Shakedown Social

O=C=OClimate change drives record-breaking heat in Iceland and Greenland challenging cold adapted ecosystems and societiesOn May 15, <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/Egilssta%C3%B0ir" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Egilsstaðir</a> Airport recorded 26.6°C, breaking the previous record for <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/Iceland" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Iceland</a>’s highest May temperature, while regions of the country saw temperatures more than 10°C above average (Icelandic Met Office, 2025). The <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/Ittoqqortoormiit" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Ittoqqortoormiit</a> station in <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/Greenland" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Greenland</a> saw temperatures reach 14.3°C on May 19, which is more than 13°C above the May average daily maximum temperature of 0.8°C (<a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/DMI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DMI</a>, 2025). These high temperatures were caused by a steady flow of warm air from the south, caused by a high-pressure system near the <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/Faroe" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Faroe</a> Islands and a low-pressure system south of <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/CapeFarewell" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#CapeFarewell</a>. This <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/weather" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#weather</a> setup lasted for about nine days, bringing unusually warm weather to the area. While similar patterns have happened before, this <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/heatwave" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#heatwave</a> stood out because it came so early in the year and lasted for so long.While few impacts have been reported, numerous studies demonstrate that unusually high temperatures early in the year can have significant impacts on local ecosystems. These <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/ecosystems" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ecosystems</a>, adapted to very cold climates, are sensitive to temperature shifts, and disruptions to their delicate balance can lead to consequences not only for the ecosystems themselves, but also for the communities that depend on them. <a href="https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-drives-record-breaking-heat-in-iceland-and-greenland-challenging-cold-adapted-ecosystems-and-societies/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-drives-record-breaking-heat-in-iceland-and-greenland-challenging-cold-adapted-ecosystems-and-societies/</a><a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/WeatherAttribution" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WeatherAttribution</a> <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/ClimateScience" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ClimateScience</a>

O=C=OEffective emergency management prevented larger catastrophe after climate change fueled heavy rains in Central Mississippi river valley The <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/floods" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#floods</a> inundated large rural areas including agricultural fields, especially in <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/Arkansas" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Arkansas</a> which has resulted in an estimated 78 Million USD of damage due to losses in fields that were already planted. Larger losses were avoided due to the timing of the floods before other <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/crops" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#crops</a> like <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/peanuts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#peanuts</a> and <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/cotton" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#cotton</a> were planted, and since there is still a window to replant crops like <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/corn" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#corn</a> and <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/soybeans" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#soybeans</a>. Based on gridded data products, we find that the extreme <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/rainfall" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#rainfall</a> event over the study region is relatively rare, expected to occur in today’s <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/climate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#climate</a> only once every 90-240 years across different observational and reanalysis datasets. However, in a 1.3°C cooler climate, extreme rainfall such as observed would be even rarer. The best estimates for the increase in likelihood for the 2025 event associated with this warming is between a factor 2 to 5, and the increase in intensity for an event of equivalent rarity as observed is 13-26%. To quantify the role of human-induced <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/ClimateChange" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ClimateChange</a> in this increased likelihood and intensity we also analyse climate model data over the study region for the historical period. The best estimate of the synthesised result, combining observations with climate models, is about a 40% increase in likelihood and about a 9% increase in intensity. These estimates are smaller than the observed trends due to large discrepancies between the climate model results. While some models show increases similar to or larger than the observed trends, others show weaker or even decreasing trends. In contrast, <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/ClimateModels" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ClimateModels</a> consistently project that extreme precipitation events such as the one observed in April 2025 will become more frequent and intense in the future as global temperatures rise. Under current climate policies – which will lead to warming of approximately 2.6°C by 2100 – such extremes are expected to approximately double in likelihood again, and increase in intensity by about a further 7%. As the moisture that fuelled the rainfall event was partly coming from the <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/GulfOfMexico" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#GulfOfMexico</a> we also assessed the role of climate change in the sea surface temperatures. We found that these waters were heated by approximately 1.2 °C (2.2 °F) due to human-caused climate change, and such <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/ocean" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ocean</a> conditions are now about 14 times more likely than in a cooler pre-industrial world. This contributed to higher <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/evaporation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#evaporation</a> rates, increasing the availability of moisture in the rainfall event. The strong observed trends in precipitation extremes in this region are also found in other studies using different methods, across different regions, including the Central <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/Mississippi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Mississippi</a> river valley and are assessed as being attributable to climate change by the <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/IPCC" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#IPCC</a> AR6 report. In conclusion, due to (1) the observed trends that are (2) in line with IPCC assessments and other literature in the region, and (3) the clear emergence of a climate change signal with further <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/warming" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#warming</a> in all climate models as well as (4) the availability of more moisture due to higher SSTs, we state that climate change amplified the heavy rainfall leading to the floods and that the estimate from observations and models combined of a 9% increase in intensity and 40% increase in likelihood is conservative and the role of climate change could be as large as the observations alone suggest Despite being an extremely complex event, with tornadoes, flash floods, riverine floods and landslides overlapping, the US National Weather Service made a tremendous effort to provide early warnings for the floods, in some cases up to a week in advance of river crests. These early warnings allowed state and local emergency departments to prepare, inform the public, and evacuate those at highest risk. While any loss of life is devastating, the outcomes of this event point to the effectiveness of decades-long investments made in forecasting, <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/EarlyWarningSystems" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#EarlyWarningSystems</a>, and <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/forecast" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#forecast</a>-based action. Nearly half of NWS field offices are facing vacancy rates of 20% or more, double the short-staffing levels of a decade ago. Former NWS leaders have recently warned that layoffs could impact the ability of NWS offices to respond to extreme weather events and keep people safe.<a href="https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/effective-emergency-management-prevented-larger-catastrophe-after-climate-change-fueled-heavy-rains-in-central-mississippi-river-valley/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/effective-emergency-management-prevented-larger-catastrophe-after-climate-change-fueled-heavy-rains-in-central-mississippi-river-valley/</a><a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/ExtremeWeather" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ExtremeWeather</a> <a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/WeatherAttribution" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WeatherAttribution</a>

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