How "over the top" is this year's #wildfire season across #Canada? The 13.7 million hectares burned (thus far) is seven times the 1980-22 median and is 56 percent higher than the previous highest seasonal total (1989)! That's WAAAY over the top. Data from Canadian Wildland Fire Information System. #Summer2023#CanadaWildfire
In case you were wondering, why yes, the world is still the warmest of record for this time of year, which has been the case almost every single day since early June. Graphic from U. Maine Climate Reanalyzer. #ClimateCrisis#ClimateChange#ClimateDiary#Climate
Near-global daily average ocean surface temperatures have been at record high levels since mid-March and are still remarkably high at the time of year when the global average #sst typically approaches the lowest levels of the year. Because water is so much more dense than air, this is so, so impactful for the entire Earth system and will reverberate for many months. Graphic courtesy Climate Reanalyzer/U. Maine. #Climate#ClimateChange#ClimateCrisis#Oceanography
Say goodnight: Tuesday saw the last sunset of the year at Ulġuniq (Wainright, Inupiat country), at 70.64ºN the second-most northerly community in Alaska. This FAA webcam image is from almost exactly solar noon, with the sun at its highest point in the sky for the day. Next sunrise will be on January 20, 2024. NWS automated wx station has not reported online for a month. #akwx#Arctic#Autumn2023 @Climatologist49@cinderbdt
By way of comparison our Sun set Nov 5 and will rise Feb 6. In reality about a week more on both sides but because of the topography that’s when the dates are in town.
Sea ice in October 2023 north of Alaska and the Russian far northeast coast was less extensive than last year and of course far below typical late 20th century typical levels. The Pacific side of the #Arctic is a very different place environmentally in the autumn than it was even 30 years ago. #akwx#Climate#Autumn2023 @Climatologist49@ZLabe
JFK Airport rainfall 9pm Thursday to 5pm EDT Friday 8.62 inches (218.9mm). That’s a new 24-hour rainfall record, and it’s still raining. Previous record 7.80 inches (198.1mm) August 14, 2011. #nywx@BakerRL75
@ai6yr@AlaskaWx Former Brooklyn sister told me she was glad she didn’t have to go to work in the flooding. I wouldn’t have attempted it. She now lives n CA and is happy to be out of it.
The warmest 12-months in millennia for the Earth as a whole is right now. For the Arctic though, the warmest 12-months was in 2016, with the post-2019 years notably less hot.
I explore the "where" and "why" in the latest Alaska and Arctic Climate newsletter. #akwx#Arctic#Climate#Alaska
Looking to learn more about the changing Arctic in an easy, self-paced course that is completely free? Then look no further than our "Climate Change in Arctic Environments" MOOC. Read more about it:
First snow of the autumn was Monday in Fairbanks. This makes 5 out of the past 6 autumns when the first snow (with or without any accumulation) has not come until October. First snow used to be sometimes in late Aug or early Sept, but that has only happened once since 1990. The typical date of first autumn snow nowadays is about 10 days later than than it was a century ago. #akwx#ClimateChange @CarrieinFbx@anisian@leepetersen
This Anchorage Daily News article may be paywalled, but if you can read this piece by Seth Kantner, please do. It speaks to my heart on how climate change is impacting our beloved #Alaska before our very eyes. For some of us of a certain age, solastalgia, the sadness and mourning for the environment we loved but that's been lost, is very real.
My family owns a cabin in the Wawona area. Spent so much time playing in the grooves and thickets. All of them are gone now, killed by climate change. Only the oldest trees have survived the years long droughts.
Manzanita is starting to grow. It didn't used to grow here, too high in elevation. It is now growing all over, along with oak. The pine forest is dying. It will become scrub land very quickly, as the older burn scars have become. Treeless, except for the dead skeletons still standing.
I don't have the deep connection with the land the author does, but I can feel the change too. It is heart breaking, what is being lost, what is burning. The pine forest feels empty and dry, ready to leave us at any moment.
The American Meteorological Society 2022 State of the Climate is out. Below is the link to the #Arctic Chapter.
"Rapid warming due to human-caused climate change is reshaping the Arctic…Observations over the past 40+ years show a transition to a
wetter Arctic, with seasonal shifts and widespread disturbances influencing the flora, fauna,
physical systems, and peoples of the Arctic." #akwx#Climate
PS: if you're like me, this pix, showing beautiful beadwork by Maggie Roach (Upper Tanana Dene) brings on powerful sensory memory: just looking at this triggers the vivid smell of smoked moose hide. @ScoterD @DinjiiZhuh
The sun is back at Noatak, Alaska (Inupiat county north of Kotzebue). Noatak sees nearly two weeks without a sunrise (this year Dec 15-27). Clear skies Saturday show the upper limb of the sun just visible on the southern horizon on this pix taken close to solar noon. At pix time a mild 12F (-11C) and north wind 15 mph. Image courtesy FAA. #akwx#winter#Arctic @Climatologist49
Honoring Indigenous People’s Day. Alaska and NW Canada’s First Nations peoples have been thriving here for millennia. There are place names that unambiguously refer to the landscape as it was 7 to 10 thousand years ago. Humbled to have lived for most of my life on the traditional and never ceded lands of the Tanana Dene. Dendeey S̲h̲uh Iin: Tsíná’ęę #Alaska#IndigenousPeoplesDay
Planet Earth was not only record warm July through September 2023 but was also unusually dry. Globally, this was the lowest July-September precipitation since 2000. #Australia and #Malaysia, #Brazil, eastern #Europe and parts of Africa standout as unusually dry. Southwest US and eastern Mediterranean well above average precipitation. Data from ERA5 courtesy of ECMWF/Copernicus. #Climate#ClimateMonitoring@ZLabe@Climatologist49
*Inadvertently attached wrong graphic. Now with correct graphic.