WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

PREVIEW WEEK: 31 August-4 September 2009

ITEMS OF INTEREST --

A change in seasons -- Monday, 31 August 2009, marks the end of meteorological summer, the three-month span of June, July and August that meteorologists frequently use for record keeping processes. Meteorological autumn (September, October and November) starts the following day, 1 September 2009, also represents the first day of meteorological autumn. Meteorologists frequently use these three-month meteorological seasons for record keeping processes. Additional information will be presented in the next several weeks concerning meteorological seasons and the astronomical seasons, such as the familiar autumn that begins on the autumnal equinox in three weeks (Sunday, 22 September 2009).
Clouds during Amazon's "dry season" -- An image obtained from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA's Aqua satellite several weeks ago shows the afternoon "popcorn" clouds that develop due to afternoon heating of the humid regions of the Amazon Rainforest during what is typically the dry season in equatorial South America. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Portrait of a supertyphoon -- NASA recently posted a visible image of the swirl of clouds surrounding the Super Typhoon Jangmi made in September 2008 by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite. At the time, Super Typhoon Jangmi was rated a Category 5 typhoon (the western North Pacific's equivalent of a hurricane) on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as maximum sustained surface winds were estimated to have reached 162 mph over the Pacific near Taiwan. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

July drought report for US -- NOAA's National Climate Data Center has posted its national July 2009 drought report online. Using the standard drought indicator called the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately 11 percent of the coterminous United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of June, while 17 percent of the area had severely to extremely wet conditions.
Nation to be represented at World Climate Conference-3 -- The NOAA administrator and undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere in the US Department of Commerce, Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., will lead the US delegation to this week's World Climate Conference-3 in Geneva, Switzerland. This World Climate Conference-3 will attempt to establish a Global Framework for Climate Services, which is intended to provide useful information on the impacts of climate change. [NOAA News]
US and Japan establishes a navigation satellite ground station -- Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently unveiled a new ground station at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Guam that will track spacecraft from the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System that is to be launched by JAXA in 2010. [NOAA News]
New instrument tested for a polar orbiting satellite -- The US Navy's Naval Research Laboratory has been developing an instrument called the Microwave Imager/Sounder to be placed on a National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) that is to be launched in 2016. This instrument, which will produce microwave imagery along with specialized meteorological and oceanographic products. [EurekAlert!]
Active lakes under Antarctic ice are mapped -- A team of researchers from the University of Washington, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have analyzed more than four years of ice elevation data collected from the lasers onboard NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation satellite (ICESat) to map the locations of 124 lakes that actively drain or fill under the Antarctic ice sheet. [NASA Earth Science News Team]
Gravity data help shed new light on oceans and climate -- Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been applying a method originally developed for calculating gravity from data collected during the agency's moon program in the early 1970s to gravity data collected from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) satellites to determine the ocean bottom pressure around the globe, which permits determination of ocean currents and global-scale ocean circulation. This information can also be used to improve knowledge of sea level and climate. [NASA JPL]
Aral Sea shrinkage continues -- An image obtained in mid-August 2009 from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows the continued decrease in the size of Aral Sea in the Former Soviet Union which had been the world's fourth-largest inland sea. However, during the last decade, NASA satellites have shown a marked decrease in the size of the Aral Sea, due in part to the river diversions made to make arid sections of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan fertile cropland. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Studying urban summer climates in Greece -- The European Space Agency organized an airborne campaign over some of the urban areas in Greece called "Thermopolis 2009" involving urban climate and remote sensing experts using sophisticated airborne and satellite thermal sensors that was intended to determine the impact that higher daytime summer temperatures and reduced nighttime temperatures would have upon human health and comfort. [ESA]
Water Down Under is becoming scarce -- Using 30 years of surface and satellite observations, a senior researcher with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has found that water has become increasingly scarce across southeast Australia during the last 15 years, due in part to record low precipitation totals over the last several years. [CSIRO]
An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAAWatch]
Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]

