Posted on February 6th, 2024

Apollo News Snippets – February 2024

NOAA’s Selected Significant Climate Anomalies and Events: Annual 2023 map reveals that wildfires across Canada burned more than 45.7 million acres, shattering a record for the most acres burned in Canadian and Northern American history. North America saw its warmest year on record in 2023. Nine back-to-back atmospheric rivers pummeled California in January 2023. There was above average hurricane activity recorded in the Atlantic with 20 storms and seven hurricanes. Africa experienced its warmest year on record as did South America, while Asia and Europe saw its second warmest year on record. The Antarctic also saw record-low annual maximum and minimum sea ice extents. (Image Credit: NOAA Global Climate Report)
  • The Annual 2023 Global Climate Report has been released by NOAA and reveals further proof that global climate change remains a concern. The year 2023 was the warmest since global records started being kept in 1850. 2023 also broke the previous record set in 2016. Interestingly, the 10 warmest years in the 174-year record have all happened during the last decade. Furthermore, during 2023, the July global temperature value emerged as the warmest of all months on record. Global ocean temperatures in 2023 also showed nine consecutive months of record-setting warm temperatures with September 2023 setting the record as the warmest of any month. June through August 2023 in the Northern Hemisphere emerged as the warmest summer season on record and the Northern Hemisphere’s fall season, September through November 2023, became the warmest autumn on record. The 2023 Northern Hemisphere surface temperature also was the warmest on record while the Southern Hemisphere saw its warmest year on record.
  • National Dark Chocolate Day falls on February 1. In honor of this, our Google search of the month was, “chocolate and GIS.” We found a case study called “Detection of Stress Areas in Cocoa Farms Using GIS and Remote Sensing: A Case Study of Offinso Municipal & Offinso North District, Ghana,” which was written by Felix Owusu Anyimah et al. and appeared in the publication, Environmental Challenges. The case study demonstrated how GIS and remote sensing can help cocoa farmers detect stress areas. Specifically, it shows how farm managers typically identify stresses on the farm via ground survey; but points out that remote sensing and GIS can identify on a larger scale the spatial distribution of environmentally-stressed areas on cocoa farms, thereby helping with early management and mitigation. This ultimately improves cocoa production while protecting the environment. Check it out here. 

Brock Adam McCarty
Map Wizard
(720) 470-7988
brock@apollomapping.com

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