WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

11-15 January 2010

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2010 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 25 January 2010. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Climate News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Iceberg slowly disintegrates in southern Indian Ocean -- A natural-color image obtained at the end of December from the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite shows the largest remaining section of the B17-B iceberg that broke from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf nearly ten years ago and drifted around the Southern Ocean before turning northward in the southern Indian Ocean. Currently, this large section is southwest of Australia. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Earth tides may help in earthquake prediction -- A researcher from Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention claims that some of the giant earthquakes, such as the magnitude 9.0 earthquake of Sumatra that generated the deadly 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, could be predicted if one looks at the earth tide signal. These earth tides are associated with the combined effects of the weight of the ocean and gravitational pull of the sun and moon [Discovery News]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

A cold early winter and the Arctic Oscillation -- An image produced from data obtained from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite displays the land surface temperature anomaly (difference in actual and long-term average temperatures) for the month of December 2009. This image reveals that large areas of North America and Eurasia had strong negative temperature anomalies, or much below average temperatures. Meteorologists from NOAA's National Weather Service ascribe the unseasonably cold conditions across much of the continents in the Northern Hemisphere to an unusually negative phase in the Arctic Oscillation. [NASA Earth Observatory] While many areas in the United States and Europe experienced a cold December, some locations across the Canadian Arctic had above average temperatures, resulting in what a British journalist called "upside-down" weather. [BBC News]
Images obtained late last week from the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite show the snow cover left in the wake of locally heavy snowfall across widely separated locales such as Great Britain [NASA Earth Observatory] and northeastern China [NASA Earth Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

PARASOL satellite leaving the A-Train track -- Engineers with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have taken one of the satellites in NASA's five-satellite A-Train (Afternoon Constellation) cluster has left the cluster and going to another orbit. This Earth observation mission satellite called PARASOL (for "Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar") makes measurements of aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere using a polarimetry technique. The main mission of the A-Train satellite formation is the study of the important variables related to climate change. [NASA GSFC]
December storm in Northeast given a major rating -- Winter weather experts, Dr. Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and his colleague Paul Kocin, have recently rated the winter storm that dropped heavy snow across the Middle Atlantic and New England States as a "major" category 3 winter storm on their five tiered Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale. In rating Northeast snowstorms, they use data obtained from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. [NOAA News]
CIA data shared with climate scientists -- During the last year, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency has permitted images of Arctic sea ice obtained by reconnaissance satellites to be declassified and shared with climate scientists. [New York Times]
Increased accuracy in tracking snowmelt -- Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a new technique that uses data collected from NASA's Landsat-7 and Terra satellites to be incorporated into a snowmelt model that tracks the snowpack and the amount of snowmelt water more easily in mountainous areas. [Science Daily]
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

Solar eclipses used to study composition of solar corona -- Solar physicists and astrophysicists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, along with their colleagues from other institutions in Hawaii and the Czech Republic have been using spectral images of the solar corona obtained from ground-based observations during several total solar eclipses during the last four years. These researchers have been studying the emissions from several highly ionized lines attributed to iron atoms in the rarified solar atmosphere, with a goal of improved understanding of how the solar corona affects the weather and climate on Earth. [NASA GSFC]
Volcano watch from space -- A natural color image made from data collected by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite nearly two weeks ago shows the plume of volcanic ash and steam emanating from the Soufriere Hills Volcano on the Caribbean Island of Montserrat. This volcano has become more active within the last month. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Airborne dust -- A MODIS image obtained late last week from NASA's Terra satellite shows a thick plume of airborne dust being carried across western Afghanistan and eastern Iran by winds from the dry lake beds in the Sistan basin. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Rock formations along East Coast could store carbon dioxide -- Scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have been considering the possibility of using volcanic rock formations under coastal sections of New England and the Middle Atlantic States, along with sections of South Carolina and Georgia, as reservoirs that would be used to sequester the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other industrial sources. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Melting of Arctic Ocean ice cover could result in increased mixing and marine life -- Researchers at the University of Washington report that the rapid loss of the Arctic Ocean's summer ice cover could create internal waves in the Arctic waters that could dramatically change marine life and may even accelerate the loss of sea ice. [Discovery News]
Higher temperatures could reduce carbon uptake in western forests -- Researchers at the University of Colorado and the United Kingdom's Kings College London conclude that with warmer climatic conditions that include longer growing seasons, subalpine forests across the West will absorb less carbon dioxide. [University of Colorado News]
Reduction of water flow rates may help the environment -- Researchers at the University of Georgia claim that reduction in water flow rates through various ecosystems appear to provide better ecological benefits than attempting to restore the river flow to the natural water flow rates prior to human intervention. [EurekAlert!]
Atlantic puffin population affected by worsening North Sea conditions -- Scientists from the United Kingdom's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the British Antarctic Survey who used geo-positioning devices to monitor the behavior of Atlantic puffin report that the observed decline the population of these birds is due in part to increased winter mortality associated with worsening conditions within the North Sea, as well as a migration that is farther than previously thought. [Centre for Ecology & Hydrology]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Solar-powered irrigation project is beneficial for residents sub-Saharan Africa -- A new study conducted by researchers at Stanford University has found that solar-powered water pumps installed in remote villages in the West African nation of Benin to provide irrigation water appears to significantly enhance household incomes and nutritional intake of the residents of these villages. [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]

