New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado have also reduced their carbon dioxide emissions between 2008 and 2019. Submitted by rebecca.lindsey on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 10:14. Rainfall associated with the monsoon is very important for the region. Dry air is shown in orange. Photograph by Bill Morrow (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license). Zack and Mike mention that last year was an extremely dry monsoon, and this year is extremely wet. Wind moves the air, promoting mixing. At the very end of the Cretaceous, the Gulf Coast experienced an enormous disruption when a large asteroid or bolide collided with Earth in what is now the northern Yucatn Peninsula in Mexico. What happened that make TS Nora so underwhelming? The better known of these wet seasons is the summer monsoon, which lasts from about mid-June to early September. Soils associated with these floodplains testify to the extreme seasonality of rainfall during that time. This circulation brings thunderstorms and rainfall to the monsoon region, providing much of their annual total precipitation. The Southwest's Triassic to Jurassic dune deposits are some of the most extensive in the world, and the dune field that existed during the Jurassic may be the largest in Earth history. Also, the occasional eastern Pacific tropical storm can increase monsoon moisture and rainfall. The event devastated the Southwest, shifting a densely forested landscape to one primarily covered with fast-growing herbs and ferns. In winter, rising temperatures have increased the number of frost-free days. Drought outlook for the Lower 48 U.S. states in August 2022. SW Precipitation Precipitation in the Southwest has two distinct seasons. As of 2010, bark beetles in Arizona and New Mexico have affected more than twice the forest area burned by wildfires in those states. There is a rich marine fossil record from the areas between these islands. Fall- The fall in the Southwest region is warm. This chart shows the percentage of land area in six southwestern states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) classified under drought conditions from 2000 through 2020. The final ingredient is wind. Photograph by "Cathy" (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0 Generic license). As the summer heat builds over North America, a region of high pressure forms over the U.S. Southwest, and the wind becomes more southerly, bringing moisture from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. Accessed March 2021. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/DataTables.aspx. JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer.
Climate Prediction Center - Seasonal Outlook - National Oceanic and The Southwest experiences nearly every variety of extreme weather; heat snaps and cold waves, droughts, floods, blizzards, and even tornados are all considerations for residents of the southwestern states. Based on the long-term Palmer Index, drought conditions in the Southwest have varied since 1895. Funnel clouds (developing tornadoes) over El Paso County, Colorado, March 29, 2019. Submitted by rebecca.lindsey on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 10:15, Science & information for a climate-smart nation. Zack and Mike described this years monsoon for southern Arizona as generational, meaning once in a generation. Allmon, W. D., T. A. Smrecak, and R. M. Ross. Photo of USNM P 38052 by Frederic Cochard (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain). These oases were fed by groundwater that originated in the higher country of what is now western Colorado.
Climate change and drought in the American Southwest Warm, moist air from the south occasionally but infrequently moves into Colorado during the summer. Figure by Climate.gov.
SW Precipitation | CLIMAS A value between -2 and -3 indicates moderate drought, -3 to -4 is severe drought, and -4 or below indicates extreme drought. Image above: Sun and storm in Weld County, in the Great Plains region of Colorado, 2015. Rainfall, as anyone who has read the ENSO Blog before will know, is an extremely complicated thing to predict! Left (1):Leaves of a seedling. Map of the Gulf of Mexico region before the closure of the Isthmus of Panama. For example San Diego county has a population of azalea otherwise not seen for hundreds of miles to the north. Climate.gov image of original from Albuquerque, NM National Weather Service office. The more than 16 million residents of the Southwest use carbon-rich fossil fuels to provide electricity for lighting, cooling, and appliances, to fuel their transportation and industry, and to make the products they use. The pyrocumulonimbus cloud shown at the arrow was created by heat from the fire.
