local climate change impacts

[LibertyBell]

On 3/30/2022 at 11:24 AM, wishcast_hater said:

I work for the Department of Environmental Protection here in NYC and I can tell you that the water is MUCH cleaner than it has been in almost 100 years. In the mid 80's the North River Waste Water Treatment Plant was the final Treatment Plant to come online and ended the practice of NYC expelling waste water (human waste, soaps, detergents, grease etc.) from entering the waterways.  As we monitor the waterways we can see aquatic life returning to the area which we have not seen in many years.  I do take exception to the "science being settled" comment as shut down of debate is not true science and therefore becomes a narrative.

Please see what I just posted about algae blooms and dead zones in the water (likely linked to our new excessive rainfall along with dangerous pesticides and fertilizers being used.)

 

[LibertyBell]

On 3/30/2022 at 8:35 AM, JustinRP37 said:

The air is most definitely cleaner now. Even with more cars on the road, emissions standards are much more strict today than they were back then. Same with water. At least rivers are no longer catching on fire… But even on a beautiful day, you couldn’t see the top of the Empire State Building back in the 60s. I wasn’t alive back then, but have studied this stuff as I have to teach it. The sound is also much cleaner. The pollen issue though is worse and getting worse. We have to stop planting these non-native plants.

these algae blooms and dead zones in the water linked to excessive rainfall and runoff along with toxic pesticides and fertilizers being used seems to be a new issue linked to our changing climate.

 

[NorthShoreWx]

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

This

https://www.highwaterstandard.com/blog/long-island-water-quality

 

A high-quality water filter can purify your drinking water and protect it from the contaminants listed below. Liz Moran, who is the Environmental Protection Policy Director of NYPIRG, has stated that Long Island’s water contains harmful levels of PFOA, 1,4-dioxane, PFOS, and PFAS.

 

Long Island is a big place with multiple water providers.  Even tapping the same aquifer is not a uniform stream of homogenized water.  

[NorthShoreWx]

On 3/31/2022 at 3:02 PM, LibertyBell said:

these algae blooms and dead zones in the water linked to excessive rainfall and runoff along with toxic pesticides and fertilizers being used seems to be a new issue linked to our changing climate.

 

Our local horticultural and landscaping practices border on madness.  I'll grant you that.

[Rjay]

10 hours ago, bluewave said:

The super El Niño in 15-16 really changed up the blocking patterns.  We used to get stronger winter blocking that weakened during the spring. Now the weaker winter blocking gets stronger in the spring.  

After the event in 15-16

 

Before

 

 

8 hours ago, jm1220 said:

Yeah, garbage. Hopefully we can get the tropics to reshuffle to stop this never ending Nina or Nina like outcome. Big part of it seems to be how the W PAC has warmed so much.

 

6 hours ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, 2002 was the last time that NYC had water restrictions. The occasional drier intervals since then have been mostly nuisance level that have resolved rather quickly. 

 

 

[bluewave]

The monthly temperature increases from 81-10 to 91-20 have been more pronounced during certain months. Newark and Islip are compared below. The +1.0 or warmer months for either station were bolded. 

……….EWR…..ISP

Dec…+1.5….+1.5

Jan….+1.2…+1.3

Feb….+0.5….+0.5

 

Mar….+0.4….+0.6

Apr….+0.5…..+0.6

May...+0.6….+0.9

 

Jun….+0.3….+0.6

Jul…..+1.4…..+1.1

Aug...+0.6….+0.9

 

Sep….+1.0….+1.3

Oct…..+0.9..+1.4

Nov….+0.2..+0.5

[bluewave]

With the record blocking patterns since 2002-2003, we have seen an unprecedented number of seasons when stations from around Newark out to Eastern LI recorded 40” or more of snow. This dramatic increase in snowfall has occurred during a steady increase in winter temperatures. Our older winters with 40”+ peak snowfall amounts used to occur with a NYC average temperature around 32°. But many recent 40”+ seasons featured a NYC average DJF temperature in the 35°-40° range. So this is a new combination of warmth and heavy snow for our area.
 

Seasons since 1950 when at least one station from Newark to Eastern LI recorded 40”+ and the NYC DJF average temperature. 35°+ average temperature seasons bolded

 

20-21….36.1

17-18….36.2

16-17….39.3

15-16….41.0

14-15…31.4

13-14…32.9

12-13…36.8

10-11….32.8

09-10…33.8

08-09…34.2

05-06…37.3

04-05…35.4

03-04…32.4

02-03…31.2

00-01….33.5

95-96…32.2

93-94…31.2

86-87….34.8

 

77-78….30.8

68-69….32.9

66-67….34.1

63-64…33.2

60-61….31.7

57-58…33.2

55-56…32.8

Yeah, that’s why we have been getting so much record warmth before or after our best snowstorms since the super El Niño in 15-16. Last December it was 60s before and after our best December snowstorm and -AO in years. May 2020 tied for our latest trace of snow following one of our warmest winters. 17-18 featured 30” of snow in March on Long Island after Newark hit 80° in late February. We had the blizzard in February 2017 a day after the 60s. 15-16 went  +13.3 in December followed by the 30” snowstorm in January and new #1 NYC snowstorm. Even before the super El Niño, we were getting occasional patterns like this. Nemo in February 2013 following the very warm first few months of winter. The 11-12 lack of winter after the record snowstorm in late October. The February 2006 NYC #2 snow following one our warmest Januaries on record. The late winter 2005 snowstorms following one of the warmest first 2 weeks of January on record. This is a sea level version of spring in the Rockies where snow and warmth have often occurred together. 

