Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Risk of multiple tipping points should be triggering urgent action on climate change      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Pioneering new research shows that existing studies have massively under-valued the risk that ongoing carbon dioxide emissions pose of triggering damaging tipping points.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

NASA maps El Niño's shift on US precipitation      (via sciencedaily.com) 

This winter, areas across the globe experienced a shift in rain patterns due to the natural weather phenomenon known as El Nino. A new NASA visualization of rainfall data shows the various changes in the United States with wetter, wintery conditions in parts of California and across the East Coast.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

NASA sees a different kind of El Nino      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new NASA visualization shows the 2015 El Nino unfolding in the Pacific Ocean, as sea surface temperatures create different patterns than seen in the 1997-1998 El Nino. Computer models are just one tool that NASA scientists are using to study this large El Nino event, and compare it to other events in the past.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Herpes outbreak, other marine viruses linked to coral bleaching event      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Significant outbreaks of viruses may be associated with coral bleaching events, especially as a result of multiple environmental stresses, a study has concluded. One such event was documented even as it happened in a three-day period. It showed how an explosion of three viral groups, including a herpes-like virus, occurred just as corals were bleaching in one part of the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Even thermally tolerant corals are in hot water when it comes to bleaching      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have discovered that corals adapted to naturally high temperatures, such as those off the north west coast of Australia, are nonetheless highly susceptible to heat stress and bleaching.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Global connections between El Nino events, drought      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A team of researchers recently discovered that global climate change is causing general increases in both plant growth and potential drought risk. El Nino is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific with important consequences for weather around the globe.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

California 2100: More frequent and more severe droughts and floods likely      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study suggests that the weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina could lead to at least a doubling of extreme droughts and floods in California later this century.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Decade-long Amazon rainforest burn yields new insight into wildfires      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The longest and largest controlled burn experiment ever conducted in the Amazon rainforest has yielded new insight into the ways that tropical forests succumb to -- and bounce back from -- large-scale wildfires.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Peat fires in Sumatra strengthen in El Nino years      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Sumatra's burning again and the El Nino event that is occurring this year is partially to blame for the proliferation of the blazes.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Ocean changes are affecting salmon biodiversity, survival      (via sciencedaily.com) 

What happens at the Equator, doesn't stay at the Equator. El Nino-associated changes in the ocean may be putting the biodiversity of two Northern Pacific salmon species at risk, according to a study.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Severe flooding hits central Texas, Oklahoma      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A stagnant upper-air pattern that spread numerous storms and heavy rains from central Texas up into Oklahoma has resulted in record flooding for parts of the Lone Star State.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

How seabirds are affected by climate change      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Collaboration between ecologists and climate researchers has generated fascinating new insight into how seabirds are affected by climate change.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Gulf of Mexico marine food web changes over the decades      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists in the Gulf of Mexico now have a better understanding of how naturally-occurring climate cycles -- as well as human activities -- can cause widespread ecosystem changes. These major shifts happen once every few decades in the Gulf, and can impact ecosystem components, including fisheries. Understanding how and why these shifts occur can help communities and industries alter management strategies in light of them.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Elusive El Niño arrives: Forecasters predict it will stay weak, have little influence on weather and climate      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The long-anticipated El Niño has finally arrived, according to forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. In their updated monthly outlook released today, forecasters issued an El Niño Advisory to declare the arrival of the ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean near the equator.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Heavy rainfall events becoming more frequent on Big Island, Hawaii      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A recent study determined that heavy rainfall events have become more frequent over the last 50 years on Hawai'i Island. For instance, a rare storm with daily precipitation of nearly 12 inches, occurring once every 20 years by 1960, has become a rather common storm event on the Big Island of Hawai'i -- returning every 3-5 years by 2009.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

NASA study shows 13-year record of drying Amazon caused vegetation declines      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A 13-year decline in vegetation in the eastern and southeastern Amazon has been linked to a decade-long rainfall decline in the region. With global climate models projecting further drying over the Amazon in the future, the potential loss of vegetation and the associated loss of carbon storage may speed up global climate change.

Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

Modeling the past to understand the future of a stronger El Niño      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

El Nino is not a contemporary phenomenon; it’s long been the Earth’s dominant source of year-to-year climate fluctuation. But as the climate warms and the feedbacks that drive the cycle change, researchers want to know how El Nino will respond.