NOAA – Page 7 – Desdemona Despair

August 2019 Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius. Graphic: NOAA

September 18, 2019

Summer 2019 in the Northern Hemisphere tied for warmest summer on record – Five hottest NH summers have occurred in the past five years

By Andrew Freedman 16 September 2019 (The Washington Post) – The Northern Hemisphere just had its hottest summer on record since 1880, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data released Monday. NOAA found the average global surface temperature taken by thousands of thermometers, buoys and other sensors on land and sea tied with that of 2016 […]

Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), speaks at a meteorological convention, Tuesday, 10 September 2019, in Huntsville, Alabama. Jacobs both defended the administration and thanked a local weather office that contradicted Trump’s claims about Hurricane Dorian threatening Alabama. Photo: Jay Reeves / AP Photo

September 13, 2019

In agency-wide email, NOAA chief moves to regain scientists’ trust after defending incorrect Trump tweet

By Jason Samenow 13 September 2019 (The Washington Post) – Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sent an all-staff email Friday afternoon in an apparent effort to repair damage from an unusual 6 September 2019 statement that sided with President Trump rather than agency weather forecasters. The controversial NOAA […]

Hawaii was surrounded by waters with warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures on 9 September 2019. Departures from the seasonal norm are shown in degrees Celsius. On this date, Lihue, Kauai observed its 17th consecutive day of a daily record high temperature being set or tied. This is likely the longest such stretch for any official weather station with a long period of record (more than 50 years) at any site in the U.S. climate database. Graphic: Tropical Tidbits

September 12, 2019

Hawaii’s warmest summer on record and Alaska’s second warmest in 2019

By Christopher C. Burt 10 September 2019 (Weather Underground) – Although 2800 miles of open ocean separate them, both Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii experienced their warmest climatological summers (June-August) on record this year. It appears that this was Alaska’s second warmest summer (following that of 2004) but it is likely that it was Hawaii’s […]

National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini led a standing ovation in the agency’s office in Birmingham, Alabama, for weather forecasters who corrected Trump when he falsely claimed Hurricane Dorian was set to hit Alabama. Speaking at an annual meeting of the National Weather Association on 9 September 2019, Uccellini praised the scientists for upholding "the integrity of the forecasting process." Photo: Rick Smith

September 10, 2019

Standing ovation for weather forecasters who corrected Trump after he said Dorian could hit Alabama – Tearful NOAA head offers halfhearted defense of Alabama forecasters – “He can’t have it both ways”

By Tom Porter 10 September 2019 (Business Insider) – National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini led an ovation for weather forecasters in the agency’s office in Birmingham, Alabama, who corrected President Donald Trump when he falsely claimed Hurricane Dorian was set to hit Alabama. Speaking at an annual meeting of the National Weather Association Monday, Uccellini […]

Closeup of the map Trump presented to the media in the White House in Washington on 4 September 2019, showing the projected path of Hurricane Dorian. The projected path of Hurricane Dorian has been extended into Alabama by amateurish drawing with a Sharpie, Trump’s favorite type of pen. When asked by reporters whether the map had been altered, Trump said he didn’t know how it had been amended. Photo: Tom Brenner / Bloomberg

September 8, 2019

NOAA staff warned in Sept. 1 directive against contradicting Trump – “This is the first time I’ve felt pressure from above to not say what truly is the forecast”

By Andrew Freedman, Colby Itkowitz, and Jason Samenow 8 September 2019 (The Washington Post) – Nearly a week before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly backed President Trump over its own scientists, a top NOAA official warned its staff against contradicting the president. In an agencywide directive sent Sept. 1 to National Weather Service […]

Satellite view of Hurricane Dorian making landfall on the Bahamas, 1 September 2019. This view is one of the strongest landfalls ever captured on satellite. Photo: Dakota Smith / NCAR

September 1, 2019

Hurricane Dorian strikes Bahamas with record fury as Category 5 storm – “The winds are howling like we’ve never, ever experienced before”

By Ramón Espinosa 1 September 2019 McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas (AP) – Hurricane Dorian struck the northern Bahamas as a catastrophic Category 5 storm Sunday, its record 185 mph winds ripping off roofs, overturning cars and tearing down power lines as hundreds hunkered down in schools, churches and shelters. Dorian slammed into Elbow Cay in […]

Landsat 8 images from 21 July 2018 (left) and 16 September 2018 (right) illustrating the Taku Glacier transient snowline. The 21 July 2018 snowline is at 975 m and the 16 September 2018 snowline is at 1400 m. Average end-of-summer snowline is 975 m; the 2018 end-of-summer snowline was the highest observed in the 73-year record. Graphic: AMS

August 13, 2019

State of the Climate in 2018: 2018 was the fourth-hottest year on record, behind 2016, 2015, and 2017

12 August 2019 (NCEI) – A new State of the Climate report [pdf] confirmed that 2018 was the fourth warmest year in records dating to the mid-1800s. Last year was the fourth warmest year on record despite La Niña conditions early in the year and the lack of a short-term warming El Niño influence until […]

Graphs showing total precipitation averaged across the 48 contiguous U.S. states from January to July, 1895-2019; Statewide rankings for average precipitation for July 2019, as compared to each July since records began in 1895; and Statewide rankings for average temperature for July 2019, as compared to each July since records began in 1895. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

August 12, 2019

U.S. racks up wettest calendar year to date in July 2019

By Bob Henson 7 August 2019 (Weather Underground) – The Big U.S. Wet of 2018-19 went on cruise control in July, but the year so far managed to hang on as the nation’s wettest calendar year to date in records going back more than a century, NOAA reported on Wednesday. Averaged across the 48 contiguous states, the […]

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured an image of thick wildfire smoke swirling over the state on 8 July 2019. Meteorologists in Fairbanks reported visibility had dropped to less than one mile due to smoke, and air quality sensors in the city reported skyrocketing levels of particulates in the air. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory

August 10, 2019

Baked Alaska: State endures warmest month on record in July 2019

By Christopher C. Burt 9 August 2019 (Weather Underground) – July 2019 was the warmest month on record for the state of Alaska, smashing the previous record by almost one full degree Fahrenheit and leaving numerous local records for hottest day and warmest month in the superheated dust. Records for statewide average temperatures date back […]

Remote sensing imagery of discolored water and algal blooms in the Florida Bay and the Florida Keys region between 1992 and 2013 showing connectivity of the mainland and the lower Florida Keys, all outlined in red. (a) Landsat true color image on 29 May 1992 shows turbid water in western Florida Bay and discolored, black water in central Florida Bay that extends southward to the lower Florida Keys; (b) AVHRR reflectance image on 12 March 1996 shows high turbidity from the Shark River Slough plume extending beyond the lower Florida Keys towards Dry Tortugas; (c, d) VIIRS chlorophyll a anomaly images show phytoplankton blooms off Shark River Slough reaching the lower Florida Keys that were partially composed of the cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, on (c) 24 November 2013 and (d) 27 January 2014. Graphic: Lapointe, et al., 2019 / Marine Biology

July 26, 2019

Nutrient loading lowers resistance to thermal stress in Florida Keys corals – “These data make clear that this is not an ‘either temperature or nutrients’ situation, but rather a ‘both/and’ combination of multiple stressors”

By Gisele Galoustian 15 July 2019 (FAU) – Coral reefs are considered one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and are dying at alarming rates around the world. Scientists attribute coral bleaching and ultimately massive coral death to a number of environmental stressors, in particular, warming water temperatures due to climate change. A […]