CLIMATE FORCING

Connections found between solar cycle and weather driven by stratospheric and oceanic conditions -- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and their colleagues in the international science community have found that subtle connections appear to exist between the slight variations in the solar output reaching the Earth with a periodic variation of nearly 11 years (a solar cycle) and weather patterns due to the synchronous changes in both the stratosphere and the tropical Pacific Ocean, based upon their analysis of more than 100 years of weather observations and three powerful computer models. [UCAR/NCAR]
Explaining growing glaciers in a warming Asia -- A geologist at Brigham Young University and her colleagues at the University of Washington have found that glaciers in Asia's southeastern Himalayan Mountains have shown growth even though Asia has warmed, explaining the apparent paradox by noting that a shift in weather patterns produced more clouds across the region, resulting in lower temperatures due to shading. In addition, a stronger summer monsoon circulation could also allow more precipitation, especially in snow. [BYU]
Hunt conducted for Alaskan greenhouse gas sources -- Researchers from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and personnel from the US Coast Guard Station at Kodiak, AK made several flights to the Arctic Circle and collected air samples that shows an increase of methane and carbon dioxide in the air above Alaska, suggesting that a regional increase in the emissions of these greenhouse gases could contribute to changes in climate around the globe. [NOAA News]
Nitrous oxide now declared the top ozone-depleting substance -- Scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory recently reported that nitrous oxide is now considered the largest ozone-depleting substance emitted through human activities, supplanting the previous top agent, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have been phased out by international agreement. The researchers expect nitrous oxide to remain the largest throughout the 21st century, eroding the protective layer of ozone in the Earth's stratosphere at altitudes of approximately 30-40 km. [NOAA News]
Water Down Under is becoming scarce -- Using 30 years of surface and satellite observations, a senior researcher with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has found that water has become increasingly scarce across southeast Australia during the last 15 years, due in part to record low precipitation totals over the last several years. [CSIRO]
In related research, other researchers at the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research who used the CSIRO climate model claim that the changes in precipitation patterns across Australia (increased rain in northern Australia and decreased in the south) may be the associated with human produced aerosols in the Northern Hemisphere that could drive changes in the Southern Hemisphere's atmospheric and oceanic circulation. [International Geosphere Biosphere Programme]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Climate change viewed as threat to tropical ecosystems -- A herpetologist at the University of Oklahoma’s Sam Noble Museum of Natural History warns that her research indicates climate change associated with increases in global temperature appear to threaten tropical lizards and other tropical species, along with the region's ecosystem. [University of Oklahoma]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Climate simulation gets a computational boost -- A new, large computer has been made available from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center this month to climate scientists that will provide new climate simulation capability as part of NASA's High-End Computing Program designed to host modeling efforts associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other national and international climate initiatives. [NASA GSFC]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Reconstructing the temperature record in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool -- Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Rutgers State University and the University at Albany-State University of New York have studied sediment cores collected from the floor of the waters surrounding Indonesia, producing a 2000-year reconstruction of the sea surface temperature of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool. The researchers found that this region may have been as warm during the Medieval Warm Period (1300-800 CE) as currently found. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
Searching Greenland for evidence of an interglacial -- An international team of researchers from Europe, North America and Asia recently concluded their first season of the NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) project that involved drilling an ice core on the ice sheet in northwestern Greenland in an attempt to obtain data for reconstruction of the climate history extending back to the last interglacial period called the Eemian (between 120,000 and 130,000 years ago). This summer they drilled a 1750-meter ice core that covers approximately 38,000 years in record time. In future years these researchers hope to extend the ice core and climate reconstruction back to the Eemian Interglacial. [EurekAlert!] [EurekAlert!]
Pinpointing location of an ancient ice sheet -- Scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara claim that they have found on a model of the topography of West Antarctica bedrock a location where ice may have formed approximately 34 million years ago when global climate changed from a warm "greenhouse" planet to the current cool "icehouse" earth. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Post-Katrina return of business to the Big Easy examined -- An environmental sciences professor at Louisiana State University, the head of the Louisiana Real Estate Commission and others from Tulane University and Texas State University have analyzed the return of business to New Orleans following the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina four years ago, noting that those business that involved professional, scientific, or technical services opened more quickly. This group warned that better advance planning and decision making at the public policy level was needed for a more rapid return of business following a natural disaster. [EurekAlert!]
Website for human dimensions of climate change -- An interagency effort within the US federal government that included NOAA, the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service, has resulted in a website called HD.gov (for HumanDimensions.gov) that provides users, such as natural resource managers, with information on the human dimensions on a variety of topics of interest such as climate change. [HD.gov]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: An Introduction to Course Structure

Welcome to DataStreme ECS (Earth's Climate System)! You are embarking on a unique teacher-enhancement experience that focuses on climate and climate change from an Earth system perspective. Throughout this learning experience, you will be accessing the DataStreme ECS website frequently to acquire learning files and to obtain and interpret a variety of environmental information, including the latest observational data.

On Monday of each week of the course, we will post the current Weekly Climate News that includes Climate in the News (a summary listing of current events related to climate), Concept of the Week (an in-depth analysis of some topic related to climate), and Historical Events (a listing of past events). When appropriate, a feature called Supplemental Information-In Greater Depth will be provided on some topic related to the principal theme of the week.

A weekly Current Climate Studies file will be posted by Tuesday morning every week as the course progresses. This is to be completed by course participants each week in combination with Investigations A and B delivered via the Study Guide: Investigations Manual.

Course Conceptual Structure:

In this first Concept of the Week, our topic focuses on the themes underlying the AMS Education Program's approach to climate science. DataStreme ECS (Earth's Climate System) is organized conceptually along two strands (a strand being a pattern forming a unity within a larger structural whole) that are carried forward concurrently as the course of study proceeds. The primary strand is a systematic study of climate, climate variability, and climate change encompassing the fundamentals of modern climate science. These include the spatial variations in climate as a response to many interacting forcing agents or mechanisms both internal and external to the Earth system. The DataStreme ECS course textbook, printed study guide, and course website deliver primary-strand learning experiences.