[bluewave]

The historic +13.3 departure in December 2015 marked the shift to much warmer winters. This February is the 16th winter month out of the last 21 with above normal average temperatures. It’s also a record breaking 7th warmer than normal winter in a row since 2015-2016. The new 1991-2020 normal NYC winter average temperature for NYC is 36.2°. So this is the first winter after the increase from the 1981-2010 average of 35.1°.

 

NYC

Feb 22….+1.4

Jan 22….-3.2

Dec 21….+4.7

Feb 21….-1.1

Jan 21….+2.2

Dec 20…+1.7

Feb 20…+4.8

Jan 20….+6.5

Dec 19….+0.8

Feb 19….+0.9

Jan 19….-0.1

Dec 18…+2.6

Feb 18…+6.7

Jan 18….-0.9

Dec 17…..-2.5

Feb 17…..+6.3

Jan 17….+5.4

Dec 16….+0.8

Feb 16….+2.4

Jan 16….+1.9

Dec 15….+13.3

 

Time Series Summary for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Season	Mean Avg Temperature	Departure
2021-2022	37.1	+0.9
2020-2021	36.1	+1.0
2019-2020	39.2	+4.1
2018-2019	36.3	+1.2
2017-2018	36.2	+1.1
2016-2017	39.3	+4.2
2015-2016	41.0	+6.0

[bluewave]

As the subtropical ridge expanded northward to the Canadian Maritimes, the flow became more S to SSE. So this has allowed the record high dew points to move into the region during recent summers. At times the result was higher actual temperatures into New England than around NYC Metro. This was due to a more SW flow into those areas. But both our area and New England have experienced the warmest and most humid summers on record summers since 2010. 

 

 

[bluewave]

During recent summers, the high has set up east of New England instead of near Bermuda like in the old days. So this allowed Hartford to record more 90° days than around NYC in 2020.  Burlington, Vermont was also able to record their first 80° minimum temperature in 2018. 

Time Series Summary for Hartford Area, CT (ThreadEx) - Jan through Dec
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Rank	Year	Number of Days Max Temperature >= 90	Missing Count
1	2020	39	0
2	1983	38	0
3	2002	35	0
4	2010	34	0
-	1965	34	0
5	2018	32	0
-	1966	32	0
6	2016	31	0
-	1991	31	0
7	1988	30	0
-	1973	30	0

 

Time Series Summary for LAGUARDIA AIRPORT, NY - Jan through Dec
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Rank	Year	Number of Days Max Temperature >= 90	Missing Count
1	2010	48	0
2	2018	38	0
3	2002	35	0
4	2020	34	0
-	1991	34	0
5	2016	32	0
6	1983	31	0
7	2005	30	0
-	1953	30	0

 

Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Jan through Dec
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Rank	Year	Number of Days Max Temperature >= 90	Missing Count
1	2010	54	0
2	1993	49	0
3	1988	43	0
4	2021	41	0
-	2002	41	0
-	1991	41	0
5	2016	40	0
-	1983	40	0
-	1959	40	0
6	1994	39	0
-	1944	39	0
7	2005	37	0
-	1987	37	0
8	2018	36	0
-	1949	36	0
9	2015	35	0

 

[bluewave]

We need a SW to W flow for our local area to reach 100°. This usually requires the ridge axis to build westward toward the Great Lakes. But the ridge axis during recent summers has been elongated to the east of New England. So we get more onshore flow and higher humidity instead of more 100° days. 

Our most extreme daily heat record in recent years occurred during February 2018. The SE Ridge built to record heights over the region for the entire cold season. This was associated with the 500 mb heights increase as outlined in the presentation at the start of the thread. It was the first time that our area experienced 80° record heat in February. 
 

 

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/summer-february-80-massachusetts-78-nyc

Astonishing summer-like heat cooked the Eastern U.S. on Wednesday, smashing all-time records for February warmth in cities in at least ten states, from Georgia to Maine. At least 24 cities recorded their hottest February temperature on record on Wednesday, including New York City (78°), Hartford, CT (74°) and Concord, NH (74°). According to Weather Underground weather historian Christopher C. Burt, February 20 - 21 marked the most extraordinary heat event to ever affect the Northeastern quadrant of the U.S. during the month of February, since official records began in the late 1800s. He catalogued the following eight states that tied or beat all-time February state heat records over the past two days, noting that in the case of Maine and Vermont, “It is simply amazing to beat a state temperature record by some 8°F!”:

Pennsylvania: 83° at Capitol City (ties old record for the state)
New York: 79° at La Guardia Airport (old state record 78°)
Vermont: 77° at Bennington (old state record 68°)
New Hampshire: 77° at Manchester and Danbury (old state record 72°)
Maine: 77° at Wells (old state record 69°)
New Jersey: 83° at Teterboro (old state record 80°)
Massachusetts: 80° at Fitchburg (old state record 73°)
Ohio: 80° at Cincinnati Lunken Airport (ties old record for the state)

[bluewave]

Large increase in Northeast rainfall and snowfall extremes as the SSTs rapidly warm and water vapor rises.
 

