An ancient horse (Mesohippus),Eocene Florissant Fossil Beds, Teller County, Colorado. Cambrian trilobites from the Bright Angel Shale (Tonto Group), Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Climate change in the Southwest The global rise in temperatures will affect different locations on earth in unique ways. 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. Annual Weather SummaryNovember 2022 to October 2023. Both fires began as prescribed burns, or fires that were set deliberately with the intention of preventing the formation of future wildfires. The strengthened Gulf Stream carried more warm, moist air with it into the northern Atlantic, which caused increased snowfall in high latitudes, leading to accelerating cooling. Summer- The summer in the Southwest region is hot and desert-like. Where the land was exposed, deposits of dust (loess) accumulated and were blown across much of the Southwest. Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management (flickr, public domain). (3) There is a whole lot of interesting detail in this reportabout everything, but about the North American Monsoon specifically. SW Precipitation Precipitation in the Southwest has two distinct seasons. P. Natl. The warm, arid Southwest region presents extreme challenges to turf grasses in low- and high-desert climates. Left imageandright imageby NickLongrich (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, images cropped and resized). Alaska Weather & Climate | Temperature Chart, Daylight & More According to the Kppen classification system, a system of climate classification using latitude band and degree of continentality as its primary forcing factors, Central Asia is a predominantly B-type climate regime. Deer mice are the most important rodent carriers of hantavirus in the Southwest. Branches and leaves of an ancient conifer (Walchia dawsonii), Permian Hermit Shale, Arizona. The Central American Isthmus, which today makes up most of Panama and Costa Rica, rose out of the ocean at approximately this time, formed by undersea volcanoes. 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. Moving westward, Colorado's foothills and mountainous areas experience an overall cooler climate and higher levels of precipitation. Pangaea was completed when North America finally collided with Gondwana. This chapter builds on assessments of climate change in the Southwest region from the three previous U.S. National Climate Assessments. This feature focuses on six states that are commonly thought of as southwestern and characterized at least in part by arid landscapes and scarce water supplies: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The better known of these wet seasons is the summer monsoon, which lasts from about mid-June to early September. 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. Las Cruces, New Mexico, 2006. Inset image from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PIA03397). In the late Ordovician (about 460 to 430 million years ago), the Earth fell into another brief but intense ice age. Photo by Udo S. Title: Monument Valley - Arizona / USA. Published June 22, 2021 Updated Aug. 23, 2022. Indeed, much of this region has low annual rainfall and seasonally high temperatures that contribute to its characteristic desert climate. At this time, the Southwest was still submerged. Credits for individual images are given in figure captions. Right:Graph of the lake's changing level over time. Well those extra storms probably just go somewhere else because of the change in wind pattern that the El Nino brings, eh? That timeworn classic is only partially true--May and September can also be great summer months. There is some variability in the onset and demise of the monsoon. In 2020, Colorado ranked 7th in the nation for solar and wind power production, and Arizona and New Mexico ranked 12th and 13th, respectively. Large lakes formed in low areas, and the Southwests most striking ice age feature was Lake Bonneville, a massive pluvial lake that covered much of Utah. Today nearly all the glaciers in the Southwest are gone, and the climate is in an arid state. While thats often the situation for the Indian monsoon, the monsoon in North America behaves a bit differently. Sand dunes started to become widespread. Four of western North America's major watersheds lie within its boundaries: the Colorado River basin, the Rio Grande basin, the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed, and most of the Great Basin. PRI is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 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. Cycads are a group of seed plants that look superficially similar to palms, but are not closely related to them and do not produce flowers. NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin (NASA Earth Observatory,used following NASA's image use policy). By early to mid-September, wind patterns have generally reverted back to the westerly pattern, bringing an end to the monsoon. Unless otherwise indicated, text and images on this website have Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licenses. Image fromCretaceous Atlas of Ancient Life: Western Interior Seaway(Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Internationallicense). Has hurricanes and tornadoes. February 2023 ENSO update: the ENSO Blog investigates, part 3, How the pattern of trends across the tropical Pacific Ocean is critical for understanding the future climate, January 2023 La Nia update, and the ENSO Blog investigates, part 2, Albuquerque, NM National Weather Service office, ENSO does influence Pacific tropical storms, Tucson recorded its wettest month ever this July, Monsoon causes deadly flash flood in Arizona, Images of CO2 emissions and transport from the Vulcan project, TreeFlow: Streamflow Reconstructions from Tree Rings. This section covers the climate of the southwestern U.S. through the Phanerozoic, from