{"id":3768,"date":"2025-02-09T14:49:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T14:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/?p=3768"},"modified":"2025-02-09T14:50:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T14:50:46","slug":"no-el-nino-no-relief-january-sets-another-heat-record-9feb2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/2025\/02\/09\/no-el-nino-no-relief-january-sets-another-heat-record-9feb2025\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;No El Ni\u00f1o, no relief: January sets another heat record&#8221; 9Feb2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1889\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Apr3_2023compare2024Jan12.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1889\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1889\" src=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Apr3_2023compare2024Jan12-250x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Apr3_2023compare2024Jan12-250x300.jpg 250w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Apr3_2023compare2024Jan12-768x923.jpg 768w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Apr3_2023compare2024Jan12-852x1024.jpg 852w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Apr3_2023compare2024Jan12.jpg 1475w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1889\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Impact of extreme warming in the fall of 2023 on a Barbados coral<\/strong>. Above: Healthy <em>A prolifera<\/em> in the &#8220;Mother Colony&#8221; on Vauxhall Reff on April 3, 2023. Below the same <em>A prolifera<\/em> dead and covered with algae on Jan 12, 2024. No recovery evident in early 2025. The yellow zooanthid at left remains healthy, however.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>So reads the headline for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalobserver.com\/newsletters\/zero-carbon\/2025\/02\/07\/no-el-nino-no-relief-january-sets-another-heat-record\">Feb 7 post by Chris Hatch<\/a> in the National Observer (Canada) Zero Carbon Newsletter.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;despite conditions that should have cooled things down, Earth hit its hottest January in recorded history.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve been on a run of record-setting temperatures ever since June 2023 when global heating suddenly kicked up a gear. Scientists are still trying to figure out what\u2019s happening \u2014 why the last two years were so inexplicably hot and 2024 broke through the symbolic figure of 1.5 degrees above temperatures before the industrial revolution. The worry is that all this fossil fuel burning has unleashed an unexpected step change in the climate system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more-->The article summarizes some of the conclusions of former NASA scientist James Hansen who raised the first big alarms about global warming in 1988. In a new paper, Hansen asks &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/00139157.2025.2434494\">Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed<\/a>?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Looking ahead to the next couple of decades, Hansen says the international target of 2 C is \u201cdead\u201d and scenarios that purport to keep global heating below that target are \u201cimplausible.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nothing made the impact of global warming more pronounced to me than<br \/>\nmy first visits to Vauxhall Reef over the last week.* I looked for any signs of recovery of <em>Acropora prolfera<\/em> and the <em>Millepora<\/em> spp (Stinging corals) from the <a href=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/observations-ii\/vauxhall-reef-environs-2024\/vauxhall-reef-environs-2024-effects-of-2023-warming-events-on-the-3-acroporoids\/\">100%\u00a0 dieback<\/a> I observed on my visit last year (early months of 2024) for <em>A. prolifera<\/em>, and perhaps <a href=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/observations-ii\/vauxhall-reef-environs-2024\/effects-of-2023-extreme-warming-events-on-millepora-spp\/\">95% for the Millepora spp<\/a>., those related to extreme\u00a0 warming events in the latter part of 2023. *<small>I am a retired biologist, conducted my PhD research in Barbados in the 1960s; since 2015, I have spent 1-3 months in Barbados in the early months of each year (except in 2021 and 2022) and regularly check out fringing reefs in the Holetown area, observations reported on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.versicolor.ca\/barbados\">www.versicolor.ca\/barbados<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n<p><em>Nada for both<\/em> in 2025; not even a glimpse of any living <em>Millepora<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Wow. It made me all the more appreciative of the daily good cheer and thoughtfulness of people on this island regardless and their ongoing efforts to address Climate Change.<\/p>\n<p>On a more positive note from below the tides: I have\u00a0 observed some still fully healthy <em>A. palmata<\/em> specimens in shallow waters&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So reads the headline for a Feb 7 post by Chris Hatch in the National Observer (Canada) Zero Carbon Newsletter. &#8230;despite conditions that should have cooled things down, Earth hit its hottest January in recorded history. We\u2019ve been on a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/2025\/02\/09\/no-el-nino-no-relief-january-sets-another-heat-record-9feb2025\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acroporoids","category-extreme-warming-coral-bleaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3768"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3775,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3768\/revisions\/3775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}