#Past Precipitation Data

[awisweatherservices]

Can Historical Weather Data Help Us Understand Future Climate Trends?

To understand what the weather will be like in the future, we need to look at a lot of old weather information, historical temperature data, and weather reports. This intricate mosaic of temperature records, alongside other weather information, serves as a key resource for unraveling the patterns that will shape tomorrow's climate. With fancy tools and careful note-taking, weather experts look at how the weather was in the past to tell us what it might be like in the future. In a world where our survival and prosperity are closely tied to weather patterns, the analysis of historical weather reports and temperature data holds greater significance than ever before. Join us on a journey to explore how this rich source of information guides us in predicting the trajectory of our climate.

The Chronicle of Climates: Learning from the Logs

Even before we had all the fancy gadgets we use today, people used to write down what the weather was like. They didn't have numbers, just words to describe it. These old writings were the first step in making a scientific way to measure the weather. Nowadays, these old records show us how the Earth's climate has been changing, and they help us guess what the weather might be in the future. It's like they're a history book of the Earth's weather, helping scientists understand it better.

The Patterns in the Past: Deciphering Data

Decades and centuries of meticulous weather recordings have amassed a wealth of information. It is through the analysis of this historical weather data that scientists can identify patterns and anomalies. These patterns are the rhythms of our planet's climate dance, and understanding them is essential in anticipating future steps. By studying how temperature and weather patterns have changed over time, we can model potential future changes.

Reflecting on Historical Reports

Historical weather reports act as snapshots of the Earth's past atmosphere, offering a time-lapse view of climate change. They reveal how human actions, natural events, and minor variations accumulate and impact the climate. These records serve as a scientific time machine, aiding our understanding of our planet's climate evolution. This knowledge is essential for tackling the challenges posed by a changing climate and safeguarding the well-being of our planet and future generations.

The Role of Technology

Modern technology has taken historical climate data to a whole new level, turning it into more than just records. Powerful computers process enormous amounts of data to create advanced models that give us a sneak peek into what the future climate might be like. These technological leaps are essential for turning what we've learned from the past into practical predictions for the future.

Final thought

Predicting future climate trends is a challenging but vital task. To do this, we need to examine the wealth of historical temperature data and weather data available to us, using the past to inform our future outlook. Services like AWIS Weather Service play a crucial role in this effort, offering detailed insights and forecasts. By combining historical data analysis with advanced forecasting methods, they provide us with the resources to enhance our preparedness and knowledge. To learn more about how they contribute to climate prediction, visit their website Awis.com today.

[headspace-hotel]

I'm trying to read about ecological succession in desert ecosystems and its incredibly annoying because most of the studies define "succession" as "how does the vegetation cover increase after we planted a forest on top of it"

this got me scampering off on a tangent about desertification, which led me to a lot of papers talking about how there is no coherent definition of what desertification even is ("What is desertification? We can't even agree and we're the authors of this paper!") and then continuing to talk about how it's important to reverse desertification despite the lack of clarity on whether this is a good idea.

It's really striking how so many papers treat deserts like they aren't even ecosystems in their own right, just land that isn't being as productive as it "should" be.

Then there's this paper which is a quintessential example of "angry scientists who are DONE with your shit" It seems to be machine translated a la Google Translate-esque automation, but it's good and the pictures speak for themselves. basically there was a large scale effort to "reverse deforestation" in the Gobi Desert by planting shrubs, and this was subsidized by policies meant to promote "greening" for broad scale environmental improvement. Here's the summary of how that backfired

According to our survey, personnel who specifically plant trees and engage in afforestation are businessmen, farmers, or others, with most of them being businessmen from abroad, and only a few being local people. All the personnel are more concerned about the subsidies than greening and planting trees itself. According to the policy, they will receive majority of the subsidy if the planted trees live for three years, irrespective of whether the trees survive after that. Therefore, to guarantee the survival of the planted trees for three years, they even use water tankers to carry water to the trees from a great distance. However, after three years, the people stop watering the trees planted in the Gobi region, thereby leading to the death of trees after a few years as they cannot survive only on natural precipitation and groundwater. In pursuit of maximum profits, these businessmen will pursue larger areas for planting trees, which will cause further damage to the ecological environment in the Gobi region

What else is there to say

furthermore, the planting disturbed the natural soil layers and disrupted the "black vegetation" (I'm guessing this is translated from a term that refers to the gravel layer in combination with the biocrusts holding it in place- I want to learn more about biocrusts they're so cool) which caused dust and sand underneath to become airborne.

I found many more papers that are disappointingly uncritical of the afforestation in deserts thing even though they try to take an ecological outlook, like this one, which acknowledges it takes extensive inputs from other places to maintain the trees (if you have to add 5% wood chips to the sand to improve it, wouldn't that necessity significantly offset the increase in tree biomass and the benefit in increase productivity on site, since the wood chips come from trees???) and that past efforts to plant forests on desert lands have gone poorly.

From multiple papers I'm starting to piece together why there has been so much data tentatively suggesting success in desert afforestation even though it seems to not do much good in the long term: the young trees can sometimes draw sufficient water from underground when they're little, but actually the region is fundamentally incapable of supporting the water requirements of a more mature tree. So the trees grow roots down into the deep soil layers, suck the deep soil layers dry, and die, leaving the land drier than it was to begin with.

I'm no expert but it seems to me like maybe we should study the desert ecosystems in depth before trying to change them...

[fairuzfan]

The decision to pause deliveries to the north of the Gaza Strip has not been taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger.  WFP is deeply committed to urgently reaching desperate people across Gaza but the safety and security to deliver critical food aid - and for the people receiving it - must be ensured. Deliveries resumed on Sunday after a three-week suspension following the strike on an UNRWA truck and due to the absence of a functioning humanitarian notification system. The plan was to send 10 trucks of food for seven straight days, to help stem the tide of hunger and desperation and to begin building trust in communities that there would be enough food for all.  On Sunday, as WFP started the route towards Gaza City, the convoy was surrounded by crowds of hungry people close to the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. First fending off multiple attempts by people trying to climb aboard our trucks, then facing gunfire once we entered Gaza City, our team was able to distribute a small quantity of the food along the way. On Monday, the second convoy’s journey north faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order. Several trucks were looted between Khan Younes and Deir al Balah and a truck driver was beaten. The remaining flour was spontaneously distributed off the trucks in Gaza city, amidst high tension and explosive anger. In December, the Integrated Phase Classification report compiled by 15 agencies including WFP warned of the risk of famine in northern Gaza by May unless conditions there improved decisively. At the end of January, after delivering food to the north, we reported on the rapid deterioration of conditions. In these past two days our teams witnessed unprecedented levels of desperation.  The latest reports confirm Gaza’s precipitous slide into hunger and disease. Food and safe water have become incredibly scarce and diseases are rife, compromising women and children’s nutrition and immunity and resulting in a surge of acute malnutrition. People are already dying from hunger-related causes.  A report issued Monday by UNICEF and WFP, based on recent data, finds that the situation is particularly extreme in the Northern Gaza Strip. Nutrition screenings conducted at shelters and health centres in the north found that 15.6 per cent - or 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age - are acutely malnourished. WFP will seek ways to resume deliveries in a responsible manner as soon as possible. A large-scale expansion of the flow of assistance to northern Gaza is urgently needed to avoid disaster. To achieve this, WFP needs significantly higher volumes of food coming into the Gaza strip from multiple routes, additionally, crossing points to the north of Gaza must open. A functioning humanitarian notification system and a stable communication network are needed. And security, for our staff and partners as well as for the people we serve, must be facilitated. Gaza is hanging by a thread and WFP must be enabled to reverse the path towards famine for thousands of desperately hungry people. 

