Updraft Category Archive: Climate Cast

Climate Cast: Putting the Moore tornado in the context of Climate Change

Posted at 5:37 PM on May 23, 2013 by Paul Huttner (3 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

The nature of our seasons is changing. Spring blooms come earlier. Summer is more humid with a documented increase in extreme localized flash flood events...and more frequent droughts. Fall lingers longer. Lakes freeze up later. Winters are trending shorter and noticeably, measurably milder. New plants are able to thrive in Minnesota's milder climate.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

481 Briarwood-Elementary-destruction.gif
Before and after images of Briarwood Heights Elementary in Moore, Oklahoma.

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for May 23rd, 2013

Tempting as it is to chalk up a severe weather event to climate change, the killer tornado that hit Oklahoma has no clear link to global warming, according to Paul Huttner, the Chief Meteorologist for MPR News.

Putting the Moore, Oklahoma tornado in the context of climate change.

Damage path of the Moore, Oklahoma tornado. Check out NPR's interactive zoom tool.

Moore, Oklahoma: Ground Zero in Tornado Alley

Incredible timelapse of Moore, OK tornado captured by an Oklahoma City news helicopter Monday

If there is an "Epicenter" in Tornado Alley, it has to be Moore, Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma City suburb has seen 3 direct hits from EF-4 to EF-5 tornadoes in the past 14 years.

Image credit: Weather Decision Technologies

Jeff Masters has noted that the latest Moore tornado likely to be one of the five most damaging tornadoes in history.

The Moore, Oklahoma tornado of May 20, 2013 is now ranked an EF-5, making it one of only 59 U.S. tornadoes to achieve that distinction since record keeping began in 1950. The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma announced Tuesday that their damage survey teams found an area of EF-5 damage near Briarwood Elementary School, with winds of 200 - 210 mph indicated.

There were no EF-5 tornadoes observed in 2012, and the last time the U.S. had an EF-5 was on May 24, 2011, when the Oklahoma towns of Calumet, El Reno, Piedmont, and Guthrie were hit by an EF-5 with 210+ mph winds that killed nine people. The maximum width of the 2013 Moore tornado's damage swath was a huge 1.3 miles. Detailed damage survey information in Google Earth Format provided by the Norman, OK NWS office shows that the typical width of the EF-0 and greater damage swath was about 0.6 miles, and the EF-4 damage area was about 0.1 miles across at its widest. EF-4 damage occurred along approximately 4 miles of the tornado's 17-mile long path. The damage swath from the May 20, 2013 tornado as it cut through the most densely built up portions of Moore was roughly 1.5 times as wide as the one from the May 3, 1999 EF-5 tornado. That tornado was the 4th costliest in history ($1.4 billion 2011 dollars), so it is a good bet that the 2013 Moore tornado will end up being even more expensive. This morning, the Oklahoma Insurance Department said the preliminary tornado damage estimate could top $2 billion. This would make the 2013 Moore tornado the 2nd most expensive tornado in history (as ranked by NOAA/SPC) or 3rd most expensive (as ranked by insurance broker Aon Benfield.) The nine billion-dollar tornadoes (2013 dollars) are:

1) Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011, $2.9 billion
2) Tuscaloosa, Alabama, April 27, 2011, $2.3 billion (not in SPC's list)
3) Moore, Oklahoma, May 20, 2013, $2 billion
4) Topeka, Kansas, June 8, 1966, $1.8 billion
5) Lubbock, Texas, May 11, 1970, $1.5 billion
6) Bridge Creek-Moore, Oklahoma, May 3, 1999, $1.4 billion
7) Hackleburg, Alabama, April 27, 2011, $1.3 billion (not in SPC's list)
8) Xenia, Ohio, April 3, 1974, $1.1 billion
9) Omaha, Nebraska, May 6, 1975, $1 billion

But is climate change a factor in producing more of these these monster EF-5 tornadoes?

Probably not.

Some facts:

-Oklahoma City has suffered the most direct tornado hits of any US city...at least 100 since 1890.

-Overall tornado stats show no real "frequency trends" to suggest a clear connection between violent tornadoes and climate change.

Image: NOAA

-EF4 & EF5 tornadoes compose less than 1% of all tornadoes...but produce 70% of tornado fatalities.

Image: tornadoproject.com.

-Warming trends in the US may produce more T-Storms overall, but also may create less wind shear that is necessary for tornado formation.

-There is some evidence tornado alley may be expanding northward. Annual average tornado numbers in Minnesota have nearly doubled since the 1950s.

-My analysis of SPC data for the past few decades shows the number of tornadoes in Minnesota has actually trended closer to Oklahoma. The chart below shows tornado numbers by decade since the 1950s. Oklahoma is the top line, Minnesota below.

Bottom line: There appears to be no discernible link between climate change and the increase in frequency of violent tornadoes in the US. There may be some evidence "Tornado Alley" is expanding northward.

Here's the NOAA "State of the Science Fact Sheet" on what we know, and don't know about climate change and tornadoes.

Thankfully EF-5 tornadoes over 1 mile wide are rare beasts.

Climate Central's Andrew Freedman has another look at how the Moore tornado fits in other bigger context of climate change.

Based on data from 1982-2011, Oklahoma City was the likeliest spot in the country for seeing severe thunderstorms on May 20. Tornado statistics show that the Oklahoma City metro area has had the most direct tornado hits of any American city, with at least 100 since 1890. That's according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., which is situated just down the road from Moore, and whose forecasters were forced to take shelter as the storm moved through.

Similarly, there is no evidence to indicate that EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes -- like the one that decimated a large swath of Moore -- are becoming more frequent or severe. Such tornadoes are rare -- they comprise less than 1 percent of the total number of tornadoes -- yet they are the most reliable killers, accounting for 70 percent of tornado fatalities. The record annual number of EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes occurred in 1974, when 36 such tornadoes scarred the landscape of the Midwest and Great Plains. Between 2000 and February of this year, there were 129 EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes, according to a Storm Prediction Center database.

Disappearing mountain snow cover: An important indicator of climate changes

Mountains are like water towers around the world. They collect and store massive amounts of snow and ice, then give it back as water through snowmelt in the warm season.

Recent trends show a clear signal that high mountain snow and ice is disappearing faster in spring that it did 50 years ago.

Tim Radford from Climate News Network has more.

LONDON - Around 20 percent of the snow cover in North America's greatest mountain range has been lost - because of warmer springs in the last three decades.

Scientists from the American Geophysical Union and the U.S. Geological Survey report that they had established a pattern of snowfall in the northern and southern Rockies: when the snowpack was large in the northern Rockies, it might be correspondingly meager in the southern mountains and vice versa.

But since the 1980s, snowpack declines have occurred simultaneously along the entire length of the Rocky Mountains, with unusually severe declines in the north.

"Snow deficits were consistent throughout the Rockies due to lack of precipitation during the cool seasons during the 1930s - coinciding with the Dust Bowl era."

"From 1980 on, warmer spring temperatures melted snowpack throughout the Rockies early, regardless of winter precipitation," said Greg Pederson of the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Bozeman, Montana.
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Climate Change Mitigation: What you can do

Let's fact it, Climate Change can seem like and overwheling problem with few easy solutions.

Many of you have asked what you can do in your lives to combat and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Here are some great resources from NASA and EPA.

NASA: Resources on Climate Change mitigation

EPA: What you can do about Climate Change

EPA: Regional impacts of Climate Change

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Paul Huttner
(3 Comments)

Climate Cast: Is a warmer Arctic causing our prolonged winter?

Posted at 3:43 PM on April 19, 2013 by Paul Huttner (1 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for April 18th, 2013

It's possible that our current seemingly endless winter could be in part caused by a loss of Arctic sea ice.

Record Arctic warming could be leading to a wavy jet stream that gets stuck in place, keeping a weather system in place longer, according to an article in Scientific American.

Image: Scientific American

MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner joins The Daily Circuit to discuss "global weirding" and our never-ending winter. Here is an edited transcript of the conversation:

Huttner: This is the toughest spring we've had since 1983, 30 years ago. It's not your imagination. It's been a rough one.
Weber: Yesterday on the show we had Ian Bremmer of Eurasia group here. We talked about climate change and global warning. He analyzes political risk for countries as a consultant. We had a caller asking Bremmer about the world addressing -- or not addressing -- climate change, noting that there is another climate change summit next month in Germany.

Ian Bremmer (clip): I think we should stop doing global climate summits. I think continuing to have them allows us to believe that we're making progress when in reality we're not. So the first thing we have to do is recognize that climate change is occurring because we can't deal with it globally, we won't deal with it globally, and so we have to start planning for how we're going to help those to adapt to the processes that aren't of their own making, but that they'll be impacted by.

Weber: He went on to say, stop these global summits and start doing stuff more locally, nation by nation or state by state. What do you think of that?

Huttner: I'm inclined to agree with his assessment. Not from a defeatist standpoint that there's nothing we can do on a larger scale, I think there is, but governments are slow to react, as we know, to a lot of things. The reality is climate change is here, it's already occurring and there's already a certain amount of warming pre-loaded into the atmosphere. The greenhouse gases up there have a half-life of decades. We're continuing to put out more greenhouse gases every day, every year. So I'm inclined to agree with that political assessment even though we stay more focused on the science here.

Weber: You're the people with the numbers and you give the politicians the data and the information and they're supposed to make the decision. I guess Ian's point is that they're not. It is this interesting dynamic that if you break it down into smaller pieces you'll always be able to have the argument that the reason we're having problems over here is because of something happening globally. It seems like a back and forth to be had.

Huttner: It does. One of the things that we learned about CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), for example, is that the things you do in your daily life matter. If you decide you want to make changes that will reduce your carbon footprint, do it. There are many ways to do it, there are lots of resources to find out how to do it. We don't advocate for that as much here from a news and a science standpoint but the information is out there and that's sometimes how a lot of good changes happen.

Weber: You've been looking at information for this discussion about how global warming can actually be "global weirding." We're talking about this crazy, longer winter we're having. With all the Arctic ice that's melting and the warming that's happening, why do you have harsher winters sometimes?

Huttner: It seems counter intuitive. With the spring of our discontent, or the eternal winter of 2013, there's growing evidence that there are links between our changing climate system and extreme weather. Some people call it "global weirding." I think that's a good term. In other words, we're not just warmer, but we're also seeing more extreme and persistent weather patterns.

Here's this paper that came out in Scientific American, saying does our record loss of Arctic sea ice that we had last summer stacks the deck in favor of harsh winter weather in the United States and Europe.

Here's the science behind it: We have less ice in the Arctic. That means a warmer Arctic Ocean and less of a temperature contrast between the Arctic and the equator. That means a weaker polar vortex, these jet streams that spin around the planet. They're driven by temperature contrast. If you reduce the contrast, you slow down the winds, and you're changing the weather system. That means deeper, more wavy jet streams and slower jet streams that become more persistent. We get these deeper, more persistent bouts of Arctic air, more cold, more snow and we get these stalled or blocked weather patterns. That's why we've seen this for the past several years. Months of drought, followed by months of snowy and cold weather. The weather patterns get stuck when you have a weaker polar vortex.

Weber: When the jet stream does go up into the Arctic and bring down that air, it stalls in Minnesota.

Huttner: It slows down. We call this "Arctic amplification" because these waves in the jet stream get bigger and they slow down. Our climate system changing like that increases the weather extremes because weather patterns get stuck. More drought if you get caught under one of the warmer, drier part of the jet streams, the ridges, as we call them.

Weber: If you show the maps of what the Arctic ice looked like in 1980 compared to today, we've essentially lost the size of Europe in Arctic ice.

Huttner: We've lost roughly half of the ice since 1980, more like 70 percent of the volume because the thickness has been reduced as well. From a weather forecaster standpoint, it's interesting because as we're changing the climate system, one of the things I'm asking is are we changing the way our computer weather forecast models work?

The duration and intensity of these weather patterns seems to be more persistent and the basic assumptions that the models were based on decades ago may be changing in terms of the speed with which these waves move through the atmosphere. The forecast models keep wanting to push weather systems along. Great example this spring: we've had three or four times when the medium range models say we're going to warm up in ten days or two weeks, but then it gets pushed away as these weather patterns get stuck.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Paul Huttner

(1 Comments)

Climate Cast: The not so hidden insurance costs of climate change

Posted at 4:46 PM on April 4, 2013 by Paul Huttner (4 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

Hurricane Sandy roars ashore
NASA image

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for April 4th, 2013

Last year was an expensive year for insurers. Global economic losses from natural and man-made disasters totaled $186 billion.

