RPCVguy

I posted earlier the above mapping from the European site. Yet, the debate continued. 😲 It is good that people care enough to track, but many comments were based on limited data, maybe from a single location. IT IS GREAT THAT THE RAINS HAVE ARRIVED in amounts sufficient to soak up and relieve the heat as the water evaporated. If they are not yet sufficient in some areas, then the light rains make it feel like pouring some water on the rocks of a sauna. Meanwhile, NOAA has released its report as to April. It is indeed a higher resolution than my earlier post. It explicitly shows most of the grid for Thailand was at record high heat, with a patch of the North West (into Myanmar) that was not quite setting a record. (2019 holds the record there.) The map below is one of several at: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202404 Of note in the report by NOAA is this quote, using a word much argued in this and related threads. "Record warm April temperatures in Southeast Asia were due in part to a heatwave in late April with daily high temperatures exceeding 38-43°C (100-110°F) in an area stretching from India to southeastern China and the Philippines. "

Earlier I commented that the monthly analysis for April from Berkeley Earth would not be out until mid May. This one is lower resolution, but it gives the broad stroke review comparing this April for prior Aprils. the caption with it, posted in a group for Climate Alerts, reads: "April 2024 easily beat the record for warmest April. A staggering 21% of the globe had their warmest April since 1940. Even when you exclude the oceans, April 2024 over land was also the warmest on record." Brian Bordtschneider When a higher resolution mapping becomes available, I expect to see splashes of coloring for 2nd or 3rd warmest appearing throughout, but the dominant regional trend for SE Asia is that this was the warmest April on record. That does not mean every day was the warmest, but it means the temperatures and time at those elevated temperatures per day are generally setting this April as the warmest on record.

This was asked and answered in another thread - specifically for Bangkok when I posted at • Then, to take a top down look at all of Thailand as to whether this year has been warmer or similar to historical averages, we are still days away from the release of April's date, but here is a map of January through March, and Thailand has been warmer than average. Global surface temperature anomalies for the first three months of 2024 compared to a 1951-80 baseline period. Figure from Berkeley Earth. While all of Thailand was warmer than average in March, only portions of Thailand averaged the month as one of the top 5 hottest months ever. This is an example of the map that will be released sometime around mid-May for April.

Two posts with excellent detail to which I've extracted and commented upon why and how I see the comparisons need to be made. The historical averages are increasing. they do so less rapidly near the coast than they do inland. Averages matter, but it is the peak temperatures in the tropics that stress the ability of humans to survive outside (or indoors if the power cuts off.) The remnants of the El Niño that started last June are what are forecast to continue bothering SE Asia through most of May. If you have access to and are using air conditioning to modify your situation, enjoy it and appreciate its assistance. Many, many people in Thailand do not.

Interesting. This fits my desire to express warnings while satisfying the desire to avoid the term Eat Wave. The USA National Weather Service has posted an experimental coding for something they are labeling HeatRisk. Unlike their chart of Heat Index, which calculates a number based upon Heat & Humidity or even the Misery Index that includes Wind Chill into the Heat Index, The HeatRisk takes into consideration: How unusual the heat is for the time of the year The duration of the heat including both daytime and nighttime temperatures If those temperatures pose an elevated risk of heat-related impacts based on data from the CDC Although I do not have access to anywhere near the amount of localized temperature and humidity data to begin to map Thailand's current situation, I suspect that the duration of elevated temperatures experienced this month in Thailand would be sufficient to apply the level 4 Magenta designation to them. Unlike Heat Wave, which term has a definition of a specific number of degrees for a specific number of days, this designation can and does vary daily as is demonstrated in the mapping of the USA on different days this week as seen under the sub-menu for maps at: https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatrisk/

I'm not one who has posted such emojis on your post. The definition of a heat wave was maybe created (in Europe and North America) to cover situations that are dangerous to the health of many people. Temperatures in those regions vary more widely than in the tropics. The tropics are both more consistent in temperatures and simply closer to the limits of what humans can tolerate metabolically. A true "Heat Wave" in the tropics would be physically far more dangerous to life than one in temperate climate zones. I agree on what the current definition is for heat wave, but there is not currently a suitable English word for the Heat Index Danger Zone now being experienced daily over a wide region of SE Asia. The Link I provided in my above comment, with images refines the standard HEAT INDEX by including Wind Chill. That site calls their index a MISERY INDEX. People can access the menu for making the site interactive by clicking the word "earth" at the bottom left. The advantage of the site is that it accesses satellite weather data and presents it as a map, easy to understand. I only wish the colors in the grid at the right (by Berkeley Earth) and the colors of the map matched. What is Amber on the map is in the light red in the grid. The reason so many people are agreeing with the discomfort of this month is that the FEELS LIKE temperature and humidity has been persistently high for the month... I see since April 3rd. Because the humidity will rise faster than temperatures will drop as the monsoon rains begin, we can expect that the danger zone conditions will migrate towards extreme danger conditions. Things will then cool down as sufficient rain absorbs the excess heat now stored in roadways and building structures.