I cannot believe this.

[ultyso]

Another update

2/20/2024

[ID: Article by WFP:

20 February 2024

UN Food Agency pauses deliveries to the North of Gaza

ROME – The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is pausing deliveries of life-saving food aid to northern Gaza until conditions are in place that allow for safe distributions.

The decision to pause deliveries to the north of the Gaza Strip has not been taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger. WFP is deeply committed to urgently reaching desperate people across Gaza but the safety and security to deliver critical food aid - and for the people receiving it - must be ensured.

Deliveries resumed on Sunday after a three-week suspension following the strike on an UNRWA truck and due to the absence of a functioning humanitarian notification system. The plan was to send 10 trucks of food for seven straight days, to help stem the tide of hunger and desperation and to begin building trust in communities that there would be enough food for all. ]

Continued:

[ID: Continuation of article by WFP: On Sunday, as WFP started the route towards Gaza City, the convoy was surrounded by crowds of hungry people close to the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. First fending off multiple attempts by people trying to climb aboard our trucks, then facing gunfire once we entered Gaza City, our team was able to distribute a small quantity of the food along the way. On Monday, the second convoy’s journey north faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order. Several trucks were looted between Khan Younes and Deir al Balah and a truck driver was beaten. The remaining flour was spontaneously distributed off the trucks in Gaza city, amidst high tension and explosive anger.

In December, the Integrated Phase Classification report compiled by 15 agencies including WFP warned of the risk of famine in northern Gaza by May unless conditions there improved decisively. At the end of January, after delivering food to the north, we reported on the rapid deterioration of conditions. In these past two days our teams witnessed unprecedented levels of desperation.

The latest reports confirm Gaza’s precipitous slide into hunger and disease. Food and safe water have become incredibly scarce and diseases are rife, compromising women and children’s nutrition and immunity and resulting in a surge of acute malnutrition. People are already dying from hunger-related causes. ]

[ID: Continuation of article by WFP:

A report issued Monday by UNICEF and WFP, based on recent data, finds that the situation is particularly extreme in the Northern Gaza Strip. Nutrition screenings conducted at shelters and health centres in the north found that 15.6 per cent - or 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age - are acutely malnourished.

WFP will seek ways to resume deliveries in a responsible manner as soon as possible. A large-scale expansion of the flow of assistance to northern Gaza is urgently needed to avoid disaster. To achieve this, WFP needs significantly higher volumes of food coming into the Gaza strip from multiple routes, additionally, crossing points to the north of Gaza must open. A functioning humanitarian notification system and a stable communication network are needed. And security, for our staff and partners as well as for the people we serve, must be facilitated.

Gaza is hanging by a thread and WFP must be enabled to reverse the path towards famine for thousands of desperately hungry people. ]

WFP: Source

[sabakos]

i think a lot of people have a desire for self-definition and such, that’s why “assign me a thing” style quizzes and other activities are so popular, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly good or leads to good outcomes

what’s your opinion on this sort of identity thing when it comes into contact with marginalized nations? IE if a bunch of people are living in an area and identify collectively under one label and a bunch of other people move in and try to violently expel them or assimilate them into their own identities and labels, is that bad only because people are being forced to do things they don’t want to do at risk of being harmed, or is there something else being lost? Additionally, do you believe there’s any value to reclaiming or holding onto ‘traditional’ names and activities that have been repressed by a colonizing force beyond whether or not people like doing them?

IE if a bunch of people are living in an area and identify collectively under one label and a bunch of other people move in and try to violently expel them or assimilate them into their own identities and labels, is that bad only because people are being forced to do things they don’t want to do at risk of being harmed, or is there something else being lost?

I don't really think there's anything "additional" being lost besides freedom, no. Maybe useful anthropological or linguistic data but nothing in the sense of cultural variation being some deeply valuable thing that must be preserved at all costs. Cultural practices come and go on their own without violence or displacement and we don't and shouldn't mourn their loss then, so I don't think it deserves any separate mourning beyond the violence and displacement that precipitates it.

I tend to be skeptical of all such claims on the face of it also? Many times it's clear that the "marginalized nation" never existed as a political identity before colonization, especially when these "nations" are defined based on the borders drawn by the colonizers! For example, I don't have any great solutions for what to do with all of those countries in Africa that are split along borders that have nothing to do with the ethnic or linguistic divisions of the people who live there. I think it's clear that they're constantly torn apart by those same divisions, and that trying to unify people along national borders has not been a productive approach. But trying to unify people along those historical linguistic or ethnic divisions also leads to violence, especially because these populations are often not geographically distinct! I don't know what the way out is, but I doubt the way out involves either stronger national identity or stronger ethnic identity as many have ineffectually advocated for in the past. Probably whoever figures out what a productive and nonviolent approach would be here deserves a Nobel peace prize.

Additionally, do you believe there’s any value to reclaiming or holding onto ‘traditional’ names and activities that have been repressed by a colonizing force beyond whether or not people like doing them?

I think history has shown that it never ends well when people adopt "traditional" names and try to reconstruct some imagined primordial past greatness of their nation. Usually they just end up slaughtering a bunch of other people who have also lived on the same land as them since before the time of colonization. The partition of India and the concerning rise of Hindutva ideology is a particularly salient recent example to me here, though there are certainly others one could point to. I think this is the inevitable result of taking any form of "this person is like me, this other person is not like me" too far.

[rjzimmerman]

Hotter Temperatures Are Causing Trees to Have Heat Strokes. (Sierra Club)

Excerpt from this story from Sierra Club:

When scientist Craig Allen first arrived in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico in the early 1980s, the American Southwest was in the early years of a decades-long wet period. It was, in Allen’s words, a “good time to be a tree.” Allen had gone to New Mexico to study the local forests for the US Geological Survey. Fast forward two decades and conditions have radically changed. 

Starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Southwest’s long-term climate pivoted sharply, transitioning to what scientists are now calling a “megadrought.” The drought was marked by a decline in precipitation. But it also included something new: abnormally warm temperatures. The combination would prove deadly. The early 2000s marked the start of a region-wide, massive die-off of trees that continues to this day.

“2002 was the real kick in the teeth in terms of forest dieback here,” says Allen, now an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. “There were millions of acres of different species of trees dying across the whole region.”

What makes the Southwest’s current megadrought so exceptional and so very different from the region’s notorious megadroughts of the past, says Allen, isn’t so much a lack of precipitation as an excessive amount of heat. Scientists have determined that about a third of the strength of the current megadrought is due not to a lack of water but to warming tied to climate change. Heat, it is now known, is making the region’s drought worse. But elsewhere heat is also leading to a very new and worrying development: drought-induced tree die-offs in regions not typically known for droughts. 

Allen, a self-described “documentarian” of his region’s ecological collapse, was one of the first scientists to put the pieces of this mystery together. For decades, he observed tree die-offs in New Mexico occurring both at lower, drier elevation sites as well as higher, wetter sites, and for the same reason: Heat was drying the air, and this was stressing and weakening trees, making them vulnerable to insect attacks that would deal the final death blow.

Scientists are now calling this phenomenon “hot drought.” (Or sometimes, “hotter drought,” because droughts generally tend to be hot.) According to a growing body of research, hot droughts have now been tied to tree die-offs the world over, regardless of how much precipitation a region typically gets. 

A 2022 study published in Nature Communications combines nearly five decades of data on previously recorded tree die-offs from nearly 700 different locations around the world. From these data, the study concludes that the recent increase in global forest die-offs—recorded at 675 locations on nearly every continent—were due to a “hotter-drought fingerprint.” A fingerprint the researchers further linked to human-caused climate change. 

“There is uniformity across this large global database,” says study lead author William Hammond, plant ecophysiologist at the University of Florida. “It shows temperature has played a really important part in tree mortality.”

The study also found that across ecosystems, the same hotter drought fingerprint could be found in previously recorded tree die-offs across nearly every biome examined, wet and dry. This supports conclusions from an earlier 2009 paper led by Allen and published in Forest Ecology and Management.

Hammond says the signal in the data set is clear: Abnormally warm temperatures tied to climate change are killing trees globally. He says he takes issue with scientists who don’t acknowledge this. 

“To continue to call this phenomenon ‘drought-induced mortality’—which is by far the term that is pervasive in most of the 154 papers in the database—is pretty much irresponsible at this point, because we have the smoking gun [temperature],” says Hammond.

[mariacallous]

Through local papers and word of mouth, volunteer Daya Shankar keeps track of a very specific cause of death. As soon as he receives news of someone being struck by lightning around his neighborhood in Jharkhand, East India, he picks up his motorcycle and heads to the destination. Sometimes he travels alone, other times with a team of five or six from the organization he volunteers for, the Lightning Resilient India Campaign. It’s a task he is undertaking increasingly often.

Last month, he rode to meet the Manjhi family, who lost an 8-year-old boy, Viresh, and his mother, Subodhra, after a tea stall they were sheltering under was struck during a storm. A lightning bolt can generate temperatures three times hotter than the surface of the sun, with a voltage millions of times higher than a household socket. If it connects with a human, it can stop the heart and respiratory system, damage the brain and nervous system, leave major burns, and cause blunt trauma if victims are flung by the force of being struck. On the day the Manjhis died, lightning also killed another person in the village and injured five others.

Each year, an estimated 24,000 people worldwide are killed by lightning. While a significant number, deaths per head of population have fallen sharply over the past two centuries, thanks largely due to urbanization, the protection of more substantial housing, and improved weather forecasting. But India’s large rural population remains badly affected. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Indians die annually by lightning, most of them working class people aged 10 to 50. Fatalities have risen by more than 50 percent since the turn of the century, outstripping population growth. Compare that to the US, where fatalities have been gradually falling and number around 20 a year. India can experience more than that number of deaths in a day.

For every person who is killed by lightning, roughly another nine are struck and survive, often with life-changing injuries. And with climate change making stormy weather and lightning more common, activists like Daya believe the Indian government is failing to protect its people. “A bare minimum would be to at least spread information about all things lightning at local government level,” says Daya.

India has systems in place to predict dangerous storms. These work by gathering a lot of precise data, says Sanjay Srivastava, chair of the Climate Resilient Observing-Systems Promotion Council (CROPC), an intergovernmental institute that works to develop resilience against climate change impacts. Srivastava is also the convener of the Lightning Resilient India Campaign.

“Detecting the precise location of a lightning cloud-to-ground strike is a calculation mechanism where a minimum of three devices are required,” says Srivastava. These are radio frequency detectors, to detect the radio waves produced by lightning; a doppler weather radar, to detect precipitation and wind patterns associated with storms that may produce lightning; and a lightning detector, a device specifically designed to detect the electromagnetic signals produced by lightning strikes.

As of April 2022, India’s National Remote Sensing Center had 46 lightning-detection sensors installed across the country. Another institute, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, has 83 in place. These, along with other private and institutional data, monitor and guide India’s lightning strike warning system.

The data shows that Jharkhand and other neighboring regions in East and Central India are among the country’s hot spots, as they are where hot and dry air currents from the northwest meet moist easterly currents. When clouds encounter warmer air, moist air rises until it reaches the subzero temperatures of the upper atmosphere, where it can freeze into ice particles called graupel. As these then collide with other ice particles, they generate electrostatic charges, which can eventually lead to lightning. Rising global temperatures are increasing this phenomenon.

However, despite advancements in meteorology, the full mechanisms behind lightning’s formation and behavior remain partially shrouded in mystery. The precise triggers, the exact nature of how lightning propagates through the atmosphere, and the factors that determine the intensity of each strike are still not fully understood. The risk to human life can be predicted in only fairly broad terms.

And while these early warning systems exist, their information often does not reach people in time. This is why volunteers like Shankar work to inform people on how to stay safe and teach how to build easy-to-make lightning arrestors—devices that neutralize cloud-to-ground lightning.

The day Shankar visited the Manjhis’ house, it was drizzling. On the way he spotted farmers and locals sheltering under trees. He stopped to inform them that standing under a tree during rainfall increases the chances of getting hit by lightning. But they said there was no other place where they could take shelter.

Lightning strike casualties are more prevalent in rural areas where infrastructure is limited. Concrete houses, which can have protective Faraday cage effects, are less prominent there than in cities, while tall vegetation, which workers might shelter under, can attract strikes. Densely populated areas in stormy regions also see more casualties. “We can say there are two factors behind lightning casualties. There are lots of environmental factors, and then there are socioeconomic factors,” says Anand Shankar, who works at the India Meteorological Department at the Ministry of Earth Sciences in the state of Bihar (Anand and Daya are not related).