Extreme weather events in the United States were the most expensive -- Hurricane Sandy alone caused $70 billion worth of damage.

On Climate Cast, Kerri Miller and MPR News' Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner talked about the economic impact of climate change. Here is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Seawater gushes into the subway tunnel at Hoboken, New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy.
Image: State of New Jersey

Tracking the costs of climate change and extreme weather:

Follow the money.

That's becoming the mantra for those tracking the real costs of climate change.

Some of the costs of an increase in extreme weather events are obvious. Some are hidden. All are working their way into your insurance bill.

It's called "mutualized risk." And it's why some of your insurance bill in Minnesota and the "safer" areas of the USA end up paying for costly events like Hurricane Sandy and Katrina on the coasts.

As insurance companies try and price climate change into the market, they are hiring an increasing number of scientists to evaluate future "risk."

I asked Julie Serakos with BMS Intermediaries to expand on how those of us in more "climate safe" areas pay for costs from increasing extreme weather events elswhere, and why the USA is ground zero for risk and losses.

Hi Paul,

A couple thoughts: as a meteorologist you can appreciate that weather patterns and risk events are changing around the world all the time. While 2012 had a higher proportion of U.S. loss causing events, 2011 was the opposite with the Japan and New Zealand earthquakes, typhoons in Australia and the Philippines, flooding in Australia and Thailand, etc. despite the U.S. having one of the worst severe storm seasons on record. The insured loss, as opposed to total economic damage, tends to be driven by severe events that happen in the most developed countries including the U.S., western Europe and Australia.

As far as why the average person should care, the whole premise of insurance is to mutualize or "share" the risk. You and I pay a small insurance premium each year to cover the value of our homes because the cost of a complete loss is shared across all the other policyholders for the insurance company. We could likely never afford to pay a premium that covers the total loss to our homes if we had to fund it all ourselves individually. Insurance companies aim to rate policies based on the risk level of each policy as best they can, but are regulated by the state as to how much they can charge for the risk, which is where the spreading comes into play. Certainly homeowners in coastal locations pay higher premiums due to the hurricane risk in those states but the state regulators don't allow insurance carriers to charge the full risk load, nor could homeowners afford it, which again is where spreading the risk comes into play. So we all pay a little more for the increased risk in other locations, but in theory, the people in the riskiest locations pay even more.

Best, Julie

Swiss Re: U.S. Dominated Global Disaster Losses in 2012

Last year was the 3rd costliest year on record for insurers, and the USA lead the way with extreme weather events.

Climate Central's Andrew Freedman expands on the numbers.

The insurance industry had its third-most expensive year on record in 2012, with global economic losses from natural catastrophes and manmade disasters totaling $186 billion, according to a report released March 27 by the reinsurance giant Swiss Re. The total insured losses for the year was $77 billion, which was well below the losses seen in 2011, when earthquakes and flooding in Asia caused insured losses of $126 billion, which were the highest on record.

According to Swiss Re, extreme weather events in the U.S. dominated the list of the most expensive disasters of 2012, with Hurricane Sandy alone costing an estimated $70 billion in total damage and $35 billion in insured losses. In addition, the prolonged U.S. drought and summer heat waves resulted in insured agricultural losses of $11 billion, which was the highest loss in the history of agriculture insurance.

According to Swiss Re's data, nine of the world's top 10 most expensive insured loss events of 2012 occurred in the U.S. That is explained by the country's widespread use of insurance and the prevalence of extreme weather events in 2012, which was the hottest year on record in the lower 48 states. Out of the $119 billion in total economic losses in the U.S. during the year, Swiss Re found, more than half, or $65 billion, was insured. That amounted to about 0.68 percent of U.S. GDP for the year.

In recent years, the insurance industry, including Swiss Re, has been warning of its increasing exposure to climate change-related increases in extreme weather events as well as the effects of sea level rise. Scientific research has shown that global warming has already increased the odds of some types of extreme events, such as heat waves and heavy precipitation events.

The intersection of climate change, insurance and finance is a rapidly growing area of inquiry.

Yale Climate & Energy Institute Annual Conference -- Water: The Looming Crises

One of the most underreported aspects of climate change may be the increasing stress on our water supplies.

A warmer planet puts pressure on water supplies. Warmer temperatures trigger more evaporation of surface water from our rivers, lakes and aquifers. A potentially slower moving jet stream means weather patterns can get "stuck." That means deeper, more frequent droughts.

Friday's Annual Conference at The Yale Climate & Energy Institute brings some heavy hitters to discuss the future of water and climate change.

The topics include some surprising angles. Climate Change and water issues as a national security threat?

That's why the DOD and CIA game out scenarios as a warmer planet threaten massive shifts in available water...and the potential for massive disruption.

Here's a preview of the Yale event this week.

Shorter Winters Chip Away at a Logging Town's Future:

After this "spring" in the northern U.S. you might think shorter winters are a good thing right?

Not if you depend on frozen ground to make a living.

Here's a story about one industry that depends on sustained cold to deliver profits.

Climate changes are increasing some costs and eating into profits, and making us all pay more for lumber we use to build our homes.

Mary Thill from The Daily Climate expands via Climate Central.

TUPPER LAKE, N.Y. - Scott Lizotte was hopeful as he pulled his iPhone out of the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. "It's going to be six degrees tonight," he said, studying the 10-day forecast. It's mid-March, and he's standing between a skidder and a log loader in a snowy clearing of a 12,000-acre private forest near Tupper Lake, a former lumber town in New York's Adirondack Mountains.

The ground is deeply rutted from rain two days ago, but the return of cold has frozen it hard as blacktop. The forecast is good news for Lizotte and his logging crew, who need a frozen base of six inches to support the heavy feller-bunchers, skidders and trucks that cut and haul logs. Because deep cold provides a firm surface on which to move through the forest, winter is the most productive time of year for northern loggers, but winter is getting shorter.

"We used to go on the job when the ground was frozen, around the first of November, or around Thanksgiving," said Scott's father, Jeannel Lizotte. "Now it's going around Christmas time."

Added Scott: "This year it was New Year's before we got on the winter roads."

From stump to mill, some 57,000 people are employed in New York State's forest-products industry, 10 percent of them working in the woods. As much as 35 to 45 percent of the timber harvest across northern New York and New England happens in winter.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Paul Huttner

(4 Comments)

Climate Cast: How our persistent winter may have climate change roots

Posted at 12:34 PM on March 29, 2013 by Paul Huttner (4 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

An image of the Arctic sea ice on Sept. 16, 2012, the day that the National Snow and Ice Data Center identified to be the minimum reached in 2012. The yellow outline shows the average sea ice minimum from 1979 through 2010.
NASA image

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for March 28th, 2013

If it seems difficult to imagine how a warming climate can contribute to a cold, persistent winter like the one we've been experiencing, consider this: The rapid disappearance of sea ice and the overall warming of the Arctic tend to push the jet stream farther south. In turn, the jet stream tends to make weather patterns stay put.
Jennifer Francis, research professor with the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science, is quoted in The Guardian as saying that the loss of Arctic ice "is affecting the jet stream and leading to the extreme weather we are seeing in mid-latitudes ... It allows the cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. The pattern can be slow to change because the [southern] wave of the jet stream is getting bigger. It's now at a near record position, so whatever weather you have now is going to stick around."

The melting ice not only results from the warming pattern but contributes to it, because the exposed ocean absorbs sunlight that ice would bounce back into space. Scientists say the annual accumulation of ice has now reached its maximum for the season and is beginning to recede. The maximum ice this season was the sixth-lowest accumulation on record.

Francis sat in for MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner on Thursday's Climate Cast. Here's an edited transcript of the conversation:

Say What? Warmer Arctic means colder weather in USA?

It seems counterintuitive. How can a warmer Arctic drive colder air into the northern USA & Europe?

As high latitude temperature changes shift jet stream, unusual near record jet stream patterns may be playing a role in our everlasting winter in Minnesota.

John Vidal from The Guardian expands on research by Jennifer Francis.

"The sea ice is going rapidly. It's 80% less than it was just 30 years ago. There has been a dramatic loss. This is a symptom of global warming and it contributes to enhanced warming of the Arctic," said Jennifer Francis, research professor with the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science.
According to Francis and a growing body of other researchers, the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere which shifts the position of the jet stream - the high-altitude river of air that steers storm systems and governs most weather in northern hemisphere.

"This is what is affecting the jet stream and leading to the extreme weather we are seeing in mid-latitudes," she said. "It allows the cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. The pattern can be slow to change because the [southern] wave of the jet stream is getting bigger. It's now at a near record position, so whatever weather you have now is going to stick around," she said.

Arctic Ice Hits Annual Max and it's 6th Lowest on Record

Thinner "1st year ice" reformed in the Arctic this winter as expected. The annual ice maximum was reached Monday, and it's the 6th lowest on record.

Climate Central's Andrew Freedman and Michael D. Lemonick expand on the story, and how the thin ice is more prone to fracturing...and quicker melting this summer.

The skin of sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean has reached its maximum extent for 2013, the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced Monday, and the annual melt season has begun. As of March 15, ice covered 5.84 million square miles of ocean, the sixth-lowest since satellite observations began in the 1970's, and 283,000 square miles lower than the 1979-2000 average. Reflecting the influence of global warming, the 10 lowest sea ice maximums have all occurred over the past 10 years
Last summer's ice minimum, moreover, was the lowest on record, with 2007 coming in a distant second. Taken together, it's one more sign that the planet is warming under the influence of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The Arctic is warming especially quickly, however, thanks to a sort of vicious cycle that operates between ice, ocean and sunlight. When the sea is covered with bright, reflective ice, incoming sunlight bounces back into space. When the darker water underneath is exposed, some of the Sun's energy is absorbed, heating the seawater. That warms the air in turn, increasing the melting and exposing even more dark seawater to the incoming sunlight, and so on.

$CC ASI fracture new ice.gif$
Animation of the ice fracture using satellite AVHRR data.
Credit: Arctic Sea Ice blog via NSIDC.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Paul Huttner

(4 Comments)

Climate Cast: Warmer oceans double risk of extreme "Katrina-like" storm surge

Posted at 6:20 PM on March 21, 2013 by Paul Huttner
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

Storm surge from Hurricane Sandy innundates the Jersey Shore
Image: U.S. Coast Guard

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for March 21st, 2013

Superstorm Sandy cost billions of dollars, just in lost economic activity, when it hit the East Coast. It knocked out power to more than 8 million homes. So it's alarming to consider the conclusion of a Danish researcher: that big storms may strike the eastern United States more and more in coming years.
On Thursday's Climate Cast, Kerri Miller and MPR News' Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner talked about those findings and the outlook for the coming tornado season. Here's an edited transcript of their conversation:

It's common sense.

1) Warm water spawns hurricanes.
2) Warmer water spawns more intense hurricanes.

A new study sifts through some data that shows our warmer oceans may create an exponential increase in the most intense hurricanes, and the storm surge that comes with.

Image: NOAA

Here's an excerpt with perspective on the study from The Atlantic Cities, and a more detailed explanation from Climate Central's Andrew Freedman.

Batten down the hatches, East Coasters: A new study argues that for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees F) of global warming, the American Atlantic seaboard could see up to seven times as many Katrina-sized hurricanes.

That's the conclusion of Aslak Grinsted, a climatologist at Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute, who led an effort to match East Coast storm surge records from the last 90 years with global temperatures. His results, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the strongest hurricanes are likely to become more commonplace with only half the level of warming currently projected by scientists.

"There is a sensitivity to warming, and it is surprisingly large," Grinsted said.

The study compiled storm surge measurements from tide gauges at six locations on the East and Gulf Coasts, filtering out the effects of seasonal cycles, daily tides, and overall sea level rise to isolate the impact of storms. Next, these records were stacked against both global temperatures and a series of other climatic factors, like natural water temperature cycles and regional rainfall. The result? Global temperatures turned out to be one of the best predictors for hurricane activity. Using computer models, Grinsted found that a one-degree (C) rise in global temperatures could multiply extreme hurricane frequency by two to seven times.

