“Five years ago, a vast stretch of warm water emerged across the North Pacific Ocean, extending from Alaska to California to Hawaii.
“This marine heat wave, dubbed “The Blob,” was largely responsible for causing a mass coral bleaching event that ravaged nearly half of Hawaii’s coral reefs…
“Now, a new expanse of unusually warm water is building in roughly the same area and has quickly become the second-largest marine heat wave in the last 40 years of recorded data.
“The new version of “The Blob” is not only being blamed for driving record heat in Hawaii this summer, but it’s already sparked what scientists fear is the start of another mass coral bleaching event.”
“The combination of warm temperatures, gusty southwest winds, low humidity, and dry soil means the fire danger will climb even higher on Thursday.
“More than half the state is under a Red Flag Warning from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. including the Colorado Springs and Pubelo areas and most of the high country.”
“St. George [Utah] is suffering from its longest dry spell in modern history: 122 days without any measurable precipitation.
“That’s the longest stretch since the National Weather Service began keeping records for St. George in 1893.”
“Another week of “fall” has passed. But as Halloween and the holidays approach, it doesn’t feel like Tampa Bay is close to joining pumpkin spice season. Just ask the meteorologists.
“The Tampa Bay region is about to set a new record for the longest stretch of time with temperatures at 70 degrees or greater.”
“A risk of severe weather, including tornadoes, is expected along parts of the Florida Gulf Coast late Friday and across northern and central Florida, southeast Georgia and the coastal Carolinas on Saturday as Potential Tropical Cyclone 16, or future Tropical or Subtropical Storm Nestor, moves into the Southeast.”
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2019-10-17-nestor-tornado-threat-southeast-saturday
“An intensifying coastal storm bombed out overnight and brought flooding rain and damaging winds to the area[NE N America].
“Low pressure rapidly intensified as it moved up the coast into the northeast late Wednesday into Thursday. The storm’s central pressure plummeted 30 millibars in only 15 hours from late Wednesday morning to early Thursday morning.”
“Thawing of once permanently frozen ground covering more than half of Russia is putting buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure at risk of damage.
“With the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, that’s a big problem. The economic loss is 50 billion to 150 billion rubles ($2.3 billion) a year, said Alexander Krutikov, deputy minister for the Far East and Arctic development.”
“Planpincieux, a glacier on Mont Blanc was on the verge of collapsing.
“There was concern that round 250,000 cubic meters of ice were about to slide into a nearby valley. Experts say it could be the beginning of the end of glaciers in the Italian Alps below 3,500 meters.”
https://www.dw.com/en/inside-europe-mont-blanc-glacier-on-brink-of-collapse/av-50871983
“Lebanon struggled this week to fight its worst wildfires in decades after a heatwave and strong winds caused fires in the pine tree-dense western mountains to spread to towns south of Beirut.
“The fires are part of a brutal worldwide fire season that has also seen blazes in Brazil, the forests of the Congo Basin in Africa, and Siberia.”
https://www.vox.com/2019/10/17/20916314/lebanon-fires-experts-saw-it-coming
“Unprecedented heavy flooding in South Sudan’s Maban County has affected nearly 200,000 people, including refugees and host population.
“Situated in the Upper Nile State, the affected area is home to more than 150,000 refugees from Sudan.”
“Qatar, the world’s leading exporter of liquefied natural gas, may be able to cool its stadiums, but it cannot cool the entire country. Fears that the hundreds of thousands of soccer fans might wilt or even die while shuttling between stadiums and metros and hotels in the unforgiving summer heat prompted the decision to delay the World Cup by five months. It is now scheduled for November, during Qatar’s milder winter.
“The change in the World Cup date is a symptom of a larger problem – climate change.”
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Facing-unbearable-heat-Qatar-has-begun-to-air-14541743.php
“Flash drought is a new phenomenon with increasing prominence due to global warming.
“Drought develops rapidly without sufficient early warning, and has stricken the world with severe impacts during recent years, such as the droughts over central USA in 2012 that caused billions of dollars of economic losses; southern China in 2013 that affected 2 million hectares of crops in Guizhou and Hunan provinces alone…”
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-future-drought-humid-regions.html
“More than 23,000 hectares of the main island of Honshu have been confirmed to be flooded
“…after a deadly typhoon hit with record-breaking rainfall and heavy wind over the weekend, the land ministry said Thursday.”
“Harrowing images of a dried-up river scattered with dead mussels have uncovered the glaring reality of drought-stricken communities across the country [Australia]…
“The river is part of the Murray–Darling Basin but has run dry amid brutal drought conditions and a steady decline in water resources.”
“The warming began in the last week of August, when temperatures in the stratosphere high above the South Pole began rapidly heating in a phenomenon called “sudden stratospheric warming”.
“In the coming weeks the warming is forecast to intensify, and its effects will extend downward to Earth’s surface, affecting much of eastern Australia over the coming months.
“The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting the strongest Antarctic warming on record.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/antarctica-s-sudden-stratospheric-warming-is-impacting-australia
“Violence and poverty have pushed tens of thousands of Central Americans to join the caravans heading for the US and Mexico. Hunger has been the main reason for Guatemalans to flee their homes.
“Over 3 million people are food insecure in Guatemala and almost 47% of under fives are chronically malnourished. It’s one of the highest rates in the world.”
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