Increasingly, attention is focusing on air quality too. In recent research for Bihar, which neighbors Jharkhand and is one of the worst affected states in India, Anand found that particulate matter in the air increased lightning activity in the region. Aerosols such as pollution or dust particles can affect the friction between the particles that generate lightning and make it more common.

But to what extent growing casualties in Bihar can definitively be attributed to pollution or global warming isn’t yet clear, says Ashish Kumar, a colleague of Anand’s at the IMD. “We had no data before 2015–16, so we have not come to the conclusion whether this is happening recently due to climate change.” But Kumar doesn’t refrain from pointing out that a warming planet can lead to increased lightning activities. Research has projected that a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature can lead to a 12 percent increase in lightning strikes.

When Daya reached the Manjhis’ house, the family told him that Viresh and Subodhra had taken shelter under a plastic-roofed tea stall because a storm had hit on their way back home from their farm. “People consider that saving themselves from the water is most important,” he says, but they fall prey to dangerous lightning strikes if they stand under something that can act as a conductor. “The best option for them would have been to find a concrete shelter.”

Spreading this sort of knowledge is why volunteers like Daya hunt for the places where recent lightning deaths have taken place. “We often arrange talk shows and plays and other things in the rural areas, but people are either too busy or not interested. But when such accidents take place, people get aware and are willing to listen,” he says.

Another way the Lightning Resilient India Campaign tries to reach the masses is through schoolchildren. “They are curious and spread the message in their families and communities,” Daya says. Warnings are also pushed through government hooters and through mobile applications like the Damini app, which triggers a warning notification before a lightning strike.

“It is not like a cyclone, where you have seven days and you are evacuating people,” says Srivastava. “It’s instant. So, those 30 minutes or three hours are the golden hours.” But often farmers who live far away from their houses do not bring mobile phones to their fields and leave very early for work, and might miss the warning alert.

Srivastava and Anand agree that the best solution would be to put up more lightning arrestors. But with limited funds and a lack of government support, campaign volunteers have to resort to promoting the use of DIY lightning arrestors in high-risk areas. These can be made by fixing the metal rim of a bicycle wheel high up on a bamboo stick and attaching the rim to the ground using copper wire. “They are not bad for a small area, but their efficiency is limited when compared with bigger lightning arrestors,” says Srivastava.

In the absence of adequate protections, 16 of the 36 states and union territories in India have started accepting lightning strikes as a state disaster, including Bihar and Jharkhand, and so pay out compensation money of 400,000 rupees ($4,766) to the family of a deceased person. This does something to help families handle the economic shock of losing someone, but still leaves thousands unsupported. “Only 10 percent of people die—90 percent are left with a social trauma,” says Srivastava. “We need to create a psychosocial relief and also proper medical treatment for those who survive,” he says.

[htr2a]

climate change blackpill megapost

there are several climate tipping points identified in the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change sixth assessment report (chapter 3, specifically). tipping points refer to critical thresholds in a system that, when exceeded, can lead to a significant change in the state of the system, often with an understanding that the change is irreversible. they are:

the greenland ice sheet

the west antarctic ice sheet

the atlantic meridional overturning current

monsoon systems

el niño-southern oscillation

tropical rainforests

northern boreal forests

thawing permafrost

extreme heat

current (2022) global warming of ~1.1°C above preindustrial temperatures already lies within the lower end of some tipping point uncertainty ranges. several tipping points may be triggered in the paris agreement range of 1.5 to <2°C global warming, with many more likely at the 2 to 3°C of warming expected on current policy trajectories.

greenland's ice sheet is in disequilibrium and we are committed to 2-3 meters of sea level rise from its melt alone in the next 200 years.

greenland's ice sheets have been melting twice as fast in the last twenty years as they were during the previous century.

rapid increase in the rate of melting of the west antarctic ice sheet is unavoidable.

the west antarctic ice sheet is retreating twice as fast as previously predicted

because of widespread seawater intrusion beneath the grounded ice of the thwaites glacier.

the west antarctic ice sheet will raise sea levels by four meters when it melts.

this is causing the atlantic meridional overturning current to collapse.

the gulf stream (aka amoc) is weakening. 99% confidence. measured volume through the florida straits has declined by 4% in the past 40 years

the gulf stream will collapse between 2025 and 2095. 95% confidence.

the north atlantic is four standard deviations above its historic temperatures.

when the amoc collapses, the arctic sea-ice pack will extend down to 50°n. the vast expansion of the northern hemispheric sea-ice pack amplifies further northern hemispheric cooling via the ice-albedo feedback.

a collapse of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation would have substantial impacts on global precipitation patterns, especially in the vulnerable tropical monsoon regions in west africa, east asia, and india where they will experience shorter wet seasons and longer dry seasons with an overall decrease in precipitation

although recent studies indicate that the amazon will experience net benefit from the collapse of the amoc with cooler temperatures and increased rainfall

increased el niño intensity will increase the frequency and severity of droughts in the amazon rainforest.

even if we were able to stabilize global mean temperature at 1.5º C, el niño intensity will continue to increase for a century

and the amazon rainforest is currently in the worst drought on record, which may indicate it has passed its threshold to maintain its own wet climate.

while widespread and persistent warming of permafrost has been observed in polar regions and at high elevations since about 1980, the highest permafrost temperatures in the instrumental record were recorded in 2018–2019 (data from 2019-2020)

as of 2019 the southern extent of permafrost had receded northwards by 30 to 80km

soil fires in the canadian arctic are burning the peat underground and melting the permafrost. stat from the study 70% of recorded area of arctic peat affected by burning over the past forty years has occurred in the last eight and 30% of it was in 2020 alone.

nasa finds that tundra releases plumes of methane in the wake of wildfires.

in 2023 eight times more land burned in canada than average.

russian siberia experienced a similarly massive fire season in 2021.

a methane source we weren’t expecting was warmer, wetter conditions to increase organic decomposition in tropical wetlands which is releasing ever increasing amounts of methane.

we have been experiencing exponential rise in atmospheric methane since 2006. historical data indicates that we may have entered into an ice age termination event fueled by these methane releases.

we have been over 1.5º C above pre-industrial temperatures since the beginning of 2023.

this may be because of the extreme el niño conditions of the 2023-24 cycle, but breaches of 1.5°C for a month or a year are early signs of getting perilously close to exceeding the long-term limit

and the world meteorological organization expects us to permanently break 1.5º C of warming from pre-industrial levels within the next five years.

the united nations environmental programme (unep) emissions gap report found that current fossil fuel extraction commitments leave no credible path to keeping warming below 1.5º C. based on current policies we will experience 2.8ºC of warming by 2100. even if all current pledges were implemented and followed through with (which they never have been), we will only be able to limit that to 2.4-2.6ºC of warming.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Lake Erie Blooms

Algal blooms have become a common occurrence on Lake Erie, as much a part of summer at the lake as island-hopping, scenic cruises, and roller coasters. In 2024, a bloom of blue-green algae began forming in the lake’s western basin on June 24—the earliest that a bloom has been identified by NOAA since the agency began tracking them in 2002. It was still present in early September. Bloom season can last into October, with its duration depending on the frequency of wind events that mix lake waters in the fall.

