It isn’t official yet, but 2014 appears to have been the hottest year on the world temperature record. In December, during the U.N. climate talks in Lima, Peru (COP20), the World Meteorological Organization announced in a provisional statement that this conclusion about 2014 weather and climate was virtually certain. WMO bases its report on datasets
Great Lakes waterspouts (NOAA file photo of Lake Huron) Very common over the warm water in September, when water temperatures peak after summer months and cooler air temps start moving in, Great Lakes waterspouts are cropping up early this year because of odd cool weather this July. (We won’t mention possible climate change links here.) A waterspout
Underwater habitat at Aquarius Reef Base (photo provided to Flickr courtesy of Stephen Frink, www.stephenfrink.com/) On July 2, 2014, ocean scientists who have spent the last 31 days living in an ocean-floor habitat 63 feet underwater will decompress and return to the surface. They’ve been down there on “Mission 31” intensively studying ocean acidification and climate
Fabien Cousteau, ocean explorer and grandson of famed Jacques-Yves Cousteau, began a historic subsea mission on Sunday. He’s studying ocean impacts of climate change (especially acidification, which occurs as the sea absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide), effects of plastic and other pollution on marine life, and overfishing of marine resources, which diminishes the ocean’s biodiversity. You
US “clean gas” wells in operation (Irekia-Eusko Jaurlaritza in blogs.lse.ac.uk) Turns out that just about everyone (including President Obama) has been hugely underestimating the methane pollution levels of so-called “clean gas.” The booming American economy now seems to come at a greater cost than we originally thought when we found out that natural gas produces
There are the good wildfires, and there are the bad. Unfortunately, the latter often overwhelm the beneficial ones. We’ll go on with stories from San Diego in a minute—it’s a long story of an actually short time—but here’s a word about the bright side first. Whoopi Goldberg had a thought that’s worth repeating: When you
Understanding the implications of climate change is a tricky business at best, as each year we see how far and wide it’s scope has grown as we continue researching: the further we study and investigate, the more we begin to realise just how little we know and how complex our planet’s climate really is. However,
[UPDATE: March 10, 2012; see below] Late yesterday morning, two massive X-class solare flares erupted form our sun’s surface. These are amongst the most powerful class of ‘solar storm’. One of these flares ranked an X 5.4 which makes it the most powerful flare so far this year, and one of the most powerful in
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) both released their final evaluations of global temperatures in 2011 yesterday. They provide two of the longest-standing and most reliable annual evaluations of the climate, using data from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and National Climatic Data Center
Not only was 2011 another active hurricane season – producing a total of 19 tropical storms – but it also broke the ‘hurricane amnesia’ and reminded residents in the Northeast of America that the too should be prepared. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a summary of the 2011 hurricane season which also served
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s latest analysis of global temperatures, October 2011 was the 8th warmest October ever recorded since 1880. NOAA’s National Climatic Data Centre provide a series of reports as part of their services to the government, business and community leaders, which have been helping everybody keep a track of
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration measures the direct climate influence of many greenhouse gasses through the Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, also known as the AGGI, and it showed that a rise in greenhouse gasses between 2009 and 2010. Started in 2004 the AGGI does not provide exact details as to what the temperature increases
October provided below-normal, above-normal and normal temperatures across the United States, as detailed as part of the monthly analysis provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. During the last month, a persistent upper-level weather pattern created below average temperatures throughout the southeast of the United States and above-normal temperatures throughout the vast majority of
‘Global warming is real’ says a new study released by researchers from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature group, which finds ‘reliable evidence’ of a global increase in the average land temperature of approximately 1°C since the mid-1950s.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its yearly Winter Outlook which tells of a second winter in a row which will be affected by La Niña which will bring continued drier and warmer than average weather in the Southern Plains and colder and wetter conditions in the Pacific Northwest.
Each spring the ozone hole which hovers over Antarctica reaches its maximum, and on September 12 it stretched some 10.05 million square miles, the ninth largest stretch on record. More specifically, above the South Pole, levels of ozone dropped to the 10th lowest in its 26 year record.
August was a month of extremes across the whole of our planet, with tornadoes, droughts and La Niña conditions reemerging despite having only disappeared a few months earlier. For a picture of much of what happened across the planet this past August, browse the image below provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
According to America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2011’s August was the eighth warmest since record keeping began back in 1880 and the period of June to August was the seventh warmest such period as well.
As climate experts had already predicted, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced that La Niña – which was the cause behind so much of the extreme weather towards the end of 2010 and into 2011 – has re-emerged in the Pacific Ocean and is expected to gradually strengthen and continue into the Northern Hemisphere’s winter.
Many of the leading climate services are predicting that La Niña return this winter, after a brief hiatus.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released this handy video on what to do so that you can survive a hurricane.
Planet Earth suffered its seventh warmest July since record keeping began back in 1880, and July’s Arctic sea ice extent was the smallest on record since records began in 1979.
A new study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) along East Coast communities in America has found that they may be at risk to higher sea levels accompanied by more destructive storm surges in future El Niño years.
Planet Earth suffered one of the warmest years on record, according to the 2010 State of the Climate Report which was published today.
America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center has predicted a below average pacific hurricane season, with an outlook that calls for a 70% probability of a below average season.
A Duke University led team of researchers has observed a “super-aggregation” of humpback whales feasting on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years, in Wilhelmina Bay, along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.
New research out of Australia has shown that oceanic wind speeds and wave heights have increased dramatically over the last twenty-five years. The results stem from the most comprehensive study of its kind ever undertaken, which looked at satellite data dating from 1985 to 2008.
NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite caught tornadoes in action as it flew over the state of Louisiana on March 5. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that seven tornadoes were spotted in Louisiana on that date. Those tornadoes caused at least 15 injuries and, tragically, one death when a tornado hit
I just wrote a few weeks ago on the possibility of coral reefs getting completely wiped out by 2100. Now, a couple recent research articles document the extensive damage to coral reefs around the world in 2010 alone, and it is pretty bad (understatement). Coral Bleaching in Caribbean Eli Kintisch of ScienceNOW writes: Scientists studying
Louisiana state and top scientists are actively brainstorming how they will stop the oil from destroying Barataria Bay, a huge estuary and major fishery in the southeastern part of Louisiana. Now officials are aggressively trying to carry out a plan they created two months ago to save the fragile ecosystems along the Louisiana coastline. The
