NASA: Widespread Melting on Humboldt Glacier, Greenland | 2nd Largest Cumulative Melt Area on Record Every year, from around May to early September, melting takes place atop the vast sheet of ice covering Greenland. Toward the end of August 2023, unseasonably warm weather led to several days of widespread melting. The unusual late-season event peaked island-wide on August 22, when melting spanned nearly 730,000 square kilometers (282,000 square miles), or about 45 percent of the […] SnowBrains | September 18, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: Hurricane Hilary Barrels Toward Baja California Hurricane Hilary, a category 4 storm in the Pacific Ocean, approached the Baja California peninsula on August 18, 2023. Related: Hurricane Hilary to Bring High Winds, Flooding, and… Snow To California The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite acquired this image of Hilary in the predawn hours of August 18 (09:25 Universal Time), when the eye […] WeatherBrains | August 21, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: July 2023 Was the Hottest Month on Record July 2023 was hotter than any other month in the global temperature record, according to an analysis by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). “This July was massively warmer than any previous July and any previous month on record, which goes back to 1880,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “This continues the long-term trend in dramatic warming […] Weather WeatherBrains | August 16, 2023 0 Comments
NASA Satellite Reports Exceptionally Low Antarctic Sea Ice Antarctica is in the depths of winter, yet the continent is surrounded by much less sea ice than scientists expected for this time of year. Throughout July 2023, sea ice averaged 13.5 million square kilometers (5.2 million square miles), the lowest extent observed for this time of year since the continuous satellite record began in late 1978. The map above […] SnowBrains | August 14, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: Fire Season Heats Up in the West In terms of wildfires, 2023 has been a quiet year so far in the United States. But in early August, 60 fires burned across nine states in the West, fueled by hot and dry conditions. Two of the largest fires were ignited in Oregon and Idaho in late July. Related: Thanks to Epic Snowpack, California Wildfires Off to Slowest Start […] Fire Firebrains | August 4, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: California Just Saw its Greatest Year-Over-Year Water Gains in 2 Decades After years of intense drought and diminishing groundwater, California just saw its greatest year-over-year water gains in two decades, according to data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellite mission, a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). This past winter’s bonanza of atmospheric rivers alleviated some of the water deficit that the […] SnowBrains | June 12, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: California’s Largest Reservoir at Highest Level in 4 Years, Almost 100% Full Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir, filled to nearly 100 percent capacity in May 2023, reaching levels not seen for four years. Since 2019, a prolonged period of extreme drought resulted in dwindling reservoir levels. In the early months of 2023, heavy rains and meltwater from an above-average mountain snowpack caused a notable turnaround. Related: NASA Satellite Chronicles the Return of […] SnowBrains | June 7, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: A Smoky May for North America For remote sensing scientists who track the movement of smoke plumes, May 2023 has been a wild, memorable month due to extreme fire activity in northwestern Canada. Related: NASA: Smoke Fills North American Skies Early spring always brings elevated fire risk to Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the northeastern edge of British Columbia—naturally dry areas that lie in the rain shadow of […] Fire Firebrains | May 29, 2023 0 Comments