Synopsis: Tracking Climate Change in Sarasota, Florida is an original community service project initiated early this year by Sarasota residents Jean Cannon and Roy Wysnewski.
By demonstrating the impact of climate change through the lens of the local weather and climate this project offers an increasing number of residents here in southwest Florida the opportunity to personally experience the reality of climate change. Climate data recorded daily and evaluated at the end of each month leads to a partial ‘picture’ (graph) that illustrates the historical significance of climate change in Sarasota for that month.
This picture is built via the monthly ‘tracking’ of high-temperature records for 120 years (1901-2020). Think of this project as a 366 piece jigsaw puzzle. Each month some 29 to 31 pieces of tracking data are put in place so that when finished on December 31, 2020, a 12-month composite graph will reveal the totality of climate change in Sarasota for the past 120 years. A unique feature of the tracking process is that anomalies (unexpected spikes in high-Temperature records) are highlighted.
The ‘cause’ and ‘effects’ of these weather anomalies make for good discussion. Please join Roy on July 1st to review the first six months of climate change tracking in Sarasota and to participate in a healthy discussion about tracking anomalies. Do these anomalies have historical significance, and what might they infer for the future, specifically this summer and fall?