Climate of the United States - Wikipedia Here, oases with large trees, large colonies of burrowing animals, and reptile trackways punctuated the otherwise dry and sandy landscape. Pangaea began to break up during the Jurassic, rifting apart into continents that would drift toward their modern-day positions. The American Southwest might evoke images of a hot, dry landscapea land of rock, canyons, and deserts baked by the sun. For many of us, the word monsoon conjures images of heavy rain lasting for months. Global temperatures during the Cretaceous were very warm, as much as 10C (18F) above those at present. A shift in plant type to those better adapted to drier conditions further suggests a change in climate during the Permian. Photo of USNM 166396 from the Cretaceous Atlas of Ancient Life(Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped). Hey! We can see some hints of this relationship in my scatter-plot here. The Wave, a series of intersecting U-shaped troughs eroded into Jurassic NavajoSandstone within the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona. Cold continental conditions dominate the higher altitudes, especially within the Rocky Mountains. Water supply is an important issue in the Southwest, and communities will need to adapt to changes in precipitation, snowmelt, and runoff as the climate changes. Image by The High Fin Sperm Whale, created from images by NOAA National Weather Service training material (Wikimedia Commons, public domain). Its remnant exists today as the Great Salt Lake. Right:Graph of the lake's changing level over time. Volcanic activity was strong. Saguaro and cholla cacti in the Sonoran Desert National Monument, Arizona. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Fossil mammals adapted to colder temperatures are found in the Pleistocene of Colorado. Average is based on 19792020 using CPC Unified data. These changes to rain and snow-pack are already stressing water sources and affecting agriculture. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns. Elevation does, however, play a key role in precipitation received throughout the Southwest. By the start of the Late Cretaceous, this inland sea, called the Western Interior Seaway, divided North America in two; the water was rich with mosasaurs, giant clams, and other marine life. This chapter builds on assessments of climate change in the Southwest region from the three previous U.S. National Climate Assessments. When you add in the sparse rain-gauge observations available in the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, it becomes even more difficult to make confident statements about the effects of the monsoon and how it can be predicted. Photograph by Julia Manzerova (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license; image resized). A major contributing factor to this event was a geological change that occurred far to the south. The American Southwest, here defined as the area between 95W and 125W and 25N and 40N, 9 covers over four million square kilometers. Extreme high temperatures. . This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (ARPML-250637-OMLS-22).The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. North America and Europe are part of Laurasia, and South America and Africa are part of Gondwana. Wetter-than-average monsoons (green dots) are slightly more common during La Nia years, while drier-than-average monsoons (brown dots) are slightly more common during El Nio years. How would that result in less total JulyAugust rain? Good question! There is some variability in the onset and demise of the monsoon. Photo of USNM PAL 165239 by Crinoid Type Project (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain). These changes threaten economic productivity, public health, and the sustainability of Indigenous communities. Photo by Stefan Klein (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and resized). Moving westward, Colorado's foothills and mountainous areas experience an overall cooler climate and higher levels of precipitation. Summer temperatures on the South Rim, at 7000 feet (2134 meters), are especially pleasant from 50 to about 85 F (10s to 20s C). And yet another element of the monsoon system that needs more study to resolve. Later in the Jurassic, the climate became more moderate; dune fields were replaced by rivers and floodplains populated by a rich dinosaur fauna (exemplified by the Morrison Formation) and large trees along rivers, streams, and grasslands. Photo by Daniel Mayer (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, image resized). Reconstruction created using basemap from thePALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlatesand the PaleoData Plotter Program, PALEOMAP Project by C. R. Scotese (2016); map annotations by Jonathan R. Hendricks and Elizabeth J. Hermsen for PRI's[emailprotected]project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0license). Average Annual Temperatures in the Southwestern United States.
Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire near Holman, New Mexico, on May 8, 2022. See the Drought indicator for more information about these indices. 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. Agua Caliente solar farm, Maricopa County, Arizona. A= Tropical (equatorial),B= Arid,C= Temperate (warm temperate),D= Continental (cold),E= polar. Map modified from amap by Chiche Ojeda (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and modified). Home Regions Southwest Key Points: The thunderstorm begins. Modified from illustrations by Wade Greenberg-Brand originally published inThe Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the SouthwesternUS.
Southwest Climate | Travel Alaska Glaciation in the Southern Hemisphere occurred during the late Devonian, while the supercontinent Gondwana was located over the South Pole, and intensified during the early Carboniferous. Typically, a storm blows itself out once the warm air has moved up and the cool air has moved down. Changes include formatting and revisions to the text and images. 2.
SW Temperature | CLIMAS Higher atmospheric moisture content has also been correlated with an increased incidence of tornados and winter storms. The elevation of Bear Lake is about 2880 meters (9450 feet). Some areas were more than2F warmer than average (see Figure 1). I listened to the Southwest Climate Podcast from CLIMAS, the Climate Assessment for the Southwest, to learn more about what affects the monsoon and its rainfall, and how Monsoon 2021 is shaping up, and reached out to the podcast co-hosts, Zack Guido and Mike Crimmins, for help with this post. Notice that North America has separated from Africa and there is a spreading center in the Central Atlantic Ocean. Climate at a glance. (2019)Biology Letters15: 20190114(Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, images cropped, reconfigured, resized, and relabeled). This may be due to the growth of solar energy, and voluntary commitments to reduce emissions made by large utility companies in the state. What is the weather like in the Southwest region in summer? Parts of the Southwest are also experiencing long-term reductions in mountain snowpack (see the Snowpack indicator), which accounts for a large portion of the regions water supply. Thanks thats a big pool of warm water larger than the gulf of California and warmer than the greater Pacific Ocean. The long-range forecast team breaks down region by region what to expect during the summer. As the Triassic period began, the Southwest moved north from the equator. Loess is often, though not exclusively, associated with dry areas around glaciers. This mortality is attributed to higher temperatures, drought, and the eruption of bark beetles that are able to survive through warmer winter weather. The result may be more destructive wildfires like the Calf Canyon-Hermit Peak wildfire in New Mexico. Seems likely that conditions in the GM may influence annual variations in the monsoon. A couple of field campaigns, including the Arizona-based South-West Monsoon Project (SWAMP, 1993) and the international North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME, 2004), provided a lot of observational data and resulted in a better understanding of the mechanics of the monsoon.
