60% Chance of Above-Normal 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season

June 6, 2020 / activist360 / Leave a comment

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA)’s Climate Prediction Center is predicting a 60 percent chance that the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season will be above-normal. There is a 30 percent chance of a near-normal season and just a 10 percent chance of a below-normal season.

We can expect a likely range of 13-19 named storms, of which 6-10 are expected to become hurricanes. Of those hurricanes, 3-6 are expected to become major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 and peaks from mid-August to late October.

NOAA is predicting ENSO neutral or La Niña conditions, along with warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, coupled with reduced vertical wind shear, weaker tropical Atlantic trade winds, and an enhanced west African monsoon.

NOAA will upgrade the hurricane-specific Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast system (HWRF) and the Hurricanes in a Multi-scale Ocean coupled Non-hydrostatic model (HMON) models this summer. The National Hurricane Center provides up-to-date forecasts, data, and tools.

Australia Fires: Climate Change Increases The Risk Of Wildfires

January 16, 2020 / activist360 / Leave a comment

UK researchers examined 57 research papers published since the last major review of climate science in 2013 and they find climate change increases the risk of wildfires. The scientists say the recent fires in Australia are a taste of what the world will experience as temperatures rise.

“The average temperature in Australia in December 2019 was exceptionally hot compared to the historical record, and played a key role in the severity and spread of the recent bushfires. Those temperatures would be normal at nearly 3C global warming.”
–Richard Betts, Chair in Climate Impacts at the University of Exeter and Head of Climate Impacts in the Met Office Hadley Centre

Reshaping Earth In Profound, Unsustainable Ways

January 13, 2020 / activist360 / Leave a comment

In 2016, the world moved permanently above 400 parts per million. The 400 ppm milestone is a symbolic and necessary reminder that we, as humans, are reshaping Earth in profound and unsustainable ways.

The Keeling Curve, named for scientist Charles David Keeling, is a graph that shows the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Keeling’s measurements showed the first significant evidence of rapidly increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere.

NASA, with its carbon monitoring system, shows the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere decreases in the spring and summer. In spring and summer, plants in the oceans and on land pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In the fall and winter, CO2 increases because plants and animals release the carbon dioxide that captured during the growing season.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, or natural gas) for energy. Fuels release into the atmosphere significantly faster than the plants in the oceans and on the land can take out the CO2. This is moving the Keeling curve up.