NOAA – Page 5 – Desdemona Despair

Aerial view of a sinkhole caused by rapid permafrost thawing. Abrupt thawing is “fast and dramatic” and it “affects landscapes in unprecedented ways” says Dr. Merritt Turetsky. Photo: Dr. Merritt Turetsky

February 5, 2020

“Fast and dramatic” permafrost thaw will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions – “Forests can become lakes in the course of a month”

By Natacha Larnaud 4 February 2020 (CBS News) – Rapidly thawing permafrost in the Arctic has scientists worried. According to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, the ice that holds the soil together is melting, causing hillsides to collapse and massive sinkholes to open up as a result. And that dramatic disruption to […]

External carapace and pereopod exoskeleton of the Dungeness crab megalopae (a) in its undamaged form (b, c) and with dissolution presence ranging from mild (Stage 1; d) to severe (Stage 2; e, f) patterns showing similarity in the structural damages (g) or exposed crystals (h). Indicated is the scale of the measurements (μm). The undamaged megalopae originated from the offshore or northwards habitats characterized by low ∆Ωcal,60 vertical gradients, while the most severely affected megalopae came from the nearshore or coastal habitats with steep ∆Ωcal,60 conditions. Photo: Bednaršek, et al., 2020 / Science of The Total Environment

February 2, 2020

Dungeness crab larvae already showing effects of coastal acidification – “We found dissolution impacts to the crab larvae that were not expected to occur until much later in this century”

23 January 2020 (NOAA) – A new NOAA-funded study has documented for the first time that ocean acidification along the US Pacific Northwest coast is impacting the shells and sensory organs of some young Dungeness crab, a prized crustacean that supports the most valuable fishery on the West Coast. Analysis of samples collected during a […]

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations, 2014-2019 and projected through 2020. Forecast (red) CO2 concentrations at the Mauna Loa observatory, with previous forecasts (blue) are compared to observations (black). The forecast uncertainty range (orange) based on the SST forecast is ± 2 standard deviations. Graphic: Met Office

January 25, 2020

Australia bushfires contribute to big rise in global CO₂ levels in 2020

By Grahame Madge 24 January 2020 (Met Office) – A forecast of the atmospheric concentration of carbon-dioxide shows that 2020 will witness one of the largest annual rises in concentration since measurements began at Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, 1958. During the year the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ is expected to peak above 417 parts per […]

Global average surface temperature, 1880-2019. The 2010-2019 decade was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record in 2019. Data: NOAA / NCEI. Graphic: AP

January 21, 2020

Earth had its hottest decade on record in 2010s – “2020 is off to a horrifying climate start, and I fear what the rest of the year will bring to our doorsteps”

By Seth Borenstein 15 January 2020 WASHINGTON (AP) – The decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record, two U.S. agencies reported Wednesday. And scientists said they see no end to the way man-made climate change keeps shattering records. “If you think […]

Precipitation averages in the contiguous U.S. for overlapping two-year calendar periods, 1895-2019. The period 2018-19 was the wettest of these, with 69.43” coming in well above the previous record of 68.62” from 1982-83. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

January 14, 2020

Second wettest year in U.S. history – Warmest year on record in Alaska

By Bob Henson 8 January 2020 (Weather Underground) – Capping a spectacularly soggy period that spanned parts of two calendar years, the contiguous United States saw its second wettest year on record in 2019, according to NOAA’s annual summary issued on Wednesday. The national average temperature wasn’t especially hot by recent standards, but there were […]

The tail of a male grey whale that stranded near Victoria, B.C. in April 2019, with skin eaten by an infestation of cyamids, or whale lice. Photo: Fisheries and Oceans Canada

December 28, 2019

In 2019, 214 grey whales washed up dead on the West Coast of North America – “They get eaten alive”

By Lisa Johnson 28 December 2019 (CBC News) – The first grey whale found dead in B.C. last year was in such rough shape that someone called to report it was tangled up in a big pink buoy. The pink wasn’t plastic, officials learned when they arrived to tow the skinny male to shore near […]

Animation showing the age of the Arctic sea ice between 2015 and 2019. Video: NASA

December 1, 2019

35 years of climate change in one video

By Johnny Wood 18 November 2019 (WEF) – Q: If you subtract 95 percent from something, what’s left? A: An environmental crisis. The “something” in question is the oldest and thickest solid layer of frozen water in the Arctic Ocean, which is melting so rapidly that just 5% of its original mass remains. Scientists from the […]

NOAA’s GOES East satellite captured this view of the strong Category 1 storm at 8:20 a.m. EDT, just 15 minutes before the center of Hurricane Dorian moved across the barrier islands of Cape Hatteras. Photo: NOAA

November 23, 2019

Rising sea levels are swallowing North Carolina’s Outer Banks beaches, new report says

By Hayley Fowler 20 November 2019 CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (The Charlotte Observer) – Hurricanes aren’t the only hazard lapping at the shores of the Outer Banks, according to a report examining the threat of climate change on some of the country’s most beloved natural landscapes. Thanks to creeping sea levels and erosion rates, Cape Hatteras […]

(a) Estimated distances animals can travel during the Phocine distemper virus (PDV) latent and infectious period (1 week, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks) illustrating the areas where viral transmission could occur, based on median travel speeds calculated for satellite-tagged bearded seals (green circles), spotted seals (orange), Steller sea lions (blue), and northern fur seals (purple). (b) Recorded tracks of a PDV seropositive bearded seal followed in July 2009 and a seropositive northern fur seal followed in November 2010 shown with sympatric PCR positive spotted seals, ribbon seals, and northern fur seals sampled 2009–2010. Sea ice is shown at its minimum extent in September (panel a) and retreating the following July after reaching a maximum winter extent (panel b). Graphic: VanWormer, et al., 2019 / Scientific Reports

November 18, 2019

Deadly virus spreads among marine mammals as Arctic sea ice melts – Scientists fear the virus, once found only in European waters, could spread to the U.S. West Coast

By Sarah Gibbens 7 November 2019 (National Geographic) – When sea otters in Alaska were diagnosed with phocine distemper virus (PDV) in 2004, scientists were confused. The pathogen in the Morbillivirus genus that contains viruses like measles had then only been found in Europe and on the eastern coast of North America. “We didn’t understand how a […]

Trump holds an early projection map of Hurricane Dorian in the Oval Office on 4 September 2019. The projected path of the hurricane has been extended into Alabama with a Sharpie pen, almost certainly by Trump himself. Photo: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

November 9, 2019

Internal NOAA emails detail blowback to Trump attacks on hurricane weather forecasters: “This has really gotten out of hand”

By Allan Smith 7 November 2019 (NBC News) – Internal emails at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released Thursday showed how the agency scrambled to respond to President Donald Trump’s inaccurate claims about Hurricane Dorian and Alabama. The emails, dozens of which were obtained by NBC News in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, […]