The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast that temperatures for the months of August, September and October will be above average for the United States, including both the contiguous states and Alaska. According to research into NOAA’s archives on the matter done by Gizmodo, a forecast stretch of above-average temperatures this long is unprecedented.
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It’s official: June of 2016 broke yet another global temperature record, coming in as the hottest June on record since global temperatures were first recorded in 1880, beating the previous record-holder’s departure from the norm, June 2015, by 0.02ºC (0.04ºF). This also marks the 14th consecutive record-breaking month, with global temperatures being 0.90ºC (1.62ºF) above the 20th century average.
This string of consecutive above-average months is not expected to continue forever, according to Deke Arndt, head of NOAA’s national Centers for Environmental Information climate monitoring division, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods in regards to the long-term warming trend.
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Scientists at Harvard University have proposed a plan to re-introduce the woolly mammoth to its former natural habitat of the Siberian tundra. While there are currently no individual prehistoric pachyderms that would be used to populate this proposed Pleistocene Park, the researchers are looking at cloning the mammoths needed to pursue the project. That, and the project has a motive that one might not expect: They plan to help curb global warming with the re-introduction of the previously extinct species.
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One of the notable aspects of climate change that has been observed is the further toward the poles one looks, the more pronounced global warming’s impact becomes. While the tropics have warmed somewhat, average temperatures in the Artic have soared: the North Pole was a full degree warmer than Seattle on Dec 30 2015, and while the contiguous U.S. broke a 3.3ºF (1.83ºC) above-average heat record for June of this year, Alaska saw a temperature record of nearly three times that level for the same month, at 9ºF (5.0ºC) above average.
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