Red represents hurricane projections with one degree (C) global warming; blue represents no warming. The gap between these lines suggests that a warmer climate will produce more frequent hurricanes; the gap is widest at the top, meaning the biggest increase will be with the biggest storms. Image: PNAS

Image: NOAA

Tornado Season 2013: What can we expect?

The old saying goes like this.

"There is no bad weather, just different kinds of good weather."

It all depends on your perspective.

Last year's Midwest Mega-Drought suppressed thunderstorms...and tornado numbers. That's the "good" side of drought.

But how does climate change affect tornado frequency? Researchers are still trying to find a solid link.

Climate Central's Urooj Raja expands.

Large-scale weather patterns can have a major influence on severe weather outbreaks, and the intense drought that affected the heart of "Tornado Alley" in 2012 acted to squelch severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, since there was such little moisture and atmospheric instability available to produce tornado-forming storms. Tornado-prone states such as Oklahoma and Kansas were in severe to extreme drought conditions during the spring and summer of 2012, and in fact continue to be in drought conditions, according to the latest drought monitor released on March 7. It is quite possible that the lingering drought will affect tornado season in some of the Plains states again this year, unless significant drought relief occurs soon.

How does climate change impact tornado activity? Currently there is no scientific consensus on whether climate change has already altered tornado activity, or whether and how it will in the future. Because of warming air and ocean temperatures, there is already more water vapor available for thunderstorms to tap into, which may lead to more powerful thunderstorm updrafts. Research shows that global warming may increase atmospheric instability in parts of the U.S., increasing overall thunderstorm activity. However, a vital ingredient for tornado formation -- wind shear -- may actually decrease as the climate warms.

NOAA's Deke Arndt explains more on tornadoes in this Extreme Weather 101 piece.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Paul Huttner

Climate Cast: History illuminates future climate change; Investors embrace CC for profits

Posted at 3:29 PM on March 14, 2013 by Paul Huttner (1 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for March 14th, 2013

Our planet went through a dramatic rise in greenhouse gases like this one about 55 million years ago, when carbon levels rose sharply. On Thursday's Climate Cast, Kerri Miller and MPR News' Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner talked about research into that ancient warming period and what it might mean for our future. Here is an edited transcript of their conversation:

History Illuminates future climate changes:

We know studying history can teach us about our future.

We know climate chages have happend in the past. What will happen if the earth warms +7 to +14 degrees? Our climate already did that 55-million years ago, and we know some of the results.

Here's a great piece from Smithsonian on what we might expect as out climate continues to warm in the coming decades.

In a relatively short time, global emissions of carbon dioxide increased massively. Through the greenhouse effect, they raised temperatures around the planet by an average of 7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit; they also changed the chemistry of the oceans, triggering a surge in acidity that may have led to mass extinctions among marine life. Overall, during this era of rapid change, global sea levels may have risen by as much as 65 feet.

Reading this, you could be forgiven if you assume we're talking about a scenario related to the present-day climate crisis. But the previous paragraph actually refers to a 20,000-year-long period of warming that occurred 55 million years ago, an event scientists call the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM for short). Scott Wing, a paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum who has studied the PETM for more than 20 years, says, "If all this sounds familiar, it's because it's essentially what we're doing right now."

As we embark on an unprecedented experiment with the Earth's atmosphere and climate, the PETM is suddenly a hot topic among scientists in many disparate fields. "It's an event that a lot of people are interested in, because it is the best example we have of a really sudden global warming connected to a large release of carbon," Wing says.

Investors Embrace Climate Chang for Profits:

Still think climate change isn't real?

Follow the money.

Many investment firms are now making plays that a hotter planet will mean profits for some sectors.

Image: Getty Images

It's an accpetance of what we now see as demonstrable fact... that the global climate is changing. Not so much cynical, as a logical. As governments struggle to deal with climate change policy, emissions continue. There is already a ceertain amont of warming loaded into the current increase in atmospheric greenhouse gasses. And as more "tipping points" arrive, the rate of warming may accelerate.

Bloomberg has an interesting piece on who is poised to capitalize on a warmer planet. Here's an edited excerpt.

Now the smart money is taking another approach: Working under the assumption that climate change is inevitable, Wall Street firms are investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter.

Betting on the failure of global efforts to contain warming may seem cynical, but it's increasingly logical. Fifteen years after the Kyoto Protocol to rein in greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries was reached, the world is still without a comprehensive pact binding all emitters to deal with the issue.

The Biggest Short

"Climate risk is something people are paying more and more attention to," said Barney Schauble, managing partner at Nephila Advisors, the firm's U.S. arm. "More volatile weather creates more risk and more appetite to protect against that risk."

One form of extreme weather -- drought -- is helping spur business at Water Asset Management LLC. The New York hedge fund, which has about $400 million under management, buys water rights and makes private equity and stock-market investments in water- treatment companies.

"Not enough people are thinking long term of (water) as an asset that is worthy of ownership," said Water Asset Management Chief Operating Officer Marc Robert. "Climate change for us is a driver."

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Paul Huttner

(1 Comments)

Climate Cast: Spring 5 weeks earlier by 2100? Why recent snows cannot ease soils drought

Posted at 2:29 PM on March 8, 2013 by Paul Huttner
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Lilacs leafing out on March 23, 2012 in Deephaven, Minnesota
Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

Climate Cast for March 7th, 2013

Buds, birds and animals tell a changing story: Spring is arriving earlier.
If current trends continue, spring might come as much as five weeks earlier by the year 2100.

Such a pronounced change would have a dramatic effect on Minnesota's interconnected web of natural systems. On Thursday's Climate Cast, Kerri Miller and MPR News' Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner discussed recent findings and took questions from listeners.

Here is an edited transcript of their conversation:

Spring arriving much earlier by 2100 according to new study:

This one shouldn't come as a big surprise. It already happened in Minnesota and across the USA last year, when spring literally came a full 5 weeks early.

Lilacs leafing out on March 23rd in Minnesota? 80F on St. Patty's Day?

It may not happen every year, but climate changes suggest that springs like last year will become much more common by 2011.

Why should we care?

Well if you like the BWCA and pine & spruce forests of northern Minnesota you should enjoy them while you can. The sequence of more heat, less snowfall and more droughts means more fires such as the devastating Pagami Creek blaze.

Image: Greg Seitz

Climate changes mean deciduous trees like Maple will "out-compete" native evergreen trees. That means our northern forests in Minnesota may look much different, and more like the south by 2100.

Climate Central's Michael D. Lemonick expands on new research from a recent a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The biological onset of spring could arrive up to five weeks earlier by 2100 in the northern U.S. than it does today, and more than a week earlier in the South, a change that could significantly alter ecosystems from Florida to Maine, according to a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.

As with so many disruptions to natural systems, including rising seas, more frequent and intense droughts and heat waves, and more torrential downpours, this projected rollback in the onset of spring -- measured in this case by "budburst," or the annual emergence of leaves on deciduous trees like maples, poplars and birches -- is tied to global warming caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The idea that spring is getting pushed earlier by climate change isn't new: in fact, scientists have already demonstrated that spring weather has been coming to the U.S. three days earlier during the past 30 years, on average, than it did during the previous 30. Others have documented the shifting, not of weather, but of phenology -- that is, biological events of all sorts, including budburst, but also flowering, ovulation, migration and other seasonal changes in plants and animals.

Arctic Ocean shipping routes may be open by summer 2050:

Time to book that North Pole cruise now?

Last year 21 vessels made the voyage through the Northwest Passage. If climate changes continue at our current pace, there's a 90% chance that shipping may be exploiting the Arctic Ocean by 2050 on routes between China and Norway, between the USA's east Coast and Rotterdam.

Image: PNAS

As with all changes, this may present both opportunities and problems.

The plus side is it can save a ship around $300k per voyage. The down side is it may signal other global changes like rising sea levels that will make major coastal cities even more vulnerable to superstorms like Sandy.

NPR expands on research from the National Academy of Sciences.

Climate change will make commercial shipping possible from North America to Russia or Asia over the North Pole by the middle of the century, a new study says. Two researchers at the University of California ran seven different climate models simulating two classes of vessels to see if they could make a relatively ice-free passage through the Arctic Ocean. In each case, the sea routes are sufficiently clear after 2049, they say. The study, published Monday in the journal PNAS by Laurence C. Smith and Scott R. Stephenson, found that the sea ice will become thin enough that a "corridor directly over the north pole" will open up. "The shortest great circle route thus becomes feasible, for ships with moderate ice-breaking capability."
According to The Guardian:

"The northern sea route has been shown to save a medium-sized bulk carrier 18 days and 580 tons of bunker fuel on a journey between northern Norway and China. Ship owners have said it can save them €180,000-€300,000 ($235,000-$390,000) on each voyage. A direct route over the pole could save up to 40 percent more fuel and time."

Arctic sea ice has shrunk to its smallest extent on record in recent years, which has already opened up a seasonal northern route over Canada. Last year, a solo sailor in a 27-foot fiberglass sailboat was one of 18 private yachts to make the voyage.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Paul Huttner

Climate Cast: Minnesota #1 fastest warming state in winter since 1970

Posted at 6:28 PM on March 1, 2013 by Paul Huttner (4 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

Lake Mead on the Colorado River near Las Vegas shows the effects of long term drought in 2010.
Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for February 28th, 2013:

On this week's Climate Cast with MPR News' Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner, we discuss why Minnesota is #1 on the list of the fastest warming states since 1970.

Image: Climate Central

Warmer Winters: We're #1

Minnesota is happy to be #1 in many things.

Being the fastest warming state in winter? That may be a mixed blessing.

A new study from Climate Central shows that Minnesota winters have warmed more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970. Winter nights in Minnesota have warmed the most, on average over 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here's an excerpt from the story:

Warming Winters: U.S. Temperature Trends
While the U.S. as a whole has seen a warming trend that has raised annual average temperatures by 1.3°F over the past 100 years, warming varies seasonally, and it's winter that has seen the fastest warming.

We found:

Since 1970, winters in the top 5 fastest-warming states -- Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Vermont and South Dakota -- heated up four-and-a-half times faster than winters in the 5 slowest-warming states: Nevada, California, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington. The five fastest-warming states have seen at least 4F warming in winters since 1970.

Winter nights have warmed in all but one of the lower 48 states since 1970. Across the continent, winter nighttime temperatures have warmed about 30 percent faster than nighttime temperatures over the entire year. Since 1970, overnight winter temperatures in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont have warmed faster than 1.29°F per decade, or more than 5°F in just 43 years.

The plus side of warmer winters?

-Lower heating bills and potentially fewer winter traffic fatalities.

The tradeoffs?

-A distinct trend toward less snowfall for our winter recreation and Minnesota's resort economy, and increased stress and more disease and subsequent fires in Minnesota's prized forests.

As our climate changes before our eyes, we're still adding up the consequences (benefits and costs) of a warmer climate in Minnesota, and of warmer winters in particular.

Drought 2013: Threading the needle for easing the worst drought since the 1950s

The 2012-13 drought exacted a heavy toll on corn, soybean, and winter wheat crops, This corn pictured in Iowa in August 2012.
Image: USDA

As we enter the spring of 2013, the worst drought since the 1950s still grips a large part of the Central Plains and reaches north into Minnesota.

Image: NOAA CPC & University of Nebraska-Lincoln

A parade of winter storms has eased drought from eastern Texas through Arkansas and Missouri to eastern Iowa and Wisconsin.

90-day precipitation from NOAA/AHPS

Recent heavy snows and spring runoff will increase stream flow and river levels in the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in the coming weeks.

Snow cover as of February 28, 2013
Image: NOAA/NOHRSC

But the window for easing agricultural or "soils" drought will be narrow as the ground thaws from south to north this spring. Timely, heavy spring rains will be needed to recharge parched soils in much of the "Midwest Grain Belt."

Climate Central's Lauren Morello and Andrew Freedman lay out the scenario for dought as we move into Spring 2013.

