Table of Contents
Introduction
Why is analyzing this data important and what does it do for us?
Weather is something that good or bad we have to deal with and plan for in our lives here on Earth. It is though something that we can not control but through technology and tools, we can attempt to predict, plan and prepare to handle whatever is headed our way. Understanding weather, weather patterns and our climate can assist us in its behavior and the amount an influence it may have. I know first hand from living in Atlanta how much weather can affect a city and virtually shut it down overnight.
Our famous ice storm that turned Atlanta into a parking lot directly impacted our economy for a few days, our transportation systems were a disaster with cars littered across the city abandoned by those seeking refuge from the storm (Beasley, 2014). My father spent 9 hours on the highway before leaving his Jeep to go stay in the Wal-Mart off the highway exit. Atlanta city resources were not prepared for this and there were cars left on the roads all the way up to the suburbs for days after. It was a logistical nightmare for many and directly impacted the small businesses and companies throughout the state.
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Situations like the one above are why we measure high annual temperatures, low annual temperatures, and annual precipitation. Understanding these highs and lows again allows us to predict and forecast weather patterns and for me honestly helps me plan most of my vacations! I travel to Wisconsin and New York frequently to visit family and most recently was planning on going to the Atlanta Falcons versus Green Bay Packers game but upon looking at the average low temperature for December 9th was 9 degrees. I, of course, stayed home in Atlanta and watched it at home instead of becoming part of the frozen tundra.
I chose the Southeast Region where I have lived most of my life. The weather here is always changing and we go by the saying “dress for the day, not the season”. It can be 80 degrees one day then drop to 50 degrees the next day. That is completely normal here in Georgia, in the last 50 years we have experienced annual highs of 76 degrees to lows of 49 degrees.
The data in the Southeast Region shows that while there is very minimal fluctuation in low annual temperatures, less than 1 degrees difference from any year to the next. The biggest difference was in the high annual temperatures which varied from up to 4 degrees difference. The climate here is a very mild climate with an average low of 50 degrees and an average high of 74 degrees. The deviations from both the highs and lows again were minimal all the way up to 2015 when they had a 1 deviation from 50 years average high after 49 years of minus deviations and lows experienced the highest deviation in the last 50 years at 3.1.
This is important because scientific studies indicate that extreme weather events such as heat waves and large storms are likely to become more frequent (EPA, 2016). In the United States, average temperatures have risen across the country since 1901. Going back to 1998, we have recorded eight out of ten top warmest years in the United States. (Climate Control, 2019). NASA and NOAA report that there are more weather disasters in each year on record that were hotter within the past decade. My previous report on hurricanes shows that the U.S. is experiencing more disasters that are causing more extensive damage and will only get worse if we do not start combating climate change.
What’s Changed?
1884-2011
A lot of things have changed obviously since 1884. In over a century many areas of the world no longer look the same or have gone through changes. The 130 year time from that we are using for Earths Surface temperatures shows that the Earth has warmed approximately 1-degree Celsius in that time frame which is 33.8 degrees Fahrenheit. That is a pretty substantial increase in global temperature and quite alarming.
During the late 1800s, the video shows the planet was much cooler. There were sporadic pockets of increased warming in the early 1900s. Now the first thing that I thought of was when was the Industrial Revolution begin and when did it end in order for me to understand maybe the potential increase in global warming and whether or not it had an early or later impact on CO2 emissions.
My research found that although there was an immediate impact on the climate, global warming started much earlier in the 1830s. The tropical oceans and the Arctic were the first regions to begin warming, in the 1830s. Europe, North America, and Asia followed roughly two decades later (McGregor, Gergis, Abram, and Phipps, 2016). Trying to understand if the trends in global warming rose from human cause takes decades to gather data to differentiate from the natural climate. The importance of gathering this data is how we are able to interrupt what has changed and when those changes started taking place.
The video shows that there was a massive increase in warming across the globe starting in 1929 and ten years later in 1939 expansion of warming most of the globe until a cooler couple decades until 19270 where the next warming phase occurred. From 1970 to now warming has grown and much warmer in many parts of the world. In my part of the world (U.S.) Georgia has become much warmer and will continue to warm in the future. It was 80 degrees on this past Thursday in February. That set a record high in the state with an increase of 6 degrees. Almost doubling our CO2 consumption since the 18th century has directly lead to this increase in my states temperature.
One of the reasons I love living in Georgia is that we do not experience many weather anomalies. There are a few tornadoes every year, hail and flooding that occur but nothing major. In 2018 though I did experience my first ever earthquake in Georgia and was quite frightening as it woke me up at 3 am and had no clue what was happening. Besides our disastrous ice storm in 2014 is massive power outages from extreme weather events. There have been 17 since 2010 due to that weather (“Hitting Close to Home”, 2016).
Every year it does seem that it is getting hotter here in Georgia, it is almost unbearable some days to be outdoors long term. The heat and humidity are just absolutely draining. Recently, we recorded our warmest year on record in 2017 and was also the third hottest in the U.S., according to the National Weather Service Forecast Office (Solorzano, 2018). It is definitely noticeable that it is getting hotter here in Georgia and sooner year after year. I find some days too hot and humid to be able to enjoy anything outdoors as do many other Georgians.
The anomaly outside of the U.S. that chose was the anomaly in the North Indian Ocean during cyclone season. Cyclones are virtually the same thing as hurricanes but have been given different names due to where they form. The main difference is the location, hurricanes being over the Northeast Pacific and Northern Atlantic Ocean. The anomaly that occurred was called Cyclone Chapala and had maximum winds of 2250km/hr. What made this anomaly abnormal was that it was the first hurricane-strength storm to make landfall in Yemen. I can personally not recall ever hearing of a cyclone hitting anywhere in the Middle East. In this part of the world hurricanes also called cyclones to go years without appearing. The latest one to hit in 2018 delivered a years worth of rain to Somalia which had been dealing with drought for years (Hansen, 2018).
References
- Beasley, D. (2014, January 29). Deadly ice storm turns Atlanta into parking lot, strands thousands. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://news.yahoo.com/winter-storm-brings-39-once-decade-39-ice-020122982–finance.html
- EPA. (2016, August 02). Climate Change Indicators: Weather and Climate. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate
- Climate Control. (2019, February 06). The 10 Hottest Global Years on Record. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/the-10-hottest-global-years-on-record
- McGregor, H., Gergis, J., Abram, N., & Phipps, S. (2018, November 29). The Industrial Revolution kick-started global warming much earlier than we realised. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from http://theconversation.com/the-industrial-revolution-kick-started-global-warming-much-earlier-than-we-realised-64301
- Extreme Weather Map | Fact Sheet. (2016). Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://environmentgeorgia.org/page/gae/extreme-weather-map-fact-sheet
- Solorzano, E., & Cannon, C. (2018, March 23). 2017 is warmest year recorded in Georgia, UGA scientists say. Retrieved from https://www.redandblack.com/uganews/is-warmest-year-recorded-in-georgia-uga-scientists-say/article_879b516a-16ad-11e8-a7bf-8784ac976db6.html
- Hansen, K. (2018, May 19). Cyclone Duo Hits the Middle East. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92189/cyclone-duo-hits-the-middle-east
