The severe El Niño in South America is a preview of a climate-changed world
https://www.vox.com/climate/23992678/el-nino-south-america-peru-bolivia-flood-drought-dengue-cop28-climate
Tag: weather
How Hurricane Otis defied forecasts and exploded into a deadly storm overnight
“This year’s El Niño, coupled with ongoing climate change, has amplified many of the drivers of hurricanes, and their destructive elements.”
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“El Niño, the warm phase of the Pacific Ocean’s temperature cycle, has been especially strong this year, driving global air and ocean temperatures to levels never before recorded. Hurricanes require sea surface temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or more to form, so hotter weather tends to favor more hurricanes. In the Atlantic Ocean, El Niño also tends to create wind shear — wind coming from different directions or at different speeds — which usually suppresses hurricane formation, but the water temperatures have been so hot that hurricane activity in the Atlantic has still been above average.
In the Pacific, El Niño is much more favorable to tropical storms (in the eastern Pacific, major tropical storms are called hurricanes, while in the west, they’re known as typhoons). This year, the west coast of North America has already seen several hurricanes. Hurricane Hilary struck California in August, and the winds from Hurricane Dora fanned the flames of wildfires in Hawaii.”
https://www.vox.com/climate/23932000/hurricane-otis-mexico-acapulco-rapid-intensification-extreme-climate
This Might Be the Hottest Year You’ve Ever Experienced
The Southern Hemisphere, where it’s winter, has been really hot too
“Winters tend to be milder in the Southern Hemisphere than in the North, and many of the factors that cranked up the heat across North America, Europe, and Asia in recent months are doing the same thing below the equator: Ocean temperature cycles like El Niño are in their warm phases, while greenhouse gasses from burning fossil fuels are accumulating in the atmosphere, warming the planet and changing its climate. So the hot winter across the Southern Hemisphere this year lined up with what scientists expected.”
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““The biggest difference between the Northern and Southern hemispheres as a whole is that the North contains more large continents with an Arctic Ocean, whereas the Southern features fewer large land areas, the Southern Ocean and then Antarctica,” Grose said.
The oceans act like shock absorbers for weather and have a moderating effect on the climate. The Southern Hemisphere, with proportionately more ocean than land, tends to have a less drastic swing between seasons than places above the equator. That also means that winters in the south start from a warmer baseline than winters in the north.
So countries like Brazil rarely get chilly weather in the winter. “It’s dry and mild,” said Fábio Luiz Teixeira Gonçalves, a professor of geosciences at the University of São Paulo. Temperatures typically range between 53°F and 78°F, but they have been about 3.6°F higher on average since May around São Paulo. Those higher average temperatures fueled more extreme heat.”
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“Hotter weather in the winter can have a lot of important consequences, even if temperatures don’t reach the triple-digit peaks of the summer. Plants, for instance, rely on temperature signals to time their life-cycles”
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“Cold temperatures also keep dangerous insects in check”
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“Warmer, drier winters also mean that there is less water recharging rivers and groundwater supplies, and thus less water available for agriculture the following season.”
https://www.vox.com/climate/23864998/heat-wave-south-america-brazil-australia-argentina-hemisphere-winter
How Louisiana — one of the nation’s wettest states — caught on fire
“Much like other places, Louisiana is experiencing record-breaking heat and dryness, which have made it easier for wildfires to proliferate.”
https://www.vox.com/climate/2023/8/30/23852363/louisiana-wildfires
This summer is giving us a glimpse at the dangerous future of work
“Temperatures also don’t have to be very high for strenuous work to become deadly. The lack of heat acclimatization all too frequently kills workers; the majority of workers who die from heat do so in the first few days at work. “A lot of workers will actually end up in heatstroke during the first week on the job,” says Brenda Jacklitsch, a health scientist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
Extreme heat is also affecting productivity. According to a 2022 study by The Lancet, which is tracking the relationship between climate change and public health, about 470 billion hours of labor were lost in 2021 due to extreme heat. The US alone lost 2.5 billion hours, mostly in the construction, manufacturing, service, and agriculture sectors.”
https://www.vox.com/23844420/extreme-heat-work-labor-osha-climate-change
Temperatures exceeding 123 Fahrenheit plunges country into 2-day nationwide shutdown: ‘Preserve the health of the citizens’
“Iran shut down government agencies, banks, and schools nationwide in early August, with temperatures soaring higher than 123 degrees Fahrenheit in places and the power grid struggling”https://www.yahoo.com/news/temperatures-exceeding-123-fahrenheit-plunges-050000372.html
‘The heat’s different now’: Why the U.S. was unprepared for a deadly summer
““The No. 1 weather-related killer is heat,” said Tim Cady, a meteorologist with the Houston office of the National Weather Service. “But most people don’t realize how sick it can make you because it’s not as visible as hurricanes or flash floods.””
Why 82% of Mexico is Empty
Winter storms put the US power grid to the test. It failed.
“Two-thirds of the US population faced snowstorms, high winds, or frigid winter weather over the Christmas holiday weekend, leading to at least 52 deaths and pushing the electricity grid to the brink of failure. And in many instances, it did. At its peak on Christmas, an estimated 1.7 million businesses and homes faced power outages.
It was the coldest Christmas in recent memory, and that meant a predictable surge in heating demand as temperatures dropped. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides power for 10 million people, for instance, said demand was running nearly 35 percent higher than on a typical winter day.
In many states, utilities and grid operators only narrowly averted greater disaster by asking customers to conserve their energy or prepare for rolling blackouts (when a utility voluntarily but temporarily shuts down electrical power to avoid the entire system shutting down). Some of the largest operators, including Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy, used rolling blackouts throughout the weekend. Others, like National Grid, experienced some outages and asked some consumers to reduce gas usage. Texas also barely got through the emergency. On Friday, the US Department of Energy permitted the state to ignore environmental emissions standards to keep the power on.
One major transmission company that regulators thought would be well-prepared for the winter storm was caught off-guard: PJM Interconnection, which serves 65 million people in 13 eastern states, faced triple the power plant outages than it expected.
Officials probably could have met the higher demand if not for another predictable event that overwhelmed the system. Because of the extreme conditions, coal and gas plants and pipelines froze up too, taking them out of commission to deliver energy in areas that run mostly on gas.
The events over Christmas show how utilities and regulators continue to overestimate the reliability of fossil fuels to deliver power in a winter storm.”
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“It wasn’t that the country didn’t have enough gas to go around to meet the high demand. There was plenty of gas, but the infrastructure proved vulnerable to the extreme weather. Enough wells and pipes were frozen or broken to bring the grid to its brink.”