Some details:

Time Is Running Out to Avert a Third Summer of Drought

Time is running out to avert a third summer of drought in much of the High Plains, West and Southwest, federal officials warned Thursday.
Without repeated, significant bouts of heavy snow and rain in the remaining days of winter, a large part of the country will face serious water supply shortages this spring and summer, when temperatures are hotter and average precipitation is normally low.

The drought already ranks as the worst, in terms of severity and geographic extent, since the 1950s. Though it's not over yet, its economic impact appears to be severe, said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist at the Agriculture Department's Office of the Chief Economist.

It "will probably end up being a top-five disaster event" on the government's ranking of the costliest weather events of the past three decades, he said at a Capitol Hill briefing Thursday.

"The next couple of months will kind of determine how the spring and summer plays out in that part of the country," said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Crouch said that continued drought conditions could threaten water supplies in many areas, particularly in the Southwest.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

(4 Comments)

Climate Cast: Less snow overall, but more blizzards? USA's "Computer Gap"

Posted at 6:26 PM on February 22, 2013 by Paul Huttner (1 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit for "Climate Cast" on MPR News Stations to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

A snowless Deephaven Beach on Lake Minnetonka on January 9th, 2012.
Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Climate Cast for Thursday, February 21st

This week on Climate Cast, MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner joins The Daily Circuit to discuss new research indicating there will be less snow in our future, but more blizzards.
We'll also look at how the federal budget sequester cuts could have an impact on NOAA's ability to predict extreme weather events.

Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

Climate Contradiction: Less snow with more intense blizzards?

It seems impossible at first glance.

Climate Change trends indicate less snowfall overall in winter, but more intense blizzards?

As it turns out a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor. And warmer oceans can unleash incredible amounts of moisture and heat energy into developing storms like the Nor'easter that hammered New England with 30" to 40" snow totals this month.

AP Science Writer Seth Bornstein explains how this apparent climate contradiction is exactly what we would expect in a warmer world.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to global warming as the culprit.
Then, when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow in some places earlier this month, some of the same people again blamed global warming.

How can that be? It's been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a brazen contradiction.

But the answer lies in atmospheric physics. A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year. Projections are that that's likely to continue with manmade global warming.

Consider:

-- The United States has been walloped by twice as many of the most extreme snowstorms in the past 50 years than in the previous 60 years, according to an upcoming study on extreme weather by leading federal and university climate scientists. This also fits with a dramatic upward trend in extreme winter precipitation -- both rain and snow -- in the Northeastern U.S. charted by the National Climatic Data Center.

-- Yet the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University says spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has shrunk on average by 1 million square miles in the past 45 years.

-- And an upcoming study in the Journal of Climate says computer models predict annual global snowfall to shrink by more than a foot in the next 50 years. The study's author said most people live in parts of the United States that are likely to see annual snowfall drop between 30 percent and 70 percent by the end of the century.

"Shorter snow season, less snow overall, but the occasional knockout punch," Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said. "That's the new world we live in."

"Sequester" Storm Brewing: Could NOAA budget cuts make us miss future "Superstorms?"

The VIIRS sensor on the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite passed over the central eye of Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 25, 2012. Without the satellite data, NOAA's weather forecasts would become less reliable.
Credit: JPSS/NOAA/NASA via Climate Central

It sounds like a reasonable idea on the surface.

Trim the fat. Cut (allegedly) bloated budgets.

But in an era when NOAA is already falling behind Europe in the computing power and accuracy of weather forecast models (Numerical Weather Prediction) will automatic budget cuts put us at risk for missing future superstorms like Sandy?

Any delay in model upgrades or satellite launches may cost dearly in future forecast accuracy according to NOAA Chief Jane Lubchenco.

Climate Central's Lauren Morello expands.

The sequestration cuts, which will take effect unless Congress can overcome political gridlock and approve a new spending deal, would chop 8.2 percent from the operating budgets of most federal agencies, including NOAA, the White House Office of Management and Budget estimates.
"The way it is structured, [sequestration] applies to every single line item" in NOAA's budget, said Lubchenco, who will leave her post at NOAA next month. "We don't have a lot of discretion to say this is more important than that. Everything gets whacked."

And that could further delay the launch of the nation's next polar-orbiting environmental satellite, adding to the likelihood of a gap between probes collecting data that powers the nation's weather forecasts.

NOAA has warned for several years of a near-certain gap in data collected by the nation's current polar-orbiting satellite, Suomi NPP, and its replacement, JPSS-1.

That's because Suomi, which launched in late 2011, was designed to operate for at least five years. But JPSS-1, won't reach orbit until early 2017 -- or later.

And that is setting up a potential gap in key weather data that could last anywhere from 17 to 53 months, the Government Accountability Office warned this week in its annual analysis of federal programs at "high risk" for waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, or those "needing broad-based transformation."

It sounds wonky. But without that polar-orbiting satellite data, NOAA's weather forecasts would become less reliable. The agency has calculated that it would have underestimated the amount of snow that fell during the "Snowmageddon" blizzard that hit the East Coast in 2010 by 10 inches. And its forecasts would have placed the center of the storm 200 to 300 miles away from its actual epicenter.

USA Weather Forecast Computer Gap: We're #7!

We're told the USA has the best of everything.

But when it comes to weather forecasting, there are strong signs NOAA's Numerical Weather Prediction capability and computing power are falling seriously behind many other nations.

As a weather forecaster who has worked with NOAA's suite of weather forecast models for nearly 30 years, I can tell you there are some serious issues with the reliability of many of our U.S. forecast models.

There are many instances where the "European Model" (ECMWF clearly outperforms NOAA's medium range GFS models, such as with Hurricane Sandy last fall.

Now "King Euro" has nailed another major superstorm long before the GFS, and people are starting to ask why?

University of Washington Professor Cliff Mass has some great insight into the issue. He's a leading advocate for positive change, and I had the good fortune to catch up with him at the 93rd Annual AMS Conference in Austin Texas last month to hear his talk and ask him about NOAA's "computer gap."

One option? Transfer some of the massive computing power NOAA uses for Climate Modeling to Numerical Weather Prediction.

Here's an edited excerpt from the Cliff's latest post as he explains why he feels NOAA need to make major upgrades to our computing power and numerical weather prediction capabilities.

It happened again.
A major storm hit the northeast U.S. and the U.S. global model lagged badly behind the predictions of the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) .

Just as with Sandy.

First, the observed situation. A deep low center right off the coast. A major snow and wind threat.

Image: Cliff Mass

And there is the 120 hr ECMWF forecast, clearly showing a major storm.

Image: ECMWF via Cliff Mass

The U.S. GFS model for the same time? Only predicted a minor trough with little weather. Not good. The U.S. model was just as bad at 108 hr out. Disappointing.

Image: NOAA GFS via Cliff Mass

The National Weather Service's own statistics show that the American model had a substantial drop in skill globally during the critical period in question, with inferior performance (black line) compared to the European Center, the UKMET office, the Canadian Meteorological Center, and even the U.S. Navy (see figure, closer to one is better).
As I have described in my previous blogs (including here and here), much of the inferiority of U.S. global numerical weather prediction can be traced to the third-rate operational computer resources available to the National Weather Service (NWS)'s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC), an inferiority that can only be characterized as a national embarrassment. And as I shall document here, the NWS weather prediction computers are not only inferior to those of other national weather services, but also to NOAA's computers for weather research and to U.S. climate prediction machines. Be prepared to be shocked, angry, and disappointed. And to take action to change this situation.

Let's begin by comparing the most powerful weather prediction computers used by various countries around the world (see graphic below). Japan and ECMWF are the leaders with about .8 petaflop machines, followed by England (UKMET), S. Korea, and Canada. The U.S. is at the bottom of the barrel, with about TEN PERCENT of the capacity of the leaders.

Yes, we are talking about the richest nation in the world, and one of the most vulnerable to severe weather.

I must say, Cliff makes a strong case that things need to change quickly at NOAA when it comes to NWP.

Looking at the weather maps on a daily basis, I totally agree.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

(1 Comments)

Climate Cast: Is a "Megaflood" California's next "Big One?" FEMA flood zones expanding

Posted at 10:09 PM on February 5, 2013 by Paul Huttner (1 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday, MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins The Daily Circuit to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

A snowless Deephaven Beach on Lake Minnetonka on January 9th, 2012.
Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

This week on Climate Cast, meteorologist Paul Huttner joined us to examine how a warming planet could make "megafloods" more likely. We also took a look at FEMA's new flood maps that significantly expand flood zones.

Climate Cast for Tuesday, February 5th:

Here is an edited transcript of this week's Climate Cast.

Could the next "Megaflood" be California's next "Big One?"

They call them "Atmospheric Rivers."

These "Pineapple Express" jet streams race over the tropical Pacific, then slam into the California Coast. Like a fire hose on the loose, they snake back and forth over time, spraying moisture into different areas of the West Coast.

185 AR.gif

The good news? These "AR induced" storms can produce as much as 50% of California's average annual rain & precious mountain snowfall.

The bad news? Once every 200 years or so these wildly snaking fire hoses get stuck in place. These "AR Plumes" can carry as much water as 10 Mississippi Rivers, drenching the Sierra Nevada Range and producing massive "Mega Floods" in California's massive Central Valley.

The last time it happened was 1861-1862, Sacramento, (now a city of 1.2 million people) was inundated with floodwaters 10 feet deep.

Will the observed increase in atmospheric water vapor make these storms more frequent and more severe?

A recent artice in Scientific American says they could.

The intense rainstorms sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean began to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued virtually unabated for 43 days. The deluges quickly transformed rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada Mountains along the state's eastern border into raging torrents that swept away entire communities and mining settlements.
The rivers and rains poured into the state's vast Central Valley, turning it into an inland sea 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Thousands of people died, and one quarter of the state's estimated 800,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was submerged under 10 feet of brown water filled with debris from countless mudslides on the region's steep slopes. California's legislature, unable to function, moved to San Francisco until Sacramento dried out--six months later. By then, the state was bankrupt.

A USGS project called ARkSTORM simulated what would likely happen in the next big "AR induced Mega Flood" event.

The impacts could make the effects from hurricanes like Sandy & Katrina look like a walk in the park.

Key Findings
1. Megastorms are California's other "big one." A severe California winter storm could realistically flood thousands of square miles of urban and agricultural land, result in thousands of landslides, disrupt lifelines throughout the state for days or weeks, and cost on the order of $725 billion. This figure is more than three times that estimated for the ShakeOut scenario earthquake, that has roughly the same annual occurrence probability as an ARkStorm-like event. The $725 billion figure comprises approximately $400 billion in property damage and $325 billion in business-interruption losses. An event like the ARkStorm could require the evacuation of 1,500,000 people. Because the flood depths in some areas could realistically be on the order of 10-20 ft, without effective evacuation there could be substantial loss of life.

2. An ARkStorm would be a statewide disaster. Extensive flooding is deemed realistic in the California Central Valley, San Francisco Bayshore, San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange Counties, several coastal communities, and various riverine communities around the state. Both because of its large geographic size and the state's economic interdependencies, an ARkStorm would affect all California counties and all economic sectors.

3. An ARkStorm could produce an economic catastrophe. 25% of buildings in the state could experience some degree of flooding in a single severe storm. Only perhaps 12% of California property is insured, so millions of building owners may have limited or no ability to pay for repairs. That degree of damage would threaten California with a long-term reduction in economic activity, and raise insurance rates statewide -- perhaps nationwide or more -- afterwards.

4. An ARkStorm is plausible, perhaps inevitable. Such storms have happened in California's historic record (1861-62), but 1861-62 is not a freak event, not the last time the state will experience such a severe storm, and not the worst case. The geologic record shows 6 megastorms more severe than 1861-1862 in California in the last 1800 years, and there is no reason to believe similar events won't occur again.

5. The ARkStorm is to some extent predictable. Unlike for earthquakes, we have the capability to partially predict key aspects of the geophysical phenomena that would create damages in the days before an ARkStorm strikes. Enhancing the accuracy, lead time, and the particular measures that these systems can estimate is a great challenge scientifically and practically.

6. Californian flood protection is not designed for an ARkStorm-like event. Much has been done to protect the state from future flooding, but the state's flood-protection system is not perfect. The existing systems are designed among other things to protect major urban areas from fairly rare, extreme flooding. The level of protection varies: some places are protected from flooding that only occurs on average once every 75 years; others, on average every 200 years. But the levees are not intended to prevent all flooding, such as the 500-year streamflows that are deemed realistic throughout much of the state in ARkStorm.

