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The facts: September 27, Helene made landfall in Florida as a category 4 Hurricane with winds of 140 mph. Emergency declarations in 5 states: Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky Over 227 people dead across 6 states National Weather service statistics – Helene dumped “staggering” amounts of rain including: 31.33 inches in the
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from https://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/basic-page/urban-heat-islands What Are Urban Heat Islands? An urban heat island is a when a city experiences much higher temperatures than in nearby rural or country areas. The sun’s heat and light reach the city and the country in the same way, but more of the heat stays in the city due to albedo. Darker surfaces, like
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Image Credit: A melt water river formed by glacier melt in Greenland, Museum of Science and History, Chicago, James Balog The official definition is ‘the fraction of incoming light that Earth reflects back into space’ In human terms, wearing a light shirt on a hot day will keep you cool, as it reflects heat back
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As the whole earth gets warmer, even the extremely cold poles are warming. The end result of this is increased melting of the ice caps. In the Artic, the ice sheets are calving at a higher rate. What does this mean? It means three things: 1) Right now, there is a sufficient influx of cold,
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Image courtesy National Science Foundation: https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/oceans_climate2_h.jpg The entire Global Conveyor Belt looks like the above: The red lines stand for warmer surface currents, and the blue for the deeper colder currents. This conveyor belt regulates the climate for the whole globe. It is as necessary for life on this planet as the air we breathe.
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Photo credit: https://www.pexels.com/search/iceberg/ This is what happens when an iceberg forms: A forming iceberg is composed of fresh water. This action leaves more salt behind in the surrounding ocean. Salt water is denser and heavier, which will cause it to sink. The water is very cold in the poles, and will sink as well, drawing
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Photo credit: https://polarpedia.eu/en/gulf-stream/ Simply put, there are large ice fields at the two poles, which normally calve icebergs from the glaciers at a slow pace. As well, the very cold water in the poles causes sea ice to form. These icebergs are important for temperature/climate stabilization around the globe. How? Let’s look at the North
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Warmer Atmosphere Warmer Oceans Warmer Land All of this means more dangerous storms, more droughts, more floods, and climate events of every kind. Example: The level 5 drought in the Island of Maui was made possible because of climate change. This combined with winds from a hurricane passing south of the island and a spark,
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Photo courtesy of NASA s://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ The data for this change is clear, and there is consensus among 97% or greater, of climate scientists. It’s getting hot! This July was the hottest one on record. Want to read more? https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-clocks-july-2023-as-hottest-month-on-record-ever-since-1880 Image courtesy of NASA.gov: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/microsoftteams-image_26.png https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/09/12/us-weather-2023-record-hurricane-wildfire-flooding/
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‘Climate is what you expect, and Weather is what you get ‘ NOAA.gov That is, weather is the day – to – day (short term changes) and climate is the overall patterns over time (long – term averages) It can be a little confusing. The graphic above from the EESA helps. If we talk
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Climate Change Simply Explained 
