Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[Silver Meteor]

Ten Hottest Days in Washington, D.C. History
 

https://knoji.com/article/10-hottest-days-in-washington-dc-history/

[bluewave]

14 hours ago, frontranger8 said:

I think to me what really stands out is the heat just isn't spread out evenly. And the climates that have seen the most summer warming tended to be fairly similar.

Even for France it was more of a jump than a gradual shift. This introduces the idea of non-linear effects. Very difficult for planners to deal with unexpected and rapid shifts. The jump which began around 2003 was around 10-12°F warmer for the June monthly average below at times than their old 1970s to 1990s climate. 
 

 

[Typhoon Tip]

22 hours ago, frontranger8 said:

I think to me what really stands out is the heat just isn't spread out evenly. And the climates that have seen the most summer warming tended to be fairly similar.

See ...there are baseline flow constructs around the entire hemisphere that are geo-physically forced.

Example, western North America. The Rockies cordillera extends from Alaska deep into and through Mexico, over the western continent.  That imposes a backward exertion on the prevailing westerlies of the Northern Hemisphere. The flow is directed up and over the terrain.  However, it takes longer to do so than the ~ 9 hour, time dependency of the Coriolis parameter at mid latitudes; in a reference frame that induces clockwise rotation, that force acts to turn the rising flow toward the left.  This creates a subtle but significant background ridge signal that is always in place ... so long as there is always westerly prevailing flow.  This is a baseline construct... 

This means that western N/A is favored to have heat before the eastern geographical regions of the continent.  It is why the Gulf Coast can, though rarely ..., experience 0 F in the winter, despite the deep latitude.  This geologic circumstance enhances cold potential and realizes a drive sending colder air mass from Canada that far S. 

So, with all that in mind ... since western N/A is prone to ridging, they are also favored to heat.  It's like being born on second base for having wealth descendancy, and though daddy claims he didn't help his kids succeed, they still end up retiring somehow by 35.

This happens all over the world, both hemispheres.  There are geological regional circumstances 'built in' that favor cool vs warm, relative to the whole latitude in question and mean.  And where ever is warm, there is a quicker and more frequent recurrence of heat.   But here's the thing that makes this argumentative - but really shouldn't if one understands the "emergence" ... Because there are circulation changes occurring ..however subtle or gross, notwithstanding ... this may and probably does expose new routes for cool vs warm biases overall.   Western Europe appears to be victim to this, as Saharan processed kinetic extreme air is being drawn up across the Iberian Peninsula ... where it can assault as far N as the UK and eventually Scandinavian latitudes.  The UK is ~ to Calgary, Canada ... so we're seeing temps nearing 40 C ... that's a bit of an emergence considering the frequency uptick

[Typhoon Tip]

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-world-oceans-june-eu.html

[GaWx]

 I’ll reiterate that I thought Chris Martz looked really bad due to saying “it’s called summer” and for saying “heat dome” wasn’t the correct term. However, I also said Jeff B. was wrong for calling the current/upcoming US heatwave one of the most expansive in history. Here again is Chris’ post responding to Jeff:

 

 But I forgot to earlier mention this: The mean temp in July (and also in summer as a whole) comes out close to normal rather than hot in the E US when averaging RONI based super strong El Niños. See image below. Hardly any were hot. 1957, 65, 72, and 97 were slightly cool. 1982 and 2015 were NN. Only 1991 was hot. That’s just 1 of the 7! That’s enough for me to say that the upcoming super-El Nino in combo with GW is not the direct cause for the current E US heatwave as Jeff said. GW, by itself, obviously favors hotter heatwaves than when the Earth was cooler. But the supposed super-El Nino piece of this, itself, correlating to E US heat does not compute to me at all. Thus whereas I thought Chris’ post was terrible, I also think Jeff’s was pretty bad, itself. 

 

@donsutherland1

[donsutherland1]

4 hours ago, GaWx said:

 I’ll reiterate that I thought Chris Martz looked really bad due to saying “it’s called summer” and for saying “heat dome” wasn’t the correct term. However, I also said Jeff B. was wrong for calling the current/upcoming US heatwave one of the most expansive in history. Here again is Chris’ post responding to Jeff:

 

 But I forgot to earlier mention this: The mean temp in July (and also in summer as a whole) comes out close to normal rather than hot in the E US when averaging RONI based super strong El Niños. See image below. Hardly any were hot. 1957, 65, 72, and 97 were slightly cool. 1982 and 2015 were NN. Only 1991 was hot. That’s just 1 of the 7! That’s enough for me to say that the upcoming super-El Nino in combo with GW is not the direct cause for the current E US heatwave as Jeff said. GW, by itself, obviously favors hotter heatwaves than when the Earth was cooler. But the supposed super-El Nino piece of this, itself, correlating to E US heat does not compute to me at all. Thus whereas I thought Chris’ post was terrible, I also think Jeff’s was pretty bad, itself. 

 

@donsutherland1

For the U.S., one hasn't typically seen such heat domes during summers preceding strong/super El Niño events. Such events have been far more common in Europe and Asia. However, during 2015 (Pacific Northwest) and 2023 (July-August in the Southwest/South Central) such domes appeared. Whether these recent events suggest that things are changing in the warming climate (especially more expansive marine heatwaves) remains to be seen. A sample size of two is too small to draw firm conclusions.

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

For the U.S., one hasn't typically seen such heat domes during summers preceding strong/super El Niño events. Such events have been far more common in Europe and Asia. However, during 2015 (Pacific Northwest) and 2023 (July-August in the Southwest/South Central) such domes appeared. Whether these recent events suggest that things are changing in the warming climate (especially more expansive marine heatwaves) remains to be seen. A sample size of two is too small to draw firm conclusions.

Thanks, Don. I’ll reiterate that I was referring to only E US rather than all of the U.S. mean temps (especially in July) and that I didn’t even consider 2023 because it was only borderline moderate/strong on a RONI basis with a peak of only +1.49. So, 2015, with its heatwave in the Pacific NW (nowhere close to the E US) and 2023  not being nearly strong enough to count as super-Nino per the now official (per NOAA) RONI basis don’t even count for me against super El Niño E US heat. And even if 2023 were counted, its heat was most concentrated in the SW/SC rather than E US.

[donsutherland1]

6 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Thanks, Don. I’ll reiterate that I was referring to only E US rather than all of the U.S. mean temps (especially in July) and that I didn’t even consider 2023 because it was only borderline moderate/strong on a RONI basis with a peak of only +1.49. So, 2015, with its heatwave in the Pacific NW (nowhere close to the E US) and 2023  not being nearly strong enough to count as super-Nino per the now official (per NOAA) RONI basis don’t even count for me against super El Niño E US heat. And even if 2023 were counted, its heat was most concentrated in the SW/SC rather than E US.

Such ridges are uncommon in the Eastern U.S. No disagreement on the location of such a ridge.

[ChescoWx]

From Ryan Maue x feed on the NYT article: "It's official: without climate change, the ongoing Eastern United States heat wave is "virtually impossible" Climate scientists performed an autopsy of this week's weather and determined that it could not have happened in the past 500-years w/o the burning of fossil fuels" 

Q. Can the they do an autopsy the hottest decade on record the 1930's and explain that one for us too? RM. Their study started in 1950, so anything that happened before would not be relevant." LOL!!