate-change adaptation, Jackson says the city is still reeling from last June’s flood and planning for extreme heat isn’t a priority.

“The public is really reactive,” Jackson says. “Then a major weather event happens and suddenly everyone wants to know what the city is doing.”

Farmers Seeking Heat Relief Signal Brazil Climate Peril

Photographer: Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg

Farmers Seeking Heat Relief Signal Brazil Climate Peril
Raymond Colitt, April 17, 2014

Coffee beans for export in the Minas Gerais state in Brazil.

Brazil may see a mass migration of crops and farm workers from huge swaths of currently tillable lands to more temperate zones as global warming takes hold, according to leading climate experts in the country.

Longtime Brazilian climate researcher Hilton Silveira Pinto points to the drought that’s cutting grain and coffee output this year as an indicator that rising global temperatures may already be impacting the country’s crops.

“This is a taste of what is to come in the future,” said Pinto, a professor at the Center for Meteorological and Climate Research Applied to Agriculture at the University of Campinas.

A study co-authored by Pinto that looks at projected warming trends shows Brazil’s soybean production may drop by as much as 24 percent and wheat output as much as 41 percent by 2020 as climate change reduces areas where the crops can grow.

Because Brazil is increasingly helping to feed the world, the import of that isn’t just Brazil’s problem. The nation last year dethroned the U.S. as the world’s top soybean exporter -- it sold 41.9 million tons to Asia, Europe and the Middle East last season -- and has led the world in sugar and coffee production for more than a century. It also exports more beef and orange juice than any other nation on earth.

Agriculture accounts for 25 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product and more than one third of its annual exports. With its ample water resources and year-round temperate climate, Brazil has also attracted billions of dollars in agribusiness investments by opening vast tracts of tropical hinterland to farming and applying state-of-the-art technology to expand yields across all manner of crops.
Crop Losses

While the connection of warming to droughts and extreme weather is still being studied, there’s no doubt that warmer temperatures are affecting global crop output -- worldwide wheat yields are declining by about 2 percent a decade and those for maize by 1 percent, the United Nations said in a March 31 report.

Major grain producers in cooler climates such as Canada and Russia may fare better than Brazil as much of its tropical agriculture already operates at the upper limit of heat tolerance, said Eduardo Assad, a researcher at the government’s Embrapa agricultural technology agency who co-authored the study with Pinto.

In Brazil, heat and drought are already taking their toll. The worst dry spell in six decades is erasing an estimated 5 million metric tons from Brazil’s grain harvest this year, about the size of Egypt’s annual corn crop.

Unprecedented Temperatures

Hotter weather is already chasing some coffee production up to higher altitudes. Coffee growers in Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais states have been the hardest hit so far by drought and heat waves.

“If the unprecedented high temperatures we saw repeat themselves, we’d have a serious problem,” said Mauricio Miarelli, head of the Franca, Brazil-based growers association Cocapec.

Crop shifts may cause a mass migration of millions of rural workers, requiring major investments in infrastructure and logistics to accommodate them, according to Assad.

“Brazil’s agriculture will be rearranged,” he said. “Climate change is on our heels.”

‘Longer Droughts’

In the northeastern state of Bahia, three consecutive years of unusually intense drought that cut soybean output 16 percent in 2013 have triggered concern even among hardened farmers used to the harsh, semi-arid climate, said Jairo Vaz, the state agriculture secretary’s cabinet chief.

“Undeniably the droughts have become longer, more pronounced and temperatures have risen -- that hit our farmers hard,” Vaz said. The state’s 670,000 family farmers have lost roughly half of their livestock over the three years, he said.

Corn futures for July delivery declined 0.7 percent to $4.9975 a bushel at 10:38 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, while soybean fell 0.6 percent to $14.9925 a bushel.

About a dozen new varieties of beans and corn that are more resistant to extreme heat and dryness have shown promising results, Embrapa’s Assad said. Still, with Brazil growing 800 to 900 crops, progress in research and development has been too slow and investments too small, he said.

Other measures pursued by the government include promoting an integration of farming and forestry where shade from trees reduces temperatures and maintains humidity.