 

 

 

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-extreme-precipitation-northeast.html

 

From Maine to West Virginia, the Northeast has seen a larger increase in extreme precipitation than anywhere else in the U.S. Prior research found that these heavy rain and snow events, defined as a day with about two inches of precipitation or more, have been 53 percent higher in the Northeast since 1996. A Dartmouth study finds that hurricanes and tropical storms are the primary cause of this increase, followed by thunderstorms along fronts and extratropical cyclones like Nor'easters. The findings are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

 

Our study provides insight into what types of extreme storms are changing and why. We found that hurricanes were responsible for nearly half of the increase in extreme rainfall across the Northeast. A warmer Atlantic Ocean and more water vapor in the atmosphere are fueling these storms, causing them to drop more rain over the Northeast," explains Jonathan M. Winter, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth and co-author of the study. "Other research has demonstrated that these two conditions have been enhanced in our warmer world," added Huanping Huang, a graduate student in earth sciences at Dartmouth and the study's lead author.

The findings demonstrate that 88 percent of the extreme precipitation increase after 1996 was caused by large storms in Feb., March, June, July, Sept. and Oct.

• Hurricanes and tropical storms, also known as "tropical cyclones," accounted for nearly half, or 48 percent, of the increase in extreme rainfall. After 1996, the Northeast experienced almost four times more extreme rainfall events from hurricanes and tropical storms than from 1979-1995.
• Severe thunderstorms along "fronts," especially intense downpours along cold fronts, accounted for 25 percent of the increase in extreme precipitation. 
• Nor'easters and other "extratropical cyclones," which are storms that form outside of the tropics, accounted for 15 percent of the increase in extreme precipitation. 
• Other research has found that the causes of more frequent extreme precipitation events in this study—increased ocean temperatures, more water vapor in the atmosphere, and a wavier jet stream—are associated with a warmer world.

These results build on the team's earlier research by examining what caused the increase in heavier or extreme precipitation beginning in 1996. The researchers analyzed precipitationdata from 1979 to 2016 across the Northeast— Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Mass., Conn., R.I., N.J., N.Y., Pa., Md., DC, Del., and W.Va. in conjunction with data pertaining to daily weather maps and oceanic and atmospheric fields.

 

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/29/6/waf-d-14-00056_1.xml

Abstract

On 8–9 February 2013, the northeastern United States experienced a historic winter weather event ranking among the top five worst blizzards in the region. Heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions occurred from northern New Jersey, inland to New York, and northward through Maine. Storm-total snow accumulations of 30–61 cm were common, with maximum accumulations up to 102 cm and snowfall rates exceeding 15 cm h⁻¹. Dual-polarization radar measurements collected for this winter event provide valuable insights into storm microphysical processes. In this study, polarimetric data from the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) in Upton, New York (KOKX), are investigated alongside thermodynamic analyses from the 13-km Rapid Refresh model and surface precipitation type observations from both Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground (mPING) and the National Weather Service (NWS) Forecast Office in Upton, New York, for interpretation of polarimetric signatures. The storm exhibited unique polarimetric signatures, some of which have never before been documented for a winter system. Reflectivity values were unusually large, reaching magnitudes >50 dBZ in shallow regions of heavy wet snow near the surface. The 0°C transition line was exceptionally distinct in the polarimetric imagery, providing detail that was often unmatched by the numerical model output. Other features include differential attenuation of magnitudes typical of melting hail, depolarization streaks that provide evidence of electrification, nonuniform beamfilling, a “snow flare” signature, and localized downward excursions of the melting-layer bright band collocated with observed transitions in surface precipitation types. In agreement with previous studies, widespread elevated depositional growth layers, located at temperatures near the model-predicted −15°C isotherm, appear to be correlated with increased snowfall and large reflectivity factors Z_H near the surface.

https://www.weather.gov/okx/HistoricFlooding_081314

SUMMARY: An official, New York State 24 hour precipitation record was set at Islip, NY on August 12-13, 2014 with 13.57" of rain (See Public Information Statement). This breaks the previous record of 11.6" at Tannersville, NY on August 27-28, 2011 during Hurricane/Tropical storm Irene. 1.08" fell in just 8 minutes from 5:39 am to 5:47 am (See Islip, NY Rainfall Data)!  An anomalously deep upper level trough was moving into the northeast the morning of August 13th, transporting deep moisture over Long Island. At the surface, a parent low pressure system was moving across southeast Canada, with secondary low development just south of New York City. Heavy precipitation focused along and just north of the warm front associated with the secondary low pressure system. The mean storm motion was parallel to the orientation of the warm front and was significant in helping maintain heavy rain over Islip, NY for several hours. Click the links below to view different aspects of this historical event.

[LibertyBell]

On 4/5/2022 at 8:19 PM, Rjay said:

 

 

 

we didn't even have a real drought in 2010 when we had my favorite summer ever.

[LibertyBell]

On 4/6/2022 at 8:38 AM, bluewave said:

 

We need a SW to W flow for our local area to reach 100°. This usually requires the ridge axis to build westward toward the Great Lakes. But the ridge axis during recent summers has been elongated to the east of New England. So we get more onshore flow and higher humidity instead of more 100° days. 