7. Planning for ARkStorm would complement planning for earthquakes. TheShakeOut exercise has become an annual activity in California, with more than 7 million people participating each year. Many of the same emergency preparations are useful for a severe winter storm: laying in emergency food and water, shelter preparations, exercising emergency corporate communications, testing mutual aid agreements, and so on.

Hurricane Sandy Coastal flooding in Mantoloking, N.J., from an Air National Guard helicopter.
Image Credit: New Jersey National Guard/Scott Anema.

2013: Year of expanding FEMA Flood Zones

Hurricane Sandy showed us just how vulnerable our coasts are to hurricanes and sea level rise.

In 2013, FEMA is releasing new, expanded flood zone maps. The maps confirm what we've already seen firsthand. Climate Change is making areas that were not prone to flooding 50 or 100 year ago ground zero for the next Sandy, the next Katrina.

Image: Ceres

The concept of "climate resiliency" is now an everyday reality for your insurance company, and for the Governors and residents of New York & New Jersey. And all of us will likely be paying higher rates to cover the increase in "risk" to coastal communities.

Here's the story from the Yale Forum on Climate Change & Media.

Governor Chris Christie, pragmatic but resolute after months overseeing rebuilding efforts after Superstorm Sandy, has announced that residents in flood-prone areas of New Jersey must elevate their homes or face high insurance premiums under new rebuilding standards.
His guidance? New preliminary flood maps being released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that will appreciably expand flood zones into new neighborhoods and industrial parks.

Christie's was a forceful stance, especially coming from a fiscally conservative politician, but it could become the norm across the United States. FEMA is to continue to roll-out updated maps for the whole country through mid-2013 indicating new flood hazards. Many of the maps expand the areas newly falling into 10-and 100-year flood zones.

The broader flood zones mean that owners of many of those properties will likely be forced to buy flood insurance for the first time. For many already having flood insurance, higher premiums are likely.

FEMA's flood maps include historical flooding as well as recent surge and storm flooding. They don't include flood risks from projected future sea-level rise. On January 28, new FEMA flood maps for parts of New York City showed that 35,000 buildings and homes have been added to flood zones.

In its reporting on those new flood zone maps, The New York Times wrote that the FEMA action brought news "many New Yorkers were girding for after Hurricane Sandy sloshed away: More areas farther inland are expected to flood. Tidal surges will be more ferocious. And 35,000 more homes and businesses will be located in flood zones, which will almost certainly nudge up insurance rates and determine how some structures are rebuilt."

The paper reported New York City's deputy mayor for operations as saying that the new maps will not affect the city's evacuation zone maps, but that they are predictors for new flood insurance rate maps. That official told the newspaper that the city's building code will eventually take into account the new maps.

The Times' Cara Buckley reported also that "far more structures are now in areas where flooding is expected to top three feet," a level, she reported, that "could easily shove a structure off its foundation."

She ended her report with this:

"This is going to be very rough on people," said Chuck Reichenthal, district manager for Brooklyn's Community Board 13, which includes Coney Island. "Insurance is going to zoom through the roof."

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

(1 Comments)

Climate Cast: Top 10 "climate indicators" to watch in 2013

Posted at 3:38 PM on February 1, 2013 by Paul Huttner
Filed under: Climate Cast

Every Thursday, MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins The Daily Circuit to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

The nature of our seasons is changing. Spring blooms come earlier. Summer is more humid with a documented increase in extreme localized flash flood events...and more frequent droughts. Fall lingers longer. Lakes freeze up later. Winters are shorter and noticeably, measurably milder. New plants are able to thrive in Minnesota's milder climate.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe.

You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

**Note: Next week's Climate Cast will air on Tuesday February 5th at 9:50am due to MPR's February Member Drive**

Climate Cast for Thursday Janaury 31st, 2013:

Here's an edited transcript of this week's Climate Cast.

Climate Change 2013: Top 10 "climate indicators" to watch in 2013

We know "climate" is essentially the long term average of weather. A day, a month, even a year is "weather." Decades or centuries? That's climate.

Even though you cannot distill "climate" into one year, 2013 presents an opportunity to track some well established decadal climate trends that are already underway.

Here's a list of 10 key things to look for as we track climate change and its effects in 2013.

1) Will 2013 be another "top 10 warmest year" globally?"

Global temperature trends are on a remarkable roll.

2012 was yet another "top 10 warmest year"... the 10th warmest globally according to NOAA.

Image: NOAA/CDC

•The year 2012 was the 10th warmest year since records began in 1880.
The annual global combined land and ocean surface temperature was 0.57°C (1.03°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F).

This marks the 36th consecutive year (since 1976) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Currently, the warmest year on record is 2010, which was 0.66°C (1.19°F) above average.

Including 2012, all 12 years to date in the 21st century (2001-2012) rank among the 14 warmest in the 133-year period of record. Only one year during the 20th century--1998--was warmer than 2012.

Think about that for a second. Every year since 2001 is in the top 14 warmest on record globally. In a "normal" climate system, we might expect 4 cooler than average years, 4 "near average" years and 4 warmer than average years in the past 12 years.

Instead we have the 2 hottest years on record globally (2005 & 2010) and all 12 in the top 14 years going back to 1880. The odds of that as a natural occurrance? Incredibly remote.

The British Met Office is on record forecasting 2013 to be another "top 10" warm year with a forecast of +0,57C (+1.03F) globally.

Key factor to watch in 2013: We are way, way overdue for a year cooler than the 20th century average, or even a year that's not in the top 10 warmest.

Will 2013 be another "top 10 warmest year" globally?

2) Will Arctic Sea Ice melt approach 2012 record levels?

On September 18th, 2012 Arctic Sea Ice coverage reached an all time record low of 1.3 million square miles (3.41 square kilometers), setting a new record low that was 18 percent smaller than the previous record and nearly 50 percent smaller than the long-term (1979-2000) average.

Image: NOAA

One of the key (and alarming) Arctic trends in recent years is the disappearance of "multi-year ice." 1st year ice is easier to melt than multi-year ice. The newer, clearer and thinner ice tends to act as a glass covered greenhouse. Long hours of sunlight from the Arctic summer shine through the new ice more efficiently, warming the ocean water underneath more efficiently than then through the "cloudier" multiyear ice. This may be increasing the overall rate of ice melt.

Key factor to watch in 2013: Will Arctic Sea ice melt in 2013 approach...or even exceed the record of 2012?

3) Next Round of IPCC Reports:

The IPCC issues updated reports tracking climate changes every 7 years. 2007 was the last round, and the 2014 reports will come out in pieces starting in the fall of 2013.

Some parts of the reports have already been leaked, Here's an excerpt published in Reuters.

The early draft, which is still subject to change before a final version is released in late 2013, showed that a rise in global average temperatures since pre-industrial times was set to exceed 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, and may reach 4.8 Celsius.
"It is extremely likely that human activities have caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperatures since the 1950s," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) draft report said.

"Extremely likely" in the IPCC's language means a level of certainty of at least 95 percent. The next level is "virtually certain", or 99 percent, the greatest possible certainty for the scientists.

The IPCC's previous report, in 2007, said it was at least 90 percent certain that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, were the cause of rising temperatures.

Key to watch in 2013: How is the currently observed warming , sea level rise and Arctic Sea ice melt tracking with previous IPCC Report? What new trends will emerge?

4) U.S. Drought in 2013:

I wanted to start globally and work locally with this post, but you can make the case that this is the #1 story as we approach the spring of 2013.

2012 brought intense sustained drought to the central USA.

Corn prices skyrocketed to $8/bushel last summer as crops withered from lack of rainfall and intense heat. River flows dwindled, and the Mississippi River sank to record lows in some areas and threatened shipping along a major navigation route.

65% of the CONUS was in drought as of September 25th, 2012. This week that number is down to 58% this week, but most of the Corn Belt is still dangerously dry as we approach the 2013 growing season.

A full 98% of Minnesota is in drought as of this week.

Rivers and lakes are running low, and snow cover is well below seasonal norms in much of Minnesota.

Aquifers are stressed.

If drought persists in Minnesota and the Midwest this spring, we will quickly reach "crisis" levels in several areas including crops, aquifers, lake and river levels. The spring wildfire season could be devastating.

NOAA's CPC is calling for some improvement to drought conditions in the Upper Midwest in the spring of 2013, with drought persisting to the south & west.

Image: NOAA/CPC

Key factors to watch in 2013: How much snowfall will the Upper Midwest see between now and spring? Will there be enough spring snow melt to boost faltering river levels in the Upper Mississippi Basin? Will there be above average rainfall once the ground is thawed to recharge dpeleted soil moisture?

5) Hurricane Season 2013:

Hurricane Sandy left a devastating trail of destruction along the most populated section of the USA's coastline last fall.

Image: NASA MODIS Terra

Now one scientist, outgoing USGS Director Marcia McNutt, says that massive shoreline erosion from Sandy has left that section of coastline a "sitting duck" for future storms.

Between the devastating year of 2005 and Isaac and Sandy in 2012, the USA has been relatively lucky with a lower number of U.S. land falling hurricanes.

Key to watch in 2013: Will there be an increased number of U.S. land falling hurricanes in 2013, closer to the "cluster" we saw in the mid-2000's?

6) Billion Dollar Weather Disasters in 2013:

2011 set the record for billion dollar weather disasters in the USA with 14. Isaac and Sandy may have made 2012 the 2nd costliest year, and tallied 11 B$WD.

The trend of increasing B$WD ic clear.

Image: NOAA

Many insurance companies and the reinsurance industry are reeling from record payouts.

According to a talk by UM climate specialist Dr. Mark Seeley at MPR Friday, the increase in insured losses in the past few decades has forced the reinsurance industry to essentially reorganize twice since 1980.

A record, or near record number of B$WD in 2013 will put increased stress on an industry that's suffered huge losses in recent years and decades.

Key to watch in 2013: Will the increase in climate change driven extreme weather events bring another near record number of B$WD in 2013 ?

7) Minnesota tornado season 2013:

There is a documented increase in tornadoes in Minnesota in the past 50 years.

The average number of tornadoes in Minnesota has increased from about 26 per year in the 1950s to 48 per year in between 200 and 2010.

As our climate warms, weather patterns shift and the mean position of the jet stream move father north.

2012 produced 39 tornado reports in Minnesota according to SPC.

Key things to watch in 2013: Will the increase in tornado numbers continue? Will a long overdue "Twin Cities Tornado Outbreak" occur in 2013?

8) Extreme Rainfall Events: Who will see the next "Duluth Flood?"

There is also a well documented increase in extreme rainfall events in Minnesota in the past few decades.

There have been 3 "1,000 year" floods in southern Minnesota in the past 9 years.

The "Great Duluth Flood of 2012" was a 500+ year "Annual Exceedance Probability" event.

As extreme rainfall events increase, Minnesota communities need to be on guard for the increased possibility of intense flash flood events, infrastructure damage and swift water rescues.

Our infrastructure in Minnesota was built to handle an era of less frequent heavy rainfall events. Climate change is delivering more tropical summer air masses to Minnesota, and more frequent tropical downpours.

Key to watch in 2013: How many extreme rainfall events will occur? Where?

9) Lake Superior water levels & temperatures:

Some call it the "Scandinavian Riviera."

As our climate changes, Lake Superior is warming rapidly. Water in big lake is warming at twice the rate of the air over Minnesota.

Water temps in lake Superior reached record levels in some areas, and reached a balmy 75F as far north as Grand Marais last July.

There is even some indication that a warmer Lake Superior may have injected additional water vapor into the atmosphere to help "juice" the Duluth flood last June.

Keys to watch in 2013: How much lake ice will form as ice cover typically peaks in March? Will Lake Superior water temps reach near warm record levels again in 2013?

10) The media and climate change: A tipping point?

It seems everyone is talking about climate change now.

It leads the nightly news. The blogosphere is full of climate related topics. The internet and You Tube are peppered with climate related videos.

Still, there seems to be a shortage of credible, science based climate change reporting in the mainstream media.

There are TV shows about youth gone wild, "Real Housewives" and hours of political banter on your cable system each day. Where's the weekly Climate Change Show on the Discovery Channel or NBC?