The technique known as agro-forestry lacks the scale to quickly transform the way soybeans and corn are grown in areas like Mato Grosso, a state twice the size of Germany covered with crops that stretch beyond the horizon.

Financial Interest

“You can’t apply this technology overnight,” Caio Rocha, Brazil’s secretary for agriculture policies, said in a phone interview. “We’ll have to show farmers that it’s in their financial interest to do so.”

The impact of global warming on Brazil’s agriculture is far from consensus. Donald Keeney, a meteorologist at MDA Weather Services in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is among meteorologists who expect precipitation in central and northeastern Brazil to decline, paring agricultural output -- while production should increase in areas closer to the poles.

Scott Yuknis, the lead forecaster with Climate Impact Co. in Middleboro, Massachusetts, doesn’t agree. He ascribes the drought in Brazil this year as part of the ocean temperature changes that induce cycles that last several decades.

While experts like Assad and Pinto agree with Secretary Rocha that Brazil may be able to offset part of climate change with new technology, they argue progress has been too slow and assumes temperatures will not rise more than 2 degrees on average by the end of this century.

“The world is failing to slow emissions, meaning temperatures may rise more than 2 degrees,” said Assad. “If that happens, science has no answers for impact mitigation, we’ll be in uncharted territory.”

Record Breaking Heat Waves Explained

The cause of recent Australian heat waves

Figure 1: Highest daily maximum temperatures during the first two weeks of January 2013. Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

The cause of recent Australian heat waves 

Australia started 2013 with a record-breaking heat wave. Much of the country experienced extremely high temperatures that lasted more than two weeks. The map below shows that over 70% of the continent recorded temperatures above 42°C, with temperatures exceeding 48°C at a number of locations. On 7 January 2013, Australia experienced its hottest day on record with a national average maximum temperature of 40.3°C.

The heat wave had significant impact on Australia’s health, roads and railway tracks, agriculture and the environment. The question that many people are asking is whether this level of extreme heat is linked to climate change. While Australia has always experienced heat waves, this particular event was very unusual as the extreme temperatures were widespread and persisted for a long time.

In New Zealand, the weather condition making the headlines in early 2013 was drought. Over the period January to March 2013 the North Island experienced an average of almost 80 days without rain, far more than ever recorded previously. The figure below illustrates the situation on 17 March 2013, approximately the peak of the drought. It shows the soil moisture deficit, (defined as incoming rainfall minus outgoing evapotranspiration). Red shading indicates the very driest areas – soil moisture deficits greater than 130mm.



Figure 2: Soil moisture deficit across New Zealand on 17 March 2013, probably the point in the drought when soils were at their driest. Circled areas indicate sample locations analysed in the NIWA (2013) report from which the figure is taken.

A warming climate can change the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme hot weather. The figure below shows this relationship for temperature. For drought, we might envisage an analogous picture but with an index that measures drought such as the total number of dry days in a given period.

When the average temperature is increased by a small amount, the effect on the tail ends of the temperature range (the ‘extremes’) is pronounced. This means that the likelihood of extreme cold weather goes down while the likelihood of extreme hot weather goes up. In addition, new record hot weather and heat waves occur after the shift in the climate to a warmer state.



Figure 3: The effect of changes in temperature distribution on extremes. Source: Australian Climate Commission (closed by the Australian government in October 2013)
It may never be possible to say that any specific extreme weather event was caused by human-induced climate change alone, in the sense that, without climate change, that event would not have happened. We can, however, ask the question how the odds of getting an extremely hot summer, or extremely severe drought, have changed due to man-made climate change: have past greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution “loaded the weather dice” towards (or perhaps even away from) events of this nature?

The challenge is that, on any measure, it appears these are relatively unusual events, however the dice have been loaded, and all experiments to date suggest that the impact of any loading will be subtle. So, in effect, we need to find out if we are getting “too many double-sixes” with the weather dice. The chance of a double six with a fair pair of dice is only one in thirty six, so to check if we are getting slightly too many of them, we need to roll the dice hundreds of times (unfortunately, for the weather dice, we can’t work out how the odds of a rare event have changed simply by looking at more frequent events, like a single six). So, in effect, to pin down the role of human influence on climate in 2013, we need to roll the weather dice again thousands of times.