Our most extreme daily heat record in recent years occurred during February 2018. The SE Ridge built to record heights over the region for the entire cold season. This was associated with the 500 mb heights increase as outlined in the presentation at the start of the thread. It was the first time that our area experienced 80° record heat in February. 
 

 

 

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/summer-february-80-massachusetts-78-nyc

Astonishing summer-like heat cooked the Eastern U.S. on Wednesday, smashing all-time records for February warmth in cities in at least ten states, from Georgia to Maine. At least 24 cities recorded their hottest February temperature on record on Wednesday, including New York City (78°), Hartford, CT (74°) and Concord, NH (74°). According to Weather Underground weather historian Christopher C. Burt, February 20 - 21 marked the most extraordinary heat event to ever affect the Northeastern quadrant of the U.S. during the month of February, since official records began in the late 1800s. He catalogued the following eight states that tied or beat all-time February state heat records over the past two days, noting that in the case of Maine and Vermont, “It is simply amazing to beat a state temperature record by some 8°F!”:

Pennsylvania: 83° at Capitol City (ties old record for the state)
New York: 79° at La Guardia Airport (old state record 78°)
Vermont: 77° at Bennington (old state record 68°)
New Hampshire: 77° at Manchester and Danbury (old state record 72°)
Maine: 77° at Wells (old state record 69°)
New Jersey: 83° at Teterboro (old state record 80°)
Massachusetts: 80° at Fitchburg (old state record 73°)
Ohio: 80° at Cincinnati Lunken Airport (ties old record for the state)

Does this mean the climate models were wrong?  I distinctly remember that back in 2020 the prediction was made that NYC would average 3 100+ days every summer by 2050 and NYC's climate would become like Atlanta's.  Will there come a time when the warming will become so extreme that it won't matter where the high is anchored or how much it rains, coastal areas will hit 100 no matter what?

 

 

[jm1220]

9 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Does this mean the climate models were wrong?  I distinctly remember that back in 2020 the prediction was made that NYC would average 3 100+ days every summer by 2050 and NYC's climate would become like Atlanta's.  Will there come a time when the warming will become so extreme that it won't matter where the high is anchored or how much it rains, coastal areas will hit 100 no matter what?

 

 

What’s more likely is our climate becomes like the coastal Carolinas. You don’t hear about Charleston SC hitting 100 very often but they’re in the low to mid 90s all the time with atrocious humidity. We’re already at the point especially in August where the sea breeze doesn’t cool things down much, it just increases the humidity. We’re also at a longer term raised hurricane risk if the waters will keep warming up and the mean ridge position keeps coming north. It’ll mean a southerly flow into our area instead of the usual recurves out to sea. We’re seeing the overshooting heat waves into ME/Ontario already. It’s counterintuitive but when we’re hot with westerly winds, the waters cool down due to upwelling. Southerly onshore winds help the coastal waters warm up faster. 

[Stormlover74]

21 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

What’s more likely is our climate becomes like the coastal Carolinas. You don’t hear about Charleston SC hitting 100 very often but they’re in the low to mid 90s all the time with atrocious humidity. We’re already at the point especially in August where the sea breeze doesn’t cool things down much, it just increases the humidity. We’re also at a longer term raised hurricane risk if the waters will keep warming up and the mean ridge position keeps coming north. It’ll mean a southerly flow into our area instead of the usual recurves out to sea. We’re seeing the overshooting heat waves into ME/Ontario already. It’s counterintuitive but when we’re hot with westerly winds, the waters cool down due to upwelling. Southerly onshore winds help the coastal waters warm up faster. 

Right, the humidity will save us from hitting triple digits as often but we'll continue to see more 90s with higher dews

[bluewave]

2021 was the warmest year on record for the Gulf of Maine.

 

https://gmri.org/stories/warming-21/

With an annual average sea surface temperature (SST) of 54.14 °F — more than 4 °F above normal — the Gulf of Maine experienced its warmest year on record in 2021. The region experienced the warmest fall on record and the second warmest summer, amid a marine heatwave event that lasted the entirety of 2021 — a first for the region.

The annual average SST in the Gulf of Maine for 2021 was 54.14 °F; this was 4.17 °F above the long-term (i.e., 1982-2011) average. Last year topped the previous warmest year on record — 2012 — by a remarkable 0.5 °F. Since the early 1980s, the rate of warming in the Gulf of Maine has been nearly triple that of the world’s oceans.

 

 

[uncle W]

the 1930's had five years that had a hundred degree temperature in NYC...the 1940's had three...the 1950's had five and had four straight years...the 1960's had one year...the 1970's one...the 1980's one...the 1990's had four...the 2000's had one...the 2010's had three...2020's have none so far...

average annual max temp for NYC by the decade...

decade...ave ...days 100

1870's...94.6.......0

1880's...95.2.......1

1890's...96.7.......1

1900's...94.7.......2

1910's...97.3.......5

1920's...96.6.......2

1930's...99.3.......8

1940's...98.5.......8

1950's...98.1.....12

1960's...97.3.......4

1970's...96.5.......3

1980's...97.6.......2

1990's...97.9.......8

2000's...95.5......1

2010's...97.5.......5

2020'a...97.0.......0 so far...

