For the first time in recorded history, the daily average surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico never fell below 73 degrees F during the just concluded meteorological winter. This is raising fears that spring and summer storms, including tornadoes, may have a significant increase due to warmer and additional moist air flowing into the southern United States from the Gulf of Mexico.
ars Technica reports:
Houston meteorologist Matt Lanza recently noted that a city on the upper Texas coast, Galveston, had been setting a staggering number of high temperature records this winter. About one-fourth of the days saw record highs, so Lanza reached out to the local forecast office of the National Weather Service to see if they had any concerns about thermometer calibration or recent land-use changes at Scholes Field in Galveston, where the temperature is recorded. No, he was told, it has just been that "sort of winter."
From the period of November through February, Galveston ended up setting a total of 31 record high temperatures. And it is not like Galveston is a recently thrown-up beach community; the city it has a history that goes back two centuries. It formerly served as the capital of the Republic of Texas, and it has formal meteorological records that date all the way back to 1874.
It wasn't hard to find the culprit for Galveston's heat this winter, as the barrier island's weather is dominated by the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf has been extremely warm this year. In fact, for the first time on record, the daily average surface temperature never fell below 73 degrees Fahrenheit during the just-concluded meteorological winter. It's enough for us to wonder, beyond the climate implications of a steamy Gulf and its impact on temperatures in the southern United States, how might the heat affect storm seasons later in the year?
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Given the very warm baseline for Gulf temperatures this spring, some meteorologists are already concerned about the potential for an early and active spring storm season, with warmer, more moist air flowing in off the Gulf of Mexico. However, it bears repeating that the relationship is not absolute—there are still many other ingredients needed for supercells to form, including large, upper-level storm systems spinning down into the central plains from the Rocky Mountains.
The article notes that Hurricane activity will not increase as they are a summer phenomenon, and that the surface waters at that time are always above 80 degrees which is the temperature necessary to support cyclone activity.
In Antarctica, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) committee of experts has announced new records for the highest temperatures recorded in the Antarctic Region.
The American Geophysical Union reports:
The committee announced today that the highest temperature for the “Antarctica Region,” defined by the WMO and United Nations as all land and ice south of 60°S, was 19.8 degrees Celsius (67.6 degrees Fahrenheit), observed on January 30, 1982 at Signy Research Station on Signy Island.
The highest temperature for the “Antarctic continent,” defined as the main continental landmass and adjoining islands, was 17.5 degrees C (63.5 degrees Fahrenheit), recorded on March 24, 2015 at the Esperanza Research Base located near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The highest temperature for the Antarctic Plateau, at or above 2,500 meters (8,200 feet), was minus 7.0 degrees Celsius (19.4 degrees Fahrenheit), observed on December 28, 1980 at an Automatic Weather Station (AWS) site located inland of the Adélie Coast.
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Spanning 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles) – roughly twice the size of Australia – the Antarctic is cold, windy and dry. The average annual temperature ranges from about minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) on the Antarctic coast to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit) at the highest parts of the interior. Its immense ice sheet is up to 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) thick and contains 90 percent of Earth’s fresh water, enough to raise sea level by around 60 meters (200 feet), were it all to melt. The Antarctic Peninsula (the northwest tip near to South America) is among the fastest warming regions of the planet, having warmed almost 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last 50 years. Some 87 percent of glaciers along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated in the last 50 years with most of these showing accelerated retreat in the last 12 years.
There are so many studies that confirm the planet is warming and warming rapidly. We are galloping into an unknown hell on earth scenario. If countries fulfill their emission reduction pledges they made in Paris, emissions will keep rising globally through 2030, with no sign of stopping. There is no way we can meet any temperature target as long as emissions keep rising. We can only stabilize global warming is if worldwide emissions are zero.