National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Report: Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Hits Record High Despite Pandemic Dip

New York Times: Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Hits Record High Despite Pandemic Dip. Global emissions dropped last year, but the decline wasn’t nearly enough to halt the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The amount of carbon dioxide piling up in Earth’s atmosphere set a record last month, once again reaching the highest levels in human history despite a temporary dip in the burning of fossil fuels worldwide caused by the coronavirus pandemic, scientists said Monday.

Scientific instruments atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii showed that levels of carbon dioxide in the air averaged 419 parts per million in May, the annual peak, according to two separate analyses from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Those readings are about half a percent higher than the previous high of 417 parts per million, set in May 2020. Carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas driving global warming and researchers have estimated that there hasn’t been this much of it in the atmosphere for millions of years.

This map of the U.S. heating up is horrifying. Show it to every climate denier you know

Fast Company: This map of the U.S. heating up is horrifying. Show it to every climate denier you know. The U.S. looks like it’s on fire.

Was it a hot day? Or is the world actually getting hotter over time? It’s hard to be sure on a day-to-day basis. Isn’t summer always a little too sweltering? Aren’t there always a few unseasonably warm days in winter?
A new map proves it’s not just you: The U.S. really is getting hotter, whether you live in California, Florida, or Indiana. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has tracked U.S. weather for more than a century. And every decade, it releases the latest 30-year average. An average is considered the “new normal.” This month, NOAA released its latest new normal, the U.S. map from 1991 to 2020.)

To put it bluntly, the map looks bad—especially when compared to the last 120 years of averages. What we see is that the nation has transitioned from a cool blue to a hot red—marking a 2.5-degree shift that happened in a blink of Earth’s history. The U.S. looks like it’s on fire.

Report: NOAA – New Climate Normal – 3 articles

Washington Post: NOAA unveils new U.S. climate ‘normals’ that are warmer than ever. Drawing from the latest decade of weather data, the new normals are a reflection of climate change.

ABC News: Most of US experienced warming trend over last 30 years: NOAA. “This simply means that most days in a year are warmer than they should be.”

CNN: Your city just got hotter. NOAA announced new climate normals Tuesday. The report is in the Köppen climate classification.

Report: Congress must act to solve the methane problem

The Hill: Congress must act to solve the methane problem.

When world leaders convened at the climate summit, carbon dioxide (CO₂) wasn’t the only climate pollutant on the agenda. They also grappled with methane. Methane accounts for 16 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it’s one of the most powerful levers for fighting climate change. We’re unlikely to be able to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius without cutting methane emissions and — as we proposed in a recent sign-on letter — also finding ways to neutralize methane already in the atmosphere.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) recently wrote to President Biden asking him to elevate the methane issue at the summit and to give it its own emissions target. Methane is so important to the climate because it’s 84 times more powerful a global warming agent than CO₂ in the 20-year near term. It accounts for a quarter of anthropogenic global warming we’re experiencing today, and it’s rising alarmingly fast. This month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released new data showing methane emissions surged in 2020 by the largest jump since measurements began in 1983.

Report: Climate change clearly visible as NOAA prepares to release new ‘normals’

CNN: Climate change clearly visible as NOAA prepares to release new ‘normals’.

As weather experts and climatologists discussed the new climate normals being released next month, they came to a conclusion: “Climate change is clearly seen in these new normals,” said Mike Palecki, a project manager for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) 1991-2020 climate normals.

For the past decade, when a meteorologist in the US has said that a temperature or type of precipitation is above normal, they were comparing it to the average based on weather observations from 1981-2010. In May, a new average will be used, using data from 1991-2020. These new climate normals show a warmer and wetter US.

Report: Greenhouse gas levels surged in 2020, NOAA says – 2 articles

CBS News (Video): Greenhouse gas levels surged in 2020, NOAA says. A new report from the NOAA finds that despite global shutdowns, greenhouse gas levels in 2020 surged. In fact, levels of carbon dioxide are at the highest they’ve been in 3.6 million years. CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli joins CBSN to explain. A NOAA report from 2020 can be found here. The NOAA webpage with this new information can be found here.

CBS News: Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane levels in the atmosphere continued to rise in 2020, with CO2 level reaching their highest point in 3.6 million years, according to calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The barrier was broken despite a reduction in expected emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drillers Burned Off Gas at a Staggering Rate as Winter Storm Hit Texas

New York Times: Drillers Burned Off Gas at a Staggering Rate as Winter Storm Hit Texas. Frigid temperatures last month froze pipelines and forced companies to flare vast amounts of planet-warming gases that they suddenly had nowhere to send.

As Texas was crippled last month by frigid temperatures that killed more than 100 people and triggered widespread blackouts, drilling companies in the state’s largest oil field were forced to burn off an extraordinary amount of natural gas — on the worst day, an amount that could have powered tens of thousands of homes for at least a year.

The need to intentionally burn off, or flare, an estimated 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas in a single day — a fivefold increase from rates seen before the crisis, according to satellite analysis — came as the state’s power plants went offline and pipelines froze, so the wells simply had no place to send the natural gas still streaming out of the ground. As a result, the

gas had to be set ablaze, fueling towering flames, the highest of which can reach hundreds of feet into the air.

“This is clearly one of the highest spikes” in flaring ever observed in the Permian Basin, said Mark Omara, a senior researcher at the Environmental Defense Fund who led the analysis, which was based on satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “And it could be an underestimate,” he said.

The Daily Climate, March 18, 2921

Articles include: Republicans warn Federal Reserve against assessing climate risk in financial system; The EPA restores climate change website deleted under Trump; Study: Ocean emissions from bottom trawling are equivalent to global aviation; Scientists claim feeding cows seaweed could slash their methane emissions by a staggering 82 percent; Nearly half the U.S. is in drought that’s expected to grow worse: NOAA; Inside clean energy: Where can we put all those wind turbines?

The Great Blind Spot in Hurricane Preparedness

New Republic: The Great Blind Spot in Hurricane Preparedness. Hurricane season is getting longer. Building higher sea walls won’t save us.

Hurricane season is creeping its way deeper into spring. Last month, The Washington Post reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is considering officially moving up the start of the storm season from June 1 to May 15. The move, being reviewed by the NOAA’s National Hurricane Office in Miami, is the result of experts coming to the conclusion that, as global temperatures have consistently risen, so too have the frequency of pre-June storms.

According to the Post, the past six years have featured tropical storms forming before the official season start date, with last year’s Tropical Storm Arthur announced by the NOAA on May 16. By season’s end in December, 2020 ranked as the most active hurricane season in 15 years with 30 storms topping the 28-storm mark set by 2005.

Study: 2 articles – Ocean currents are slowing down – could have a devastating effect on our climate

CNN: The slowing down of ocean currents could have a devastating effect on our climate. Well, new research reveals Earth’s major ocean currents are slowing down, and though the consequences will not be as immediate or dramatic as in the Hollywood fiction, there are real-world impacts for global weather patterns and sea levels. The slowdown of ocean circulation is directly caused by warming global temperatures and has been predicted by climate scientists. “This has been predicted, basically, for decades that this circulation would weaken in response to global warming. And now we have the strongest evidence that this is already happening,” said Stefan Rahmstorf of Potsdam University who contributed to this research.

CNN: Gulf Stream system at its weakest in 1,600 years, study shows. Research recently published in science journal Nature by the University College London (UCL) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has found that the circulation of water in the Atlantic has been declining since the 1800s.