[WarrenCtyWx]

4 hours ago, Stormlover74 said:

Right, the humidity will save us from hitting triple digits as often but we'll continue to see more 90s with higher dews

As someone who hates humidity but finds temperature extremes interesting (like a couple of days of upper 90s+), that’s pretty disappointing.

[LibertyBell]

6 hours ago, jm1220 said:

What’s more likely is our climate becomes like the coastal Carolinas. You don’t hear about Charleston SC hitting 100 very often but they’re in the low to mid 90s all the time with atrocious humidity. We’re already at the point especially in August where the sea breeze doesn’t cool things down much, it just increases the humidity. We’re also at a longer term raised hurricane risk if the waters will keep warming up and the mean ridge position keeps coming north. It’ll mean a southerly flow into our area instead of the usual recurves out to sea. We’re seeing the overshooting heat waves into ME/Ontario already. It’s counterintuitive but when we’re hot with westerly winds, the waters cool down due to upwelling. Southerly onshore winds help the coastal waters warm up faster. 

It also reminds me of the east coast of Florida.  We're already starting to see the changing TC tracks with the storm last year that tracked from Bermuda to Rhode Island.  The other thing I worry about with this is the increasing levels of pollen and the bugs that seem to come earlier and earlier and stay later and later.  We might need to have widespread spraying for mosquitoes every year soon like they do in Florida.

 

[LibertyBell]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

2021 was the warmest year on record for the Gulf of Maine.

 

https://gmri.org/stories/warming-21/

With an annual average sea surface temperature (SST) of 54.14 °F — more than 4 °F above normal — the Gulf of Maine experienced its warmest year on record in 2021. The region experienced the warmest fall on record and the second warmest summer, amid a marine heatwave event that lasted the entirety of 2021 — a first for the region.

The annual average SST in the Gulf of Maine for 2021 was 54.14 °F; this was 4.17 °F above the long-term (i.e., 1982-2011) average. Last year topped the previous warmest year on record — 2012 — by a remarkable 0.5 °F. Since the early 1980s, the rate of warming in the Gulf of Maine has been nearly triple that of the world’s oceans.

 

 

 

An easy to see effect of this is that prime lobster fishing season has been moving farther and farther north with time.

 

[LibertyBell]

3 hours ago, uncle W said:

the 1930's had five years that had a hundred degree temperature in NYC...the 1940's had three...the 1950's had five and had four straight years...the 1960's had one year...the 1970's one...the 1980's one...the 1990's had four...the 2000's had one...the 2010's had three...2020's have none so far...

average annual max temp for NYC by the decade...

decade...ave ...days 100

1870's...94.6.......0

1880's...95.2.......1

1890's...96.7.......1

1900's...94.7.......2

1910's...97.3.......5

1920's...96.6.......2

1930's...99.3.......8

1940's...98.5.......8

1950's...98.1.....12

1960's...97.3.......4

1970's...96.5.......3

1980's...97.6.......2

1990's...97.9.......8

2000's...95.5......1

2010's...97.5.......5

2020'a...97.0.......0 so far...

This definitely jives with my memory of the 1990s being my favorite summery decade with multiple years setting 90+ records.  The shocker was the 1930s-- I only know of 1933 and 1936 being extremely hot, I guess the Dust Bowl highly influenced the heat in that decade?  What seems odd is that from what I recall reading, it was the persistent La Nina combined with bad farming practices that caused that....and we've had a persistent La Nina again....so why haven't we ever seen a repeat of that kind of heat?  NYC's record from 1936 still stands.

 

[bluewave]

On 4/8/2022 at 6:52 PM, LibertyBell said:

This definitely jives with my memory of the 1990s being my favorite summery decade with multiple years setting 90+ records.  The shocker was the 1930s-- I only know of 1933 and 1936 being extremely hot, I guess the Dust Bowl highly influenced the heat in that decade?  What seems odd is that from what I recall reading, it was the persistent La Nina combined with bad farming practices that caused that....and we've had a persistent La Nina again....so why haven't we ever seen a repeat of that kind of heat?  NYC's record from 1936 still stands.

 

We surpassed the 1930s records in 2010 and 2011 at Newark and Harrison. The Newark thermometer malfunctioned in 2010 so it didn’t record the high temperature. Harrison reached 106° while the Newark thermometer stopped working.  The next year in 2011 Newark made it to 108° while Harrison was 107°. The tree growth over the NYC sensor has kept the high temperatures artificially cooler than the other stations. The NYC thermometer was out in the open away from the tress in the 1930s. So we can’t really compare the recent  NYC high  temperatures before the new ASOS was installed under the trees in the 1990s. 

The all-time record heat in 2011 was a result of the record drought in the Southern Great Plains along with the warming climate. The 1930s records were largely due to the land practices of the time. We have created an artificial cooling oasis to our west over the Upper Plains into the Mid-west since then with the heavy irrigation and all the planted corn. So our summer air masses are traversing this wetter and more humid region. This is the opposite of allowing all the top soil to blow away during the 1930s and creating a much drier region for the flow to originate from. Those 1930s land practices and present day warmer climate could have produced temperatures in excess of 110° here with a westerly flow summer like 2011. 

