If you thought climate change would be a slow phenomenon well, think again. Climate change arrived like a thief in the night and by 2020 had reached "WHAM-BAM-THANK-YOU-MAM" proportions: Joking aside, 2020 has been the year when even the most stoic optimist would have begun to see the glass half empty.

Desert Times

If you thought climate change would be a slow phenomenon well, think again. Climate change arrived like a thief in the night in the late 50s and early 60s and by 2020 had reached "WHAM-BAM-THANK-YOU-MAM" proportions to put it lightly. However, joking aside, 2020 has been the year when even the most stoic optimist would have begun to see the glass half empty.

The whole year so far reads of devastation of record-breaking weather events across the entire globe, costing governments billions. Every continent on our planet has suffered record weather devastation in 2020. Unfortunately, most of the weather news this year didn't make it to your TV screens because of other huge events happening around the world, Covid-19 for instance with 13 million people infected and almost 1 million deaths. Civil unrest among many countries has also taken our eye off the weather and of course the very colourful and entertaining build-up to the American Election.

An area the size of Portugal was ablaze across Victoria and New South Wales during the fire's peak, credit NASA EarthView

On January the 1st the world was being told of a threat of a novel virus pandemic after people in China were becoming sick and dying in alarming numbers. Attention was somewhat diverted from the fact that Australia was suffering its worst wildfire season in living history. At this point, the entire east coast of the massive continent was ablaze, large swathes of the north, south and west were also burning like never before.

At the end of February, the fires where out, (they had begun in September the previous year) but the scale of the damage caused was incredible; As the worst bushfire season ever recorded came to an end in Australia the true extent of consumed forestry was found to be truly astonishing. Researchers at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment analysed historic data on the extent of Australia’s extraordinary forest fires and found that the area burned in Australia during the 2019-2020 forest fires was an astounding 21%. Previous "major fire" seasons have historically been around 2% of Australian forests consumed by fire. Worse still, 3 billion animals had been killed or injured during the fires and 60% of Australia's crop output had been burned.

We are now witnessing the same kind of wanton destruction along the entire west coast of the US. Almost 5 million acres destroyed nearly 50 deaths, many more missing and thousands of homes burnt to the ground. A mobile morgue has been set up in Oregon and a thick, blanket of smoke is trapped by mountain ranges on either side in Washington State. Weeks of dry, hot weather have fueled the historic wildfires along the West Coast that have reduced thousands of homes to embers. Firefighters have been battling blazes in the region, which have consumed more than 4.7 million acres, as dry grass and high winds have created tinderbox conditions.

At Least Four Billion-Dollar Disasters Struck the U.S. in August 

Did you know that this past August, the contiguous U.S. saw at least four different billion-dollar disasters? There were hurricanes

Isaias and Laura, the California wildfires, and the Midwest derecho. NOAA’s GOES-R series of satellites were able to monitor

these events utilizing their Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instruments and derivative products to provide forecasters and

first responders with the timely information that they critically need. 

On the other side of the US, Hurricane Sally is dumping more than enough rain to put out all the fires along the west coast with much more to come, oh the irony! The Atlantic Hurricane season is being touted as probably the most powerful ever with still 2 and 1/2 months to go. As we might now come to expect 2020 could smash previous records on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts this year. A satellite image from NOAA earlier this week is showing a list of storms emerging in the Atlantic which would not look out of place in the blockbuster movie, The Day After Tomorrow. 

Fires have been burning in Siberia since early spring and recording record temperatures. Siberia landscape scarred by climate change has caused a year of record-Bustin' temperatures scarring the  Siberia landscape and causing scientists to warn that, across Siberia, vast swathes of ground - normally frozen all year round - are thawing - with potentially devastating consequences for the climate. As it thaws, the earth is believed to be releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases, accentuating the problem of global warming. 

As for us Europeans, we could not be blamed if we thought we were living in paradise. For many of us, summer 2020 arrived in the middle of February and 8 months later, we are still walking around in flip-flops and shorts as temperatures were still above 30 deg C 95 deg F this week and with the summer weather expected to last well into October. However, the kind of temperatures we experienced in parts of July and August was anything but paradise. High temperatures lasting for days on end at or around 40 deg C 105 F was difficult to endure when you consider the humidity during these heatwaves in Holland was around 95% which made the temperatures feel even hotter than they really were.

Record cold in South America this winter has killed unprecedented numbers of livestock as millions of people have struggled with the cold. Locust swarms have been devasting farms in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina.

But of course, the biggest locust story of the year belongs to the little desert locust. This little creature has devastated agriculture in east, west and southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, Iran, Arabia, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Western China in unprecedented numbers and often called Biblical in size. The same countries above, along with Japan have also endured unprecedented rains, with thousands dead and millions displaced or affected.

It’s been a remarkably steamy, record-setting last three months for Mother Earth. Not only was August 2020 the second-warmest August on record, but the Northern Hemisphere had its warmest summer, and the globe as a whole had its third-hottest three-month season, too.

Here are highlights from NOAA’s latest monthly global climate report:

Climate by the numbers August 2020 According to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, the average global land and ocean surface temperature in August was 1.69 degrees F (0.94 of a degree C) above the 20th-century average of 60.1 degrees F (15.6 degrees C), making it the second-hottest August in the 141-year record, behind August 2016.

The Northern Hemisphere had its hottest August on record with a temperature departure from average of 2.14 degrees F (1.19 degrees C), besting the previous record set in August 2016. Globally, the 10 warmest Augusts have all occurred since 1998 — with the five warmest occurring since 2015. The year to date (YTD) & meteorological summer

The 3-month season from June through August 2020 was the Northern Hemisphere’s hottest meteorological summer on record, surpassing both 2019 and 2016 which were previously tied for hottest. This period, which also marks the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, was Earth’s third-warmest in the 141-year record at 1.66 degrees F (0.92 of a degree C) above the 20th-century average. Globally, the YTD (January through August) ranked as 2nd hottest recorded, at 1.85 degrees F (1.03 degrees C) above the 20th-century average of 57.3 degrees F (14.0 degrees C) — just behind the record set in 2016.

The Northern Hemisphere’s YTD tied with 2016 as the hottest since global records began in 1880. According to a statistical analysis done by NCEI scientists, 2020 is very likely to rank among the five-warmest years on record.

More notable climate stats and facts

Arctic sea ice continued declining: The average Arctic sea ice extent (coverage) in August was the third smallest on record, 29.4% below the 1981–2010 average, according to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center.  Antarctic sea ice extent was close to normal and had its highest coverage since 2016.

A few continents baked: North America as a whole had its hottest August on record (the Caribbean region saw its third-hottest), beating the previous record set in 2011 by 0.23 of a degree F (0.13 of a degree C). Elsewhere, Europe had its third-hottest August, and South America and Oceania had their fourth hottest August. 2020 has been a real boiler of a year, so far: Europe, Asia and the Caribbean region had their hottest January-August period on record. South America’s YTD average temperature ranked as 2nd-hottest ever recorded.

Where are we headed? What will 2021 bring? God only knows but one thing we can count on, it will be a very bumpy ride.

Climate Change 2020

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