Another hot day on O’Town. While reading the depressing headlines I came across this in The Guardian:

New data has revealed extraordinary rates of global heating in the Arctic, up to seven times faster than the global average.

The heating is occurring in the North Barents Sea, a region where fast rising temperatures are suspected to trigger increases in extreme weather in North America, Europe and Asia. The researchers said the heating in this region was an “early warning” of what could happen across the rest of the Arctic.

The new figures show annual average temperatures in the area are rising across the year by up to 2.7C a decade, with particularly high rises in the months of autumn of up to 4C a decade. This makes the North Barents Sea and its islands the fastest warming place known on Earth.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/15/new-data-reveals-extraordinary-global-heating-in-the-arctic

There’s so much more happening. Russia has a methane leak at a mine that’s dumping 90 tons of methane/hour into the atmosphere. Will Russia do anything about it? Not while it’s pushing its illegal invasion of Ukraine. (link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/methane-leak-at-russian-mine-could-be-largest-ever-discovered )

Today’s weather:

• Morning low at 5:30 am was 79° F
• Today’s high at 5:00 pm was 96° F
• Humidity was 65%
• No rain
• Cloudy/hazy conditions

Correction to yesterday’s conditions: we actually had a 1/2 inch of rainfall at or a little after 9 pm.

We are now experiencing full-on the consequences of our self-induced climate change/global warming. I’ve been living in Florida since 1984, and even though Florida is supposed to be hot, especially in the summer, after 38 years I can tell a difference from when I first arrived in Orlando to what it’s like today in Orlando. These posts will consist of observations and some weather related measurements. This is the first of what I hope are daily posts, which means I’ll post at least once/day, probably two or more.

My yard has quite a few crape myrtles growing in it. This large cluster is in my front yard. This year we’ve been blessed with a large blossoming across all of them, even more so than most years. I’ve also noticed that they might have started earlier this year, perhaps the first of May. Regular blooming season starts mid-May and continues for the next 90 or so days. I’ll be keeping an eye on these and all the others.

Today’s weather:

• Morning low at 5:30 am was 83° F
• Afternoon high at 5:00 pm was 98° F in the shade
• Humidity is 41%
• No rain
• Cloudy conditions
• The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory