On top of Mount Washington, signs of changing climate
Research shows warming temperatures, fewer cold days
Research shows warming temperatures, fewer cold days
Research shows warming temperatures, fewer cold days
At a height of over 6,000 feet, Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeast and is known as having the world's worst weather, but that weather has been changing recently.
Mount Washington is an iconic spot in New Hampshire, and for decades, researchers have been stationed at the peak.
"Anytime we have a lot of icing events — frozen precipitation, freezing rain, glaze ice — sometimes we can get inches and inches of it per hour, which does a lot of damage to some of our instruments," said Jay Broccolo, director of weather operations.
It's hard work living there, but it has paid off over the years. Researchers might not have known how important it would be when they started gathering data in 1935, but it's incredibly rare to have hourly observations at that altitude.
"We definitely rely on our data set, which now at 90 years, it's getting to be longer than most people live," Broccolo said.
Coupled with detailed data from nearby Pinkham Notch, Mount Washington is being looked at carefully by the scientific community to better understand the magnitude of the warming of Earth's atmosphere.
Georgia Murray, a staff scientist at the Appalachian Mountain Club, released a study recently that showed that while people living below 6,000 feet have been feeling the effects of a warming planet for some time, Mount Washington and Pinkham Notch have been exempt up until about 20 years ago.
"We look at the annual temperature trends," Murray said. "Our paper found that for the first time, the summit is tipping to what we call significantly warming."
Over nine decades, Mount Washington has experienced about one-10th of a degree of temperature increase per decade, most of it occurring from late winter into early spring.
"We have looked at that and are seeing some indication that the rate of warming is speeding up in the latter half of the record," Murray said.
Several other trends are being seen that indicate a weakening winter season on the mountain.
"We found that the growing season is extending by 15 to 33 days," Murray said. "That's huge. We also found that we're losing cold conditions, those frost days, with 15 to 18 fewer days."
Because of strong winds in the winter — hurricane-force winds blow an average of once every two days — it's hard to quantify snowfall changes because a lot of it is blown off the mountaintop.
"One of the take-homes for looking at all of those climate indicators is that all of the seasons are being impacted," Murray said.
Researchers say understanding what changes are happening on Mount Washington will help predict what changes are ahead for the planet.