Biblical Floods in Colorado

You've probably been hearing about the epic-Biblical-thousand year floods that Boulder, Colorado is experiencing. The cause is record rainfall - as you can see from the chart, above, developed by Climate Central. In fact, according to Weather Underground and Climate Central, Boulder, which normally gets 1.7 inches of rain in September and 20.68 for the year, got half a year's rain in less than half the month of September. (The forecast has a small chance of rain today, and then sunshine for the next few days.)

What might be causing all the rain? The Pacific. According to Climate Central:

During the past couple of weeks, the weather across the West has featured both an active Southwest Monsoon and a broad area of low pressure at upper levels of the atmosphere, which has been pinned by other weather systems and prevented from moving out of the region. It was this persistent low pressure area that helped pull the moisture out of the tropics and into Colorado. Signs point to the tropical Pacific being the source of the abundant moisture according to the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. From there, the moisture plume was transported northeastward, over Mexico and into Texas, and then northward by upper level winds.

This tropical air mass, which is more typical of the Gulf Coast than the Rocky Mountains, has been forced to move slowly up and over the Front Range by light southeasterly winds. This lifting process, known as orographic lift, allowed the atmosphere to wring out this unusually bountiful stream of moist air, dumping torrents of rain on the Boulder area for days on end.

That's a screen shot of the satellite images loop CIMSS released showing the tropical air mass. (I couldn't find it to embed it, but click on the link to Climate Central - you can see it moving there.)

Is climate change involved? No one weather event can be traced back easily to climate change, but there is at least one suggestive factor: the magnitude of the change from past events. And, of course, temperatures are rising around the globe. Generally, warmer temperatures mean more water vapor in the air, which means more extreme rain or snowfall. Stay tuned.

Interactive wildfire map

Thanks to our friends at Climate Central for this handy map showing active wildfires in the US. If you click in you can get the name of the fire, the fire's size in acres, and other information. The map is updated daily.

Climate news roundup from Climate Central

That image? It's a toxic tide in Lake Erie - something that, as Climate Central reports, could come more often, with greater intensity, as the climate warms. 

It's just one of six images, linked to related reports, in Saturday's "Six to See" Slideshow on Climate Central's website. Another story covers NOAA's new hurricane warning and watch system, developed in response to Hurricane Sandy.

Beginning on June 1, the agency will be permitted to leave watches and warnings in effect even if a hurricane transitions into a post-tropical cyclone, which technically speaking is a different type of storm than a storm of purely tropical origins, provided that the storm still poses “a significant threat to life and property.

Other stories involve Antarctic sea ice, projected droughts this summer in the Western United States, and other economic and social impacts of climate change.

Slideshow illustrating global climate issues

Here's a link to a slideshow, from Climate Central, illustrating a week's worth of climate change news. Each slide links to a longer story. The screenshot above is photo of fractures in the sea ice off Canada and Alaska - and the related story explains why the fractures are a problem.

The NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center) said the fracturing is likely a sign of the prevalence of young and thin sea ice, which can be disturbed more easily by weather patterns and ocean currents, and also melts more easily when exposed to warm air and ocean temperatures during the melt season. As Arctic sea ice extent has plummeted since 1979, down to a record low in September 2012, first-year ice has become much more common across the Arctic, as thick, multiyear ice has declined.

Some of the other stories in the slideshow include NOAA's announcement that February 2013 was the 336th consecutive month in which global temperatures rose above the 20th century average; evidence that wet seasons are wetter and dry seasons dryer, and why the atmosphere has not warmed as much over the last decade as predicted. (No, it's not because global warming isn't happening.)

New nautical charts for the Arctic

 

UPDATE, March 5: Grist.org reports today that by 2040 some ships will be able to cross the North Pole itself during the summer - a route now covered in 65 feet of ice. 

You may have heard that the Northwest Passage, the sea route between Europe and Asia via the Arctic, has been open, also here, and traversed by vessels. Now, in order to make navigation safer, NOAA is developing new sea charts for Alaskan coast areas seeing more shipping traffic. (NOAA, a US agency, provides charts and "other features required for safe navigation in US waters.)

Why is this important? Ships have not been able to travel here in the past. In fact, NOAA says in its announcement,

[M]any regions of Alaska’s coastal areas have never had full bottom bathymetric surveys, and some haven’t had more than superficial depth measurements since Captain Cook explored the northern regions in the late 1700s.

This is climate change coming our way. As Climate Central puts it:

The world as a whole is warming due to heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, but the Arctic is warming faster than average thanks to something called “Arctic Amplification”: as bright, reflective sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters, which absorb the Sun’s heat. That heat warms the air, which makes new, thick ice harder to form, setting the stage for even greater warming the following season. By 2030, or perhaps even earlier, the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free during part of each summer. - See more at: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-to-map-alaskas-increasingly-ice-free-arctic-waters-15664#sthash.8fZF5qx8.dpuf

The world as a whole is warming due to heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, but the Arctic is warming faster than average thanks to something called “Arctic Amplification”: as bright, reflective sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters, which absorb the Sun’s heat. That heat warms the air, which makes new, thick ice harder to form, setting the stage for even greater warming the following season. By 2030, or perhaps even earlier, the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free during part of each summer.

The world as a whole is warming due to heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, but the Arctic is warming faster than average thanks to something called “Arctic Amplification”: as bright, reflective sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters, which absorb the Sun’s heat. That heat warms the air, which makes new, thick ice harder to form, setting the stage for even greater warming the following season. By 2030, or perhaps even earlier, the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free during part of each summer. - See more at: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-to-map-alaskas-increasingly-ice-free-arctic-waters-15664#sthash.8fZF5qx8.dpuf

The world as a whole is warming due to heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, but the Arctic is warming faster than average thanks to something called “Arctic Amplification”: as bright, reflective sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters, which absorb the Sun’s heat. That heat warms the air, which makes new, thick ice harder to form, setting the stage for even greater warming the following season. By 2030, or perhaps even earlier, the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free during part of each summer. - See more at: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-to-map-alaskas-increasingly-ice-free-arctic-waters-15664#sthash.8fZF5qx8.dpuf

The world as a whole is warming due to heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, but the Arctic is warming faster than average thanks to something called “Arctic Amplification”: as bright, reflective sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters, which absorb the Sun’s heat. That heat warms the air, which makes new, thick ice harder to form, setting the stage for even greater warming the following season. By 2030, or perhaps even earlier, the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free during part of each summer. - See more at: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-to-map-alaskas-increasingly-ice-free-arctic-waters-15664#sthash.8fZF5qx8.dpuf

The world as a whole is warming due to heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, but the Arctic is warming faster than average thanks to something called “Arctic Amplification”: as bright, reflective sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters, which absorb the Sun’s heat. That heat warms the air, which makes new, thick ice harder to form, setting the stage for even greater warming the following season. By 2030, or perhaps even earlier, the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free during part of each summer. - See more at: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-to-map-alaskas-increasingly-ice-free-arctic-waters-15664#sthash.8fZF5qx8.dpuf

The world as a whole is warming due to heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, but the Arctic is warming faster than average thanks to something called “Arctic Amplification”: as bright, reflective sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters, which absorb the Sun’s heat. That heat warms the air, which makes new, thick ice harder to form, setting the stage for even greater warming the following season. By 2030, or perhaps even earlier, the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free during part of each summer. - See more at: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-to-map-alaskas-increasingly-ice-free-arctic-waters-15664#sthash.8fZF5qx8.dpuf