WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

DataStreme ECS WEEK ELEVEN: 12-16 November 2012

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Accessing the national climatographies -- NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has produced numerous climatographies that are quantitative descriptions of climate that include tables and charts portraying the characteristic values of selected climatic elements at a station or over an area. Some of these climatographies provide a variety of daily, monthly and annual normal climate data for agricultural, transportation and other interests. This week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth provides the links to selected climatographies from NCDC.
Celebrate Geography Awareness Week -- This upcoming week (11-17 November 2012) has been identified as Geography Awareness Week. National Geography Awareness Week, launched by presidential proclamation in 1987, is designed to draw attention to geo-literacy and "the importance of geographic understanding in ensuring our nation's economic competitiveness, national security, environmental sustainability, and the livability of our communities in the 21st century." This year's Geography Awareness Week theme, "Declare Your Interdependence," explores the idea that all peoples are connected to the rest of the world through decisions that are made on a daily basis, such as what foods are eaten or what things are bought.
Watching a meteor shower -- This year's Leonid meteor showers should peak during the predawn hours of this coming Saturday morning (17 November 2012). The Leonid meteor showers, which appear to emanate from the constellation Leo, occur in November as Earth passes through the debris trail from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. As many as a few dozen meteors per hour were expected. The viewing conditions should be fairly decent where city lights and clouds do not block the sky, as a waxing gibbous (half-full) moon will have set Friday evening. The shower's radiant, or originating point, will be in the eastern sky after sunset and then will shift to the west after local midnight. [Astronomy]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Review of October weather and climate across the US -- Preliminary data for October 2012 from across the nation have led scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center to report that the nationwide average temperature for this past month was approximately 0.3 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century (1901-2000) long term average, breaking a 16-month string of above average national temperatures. Most of the states in the Mississippi Valley, including the upper Midwest, the Plains and the northern Rockies had below average temperatures, while southwestern and northeastern sections of the nation had above average temperatures.
Preliminary precipitation records for October 2012 indicate that the month was slightly wetter than the 20th century average, with the monthly average precipitation for the 48 coterminous states being approximately 0.08 inches above average. Many of the northern tier of states had above to much above average statewide precipitation. On the other hand, states in the southern Rockies and the central to southern Plains had much below average statewide precipitation totals during October 2012. [NOAA/NCDC State of the Climate]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

A global framework proposed for climate services --

UK Met Office

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 AND THE BIOSPHERE

Peanut butter could be affected by changing climate -- The availability of peanuts that help satisfy the nation's love of peanut butter could be seriously affected by recent drought conditions across the Southeast and Southern Plains where most of the peanuts in the US are grown. Furthermore, growing conditions for peanuts could become worse as the climate was projected to warm in the future. The decline in the peanut crop could have a large monetary impact on the nation's economy. Some efforts have been taken to create hybrid peanuts that could withstand drought and higher temperatures. [NOAA Climate Watch]
Western drought appears to have accelerated the Rocky Mountain pine beetle epidemic -- Researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder report that reduced precipitation across the southern Rocky Mountains that helped create the 2001-02 drought across the region appears to have been responsible for the spread of the Rocky Mountain pine beetle epidemic that has negatively impacted approximately 3000 square miles of pine forecasts. Another study at the University of Colorado suggests that higher temperatures can also cause two generations of pine beetles per summer instead of only one. [University of Colorado, Boulder News]

CLIMATE FORCING

A warmer climate could result in more frequent Indian monsoon failure -- Researchers at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University claim that projected increased global temperatures could cause more frequent and severe failures of the Indian summer monsoon regime over the next two centuries. The Walker circulation in tropical latitudes of the Indian and Pacific Ocean basins could shift eastward, resulting in higher pressure over India during spring and failures of the monsoonal circulation over India associates with a 40 to 70 percent reduction in rainfall. [Institute of Physics]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Would a "La Nada" situation be unfolding? -- During the last week, forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center have discontinued the El Niño Watch that had been in effect since the beginning of last summer as the equatorial Pacific Ocean continues to indicate borderline ENSO-neutral/ weak El Niño conditions (where ENSO refers to El Niño/Southern Oscillation). The forecasters foresee ENSO-neutral is favored through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2012-13. These conditions, which some have somewhat factitiously labeled "La Nada," would be between a warm-phase El Niño and a cold-phase La Niña event. Bob Henson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research describes what such an ENSO-neutral event could have upon the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]

