Taken on August 15, 2016. It smoldered beneath the ground as a dormant holdover, sleeper, or zombie fire until April, when it flared up and grew into a wildfire, an almost unprecedented occurrence in the Southwest. Unless otherwise indicated, text and images on this website have Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licenses. 94, 95, 96 Each assessment has consistently identified drought, water shortages, and loss of ecosystem integrity as major challenges that the Southwest confronts under climate change. For temperature, the 2020 monsoon was the hottest on record for the Southwest with an average temperature of 77.1 F, significantly beating the previous record of 76.8 F in 2011 (average is 74.3 F). Positive values represent wetter-than-average conditions, while negative values represent drier-than-average conditions. Cambrian trilobites from the Bright Angel Shale (Tonto Group), Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Arizona's highest elevations receive an average of 65 to 76 centimeters (25 to 30 inches), with lower areas in the states southwestern portion averaging less than 8 centimeters (3 inches). In New Mexico, for example, the average difference between the daily high and low temperatures ranges from 14 to 19C (25 to 35F). The average annual temperature in most of the Southwest is predicted to rise 2.2 to 5.5C (4 to 10F) by 2100. Shallow seas invaded the continent, ultimately covering the whole area until the late Carboniferous. By comparison, the average high and low temperatures for the entire United States are 17C (63F) and 5C (41F), respectively. Photo by James Bo Insogna. 830 AM EST Thu Feb 16 2023. It is the largest wildfire that New Mexico has ever witnessed. Map by NOAA(public domain) modified for the[emailprotected]project. Higher atmospheric moisture content has also been correlated with an increased incidence of tornados and winter storms. Today nearly all the glaciers in the Southwest are gone, and the climate is in an arid state. More on that later Now, lets take a sojourn through some North American Monsoon basics (1). Lake Powell, the lake created by Glen Canyon Dam, at two points in time about four years apart. What is the weather like in the Southwest region in summer? Moisture condenses out of the warm air as it comes into contact with cool air, forming clouds. Hey! In fact, this monsoon may turn out to be the wettest on record for some places! The supercontinent was split by spreading along the mid-Atlantic ridge, initiating the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. 2021. The elevation of Bear Lake is about 2880 meters (9450 feet). SUMMARY OF THE OUTLOOK FOR NON-TECHNICAL USERS. A strong temperature difference at different heights creates instability. Resilient Bermudagrass is widely used in the region, but sufficient watering is essential in the desert climate . To provide more detailed information, each state has been divided into climate divisions, which are zones that share similar climate features. Photoandreconstructionby National Park Service/NPS (public domain). Temperatures in the southwest region average greater than states up North, because there isn't as much water vapor in upper level winds to screen direct sunlight. Climate models project a significant increase in the number of days over 95F per year across the Southeast. In chapter 8.3, How is the water cycle changing and why?, the report states In summary, both paleoclimate evidence and observations indicate an intensification of the NAmerM in a warmer climate (medium confidence). Regarding changes that have already occurred, the report finds modest evidence that the monsoon rainfall has intensified since the 1970s, and this has been partly attributed to greenhouse gas emissions. I did a quick comparison of the average JulyAugust rainfall in the monsoon region with the Nio-3.4 index, using 70 years of records. Photos of YPM IP 529539 by Jessica Utrup, 2015 (Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History/YPM,CC0 1.0 Universal/Public Domain Dedication, viaGBIF.org). Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The thicker line is a nine-year weighted average. The impacts of the monsoon go beyond just rainfall amounts. There is also an important relationship between rainfall and temperature: usually, more rain leads to cooler conditions, and less rain leads to hotter conditions. (41-60 degrees.) Annual Weather SummaryNovember 2022 to October 2023. The inner canyon temperatures are extreme and hot, with a lower elevation of about 2400 feet (732 meters). In the early Carboniferous (Mississippian), ice capped the South Pole and began to expand northward. But El Nio leads to more tropical storms than average, youre saying, because youre not new here. Scale bar = 5 centimeters (about 2 inches). Fossils of a cycad (Dioonopsis praespinulosa) from the Paleocene Castle Rock Flora, Colorado. The average precipitation for the United States is 85.6 centimeters (33.7 inches). USA 107(50):2125621262. Average annual temperatures for the southwestern U.S. In southern New Mexico, Pleistocene fossil mammals are found that now live at higher elevations in the mountains of northern New Mexico, indicating cooler temperatures and more available moisture in the area during the late Pleistocene. The Palmer Index is calculated from precipitation and temperature measurements at weather stations, and has been used widely for many years. Summer rains fall almost entirely during brief but intense thunderstorms on the Great Plains, although the occasional hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico may push heavier precipitation inland. If you live in the