The second strand focuses on climate change and impacts primarily based on findings by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. DataStreme ECS shares a common goal with these entities of relying on the latest authoritative scientific information to inform decision making as society strives to develop effective policies in response to vulnerabilities arising from climate variability and climate change.

The main vehicle DataStreme ECS uses for treating the second strand is the series of Current Climate Studies which appear weekly on the course website as the course progresses. Delivery of the series in real time allows incorporation of the latest information about climate change and impacts.

Concept of the Week: Questions

(Each week you will be asked to respond to two questions relating to that week's Concept of the Week topic. Place your responses on the Chapter Progress Response Form provided in the Study Guide.)

The [(primary)(second)] conceptual strand of this course focuses on the systematic study of climate, climate variability, and climate change.
The [(primary)(second)]] conceptual strand of this course focuses on climate change and impacts primarily based on findings by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Historical Events:

31 August 1885...A record 71-day dry period began at Calgary, Alberta. (The Weather Doctor)
31 August 1889...Los Angeles, CA set two local rainfall records as 0.61 inches fell, the maximum 24-hour and monthly records for August. (Intellicast)
31 August 1915...The temperature at Bartlesville, OK dipped to 38 degrees to establish a state record for the month of August. (The Weather Channel)
31 August 1971...The low of 84 degrees and high of 108 degrees at Death Valley, CA were the lowest of the month. The average daily high was 115.7 degrees that August, and the average daily low was 93.4 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
31 August 1987...Frost was reported in South Dakota. Aberdeen, SD established a record for the month of August with a morning low of 32 degrees, and Britton, SD dipped to 31 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
1 September 1914...The town of Bloomingdale, MI was deluged with 9.78 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record for the Wolverine State. (31^st-1^st) (The Weather Channel) (NCDC)
1 September 1955...The temperature at Los Angeles, CA soared to an all-time high of 110 degrees during an eight-day string of 100-degree weather. (David Ludlum)
2 September 1935...Perhaps the most intense hurricane ever to hit the U.S. struck the Florida Keys with sustained winds of over 155 mph with gusts exceeding 200 mph. The "Labor Day Hurricane" produced a fifteen-foot tide and waves thirty feet high. More than 400 persons perished in the storm on that Labor Day, including many World War I veterans building a bridge from the Keys to the mainland. The barometric pressure at Matecumbe Bay, FL hit a record low for the U.S. of 26.35 inches of mercury (or 892.3 millibars). (David Ludlum)
2 September 1950...The temperature at Mecca, CA soared to 126 degrees to establish the U.S. record high temperature for the month of September. The low that morning was 89 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
2 September 1961...Denver, CO received 4.2 inches of snow, the earliest measurable snow on record for this city. (Intellicast)
3 September 1953...The temperature at Erie, PA reached 99 degrees, and Stroudsburg, PA established a state record for September with a reading of 106 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
3 September 1961...Denver, CO received 4.2 inches of snow, their earliest snow of record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
3 September 1970...During the early evening hours, in the midst of a severe hailstorm at Coffeyville, KS, a stone 17.5 inches in circumference and 1.67 pounds in weight was recovered. At the time, it was the largest measured hailstone in U.S. weather records. Average stone size from the storm was five inches in diameter, with another stone reportedly eight inches in diameter. (David Ludlum) A larger, though lighter stone has since fallen in Nebraska, 22 June 2003 (The Weather Doctor)
5 September 1925...The temperature at Centerville, AL soared to 112 degrees to establish a state record. Every reporting station in Alabama was 100 degrees or above that afternoon. (The Weather Channel)
5 September 1950...Hurricane Easy produced the greatest 24-hour rainfall in U.S. weather records up to that time. The hurricane deluged Yankeetown, on the upper west coast of Florida, with 38.70 inches of rain. While this US record has since been replaced by 43 inches of rain at Alvin, TX on 25-26 July 1979, it remains the 24-hour precipitation record for the Sunshine State. (David Ludlum) (NCDC)
5 September 1958...The heaviest hailstone recorded in Britain had a weight of 0.31 pounds (141 grams) and fell at Horsham (Sussex), Great Britain. (The Weather Doctor)
5 September 1970...Heavy rain from the remnants of a tropical system from the eastern Pacific spread across the Southwest as 11.40 inches fell in 24 hours at Workman Creek, AZ to establish a 24-hour precipitation record for the Grand Canyon State, while an estimated six inches of rain fell at Bug Point, UT, setting a 24-hour precipitation record for the Beehive State. (NCDC)
6 September 1840...The first official weather observation in Canada was taken at King's College, University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario by members of the British Royal Artillery. (The Weather Doctor)
6 September 1929...Iowa recorded its earliest snow on record as a few flakes noted in Alton at 9 AM. (The Weather Doctor)

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