CLIMATE MODELING

Current climate projections may underestimate future warming trends -- ..Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn that many of the current numerical climate prediction models may be underestimating the projected increases in global temperature through the rest of this century. They claim that those climate models that most accurately captured those complex processes involving atmospheric humidity and associated clouds in the tropical and subtropical latitudes may more closely predict the warming that would occur as human society continues to emit more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Paleotempestology helps place current weather "tempests" in context....-- During the recent annual meeting of The Geological Society of America several geoscientists who study geological proxy records of ancient hurricanes and other severe tropical weather events described their research into "paleotempestology," comparing their finds of past hurricanes with current events, such as Hurricane Sandy. [Geological Society of America]
Collapse of Maya civilization was preceded by decades of extreme weather -- Using precise records of the climate of ancient Mexico and the Maya political history, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, Pennsylvania State University and Switzerland have concluded that several decades of extreme drought between AD 1020 and 1100 appear to have crippled the political culture and then decimated the human population of the ancient Maya, which had been a powerful civilization. [University of California, Davis News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Assessing sea level changes with Sandy and changing climate -- Cynthia Rosenzweig, a climate impacts expert at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, and director of the NOAA-sponsored Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast, was recently interviewed following the landfall upon the New Jersey coast of the hybrid monster storm that was once Hurricane Sandy. See described the impact of the coastal flooding wrought by the storm surge this storm on the infrastructure of the New York City metropolitan area and coastal sections of New Jersey. She also considered how projected sea level rises accompanying increased global temperatures associated with changing climate would have upon the Northeast. Changes in sea level in New York Harbor along with other of the nation's ports over the last century were also addressed. [NOAA Climate Watch]
New tool designed to help communities plan for climate risk -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new tool involving a combination of climate model projects and socioeconomic information that is designed to help policy makers and planners assess regional risks of climate change and how these risks would create potential impacts on local infrastructure and planning. [MIT Media Relations]
Changes in word use may change perceptions of climate science -- Researchers at the United Kingdom's University of Bristol claim that some key words commonly used by scientists in discussing climate science tend to follow cycles in public usage by non-scientists. The usage of these words may contribute to the impact of climate research on societal perceptions. [University of Bristol Press Releases]
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

Clues to changes in Martian atmosphere found by NASA Rover --Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently described the implications of the data collected from the Martian atmosphere by the instruments onboard NASA's Curiosity rover that they designed and assembled. The "Sample Analysis at Mars" (SAM) instruments suggest that loss of a fraction of the Martian atmosphere resulted from a physical process that favored retention of heavier isotopes of certain elements during the evolution of the Red Planet. The SAM instruments have not detected relatively little methane, a gas that is a simple precursor chemical compound for life in the Martian atmosphere. [NASA JPL]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Evolution of Climate Models

Climate scientists have been building increasingly sophisticated, mathematical climate models to serve two main purposes: test the sensitivity of the climate to altered conditions and simulate climate over time, either back into the past or forward into the future. The simplest, early type of climate model (zero dimensional) was the "energy balance model", which provides an average planetary temperature from incoming and outgoing radiation. A one-dimensional energy balance model determines the surface temperature from the energy balance at individual latitude belts.

More complex models involve the physical equations of motion (gas laws, thermodynamics and radiation interactions) subject to climate forcings, the boundary conditions of solar radiation, surface properties and atmospheric composition. As computers improved, models have included a three-dimensional oceanic circulation ("atmosphere-ocean coupling"), then interactions between the atmosphere, cryosphere and geosphere, with climate feedback mechanisms involving the exchanges of heat and water. Finally, models have been able to incorporate the improved knowledge of the biogeochemical processes. Climate models calculate variables such as temperature at individual points within the three-dimensional grid of cells across the Earth's surface and vertically through the atmosphere, ocean, ice and land. A tradeoff exists between the number of grid points (the spatial resolution) and the number of numerical computations. Time and space accuracy costs increased computational time and expense.