Climate Impacts in the Southwest | Climate Change Impacts | US EPA You mentioned, if I understood correctly, that a La Nina pattern during winter months leads to an increase in the North American Monsoon in late summer. The map in Figure 1 shows how average annual temperatures in the Southwest from 2000 to 2020differed from the average over the entire period since widespread temperature records became available (18952020). Bear Lake and Glacier Gorge, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 2011. Photo by Jeffrey Beall (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, image resized).
Southwest | National Climate Assessment Data from the Northeast Regional Climate Center Applied Climate Information System; 2079-2099 image shows the weighted mean of downscaled CMIP5 models in the LOCA dataset. Some earlier studies suggested that El Nio may be related to lower JulyAugust rainfall, and La Nia related to higher rainfall, due to large-scale atmospheric circulation changes. Colorado has a generally cool and continental climate with low humidity. Also extreme dryness which means days & weeks on end without rain. Check out Toms recent post on the drought in Arizona to understand more about how drought works in this region. Used under a Creative Commons license. Did La Nia drench the Southwest United States in early winter 2022/23? See you then! During the Paleocene to Eocene, the Southwests climate was warm and wet, and large mammals roamed the forested landscape. Despite the areas arid climate, the dunes were surprisingly full of life, particularly in southeastern Utah. In the Silurian and Devonian (430 to 359 million years ago), North America moved north across the equator, and the cycle of warming and cooling was repeated yet again. As the Cambrian progressed, North America moved northward, and what would become much of the southwestern U.S. was located near the Tropic of Capricorn. The warmer the air near the surface is relative to the air above it, the more potential energy it has to move up. Facebook Tweet Branches and leaves of an ancient conifer (Walchia dawsonii), Permian Hermit Shale, Arizona.
Climate Of The Southwest - The Southwest Region Right:Sabalites, a palm leaf. In New Mexico, for example, the average difference between the daily high and low temperatures ranges from 14 to 19C (25 to 35F). The large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere did not extend into the Southwest, even at their maximum area. Map made by Elizabeth J. Hermsen usingSimplemapprand modified in Photoshop. In 2020, Colorado ranked 7th in the nation for solar and wind power production, and Arizona and New Mexico ranked 12th and 13th, respectively. (3) There is a whole lot of interesting detail in this reportabout everything, but about the North American Monsoon specifically. Drought continues to be quite severe over the southern Plains in Texas and Oklahoma due to hot and dry conditions. Increased heat in the Pacific Ocean has altered the weather patterns of Pacific storms, decreasing snowfall in the mountains of western Utah and Arizona.
The North American Monsoon | NOAA Climate.gov Southwest Increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks, all linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Paleontological Research Institution Special Publication 38, Ithaca, NY, 200 pp. Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. Photos by Lauren Dauphin, NASA Earth Observatory (used following NASA's image use policy). Copyright 2021 Paleontological Research Institution. Winter- The winter in the Southwest region is mild, and hot. In the podcast episode 2021a generational monsoon? Zack listed some of the factors that influence how much moisture is available to the monsoon, including the position of the high-pressure area, wind patterns, and transient weather features. Precipitation also varies widely. Higher elevations (such as those found in the Rockies and on the Colorado Plateau) are also cooler, with approximately a 1.5C (3F) decrease in mean annual temperature for each 300-meter (1000-foot) increase in elevation. 2021. Data source: National Drought Mitigation Center, 20213Web update: April2021. NWS Climate Prediction Center College Park MD. Moisture condenses out of the warm air as it comes into contact with cool air, forming clouds. It is the largest wildfire that New Mexico has ever witnessed. Onion Creek salt diapir, a salt dome exposed at the surface at Fisher Towers, Utah. Left:Warm air rises. Fig.
Climate of the Southwestern United States Earth@Home The Weather and Climate in France: What You Should Know - TripSavvy 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. Reconstruction created using basemap from the PALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlatesand the PaleoData Plotter Program, PALEOMAP Project by C. R. Scotese (2016); map annotations by Jonathan R. Hendricks for PRI's[emailprotected]project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0license). 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." Here, the states varied topography leads to wide changes in climactic conditions that occur across short distances. By early to mid-September, wind patterns have generally reverted back to the westerly pattern, bringing an end to the monsoon.