13 July 2015, Climate News Network, Record torrential rainfall linked to warming climate: Scientists show that devastating increases in extreme rainfall over the last 30 years fit in with global temperature rise caused by greenhouse gases. If you think you’re getting an unusually hard soaking more often when you go out in the rain, you’re probably right. A team of scientists in Germany says record-breaking heavy rainfall has been increasing strikingly in the last 30 years as global temperatures increase. Before 1980, they say, the explanation was fluctuations in natural variability. But since then they have detected a clear upward trend in downpours that is consistent with a warming world. The scientists, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), report in the journal Climatic Change that this increase is to be expected with rising global temperatures, caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Read More here
Category Archives: Impacts Observed & Projected
1 July 2015, The Guardian, More evidence that global warming is intensifying extreme weather: A new study finds that global warming is causing weather whiplash. Just this week, a new article appeared in the journal Nature that provides more evidence of a connection between extreme weather and global warming. This falls on the heels of last week’s article which made a similar connection. So, what is new with the second paper? A lot. Extreme weather can be exacerbated by global warming either because the currents of atmosphere and oceans change, or it can be exacerbated through thermodynamics (the interaction of heat, energy, moisture, etc.). Last week’s study dealt with just the thermodynamics. This week’s study presents a method to deal with both. The authors, Daniel Horton, Noah Diffenbaugh and colleagues used a new technique to tease apart the complex influences of warming on changes to atmospheric circulation. Read More here
29 June 2015, Climate News Network, Stress on water resources threatens lives and livelihoods. Satellite data raises red-flag warning about the draining of underground aquifers to meet the demands of expanding populations. The planet’s great subterranean stores of water are running out – and nobody can be sure how much remains to supply billions of people in the future. Satellite instruments used to measure the flow from 37 underground aquifers between 2003 and 2013 have revealed that at least one-third of them were seriously stressed – with little or almost no natural replenishment. The research was conducted by scientists from California and the US space agency NASA, who report in the journal Water Resources Research that they used data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to calculate what is happening to aquifers. Read More here
26 June 2015, CBS, California drought fueling wildfire flames: California firefighters are battling a new wildfire. The Sterling fire broke out Thursday in the San Bernardino Mountains, where firefighters have been battling flames for over a week. It has already burned at least 100 acres. It’s one of the more than 2,500 fires that have broken out in California so far this year, and gusty winds and drought conditions are fueling the flames. New data show the drought is designated as “extreme” or “exceptional” in more than 70 percent of California. That gives firefighters a new obstacle this year: searching for water.
Flying over the parched hills of Southern California, it’s clear how four years of drought has taken its toll, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone. “Normally at this time of year, we’d be seeing green and wildflowers as far as we can see. But because of the drought, we’re seeing brown, dry fuel that has no moisture in it at all,” Orange County fire Capt. Dave Lopez said. Lopez pointed to hills where a small fire could quickly grow into an inferno. The landscape is so dry, fires burn hotter and spread faster, making early attack from the air essential. But just as the drought has made the landscape flammable, it’s also dried up many of the water sources firefighters depend on to do their job. Read More here