A climate change dashboard for the Hudson Valley

Premium update #26

I’m pleased to share a brand new climate resource for Hudson Valley educators, farmers, growers, long-term planners, policy-makers, and anyone who is interested in tracking our changing climate.

This is a project I’ve long wanted to embark on to provide some baseline information for our region. The process is largely automated, such that every year I’ll be able to run a script by around January 10th that summarizes the climate over the last year and adds a new point onto all the charts that you can explore below.

It’s a much more comprehensive version of this Twitter thread that I wrote in 2021.

The data source is the ECMWF-ERA5, which is known as an atmospheric reanalysis. Reanalysis combines model data with observations from across the world into a globally complete and consistent dataset using the laws of physics. It allows us to analyze key climate parameters over a wide area back to 1940, which is the period over which a substantial amount of warming has occurred.

Not only does the data tells us that it’s getting warmer, but our atmosphere is getting moister. The humidity that we are currently experiencing is probably more likely because of it.

The charts below are based upon average data within a geographical area that contains the mid and lower Hudson Valley. The domain is shown below.

The plots showing the starkest trends are shared first, followed by the weather parameters that haven’t exhibited substantial changes over the last eight decades.

Time to start. First up, temperature.