chubbs

Below is good link for US flood risk info. FEMA risk # need an update https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/07/30-great-tools-to-determine-your-flood-risk-in-the-u-s/

The steadily increasing trend in your model indicates you may be right about the current model forecast underestimating the mean. Not surprising that the model has erred low. We've never had a year separate from the others in summer like this one, so hard to forecast this year from past behavior. If the current separation vs existing records holds through the rest of the year, then your model will be low. We'll see.

Another way of looking at it. 2015 is the enso analog to this year but 2015 had somewhat higher oni. UAH averaged 0.14 in 2015. This year is averaging 0.31, but should end up near or above the 0.39 record; which mplies strong warming over the past 8 years.

UAH needs to average 0.55 for the rest of the year to break 2016's record. Doable considering higher values in the past 2 months, and the strengthening nino. Would expect uah to peak early in 2024. UAH temperatures are recovering to record levels much faster after the 2016 compared to the 1998 nino peak. Either warming is accelerating or UAH has changed or both.

An early look at August climate station data that feeds GISS and other analysis (uses a 1961 to 1990 baseline). Blue crosses are stations. A good portion US was relatively cool.

Another month, another tic higher. 2009+2015 peaked close to the oni peak in dec/jan.

Dr. Otto usually chooses her words carefully. Googled "Pyrocene" - the term was coined by fire expert Steven Pyne in 2015. Below is a link to his website which has info on his publications. https://www.stephenpyne.com/bio.htm Below is a good blog article on Canadian fires and climate change. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/canadian-wildfires-and-climate-change Finally believe that the CO2 emissions from forest fires are included in carbon cycle models but don't know the details. Would guess that uncertainty in future wildfire CO2 and CH4 emissions is large.

SST progression in 2015. If this year behaves similarly, would expect SST anomaly to peak near the end of the year. If so the Jan---->Dec SST anomaly increase this year would be roughly 2X 2015.

July SST 2023 minus 2022, this year's increase in global SST is mainly due to enso. Note that warming is particularly strong in the 1,2 region and extensive in the eastern Pacific over a broad latitude range from Chile to Mexico, particularly in the S Hemi. The tropical and subtropical E Pac has a large positive feedback to ocean warming due to reduced cloud cover and stability (see slide posted above). Timing of the SST rise this year also argues for enso being the heavy hitter in warming SST, that and the large forcing imbalance which built up under the long period of nina conditions.

Another Greenland blocking event forecast for this week. Could produce an unusually strong late-season melt event.

Yes, they do not appear to be consistent. I would go with the local expert Hamilton. Swain may be wrong or I could have misinterpreted what he means by wet-dry cycling. It could be that the rain shadow areas are getting less frequent rain but when it does rain the rain is heavier. Increased precipitation intensity even in areas that receive less rain is mentioned in the abstract of the first reference I provided.

I borrowed the term from Swain. Believe it merely refers to the cycling between wet and dry seasons. Per link below, climate change intensifies the water cycle. Wet seasons can become wetter and dry seasons dryer. https://www.int-res.com/articles/cr_oa/c047p123.pdf Here's an article by a local meteorologist on climate change impacts on Hawaii's precipitation https://theconversation.com/hawaiis-climate-future-dry-regions-get-drier-with-global-warming-increasing-fire-risk-while-wet-areas-get-wetter-211379

I don't see evidence of any big temperature non-linearity. Temperatures are rising faster because man-made forcing has increased at a faster rate. The forcing increase is due to reduced sulfur emissions mainly while CO2 emissions remain elevated. There are also some natural effects that are lining up this decade for warming: the volcano, warming in E Pac, and per chart below a solar cycle which is stronger than the last. If we get CO2 emissions under control the rate of temperature increase will drop. With fossil fuels losing competitive advantage, holding under 2C is feasible, but we need to make climate change a higher priority.

2023 vs 2015, 2023 is steadily pulling away. A couple of causes come to mind: 1) the earth's energy imbalance is roughly twice as large this year almost 2 W/m2 vs roughly 1 W/m2 in 2015, 2) 2023 started from a nina state while 2015 was already a weak nino. The recent triple nina obscured much of the recent increase in forcing/energy imbalance.

A paragraph from Dr. Daniel Swain's blog (at end after discussion of upcoming weather on W coast): As much as it might surprise some folks, the Hawaiian islands are no stranger to fire. Nearly all ignitions today are caused by human activities (though most are accidental). Wildfire risk is rising, especially on the dry sides of the islands (which, in some cases, receive an annual average precipitation similar to that of Los Angeles), due to a combination of unmanaged invasive grasses building up huge fuel loads on abandoned plantations and climate change–which is likely increasing the duration and severity of droughts on the lee sides of the islands and the intensity of wet-dry cycling of precipitation (which favors extra vegetation growth, and then rapid drying of that extra growth during high risk periods). Here, too, as in so many other places, subdivisions have been built and expanded that increasingly extend into high fire risk zones. In fact, in County of Maui planning documents, nearly all of Lahaina was characterized as being at high to extreme wildfire risk. https://weatherwest.com/archives/29215 One other thought: We often hear "CO2 is plant food", i.e. increased CO2 increases plant growth when conditions allow. This would also increase fire risk in areas like Hawaii with wet/dry season cycling.

The 12-month average energy imbalance is roughly twice as large now vs the last big nino in 2015. Not surprising that we are seeing a larger enso response this year. Per my post above the east-based pattern is also favorable for warming. Enso is by far the biggest change this year vs last. One way to think about it. The atmosphere wants to be warmer but the ocean is holding it back. If the ocean cooling relaxes, the atmosphere can warm quite a bit before loosing too much to space.

Yes it was the high nightly lows that drove July warmth in the northeast. Nights warming faster than days is a greenhouse gas signal.

There are many factors contributing to the warming spike this year. An additional one is the east-based pattern of this nino. Below is a slide from a recent talk by climate scientist Tim Andrews. Warming in the east Pacific produces stronger positive feedbacks than warming in the west Pacific. We've had an unusually large temperature swing this year in the far EPac, even for a nino onset year. Below is the bottom-line from the talk. Some of increased warming anticipated below has already occurred courtesy of the 2015+2023 ninos. https://github.com/timothyandrews/cfmip2023/blob/main/Andrews_CFMIP_Jul2023.pdf

The last point is the July average to date. Continuing to get an unusually large SST rise in this nino.