Coastal Storms | Extreme Weather
September 8, 2023
A First: Category 5 Storms Have Formed in Every Ocean Basin this Year – the Washington Post
Excerpt:
Human-caused climate change and El Niño have heated ocean waters to record levels, giving tropical storms a boost, scientists say…
For the first time on record, storms have reached top-tier Category 5 strength in every tropical ocean basin in the same year.
A combination of human-caused climate change and El Niño have heated ocean waters to record levels in 2023, setting the stage for this meteorological feat. The Copernicus Climate Service of the European Union confirmed that the global ocean reached its warmest level on record in August.
This week alone, two tropical cyclones leaped to Category 5 intensity in two days — Hurricane Jova in the northeastern Pacific on Wednesday, closely followed by Hurricane Lee in the Atlantic on Thursday. The pair of storms intensified with astonishing haste, their peak winds increasing 90 mph and 85 mph, respectively, in 24 hours.
Brian McNoldy, a tropical weather expert at the University of Miami, confirmed that 2023 marked the first instance of Category 5 storms in all seven and linked it to the warm waters.
“I think it’s reasonable to hypothesize that the abnormally warm ocean temperatures around the world made this more likely to happen,” McNoldy said in an email. “Gives everything a boost…”
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More on Coastal Storms | Extreme Weather . . .
Lee rapidly intensifies into a Category 5 hurricane over Atlantic – the Washington Post
Hurricane Lee intensified with breakneck speed Thursday over record-warm Atlantic waters, its peak winds catapulting from 80 to 160 mph in just 18 hours. Lee is now a top tier Category 5 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center, and will probably strengthen even more…
How sea level rise made Idalia’s storm surge worse – the Washington Post
In mid-November 2021, a great storm begins brewing in the central Pacific Ocean north of Hawai‘i. Especially warm water, heated by the sun, steams off the sea surface and funnels into the sky.
A tendril of this floating moisture sweeps eastward across the ocean. It rides the winds for a day until it reaches the coasts of British Columbia and Washington State. There, the storm hits air turbulence, which pushes it into position—straight over British Columbia’s Fraser River valley….
A River Runs above Us – Hakai Magazine
In mid-November 2021, a great storm begins brewing in the central Pacific Ocean north of Hawai‘i. Especially warm water, heated by the sun, steams off the sea surface and funnels into the sky.
A tendril of this floating moisture sweeps eastward across the ocean. It rides the winds for a day until it reaches the coasts of British Columbia and Washington State. There, the storm hits air turbulence, which pushes it into position—straight over British Columbia’s Fraser River valley….
Sorry, Honey, It’s Too Hot for Camp (Podcast) – Atlantic Radio
Summer is getting too hot and dangerous, killing the childhood of our imaginations.
A heat dome in Texas. Wildfire smoke polluting the air in the East and Midwest. The signs are everywhere that our children’s summers will look nothing like our own. In this episode, we talk with the climate writer Emma Pattee about how hot is too hot to go outside. The research is thin and the misconceptions are many—but experts are quickly looking into nuances of how and why children suffer in the heat, so we can prepare for a future that’s already here…
July 4, 2023: The Hottest Day in over 125,000 Years
“We have never seen anything like this before”
– Carlo Buontempo, director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service quoted in the Washington Post, 07-06-2023…
The world’s hottest day on record was Tuesday, scientists calculate – PBS News Hour
The entire planet sweltered to the unofficial hottest day in human recordkeeping July 3 and then blasted past that with an even hotter day on July 4, according to University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project…
The planet saw its hottest day on record this week – CNN
On Monday, the average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), the highest in the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s data, which goes back to 1979. On Tuesday, it climbed even further, reaching 17.18 degrees Celsius and global temperature remained at this record-high on Wednesday…
What 120 Degrees Looks Like in One of Mexico’s Hottest Cities – the New York Times
People in Hermosillo are used to the heat: Enduring scorching temperatures is a local point of pride (for) the “city of sun.” But on a recent Sunday in June, temperatures reached a record high when thermometers registered 49.5 degrees Celsius, or 121 Fahrenheit…
Why a sudden surge of broken heat records is scaring scientists – the Washington Post
New precedents have been set in recent weeks and months, surprising some scientists with their swift evolution: historically warm oceans, with North Atlantic temperatures already nearing their typical annual peak; unparalleled low sea ice levels around Antarctica, where global warming impacts had, until now, been slower to appear; and the planet experiencing its warmest June ever charted, according to new data. And then, on Monday, came Earth’s hottest day in at least 125,000 years. Tuesday was hotter…