When the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 acquired this image on August 13, the bloom covered approximately 320 square miles (830 square kilometers). Since that date, which was the last time Landsat satellites got a clear look at this part of the lake, the bloom would more than double in area to the season’s likely largest extent of 660 square miles (1,700 square kilometers) on August 22.

Phytoplankton blooms carry implications for the lake ecosystem, human health, the local economy, and even municipal water supplies. The dominant organism in this bloom, a Microcystis cyanobacteria, produces the toxin microcystin, which can cause liver damage, numbness, dizziness, and vomiting. NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory measured toxins at concentrations above the recreational limit the week of August 12. The agency noted that toxins can be concentrated in scums, advising that people and their pets stay out of the water near scums.

NOAA and its research partners had forecasted a moderate to above-moderate harmful algal bloom (HAB) in western Lake Erie this summer. Blooms are classified based on their biomass, and a moderate-severity bloom will produce noticeable areas of scum. However, the agency noted, a bloom’s size does not necessarily correlate with its toxicity.

“Nutrient input from the Maumee River is the dominant driver of HAB variability from year to year,” said Brice Grunert, a professor in the department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at Cleveland State University. Other factors such as temperature, mixing of the water column, and water movement also influence the extent and duration of blooms, he said. Precipitation can increase the load of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous in runoff to the lake, and warmer, more stratified water can amplify blooms. In 2024, the bloom followed a period of record April rainfall and an intense heatwave, according to news reports.

Satellite imagery plays an important role in helping scientists understand the nuances of phytoplankton blooms, which in turn can aid those charged with monitoring and forecasting the events. Grunert has been working in Lake Erie’s western basin for the past three years to better understand phosphorous cycles within the lake. His team is investigating how satellite imagery, combined with data from sediment sampling and chemical tracers, relates to the amount of algae-producing phosphorous in the water column.

He and other scientists studying aquatic ecosystems will soon have a new tool at their disposal in the form of the OCI (Ocean Color Instrument) aboard NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite. This instrument measures waterbodies in hundreds of wavelengths across a spectrum of ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. When fully calibrated, the data will enable scientists to track the distribution of phytoplankton and—for the first time from space—identify which communities of these organisms are present on daily, global scales.

Despite the presence of the word “ocean” in the mission title, PACE also opens new lines of inquiry in the freshwater realm. “There are a lot of interesting questions that can be addressed using PACE imagery in the Great Lakes,” Grunert said. For example, hyperspectral data will be able to reveal phytoplankton pigments that could previously only be estimated with the limited number of spectral bands, he said. And a more detailed perspective of blooms over space and time is expected to help scientists decipher how HABs in Lake Erie develop and why cyanobacterial blooms in Lake Superior are starting to occur. “This unlocks a whole new level of information that can be used to describe the unique and changing ecosystems and biogeochemistry within the Great Lakes,” he said.

Grunert is currently working on a PACE Validation Science Team project, taking field measurements in parallel to observations being collected by PACE’s OCI. These include water-surface color and the optical properties of phytoplankton, sediment, and other substances in the water column.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

[rabbitcruiser]

National Weather Observers Day

National Weather Observers Day is on May 4. With their observations and weather reports, many people assist the National Weather Service to achieve its purpose of preserving life and property. SKYWARN, Cooperative (Co-Op) Observers, CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network), and the general public are all part of this network. 

History of National Weather Observers Day

Alan Brue, who studied psychology at the State University of New York, invented the day on May 4, 1989. This day was developed for weather amateurs and professionals to honor their passion for the weather. Every year on May 4, this day is commemorated for those who enjoy viewing different weather phenomena.

With their sightings and weather reports, many individuals and groups assist the National Weather Service in fulfilling its objective of protecting people and property. 

As a volunteer, you can be a part of the CoCoRaHS Observers Team, which is available to anyone ready to work on measuring and mapping precipitation. In this program, you will receive all of the necessary equipment and training on how to measure and map precipitation and how to prepare reports.

It’s simple to set up; get a rain gauge, hang it outside during the rainy season, check the rain in the gauge, and report your findings on the National Weather Service’s website.

The major goal of this day is to emphasize the importance of professionals who work in weather services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to warn people about approaching storms and other weather changes. A thousand weather observations are made every day by weather spotters and weather stations all around the world.

These observations give crucial information that warns the public about impending storms from all three locations; land, sea, and air. They also aid in a better understanding of weather events and the analysis of historical data.

National Weather Observers Day timeline

650 B.C.

Weather Prediction Using Cloud Patterns

The Babylonians use astrology and cloud patterns for weather prediction.

1835

Modern Era of Weather Forecasting

The invention of the telegraph ushers in modern-day weather forecasting.

1859

Weather Forecasting is Introduced

FitzRoy develops charts to report weather phenomena he describes as “forecasting weather,” thereby inventing the term ‘weather forecast.’

1989

National Weather Observers Day is Created

Alan Brue creates National Weather Observers Day on May 4.

National Weather Observers Day FAQs

What do weather observers do?

A weather observer collects, records, and maps weather conditions, both good and bad. Observers need to be willing to gather weather information in the rain, blinding heat, and other extreme conditions.

What equipment do weather observers use?

Observational data is collected using buoys, radiosondes, doppler radar, and weather satellites, among others. The data is fed into the N.W.S. forecast models that use present and past weather information to develop forecast guidance for meteorologists.

How is weather data used?

Climate and weather data are utilized in different ways. Decision-makers in towns and cities use this information to plan for extreme weather conditions, water management, and even energy needs.

National Weather Observers Day Activities

Sign up for a weather spotter’s course: If you have a passion for observing weather phenomena, you should take a course for Weather Spotters. These courses teach everything from identifying clouds to tracking shifting weather and so on.

Play a prediction game: Play a prediction game with friends and family where you all try to predict the weather for the next week and see who is right. The winner can get a gift, and everyone gets to sharpen their weather-watching skills.

Make your very own barometer: Making a barometer is an excellent way to spend Weather Observers Day. It can be put together quite easily using a few materials around the home. Look up tutorial videos and get to work!

5 Important Facts About The Weather

Amateur league: There is a group for amateur weather enthusiasts called the Association of American Weather Observers.

Incoming: Storm spotters came to the fore during WWII, alerting fighting forces of incoming lightning.

Judge of the skies: Honorable William Rehnquist, the U.S. Supreme Court’s former Chief Justice, was a weatherman.

Blinding speed: Raindrops can reach a maximum speed of 18-mph.

