A home destroyed in the 2020 North Complex Fire sits above Lake Oroville on 23 May 2021, in Oroville, California. At the time of this photo, drought had reduced the reservoir to 39 percent of capacity and 46 percent of its historical average. Photo: Noah Berger / AP Photo

Drought saps California reservoirs as hot, dry summer looms – “It makes me feel like our planet is literally drying up,”

By Adam Beam 17 June 2021 OROVILLE, Califorina (AP) – Each year Lake Oroville helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops, sustain endangered salmon beneath its massive earthen dam and anchor the tourism economy of a Northern California county that must rebuild seemingly every year after unrelenting wildfires. But the mighty lake — a […]

U.S. annual temperatures compared with 20th-century averages, 1901-2020. Each map shows the 30-year average temperatures compared with the 1901-2000 average. Data: NCEI. Graphic: CBS News

NOAA’s “new normal” climate report is anything but normal – “We’re really seeing the fingerprints of climate change in the new normals”

By Jeff Berardelli 8 May 2021 (CBS News) – Just a quick glance at the new U.S. Climate Normals maps published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday is enough for most climate scientists to say, “I told you so.” And it’s not just because the maps show a warmer and wetter […]

Map showing highest-impact disasters in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic (over 250,000 people affected). The map shows only a snapshot of disasters that took place from the beginning of the month when the epidemic was declared (March 2020) for a six-month period. More than 100 disasters occurred during this period and affected over 50 million people. There were also a number of ongoing crises, including measles in DRC and droughts in parts of east and southern Africa. Graphic: IFRC

Red Cross faced record number of climate-related disasters in 2020 – “This year has tested the resilience of tens of millions of people to breaking point”

KUALA LUMPUR, 16 December 2020 (IFRC) – In a record-breaking year, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has responded to more climate-related disasters across Asia Pacific than any other time this century so far. The IFRC has already responded to 25 climate-related disasters in the Asia Pacific, including floods, typhoons, […]

Global map of temperature anomalies relative to the 1981-2010 long-term average from the ERA5 reanalysis for January to October 2020. Graphic: Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF

WMO: 2020 on track to be one of three warmest years on record – More than 80 percent of the global ocean experienced a marine heatwave in 2020

GENEVA, 2 December 2020 (WMO) – Climate change continued its relentless march in 2020, which is on track to be one of the three warmest years on record. 2011-2020 will be the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Ocean heat is at […]

August 2020 blended land and sea surface temperature percentiles. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

August 2020 was the world’s second-warmest August on record – The year 2020 has more than a 99.9 percent chance to rank among the five warmest years on record

By Jeff Masters, Ph.D. 15 September 2020 (Yale Climate Connections) – August 2020 was the second-warmest August since global record keeping began in 1880, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI, reported September 14. The month was just 0.04 degrees Celsius behind the record set in August 2016. NASA rated the month as the third-warmest August on […]

The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this extremely think blanket of smoke along the West Coast on 9 September 2020. OMPS measured smoke clouds over the western U.S. with higher aerosol index values than anything Colin Seftor, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, says he has ever seen with the instrument. Graphic: Joshua Stevens / NASA Earth Observatory

California’s wildfire smoke plumes are unlike anything previously seen – California fire carbon emissions in 2020 exceed previous record by nearly 2 times

By Matthew Cappucci 12 September 2020 (The Washington Post) – More than 3.1 million acres have burned in California this year, part of a record fire season that still has four months to go. A suffocating cloud of smoke has veiled the West Coast for days, extending more than a thousand miles above the Pacific. And the […]

Satellite view of the Northridge Terrace neighborhood in Phoenix, Oregon before and after wildfire, 10 September 2020. Photo: Maxar Technologies

Satellite images show Phoenix and Talent, Oregon, have been “substantially destroyed” by wildfire – “This could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfire in our state’s history”

By Paul P. Murphy 10 September 2020 (CNN) – Swaths of the small southern Oregon cities of Phoenix and Talent now lie in ash, satellite images show, as wildfires wage unprecedented destruction across the US West. A massive burn scar cuts through parts of Talent and Phoenix, home to about 11,000 people combined. The wounded terrain, seen […]

Air temperatures across the United States on 6 September 2020, when much of the Southwest roasted in a dramatic heatwave. The map was derived from the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model and represents temperatures at 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) above the ground. The darkest red areas are where the model shows temperatures surpassing 113°F (45°C). Graphic: Joshua Stevens / NASA Earth Observatory

California heatwaves are becoming more frequent and lasting longer – “This has serious consequences for the fire season in Southern California”

By Kasha Patel 11 September 2020 (NASA) – In early September 2020, an intense heatwave broke temperature records in several locations in Southern California. The dry, hot conditions helped fuel new and existing fires, which have consumed tens of thousands of acres of land. According to recently published research, these extremes fit a long-term trend toward longer and more […]

On 9 September 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of thick smoke streaming from a line of intense fires in Oregon and California. Many communities in the region are facing extremely poor and sometimes hazardous air quality. Data: NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Photo: Lauren Dauphin / NASA

Autumn could deliver the worst of California’s 2020 fire season – A scorching Labor Day weekend brought an all-time record heat and unprecedented fire spread, but fire risks climb in the fall

By Bob Henson 8 September 2020 (Yale Climate Connections) – Temperatures reached ghastly levels in southern California and wildfire carved a path close to two of the state’s iconic national parks as a historic heat dome gripped the western United States during the traditional end-of-summer Labor Day weekend. The heat had eased somewhat by Tuesday, […]

Arctic temperature departures from average for 21 June 2020, showing extreme temperatures in Siberia and parts of Canada. The northeastern Siberian town of Verkhoyansk is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic Circle, with a reading of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) recorded Saturday, 20 June 2020. Graphic: Climate Reanalyzer

Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with 100-degree reading in Siberia

By Andrew Freedman 21 June 2020 (The Washington Post) – A northeastern Siberian town is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic Circle, with a reading of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) recorded Saturday in Verkhoyansk, north of the Arctic Circle and about 3,000 miles east of Moscow. Records […]

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