NASA map shows temperature anomalies from March 13-19, 2012 as compared to the same eight day period during the past 12 years based on data captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on the Terra satellite. Click to enlarge.
Central U.S. and parts of Canada have seen over a thousand record temperatures shattered over the past week and a half, as an abnormally-long and bizarrely-hot warm spell moves across portions of North America. The direct cause of the weird weather is a blocked high pressure system, but as the U.S. experiences what may be the warmest March on record, meteorologists say climate change may be playing a role in the severity of the heatwave.
“It is highly unlikely the warmth of the current ‘Summer in March’ heat wave could have occurred unless the climate was warming,” noted meteorologist Jeff Masters wrote yesterday in his popular blog, Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog.
The heatwave has proven so extreme that some overnight lows have by themselves broken past high records. For example on March 18 in Rochester, Minnesota the daily low was two degrees higher than the previous record high. Chicago has seen seven days with highs above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that has only been hit ten other times in March since record-keeping began in the late 19th Century. International Falls, which is one of the coldest cities in the country, has matched or broken records seven days in a row. Meanwhile, a number of Canadian cities have broken all time April record highs, let alone March ones.
Masters who calls the heatwave “one of the most extreme heat events in U.S. history,” recently commented, “this is not the atmosphere I grew up with.”
While it is difficult to link extreme weather events to climate change, researchers have begun to try. An as yet unpublished paper by NASA climatologist James Hansen and others makes the case that recent extreme heat events, such as Russia’s 2010 deadly heatwave and last year’s extreme drought in Texas, are directly linked to our warming planet.
Global temperatures have risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.44 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution. The past decade (2000-2009) was the warmest on record while 2010 and 2005 are generally considered tied for the warmest year on record (not 1998 as is often cited). In fact, the Earth hasn’t experienced a single year below the 20th Century average since 1975.
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