U.S. Southwest or northwestern Mexico, you may already be familiar with the annual climate phenomenon called the North American Monsoon, especially since rainfall in some spots has been way above average this summer. Soil moisture, ground water, and streamflow are part of Drought Monitor calculations (Figure 2), and they are all sensitive to human activities. Likewise, its not yet clear how the monsoon is changing in the warming climate, or how it will in the future. Submitted by rebecca.lindsey on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 10:13. Inset image from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PIA03397). Some of these thunderstorms can be strong, delivering heavy rain and frequent lightning. During much of the year, the prevailing wind over northwestern Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico is westerly (blowing from the west) and dry. contiguous U.S. (CONUS) into the Northern Plains. This page uses Google Analytics. The reasons for this are complex and involve a combination factors. Like the summer monsoons, the milder storms . Figure by climate.gov; data from CPC Unified data. The impact vaporized both water and rock, blocking out sunlight for weeks to years, which led to a collapse of photosynthesis and food webs on land and in the oceans. Ideas and explanations found in these posts should be attributed to the ENSO blog team, and not to NOAA (the agency) itself. During winter months, daytime temperatures may average 70 degrees F, with night temperatures often falling to freezing of slightly below in the lower desert valleys." When you take an already highly variable phenomenon like rainfall, add in uncertain regional climate change impacts, and factor in the sparse data record, it gets difficult to make a strong case about exactly how the monsoon rainfall is changing. Climate at a glance. Streamflow totals for the decade of 2001-2010 in the Great Basin, Rio Grande, and Colorado River were between 5% and 37% lower than their 20. Climate change can intensify multiple stresses that push a species past a survival threshold. A deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) in Portal, Arizona, 2004. Image adapted from an image by Scenarios for Climate Assessment and Adaptation, first published in The Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the Southwestern US. In 2020, Colorado ranked 7th in the nation for solar and wind power production, and Arizona and New Mexico ranked 12th and 13th, respectively. Figures 2 and 3 show two ways of measuring drought in the Southwest: the Drought Monitor and the Palmer Drought Severity Index. The large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere did not extend into the Southwest, even at their maximum area. Thanks to the region's high temperatures and low precipitation levels from summer 2020 through summer 2021, the current drought has exceeded the severity of a late-1500s megadrought that previously had been identified by the same authors as the driest in 1,200 years. Scattered pockets of drier, Mediterranean temperatures can also be found. Temperature and drought data come from a network of thousands of weather stations overseen by the National Weather Service. Today, most of the Southwest experiences about 17 fewer freezing days than it did over the last century. Monsoon region averaged over all land gridpoints, 20N37N, 102W115W. Large lakes covered parts of northern Utah and Colorado. Drought outlook for the Lower 48 U.S. states in August 2022. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS That's at least one part of a very big climate puzzle crossing that barrier that involves both the ocean and atmosphere. Topics covered on this page: Present climate of the southwestern U.S.; Present temperature; Present precipitation; Severe weather; Regional climate variation; Past climate of the southwestern U.S.; Paleozoic; Mesozoic; Cenozoic; Future climate of the southwestern U.S.; Resources. Maps showing the progressive closure of the Isthmus of Panama at 20 million years ago (A) and 15 million years ago (B). Paleontological Research Institution Special Publication 38, Ithaca, NY, 200 pp. So is climate change increasing monsoon variability? In the Southwest, average precipitation ranges from only 34 centimeters (13.4 inches) in Utah to 39.9 centimeters (15.7 inches) in Colorado, which reflects the area's general aridity. The main features that influence the areas climate are latitude, regional topography, and a low atmospheric moisture content that leads to quick evaporation. Percent of total annual precipitation occurring during JulySeptember, based on 19792020 using CPC Unified rain-gauge-based data. Recent warming within the Southwest has been among the most rapid in the United States, and models predict that the area's climate will continue to warm. Indeed, much of this region has low annual rainfall and seasonally high temperatures that contribute to its characteristic desert climate. The continued growth of Pangaea created an intense monsoonal climate, similar to that of Asia today, that affected large parts of the continent. In the late Eocene, the Earth began to cool, and global temperatures fell sharply at the boundary between the Eocene and Oligocene epochs (approximately 35 million years ago), due in part to the separation of South Americas southern tip from Antarctica. For example, the difference in annual mean temperature between Pikes Peak (4302 meters or 14,114 feet) and Las Animas (1188 meters or 3898 feet), only 145 kilometers (90 miles) to the southeast, is equivalent to that between Iceland and southern Florida!

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