| | | | | | |

archives | talk back | about grist | sitemap | grist by email

search grist: | |

| | | | | | | | | |

Everything you ever wanted to know about climate change

The Main Dish
Soapbox
Daily Grist
Dear Me
Books Unbound
Ha.
Global Citizen
>>Heat Beat
Counter Culture
Best of the Rest
Muckraker
Say What?
Letters
Zed
Do Good

Blood and water, by Jessica McCallin. Without fair water distribution, the Middle East peace process is all dried up.

This just in

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. A skeptical look at The Skeptical Environmentalist.

What now? One month after Sept. 11, it's a whole new environment.
Investigative journalism, mystical musings, and everything in between

Hurray, harrumph, and other points of view

Top environmental news from around the globe

Five days of diary entries

Newly published works of an environmental bent

A cartoon by Suzy Becker

A monthly rumination on sustainable living

Flabbergast your friends with these fun facts and figures

What we're reading (and what you ought to)

Juicy tidbits about who's who and what's what on the enviro scene

Weekly quips and quotes on the environment

Grist readers talk back

Comic adventures of the last of his species

Take action, speak out, be heard

> | Heat Beat Home
>> | How's the Weather?
> | This Just In ...

> | Debates
> | Soundbites
> | Climate Change in Short

> | Negotiations
> | Hot Links

How's the Weather?

Taking the Earth's temperature

Email this story | Print this story
Talk back to the editor

by Leonie Haimson

19 Apr 2002
Global temperatures for March 2002 are in at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- and both agencies agree that March was a scorcher, globally speaking.

Based on preliminary data, the NOAA found the month to be the hottest of any March on the historical record, 0.77 degrees Celsius (1.39 degrees Fahrenheit) above the long-term mean. Not only was it the hottest March ever, but, according to GISS, the month demonstrated the second-biggest temperature anomaly on record, trailing only February of 1998. NOAA concludes that after three months, 2002 is so far tied with 1998 as the hottest year ever, while GISS has 2002 as quite a bit warmer so far. 1998 was an El Nino year, with temperatures expected to be higher than in non-El Nino years. This year, El Nino has not yet fully emerged, though it may kick in soon (Planet Ark, Reuters, 17 April 2002).

About the data

According to NOAA, March 2002 was also the 71st month in a row that global temperatures exceeded the 1971-2000 mean. Throughout most of the world, the month was extraordinarily warm. Temperatures across much of Asia were above average by as much as to 3 to 6 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Weekly average temperatures were as much as 18 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) above average across parts of Russia, Kazakhstan, and China in mid-March. Dry conditions, accompanied by the warm weather, contributed to severe dust storms originating in the Gobi Desert and spreading from northern China to South Korea and Japan. In northern China alone, an estimated 130 million people were adversely affected by the dust storms, and in Beijing, visibility dropped to less than 100 yards on one occasion.

Europe didn't escape the heat wave, either, with temperatures averaging 1 to 3 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1992-2002 mean. And although much of the continental United States was relatively cool -- the 33rd coldest March on record, according to NOAA -- extremely warm weather prevailed across the western half of Alaska and into the Northwest Territory, where temperatures rose 3 to 6 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1971-2000 mean.

Bleach Blanket Bingo

According to Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, an epidemic of coral bleaching and destruction has hit South Pacific reefs as a result of high ocean temperatures over the first three months of 2002. In recent weeks, Goreau has received numerous (but still unofficial) reports of bleached coral across much of the South Pacific, including Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Samoa, New Caledonia, and Fiji. Goreau says divers in the waters around Fiji in particular have told him that in terms of coral, "Nothing was left alive." Goreau expects similarly bad news from parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, because in his estimate, ocean temperatures there were also very high earlier this year.

Coral bleaching occurs when sustained elevated sea temperatures force coral to expel their symbiotic algae, leading to widespread injury and mortality; the coral literally turns white and begins to starve. Many scientists, including those at NOAA, say temperatures of 1 degree Celsius above the normal maximum during the warmest months lead to extensive bleaching. Goreau points out that the mortality rate is far more severe if high temperatures persist for two months, or reach 2 degrees Celsius above the norm for one month. He says temperatures in the South Pacific have been as warm as those that caused the widespread coral death in 1998, wiping out most of the reefs throughout the Maldives, the Seychelles, and western Australia in 1998. (See also the New Scientist, 12 April 2002.)

NOAA charts indicate that there have been extremely high and sustained water temperatures in the South Pacific in the waters surrounding Fiji over the past three months, though not quite as high in the waters bordering the Great Barrier Reef. (Also, check out NOAA's nifty animated map showing sea temperatures in the area over this period.)

For their part, Australian officials say the Great Barrier Reef experienced "unusually hot water temperatures" in January and February, "resulting in bleaching of corals along much of the length of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park." While the officials say the problem grew less severe in March, one local report from the middle of the month said coral bleaching was still increasing, with mortality levels of around 20 percent on Heron Island.

It is possible for coral to recover from serious episodes of mortality over the course of 10 to 15 years, according to Goreau, if the waters are clean and sea temperatures do not return to high levels again. With the continued global warming of the oceans, however, such benign conditions are unlikely to prevail. (For more on the risk to coral survival under a warming regime, see April's This Just In.)

- - - - - - - - -

Leonie Haimson was the climate columnist for the former Liberty Tree Alliance website. She coauthored The Way Things Really Are: Debunking Rush Limbaugh on the Environment for the Environmental Defense Fund, and edited Common Questions on Climate Change for the U.N. Environment Programme.
<< Previous <<

Email this story | Print this story | Talk back to the editor

Get free environmental news and humor by email.

|

| Daily | | Weekly

Take action on climate issues.
>More actions<
>Submit an action<

March 2002 checkup

2001 summary

November 2001 checkup

>More archival matter<

Archives | About Grist | Sitemap | Grist by Email | Search
The Main Dish | Soapbox | Daily Grist | Dear Me | Books Unbound
Ha. | Global Citizen | Heat Beat | Counter Culture | Best of the Rest
Muckraker | Say What? | Letters | Zed | Do Good

[email-masked] | Privacy Policy | Top of the Page
Grist Magazine: Environmental news and humor

© 2002, Earth Day Network. All rights reserved.