It'll be a hot, humid weekend with scattered mainly inland afternoon storms Sat. then storms should be more numerous & possibly reaching all the way to the coast Sunday.
So with any luck Cumberland Island in Ga. will get some much needed rain after lightning a couple of weeks ago ignited a large wildfire. Firefighters seem to be gaining an upper hand & allowing residents back in to the north side of the island. The photo below shows firefighters taking on the blaze (doing "fuel reduction burn operations").
We're pretty much settling into a typical midsummer weather pattern for much of the U.S. That'll mean sea breeze-driven storms for the First Coast & finally a break from the wet, stormy weather for the Midwest. The mega clash of warm & cold of the last 6 months has diminished. That doesn't mean no storminess at all but less & generally not as intense or as widespread.
Speaking of storms...."Bertha" continues to move quickly west. Forecast models that were showing an early recurvature (GFS -- a typical bias) are now shifting west while models that were more west all along (EURO) remain more west. So the moral of the story is "Bertha" is not a sure bet to simply recurve.
Still...it'll be well east of the Bahamas & well northeast of Puerto Rico at midweek, but a system to carefully watch! It's interesting to note that the last 2 "Bertha's" did make a U.S. landfall. In 2002, tropical storm "Bertha" made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 4th followed by a second landfall on the Texas Coast Aug. 9th....in 1996, "Bertha" made landfall near Wilmington, NC as a Cat. 2 hurricane on July 12th then moved up the coast to New England as a formidable tropical storm (like our '08 version of "Bertha", the '96 cyclone was also an unseasonably early Cape Verde storm). "Talking the Tropics With Mike" will be updated through the weekend.
On CNN this morning, I heard the headline "Global warming causing more wildfires in the West". So I waited through the commercial break...the guest was interesting -- a photographer from National Geographic that's also a certified wildfire fighter -- Mark Thiessen. Turns out he's been photographing wildfires for a number of yrs. It also turns out during the CNN interview that Thiessen reveals research indicates global warming could be "exasperating the wildfire situation".
But there are clearly a number of forces working together as pointed out by Thiessen & the NG article:
-- the west was settled during "wetter times"
-- much higher population
-- people building in harm's way & not taking fire preventive measures (sounds like our coastlines & the hurricane problem)
-- insects
-- disease (trees)
-- too much "fuel"....up until the last 15-20 yrs. or so, fires were being put out instead of allowed to burn -- at least to some degree. Wildfires are nature's way of cleaning up, restoring & starting new life
Of course, the media -- in this case CNN -- jumps on "global warming causes..."....ya-da', ya-da', ya-da' -- I'm sorry, but the media generally does not understand global warming, does not research the phenomenon, looks for simple yet sensationalistic sound bites & generally presents one side of the story more often than not.
Read the article & look at Thiessen's photos in Nat. Geographic -- click here.
Earth Gauge: Beach Debris
Did you know that trash and debris in the ocean kills more than one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles each year? Marine animals may confuse trash for food or become entangled in debris, often resulting in death. This is especially a problem for sea turtles species, six out of seven of which are considered endangered or threatened. Jellyfish are an important food source for sea turtles, but they often mistake plastic bags for their favorite meal. When a sea turtle ingests the plastic bag, it blocks the animal’s digestive track and leads to their death. Marine debris like fishing line can also snag sea turtles underwater, entangling them and causing them to drown.
Tip: Headed to the beach over the July 4th holiday? Help protect sea turtles and other marine animals by properly disposing of your trash - if there aren't public trash cans on the beach, carry your trash out with you to throw it away. You might also consider taking some time during your beach vacation to help clean up your local beach or coastline. A beach free of debris and litter is not only safer for local animals, but creates a more pristine environment for you and your family to enjoy during the beautiful summer weather!
This information was provided through a partnership with The Ocean Conservancy. Learn more here.
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Climate Fact: Seabird Shift
Climate variability in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, or the area from about 35 degrees North to the poles, is largely controlled by two naturally occurring climate oscillations, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). In 1977, both oscillations shifted from negative to positive phases, which resulted in a warming of the ocean waters in the northeastern Pacific around Alaska, and a cooling of the waters in the northeastern Atlantic around Scandinavia. This shift in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) was one of the largest ever recorded. In 1989, the opposite trend happened. The magnitude of this shift, however, was much less pronounced. The population trends of two species of seabird, the Common Murre and the Thick-billed Murre, were studied in relation to these shifts. These species thrive under essentially the opposite environmental conditions. The large magnitude shift in 1977 caused populations of both species to decline throughout the entire hemisphere, while both populations grew after the smaller shift in 1989. Because these shifts produced opposite trends in local environmental conditions, it might be expected that one species would thrive and one species would decline in number during each of the regime shifts. Since this was not the case, this phenomenon illustrates how it can be difficult for top predatory species to adapt to any rapid climatic fluctuation.
(Source: Irons, D.B. et al. “Fluctuations in circumpolar seabird populations linked to climate oscillations.” Global Change Biology 14 (2008): 1455-1463. )
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Have a great / safe weekend!
