Tag Archives: Attribution

PLEA Network

20 March 2018, SMH, Turnbull knows better than to deny fire weather link to climate change. Raising the issue of the role of climate change in extreme weather events is always a delicate matter for families battling grief over lost homes and … Continue reading →

PLEA Network

18 March 2018, The New Yorker, Bomb Cyclones, Nor’easters, and the Messy Relationship Between Weather and Climate. After three frigid nor’easters in less than two weeks, even the most devout prophet of climate change could be forgiven for echoing the … Continue reading →

PLEA Network

11 January 2018, Arctic cause of loopier cold weather? A QUICK SUMMARY: The Science Linking Arctic Warming to This Crazy-Cold Winter: It’s well known that the rapidly warming Arctic is melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, and accelerating sea-level rise. But a growing body of research suggests, counter intuitively, that it could also be amplifying cold snaps, much like the brutal one now freezing the East Coast. ANOTHER VIEW: US cold snap was a freak of nature, quick analysis finds. The cold snap that gripped the East Coast and Midwest region was a rarity that bucks the warming trend, said researcher Claudia Tebaldi of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the private organization Climate Central.

PLEA Network

4 January 2018: The first complete temperature datasets for 2017 show that last year was the third in a row of exceptionally warm years, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) implemented by the European Weather Centre (ECMWF) can announce. One data set, produced by ECMWF, shows that the global average surface air temperature exceeded 14.7°C, making 2017:

  • about 0.1°C cooler than the warmest year on record, 2016, and warmer than the previous second warmest year, 2015
  • the warmest year on record not influenced by warming El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific
  • around 0.5°C warmer than the 1981–2010 climatological reference period
  • an estimated 1.2°C warmer than the pre-industrial value for the 18th century.

Comparable results have been obtained by C3S from a reanalysis dataset produced by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The method used to produce the datasets is to combine millions of meteorological and marine observations, including from satellites, with models to produce a complete reanalysis of the atmosphere. The combination of observations with models makes it possible to estimate temperatures at any time and in any place across the globe, even in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. The results support the provisional announcement by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) two months ago that 2017 was set to be among the three warmest years on record. Other datasets used in the WMO announcement, which are derived from monthly climatological data for a smaller number of long-term observing sites, are also expected to concur when they are released shortly. All datasets will contribute to the consolidated statement to be issued by WMO on 2017 temperatures. Read More here