Weather@home 2013: the cause of recent Australian heat waves

Inhuman climate: weather on Earth is increasingly unsuitable for human life

Inhuman climate: weather on Earth is increasingly unsuitable for human life
Natalya Kovalenko 23 October 2013 voiceofrussia.com
Over the last 30 years the number of people in Europe who die from abnormal heat or cold has grown
by several times. A similar situation is being found in other parts of the world. Any further climate
change would lead to an even higher death rate. Nature Climate Change magazine has published that
information based on research by Swedish scientists. A number of experts connect this tendency to
global warming. Others counter that point of view stating that modern human beings are worse
adapted to the environment and are becoming less adjusted to life.

The report was prepared based on European data. Since 1980 twice as many people died from
abnormal temperatures than in the previous 80 years. The situation is similar in other regions. People
in Asia, Africa and America are dying more often from extreme heat or cold. According to Eugeny
Tishkovets, a leading researcher at the Fobos Weather Center, the trend is connected to global climate
change.

"According to the data of climatologists, the last half a century has witnessed the most intensive rate
of temperature growth in the last 1,300 years. The temperature on the planet has gone up practically
by one degree and the temperature of the global ocean increased by .7 degrees, while the level of
water has risen by 22 cm, the permafrost zone has moved to the north at the rate of 1.5 km per year
and the area of sea ice has been reduced by three times over the last 50 years. The number of days
with abnormal hot temperatures has significantly gone up over the past half a century and the number
of extremely cold spells has significantly gone up as well. Such a climatic pendulum adversely affects
the people's health."

It seems that one degree Celsius is no big deal. But that is an average for the entire planet per year.
It real life it translates into a couple of weeks of abnormal heat in the summer and extreme cold in
winter – and tens of thousands of deaths from the rise of heart problems and other health problems in
that period of time. The statistics are scary. As a result of the terrible heat and drought in the summer
of 2010, 55 thousand people died in Russia. In 2003 similar weather was observed in Europe. Back
then the heat took over 70 thousand European lives. This past summer 60 thousand Japanese were
hospitalized with heat stroke; many of them did not survive.

One should not assume that in the past people did not react to weather anomalies. Even in ancient
scripts there are entries about the deathly effects of the sun. But in the past natural selection worked
better, thinks Alexey Kokorin, the director of the "Climate and Energy" program of the World Wild Life
Fund.

"In the past generations infant mortality was very high, as well as the mortality of older people. Now
these figures have decreased sharply. Based on that, we have a lot more elderly people and unhealthy
children, who are more sensitive to climate change. Roughly speaking, when the plague was rampant
in Europe, people did not care if they had a migraine during the sharp changes in the weather."

Civilization brought people the benefits of progress in medicine, but it spoils their health at the same
time. Even the air conditioning that saves lives also brings danger: by cooling down the room
temperature it takes out the hot air from the building into the street. There one can already find
heated concrete buildings, heated pavement, a huge number of cars and industrial enterprises. As a
result, in the summer, in closely built cities, night temperatures are not much lower than the day
temperatures. In addition, heat increases the effect of the poisonous emissions into the atmosphere.

People have an oxygen deficit, while global warming increases, points out Alexey Kokorin.
"The main factor of human influence on the climate is the increase in the greenhouse effect. It comes
primarily from burning extracted energy sources, such as coal, gas, oil and petroleum products.
Obviously, at some point humankind will switch over to the "green energy". Despite the fact that we
have plenty of coal, we find new deposits of gas all the time; it will be over in any case. But so far all is predetermined for the next 20-30 years. By decreasing the emissions and switching over to a "green
economy" today we are creating a head start for the 2040-2050s."

And until then, the sad trend will continue. Specialists believe that the death rate from weather
anomalies will increase in all regions of the world. But it will be most noticeable in the Southeast Asia, Western and Central Europe, the eastern part of South America and the South of Australia. In Russia the European part of the country, the Urals and Western Siberia are the most sensitive regions.