by P. Homewood, Oct 5, 2023 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
I have a prediction!
At the end of the year, the Met Office’s State of the Climate report will declare 2023 as a “Year of Extremes”.
It will highlight September as a particularly extreme month, with a heatwave (which peaked at temperatures several degrees lower than in 1906 and 1911); a monthly temperature no higher than in September 2006; and Storm Agnes.
I doubt whether anybody with any experience would find anything extreme about the weather last month. On the contrary, they will all be able to recall genuinely extreme autumn weather in the past.
For example, let;s look back to the 1960s, courtesy of Weatherweb:
2023 has been a hot year… We have the makings of a super-El Niño and an unprecedented injection of water vapor into the upper atmosphere stacked on top of a general warming trend since 1978, if not since the nadir of the Little Ice Age. So, it should come as no surprise that we have seen satellite-era record high temperatures, this summer and early fall.
As a geologist, I always have to apply scale and context to everything.
Scale
Temperature anomaly records are great tools. They are the only way to accurately describe how global temperatures are changing over time. However, they lack scale. They lack a frame of reference.
It is a common adage that when a geologist takes a photograph of a person, that person is simply there for scale. Other scale references include: camera lens covers (rendered obsolete by smart phones), quarters, rock hammers, spouses and action figures (on April Fools Day only). The key is to come up with a reference that is relatable. And what temperature reference is more relatable than a thermometer?
Figure 1. UAH 6.0 from WoodForTrees (l), UAH 6.0 at gas station thermometer scale.…
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
