March 2012: Earth's 16th warmest on record
March 2012 was the globe's 16th warmest March on record, but the coolest March since 1999, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). March 2012 was the 17th warmest on record, according to NASA. March 2012 global land temperatures were the 18th warmest on record, and ocean temperatures were the 14th warmest on record. The relatively cool global temperatures were due, in part, to the lingering effects of the La Niña event in the Eastern Pacific that is now ending. Global satellite-measured temperatures for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were near average, the 17th or 11th warmest in the 34-year record, according to Remote Sensing Systems and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). March temperatures in the stratosphere were the 1st or 2nd coldest on record. We expect cold temperatures there due to the greenhouse effect and to destruction of ozone due to CFC pollution. Northern Hemisphere snow cover during March was near average, ranking 23rd largest (24th smallest) in the 46-year record. Wunderground's weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, has a comprehensive post on the notable weather events of March in his March 2012 Global Weather Extremes Summary. Notably, Norway, Iceland, and Scotland all recorded their hottest March temperatures on record, and it was the warmest March in U.S. history. Portions of Italy received no measurable precipitation whatsoever, and for most of southern Europe, it was the driest March on record. In the U.K. it was the driest March since 1953.
Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for March 2012. The U.S. and Canada experienced the most extreme warmth of anywhere in the globe during March. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) .
La Niña conditions no longer present
La Niña conditions are no longer present in the equatorial Pacific, where sea surface temperatures were approximately 0.4°C below average during March and the the first half of April. The threshold for a La Niña is for these temperatures to be 0.5°C below average or cooler. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center forecasts that La Niña will be gone by the end of April. The majority of the El Niño computer models (48%) predict neutral conditions for this fall, during the August - September - October peak of hurricane season, though 35% of the models predict an El Niño will develop. El Niño conditions tend to decrease Atlantic hurricane activity, by increasing wind shear over the tropical Atlantic.
Figure 2. Ice age data show that first-year ice made up 75% of the Arctic sea ice cover this March. Thicker multi-year ice used to make up around a quarter of the Arctic sea ice cover. Now it constitutes only 2%. Image credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
March Arctic sea ice extent ninth lowest on record
Arctic sea ice extent was at its ninth lowest extent on record in March, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). This was the highest since 2008 and one of the highest March extents in the past decade. Ice extent as of April 23 was close to average, one of the few times during the past decade that has occurred. However, ice in the Arctic is increasingly young, thin ice, which will make it easy for this year's ice to melt away to near-record low levels this summer, if warmer than average weather occurs in the Arctic. During the 1980s, more than 20% of the Arctic ice was more than 4 years old; this March, that fraction was just 2%. Satellite sea ice records date back to 1979.
I'll have a new post by Friday.
Jeff Masters
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Happy to oblige. ;)
I'd say they will hold back on the watches. Not enough energy to break the CAP that is in place.
wow! Steaming down there
Corrections did have to be made... but it wasn't a matter of slowing or timing.
The lower the orbit, the faster a satellite has to travel so that its centifugal force can counterbalance the downward gravitational force. The satellites' orbits were speeding up due to orbital decay caused by collisions with the little amount of "air" up there.
(Hadda use scare quotes cuz the molecules and atoms and ions are so scarce in the extremely-near-vacuum of the thermosphere.)
Due to those collisions, the cameras have to be facing slightly backwards to minimize lens erosion and to prevent lens-heating from being an overly significant part of the captured heat-image.
Because the cameras are facing slightly backward, an increase in orbital speed causes a RedShift in the photons catching up with the camera from behind. ie Those photons appear to be coming from a cooler source than they actually are.
To correct for that illusion, the effect of DopplerShifting-due-to-orbital-decay had to be included in the calculations.
So some chappy called Donald Trump from the USA is saying that by installing wind turbines in Scotland it will ruin the tourist industry, of which he says in the interview, he is an expert.
He doesn't say as far as I can see, that he is an expert in power generation, global warming, or alternative energy suppliers but he did say wind turbines are harmful to tourism! Here's the link:-
http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/trump-wind-fa rms-destroying-tourism/2imd5p34
So, is it the sight of them, the noise of them, the existence of them, or just the fact that they produce non oil/nuclear based energy, that is the problem for tourists?
Sometimes news makes you THINK!
It's called the off-season. ;)
I'll guess that it depends on how sensitive the crops are to cold. Some crops might survive a freeze but not a hard freeze. Did a quick search on the definition of a hard freeze and it varies a bit. Wikipedia puts a hard freeze at 28F. Also saw this post listing 26F for one specific location (Mobile, Ala.).
Edit: I think of a freeze as being below 32F. If the temps would not damage anything because everything was frozen weeks ago, then there'd be no warning. Thank God that never happens where I'm at.
Bob Dylan! One of your lot from the States, said,
" Money doesn't talk, it Swears."
He says he's an expert on tourism. Of course he is pissed off. He spent a bunch of money to built a golf resort there. He's also an expert on bad hair.
Tough luck Donald, my vote is for the wind farms.
So, how ya doing Red....