That's one reason we started Climate Cast this year. It's a place where we can consistently report and discuss credible, peer reviewed climate science on the radio every week, and talk about how and why you're seeing these changes unfold in your backyard.

There is so much good climate science being done these days. In spite of the skeptics and the deniers, climate science is standing tall in the test of peer review, and we're all seeing the effects of climate change play out in our backyards and daily lives.

Let's hope the media continues to educate the public about climate change in 2013.

Key to watch: Will the mainstream media increase coverage of science based climate change in 2013?

2013 may be a very "interesting" year.

Stay tuned.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

-More coverage from The Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media

Climate Cast: Corporate America looks ahead to "Climate Resilience"

Posted at 7:35 PM on January 24, 2013 by Paul Huttner (1 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

The nature of our seasons is changing. Spring blooms come earlier. Summer is more humid with a documented increase in extreme localized flash flood events...and more frequent droughts. Fall lingers longer. Lakes freeze up later. Winters are shorter and noticeably, measurably milder. New plants are able to thrive in Minnesota's milder climate.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the science behind and the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe. You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Every Thursday, MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins The Daily Circuit to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

Deforested hillside in South Dakota's Black Hills: A growing effect in the West from warmer temperatures, reduced precipitation and increased insect infestations as trees come under more stress.
Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

Climate Cast for January 24th, 2013

Wintery cold snap belies longer term winter warming trends:

The rumors are true.

Compared to the 1970s, distinct trends show we're losing some of our "cold weather mojo" in Minnesota.

This week's arctic blast reminds us that climate change does not mean the end of traditional winter weather in Minnesota.

Yet our winters are trending noticeably, measureably warmer.

There are many way to measure climate changes in Minnesota and around the globe.

One distinct trend emerging is the unmistakable trend of milder winters in the past 40 years in Minnesota and the northern USA. Minnesota winters have warmed +2F to +4F in the past 40 years.

The number of sub-zero nights in the Twin Cities has dropped from an average of about 35 days per year in the 1970s, to 22.5 in the latest set of 30 year averages. (1981-2010)

The "trend lines" for sub zero nights in the Twin Cities suggest we'll be closer to an average of 10 per year by 2030, and close to zero by 2040.

Image: Twin Cities NWS

The Twin Cities NWS elaborates on this week's cold snap, and the record it broke for the longest streak without a sub-zero high temperature in the Twin Cities.

Streak With Highs of 0°F or Above Has Ended After 4 Years And 6 Days

Sunday, January 20, 2013 marked the 1,466th consecutive day, (4 years and 6 days), with high temperatures of 0°F or greater at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. With a high temperature of -2°F degrees on January 21st, 2013, the streak has come to an end.

The streak shattered the previous record by 324 days. Before January 21st, 2013, the last time the high temperature at the Minneapolis airport was below zero was on January 15, 2009 when the thermometer climbed to only -6°F.

Seeley: Major reduction in frequency of -40F nights in northern Minnesota?

One more way to measure our changing winter climate in Minnesota is to look at the frequency of temperatures reaching the -40F threshold in northern Minnesota each winter.

Why do we care?

Temps of -40F are effective killers of invasive pests that can decimate our prized forests.

According to this week's Weather Talk, Mark Seeley illustrates how the -42F reading in Embarrass this week is an increasingly rare occurrence.

Here's a preview:

I examined the climate records of 8 northern Minnesota climate stations that showed some frequency in their history of reporting -40 degrees F or colder. I then compared the relative frequency of such temperature measurements over the period from 1951 to 1980 against the more recent period of 1981-2010. The results showed the following shift in frequency:
Location 1951-1980 1981-2010 (percent change)
Baudette 31 days 12 days (-61 percent)
Roseau 24 days 15 days (-38 percent)
International Falls 21 days 16 days (-24 percent)
Big Falls 34 days 22 days (-35 percent)
Itasca State Park 17 days 11 days (-35 percent)
Warroad 16 days 10 days (-63 percent)
Thorhult 31 days 23 days (-26 percent)
Waskish 12 days 15 days (+25 percent)

Thus 7 of the 8 climate stations show a significant drop in the frequency of -40 F or colder. Concerning this change in frequency of such temperatures and its potential impact on Minnesota, Dr. Lee Frelich, University of Minnesota Forest Ecologist comments: "An invasive species from Asia, the emerald ash borer, has killed tens of millions of ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, and southern Ontario, and is also likely to be killed by -40 temperatures (or perhaps even -30). It arrived a few years ago in the Twin Cities, where its probably not cold enough in winter these days to kill the insect.
Whether it will be able to kill millions of ash trees in the ash swamps of northern Minnesota could depend on winter minimum temperatures and a warmer climate in the future.

Ahead of the Curve? Some companies already adapting business models to climate changes

Ever heard of the concept of "Climate Resilience?"

Some famous companies in corporate America have.

Forward thinking companies like Starbucks and Levi Strauss already recognize that climate changes are affecting their bottom line, and they're taking action to mitigate, even profit from the effects of climate change.

Victor Lipman expands on this idea in Forbes...that's right...Forbes... this week.

Climate change has arrived. 2012 is in the books as one of the warmest years on record, and extreme costly weather events are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Against this backdrop, the debate is slowly migrating from partisan wrangling over the existence of climate change to more productive efforts to think creatively about how to prepare for it.
My interest here is not to make the case for climate change - many far more knowledgeable than I have already done so - but to show how some f0rward-thinking companies are taking tangible, constructive steps to anticipate it and mitigate its impact. This new but growing discipline is known as "Climate Resilience."

A diverse group of organizations, working with environmentally oriented consultants, have produced an excellent, comprehensive report titled "Value Chain Climate Resilience: A Guide To Managing Climate Impacts in Companies and Communities." The companies involved in the report include Starbucks, Swiss Re, Levi Strauss, Calvert Investments, Earth Networks, Entergy and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. The consulting firms involved include Acclimatise, Oxfam America and BSR.

"The climate is changing and impacts on businesses and communities are already being felt. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and more severe weather events are being observed. Nine out of ten companies have suffered weather-related impacts in the past three years, and most have seen an intensification of such impacts. Meanwhile, communities on which businesses depend for their supplies, workforce, sales, and more are being affected. A change in climate will lead to a changing business environment and changing community relationships...

Starbucks works with Conservation International to "promote environmental leadership" among its coffee growers in countries including Costa Rica and Rwanda. Such leadership can include conservation of water, soil and biological diversity. Simple actions such as building coffee shade canopy covers can help farmers prepare for a future with possibly hotter temperatures and scarcer water.

Coffee plantation in India
Image: Wikipedia Commons

Levi Strauss & Co., dependent on cotton for its apparel products, is part of a Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), which seeks to improve the way the cotton is grown globally. BCI, for instance, helps cotton farmers with techniques that enable them to use less pesticides and water, such as increasing the development of border crops and irrigation systems.

Swiss Re, a global provider of reinsurance and insurance, works innovatively with "cash-poor farmers" in Ethiopia. The farmers have an option "to work for their insurance premiums by engaging in community-identified projects to reduce risk and build climate resilience, such as improved irrigation or soil management."

Still don't "believe" in climate change? Ask your insurance company if climate change is affecting their losses, and the premiums you pay.

Are East Coast residents "sitting ducks" for the next big Superstorm?

It took Mother Nature decades to build up natural dunes along the East Coast that provided at least some protection from flooding during incoming storms.

Hurricane Sandy wiped them out in a few hours.

Outgoing USGS Director Marcia McNutt sounded an alarm this week about how much of the USA's East Coast sits defenseless from major storms. Sandy was a Category 1 hurricane. What happens next time when the "Big One" ...a Category 3 or higher monster hurricane slams ashore along the most densely populated coastline in the USA?

Climate Central's Andrew Freedman expands.

"Superstorm Sandy was a threshold for the north-east and we have already crossed it," McNutt told the National Council for Science and the Environment conference in Washington. "For the next storm, not even a super storm, even a run-of-the-mill nor'easter, the amount of breaches and the amount of coastal flooding will be widespread."
McNutt, a professor of marine geophysics, was careful to preface her public remarks by saying she spoke as a scientist and not an Obama Administration official. But the unusually stark warning from a departing Obama official indicates the challenges ahead in protecting American population centers from the extreme storms of a changing climate.

"Before Sandy, someone asked me what my climate change nightmare was. Before Sandy, I said it was that with the extra energy in the atmosphere-ocean system it feeds super storms that intersect mega-cities left rendered defenseless by rising seas," McNutt said in a brief interview following her public remarks. "That is where we now are."

Half of America's population lives within 50 miles of a coast, and those numbers are growing. However, scientists and urban planners have warned repeatedly that those coastal communities - as well as important infrastructure - are increasingly vulnerable. In the coming decades, a combination of extreme weather and storm surges, on top of rising seas, will put a growing share of the population at risk. Natural defenses, such as sand dunes and barrier islands along the Atlantic, have been destroyed or weakened through decades of development, McNutt said.

"We have left our coasts sitting ducks, and Sandy destroyed these natural protections," she said.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

(1 Comments)

Climate Cast: 2012 10th warmest globally; What +5F warming by 2050 means for Minnesota?

Posted at 5:07 AM on January 18, 2013 by Paul Huttner (5 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

Weather Lab roses in full bloom on October 13, 2011.
Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

Lilac buds ready for bloom on March 23, 2012.
Image: Paul Huttner MPR News

In 2013 at MPR we're devoting more coverage to the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe. You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Every Thursday, MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins The Daily Circuit to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

Climate Cast for Janaury 17th, 2013

This week on Climate Cast, we talked about 2012 coming in as the 10th hottest year on record globally.

Image: NOAA/NCDC

We also discussed a new forecast that predicts Minnesota's average temperature warming 5 degrees by 2050 with current greenhouse gas emissions.

Image: National Climate Assessment

Here is an edited transcript of the conversation:

Here are some additional climate stories this week:

Seeley: January trending warmer in Minnesota
Mark Seeley highlights some interesting trends toward warmer Januarys in Minnesota in this week's Weather Talk. Here's a preview.

Topic: A measure of persistence in recent January warmth
In addition to the absence of below 0 F January cold, it is noteworthy to examine the signals of persistent warmth in the recent climate data for the month.

Over the past 15 winters the mean value of January temperature on a statewide basis has been below normal in only three years (2004, 2009, and 2011). The other twelve have all been warmer than normal, and four have ranked among the 12 warmest months of January in state history (2001, 2002, 2006, 2012).

In addition over 62 percent of all daily measures of temperature in January have been above normal values. These are measures of persistence. Some individual days have been 25 F or more above normal, such as last January 10 (2012) when the Twin Cities reported a high of 52 degrees F and a low of 27 degrees F. As Paul Huttner has shared on his Updraft blog, the signal of warmth in the winter months has been very pronounced in recent years.

New NOAA CPC outlook favors wetter spring for Minnesota & Upper Midwest:

Looking at the maps, I have a hunch we may trend into a snowier pattern for the second half of winter. NOAA's CPC seems to agree.

Here's the latest precip outlook from NOAA released Thursday.

THE FMA 2013 PRECIPITATION OUTLOOK FAVORS ABOVE-MEDIAN PRECIPITATION FROM NORTH DAKOTA EASTWARD AND SOUTHEASTWARD ACROSS THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY AND UPPER GREAT LAKES REGION TO ILLINOIS, INDIANA, AND NORTHWESTERN OHIO, AND FOR MUCH OF THE ALASKA PANHANDLE.

This could mean more snow in February & early March...and potentially more rain by late March & April.

It would be a godsend if we can manage a second wet spring in Minnesota for 2013.

Drought eases in South & Ohio Valley but persists in West:

The rain falling on my head in Austin Texas last week felt good, and any rainfall was a welcome sight to Texans.

In fact, it's been a good two weeks of heavy rainfall for the south central USA into the Ohio Valley, with some 5" to 10" rainfall totals.

This week's U.S. Drought Monitor shows the positive effects of that rain, but shows drought hanging tough from the central Plains into Minnesota.

NOAA seems hopeful about some easing of drought for Minnesota and the Upper Midwest by spring. That would be truly good weather news indeed.

