Andrews Glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, at two points in time. The average annual temperature in most of the Southwest is predicted to rise 2.2 to 5.5C (4 to 10F) by 2100. Left:Trilobites identified asDolichometoppus productusandAlokistocare althea. The rainy season would have been critical for Native Americans for thousands of years, and, for some Native American tribes, continues to be so. Bear Lake and Glacier Gorge, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 2011. Yet this landscape actually supports a vast array of plants and animals, along with millions of people who call the Southwest home. Sprawling development of Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the Sonoran Desert, 2009. Thick salt deposits accumulated in the northwestern Four Corners area as the seas evaporated. The size and location of various lakes in which the Green River Formation sediments were deposited during the Eocene epoch. Climate change in the Southwest The global rise in temperatures will affect different locations on earth in unique ways. For southern and western Colorado, the intrusions of moist air are most common from mid July into September associated with wind patterns sometimes called the Southwest Monsoon. The full time series for precipitation and temperature values is shown in Figure 2. Photo by Bigmikebmw (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, image cropped). Also, these favourable weather conditions usually occur more. (1) The North American Monsoon, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society by David Adams and Andrew Comrie, provides a comprehensive overview of the North American Monsoon and related research through the late 20th century. Right:Reconstruction of living animals. These oases were fed by groundwater that originated in the higher country of what is now western Colorado. Modified from illustrations by Wade Greenberg-Brand originally published inThe Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the SouthwesternUS. . Left imageandright imageby NickLongrich (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, images cropped and resized). NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Since the early 1900s, the Southwest has experienced wetter conditions during three main periods: the 1900s, 1940s, and 1980s. This may be due to the growth of solar energy, and voluntary commitments to reduce emissions made by large utility companies in the state. The desert experiences large temperature extremes, especially between day and night; daily temperature may change as much as 15C (60F) during the driest parts of the year. The March-April-May (MAM) 2023 temperature outlook favors below-normal. Photo by Santa Fe National Forest (National Interagency Fire Center on flickr, public domain). These warmer temperatures and increased precipitation have helped bring on longer growing seasons. Roadcut exposing lake sediments of the Eocene Green River Formation, Duchesne County, Utah. Although there has so far been little regional change in the Southwests annual precipitation, the areas average precipitation is expected to decrease in the south and remain stable or increase in the north. Page snapshot:Introduction to the climate of the southwestern United States, including present, past, and future climate. Snowpack helps keep the ground and soil moist by covering it longer into the spring and summer, which delays the onset of the fire season and influences the prevalence and severity of wildfires. Convection occurs when buoyant warm air rises (moves up) while denser cool air sinks (moves down). 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. Photo by Udo S. Title: Monument Valley - Arizona / USA. SW Precipitation Precipitation in the Southwest has two distinct seasons. Maps modified from maps by Wade Greenberg-Brand, originally published inThe Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the SouthwesternUS, after figure 3 in L. Grande (2013) The Lost World of Fossil Lake. This chapter builds on assessments of climate change in the Southwest region from the three previous U.S. National Climate Assessments. The warming conditions alone can be impactful, drying out soils quicker during breaks in monsoon rainfall, for example (2). Forecasts had all of this widespread flash flooding. As Pangaea reached its greatest size during the early Triassic, the monsoons intensity increased, and the vast dune deserts of the late Permian were replaced by rivers and floodplains. Convective mixing stops because the vertical column of air has turned over so that the cool air is at the bottom and the warm air is at the top. Photos of YPM IP 529539 by Jessica Utrup, 2015 (Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History/YPM,CC0 1.0 Universal/Public Domain Dedication, viaGBIF.org). The Wave, a series of intersecting U-shaped troughs eroded into Jurassic NavajoSandstone within the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona. Answer: Winter, June, July, and August. This feature provides a closer look at trends in temperature and drought in the southwestern United States. Digital Encyclopedia of Earth Science: Why talk about climate change? (2019)Biology Letters15: 20190114(Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, images cropped, reconfigured, resized, and relabeled). The Palmer Index is calculated from precipitation and temperature measurements at weather stations, and has been used widely for many years. The state's highest temperatures occur in the northeastern plains, where they can exceed 46C (115F). The reasons for this are complex and involve a combination factors. So is climate change increasing monsoon variability? Not really sure if it's possible to even find that rabbit hole let alone getting to the end of it :) Good luck. Large portions of the Southwest have experienced drought conditions since weekly Drought Monitor records began in 2000. (Going forward, to avoid having to say northwestern Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico over and over, Ill refer to this area as the monsoon region.). The Southwest relies on the slow melt of mountain snowpack throughout the spring and summer, when water demands are highest. Accessed March 2021. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/DataTables.aspx. Winds and waves shape the landscape, and rain showers support lush vegetation. Water supply is an important issue in the Southwest, and communities will need to adapt to changes in precipitation, snowmelt, and runoff as the climate changes. As the summer heat builds over North America, a region of high pressure forms over the U.S. Southwest, and the wind becomes more southerly, bringing moisture from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. Soils associated with these floodplains testify to the extreme seasonality of rainfall during that time. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, Scenarios for Climate Assessment and Adaptation, Image by The High Fin Sperm Whale, created from images by NOAA National Weather Service training material (Wikimedia Commons, public domain), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, Modified from a map by Adam Peterson (Wikimedia Commons, Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management (flickr, public domain), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, Photo by Richard Stephen Haynes (Wikimedia Commons, Photo of USNM PAL 165239 by Crinoid Type Project (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain), Photos of YPM IP 529539 by Jessica Utrup, 2015 (Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History/YPM, CC0 1.0 Universal/Public Domain Dedication, Photo of USNM P 38052 by Frederic Cochard (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain), Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license, Cretaceous Atlas of Ancient Life: Western Interior Seaway, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International, Photo of USNM 166396 from the Cretaceous Atlas of Ancient Life, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, Inset image from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PIA03397), Photo by Jeffrey Beall (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, Photo by Kenneth Carpenter (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0 Generic license, Photo by Center for Land Use Interpretation, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license, Photo by Dr. David Goodrich, NOAA (NOAA Photo Library ID wea04192, NOAA's National Weather Service, via flickr, Images by Lauren Dauphin, NASA Earth Observatory, Photos by Lauren Dauphin, NASA Earth Observatory, NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin (NASA Earth Observatory, Photo by Santa Fe National Forest (National Interagency Fire Center on flickr, public domain), https://earthathome.org/de/talk-about-climate/, https://earthathome.org/de/what-is-climate/, https://earthathome.org/de/recent-climate-change/, https://earthathome.org/de/climate-change-mitigation/, https://earthathome.org/de/climate-change-adaptation/, https://earthathome.org/quick-faqs/#climate, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licenses. In winter, rising temperatures have increased the number of frost-free days. USA 107(50):2125621262. Average yearly tornado watches in each county of the United States between 1993 and 2012. The final ingredient is wind. Dark gray is land, white and light gray are submerged areas. See the Drought indicator for more information about these indices. The onset of stream flows from melting snow in Colorado has shifted two weeks earlier due to warming spring temperatures. Acad. Precipitation has become more variable from year to year, and heavy downpours across the U.S. have increased in the last 20 years. Large portions of the Southwest have experienced drought conditions since weekly Drought Monitor records began in 2000. However, the Southwest is located between the mid-latitude and subtropical atmospheric circulation regimes, and this positioning relative to shifts in these . In the Southwest, climate change may impact a variety of resources, including water availability in the form of snowpack and spring streamflow, the distribution and composition of plant communities, and fire regimes. Brown indicates where precipitation has been less than average; green is greater than average. Although on the western edge of the North American Monsoon, California plant geography indicates it makes a large contribution to the states southern flora. In southern New Mexico and Arizona, shallow marine deposits, laid down when the ice in Gondwana retreated and sea level rose, alternate with layers of dust blown in when the ice in Gondwana advanced and sea level fell. Map of the Gulf of Mexico region before the closure of the Isthmus of Panama. Figure by climate.gov. Of the southwestern states, Arizona emits the most greenhouse gases, releasing 92.5 million metric tons of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2019. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Like the Inside Passage, the weather in Southwest Alaska is heavily influenced by ocean currents and maritime conditions. The thunderstorm begins. Positive values represent wetter-than-average conditions, while negative values represent drier-than-average conditions. For example, high winter temperatures between 2000 and 2003 correlated to bark beetle outbreaks that devastated pinyon pine throughout the Southwest, leading to nearly 90% mortality at some sites in Colorado and Arizona. Published June 22, 2021 Updated Aug. 23, 2022. The climate of the eastern plains is fairly uniform, with hot, windy summers and thunderstorms. Recent warming within the Southwest has been among the most rapid in the United States, and models predict that the area's climate will continue to warm. Although the mountain building that occurred during this event was mostly far to the east, the Southwest was influenced by both fluctuating sea levels and a few significant tectonic changes. Famous sheriffs like Wyatt Earp and outlaws like Billy the . This led to global cooling and dropping global sea levels. Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. Average is based on 19792020 using CPC Unified data. Glaciers covered most of the world's southern landmasses, which were located over the South Pole. Photo by Richard Stephen Haynes (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image resized). In the middle Cretaceous, oceans covered most of the Southwest, with the exception of parts of Arizona and New Mexico. 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. Across New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, summer rains originate from moisture brought into the area from the Gulf of Mexico. Snowfall will be below normal in most areas that normally receive snow, with the snowiest periods in early to mid-January and early February. The North Rim is 8000 feet (2438meters) to 9000 feet (2743 meters) above sea level. The result may be more destructive wildfires like the Calf Canyon-Hermit Peak wildfire in New Mexico. We can see some hints of this relationship in my scatter-plot here. July 1August 22, 2021 precipitation shown as a percent of the average July 1August 22, based on 19792020. There is a rich marine fossil record from the areas between these islands. It smoldered beneath the ground as a dormant holdover, sleeper, or zombie fire until April, when it flared up and grew into a wildfire, an almost unprecedented occurrence in the Southwest. Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire near Holman, New Mexico, on May 8, 2022. Allmon, W. D., T. A. Smrecak, and R. M. Ross. Resilient Bermudagrass is widely used in the region, but sufficient watering is essential in the desert climate . Center:As warm air rises, cool air sinks. Global temperatures fell further in the late Miocene thanks to the formation of the Himalayas. Wetter-than-average monsoons (green dots) are slightly more common during La Nia years, while drier-than-average monsoons (brown dots) are slightly more common during El Nio years. Summer temperatures on the South Rim, at 7000 feet (2134 meters), are especially pleasant from 50 to about 85 F (10s to 20s C). PRI's free resource to help you learn about the Earth and its history. Like the summer monsoons, the milder storms . This salt is part of the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Paradox Formation. 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. Frequent showers and thunderstorms continue well into the summer. Credits: Most of the text on this page comes from "Climate of the Southwestern US" by Ingrid H. H. Zabel, Judith T. Parrish, and Andrielle N. Swaby, chapter 8 in The Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the Southwestern US, edited by Andrielle N. Swaby, Mark D. Lucas, and Robert M. Ross (published in 2016 by the Paleontological Research Institution; currently out of print). Some earlier studies suggested that El Nio may be related to lower JulyAugust rainfall, and La Nia related to higher rainfall, due to large-scale atmospheric circulation changes. Today nearly all the glaciers in the Southwest are gone, and the climate is in an arid state. Colorado has a generally cool and continental climate with low humidity. Cumbres in the San Juan Mountains receives nearly 7.6 meters (300 inches) of snowfall annually, while Manassa, less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) away in the San Luis Valley, receives only about 63 centimeters (25 inches) of snow a year. 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. Another player is land-surface feedbackswetter soils provide more moisture to the air through evaporation. As the summer heat builds over North America, a region of high pressure forms over the U.S. Southwest, and the wind becomes more southerly, bringing moisture from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. The continued growth of Pangaea created an intense monsoonal climate, similar to that of Asia today, that affected large parts of the continent. This planting zone combines saline water and alkaline soil with intense sunlight, high temperatures and varying elevations. The ENSO blog is written, edited, and moderated by Michelle LHeureux (NOAA Climate Prediction Center), Emily Becker (University of Miami/CIMAS), Nat Johnson (NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), and Tom DiLiberto and Rebecca Lindsey (contractors to NOAA Climate Program Office), with periodic guest contributors. 2021. Dry conditions are common throughout the Great Plains, Colorado Plateau, and Basin and Range. Figure by Ingrid Zabel for PRI's [emailprotected] project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license). On the other hand, New Mexico and northern Mexico are near or a bit below average. Utahs distance from both the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico prevents heavy precipitation, and much of the state is typically sunny year-round, with light to moderate winds. The North American Monsoon is a seasonal change in the atmospheric circulation that occurs as the summer sun heats the continental land mass. The first letter of each zone in the key indicates its major classification. Also found are a number of tree species with a disjunct distribution. Water, climate change, and sustainability in the Southwest. As in Arizona, the desert experiences a large range of temperature on a daily basis. If you live in the U.S. Southwest or northwestern Mexico, you may already be familiar with the annual climate phenomenon called the North American Monsoon, especially since rainfall in some spots has been way above average this summer. 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. North America's position near the equator kept its climate relatively warm. In New Mexico, for example, average annual precipitation ranges from less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) within the Great Plains and Basin and Range regions to more than 50 centimeters (20 inches) at the higher elevations to the northwest. For many of us, the word monsoon conjures images of heavy rain lasting for months. This figure uses the U.S. Drought Monitor classification system, which is described in the table in the Droughtindicator. 