It seems as if no one likes Donald Trump...whats up pedley?
And look at this impressive loop.
Yeah, quite impressive....just goes to show how lucky we were
I personally would say that this Trump chap hasn't got a hope in hell of convincing anybody north of Hadrian's wall that he knows what hes talking about!
After all he isn't one of them to start with and he hasn't got a an acceptable accent, added to that, even though in the video he appears to have a slightly ginger tinge to his hair, he isn't apparently 'kilted up,' I would give him less than a 1 % chance of developing into something significant given the amount of cash shear that the natives will be experiencing during the next few months, plus they wont like him anyway as he is a foreigner exploiting them.
I'm OK in Southern Spain where it is warm and pleasant, with a favorable breeze. We are all looking forward to the forthcoming drought and ecological disasters with the usual gusto.
The UK ( cold damp island,) is experiencing severe thunderstorms, with gales and torrential rains, so much for their Spring.
He's a Rich Pompous A$$.
Just sitting here waiting for the rain to commence. Supposed to be a 90% chance of it. I got 86F/21% humidity and no rain yet. This might be one of
our last rain chances of the year.
hi JFV welcome back you this dont get it dont you
if some one bannds you that dos not mean come back with other name any ways reported
hopefully you get some rain
With the exception of Wilma, Dean and Felix where the most impressive hurricanes I have ever witnessed. Proof that just because it doesn't hit the USA, that doesn't mean it's effects aren't widespread and devastating.
We get missed to the North alot. Storms usually come out of the NW or West. This one is being fed by Tropical moisture and it coming out of the South. Doesn't look like much. Time will tell.
you may want too some some in like that but other dont
Nigel,Puerto Rico was lucky even as Georges made landfall as a high end cat 2 because it could have been a cat 3 or higher and the damage would have been more extensive. As we know,Georges was a high end cat 4 just east of Guadeloupe,but weakened to cat 2 just before it crossed the Leewards.
*cough*
Does anybody have a link to SAB/TAFB? I lost it. :\
Yeah...you guys were quite lucky, as even as a cat 2 the damage was quite extensive in Puerto Rico
Agreed
Those were the days :/ and yes, that is me xD
Just Thunderstorms and Rain please, no severe weather or wind.
This will be in the vicinity on Saturday?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Antarctica's massive ice shelves are shrinking because they are being eaten away from below by warm water, a new study finds. That suggests that future sea levels could rise faster than many scientists have been predicting.
The western chunk of Antarctica is losing 23 feet of its floating ice sheet each year. Until now, scientists weren't exactly sure how it was happening and whether or how man-made global warming might be a factor. The answer, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is that climate change plays an indirect role — but one that has larger repercussions than if Antarctic ice were merely melting from warmer air.
Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey, said research using an ice-gazing NASA satellite showed that warmer air alone couldn't explain what was happening to Antarctica. A more detailed examination found a chain of events that explained the shrinking ice shelves.
Twenty ice shelves showed signs that they were melting from warm water below. Changes in wind currents pushed that relatively warmer water closer to and beneath the floating ice shelves. The wind change is likely caused by a combination of factors, including natural weather variation, the ozone hole and man-made greenhouse gases, Pritchard said in a phone interview.
As the floating ice shelves melt and thin, that in turn triggers snow and ice on land glaciers to slide down to the floating shelves and eventually into the sea, causing sea level rise, Pritchard said. Thicker floating ice shelves usually keep much of the land snow and ice from shedding to sea, but that's not happening now.
That whole process causes larger and faster sea level rise than simply warmer air melting snow on land-locked glaciers, Pritchard said.
"It means the ice sheets are highly sensitive to relatively subtle changes in climate through the effects of the wind," he said.
What's happening in Antarctica "may have already triggered a period of unstable glacier retreat," the study concludes. If the entire Western Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt — something that would take many decades if not centuries — scientists have estimated it would lift global sea levels by about 16 feet.
NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati, an expert in Earth's ice systems who wasn't involved in the research, said Pritchard's study "makes an important advance" and provides key information about how Antarctica will contribute to global sea level rise.
Another outside expert, Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said the paper will change the way scientists think about melt in Antarctica. Seeing more warm water encircling the continent, he worries that with "a further push from the wind" newer areas could start shrinking.
I don't know what happened to the waves over the FL east coast. They used to be humongous in the 90's but now they barely make a ripple!!! I've even heard of the Daytona Beach Rogue Wave!
More like Sunday/Monday.
Some people just have to get reality into perspective:-
This Trump Chappy has modified an almost insignificantly small part of the planet which spends a lot of its time as borderline tundra, in order that a few selected rich can hit small balls about with oddly shaped clubs!
Now from an extraterrestrials point of view, these ball knockers should be grateful that the general background populace have had the foresight to put up windmills in order that the future generations of ball knockers will not suffocate from heat and CO2 before they expire from alcholic poisoning after their pointless trudge to hole 19 as they call it.
With a bit of clever marketing the view of windmills could bring in 'green' golfers, who appreciate that humanity might have a "wind blown future?"
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