Monster Storm Lashing Outer Reaches of Alaska: This is a big one, and impressive from space. 62 foot waves? That's why the call the show "The Deadliest Catch.

Climate Central's Andrew Freedman has details:

An extraordinarily powerful ocean storm, packing hurricane-force winds and waves towering up to 62 feet, has been spinning its way toward Alaska's Aleutian Islands after undergoing a phenomenally rapid intensification process in the Western North Pacific Ocean since Sunday. This satellite image, which captured the storm near its peak intensity on Tuesday, offers a rare glimpse at a storm system of this magnitude.

This visible satellite image shows a massive and intense low pressure system swirling over the Western North Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, Jan. 15. Credit: Facebook/Stu Ostro via. University of Dundee, Scotland. Click to enlarge the image.

At its most intense point, the storm had an air pressure reading of about 932 mb, roughly equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane, and more intense than Hurricane Sandy as that storm moved toward the New Jersey coastline in October. (In general, the lower the air pressure, the stronger the storm.) The storm's central pressure plunged by 48 to 49 mb in just 24 hours, making it one of the most rapidly intensifying storms at a mean latitude of 34°N since 1979, according to a data analysis by Ryan Maue of Weatherbell Analytics.
On Tuesday, the storm spanned a staggering 1,440 miles, according to David Snider, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Alaska. That's equivalent to the distance between Denver and New York City.

Black Carbon Second Only to CO2 in Heating the Planet:

This one caught my eye. It turns out good old "soot" may be one of the most powerful greenhouse agents.

New research says the second most important heat-trapping pollutant isn't a gas at all: it's black carbon, generated mostly from the burning of diesel fuel, coal and woody plant material.Credit: A6U571N/flickr.

Climate Central's Michael D. Lemonick elaborates:

No discussion of climate change can get very far without focusing on greenhouse gases -- pollutants including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and more, which are trapping heat and driving the planet's temperature upward.
But according to a report published Tuesday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, the second most important heat-trapping pollutant isn't a gas at all: it's black carbon, more commonly known as plain old soot, generated mostly from the burning of diesel fuel, coal and woody plant material. "There's a relatively small amount in the atmosphere," said the study's lead author, Tami Bond, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in an interview. "But it's very powerful."

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

(5 Comments)

Climate Shock: Minnesota likely to warm another 5 degrees F by 2050

Posted at 5:36 PM on January 11, 2013 by Paul Huttner (3 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast, Climate change

We know most of Minnesota has already warmed +2F to +4F in the past 30 years, but this one still comes as a bit of a shock.

A new Federal Advisory Committee Draft Climate Assessment Report from the "National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee" or NCADAC released Friday projects that at current greenhouse gas emissions rates... Minnesota and the Midwest will warm an additional 5-degrees F by 2050.

Lake Superior waters are projected to see a 7-degree F increase by 2050.

Image: National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee

The report is long detailed and well cited with credible sources current in climate change research. This thing is a beast, so I've tried to break it down into a more easily digestible read focused on the Midwest and Minnesota.

Here's an excerpt:

The rate of warming in the Midwest has markedly accelerated over the past few decades. Between 1900 and 2010, the average Midwest air temperature increased by more than 1°F. However, between 1950 and 2010, the average temperature increased twice as quickly, and between 1980 and 2010 it increased three times as quickly (Pryor and Barthelmie 2012). Warming has been more rapid at night and during winter. These trends are consistent with the projected effects of increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases, and the spatial variability of trends is also influenced by land-use changes and increased use of irrigation (Pan et al. 2009; Pryor and Barthelmie 2012).
The amount of future warming will depend on changes in the atmospheric concentration of heat-trapping gases. Projections for regionally averaged temperature increases by the middle of the century (2046-2065) relative to 1979-2000 are approximately 3.8°F for a scenario with substantial emissions reductions (B1), and 4.9°F for the current high emissions trend scenario (A2). The projections for the end of the century (2081-40 2100) are approximately 5.6°F for the low emission scenario, and 8.5°F for the high emission scenario (Pryor et al. in press).

Caption: Increasing annual average temperatures (top left) by the mid-century (2041-1 2070) as compared to the 1971-2000 period tell only part of the climate change story. 2 Maps also show projected increases in the number of the hottest days (days over 95°F, 3 top right), longer growing seasons (bottom left), and an increase in cooling degree days 4 (bottom right), which generally leads to an increase in energy use for air conditioning. 5 Projections are from Global Climate Models that assume emissions of heat-trapping 6 gases continue to rise (A2 scenario).

(Figure source: NOAA NCDC / CICS-NC. Data 7 from CMIP3 Daily Multi-model Mean.)

Another 10 days per year above 95F for the metro on average? Time to have my AC unit checked I think.

This kind of future warming will have wide ranging impacts on our Minnesota landscape. Here are the key effects highlighted in the report.

(I've removed the individual citations to make it easier to read, but they can all be found in the report text)

1. In the next few decades, longer growing seasons and rising carbon dioxide levels will increase yields of some crops, though those benefits will be increasingly offset by the occurrence of extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, and floods. In the long term, combined stresses associated with climate change are expected to decrease agricultural productivity, especially without significant advances in genetic and agronomic technology.
2. The composition of the region's forests is expected to change as rising temperatures drive habitats for many tree species northward. The region's role as a net absorber of carbon is at risk from disruptions to forest ecosystems, in part due to climate change.

3. Increased heat wave intensity and frequency, degraded air quality, and reduced water quality will increase public health risks.

4. The Midwest has a highly energy-intensive economy with per capita emissions of greenhouse gases more than 20% higher than the national average. The region also has a large, and increasingly utilized, potential to reduce emissions that cause climate change.

5. Extreme rainfall events and flooding have increased during the last century, and these trends are expected to continue, causing erosion, declining water quality, and negative impacts on transportation, agriculture, human health, and infrastructure.

6. Climate change will exacerbate a range of risks to the Great Lakes region, including changes in the range and distribution of important commercial and recreational fish species, increased invasive species, declining beach health, and harmful blooms of algae. Declines in ice cover will continue to lengthen the commercial navigation season.

Source: National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee

Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

Lake Superior: San Diego of the North? +7F by 2050?

The reduction of ice cover and warmer annual temperatures will raise Lake Superior water temps by +7F by 2050 according to the report.

That will have a remarkable impact on lake conditions...and may put Lake Superior into play as a warmer, more effective moisture source to "juice" intense rainfall events as the lake becomes an additional source of moisture and "heat energy" for incoming storms.

Another rather alarming excerpt:

Due to the reduction in ice cover, the temperature of 1 surface waters in Lake Superior during the summer increased 4.5°F, twice the rate of increase in 2 air temperature (Austin and Colman 2007). By 2050 and 2100, these surface temperatures are 3 projected to rise by as much as 7.0°F and 12.1°F, respectively (Mackey 2012; Trumpickas et al. 4 2009). Higher temperatures, increases in precipitation, and lengthened growing seasons favor 5 production of blue-green and toxic algae that can harm fish, water quality, habitat, aesthetics 6 (Ficke et al. 2007; Mackey 2012; Reutter et al. 2011), and potentially heighten the impact of 7 invasive species already present (Bronte et al. 2003; Rahel et al. 2008).

Overall the changes in this report are remarkable...and will take some time to digest.

Bottom line?

This magnitude of warming will likely cause some dramatic... and potentially alarming changes in our Minnesota Landscape.

Our forests will shift north. Pine forests may dissapear, and transition to hardwood forests in significant sections of northern Minnesota.

Prairies will also overtake areas that are now forested...possibly even the parts of Twin Cities metro.

Increases in the frequncy of extreme rainfall events will create more events like the multiple "500 to 1,000 year" flood events seen in Duluth and southern Minnesota in the past 9 years.

The changes we're already observing in Minnesota will continue...and the pace of change is likely to quicken in the next 30 years. Our children will live in a very different Minnesota than our parents did.

(3 Comments)

Climate Cast: Hurricane Sandy's climate change link? Top stories of 2012

Posted at 1:06 PM on January 11, 2013 by Paul Huttner (3 Comments)
Filed under: Climate Cast

Updraft & The Daily Circuit Present: Climate Cast

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

Ice Fjord of Ilulissat in Greenland in 2009. The Greenland ice sheet has lost 1,500 billion tonnes of ice since 2000. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

The map below shows average annual temperatures have warmed +2F to +4F in much of Minnesota in just the past 30 years.

Image: MN Climate Working Group

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

Star Magnolias blooming over a snow free Minnesota landscape...in March 2012
Image: Paul Huttner MPR News

Every Thursday, MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner joins The Daily Circuit to talk about the latest research on our changing climate and the consequences that we're seeing here in Minnesota and worldwide.

This week on Climate Cast, we discussed the role climate change may have played in Hurricane Sandy and the drought, and looked at some of the most extreme Minnesota weather & climate related events in 2012.

Also this week, NOAA came out officially with the news we've been following and anticipating for months: 2012 was indeed the hottest year on record in the USA.

NCDC Announces Warmest Year on Record for Contiguous U.S.

According to NOAA scientists, the average temperature for the contiguous U.S. for 2012 was 55.3°F, which was 3.2°F above the 20th century average and 1.0°F above the previous record from 1998. The year consisted of the fourth warmest winter, a record warm spring, the second warmest summer, and a warmer-than-average autumn. Although the last four months of 2012 did not bring the same unusual warmth as the first 8 months of the year, the September through December temperatures were warm enough for 2012 to remain the record warmest year, by a wide margin.

Image: NOAA/NCDC

Here's a great video from NOAA's Climate Watch highlighting the top climate related events of 2012.

Check this out, The White House has started a new climate change blog. The post highlights a newly released Federal Advisory Committee Draft Climate Assessment Report that forecasts a +4.9F rise in Midwest temps by 2050 at the current emmisions scenario.

Caption: Increasing annual average temperatures (top left) by the mid-century (2041-1 2070) as compared to the 1971-2000 period tell only part of the climate change story. Maps also show projected increases in the number of the hottest days (days over 95°F, 3 top right), longer growing seasons (bottom left), and an increase in cooling degree days (bottom right), which generally leads to an increase in energy use for air conditioning. Projections are from Global Climate Models that assume emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to rise (A2 scenario).
(Figure source: NOAA NCDC / CICS-NC. Data 7 from CMIP3 Daily Multi-model Mean.)

Finally, here's a look at my notes from this week's Hurricane Sandy Town Hall at the 2013 Annual AMS Conference I attended in Austin, Texas.

Climate Cast for January 10th, 2013

Here is an edited transcript of this week's show:

Kerri Miller: I'm going to play a little tape here to remind you of what we're talking about today and one of the events that was high on everyone's list.
AUDIO: That's a wind gust right there.The tide has been rising. Is that snow or rain? It's rain but it's coming down really hard. We're seeing waves six feet high.

Miller: Paul, that reminds me of how chaotic that was. Like a brew of crazy weather.

Paul Huttner: It was just amazing and frightening to watch this thing come. It was a slow motion weather disaster that we saw coming a week in advance. Some of the computer models, the hurricane center, did a great job seeing the potential path of the storm a week in advance. And then it was just a question of watching it come ashore and when it did. It exceeded everyone's expectations.

Miller: Is it the damage that Hurricane Sandy did that puts it at the top of extreme weather lists? What kind of standard are they using?

Huttner: That's the biggest one and let's start with that.

Sandy hit the most populated region in the United States with devastating damage. And I think overall it really altered the conversation about climate change. Some of the numbers: New York and New Jersey some of the hardest hit - 125 killed, 43 in NYC alone, 8 million without power, $100 billion in damage - and that's second only to Katrina. This may end up being the second most devastating hurricane to hit the United States.

Miller: When you say it altered the conversation is that because we got an up close real time look at what a changing climate can mean to a storm and the kind of damage it can do in a place where you maybe might not expect it?

Huttner: Let's talk about the links specifically and how climate change might have played a role in Sandy. Again, it's not a slam dunk but there are some strong ties here as we try to connect the dots between how a changing climate is driving extreme weather patterns.

First of all, Kerri, the water temperatures, the sea surface temperatures off of the Atlantic coast in October were unusually warm unusually far north. That was a result of the very hot summer that we saw in the northern hemisphere in the United States and the western Atlantic. So what happened was as Sandy came north when it would usually weaken and lose intensity it actually flared up over those warm waters, about 12-24 hours before it turned and hit shore. That I think is a pretty strong tie with a changing climate.