The development of numerical weather prediction models during the 1960s and 1970s spurred the development of General Circulation Models (GCMs) for climate. One of the early atmospheric GCMs was developed at Princeton University's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). By the 1990s, comprehensive climate models were being perfected with three-dimensional oceanic circulation. Ultimately, the term GCM could be used to refer to a Global Climate Model that represents the major climate system components (atmosphere, ocean, land surface and polar ice) and their interactions. The Community Climate Model at the National Center for Atmospheric Research is one of the most comprehensive climate models currently available. This model has been used to determine the future temperature response for several scenarios concerning the release of greenhouse gases through the 21st century as proposed by the IPCC reports.

Concept of the Week: Questions

(Place your responses on the Chapter Progress Response Form provided in the Study Guide.)

General circulation models are generally [(less), (more)] sophisticated than energy balance models.
Increasing the spatial resolution of a global climate model causes the computational time to [(increase),(decrease),(remain the same)].

Historical Events:

12 November 1911...The central U.S. experienced perhaps its most dramatic cold wave of record. During the early morning, temperatures across the Central Plains ranged from 68 degrees at Kansas City to 4 degrees above zero at North Platte, NE. In Kansas City, the temperature warmed to a record 76 degrees by late morning before the arctic front moved in from the northwest. Skies became overcast, winds shifted to the northwest, and the mercury began to plummet. By early afternoon, it was cold enough to snow, and by midnight the temperature had dipped to a record cold reading of 11 degrees above zero. Oklahoma City also established a record high of 83 degrees and record low of 17 degrees by midnight that same day (11/11/11), followed by 14 degrees, another record low, by the next morning. In southeastern Kansas, the temperature at Independence plunged from 83 degrees to 33 degrees in just one hour. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel) (The Kansas City Weather Almanac) (Intellicast)
12 November 1906...The mercury soared to 106 degrees at Craftonville, CA, a November record for the U.S. (The Weather Channel)
12 November 1959...Between noon on the 11th and noon on the 12th, a winter storm buried Helena, MT under 21.5 inches of snow, which surpassed their previous 24 hour record by seven inches. (The Weather Channel)
12 November 1980...A fringe rain band from Hurricane Jeannie in the Gulf of Mexico let loose a deluge of 23.38 inches of rain in 24 hours at Key West, FL, an all-time 24 hour record. (Intellicast)
12 November 1987...Heavy snow spread across much of New England. The seven inch total at the Logan Airport in Boston was their highest of record for so early in the season, and the 9.7 inch total at Providence, RI was a record for November. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
13 November 1933...The first dust storm of the Great Dust Bowl era of the 1930s occurred. The dust storm, which had spread from Montana to the Ohio Valley the day before, prevailed from Georgia to Maine resulting in a black rain over New York and a brown snow in Vermont. Parts of South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa reported zero visibility on the 12^th. On the 13^th, dust reduced the visibility to half a mile in Tennessee. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
16 November 1958...More than six inches (6.4 inches) of snow fell at Tucson, AZ, one of the biggest ever for that location. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
16 November 1959...The most severe November cold wave in U.S. history was in progress. A weather observing station located 14 miles northeast of Lincoln, MT reported a reading of 53 degrees below zero, which established an all-time record low temperature for the nation for the month of November. Their high that day was one degree above zero. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
17 November 1953...The temperature at Minneapolis, MN reached 71 degrees, their warmest reading of record for so late in the autumn. (The Weather Channel)
18 November 1955...An early season cold snap finally came to an end. Helena, MT experienced 138 consecutive hours of subzero temperatures, including a reading of 29 below zero, which surpassed by seven degrees their previous record for the month of November. Missoula, MT broke their November record by 12 degrees with a reading of 23 below zero, and Salt Lake City, UT smashed their previous November record of zero degrees with a reading of 14 degrees below zero. Heavy snow in the Great Basin closed Donner Pass, CA and total crop damage from the cold wave amounted to eleven million dollars. (David Ludlum)

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