QuoteGlobal heat record broken for June, following record May



The globe is on a hot streak, setting a heat record in June. That's after the world broke a record in May.



The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that last month's average global temperature was 16.2 C, which is 0.72 degrees higher than the 20th-century average.



"We are living in the steroid era of the climate system," said NOAA climate monitoring chief Derek Arndt.



Arndt said both the June and May records were driven by unusually hot oceans, especially the Pacific and Indian oceans.



Heat records in June broke on every continent but Antarctica.  The heat hit New Zealand, northern South America, Greenland, central Africa and southern Asia particularly hard.



All 12 of the world's monthly heat records have been set after 1997, more than half in the last decade. All the global cold monthly records were set before 1917.



The first six months of the year are the third warmest first six months on record, coming behind 2010 and 1998, according to NOAA



Global temperature records go back to 1880 and this is the 352nd hotter than average month in a row.



http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/global-heat-record-broken-for-june-following-record-may-1.2713463">//http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/global-heat-record-broken-for-june-following-record-may-1.2713463

QuoteNorthern Canada is On Fire, And It's Making Global Warming Worse



For the past few weeks, dry and warm weather have fueled large forest fires across Canada's remote Northwest Territories. The extent of those fires is well above average for the year to-date, and is in line with climate trends of more fires burning in the northern reaches of the globe.



The amount of acres burned in the Northwest Territories is six times greater than the 25-year average to-date according to data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center.



Boreal forests like those in the Northwest Territories are burning at rates "unprecedented" in the past 10,000 years according to the authors of a study put out last year. The northern reaches of the globe are warming at twice the rate as areas closer to the equator, and those hotter conditions are contributing to more widespread burns.



The combined boreal forests of Canada, Europe, Russia and Alaska, account for 30 percent of the world's carbon stored in land, carbon that's taken up to centuries to store. Forest fires like those currently raging in the Northwest Territories, as well as ones in 2012 and 2013 in Russia, can release that stored carbon into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Warmer temperatures can in turn create a feedback loop, priming forests for wildfires that release more carbon into the atmosphere and cause more warming. The IPCC's landmark climate report released earlier this year indicates that for every 1.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperatures, wildfire activity is expected to double.



In addition, soot from forest fires can also darken ice in the Arctic and melt it faster. The 2012 fires in Siberia released so much soot that they helped create a shocking melt of Greenland's ice sheet. Over the course of a few weeks in July that year, 95 percent of the surface melted.



Forest in other parts of the globe are also feeling the effects of climate change. In the western U.S., wildfire season has lengthened by 75 days compared to 40 years ago. Additionally, rising temperatures and shrinking snowpack have helped drive an increase in the number of large forest fires. In Australia, fire danger is also increasing, if not the total number of fires, due to a similar trend of hotter, dryer weather.



http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/canada-wildfires-climate-change-feedbacks">//http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/canada-wildfires-climate-change-feedbacks

Quote from: "cc li tarte"We have not had a day above 75 and its late July ... today 66 .... 45 at night here ... covers on every night

Quote from: "cc li tarte"That is quite common for summer in S ON. Nights do not cool down there like they do out here