The WMO definition of a heatwave may need to be reconsidered. Those writing the definition might have shown a bias due to living in temperate latitudes. 2 Billion people live in the tropics where the temperatures are consistently closer to the ceiling defined by metabolic limits. People with a disease die when they sustain a fever of 40ºC/ 104°F. That is the same thermal limit if heat and humidity combine to inhibit cooling via sweating. Heat stroke occurs when their core body temperatures rise from environmental heat. Our home is 2-stories, with the AC upstairs. Unfortunately, this year there are signs of a wiring problem in our attic - that no one dare go into to explore/fix. I'm about to go downstairs - again. It is sufficiently cooler to be tolerable while doing nothing beyond reading. We have the following report that came out, sadly pointing to SE Asia as the region most at risk of continued heat through the end of May as reported in this paper: "The tropics, characterized by high temperatures and humidities, face heightened risks from heat-related impacts (Parkes et al., 2022; Raymond et al., 2020, 2021; Sherwood & Huber, 2010). This vulnerability is exacerbated by the consistent warming trend, leading to more frequent and intense heat events." https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL106990 Then looking at the actual conditions across SE Asia on Earth Day where areas in amber equate to 40ºC or higher, thus in the danger zone. The conditions have been persistently the same since April 3rd. Misery Index (Heat Index discounted for wind chill) is mapped and posted in an interactive manner using weather data from EMC / NCEP / NWS / NOAA • https://earth.nullschool.net/#2024/04/22/0700Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=misery_index/orthographic=-266.95,16.30,1823/loc=100.006,14.143

The first couple of minutes of this PBS video explains Wet Bulb, and a demonstration of how it is roughly measured.

Yes, that is a good site for basic data and a forecast too. Another site supplies historical detail and compares it to the typical temperatures for that day. So far, Bangkok is warmer than average this year. Take a look at the temperature measurement vs the thin red line that tracks the historical average temperatures as recorded at • https://weatherspark.com/h/y/113416/2024/Historical-Weather-during-2024-in-Bangkok-Thailand The data collected on the above site agrees well with the Weather DataGFS (Global Forecast System) assembled from EMC / NCEP / NWS / NOAA and posted on https://earth.nullschool.net/ The site can be set for a specific "home" GPS setting and will provide a few days forecast. Locations that are not on weatherspark.com list of sites may have reporting, but I have found the data to be unreliable as to reporting relative humidity. Maybe their equipment is poor, or the equipment is not well placed. People reporting 55% humidity while stating the temperature is over 35ºC might be accessing such sites. Alternatively, the conditions are short term. Such readings are in the range that can not be endured for long. Looking at Thailand for March 28th, such conditions were NOT seen. One of the worst readings was 37ºC with 37% relative humidity.

That's just another aspect of geophysics relating to glacial ice melt. It is not related to the latitude but rather to the specific mountains or land mass that is losing glacial ice. Post-glacial rebound or isostatic adjustment is the rise of land masses that were depressed by the huge weight of ice sheets during the last ice age.

The headline got people to look, the reality is not soon so significant. Actually, the climate consequences are delaying a reverse negative leap second from 2026 to maybe 2029. • https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/melting-polar-ice-may-be-slowing-earth-s-spin-and-messing-with-how-we-measure-time/ar-BB1kHsvu What is happening is that the mass of ice at the poles that melts ends up becoming part of the water bulge of oceans at the equator. Just like a figure skater can slow a spin by extending arms outward, the added mass at the equator means the Earth spins slightly slower. But the changes at Earth's core was causing a speeding up of the rotation. The definition of a day being 24 hours of 60 minutes, each having 60 seconds has already been replaced by using the adoption of atomic clocks in 1967. That change of time measurement revolutionized timekeeping, relying on the precise frequency of atoms for accurate measurements. People who are responsible for posting the time nationally will track the topic, come to an agreement and reset their clocks in the year needed, subsequent radio and communications systems will follow along, and most people will never notice.

Not quite. Each cycle of El Nino gets hotter. For the tropics in general, and Thailand in particular, temperatures peak during both the spring and autumn equinox. As the planet warms, the oceans warm, and those seasonal temperature peaks also increase on average. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=tropics

It is the heat of the season, combined with high enough humidity to make it feel even hotter. Today, the actual temperature of 37.5ºC feels like 40.2ºC https://earth.nullschool.net/#2024/03/25/0600Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=misery_index/orthographic=-256.68,22.35,1823/loc=100.707,14.146 The ongoing warming of the seas add to humidity and pre-warm the air more - before it reaches shore. It will make this El Nino hot season hotter than those of the past. Future cycles will get still worse. Here is a graph tracking ocean temperatures https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ Air over the tropics peaks during both the spring and autumn equinox. As the oceans warm, those seasonal peaks also increase on average. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=tropics

Daily measurements on hundreds of locations globally, gathered over 50 years and averaged gave a DEFINED baseline that the IPCC nations agreed (in 2015) to use as the pre-industrial starting point. Very refined instrumentation since then has allowed agencies to measure the current AVERAGE to a level of precision. If you look at the graphics in my post above at https://aseannow.com/topic/1320365-thailand-braces-for-intense-heat-with-temperatures-soaring/?do=findComment&comment=18708900 Pay attention to how closely the different, independent agencies numbers have agreed over the last 50 years. Then too, look at: https://aseannow.com/topic/1319433-first-time-the-world-has-exceeded-15c-for-an-entire-year/?do=findComment&comment=18698506 You will see some lines have a shaded range showing the degree of uncertainty in that researcher or agency's numbers.

Here is a Bangkok specific reply as to the effect El Nino has on the history of heat during March, April and May. The peak temperature for El Nino globally is generally in February of the year after the El Nino started. Temperatures are rising globally, so recent La Nina years have averaged higher than El Nino years of even a decade ago. 2024 is when the peak temperatures for this El Nino cycle are expected. These charts and tables show monthly averages compared to 30 years of averages for the same months from 1991-2020. I highlighted the El Nino months to call attention to why this 2024 season from March through May has a high likelihood of being uncomfortably hot.