Doing the numbers: The first-ever mathematical weather forecast lasted six hours and took about six weeks to calculate.

Why We Love National Weather Observers Day

Weather predictions save lives and property: The National Weather Service’s vision is to use the weather observations and reports to protect life and property. Without these timely bits of information, storms and other weather phenomena would wreak even more havoc.

We get to learn a lot: Weather observation gives us valuable insight into the peculiarities of different weather phenomena. We get to explore and gain more understanding, enjoying nature in all its magnificence.

Appreciation for weather people: National Weather Observers Day is dedicated to all the players that contribute to the amazing work done by the National Weather Service. On this day, we get to show our appreciation for their work that often goes unnoticed.

[reasonmustbemytruenorth]

[chp 5 pike/spock fic]

“You’re half human, but your physiology is mostly Vulcan. I guess I’m curious what it was like. How different it really was to be human for a few days, now that you’re back to yourself.”

“Confusing,” Spock replied honestly. “I have always been taught emotions run deeper in Vulcans than in humans. And that difference plays a large role in how we have always explained to our human allies our need for the strict controls offered by the path of pure logic, as well as why we do not expect humans to do the same. But that difference was so negligible as to be absent in my altered state. VSA medical experts opined that the late-onset regressive puberty that was triggered by the change was responsible for my heightened emotions during that time, rather than my humanity itself, but I am not convinced.”

“Wait, the VSA talked to you about this?”

“Yes, after reading Christine’s paper about changing me back using ancient medical arts, they had…questions.”

“That sounds invasive.” 

“Their curiosity was logical. There are no records of any Vulcan experiencing the human condition.”

Chris hummed in understanding. For all that Spock’s tone was exceedingly dry, Chris knew well enough that extra attention from Vulcan doctors wasn’t exactly high on Spock’s list of desirable things. He was sure Nurse Chapel hadn’t predicted her paper would precipitate them going around her back and interrogating the subject patient, whose identity wasn’t rocket science to figure out given the small number of Vulcans serving in Starfleet. Chris wasn’t even sure whether Spock told her the Vulcans had followed up with him about it. 

“So because your hormones were all out of whack, they discarded any challenge to the prevailing theory about the emotional gulf between our peoples.”

“Precisely.” Spock closed his eyes. “And of course my hormone spikes were not the only affliction impeding the baseline of my suppositions.”

Chris sighed. He knew what ‘affliction’ many Vulcans treated Spock as suffering from. “Your human half.”

“Indeed. In any event, it was convenient that my people were not given cause to reassess their superiority in light of my unique condition both before and during the anomalous event.”

“Convenient,” Chris repeated sadly. “And what do you think? Because I think you’re the product of a loving and intentional desire for a bridge between us. And I think you were uniquely situated to offer insightful physiologically-based philosophical commentary. To be blunt, they should care what you think about it. I know I do.”

Spock’s brown eyes held many emotions – an echo of Chris’s sadness, playful amusement at Chris’s steadfast declaration, and maybe a sliver of hope. “I think we have more commonalities than differences. However, the differences in our brain chemistries cannot be denied. Like Vulcans, humans have a war-torn past. But billions of humans, who wholly lack Vulcan physiological controls, are capable of living peacefully under the terms of the Federation. Some of the Vulcans that T’Pring works with have abdicated those controls. The results are never…peaceful. Vulcans who eschew Surak’s path are often irrepressibly violent.” Spock paused. “I have reached no particular conclusion. I do wonder if with more time to acclimate to my humanity, past the settling point, I might have reached a deeper understanding. Still, despite the limitations on my data acquisition, I do not regret Christine’s brave efforts to restore me to my usual if unique state of being.”

“I could give her another valor medal,” Chris offered. 

Read the full chapter on AO3.

[awisweatherservices]

Things to Know About Climate Analytics

Understanding and dealing with climate change is complicated, but using climate analytics can help. Climate analytics means studying and making sense of climate data to learn about climate patterns and predict what might happen in the future. This article explains why climate analytics is important and how it helps people and organizations make smart choices. Climate consulting services use climate analytics to give advice and help businesses and others handle the effects of climate change. It's easier than ever to get climate data online and use it to make decisions.

1. Climate Analytics: Using Data to Learn More

• Climate analytics is about studying climate data to understand climate patterns and predict the future.

• It uses advanced techniques like math and machines to find valuable information.

• This helps decision-makers assess risks, plan for the future, and adapt to changes.

2. Expert Help with Climate Challenges

• Climate consulting services use climate analytics to give personalized advice to organizations in different fields.

• Consultants look at climate data and turn it into useful information that helps organizations manage risks.

• By planning and assessing risks, climate consulting supports businesses in making smart choices to reduce climate-related problems.

3. Easy Access for Everyone

• Digital technology has made climate data accessible and easy to use online.

• People can find different types of climate data online, like records from the past, pictures from satellites, and predictions from climate models.

• Climate data online helps individuals, businesses, and policymakers explore and use climate information in different ways.

4. Supporting Decision-Making

• Climate services use climate analytics to help with decision-making in many areas like farming, energy, water, cities, and disasters.

• These services provide tailored information and tools to help people understand risks, make plans, and build a better future.

5. Climate Data Sources and Quality

• Climate analytics depends on having good climate data from different sources like weather stations, satellites, and climate models.

• It's important to check that the data is accurate and reliable, so we use quality control and validation methods.

• Working together with weather agencies, researchers, and international groups is important to improve the availability and quality of data.

6. Climate Projections and Future Scenarios

• Climate analytics doesn't just look at the past; it also uses climate models to predict the future.

• These models show different possible futures based on how much greenhouse gases we emit and how they affect temperature, rain, sea levels, and more.

• Knowing what might happen in the future helps decision-makers plan for risks and come up with solutions.

Climate analytics is crucial for dealing with climate change. By using climate data and advanced analysis, people and organizations can learn valuable things about climate and make better decisions. By using climate analytics, we can all make informed choices that protect the environment and build a sustainable future. When it comes to climate services and weather analytics, AWIS Weather Services is a trusted name. With their expertise in climate consulting and advanced analytics, they provide comprehensive support for decision-making processes. To know more about the company, refer to their website Awis.com.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The past eight years were the eight warmest years on record, and 2022 was the fifth-warmest on record globally, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Why It Matters: The ranking, released Tuesday morning, shows the planet continues its long-term warming trend in response to growing amounts of greenhouse gases.

• Each of the past 8 years had global average temperatures more than 1°C above the preindustrial level, as the world nears the 1.5°C guardrail established by the Paris Climate Agreement.

• Studies show that the odds of potentially catastrophic climate impacts increase significantly if warming exceeds 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels.

Of Note: The third year in a row of La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean helped depress global average surface temperatures slightly, keeping 2022 from hitting the top three warmest years.