about 541 million years ago to the recent. Submitted by rebecca.lindsey on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 10:15, Science & information for a climate-smart nation. During the winter, moisture travels from the west, as storms from the Pacific Ocean move east. However, the Southwest is located between the mid-latitude and subtropical atmospheric circulation regimes, and this positioning relative to shifts in these . Layers of gypsum, an evaporate, from the Permian Castile Formation, Eddy County, New Mexico. The Southwest has a hot desert climate, at lower elevations. Climate at a glance. The Southwest, already the driest region in the United States, has become even drier since the mid-20th century, particularly on the hottest days . What is the weather like in the Southwest region in summer? (2019)Biology Letters15: 20190114(Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, images cropped, reconfigured, resized, and relabeled). The daily range between maximum and minimum temperatures sometimes runs as much as 50 to 60 degrees F during the drier periods of the year. Photo of USNM PAL 165239 by Crinoid Type Project (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain). Modified fromFigure 11 in Kirby et al. 4. August 2021 National Climate Report | National Centers for Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Climate Change in the Southwest - Introduction and Current Climate The oceans between Gondwana and North America began to close. North America's position near the equator kept its climate relatively warm. Download related technical information PDF, https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/DataTables.aspx, A Closer Look: Temperature and Drought in the Southwest. Title: Arizona Monsoon Thunderstorm. 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. A shift in plant type to those better adapted to drier conditions further suggests a change in climate during the Permian. Some areas were more than 2F warmer than average (see Figure 1). 2021. Here, oases with large trees, large colonies of burrowing animals, and reptile trackways punctuated the otherwise dry and sandy landscape. Ornithopod-type tracks, Powell Fossil Track Block Tracksite, Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona and Utah. Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire near Holman, New Mexico, on May 8, 2022. Climate of the United States - Wikipedia Thus, even a small increase in temperature (which drives evaporation) or a decrease in precipitation in this already arid region can seriously threaten natural systems and society. 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. Extreme high temperatures. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns. Precipitation accumulation over the past 12 months, shown as a percent of the average mid-August through mid-August total. The Palmer Index is calculated from precipitation and temperature measurements at weather stations, and has been used widely for many years. Submitted by rebecca.lindsey on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 10:14. Climate change can intensify multiple stresses that push a species past a survival threshold. Photograph by "Cathy" (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0 Generic license). Summer temperatures on the South Rim, at 7000 feet (2134 meters), are especially pleasant from 50 to about 85 F (10s to 20s C). however, the monsoons provide life-giving moisture in a region that is always dry. Introduction The overall climate of the Southwestits weather patterns over a long period of timetends to be warm and dry. The formation of precipitation also causes electrical charging of particles in the atmosphere, which in turn produces lightning. Photo by Richard Stephen Haynes (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image resized). Right:Dolichometoppus productus. The Weather and Climate in France: What You Should Know - TripSavvy Warmer temperatures also make it easier for insect pests to overwinter and produce more generations. Shallow seaways spread over many of the continents, including South America, Africa, Eurasia, and North America. These increased temperatures lead to a whole host of other effects, including a decrease in snowpack, declines in river flow, drier soils from more evaporation, and the increased likelihood of drought and fires. Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) tracks, Pleistocene, White Sands National Park, New Mexico. Arizona monsoon cloud with lightning striking the beautiful Sonoran desert in North Scottsdale. Figure by climate.gov. Fig. 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. A blog about monitoring and forecasting El Nio, La Nia, and their impacts. Reconstruction created usingPaleomap(by C. Scotese) forGPlates. Average yearly tornado watches in each county of the United States between 1993 and 2012. The globe about 485 million years ago, near the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary. Average temperatures range from about 60 to 80 F in Paris, while in Nice and on the south coast they range from around 80 to 90 F. In recent years, heatwaves in Paris and elsewhere have brought record-breaking temperatures, sometimes exceeding 100 degrees F. Summer storm systems are common. The current drought outlooks expect that the drought in Arizona and New Mexico will improve in the short term, but persist. The summer precipitation total for the CONUS was 9.48 inches, 1.16 inch above average, ranking eighth wettest in the historical record. Unfortunately, unpredictable winds spread the flames, which, combined with dry conditions, caused the Calf Canyon and Hermit Peak fires to grow beyond control. Southwest Region of the US Facts: Lesson for Kids Data source: National Drought Mitigation Center, 20213Web update: April2021. The satellite loop in this post shows Gulf of Mexico moisture moving west into the monsoon