 

The Dust Bowl was an early example of humans altering the Great Plains climate through land degradation. We had a big hand in the magnitude of the record heat. Now we are cooling the region through our farming practices.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16676-w

The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world.

 

 

https://www.science.org/content/article/america-s-corn-belt-making-its-own-weather

 

The United States’s Corn Belt is making its own weather

By Kimberly HickokFeb. 16, 2018 , 12:05 PM

The Great Plains of the central United States—the Corn Belt—is one of the most fertile regions on Earth, producing more than 10 billion bushels of corn each year. It’s also home to some mysterious weather: Whereas the rest of the world has warmed, the region’s summer temperatures have dropped as much as a full degree Celsius, and rainfall has increased up to 35%, the largest spike anywhere in the world. The culprit, according to a new study, isn’t greenhouse gas emissions or sea surface temperature—it’s the corn itself.

This is the first time anyone has examined regional climate change in the central United States by directly comparing the influence of greenhouse gas emissions to agriculture, says Nathan Mueller, an earth systems scientist at the University of California (UC), Irvine, who was not involved with this study. It’s important to understand howagricultural activity can have “surprisingly strong” impacts on climate change, he says.

The Corn Belt stretches from the panhandle of Texas up to North Dakota and east to Ohio. The amount of corn harvested in this region annually has increased by 400% since 1950, from 2 billion to 10 billion bushels. Iowa leads the country for the most corn produced per state.

To see whether this increase in crops has influenced the region’s unusual weather,researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge used computers to model five different 30-year climate simulations, based on data from 1982 to 2011. First, they compared simulations with high levels of intense agriculture to control simulations with noagricultural influence. Unlike the real-life climate changes, the control simulations showed no change in temperature or rainfall. But 62% of the simulations with intense agriculture resulted in temperature and rainfall changes that mirror the observed changes, the team reports this week in Geophysical Research Letters.

 

Map of the central United States, showing changes in rainfall during the last third of the 20th century. Areas of increased rainfall are shown in green, with darker colors representing a greater increase.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

The team then compared its results to historical global simulations from the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), an international program for the coordination of global climate research sponsored by the International Council for Science, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. WCRP’s models take into account greenhouse gas emissions and other natural and humanmade influences, but do not consider agricultural land use. When researchers ran the numbers for the Corn Belt, the global models fell short of reality: They predicted both temperature and humidity to increase slightly, and rainfall to increase by up to 4%—none of which matches the observed changes.

Other climate simulations that use sea surface temperature variation didn’t match observed changes, either. Those simulations matchedhistorical data until 1970; after that, the simulations predicted temperatures to keep increasing, rather than decreasing as they did in reality. This is a strong indication that agriculture, and not changing sea surface temperature, caused the regional changes in climate during the last third of the 20th century, the researchers say.

“The [influence] of agriculture intensification is really an independent problem from greenhouse gas emissions,” says Ross Alter, lead author of the study and now a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Hanover, New Hampshire. In fact, Alter says, heavy agriculture likely counteracted rising temperatures regionally that might have otherwise resulted from increasing greenhouse gas emissions. One other place that shows a similar drop in temperatures, he notes, is eastern China, where intensive agriculture is widespread.

But how does agriculture cause increased rainfall and decreased temperatures? The team suspects it has to do with photosynthesis, which leads to more water vapor in the air. When a plant’s pores, called stomata, open to allow carbondioxide to enter, they simultaneously allow water to escape. This increases the amount of water going into the atmosphere and returning as rainfall. The cycle may continue as that rainwater eventually moves back into the atmosphere and causes more rainfall downwind from the original agricultural area.

Rong Fu, a climate scientist at UC Los Angeles, agrees with the team’s assessment. She alsothinks that though human influence might be “greater than we realize,” this regional climate change is probably caused by many factors,including increased irrigation in the region.

“This squares with a lot of other evidence,” says Peter Huybers, a climate scientist at Harvard University, who calls the new study convincing. But he warns that such benefits may not last if greenhouse gas emissions eventually overpower the mitigating effect of agriculture.

Alter agrees, and says it’s unlikely that the large increases in U.S. crop production during the 20th century will continue. Other scientists have voiced concern that agricultural production could soon be reaching its limit in many parts of the world. 

“Food production is arguably what we’re more concerned about with climate change,” Mueller says. And understanding how agriculture and climate will continue to affect one another is crucial for developing projections for both climate and agricultural yields. “It’s not just greenhousegasses that we need to be thinking about.” 

 

[LibertyBell]

45 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We surpassed the 1930s records in 2010 and 2011 at Newark and Harrison. The Newark thermometer malfunctioned in 2010 so it didn’t record the high temperature. Harrison reached 106° while the Newark thermometer stopped working.  The next year in 2011 Newark made it to 108° while Harrison was 107°. The tree growth over the NYC sensor has kept the high temperatures artificially cooler than the other stations. The NYC thermometer was out in the open away from the tress in the 1930s. So we can’t really compare the recent  NYC high  temperatures before the new ASOS was installed under the trees in the 1990s. 