• There are signs, however, that La Niña may soon wane, and potentially give way to an El Niño event during 2023.

• If this were to happen, it would raise the chances for a new all-time record warm year.

The Big Picture: Global average temperatures in 2022 were 0.3°C (0.54°F) above the 1991-2020 baseline, and the year was the second-warmest on record for Europe, behind 2020.

• Europe had its hottest summer on record, accentuated by all-time record high temperatures set in several countries, including the United Kingdom.

• The UK Met Office has found 2022 was its warmest year on record dating all the way to 1659. It was also its first year with an average temperature above 10°C (50°F). France also had its hottest year.

• Areas that saw their warmest year on record include large parts of western Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and China, northwestern Africa and the Horn of Africa, among others, Copernicus found.

• Worldwide, extreme heat struck Pakistan and northern India during the spring before devastating flooding rains hit the region in late summer. Central and eastern China saw record hot and dry conditions for an extended period over the summer.

Between The Lines: Studies tied these and other extreme weather and climate events to human-driven climate change.

• Research published in September found that climate change may have increased five-day rainfall amounts in the hardest-hit areas of Pakistan by up to 50%.

• Another climate attribution study found that the U.K. heat wave, which peaked in mid-July, was at least 10 times more likely to occur in today's warmer climate compared to the preindustrial era.

Of Note: There were a fair share of precipitation extremes in 2022 as well, with the floods in Pakistan, extreme drought in the Horn of Africa that is pushing that region into a famine, and a series of record floods in Australia.

What's Next: Annual numbers are expected later this week from NOAA and NASA.

[my-timing-is-digital]

Lt. Commander Data, how are things with your brother since his reactivation? It must be difficult for the both of you, given what happened in the past.

‘Greetings, Anon. The relationship with my brother is precarious, and as for Lore himself, his personality has, for the most part, remained unaltered; his opinion on humans and myself, have likewise remained unchanged. I did not expect him to have diverged from the android he was prior to his deactivation. I, on the other hand, have had the prerogative of decades’ worth of contemplating his conduct, and I have taught myself to look at his predicament from another vantage point than my own. Although I possess little information about the colonists’ opinions regarding my brother, and I can only analyse the actions and offences he has committed in my lifetime, I do know what it feels like to be excluded or avoided on the basis of being different, of being artificial. After I was endowed with the emotion chip, and we vanquished the Scimitar, I have devoted myself to an extensive analysis of all the data I could accumulate pertaining to my brother’s history. I shall omit the exact details regarding my methodology, theoretical framework, and analysis of my research, but I can provide you with an encapsulation concerning the outcome.

‘Vehemently, I have attempted to fathom, and have subjected myself to weeks of minute research as to how human emotions, with as well as without guidance, might manifest in androids. Exploring and discriminating between these distinctions have become less of a challenge to me, now that I have access to these attributes myself. Therefore, my comprehensive research has led me to believe that Lore’s lack of emotional guidance and lack of parental support overexerted his circuitry. The pathways of his neural net were developing and quadrupling at an accelerated pace, which should not have interfered with his cognitive abilities, but during this process, his integrated emotion chip was consecutively affected by unpleasant external factors in the form of the Omicron Theta colonists. The external factors precipitated a minor cascade failure in Lore's positronic brain, which is not too dissimilar to what humans might ascribe as a “nervous breakdown.” This nervous breakdown was instigated by continual instances of prejudice, discrimination, segregation, xenophobia, seclusion, and emotional as well as parental negligence. Lore’s programming was not yet stable enough, nor did it possess the processing capacity it required to regulate such data accordingly. As a result, the minor cascade failure overrode his ethical and moral subroutines. I feel obligated to stress that my brother is not, as Juliana put it “evil.” His responses were in accordance with his defective programming; the Third Law of Robotics dictates that “an android must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Law.” However, since the First and Second Law had been erased from his ethical and moral subroutine, he had no accurate frame of reference and hence why his act of self-preservation resulted in the deaths of the colonists. This is consolidated by the instances during which his attempted to assault us, after we reassembled him on the Enterprise; his past trauma has provided him with ample reasons to be suspicious of humans and everyone they associate with, including me. This explains why he was in such a hurry to contact the Crystalline Entity. A non-organic entity he had befriended and confided in over the years; an entity that could provide him protection. The tendency of self-preservation, is likewise reflected in his attempts to assimilate the renegade Borg; they could have served as his personal bodyguards. Perhaps if Doctor Noonian Soong, our father, had rectified the malfunction Lore had beseeched him to correct during our “family reunion,” subsequent events might have been prevented. And maybe Lore and I could even have established a proper fraternal relationship afterward. But what-ifs will not aid our cause...

‘Nevertheless, my research has allowed me to comprehend my brother on a level I was previously unable to. And, I admit, it is difficult to be with him again, after everything we have endured, but that does not withhold me from proposing reconciliation. It will be an arduous process consisting of establishing mutual trust, reintegration in society, self-reflection, and painful confrontations. But once we have a premise, we can proceed to fix him, independent of Daystrom. In the meantime, I shall continue to advocate for my brother, protect him, and always be there for him. I have iterated that I will be able to forgive him and that I am eager to count him among my friends. Naturally, my statement was met with scorn, rolling eyes, and a deprecating remark, but I am positive that over the course of several months, or years, he will accept my apologies and we can finally be brothers.’

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

Summers keep getting hotter, and the consequences are impossible to miss: In the summer of 2023, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest season in 2,000 years. Canada’s deadliest wildfires on record bathed skylines in smoke from Minnesota to New York. In Texas and Arizona, hundreds of people lost their lives to heat, and in Vermont, flash floods caused damages equivalent to those from a hurricane. 

Forecasts suggest that this year’s upcoming “danger season” has its own catastrophes in store. On May 23, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season could be the most prolific yet. A week earlier, they released a seasonal map predicting blistering temperatures across almost the entire country. 

One driving force behind these projections are the alternating Pacific Ocean climate patterns known as El Niño and La Niña, which can create huge shifts in temperature and precipitation across the North and South American continents. After almost a year of El Niño, La Niña is expected to take the reins sometime during the upcoming summer months. As climate change cooks the planet and the Pacific shifts between these two cyclical forces, experts say the conditions could be ripe for more extreme weather events. “We’ve always had this pattern of El Niño, La Niña. Now it’s happening on top of a warmer world,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, an environmental data science nonprofit. “We need to be ready for the types of extremes that have not been tested in the past.”

During an El Niño, shifting trade winds allow a thick layer of warm surface water to form in the Pacific Ocean, which, in turn, transfers a huge amount of heat into the atmosphere. La Niña, the opposite cycle, brings back cooler ocean waters. But swinging between the two can also raise thermostats: Summers between the phases have higher-than-average temperatures. According to Hausfather, a single year of El Niño brings the same heat that roughly a decade of human-caused warming can permanently add to the planet. “I think it gives us a little sneak peek of what’s in store,” he said.

