“It’s unusually warm in The Last Frontier.
“Large swaths of Alaska have seen record or near-record warmth this March said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. And the trend isn’t quitting.
“Well above-average temperatures are expected to continue this week. Daily temperature records have broken around the state, and toppled all-time March records in the greater Arctic region. Last week, Alaska saw its earliest ever 70-degree Fahrenheit temperature.
“This exceptional warmth has been stoked by a mix of weather events and a rapidly warming climate.
“The magnitude and persistence of the warmth is particularly striking to me this winter in parts of Alaska,” Zack Labe, a climate scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Irvine, said over email.”
https://mashable.com/article/alaska-warm-high-temperatures-2019/?europe=true#JANkJSXIomqD
“A Canadian mountaineer has revealed why he made the dangerous climb down the world’s second largest ice sheet to collect data on the impact of global warming. Will Gadd, 52, from Canmore, Alberta, assisted American Professor Jason Gulley in exploring the Greenland ice sheet after noticing the ‘radical changes’ in glaciers.
“The record-breaking ice climber said: ‘In our lifetime we’re seeing radical changes and it’s not something I can ignore.”
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now says that flood waters have reached eight Superfund sites in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, according to Bloomberg.
“Because flood water levels remain high, it isn’t possible for EPA personnel to reach the sites and test these sites, which are in need of major environmental cleanup due to the presence of hazardous waste and toxic chemicals such as arsenic and cyanide, to name a few poisonous chemicals…”
http://fortune.com/2019/03/26/midwest-flooding-superfund-sites/
“2018 was the wettest year on record across the Washington region.
“…Catonsville, Maryland, posted 84.56 inches of precipitation in the calendar year.
“… seven feet of rain a new Maryland state record for annual precipitation.”
“Colorado recorded its lowest barometric pressure on record earlier this month during the so-called bomb cyclone, essentially confirming the storm as the strongest in the state’s recorded history.
“A central pressure reading of 970.4 millibars in Lamar on March 13 made it the lowest sea level pressure reading ever recorded in the state…”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/26/bomb-cyclone-colorado-strongest-storm/
“In the open air and next to the highway live near 200 families in the San Vicente de Vinces enclosure, province of Los Ríos, after the flood of the Pocas river [Ecuador]. Between pain and anguish, they sleep in improvised tents and under plastic with the few things they could recover. For now, they only harbor the hope that the heavy rains will diminish.
“According to a report presented by the Vice President of the Republic Otto Sonnenholzner, until Monday 25 March there are 20 deaths…”
“If a super typhoon hits the Tokyo metropolitan area and causes floods that coincide with high tide, it would be necessary to evacuate 2.55 million of the capital’s residents and send many to places other than their local evacuation center, an estimate has shown.”
“A woman has been found dead in New Zealand following a severe downpour that washed away a bridge and prompted a state of emergency in the South Island…
“Meteorologists have described the event as significant, even by the area’s rainy standards, with some parts struck by more than 800mm of rain in a once-in-a-century downpour.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/27/new-zealand-floods-deaths-state-of-emergency
“A hail storm that ripped through an avocado orchard in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales last week has destroyed an estimated 4 million avocados.
“Aussie Orchards’ managing director Colin Foyster said 80 per cent of the fruit on the 12,000 trees at the Pretty Gully farm was knocked off and onto the ground.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-03-27/hail-storm-smashes-4-million-avocados/10942058
“A mere eight months after Kerala was hit by devastating floods that ravaged its landscape, a severe heatwave is roiling life in Kerala…
“…with four lives being lost in recent days and nearly 40 people suffering sunstrokes on Tuesday alone.”
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/dozens-suffer-heat-stroke-in-severe-kerala-summer-1.62942736
“Heavy flooding continued in Iran on Tuesday as many provinces geared up for days of waterlogged misery and authorities warned of possible floods in the capital Tehran as well the oil-rich south.
“President Hassan Rouhani promised compensation for all financial losses and called for the armed forces to help in flooded areas.”
“Roads between Awenay Shar and Hiran City 2 — in eastern Erbil — have flooded due to heavy rains since Sunday.
“As seen in these photos taken on Monday, some houses were also affected in Erbil’s Gilkand and Saydawa neighborhoods.
“Many areas of the Kurdistan Region lack proper drainage, leading to structural damage when heavy rains fall.”
http://www.rudaw.net/english/lifestyle/26032019
“Mozambique said on Wednesday five cases of cholera had been confirmed around the badly damaged port city of Beira after a powerful cyclone killed more than 700 people across a swathe of southern Africa.
“Cyclone Idai smashed into Mozambique around midnight on March 14 before tearing through neighbouring Zimbabwe and Malawi, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and wrecking an area of 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles).”
“On March 26, 2004, the South Atlantic’s first hurricane on record was born, quickly dubbed Catarina as it intensified to a Category 2 beast…”
“The first report on the impact of climate change in Spain gathers worrisome data:
“in the last 50 years the desert area has increased by 12% in our country, we have more tropical nights and the heat waves are longer…
“Summer is much hotter, lasts five weeks longer than in the early 80’s.”
“Germany’s meteorological agency DWD says 2018 was the warmest in the country since records began. The agency said Tuesday that the annual average temperature in Germany was 10.5 degrees Celsius (50.9 Fahrenheit) last year — higher than at any time since [records began in] 1881.
“The number of days when the mercury rose above 25 C and 30 C also beat previous records, including from the intense but shorter-lived summer of 2003.”
http://www.startribune.com/2018-was-warmest-year-in-germany-since-records-began/507670592/
“Many insect pollinator species are disappearing from areas of Great Britain, a new study has found.
“The research, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, measured the presence of 353 wild bee and hoverfly species across the country, from 1980 to 2013. It showed one third of species experienced declines in terms of areas in which they were found…”
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-widespread-losses-pollinating-insects-britain.html
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