The all-time record heat in 2011 was a result of the record drought in the Southern Great Plains along with the warming climate. The 1930s records were largely due to the land practices of the time. We have created an artificial cooling oasis to our west over the Upper Plains into the Mid-west since then with the heavy irrigation and all the planted corn. So our summer air masses are traversing this wetter and more humid region. This is the opposite of allowing all the top soil to blow away during the 1930s and creating a much drier region for the flow to originate from. Those 1930s land practices and present day warmer climate could have produced temperatures in excess of 110° here with a westerly flow summer like 2011. 

 

The Dust Bowl was an early example of humans altering the Great Plains climate through land degradation. We had a big hand in the magnitude of the record heat. Now we are cooling the region through our farming practices.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16676-w

The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world.

 

https://www.science.org/content/article/america-s-corn-belt-making-its-own-weather

 

The United States’s Corn Belt is making its own weather

By Kimberly HickokFeb. 16, 2018 , 12:05 PM

The Great Plains of the central United States—the Corn Belt—is one of the most fertile regions on Earth, producing more than 10 billion bushels of corn each year. It’s also home to some mysterious weather: Whereas the rest of the world has warmed, the region’s summer temperatures have dropped as much as a full degree Celsius, and rainfall has increased up to 35%, the largest spike anywhere in the world. The culprit, according to a new study, isn’t greenhouse gas emissions or sea surface temperature—it’s the corn itself.

This is the first time anyone has examined regional climate change in the central United States by directly comparing the influence of greenhouse gas emissions to agriculture, says Nathan Mueller, an earth systems scientist at the University of California (UC), Irvine, who was not involved with this study. It’s important to understand howagricultural activity can have “surprisingly strong” impacts on climate change, he says.

The Corn Belt stretches from the panhandle of Texas up to North Dakota and east to Ohio. The amount of corn harvested in this region annually has increased by 400% since 1950, from 2 billion to 10 billion bushels. Iowa leads the country for the most corn produced per state.

To see whether this increase in crops has influenced the region’s unusual weather,researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge used computers to model five different 30-year climate simulations, based on data from 1982 to 2011. First, they compared simulations with high levels of intense agriculture to control simulations with noagricultural influence. Unlike the real-life climate changes, the control simulations showed no change in temperature or rainfall. But 62% of the simulations with intense agriculture resulted in temperature and rainfall changes that mirror the observed changes, the team reports this week in Geophysical Research Letters.

 

Map of the central United States, showing changes in rainfall during the last third of the 20th century. Areas of increased rainfall are shown in green, with darker colors representing a greater increase.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

The team then compared its results to historical global simulations from the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), an international program for the coordination of global climate research sponsored by the International Council for Science, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. WCRP’s models take into account greenhouse gas emissions and other natural and humanmade influences, but do not consider agricultural land use. When researchers ran the numbers for the Corn Belt, the global models fell short of reality: They predicted both temperature and humidity to increase slightly, and rainfall to increase by up to 4%—none of which matches the observed changes.

Other climate simulations that use sea surface temperature variation didn’t match observed changes, either. Those simulations matchedhistorical data until 1970; after that, the simulations predicted temperatures to keep increasing, rather than decreasing as they did in reality. This is a strong indication that agriculture, and not changing sea surface temperature, caused the regional changes in climate during the last third of the 20th century, the researchers say.

“The [influence] of agriculture intensification is really an independent problem from greenhouse gas emissions,” says Ross Alter, lead author of the study and now a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Hanover, New Hampshire. In fact, Alter says, heavy agriculture likely counteracted rising temperatures regionally that might have otherwise resulted from increasing greenhouse gas emissions. One other place that shows a similar drop in temperatures, he notes, is eastern China, where intensive agriculture is widespread.

But how does agriculture cause increased rainfall and decreased temperatures? The team suspects it has to do with photosynthesis, which leads to more water vapor in the air. When a plant’s pores, called stomata, open to allow carbondioxide to enter, they simultaneously allow water to escape. This increases the amount of water going into the atmosphere and returning as rainfall. The cycle may continue as that rainwater eventually moves back into the atmosphere and causes more rainfall downwind from the original agricultural area.

Rong Fu, a climate scientist at UC Los Angeles, agrees with the team’s assessment. She alsothinks that though human influence might be “greater than we realize,” this regional climate change is probably caused by many factors,including increased irrigation in the region.

“This squares with a lot of other evidence,” says Peter Huybers, a climate scientist at Harvard University, who calls the new study convincing. But he warns that such benefits may not last if greenhouse gas emissions eventually overpower the mitigating effect of agriculture.

Alter agrees, and says it’s unlikely that the large increases in U.S. crop production during the 20th century will continue. Other scientists have voiced concern that agricultural production could soon be reaching its limit in many parts of the world. 

“Food production is arguably what we’re more concerned about with climate change,” Mueller says. And understanding how agriculture and climate will continue to affect one another is crucial for developing projections for both climate and agricultural yields. “It’s not just greenhousegasses that we need to be thinking about.” 

 

Interesting-- so now we're cooling the local climate through land use but also making it more humid?

That black cloud of dust during the peak of the Dust Bowl is what fascinates me-- that made it all the way to the east coast!