region. Photograph by Julia Manzerova (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license; image resized). Carbon dioxide emissions in Arizona rose through the last three decades of the 20th century and reached a peak in 2008. Warm, moist air from the south occasionally but infrequently moves into Colorado during the summer. Dry conditions are common throughout the Great Plains, Colorado Plateau, and Basin and Range. So is climate change increasing monsoon variability? Skeleton of a juvenileCamarosaurs lentus, a type of sauropod, from the Carnegie Quarry, Jurassic Morrison Formation, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah and Colorado. Southwest - Fourth National Climate Assessment - Global Change Winter will be warmer than normal, with above-normal precipitation. Southwest Climate | Travel Alaska Every part of the Southwest experienced higher average temperatures between 2000 and 2020 than the long-term average (1895-2020). Thanks thats a big pool of warm water larger than the gulf of California and warmer than the greater Pacific Ocean. These warmer temperatures and increased precipitation have helped bring on longer growing seasons. At the close of the Mesozoic, global climatealthough warmer than todaywas cooler than at the start of the era. Its largely too soon to tell. Regional overview Southwest. 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 American Southwest, here defined as the area between 95W and 125W and 25N and 40N, 9 covers over four million square kilometers. Brown indicates areas where experts forecast drought will persist or worsen. Although on the western edge of the North American Monsoon, California plant geography indicates it makes a large contribution to the states southern flora. Megadrought in Southwest Is Now the Worst in at Least 1,200 Years Cold continental conditions dominate the higher altitudes, especially within the Rocky Mountains. Cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Yuma, and Palm Springs have average highs over 100 F (38 C) during the summer months and lows in the 70s or even 80s. Forecasts had all of this widespread flash flooding. Record high temperatures for the Southwest range from 53C (128F) in Arizona to 47C (117F) in Utah, while record low temperatures range from 56C (69F) in Utah to 40C (40F) in Arizona. Explore how climate change is affecting the Southwest. Left:Lake Bonneville's maximal extent during the Pleistocene. As average temperatures rise and the Southwest becomes drier with a longer annual fire season (season conducive to the ignition and spread of wildfires), the number and intensity of wildfires is expected to increase. JulyAugust rainfall anomaly averaged over North American Monsoon region for every year 19502019 (y-axis) versus Nio-3.4 index (x-axis). The lack of moisture in the air allows heat trapped in the earth during daylight hours to rapidly radiate away, leading to cool evenings. 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. Asia, Climate of Southwest | SpringerLink Scientists first noted the seasonal rainfall patterns in the Southwest in the early 20th century, with the circulation pattern being understood as monsoonal by midcentury. For example, parts of the Colorado Rockies experience cool annual temperatures and over 8 meters (25 feet) of snowfall every year, while the dry deserts in southwestern Arizona receive only about 8 centimeters (3 inches) of precipitation a year and can experience as much as a 15C (60F) degree temperature difference between night and day. With the start of the Paleozoic era, climates across the world were warm, and North America was located in the low and warmer latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. (2015) . A= Tropical (equatorial),B= Arid,C= Temperate (warm temperate),D= Continental (cold),E= polar. Dark gray is land, white and light gray are submerged areas. August 2022 U.S. Climate Outlook: a wet Southwest - NOAA Climate.gov There were spots that received large amounts of rain, but overall Nora was a bust. The large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere did not extend into the Southwest, even at their maximum area. Loess is often, though not exclusively, associated with dry areas around glaciers. Left:A petrified stump. Facebook Tweet A strong difference in air temperature at different heights creates instability; the warmer the air near the surface is relative to the air above it, the more potential (stored) energy the warm air has to move up, and the more potential for a storm. There was likely little or no glacial ice anywhere on Earth, and temperatures were highest in lower latitudes. The white arrow is pointing to one of the leaflets of a compound leaf. Temperature and Precipitation | CLIMAS A deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) in Portal, Arizona, 2004. Photo by Eltiempo10 (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image resized). However, although climate change is predicted to enhance the intensity of severe weather, there is currently no way to calculate what effect climate change will have on the frequency of specific storm eventsfor example, we might see more powerful tornados, but we do not know if we will see more of them. The Southwest's overall average high temperature of 19.2C (66.6F) and average low of 2.8C (37.0F) are indicative of a varied climate, one much less uniform than that found in many other parts of the United States. Today, most of the Southwest experiences about 17 fewer freezing days than it did over the last century. The size and location of various lakes in which the Green River Formation sediments were deposited during the Eocene epoch. Southeast | U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit Photoandreconstructionby National Park Service/NPS (public domain). Accessed March2021. www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag. Alaska weather and daylight varies wildly by region and season, from short-sleeves in summer to down jackets in winter; from 7 rainy days in May in Southcentral to 17 rainy days in the Inside Passage. The rainfall generally has a strong diurnal cycle, meaning a daily pattern of mostly dry mornings, storms developing through the day, and most rainfall occurring in the afternoon and evening. Map made by Elizabeth J. Hermsen usingSimplemapprand modified in Photoshop. JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer. The supercontinent was split by spreading along the mid-Atlantic ridge, initiating the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. The event devastated the Southwest, shifting a densely forested landscape to one primarily covered with fast-growing herbs and ferns. 