COMPARATIVE PLANETOLOGY

Using sun glints to signal existence of large water bodies -- Space scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and from several research universities have been studying "sun glint" flashes from video images obtained by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft to test a new method for locating large bodies of water from space. They hope to use this procedure to detect large liquid reservoirs on the surfaces of "extrasolar" planets outside or own solar system. [NASA GSFC]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

11 January 1911...The temperature at Fort Vermilion, Alberta fell to 78 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), which is Alberta's lowest temperature on record. (Weather Doctor).
11 January 1942...Rhode Island's record low temperature of 23 degrees below zero was set at Kingston. (Intellicast)
12 January 1912...The morning low temperature of 47 degrees below zero at Washta, IA established a state record for the Hawkeye State. (The Weather Channel) (This record was tied in February 1996 at Elkader).
12 January 1981...The temperature fell to 35 degrees below zero at Chester, MA, setting an all-time record low temperature for the Bay State. (NCDC)
12 January 1985...A record "snowstorm of the century" struck portions of western and south central Texas. The palm trees of San Antonio were blanketed with up to thirteen and a half inches of snow, more snow than was ever previously received in an entire winter season. Del Rio measured 5.5 inches, which was also their most snow ever in 24 hours as well as for any season. (Weather Channel) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
13 January 1862...The "Noachian flood of California" created a vast sea in the Sacramento Valley. San Francisco had a January rainfall total of 24.36 inches. (Intellicast)
13 January 1871...The mercury plunged to 41 degrees Fahrenheit at Key West, FL, the lowest reading ever at this farthest south location in the contiguous US. The mark was tied on 12 January 1993. (The Weather Doctor)
13 January 1888...The mercury plunged to 65 degrees below zero at Fort Keogh, located near Miles City, MT. The reading stood as the all-time lowest temperature record for the continental U.S. for sixty-six years. (David Ludlum)
13 January.1912...The temperature at Oakland, MD plunged to 40 degrees below zero to establish a state record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
14 January 1863...The greatest snowstorm of record for Cincinnati, OH commenced, and a day later twenty inches of snow covered the ground. That total has remained far above the modern day record for Cincinnati of eleven inches of snow in one storm. (David Ludlum)
14 January 1979...Chicago, IL was in the midst of their second heaviest snow of record as, in thirty hours, the city was buried under 20.7 inches of snow. The twenty-nine inch snow cover following the storm was an all-time record for Chicago. (David Ludlum)
15 January 1952...A six-day snowstorm was in progress in the western U.S. The storm produced 44 inches of snow at Marlette Lake, NV, 52 inches at Sun Valley, ID and 149 inches at Tahoe CA, establishing single storm records for each of those three states. In addition, 24-hour snowfall totals of 22 inches at the University of Nevada and 26 inches at Arco, ID established records for those two states. The streamliner, 'City of San Francisco' was snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Range, near Donner Summit. (David Ludlum)
15 January 1988...A small storm over the Atlantic Ocean produced heavy snow along the coast of North Carolina. The five inch total at Wilmington, NC was their third highest for any storm in January in 117 years of records. (National Weather Summary)
16 January 1889...The temperature at Cloncurry, Queensland reached 128 degrees F, the highest ever reported in Australia. (The Weather Doctor)
17 January 1893...The mercury dipped to 17 degrees below zero at Millsboro, DE to establish a state record. (The Weather Channel)
17 January 1972...A single storm unloaded 77.5 inches of snow at Summit, MT to establish a state record. (The Weather Channel)
17 January 1988...A Pacific storm battered the southern coast of California. Los Angeles reported an all-time record low barometric pressure reading of 29.25 inches. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

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