Also, if we take Central Park out of the equation and we only go by JFK and LGA records, both had their hottest day in that excellent 1966 summer.  LGA hit 107 which was the highest temperature ever recorded in the city and JFK hit 104.  I believe they missed that in 2011 by only one degree!  Weird that NYC also underreported the temperature in 1966, it was "only" 103 there.

1966 was our hottest summer until 2010 came along.

 

[jconsor]

On 4/6/2022 at 3:46 PM, bluewave said:

Large increase in Northeast rainfall and snowfall extremes as the SSTs rapidly warm and water vapor rises.
 

 

Here are some additional papers discussing the recent increases in NE US precipitation:

Association between recent U.S. northeast precipitation trends and Greenland blocking
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358350986_Association_between_Recent_US_Northeast_Precipitation_Trends_and_Greenland_Blocking

Since the early 2000s, the northeastern region of the United States (USNE) has received increased total annual precipitation along with more frequent extreme precipitation events. Although previous work has discussed the contribution to increased extreme precipitation from tropical cyclones, the large‐scale driver(s) of summer precipitation increases in the extra‐tropics has received little attention. Here, we show that the summer‐season rainfall surpluses across the USNE are related to the increased frequency of atmospheric blocking over Greenland and the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The occurrence of these patterns in summer has been previously connected with southward shifted storm tracks and wet conditions across the eastern North Atlantic. Over the USNE, the circulation shifts are also related to enhanced rainfall due to southerly wind anomalies and increased moisture transport into and vertical motion over the region. It is important to note that the current generation of climate models used for future projections is unable to reproduce the observed tendency towards increased atmospheric blocking over Greenland. Thus, clarifying the association between Greenland blocking and recent precipitation changes across the USNE may help inform future climate projections of summer season rainfall for the region.


Tropical Moisture Exports, Extreme Precipitation and Floods in Northeast US
https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2016-403/hess-2016-403.pdf

A statistically and physically based framework is put forward that investigates the relationship between Tropical Moisture Exports (TME), and extreme Precipitation and floods in the Northeast United States (N.E. USA). TME correspond to the meridional transport of moist air masses, primarily born in tropical oceanic areas, to higher latitudes; contribute to the global climatology precipitation and its extremes; and are closely related to flood events, especially in the mid-latitudes. 15 The birth process and the steering of TME have seasonal and interannual variability. In this study, we explore how the TME are related to extreme precipitation and floods in the N.E. USA with a focus on seasonal variability and the potential impact of the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Links of TME to large floods events in N.E. USA in different seasons are first identified. The major moisture sources of the TME that contribute to precipitation extremes and floods in N.E. USA are then identified, together with 20 the seasonally and interannually varying characteristics in terms of both TME birth and entrance to the N.E. USA, and their subsequent contribution to extreme precipitation. We show that the extreme daily precipitation events are dominated by extreme TME entering the N.E. USA events in every season.

Rise in Northeast US extreme precipitation caused by Atlantic variability and climate change
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221209472100044X#bib7

Extreme precipitation (EP) in the Northeastern United States increased abruptly after 1996, coinciding with warming Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs). We examine the importance of internal variability and external forcings (including anthropogenic and natural forcings) to these EP and SST increases by using the Community Earth System Model large ensembles and an optimal fingerprint method to isolate the effects of different forcings on 1929–2018 Northeast EP and North Atlantic SSTs. We find that external forcings have significantly influenced both Northeast EP and North Atlantic SSTs, with a time of detection in 2008 and 1968, respectively. Beyond SST changes attributable to internal variability of the Atlantic, anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases are important drivers of SST changes, first detected in 1968 and 1983, respectively. Greenhouse gases are the only anthropogenic forcing exerting substantial influence on EP, first detected in 2008. We therefore attribute the 1996 EP shift to both unforced Atlantic variability and anthropogenic forcings.

[uncle W]

Newark NJ's least total annual minimums since 1955-56...2021-22 comes in 12th...

2011-12...53

1972-73...58

2001-02...59

2015-16...60

1990-91...64

1998-99...65

2019-20...65

2016-17...66

1997-98...67

1999-00...68

1994-95...70

2021-22...71

2009-10...72

1973-74...74

1983-84...74

[bluewave]

Brian Brettschneider has a great series of tweets showing how the humid subtropical climate shifted north into parts of our area on the new 1991-2020 climate normals update.

 

 

 

[rclab]

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Brian Brettschneider has a great series of tweets showing how the humid subtropical climate shifted north into parts of our area on the new 1991-2020 climate normals update.

 

 

 

Good morning BW. I wonder/ponder whether there is a full realization as to the difference in treating a symptom as opposed to addressing the disease. Perhaps the late 80 year old cherry trees might have an opinion if, with the gift/curse of sentience, they still existed. As always …..

[uncle W]

3 hours ago, rclab said:

Good morning BW. I wonder/ponder whether there is a full realization as to the difference in treating a symptom as opposed to addressing the disease. Perhaps the late 80 year old cherry trees might have an opinion if, with the gift/curse of sentience, they still existed. As always …..

why can't they do that around the Central Park observation spot...

[rclab]

1 hour ago, uncle W said:

why can't they do that around the Central Park observation spot...

Excellent point Unc. Either the trees are not old enough to sacrifice or a little accuracy is a too dangerous thing. Stay well, as always …..