Climate normals and the Arctic is this week's topic for the Alaska and Arctic Climate Newsletter. What does "normal" even mean in a rapidly warming environment? Well, that probably depends on your perspective. #Arctic#ClimateChange @Climatologist49
Arctic 12-month running temperatures as the difference from the 1951-80 average, updated through April 2024. The 10-year smoothed average shows the long term trend, the 2-year average captures some of the short term variability. OISSTv2.1 courtesy of NOAA/PSL/ESRL
ERA5 courtesy of ECMWF/Copernicus. #Arctic#ClimateChange#Climate @Climatologist49
A sure sign that contemporary 30-year climate normals are not keeping up with the rate of Arctic change: only one year (2021) since the early 1990s has less than half of land area in the Arctic (north of 60ºN) had annual average temperature above “normal", and eight years more than 90 percent of Arctic Lands were warmer than “normal". In an unchanging climate, this would bounce around 50% each year. #Arctic#ClimateChange
H/T @Climatologist49
"The denial of entry reflects the authorities’ intensifying assault on human rights, months ahead of the country’s 2024 general elections, Human Rights Watch said."
I've never seen this version of this map rendering before, that attempts to show just how gigantic #Africa is as a continent, which the Mercator projection has conveniently minimized for way too long.