Heat Records Climbing Around the World

Recent headlines at Jeff Masters Wunderblog have announced regularly:

Hong Kong Sets All-Time Heat Record

All-Time Record Heat Returns to Germany

All-time July National Heat Records Fall on Three Continents

Tokyo Heat Wave Lasted Eight Days, Doubling All-Time Record

June 2015: Earth’s Warmest June on Record

And the map says it all: the deeper red are all all-time records.

Here, in the Bay Area, the Rocky Fire near Clear Lake is finally under control, after burning through 70,000 acres, but this morning a sibling was born, the Jerusalem fire, already through some 3,000 acres.  Evacuations proceed apace.

And in Europe?  Try Spain for starters.  1,400 evacuated in the southwest, some 15,000 acres burned.

Meanwhile, not ONE of the GOP candidates for president believes any action is necessary.  Why? Because nothing out of the ordinary is happening….

High Heat and More of It — and More Insects, Fewer Trees

The term “extremely hot” means different things in different places … . A reading of 100°F is rare in Madison, Wis., but on the other hand, in Phoenix 100°F days are not rare at all. These days, 115°F is considered an extremely hot day there. The mercury matches or tops that scorching number only about once a summer; but by 2100, more than 53 are projected. By contrast, a generally cooler city like Madison gets about 10 days at or above 90°F each year, so the temperature threshold there is lower. By 2100, Madison is expecting more than 67 days of 90°F-plus temps.

The graphic shows your city’s extremely hot threshold: the number of days that temperature is matched/topped on average during the period 1986-2005, and the number times that temperature is expected to be reached/topped by 2050 and by 2100. This assumes there’s no significant cutback in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Hot and more of it…

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And it’s not just the maximum heat…

Phoenix set a record high temperature of 115°F at 1:32p.m. on Thursday afternoon. Then, 43 minutes later, it set another as the temperature gauge at Sky Harbor International crept up again to 116.

Yuma, Arizona tied its record high of 117 for this date, and nearby Tacna hit 120.

Arizona hasn’t just been suffering high maximum temperatures — it’s the high minimum temperatures too. Thursday set a record high minimum temperature of 93, up from the previous record of 90 set back in 2006. “We have not dropped below the 90 degree mark since Tuesday morning, if you can believe that,” said Dr. Matt Pace of Phoenix’s NBC 12 News.

“More people die from heat than any other weather event,” Dr. Bob England, director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, told the Arizona Republic.

Think Progress

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And if the heat isn’t enough there are the insects…

New research from North Carolina State University shows that urban “heat islands” are slowly killing red maples in the southeastern United States. One factor is that researchers have found warmer temperatures increase the number of young produced by the gloomy scale insect — a significant tree pest — by 300 percent, which in turn leads to 200 times more adult gloomy scales on urban trees.

Gloomy Scale

“We’d been seeing higher numbers of plant-eating insects like the gloomy scale in cities, and now we know why,” says Adam Dale, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of two papers describing the work. “These findings also raise concerns about potential pest outbreaks as temperatures increase due to global climate change.”

Gloomy scales suck sap from trees, removing nutrients and energy. This reduces tree growth and can eventually kill trees.

Science Daily

Deluge North and South

In Toronto, Canada

A dramatic night of storms in Toronto on Wednesday flooded subway stations, turned a major freeway into a river and knocked out power to thousands of people.

On Wednesday, Environment Canada issued a special weather warning for heavy rain in Toronto Wednesday evening. Some parts of the city received nearly three inches of rain in just three hours.

Dozens of people had to be rescued from their cars as water lapped at windows

In Recife, Brasil

“Just hours before the highly anticipated World Cup match-up between the U.S. and Germany is scheduled to begin, the host city of Recife, Brazil has been slammed by torrential rains.

“CNN reported that around 2.9 inches of rain has already fallen. It has been raining for the last 24 hours and it is expected to continue raining throughout the day. FIFA officials examined the pitch this morning and determined the game can go ahead as planned. The pitch is reportedly soft, but playable.

…While deadly flooding happens in Brazil almost every year, the timing of these deluges is bizarre. Flooding mostly occurs in Brazil during the summer rainy season. Brazil’s winter months, May to August, are usually mostly dry.

Did I miss something?  Was this reported during the lead up to, or during, the game?

Just Another Warning, Among Thousands

May 2014 was Earth’s warmest May since records began in 1880, beating the record set in 2010, 

‘According to wunderground’s weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, in his May 2014 Global Weather Extremes Summary, an amazing heat wave occurred in China, Japan, and the Koreas the last week of May. Beijing saw its warmest May temperature on record with a 41.1°C (106.0°F) reading on May 30th, and all-time national heat records for the month of May were set for South Korea and China. A remarkable heat wave along the Baltic Sea broke the all time May heat record for Estonia (33.1°C/91.6°F at Kunda on May 19th) and at St. Petersburg, Russia with 33.0°C (91.4°F), also on May 19th. Gambia tied its all-time national heat record (for any month) on May 4th when the temperature rose to 45.5°C (113.9°F) at Kaur. 

And if that’s too far from home for you,

All-time June 24-hour Precipitation Record Broken in Savannah, Georgia

Record Rainfall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Violent Thunderstorms Get More Violent

News from Arkansas, Mississippi and western Tennessee has been bad for folks there.  Thirteen dead is the count for Monday, and the total for several days at twenty-nine.  Houses, whole town smashed, cars hurled through the air, normal defenses not good enough.

Damage in Tupelo, MS

Though nobody wants to talk about climate change in conjunction with this outbreak, it is at least worth watching the patterns of such events.  Getting bigger, smaller?  Wider? Shorter? The news is not promising. Here are graphs of mean path length and width — both of which have been increasing.

The losses due to extreme thunderstorms, of which tornadoes are one kind, have increased by seven fold since 1980.

I’d say the ‘pay attention’ needle is quivering at top speed now.