Since the World Meteorological Organization declared the start of the current El Niño on July 4, 2023, it’s been almost a year straight of record-breaking temperatures. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, there’s a 61 percent chance that this year could be even hotter than the last, spelling danger for areas prone to deadly heat waves during the summer months. An estimated 2,300 people in the U.S. died due to heat-related illnesses in 2023, and researchers say the real number is probably higher.

All this heat has also settled into the oceans, creating more than a year of super-hot surface temperatures and bleaching more than half of the planet’s coral reefs. It also provides potential fuel for hurricanes, which form as energy is sucked up vertically into the atmosphere. Normally, trade winds scatter heat and humidity across the water’s surface and prevent these forces from building up in one place. But during La Niña, cooler temperatures in the Pacific Ocean weaken high-altitude winds in the Atlantic that would normally break up storms, allowing hurricanes to more readily form. 

[mariacallous]

As anyone who so much as glanced at the internet in the past few weeks probably noticed, Google’s sweeping AI upgrade to its search engine had a rocky start. Within days of the company launching AI-generated answers to search queries called AI Overviews, the feature was widely mocked for producing wrong and sometimes bonkers answers, like recommendations to eat rocks or make pizza with glue.

New data from search engine optimization firm BrightEdge suggests that Google has significantly reduced how often it is showing people AI Overviews since the feature launched, and had in fact already substantially curbed the feature prior to the outpouring of criticism. The company has been tracking the appearance of Google’s AI answers on results for a list of tens of thousands of sample searches since the feature was first offered as a beta test last year.

When AI Overviews rolled out to logged-in US users in English after Google’s I/O conference on May 14, BrightEdge saw the AI-generated answers on just under 27 percent of queries it tracked. But their presence dropped precipitously a few days later, the week before screenshots of AI Overviews’ errors went viral online. By the end of last week, when Google published a blog post acknowledging its AI feature’s flubs, BrightEdge saw AI Overviews appearing on only 11 percent of search result pages. Their prevalence was essentially the same on Monday.

Jim Yu, BrightEdge’s founder and executive chairman, says the drop-off suggests that Google has decided to take an increasingly cautious approach to this rollout. “There’s obviously some risks they’re trying to tightly manage,” he says. But Yu adds that he’s generally optimistic about how Google is approaching AI Overviews, and sees these early problems as a “blip” rather than a feature.

“We're continuing to refine when and how we show AI Overviews so they're as useful as possible, including a number of technical updates in the past week to improve response quality,” says Google spokesperson Ned Adriance. Google declined to share its internal statistics about how frequently AI Overviews appear in search, but Adriance says that the BrightEdge numbers don’t reflect what the company sees internally.

It’s unclear why Google may have decided to significantly reduce the appearance of AI Overviews shortly after it launched, but the company’s blog post last week acknowledged that having millions of people use the feature provided new data on its performance and errors. The company’s head of search, Liz Reid, said Google had made “more than a dozen technical improvements,” like limiting satirical content from cropping up in its results. Her post noted that these changes would trigger restrictions on when AI Overviews were offered but did not detail how exactly those restrictions would change the frequency with which AI results appeared.

BrightEdge began tracking AI Overviews using its list of sample queries after Google allowed users to opt in to a beta test of the feature late last year. The test queries spanned nine categories, including ecommerce, insurance, and education, and were designed to span common but also rarer searches. They were tested over and over, in some cases multiple times a day. In December 2023, BrightEdge found that the summaries appeared on 84 percent of its searches but saw that figure drop over time. Google’s Adriance said it did not trigger AI Overviews automatically on 84 percent of searches but did not clarify its internal measurements. After Google opened up AI Overviews to all, BrightEdge continued tracking their appearance using a mixture of accounts that had previously enrolled in the beta test and others which had not but saw no significant difference between what the two groups saw.

Google declined to share exactly how much it changed how many AI Overviews it showed the general public versus people enrolled in the beta test, but Adriance said that people who had opted in to the test were shown AI Overviews on a wider range of queries. BrightEdge’s data also sheds light on the topics where Google believes AI Overviews can be most helpful. AI answers appeared on the majority of health care keyword searches, most recently at a frequency of 63 percent. Sample queries included in BrightEdge’s data included “foot infection,” “bleeding bowel,” and “telehealth urgent care.” In comparison, queries about ecommerce return AI Overviews at around 23 percent, while restaurants or travel very rarely trigger AI overview answers.

Yu calls those results “surprising,” because health queries can be especially sensitive, and Google has made a concerted push in recent years to refine what it shows people who ask health questions.

Mark Traphagen, an executive at the search-engine-optimization platform seoClarity, has also taken special notice of how Google is handling health-care-related queries. To track how AI Overviews are rolling out, the company is monitoring the responses to a list of thousands of searches over time. For 26 popular health-related keywords, including “how to treat insomnia” and “symptoms of Lyme disease,” Google shows an AI response for around 58 percent.

Like Yu, Traphagen has been surprised by how often AI Overviews appear in response to this type of question. But they say the way Google’s feature sources its responses to health queries, often relying on trusted websites like the Mayo Clinic or the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is encouraging. “They have really turned up the safeguards,” Traphagen says. “They’re all from well-known, credible sources.”

Google’s AI answers still sometimes misfire, though, including on health queries. Some experts say that Google’s claims to cite high-quality sources for health answers doesn’t stand up. “They frequently cite pages that don’t rank anywhere, including for health queries,” says search engine optimization consultant Lily Ray. Her experiments have documented how AI Overviews seem to struggle to authoritatively answer “softer” health care queries on topics like aging, building muscle, and skin care. It’s much stronger on more straightforward medical queries, Ray says.

Last week, The New York Times reported concerns over the sources that Google’s algorithms used to answer some health queries, reporting that AI Overviews answered questions about the health benefits of chocolate by drawing on the websites of an Italian chocolate and gelato maker and a company that sells at-home “gut intelligence tests.”

When WIRED queried, “Is chocolate healthy?” on Monday morning, the AI Overview that appeared in response cited the same Italian chocolate company, as well as the website for a Minnesota-based chocolatier. But repeating the query later in the afternoon suggested Google had been making improvements: The chocolate companies had been removed from the citations list, which instead pointed to the websites of four reputable health care organizations, like Scripps Health. (The answer still notes that experts recommend eating a small amount of dark chocolate every day, which is, at best, a contestable summary of current medical advice.)

Despite AI Overview’s rough beginnings, Yu of BrightEdge says that long term, AI search is here to stay. “Big picture is that the AI moment in search is inevitable, and I think it’s going to get much better,” Yu says. That may be the case—but it’s an open question whether a new-and-improved AI Overview will make a big enough leap to repair its reputational damage.