The second one is this unusually wavy jet stream pattern that caused Sandy, instead of steering out to the sea and the east like most hurricanes do in October, to slow down and then get sucked back to the west. There are some signs - not a slam dunk - but some signs that these unusually wavy or blocked jet stream patterns could be a result of some of the warmth and melting of sea ice that we saw in the Arctic that that tends to slow the jet stream down and make it more wavy and that may have sucked Sandy to the west on that unprecedented track that it took into NY and NJ.

Miller: It's kind of odd to think that Sandy hits the top of the list for extreme weather events but drought. So much moisture in Sandy and so little moisture we're experiencing with this drought. That's also on the list of extreme weather events, isn't it?

Huttner: It really is. That's number two on the list - there are a few top 10 lists - the one I'm reading from comes from Climate Central which is a pretty good source of breaking climate and weather news. That mega U.S. drought in the central part of the U.S., Minnesota was really right on the edge of it. It snuck in late in the year here to the point where we're now in severe to extreme drought in over 60 percent of Minnesota.

Here's the situation: that big dome of high pressure just sat over the central U.S. all summer and it baked areas. We saw consecutive days over 100 degrees, 20, 30 days from Kansas down through Oklahoma and Texas. It's the worst drought since the 1950s. It basically shut off all rain fall throughout the central plains and the Midwest.

There are multiple causes to drought, but the link with climate change potentially is again this slowing or blocking of the jet stream that can allow these patterns to persist. This drought, we're talking about potentially $100 billion in losses. Deutsche Bank Securities estimating it could affect US GDP by about 1 percent for 2012. With record corn prices, $8 a bushel, that will affect all of us at the grocery store going forward.

Miller: Part of the difficulty of trying to figure out what climate change is going to mean to us is that some parts of the country and the world are going to be affected quite differently than others. This is why they have a hard time getting agreements on what to do about climate change. Many people are going to experience this differently depending on where they live.

Huttner: That's a great point, Kerri. The words you used: "climate change" -- a lot of people used to call this global warming. Climate change is really a more accurate term because these changes we're seeing don't always imply warmer weather all the time in all parts of the earth even though the earth is warming up as a whole. So these changes are regional.

The global science on climate change has really kind of been done. But where the work is really going on now, the science is in regional effects of climate change. There's a lot of good work going on at the University of Minnesota about upper Midwest climate changes, the Minnesota climate working group, Mark Seeley and his folks. So we're trying to pinpoint what do we expect to happen, what does this puzzle look like in different regions of the earth.

Miller: Tell me about some of the extreme weather events for Minnesota if we were to compile a list, which I think they've done.

Huttner: They have. In fact, Minnesota Climate Working Group has a pretty good list. We'll start with number five which we go back to almost a year ago now: the non-winter of 2011-2012. You may remember a little more than a year ago, some of the predictions were dire. Accuweather among others saying people in Chicago are going to want to move south after this winter. It turned out that was very far from the truth and we had one of the mildest winters on record throughout the U.S. and in the upper Midwest. We had very little snowfall in Minnesota. 22.3 inches in the Twin Cities, 10th least snowy winter on record for the Twin Cities and the fourth warmest winter on record.

Miller: What else is at the top?

Huttner: The hot July they pegged as number four. Second warmest month ever for the Twin Cities, 80.2 degrees for the average temperature if you add up all the highs and lows for that month. Number three - the drought that snuck into Minnesota late in the year. Remarkable weather pattern for Minnesota last year because we had the flooding and the heavy rains early in the season and then the second half of the year somebody just flipped the switch off and drought crept in. That also again may be a sign of climate change where we're seeing these wild swings from wet to dry. We mentioned the flood, the Duluth area flood, June 19th-20th. That was the largest flash flood event ever for that region. 10.10 inches of rain recorded just northeast of Duluth. Hundreds of homes damaged with that and Feisty the seal escaped from Lake Superior Zoo. That was kind of the symbol of that. Just a remarkable situation there.

Then number one: the mild March last year. It was a record-warm March. 15.5 degrees above average. We saw 80 on St. Patrick's Day, earliest 80 degree temperature ever recorded in the Twin Cities. It just fit the overall pattern of what turned out to be the warmest year on record for the Twin Cities.

Miller: But again it's a story of contrast. Even as you're talking about the Duluth flooding, we know the Mississippi River hit one its lowest lows in history last year.

Huttner: It did. A record late in the year. All that lack of rainfall, the drought from southern Minnesota through Iowa, Missouri, all those places that drain into the Mississippi. And of course that has an impact on shipping. There were parts of the Mississippi that literally had to shut down late in 2012.

Going forward we're hoping that we'll get a better snow cover and we're already off to a decent start in the US. Hopefully some of that snow melt will help boost and recharge the Mississippi. We are setting up for a drought spring. It's going to be very critical in terms of what kind of rainfall we get after the ground thaws out to see where we're going to be at in Minnesota. We're in kind of a precarious situation as we go into the spring of 2013.

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-Read the Minnesota Public Radio primer on Climate Change

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Mark Seeley's Weather Talk

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

(3 Comments)

Climate Cast: This week's top climate stories; Airs Thursdays at 9:50am on The Daily Curcuit

Posted at 8:01 AM on January 3, 2013 by Paul Huttner
Filed under: Climate Cast

Updraft & The Daily Circuit Present: Climate Cast

These days it seems like we are witnessing climate changes unfold right before our very eyes.

It's not our imagination.

We're all living witnesses to rapid climate changes in our lifetime. This is no longer your grandparents "Minnesota."

Star Magnolias blooming over a snow free landscape in March
Image: Paul Huttner MPR News

In 2013 at MPR we'll be devoting more coverage to the growing effects of our changing climate in Minnesota and around the globe. You can hear me discuss the week's top climate stories in our new "Climate Cast" every Thursday morning at 9:50am with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit.

Here's this week's installment.

2012: Warmest year on record in Minnesota & USA

2012 was the warmest year in Minnesota since "The Dirty Thirties" and tied 1931 for warmest year on record in the Twin Cities. How far above average was 2012? Why was 2012 in the metro like living in Omaha?

How does the record warmth, floods and extreme drought of 2012 fit into the overall picture of climate change in Minnesota?

Image: Twin Cities NWS

Here's an excerpt from the Minnesota Climate Working Group on the record warmth of 2012.

2012 will finish in a tie with 1931 as the warmest year on record in the Twin Cities and will range from the warmest to third warmest on record depending on the location around the region.
For so long, it appeared like 2012 would be the warmest year on record for the Twin Cities, but then winter decided to arrive as if on cue on December 21 and since then temperatures have been mostly below normal. As a result, the average temperature for the Twin Cities for 2012 will wind up to be 50.8 degrees, the same as the 50.8 degrees recorded in 1931. The 1981-2010 average temperature for the year is 46.3 degrees so 2012 will finish 4.5 degrees above normal. Every month of 2012 was above normal except October which finished 1.4 degrees below normal. March 2012 was 15.5 degrees above normal and greatly assisted in lifting the average temperature for 2012.

The hottest day of 2012 in the Twin Cities was 102 degrees on July 6 and the coldest temperature of the year was -11 on January 19.

Image: MN Climate Working Group

USA 2012: Hottest year on record brings blistering Midwest heat wave & drought

2012 is also the warmest year ever recorded in the USA . 2012 set or tied 33,753 daily record-high temperatures, compared to just 6,303 daily record-low temperature records.

Image: Climate Central & NOAA

Climate Central adds some details.

Turning Up the Heat: Hottest Year on Record in the Lower 48 States
2012 will go down in history as the hottest year on record in the continental U.S., pushing 1998 into second place. In line with the global warming trend spurred by steadily rising carbon emissions, seven of the top 10 warmest years in the 48 states have occurred in the past 15 years.

Like so much recent record-breaking weather, 2012 isn't just going to top the previous record, 2012 is looking to smash it, by more than 1°F. In mid-December, Climate Central projected that 2012 average temperature for the continental U.S. at 55.34°F compared to the previous record set in 1998 of 54.32°F. For perspective, 1°F is one-quarter of the difference between the coldest and warmest years ever recorded in the U.S.

Top 5 Minnesota climate & weather events of 2012:

2012 advanced the pace of climate change in Minnesota. The patterns we observed in 2012 fit like a glove into the overall picture of climate changes observed in the past 30 years.

Did a warmer climate play a role in juicing the Duluth flood? Why is flood, then drought a possible signal of climate changes to come in Minnesota?

Image: Duluth NWS

The Minnesota Climate Working Group expands on the top 5 weather and climate events of 2012 in Minnesota.

#1 Outrageously Mild March 2012
Imagine if you will a March that was so warm it would break six record high temperature records in the Twin Cities, have four days with muggy dew point temperatures that reached 60 and wound up warmer than October!

To top it off the Twin Cities had its earliest 80 degree temperature ever with 80 degrees on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. The old record was March 23 back in 1910. March 2012 will go down in history as one of the most bizarre months temperature-wise, finishing 15.5 degrees above normal. The only other month in the historical record for the Twin Cities that matches this feat was January 2006 that also finished 15.5 degrees above normal. As a consequence, spring phenology was exceedingly early with lilacs blooming the earliest on record in the Twin Cities, with many in full bloom by mid April.

Lilacs ready to bloom in March.
Image: Paul Huttner - MPR News

More climate stories:

The New Yorker's Top 10 signs of a warming planet in 2012:

Here's an excerpt.

Though it's only mid-December, it's already clear that 2012 will be the hottest year on record for the contiguous United States. "The warm November virtually assures that 2012 will be the warmest year on record in the U.S.," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently observed. "The year-to-date period of January-November has been by far the warmest such period on record for the contiguous U.S.-a remarkable 1.0°F above the previous record. " The Web site Climate Central put it this way: "There is a 99.99999999 percent chance that 2012 will be the hottest year ever recorded in the continental 48 states."

Shipping News: Extreme drought of 2012 brings Mississippi River to near record lows.

You could see this coming as the Great Drought of 2012 unfolded. Andrew Freedman from Climate Central has details.

At the New Madrid gauge in New Madrid, Mo., the Mississippi reached a record high of 48.35 feet on May 6, 2011. Just 15 months later, on Aug. 30, 2012, the gauge reading dropped to a record low of minus 5.32 feet. (River gauges are calibrated to a particular elevation, known as a "zero datum," which means that they don't always equal the depth of water in the channel. So in this case, the record low was 5.32 feet below the zero-datum elevation at New Madrid.)

Climate Cast resources:

Want to know more about climate change? Here are few quick links to credible climate change sources.

-NOAA NCDC's "State of the Climate" report

-AMS Statement on Climate Change

-NASA key evidence of climate change

-Great summary of Modern Day Climate Change from SUNY-Suffolk

-Minnesota Climate Working Group climate change resources

-Common climate change myths

-Climate change in the news from Climate Central

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Updraft Category Archive: Climate Cast

Climate Cast: Putting the Moore tornado in the context of Climate Change

Climate Cast: Is a warmer Arctic causing our prolonged winter?

Climate Cast: The not so hidden insurance costs of climate change

Climate Cast: How our persistent winter may have climate change roots

Climate Cast: Warmer oceans double risk of extreme "Katrina-like" storm surge

Climate Cast: History illuminates future climate change; Investors embrace CC for profits

Climate Cast: Spring 5 weeks earlier by 2100? Why recent snows cannot ease soils drought

Climate Cast: Minnesota #1 fastest warming state in winter since 1970

Climate Cast: Less snow overall, but more blizzards? USA's "Computer Gap"

Climate Cast: Is a "Megaflood" California's next "Big One?" FEMA flood zones expanding

Climate Cast: Top 10 "climate indicators" to watch in 2013

Climate Cast: Corporate America looks ahead to "Climate Resilience"

Climate Cast: 2012 10th warmest globally; What +5F warming by 2050 means for Minnesota?

Climate Shock: Minnesota likely to warm another 5 degrees F by 2050

Climate Cast: Hurricane Sandy's climate change link? Top stories of 2012

Climate Cast: This week's top climate stories; Airs Thursdays at 9:50am on The Daily Curcuit

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