CLIMATE NEWS
Alaska Bakes In Heat Wave While Arctic Sea Ice Continues To Melt
The Arctic is experiencing a heat wave.
Alaska reached temperatures in the 80s, with Deadhorse reaching a record-high temperature of 85 degrees on Wednesday evening. Other cities including Bettles and Eagle reached 85, Fort Yukon hit 84, and Nenana reported 87.
“A pulse of warm air invaded the North Slope of northern Alaska on Wednesday, bringing some of the warmest air ever recorded there,” meteorologist Jeff Masters explained on his blog, Weather Underground. “Even with the 24-hour sunlight it receives during most of July, the North Slope typically experiences highs only in the 50s and lows in the 30s.”
Fairbanks also officially reported 87, but one record showed Fairbanks’ airport reaching 96 degrees Wednesday. Meanwhile hundreds of miles south in Orlando, Fl., temperatures reached 94 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Miami and Daytona Beach only rose to 92 on Wednesday.
Temperatures in Fairbanks could reach 90 degrees on Thursday or Friday, National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Thoman reported to the Alaska Dispatch News.
2-3 C in pipeline from long-term climate inertia
So, no matter what we do now massive sea level rise is inevitable. It is only a matter of when.
The Pliocene was 2 to 3 degrees warmer than pre-industrial Holocene with a CO2 concentration that is about as high as now. That means we could still have 2 to 3 C additional temperature rise. If we create a miracle and somehow manage to keep the CO2 at 400ppm we’ll still have another 1 to 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise. Its in the pipeline. We are committed to more sea level rise. Ice sheets have a long response time and what we see today is a response to warming that started decades ago. The glaciers are not in equilibrium with today and will catch up. From the Pliocene we learn 2–3 degrees warming can produce 32 meters sea level rise.
Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low for June Amid Escalating Warnings
The area's sea ice cover shrank 56,900 square kilometers PER DAY last month. The area could become virtually ice-free—that is, shrink to an expanse of less than one million square kilometers—by 2017 for the first time in 100,000 years.
Super Typhoon Nepartak Barrels Toward Taiwan, Takes Aim at Already Flooded China
This year’s Asian monsoon has been a real beast for China. Inflated by the aftermath of a strong El Nino combining with record global temperatures, the system has sent powerful thunderstorms roaring over eastern sections of the Yangtze River Valley for of two weeks.These storms have spurred record tornadoes, rocked the Chinese landscape with lightning strikes, and dumped more than 16 inches of rain. Resulted in more than 54,000 building collapses and an estimated 7.7 billion dollars in damages. 32 million people have already been impacted. 1.4 million people have been displaced.