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. The inset image is a shaded relief image that shows the edge of the crater on the Yucatn Peninsula with sinkholes in the rock surrounding it. Left photoandright photofrom NPS, courtesy David Bustos (public domain). Photo source:National Park Service (public domain). Before the Isthmus closed, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were connected. Scale bar = 5 centimeters (about 2 inches). Winter is the driest season in New Mexico, because precipitation from eastward-traveling Pacific storms is left behind in the western mountains of Arizona and Utah. . Shiprock, a volcanic monadnock in San Juan County, New Mexico, rises roughly 483 meters (1583 feet) above the desert plain. While two indicators in this report present information about unusually high or low temperatures and drought on a national scale (see the High and Low Temperatures indicator and the Drought indicator), this feature highlights the Southwest because of its particular sensitivity to temperature and drought. Zack and Mike mention that last year was an extremely dry monsoon, and this year is extremely wet. Lake Mead, the lake created by the Hoover Dam, at two points in time about 21 years apart. Elevation does, however, play a key role in precipitation received throughout the Southwest. Agriculture accounts for more than half of the Southwests water use, so any major reduction in the availability of water resources will create a serious strain on ecosystems and populations. Earth 150 million years ago, near the end of the Jurassic Period. Storms form when there is strong convection in the atmosphere. Photo by Dr. David Goodrich, NOAA (NOAA Photo Library ID wea04192, NOAA's National Weather Service, via flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Map modified from amap by Chiche Ojeda (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and modified). 2021. The Drought Monitor is a more recent and more detailed index based on several other indices (including Palmer), along with additional factors such as snow water content, groundwater levels, reservoir storage, pasture/range conditions, and other impacts. Although there has been a fair amount of research into the monsoon, there are still far more questions than answers about how it works, and if the seasonal amount of rain, potential start date, or other characteristics can be predicted. Sun and storm in Weld County, in the Great Plains region of Colorado, 2015. There is a rich marine fossil record from the areas between these islands. This page uses Google Analytics. 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! By the end of the Cretaceous, uplift to the west was great enough that the resulting hills shed large amounts of sand and gravel in an easterly direction, pushing the shoreline eastward until sediment (combined with a worldwide drop in sea level) filled the area formerly occupied by the Western Interior Seaway. The elevation of Bear Lake is about 2880 meters (9450 feet). This planting zone combines saline water and alkaline soil with intense sunlight, high temperatures and varying elevations. As the Triassic period began, the Southwest moved north from the equator. Extent of the Western Interior Seaway during the Cretaceous Period. Petrified log at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, Jurassic Morrison Formation, Garfield County, Utah. In general, it is expected that high alpine glaciers in the Colorado Rockies will disappear as the climate continues to warm. Because high mountains to the west and north act as a barrier to cold Arctic air masses, most areas of Utah rarely experience temperatures below freezing or prolonged periods of extreme cold. Droughts also contribute to increased pest outbreaks and wildfires, both of which damage local economies, and they reduce the amount of water available for generating electricityfor example, at the Hoover Dam.1. Map of the modern Yucatn Peninsula region showing the location of the Chicxulub impact crater. Seems likely that conditions in the GM may influence annual variations in the monsoon. Volcanic activity was strong. Much of the Southwest became an archipelago of warm shallow seaways and uplifted islands, with terrestrial swampy forests and shallow sea floors populated by bivalves, brachiopods, arthropods, corals, and fish. Water vapor animation for the afternoon of August 22, 2018 showing the monsoon circulation and thunderstorm formation (dark blue, green, dark red). Glaciers covered most of the world's southern landmasses, which were located over the South Pole. 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." There is also an important relationship between rainfall and temperature: usually, more rain leads to cooler conditions, and less rain leads to hotter conditions. Andrews Glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, at two points in time. The Southwest Region climate in the United States is often associated with extremes. 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. And yet another element of the monsoon system that needs more study to resolve. 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).