3. By the late Carboniferous, North America had collided with Gondwana, leading to the formation of Pangaeaa supercontinent composed of nearly all the landmass on Earth. Unless otherwise indicated, text and images on this website have Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licenses. What happened that make TS Nora so underwhelming? Some areas were more than 2F warmer than average (see Figure 1). Fig. The Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona are surrounded desert in which saguaro cacti grow. Other elements involved in the ignition and growth of fires and the risks they pose to people living in the Southwest include (but are not limited to) forest management practices, development patterns, and human behavior (intentionally or unintentionally starting fires). SUMMARY OF THE OUTLOOK FOR NON-TECHNICAL USERS. Data from Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) and ERSSTv5. The average amount of precipitation for the United States is 85.6 centimeters (33.7 inches). During much of the year, the prevailing wind over northwestern Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico is westerly (blowing from the west) and dry. In the late Ordovician (about 460 to 430 million years ago), the Earth fell into another brief but intense ice age. How would that result in less total JulyAugust rain? Good question! Streamflow totals for the decade of 2001-2010 in the Great Basin, Rio Grande, and Colorado River were between 5% and 37% lower than their 20. Shallow seas invaded the continent, ultimately covering the whole area until the late Carboniferous. 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. Arizona's highest elevations receive an average of 65 to 76 centimeters (25 to 30 inches), with lower areas in the states southwestern portion averaging less than 8 centimeters (3 inches). The white arrow is pointing to one of the leaflets of a compound leaf. There was likely little or no glacial ice anywhere on Earth, and temperatures were highest in lower latitudes. Annual Weather SummaryNovember 2022 to October 2023. 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. Extreme high temperatures. The population of any industrialized and particularly wealthy country produces pollution; the majority of these emissions come from the use of petroleum. New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado have also reduced their carbon dioxide emissions between 2008 and 2019. Topics covered on this page: Present climate of the southwestern U.S.; Present temperature; Present precipitation; Severe weather; Regional climate variation; Past climate of the southwestern U.S.; Paleozoic; Mesozoic; Cenozoic; Future climate of the southwestern U.S.; Resources. Right:Graph of the lake's changing level over time. 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. The elevation of Bear Lake is about 2880 meters (9450 feet). The event devastated the Southwest, shifting a densely forested landscape to one primarily covered with fast-growing herbs and ferns. Please click here to see any active alerts. In the early Carboniferous (Mississippian), ice capped the South Pole and began to expand northward. Notice that North America has separated from Africa and there is a spreading center in the Central Atlantic Ocean. Photo by Archaeopoda (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, image cropped, resized, and labeled). Fossil ammonoid (Nigericeras scotti) from the Late Cretaceous Greenhorn Limestone, Baca County, Colorado. Burning those fossil fuels releases carbon into the atmosphere, which warms the Earth. These are blog posts, not official agency communications; if you quote from these posts or from the comments section, you should attribute the quoted material to the blogger or commenter, not to NOAA, CPC, or Climate.gov. Precipitation forms. 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. Used under a Creative Commons license. One controversial hypothesis proposes that an area of western Coloradoone of the islands that dotted the early Carboniferous seawas, in fact, glaciated. Cold continental conditions dominate the higher altitudes, especially within the Rocky Mountains. The climate was drier than that of the Carboniferous, and mudflats with salt and gypsum formed across the Southwestern states. 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. Today, most of the Southwest experiences about 17 fewer freezing days than it did over the last century. 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. Image above: Sun and storm in Weld County, in the Great Plains region of Colorado, 2015. (41-60 degrees.) Another factor besides latitude and elevation that influences temperature in the Southwest is its arid climate. Photo by Stefan Klein (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and resized). Is the tropical storm season done for this part of the country? 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. Image adapted from an image by Scenarios for Climate Assessment and Adaptation, first published in The Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the Southwestern US. Regional overview Southwest. (2011)PLoS ONE3(7): e2791(Creative Commons Attribution license, image reorganized and resized). Photo by James St. John (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license). 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. The current drought outlooks expect that the drought in Arizona and New Mexico will improve in the short term, but persist. Since 1980, tree mortality in forests and woodlands across the Southwest has been higher and more extensive than at any time during the previous 90 years. Historic data from Livneh et al. The American Southwest, here defined as the area between 95W and 125W and 25N and 40N, 9 covers over four million square kilometers.
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